What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[mongers]

Really good piece by the ITV reporter:
https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1346952339886923786?s=20

The old ITN values shinning through?

[garbon]

Really good piece by the ITV reporter:
https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1346952339886923786?s=20

The old ITN values shinning through?

I also was feeling the reaction to this reply to it.

Mark Fox @MarkFoxNews
Replying to @itvnews and  @robertmooreitv
Just a reminder how fortunate we are to have a solid parliamentary democracy, strong institutions, and the Monarchy 🇬🇧

Kakfkaesque Nightmare @TasteMyData
Replying to @MarkFoxNews @itvnews and @robertmooreitv
Deluded nonsense. Our glass house is very very far from stone-proof.

[Caliga]

There were 6 senators that voted to reject votes...Hawley and Cruz among them. Were they opportunistically posturing? No doubt. But I think you have to take them at face value and assume they would have voted that way if they had 45 others join them to reject the results. And the result of such a vote would be the entire election set aside, as well as the state roles in the process, and have congress deciding the next president unilaterally.

Well I guess there's no way to really know, since 45 others didn't join them in their shenanigans.

Maybe this is wishful thinking but I'd like to think the Republicans in the Senate probably had discussions about this and knew in advance the objections would never fly, so the guys that decided to debase themselves with this pandering knew ultimately that it would be 'safe' to do so and there was no chance they'd be actually engaging in treason.

[garbon]

There were 6 senators that voted to reject votes...Hawley and Cruz among them. Were they opportunistically posturing? No doubt. But I think you have to take them at face value and assume they would have voted that way if they had 45 others join them to reject the results. And the result of such a vote would be the entire election set aside, as well as the state roles in the process, and have congress deciding the next president unilaterally.

Well I guess there's no way to really know, since 45 others didn't join them in their shenanigans.

Maybe this is wishful thinking but I'd like to think the Republicans in the Senate probably had discussions about this and knew in advance the objections would never fly, so the guys that decided to debase themselves with this pandering knew ultimately that it would be 'safe' to do so and there was no chance they'd be actually engaging in treason.

Mitch did make reference to such 'safe' objections in his speech.

[Caliga]

Oh, right, I forgot.

[The Brain]

The GOP made Trump its candidate in the 2016 presidential elections. After four years of active evil and incompetence they made him their candidate again for the 2020 elections. They started 2021 with a coup. If you're a Republican in 2021 you are scum. You might pose a bit (like Mitt), but if you haven't left the party by now it's too late to have any credibility at all as non-scum.

[Syt]

What would trouble me is if Democrats would now want to continue business as usual, and act like the abuses by McConnell and Co. didn't happen.

[Solmyr]

https://imgur.com/jtlcTN1

[Berkut]

The Constitution does not provide any mechanism for Congressional objections. In fact, it doesn't provide for any substantive role by Congress at all.  It simply says the electoral certificates from the states shall be opened by the President of the Senate (i.e. the VP) "in the presence" of the House and Senate.  Constitutionally, their role is purely observational.

The Election Count Act, 2 USC 15, passed after the 1876 election fiasco, modified this somewhat to deal with the situation where more than set of certificates are received from the same state.  That law sets a procedure for Congress to adjudicate that situation. The Count Act provided the only possible legal basis for an objection - namely that there is a dispute over the authenticity of the electoral certificates or which set of competing certificates is valid when multiple certificates are received.  In addition, in 1948 the scheme was amended to provide that in the event of a controversy over appointment of State electors, if the State determines such a controversy in accordance with its own internal state procedures by a safe harbor date and certifies their results, that determination is conclusive.

So the objections are out of order because:
+ the constitution itself gives Congress only an observational role
+ the Count Act doesn't apply because the objections are not to whether the electors were certified (that is not disputed) but rather whether the states ran their elections properly, a subject not a basis for objection under the Act.
+ the disputed states all certified their results in accordance with state law on or before the safe harbor date under 3 USC 5

Complicated stuff but Hawley and Cruz both know it.

Good stuff - you make this sorta complicated stuff very clear.

[Grey Fox]

What would trouble me is if Democrats would now want to continue business as usual, and act like the abuses by McConnell and Co. didn't happen.

They will.

Conservative victory results in having to listen to conservatives more, Conservative lost results in having to listen to conservatives more.

[Barrister]

Somewhere I recall BB posted something like, thank god there were people like Raffensperger (Georgia Secretary of State) who had some backbone to stand up to Trump. Apologies if I misremember you saying this, BB.

But I disagree guys like Raffensperger showed backbone. He was caught between Trump telling him to find 12k votes for him or disqualify 12k for Biden, and the entire universe of reality and possibility. The Secretary of State doesn't keep the ballot boxes in his office. He can't secretly add new votes or delete old ones. The ballot boxes are distributed throughout the state, tightly controlled, and with bipartisan oversight. Any attempt to add new votes or delete existing ones would be immediately exposed. The result wouldn't be Trump reelection: it would be Raffensperger going to jail for the world's dumbest election fraud.

Trump probably wants to stay in power by any means necessary. He either recognizes the military won't obey an order to seize control for him, or he doesn't want to face consequences. He found a trick to get Congress to reject the election, but only 6 senators would go along. For all the shit posted about American institutions failing--they seem to be working--though those 6 senators (and bunch of republican house members) don't auger well for the future.

No, I said that.

WHat you say is true of course, but Raffensperger was straight throughout.  It wasn't just that he said he couldn't "find" votes - he said repeatedly that the vote in Georgia was fair and valid.

He couldn't have found the extra votes - but he could have refused to certify.  A court may ultimately have ordered him to do so, but still.  It takes some guts when the President of the US (of your own party) phones you up and asks you to do something and you say no - knowing it's probably an end to your own political career.

[grumbler]

No, I said that.

WHat you say is true of course, but Raffensperger was straight throughout.  It wasn't just that he said he couldn't "find" votes - he said repeatedly that the vote in Georgia was fair and valid.

He couldn't have found the extra votes - but he could have refused to certify.  A court may ultimately have ordered him to do so, but still.  It takes some guts when the President of the US (of your own party) phones you up and asks you to do something and you say no - knowing it's probably an end to your own political career.

I tend to agree.  Not only did Raffensperger unambiguously turn down the president, he and his lawyer forcefully told the president his "facts" were wrong.  Had Raffensperger been a Democrat, he could not have been more forceful in his refutation of trump's arguments.

It was a moment I hope he and his family are proud of forever. 

[DGuller]

You have to assume that he was the one taping the conversation, so I'm sure he wouldn't be brainstorming ways that votes would be found.  I don't think we should belittle the acts of doing the right thing, but frankly I'll wait to be impressed until people do the right thing while knowing that doing the wrong thing may succeed.

[Eddie Teach]

You mean this Hawley?

Silver lining- that is a former chairman of RNC condemning him.

[crazy canuck]

You have to assume that he was the one taping the conversation, so I'm sure he wouldn't be brainstorming ways that votes would be found.  I don't think we should belittle the acts of doing the right thing, but frankly I'll wait to be impressed until people do the right thing while knowing that doing the wrong thing may succeed.

I assume it was someone else present on the call and he did not know it was being taped. 

Are you suggesting his integrity was all for show?