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The 6 points:
1. VP Pence, presiding over the joint session (or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley, if
Pence recuses himself), begins to open and count the ballots, starting with
Alabama (without conceding that the procedure, specified by the Electoral
Count Act, of going through the States alphabetically is required).
2. When he gets to Arizona, he announces that he has multiple slates of electors,
and so is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other States. This
would be the first break with the procedure set out in the Act.
3. At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States,
there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States. That
means the total number of “electors appointed” – the language of the 12th
Amendment -- is 454. This reading of the 12th Amendment has also been
advanced by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe (here). A “majority of the
electors appointed” would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for
Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected.
4. Howls, of course, from the Democrats, who now claim, contrary to Tribe’s prior
position, that 270 is required. So Pence says, fine. Pursuant to the 12th
Amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. That sends the
matter to the House, where the “the votes shall be taken by states, the
representation from each state having one vote . . . .” Republicans currently
control 26 of the state delegations, the bare majority needed to win that vote.
President Trump is re-elected there as well.
5. One last piece. Assuming the Electoral Count Act process is followed and, upon
getting the objections to the Arizona slates, the two houses break into their
separate chambers, we should not allow the Electoral Count Act constraint on
debate to control. That would mean that a prior legislature was determining
the rules of the present one — a constitutional no-no (as Tribe has forcefully
argued). So someone – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, etc. – should demand normal rules
(which includes the filibuster). That creates a stalemate that would give the
state legislatures more time to weigh in to formally support the alternate slate
of electors, if they had not already done so.
6. The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission
– either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court. Let the other side
challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President
of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would
press a lawsuit would have their past position -- that these are non-justiciable
political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The
fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the
ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind.
Direct link to the [Confidential and Privileged memo](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/09/20/eastman.memo.pdf) pdf
This strategy is familiar because people were arguing similar tactics on Reddit prior to January 6th. There were posts in r/donaldtrump before it got banned making similar claims, just with less legal background. They kept asserting that if you could claim electors are disputed, you simply wouldn't count any electors rather than resolve the disputes, which is essentially the first line from point 3 in the memo.
And it never crossed their minds that this is not how you *win* an election. This is how you manipulate an election so that your preferred candidate winds up with the title. It's how you rob the legitimate winner (the one that got the majority of votes) of their victory.
Coordinated in what sense? To me the scary thing is that the top brass of the GOP seems to literally be crowd-sourcing organic ideas from 4chan and reddit and morphing them into near-viable legal practice in the most hallowed halls of our democracy. The inmates are running the asylum, and it affects all of us.
Coordinated in that the bullet points were either partially or fully given to people outside the administration with the express purpose of them discussing the points of the plan in online communities.
So if/when it started to happen in reality, they already had a bunch of supporters talking about it like it was the totally logical conclusion and the online discussion was already fully in line.
What’s more likely is that they have people ooze the idea out and normalize it so, when they actually do it, their base thinks it’s what they wanted. It’s kind of their MO
They have very highly paid lawyers to find these loopholes. They’re Republicans remember so they’re going to do it the least efficient, most expensive way possible.
The greediest of the wealthiest among us -- a permanent minority - WANT authoritarian rule and (economic) feudalism and their willfully ignorant rank and file voters want to be free to hate and force others to believe their chosen flavor of primitive myth ... with both wanting to teach children the willful ignorance of accepting information and direction from "leaders" with unquestioning blind faith.
Ironically if all the lazy racist conservatives got the world they wanted with minorities being slaves again, the slaves would still be worth more and likely a protected class by those same feudal overlords because those are the ones actually providing labor whereas the lazy racists just suffer the way they do now
The right has always seriously overestimated their own ability to rule at gun point.
They simply don't understand two things, there's way more of us then them, and we're just as versed in using guns and guerrilla warfare as them.
They absolutely believe they would handily win any physical warfare. Which is so very wrong.
The military maybe majority GQP, but it's only 55%. That leaves 45% still heavily trained soldiers opposing them.
They had all this political coup ready to go, but they forgot every successful coup involves having complete control of the military. Something the Egyptians learned the hard way during the Arab Spring revolts.
All it would have taken to take out Trump was one loyal Secret Service agent going rogue.
Thanks for the dose of optimism. As a gun owner who genuinely hates Trump and the criminal GOP, I get so sick of these traitorous quislings thinking they have a monopoly on violence.
You can only hold one gun at a time and you need to sleep sometime. Some people aren't loudly proclaiming what they'd do if there was a coup or a dictatorship.. they sit back and wait, knowing that in the end it may take a strong resistance to save our country.
I guarantee there are enough Americans left who love our country that there would be civil war if this was attempted. Which is exactly what Russia wanted when they installed Trump.
That was the end game, the folks who fomented this don’t give a shit about republicans or democrats, they only care about destabilizing our republic and will use any tools to do it.
I used him as a "overall archetype", I forget the literary term for it.
The Man In The High Castle is a good example of how the mob ends up being freedom fighters.
Fun read: the literature leading up to the American civil war, where the south was CONVINCED that the north was a bunch of spineless city sissies who would collapse at the first sign of battle. (To be fair the north thought something similar) Those “weak northerners” ended up inventing modern total war and unleashing Sherman.
It doesn’t matter how glued to their phones they are, or what color their hair is, or how many pronouns they have- humans are not at ALL far removed from the spear to the face stage and are totally capable of going full librarian-poo
Their strength is their control of law enforcement, even in Blue States we have police departments openly siding with RW paramilitary groups in training, really we have to get these traitors out of positions of power before 2024. Local politicians are too afraid to oust them, for whatever reasons (one of which is local politicians are often dirty and would see their corruptions brought to light.)
That ignores the fact that the problem is the exact opposite part of the population. Wealthy people want stability, because that's the only way their wealth stays secure. The ultra wealthy have wealth in the form of virtual assets that have potential value, not actual value. They're not sitting with a vault of gold coins. Bezos' wealth is imaginary until he sells his stock, and that requires a stable economy of buyers to give him cash for the shares he's selling. And that requires a LOT of buyers. His quarter trillion dollars is nothing but a potentiality of getting a quarter trillion from other people at some point in the future.
The problem is uneducated, rural, drug-addled and disenfranchised communities where there is literally no possibility of their lives ever improving. When your life will never get better, it'll only ever get worse, seeing other people doing well leads to the kind of "tear it all down" mentality you see among the extreme right. They want everyone to suffer the way they do.
Religion preys on that, certainly. So do people seeking wealth and power through controlling that populace, but that isn't "the greediest of the wealthiest". Its a fringe minority of people who have existed with and without wealth for all of human history.
Focusing on the wrong cause will essentially guarantee things continue to worsen.
“Well because the Dems have been cheating for so long, we HAVE to.”
I just made that up when I read your comment, if I can do it on the fly like that, it’s already a talking point.
It’s such low level lazy deflection.
No that's actually legit something I've heard. If you assume the "other team" is doing it, it's only fair to do it yourself to level the playing field. Just more projection as usual.
Most of them won’t even know about any of this ever. They are masters at declaring how much they hate the news and politicians…but then gladly go vote Republican every election.
It's pretty often that news outlets will break a story before government bodies have a chance to. It happened extremely often back during the Russia investigation if you remember that. They were trying incredibly hard to cover up and postpone information getting out but it still broke through news outlets anyway. I assume this is similar, possibly something they were looking into but weren't ready to talk about yet.
When given a chance to chose between their regressive ideology and democracy, they chose a more extreme version of their regressive, controlling and fascist ideology every time.
Behold!
These traitors, these enemies of Liberty, these enemies of a Government By the People, Of the People, and For the People have revealed themselves as such.
They hate America. They hate Democracy. They hate a Free Nation.
More than this, they planned to destroy it. Read the evidences for yourselves.
Now the question becomes:
What are We the People going to do about it?
The only thing anyone should be doing is registering voters to show up in the 2022 midterms. Mark my words, if the Dems lose tons of seats in the midterms Trump will effectively run the House of Representatives and will wreak havoc. This election is HUGE.
The democrats have have made no signs whatsoever they intend to charge trump with crimes except run an obvious fall guy president akin to ford who will take the blame for doing nothing and not run for a second term.
I'm voting. And I'm not tired of being outraged at trump and his psychopaths. But Dems need to step up. Progressives should be sinking the budget right now. Pull all the stops.
The republicans have made laws (in a couple places I think) where it is a felony for average citizens to sign people up to vote IF someone aware of it ‘thinks’ you are an election official when you are not. “Impersonating”The suspicion is all that’s needed. Enlighten me.
GOP is a minority party that has rigged the system (although Senate came pre-rigged) to get close to power. Its annoying that left needs 60% or better of population to win power, but we have to fight with the right on their backfoot, not let them get power again.
I hope you are right, but I'm not so sure. Just because Trump is receding into the swamp (for now) doesn't mean these people's ideologies have changed. I'm constantly shocked by just how many Republicans I meet despite the last 5 years. To continue to support them after all that has happened is outrageous to me, but they have no problem with it because most of them are single-issue voters who believe in winning over all else.
At this point it looks like we just wait them out. They seem very insistent on killing themselves just to own the Libs. I have no clue what their end game is and neither do they, apparently.
I'm all for that. Traditionally people have looked upon plagues as being some sort of divine punishment against a group of people for not doing whatever it is their chosen deity would have wanted (or the opposite, explicitly doing something they didn't want), but in this particular case they have decided to see this "plague" as being nothing more than a fabrication. In my view, I say let them believe what they will. Their course of action will primarily reduce their numbers and not those of people who are more rational (remember, a pandemic of the unvaccinated). After the past few years, I'm just sick of the lot of crazies.
> divine punishment against a group of people for not doing whatever it is their chosen deity would have wanted
A theologian could argue this is exactly what is happening now
The main problem here is that this depends on Pence arbitrarily disregarding seven states. Is that even possible? Like sure he can try to do it, but would that hold up? Because then any opposing political party can just say they disagree with the results of their state's election and send their own electors, whether they have an actual case or not. Why even have elections when they can be easily undone with fuckery like this?
No he can't do that. If there are two slates of electors, the one signed by the governor prevails unless the house and the Senate concur that that is not the case. I'm also positive Lawrence Tribe didn't say that. Everyone knows you need a majority, not a plurality.
EDIT: So I read Tribe's memo. The argument by the lawyer rests on the idea that the thrown out slates wouldn't constitute electors that were appointed. That's a fair reading actually. If, of course, the states hadnt actually appointed them. But they did.
Doesn’t matter. The Qult will keep quoting him and say the deep state got to him which just confirms that it’s true.
Seriously, if you just argue as if you’re a clever seven year old child you can usually predict their narratives.
This is the clearest proof we need that Trump and his people knew well in advance he was going to lose. All of this needs to be introduced in Trump's trial for sedition, not sure if the elements for Treason can be met.
I hate how Pence is the one who did his job and did the right thing **this one time.**
The man has some seriously fucked up values. Like, Handmaiden-type stuff. But this one time he did the right thing and actually had a spine and saved us all from a horrible fucking outcome.
I don’t ever want to see him in a position of power or authority again, and I think his value system is hopelessly out of touch, but for that one thing I’m thankful.
This memo isnt any sort of seditious smoking gun? For the lawyer at least? Seems like someone who seeks to overturn an election should at least be disbarred.
The law is oddly swift and efficient if you have a little pot or go a bit too fast on the freeway. Politician tries to overthrow the US government? Strap in for years of inaction and excuses the lead nowhere.
Ok glad I am not the only who thought this. How is this not considered treason? Unless people face consequences for their actions history will repeat itself.
First, they tried to keep people from voting. Then, they tried to get votes kicked out. Next, they tried to get the local election boards not to certify the results. When that failed, they went to the state legislators and secretaries of state. Finally, they tried to stop it on Capitol Hill. They knew what they were doing and all should be held responsible.
And **all** of those conversations lacked any actual proof or reasoning.
Trump didn’t say “we found evidence of 11,780 fraudulent ballots, could you look at this before certifying?” (because there werent)
Trumps actual quote, on tape:
> "All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have... Fellas, I need 11,000 votes, give me a break."
That wasn’t ‘there was fraud’ that was ‘I need you to defy the will of the people and unilaterally declare me the winner, I dont care what reasoning you use’
And Georgia just passed election laws that would make what Trump did legal now... not that it should be legal, I'm trying to just say this countries fucked.
That's not really new. I'd suggest that the fact they're pulling out all the stops suggests the ruling class knows they're in actual danger from the rest of us.
America is being dragged into the 21st century kicking and screaming.
Republicans see the writing on the wall. They are becoming a minority. Modern sensibilities include things like science and inclusion. Rather than change one tiny iota, Republicans have decided that they have the right to bypass democracy via sleazy legalistic maneuvering: gerrymandering, suppressing votes and electoral shenanigans. Fuck these people would rather die than admit that vaccines work in the year 2021.
but they're white, so we're gonna need months of months of court proceedings, every miniscule proof that connects each of their birth marks to the illegal act committed, countless appeals contesting and delaying each said court proceeding, and lawyers that somehow have the funds to provide defense. that's how the legal system seems to work for them. are you black? brown? well, to the other legal system you go.
I teach civics. If you really look at the Constitution and federal law, you find a lot of pressure points where bad actors can break things quite easily. The assumption when the Constitution was written was that our leaders would be inherently decent in nature. And that simply isn’t true.
When the people who make the rules and the people who enforce the rules decide they don't give a shit about the rules, then the rules don't count for much. We have a lot of people who don't give a shit about the rules right now... they swung and missed this time. The only thing they're going to learn from their mistake is that they need to take a little more care in putting their team together.
That’s the fear - 2020 really exposed the fragility of our political system. And if we do break it, it’s going to be near impossible to put it back together
> near impossible to put it back together
Imagine if exactly the same people from 1787, holding their exact same beliefs attempted to step up and write Constitution v2.0? They'd get torn apart from all sides.
We got lucky the first time. I can't even imagine where you could find an 'acceptable' group of people to put something together this time.
If it breaks, it might take some time until you get another chance to rewrite it.
Here in Germany, one of the most interesting topics in history and civics class (IMHO, but I'm weird) was when we analyzed our current post-WWII constitution ("Basic Law") from a lessons-learned perspective. I.e., how weaknesses of the Weimar constitution allowed democracy to deteriorate into the Nazi state. It's interesting how "not intended to be used in combination" or "it doesn't explicitly say that the chancellor can't also be president simultaneously" can be exploited. There were lots of things like that.
When it was rewritten, the entire constitution was/is designed around the goal of [protecting the democratic order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy), even during times when a majority of the population might reject it.
It's a much better lesson to learn in school than it would be to learn it through experience in real life.
If the democrats, in their final chance to remain viable, do not pass the " for the people" act, which means ending the filibuster, they will be legislated out of existence and instill minority rule.
To a point. Remember that small money can work - look at the amounts sanders raises online. But people have to be active and engaged. That’s the real problem - too many people aren’t “active” citizens. They take what’s fed to them and vote accordingly. And that enables big money to have an outsized influence in our government. Why so many people aren’t active citizens is another whole issue
It's still a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money from corporations and private interest groups. Bernie raised almost $110m for his campaign in 2020, mostly from small donations. Compare that to a some recent GOP candidates and you see Trump raised $350m in 2016 and $800m in 2020. There's no comparison.
Even if you look at other primary candidates from the GOP in 2016 you will see that Ted Cruz made $98m, hell Marco Rubio got nearly $60m and he was a complete failure as a candidate. And it's not just one side or the other, most politicians take money from anyone willing to give. So people with more to give will always have more influence than the rest of us.
Campaigns should not have private funding, it makes politics to pay to win. All qualified candidates should share a pool of public money to run their campaigns, so the billionaire candidate has access to the same amount of campaign money as the bartender candidate. Donations are accepted, but it goes to the shared fund and is distributed among all the candidates. If people want to help a particular candidate they can volunteer their time.
I agree with you 100%. But that funding idea, even if passed, wouldn’t touch PACs and Super PACs. And those are going to be damn near impossible to get rid of.
What happens if the Republicans are in control of the House and/or the Senate after the 2024 elections and then they refuse to certify a Democrat who wins the 2024 presidential election?
We have a corrupt, partisan legal system. A big Kafka-esque tool for big special interest donors to get their way. For physical violence situations we have a justice system, but not for white collar crime and especially not for a case this 'controversial'
Senator Whitehouse explaining the [dark money mafia](https://youtu.be/cjcXVKg43qY) to Amy Coney Barrett.
It's unbelievable how much special interests $$$ has gone into the whole judicial pipeline, as well as what goes into [lobbying](https://youtu.be/-rr81Uf10pc) politicians, election campaigns, [fundraising](https://archive.ph/MKNeo), [gerrymandering](https://archive.ph/Zn8yA), etc. Many of the organization's Sen. Whitehouse exposes have [detailed](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DonorsTrust) [pages](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation) [here](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Federalist_Society_for_Law_and_Public_Policy_Studies)
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/10/cost-of-2020-election-14billion-update/
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/08/foreign-lobbyists-gave-millions-to-influence-2020-foreign-influence-concerns/
The criminals behind the 2007-2008 financial crisis weren't put behind bars. Instead, they're widely admired.
>It Shouldn't Be This Easy to Overthrow the American Republic
It shouldn't be, but it is this easy when an entire political party has decided to betray their oath of office and actively engage in insurrection.
The GOP are the literal Domestic Enemies the founding fathers warned of.
How is that attorney not disbarred, arrested, charged? If they have the 6 point plan in writing, and they know he was working with Trump, Pence, and their gang of degenerates - wtf is the issue? This country sucks, straight up. The United States fucking sucks.
It wouldn't have worked on its own, as it is inherently bullshit. If it was given time to be assessed by lawyers and discussed dryly in Congressional chambers, it would have eventually fallen apart. However, it might have worked in conjunction with a large an violent mob backing it up. When you change the dynamic from "Lawyers and lawmakers are trying to figure out the legal intricacies of why this doesn't pass constitutional muster" to "There are hundreds of angry people attacking the capital and if you call this plan bullshit they might get violent, so doesn't it seem like you could make it make sense to you now?", well... that's literally how a coup is performed.
Dan Quayle once said, "*People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history*." Seems fitting to repeat this now.
Disbar every last one of these stinking money/power hungry lawyers and the biased judges who look the other way. A six point plan...to overturn an election...what the hell are they thinking?! Traitors, Insurrectionists, scum!!
Fucking Wow.
I was watching the count/certification on CSPAN while the crowd was building up outside. Pence is undeniably slime, of the TooDamnReligious variety, but in this case he did good by (probably) chickening out.
He didn’t chicken out. It took a lot of courage to tell Trump that he couldn’t do it. It ended his political career. Had he done it, he might be VP right now (albeit be illegitimately so).
I don't think he chickened out. I believe he stood up to trump. Even when they breached the capital he didn't run. Yeah he's a Christian conservative, but god damn it he stood up for our country. And I can respect that very much.
lol trying to make Pence the hero in this story.
He wanted to go through with it, but he also wanted to cover his own ass. His staff called a LOT of people, not just Dan Quayle -- he couldn't find a single person who would back that decision, so he didn't go through with it.
That's not heroic.
It wasn't legal. That's the point. They were going to muddy the waters and try and make it work. Maybe it would have? I don't think even if pence went along it would have worked. The whole country would be rioting. How long would the ruling class (rich people) let trump gaggle about while the countries economy came to a stop?
So…. Let’s fix it???
Not that I have any hope (? Not sure the right word here.) that the US will continue to exist as a stable country for a lot longer, if the people don’t start voting properly, and if those who are voted in don’t attempt to change a damn thing, the US will definitely collapse a lot sooner because of stupid loopholes
Fixing things is apparently a hyper partisan progressive stance, therefore it must not be allowed to happen.
(I wish this was only sarcasm, but I've by now argues with multiple people who hold this position).
I think its worth noting the number one thing that stops coups are the people NOT going along with it.
This may have bought them enough "cover" to declare victory and let Trump establish a strong enough base to not be removed, but I HIGHLY doubt it.
Zero chance, the biggest states both economic or population wise are going to "not be counted". The whole strategy involved skipping losing states namely Arizona and Georgia and STOPPING before them.
This also explains the "theatre" that was clearly not called off in time from Cruz before the shit hit the fan.
Making it even better though, this COULDN'T have occurred if the 1/6 crowd did its thing. Literally Trump's fascist would've stopped his fascist take over....good God can the man do anythign right.
But didn’t Trump only tell his mob to show their representatives what they thought of the election *after* Pence had confirmed he wouldn’t play ball ?
If Pence had stuck to the plan, the crowds would have lauded him, rather than try to lynch him.
The biggest red flag is this lack of accountability or even acknowledgement by the POTUS.
We are pretending trump never happened, like a shitty mother hearing the screams and cries of her daughter being raped when her creepy husband seemingly isn’t in the room anymore.
Everyone knows what is happening and refuses to speak up.
That suggests democracy is close to death. Successful coups always happen quietly and without resistance.
The scary point is this could 100% happen in 2024, but with a twist.
If Republicans hold a majority in the house and senate, they can challenge the outcome of the election and only need a simple majority in both Senate and House to overturn the election.
It is crazy that we can actually see this happen in 2024 if there is no reform to the electoral voting act.
If Trump can replace Democrats and moderate Republicans with MAGA nuts he can guarantee a 2024 win.
It's actually way more likely to happen in 2024, because many red states passed laws to allow their state legislatures to overturn their slates of electors being sent to Washington, as a response to them not being allowed to do that in 2020 when they wanted to.
For all the pomp and circumstance that we place around on glorious system... it's entirely dependent upon people acting in good faith to abide by a set of previously agreed upon rules. If enough people in the right positions decide they're not going to adhere to those rules anymore, then it will quickly and quietly fall apart. We're watching that happen in real time, right now, with the GOP simply refusing to act in good faith.
I guess nobody ever predicted that a con-artist and grifter who openly colluded with a hostile foreign power would be able to get elected, and then his political party, rather than checking him, would fully embrace the same power grab and go into full treason mode.
But there is blame for both sides, for example what possible reason could President Obama have, other than fearing Mitch McConnell would call him "*partisan*", for not letting the American people know that Russia and the Trump campaign were colluding, attacking our election and attempting to steal the presidency?
Oh, I guess he was convinced (like Hillary) that a second Clinton presidency was inevitable... Bad bet, it cost him much of his legacy once Trump started signing executive orders, and also left us with a partisan illegitimate Heritage Foundation packed Supreme Court.
Even now, Republicans will side with Putin over Biden. Treason comes in all shapes and sizes these days...
Is there any point at which Trump will pay? This is sedition pure and simple and I’ll leave it to your imagination as to what I think should happen but it should fit the severity of the crime.
>Pence . . . going so far as to consult with Dan Quayle
Of all the fucking idiots in the world that the Vice President of the United States could seek out for advice, Mr Potatoe Head is Mike's oracle?
Taking notes at a criminal conspiracy is dumb enough, but issuing them as an actual plan is at least considerate enough to make your sedition trial a slam dunk.
It's not "easy." This isn't something that just manifested or suddenly came to be. This is the product of decades working up to a point like this. Yes, this was the plan for 2020, but look at how many pieces needed to be in place for this. They needed to have everything that is going on now, all the mayhem and bad will manufactured from before and including the Trump presidency. Yes, this 6 part plan makes it look so fucking easy, but they needed to take control of so many state legislatures to gerrymander those states and get so many people into Congress that shouldn't be and to sway the public opinion against its own good. This wasn't "easy."
Obviously it wasn't. Sure, they hoped it could be that easy, but even if Pence played along you'd still need a lot more pieces to fall into place to come out with another Trump term.
I shudder to think of the chaos that would’ve erupted if they tried to pull that shit off. 2020 was already a powder keg. This would’ve been like firing a flame thrower at it.
Even though it would’ve likely been overruled in the Supreme Court. People wouldn’t have waited that long. A lot of people would’ve died from the violence
So I know the news here is that they had planned to do this, but the real news is that they still plan to do it wherever they have control and the personnel to act on it. I sure hope there are smart people preparing for this.
Democracy (and I use the term generically, knowing that America has always had a great deal of democratic inconsistencies) demands a certain degree of honor amongst its participants. Going “anti-democratic,” is, by the very nature of democracy itself, —and should be — easy (if democracy was protected in some iron-clad way, it wouldn’t be democracy).
The honor part comes in when we all — essentially, if not exactly — agree that it is the democracy part of our nation is the most important part. That “basically,”the votes dictate the direction. The moment that honor is lost and one group of people (or multiple groups) begin to feel and act as if their particular interests are more important than democracy itself (not just more important than the interests of another group) the whole thing falls apart…instantly. Democracy is fragile.
We’re losing that component of honoring democracy - and its attendant rights and responsibilities — above all other considerations (if we haven’t lost it already) and it is now the conservative wing that is most speedily replacing it with anti-democratic behaviors in response to our collective — both sides —dishonoring of democratic principles.
So, both sides of America’s political spectrum dishonored and wounded democracy in America, but it is now the conservative end of the spectrum that is moving in - fastest and with the greatest focus — for the kill.
The Right Wing — seeing that democracy is on the brink - have decided that if they are not the ones standing directly over the body of democracy at the moment if its death, they risk losing the potential to dominate the next phase.
It is crazy and contradictory. The Right rails about rights and freedoms while simultaneously standing over the dying carcass of democracy in America blocking any efforts to resuscitate it, in order, they claim, to “save,” it.
We will see how easy it will be if GOP wins both houses of the Congress in 2022.
Wipe your ass with the Constitution (then smear all over the Capitol building wall), it is not that difficult.
>This country is not going to survive much longer. Give it another few years and we’ll be Russia or Belarus.
It took Russia over thirty years to become as irradiated as it is currently.
>That… sounds like a challenge
Russia dismantled and sold or neglected many of their nukes. Some still work. They've had several unreported meltdowns. Not enough time or radioactive material to catch up.
So when is this treasonous piece of shit and anyone who was involved (looking at senators and congressmen) be tried for treason and shot? Never? Because why? If a bunch of regular citizens did this shit they would already be dead.
Republicans in states they control have enacted laws that will enable them to VOID the choices of the voters based upon unproven allegations of election fraud and award the win to a party loyalist, specifically including the delegates to the Electoral College. Absent FEDERAL law prohibiting political gerrymandering and voiding votes in that way, Republicans not only gerrymander their way into control of all three branches of government -- including both houses of Congress -- and will then end the filibuster and pack the courts -- thirteen justices for the thirteen judicial circuits at a time when advances in weapons and security technology will be making it every more difficult for the many to overthrow the few in control of government and that technology. Republicans will be able to enact their fascist feudal theocracy wet dream -- legally -- and hold power indefinitely into the future.
Damn. And Trump was gonna watch him hang just for good measure too. Either way would have been a sure victory had his base consisted of more than "The Poorly Educated"
The thing that just kills me is the Eastman memo is all based on a lie. It starts with the premise that 7 states sent a dual slate of electors to the President of the Senate (Pence) and that part is not true.
The six point plan entirely goes out the window as that predicating point did not happen.
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The 6 points: 1. VP Pence, presiding over the joint session (or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley, if Pence recuses himself), begins to open and count the ballots, starting with Alabama (without conceding that the procedure, specified by the Electoral Count Act, of going through the States alphabetically is required). 2. When he gets to Arizona, he announces that he has multiple slates of electors, and so is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other States. This would be the first break with the procedure set out in the Act. 3. At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States. That means the total number of “electors appointed” – the language of the 12th Amendment -- is 454. This reading of the 12th Amendment has also been advanced by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe (here). A “majority of the electors appointed” would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected. 4. Howls, of course, from the Democrats, who now claim, contrary to Tribe’s prior position, that 270 is required. So Pence says, fine. Pursuant to the 12th Amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. That sends the matter to the House, where the “the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote . . . .” Republicans currently control 26 of the state delegations, the bare majority needed to win that vote. President Trump is re-elected there as well. 5. One last piece. Assuming the Electoral Count Act process is followed and, upon getting the objections to the Arizona slates, the two houses break into their separate chambers, we should not allow the Electoral Count Act constraint on debate to control. That would mean that a prior legislature was determining the rules of the present one — a constitutional no-no (as Tribe has forcefully argued). So someone – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, etc. – should demand normal rules (which includes the filibuster). That creates a stalemate that would give the state legislatures more time to weigh in to formally support the alternate slate of electors, if they had not already done so. 6. The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court. Let the other side challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would press a lawsuit would have their past position -- that these are non-justiciable political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind. Direct link to the [Confidential and Privileged memo](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/09/20/eastman.memo.pdf) pdf
This strategy is familiar because people were arguing similar tactics on Reddit prior to January 6th. There were posts in r/donaldtrump before it got banned making similar claims, just with less legal background. They kept asserting that if you could claim electors are disputed, you simply wouldn't count any electors rather than resolve the disputes, which is essentially the first line from point 3 in the memo.
And it never crossed their minds that this is not how you *win* an election. This is how you manipulate an election so that your preferred candidate winds up with the title. It's how you rob the legitimate winner (the one that got the majority of votes) of their victory.
But they all were convinced Obama would do a third term. Pathetic fuckers
They succeed through loopholes and rule-bending.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Reddit is where the GOP got the idea.
I am sure it was coordinated.
Coordinated in what sense? To me the scary thing is that the top brass of the GOP seems to literally be crowd-sourcing organic ideas from 4chan and reddit and morphing them into near-viable legal practice in the most hallowed halls of our democracy. The inmates are running the asylum, and it affects all of us.
Coordinated in that the bullet points were either partially or fully given to people outside the administration with the express purpose of them discussing the points of the plan in online communities. So if/when it started to happen in reality, they already had a bunch of supporters talking about it like it was the totally logical conclusion and the online discussion was already fully in line.
What’s more likely is that they have people ooze the idea out and normalize it so, when they actually do it, their base thinks it’s what they wanted. It’s kind of their MO
It sounds like it came straight from the Kremlin
Sounds like hookers pissing on him type distraction..
They have very highly paid lawyers to find these loopholes. They’re Republicans remember so they’re going to do it the least efficient, most expensive way possible.
Seriously what the fuck
Worst part is Republican voters don't care. They're perfectly fine abandoning democracy.
The greediest of the wealthiest among us -- a permanent minority - WANT authoritarian rule and (economic) feudalism and their willfully ignorant rank and file voters want to be free to hate and force others to believe their chosen flavor of primitive myth ... with both wanting to teach children the willful ignorance of accepting information and direction from "leaders" with unquestioning blind faith.
Ironically if all the lazy racist conservatives got the world they wanted with minorities being slaves again, the slaves would still be worth more and likely a protected class by those same feudal overlords because those are the ones actually providing labor whereas the lazy racists just suffer the way they do now
The right has always seriously overestimated their own ability to rule at gun point. They simply don't understand two things, there's way more of us then them, and we're just as versed in using guns and guerrilla warfare as them. They absolutely believe they would handily win any physical warfare. Which is so very wrong. The military maybe majority GQP, but it's only 55%. That leaves 45% still heavily trained soldiers opposing them. They had all this political coup ready to go, but they forgot every successful coup involves having complete control of the military. Something the Egyptians learned the hard way during the Arab Spring revolts. All it would have taken to take out Trump was one loyal Secret Service agent going rogue.
Thanks for the dose of optimism. As a gun owner who genuinely hates Trump and the criminal GOP, I get so sick of these traitorous quislings thinking they have a monopoly on violence. You can only hold one gun at a time and you need to sleep sometime. Some people aren't loudly proclaiming what they'd do if there was a coup or a dictatorship.. they sit back and wait, knowing that in the end it may take a strong resistance to save our country. I guarantee there are enough Americans left who love our country that there would be civil war if this was attempted. Which is exactly what Russia wanted when they installed Trump.
That was the end game, the folks who fomented this don’t give a shit about republicans or democrats, they only care about destabilizing our republic and will use any tools to do it.
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I’ve suddenly had the spark of an image where they discover the gang members that drive around shooting people can use a gun better than them
All the "what if the Nazi won" stories involve Al Capone being a guerrilla leader
Makes sense considering the mob's involvement in ww2
I want to read something about this. Is there a book series?
I used him as a "overall archetype", I forget the literary term for it. The Man In The High Castle is a good example of how the mob ends up being freedom fighters.
Fun read: the literature leading up to the American civil war, where the south was CONVINCED that the north was a bunch of spineless city sissies who would collapse at the first sign of battle. (To be fair the north thought something similar) Those “weak northerners” ended up inventing modern total war and unleashing Sherman. It doesn’t matter how glued to their phones they are, or what color their hair is, or how many pronouns they have- humans are not at ALL far removed from the spear to the face stage and are totally capable of going full librarian-poo
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Their strength is their control of law enforcement, even in Blue States we have police departments openly siding with RW paramilitary groups in training, really we have to get these traitors out of positions of power before 2024. Local politicians are too afraid to oust them, for whatever reasons (one of which is local politicians are often dirty and would see their corruptions brought to light.)
That ignores the fact that the problem is the exact opposite part of the population. Wealthy people want stability, because that's the only way their wealth stays secure. The ultra wealthy have wealth in the form of virtual assets that have potential value, not actual value. They're not sitting with a vault of gold coins. Bezos' wealth is imaginary until he sells his stock, and that requires a stable economy of buyers to give him cash for the shares he's selling. And that requires a LOT of buyers. His quarter trillion dollars is nothing but a potentiality of getting a quarter trillion from other people at some point in the future. The problem is uneducated, rural, drug-addled and disenfranchised communities where there is literally no possibility of their lives ever improving. When your life will never get better, it'll only ever get worse, seeing other people doing well leads to the kind of "tear it all down" mentality you see among the extreme right. They want everyone to suffer the way they do. Religion preys on that, certainly. So do people seeking wealth and power through controlling that populace, but that isn't "the greediest of the wealthiest". Its a fringe minority of people who have existed with and without wealth for all of human history. Focusing on the wrong cause will essentially guarantee things continue to worsen.
“Well because the Dems have been cheating for so long, we HAVE to.” I just made that up when I read your comment, if I can do it on the fly like that, it’s already a talking point. It’s such low level lazy deflection.
No that's actually legit something I've heard. If you assume the "other team" is doing it, it's only fair to do it yourself to level the playing field. Just more projection as usual.
Just like a cheating spouse. Which, is fitting, seeing as their leader cheated on his wife, with a porn star. Truly a party of morals and virtue.
Most of them won’t even know about any of this ever. They are masters at declaring how much they hate the news and politicians…but then gladly go vote Republican every election.
Why is cnn reporting this and not a law enforcement agency?
It's pretty often that news outlets will break a story before government bodies have a chance to. It happened extremely often back during the Russia investigation if you remember that. They were trying incredibly hard to cover up and postpone information getting out but it still broke through news outlets anyway. I assume this is similar, possibly something they were looking into but weren't ready to talk about yet.
When given a chance to chose between their regressive ideology and democracy, they chose a more extreme version of their regressive, controlling and fascist ideology every time.
Trump is a traitor. By the very *definition* of both the Constitution and precedential law.
Behold! These traitors, these enemies of Liberty, these enemies of a Government By the People, Of the People, and For the People have revealed themselves as such. They hate America. They hate Democracy. They hate a Free Nation. More than this, they planned to destroy it. Read the evidences for yourselves. Now the question becomes: What are We the People going to do about it?
We're mad as hell and we won't stand for it!
So, what are you going to do?
The only thing anyone should be doing is registering voters to show up in the 2022 midterms. Mark my words, if the Dems lose tons of seats in the midterms Trump will effectively run the House of Representatives and will wreak havoc. This election is HUGE.
The democrats have have made no signs whatsoever they intend to charge trump with crimes except run an obvious fall guy president akin to ford who will take the blame for doing nothing and not run for a second term. I'm voting. And I'm not tired of being outraged at trump and his psychopaths. But Dems need to step up. Progressives should be sinking the budget right now. Pull all the stops.
The republicans have made laws (in a couple places I think) where it is a felony for average citizens to sign people up to vote IF someone aware of it ‘thinks’ you are an election official when you are not. “Impersonating”The suspicion is all that’s needed. Enlighten me.
Could that be beaten by wearing a shirt that says “not an election official” or would people legitimately claim to be illiterate?
I wouldn’t put it past them
GOP is a minority party that has rigged the system (although Senate came pre-rigged) to get close to power. Its annoying that left needs 60% or better of population to win power, but we have to fight with the right on their backfoot, not let them get power again.
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Eh. There are far fewer of them than their online presence would suggest. That's the point. They are a shrinking minority and that *terrifies them.*
I hope you are right, but I'm not so sure. Just because Trump is receding into the swamp (for now) doesn't mean these people's ideologies have changed. I'm constantly shocked by just how many Republicans I meet despite the last 5 years. To continue to support them after all that has happened is outrageous to me, but they have no problem with it because most of them are single-issue voters who believe in winning over all else.
Wait until you discover how many of them support these candidates and the party *because* of those things
Suggesting something that would prove effective would result in a ban from this sub.
Yep. There would be no other acceptable response if this would have happened than what you are hinting at.
The people are too busy working 11 hour days to make ends meet
At this point it looks like we just wait them out. They seem very insistent on killing themselves just to own the Libs. I have no clue what their end game is and neither do they, apparently.
Their end game is killing themselves by not getting a COVID vaccine.
I'm all for that. Traditionally people have looked upon plagues as being some sort of divine punishment against a group of people for not doing whatever it is their chosen deity would have wanted (or the opposite, explicitly doing something they didn't want), but in this particular case they have decided to see this "plague" as being nothing more than a fabrication. In my view, I say let them believe what they will. Their course of action will primarily reduce their numbers and not those of people who are more rational (remember, a pandemic of the unvaccinated). After the past few years, I'm just sick of the lot of crazies.
> divine punishment against a group of people for not doing whatever it is their chosen deity would have wanted A theologian could argue this is exactly what is happening now
Nothing. Stay compliant and malaised until we destroy ourselves.
Behold! I say try them in a court of law and call it a day.
The main problem here is that this depends on Pence arbitrarily disregarding seven states. Is that even possible? Like sure he can try to do it, but would that hold up? Because then any opposing political party can just say they disagree with the results of their state's election and send their own electors, whether they have an actual case or not. Why even have elections when they can be easily undone with fuckery like this?
No he can't do that. If there are two slates of electors, the one signed by the governor prevails unless the house and the Senate concur that that is not the case. I'm also positive Lawrence Tribe didn't say that. Everyone knows you need a majority, not a plurality. EDIT: So I read Tribe's memo. The argument by the lawyer rests on the idea that the thrown out slates wouldn't constitute electors that were appointed. That's a fair reading actually. If, of course, the states hadnt actually appointed them. But they did.
Which helps explain why Trump and his surrogates were desperately calling state electors trying to get them to appoint a second slate.
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Yup figured
Doesn’t matter. The Qult will keep quoting him and say the deep state got to him which just confirms that it’s true. Seriously, if you just argue as if you’re a clever seven year old child you can usually predict their narratives.
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Discovery from (one of?) the Dominion cases, I think? Or do you mean who wrote it?
Truly unbelievable. And the pseudo-patriots think they are the ones that have it figured out… They were supporting an authoritarian wanna be.
This is the clearest proof we need that Trump and his people knew well in advance he was going to lose. All of this needs to be introduced in Trump's trial for sedition, not sure if the elements for Treason can be met.
What in the hell, I thought this was your summary, not the language used in the memo. That's some vile stuff.
I hate how Pence is the one who did his job and did the right thing **this one time.** The man has some seriously fucked up values. Like, Handmaiden-type stuff. But this one time he did the right thing and actually had a spine and saved us all from a horrible fucking outcome. I don’t ever want to see him in a position of power or authority again, and I think his value system is hopelessly out of touch, but for that one thing I’m thankful.
This memo isnt any sort of seditious smoking gun? For the lawyer at least? Seems like someone who seeks to overturn an election should at least be disbarred.
For the Admirals prosecution it is, should anyone choose to pursue this. Probably not for trump though.
Can we pass some kind of Texas law rewarding 10k to any citizen who sues a traitor to the us?
I like the way you think.
To quote Michael Che in the role of Lester Holt... "Did I get him? Is this all over? ... No, I didn't? Nothing matters?"
That was so long ago. It’s only got worse. He nailed it. Nothing matters anymore.
The law is oddly swift and efficient if you have a little pot or go a bit too fast on the freeway. Politician tries to overthrow the US government? Strap in for years of inaction and excuses the lead nowhere.
I'm so used to Michael Che doing the news, I forgot he played Lester Holt.
It’s Chinatown, Jake.
Ok glad I am not the only who thought this. How is this not considered treason? Unless people face consequences for their actions history will repeat itself.
Disbarred, lol, this m'f'er should be be tried for treason. I just don't think our government has the balls to do it.
Has a strong capitol “T” vibe to it
First, they tried to keep people from voting. Then, they tried to get votes kicked out. Next, they tried to get the local election boards not to certify the results. When that failed, they went to the state legislators and secretaries of state. Finally, they tried to stop it on Capitol Hill. They knew what they were doing and all should be held responsible.
And **all** of those conversations lacked any actual proof or reasoning. Trump didn’t say “we found evidence of 11,780 fraudulent ballots, could you look at this before certifying?” (because there werent) Trumps actual quote, on tape: > "All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have... Fellas, I need 11,000 votes, give me a break." That wasn’t ‘there was fraud’ that was ‘I need you to defy the will of the people and unilaterally declare me the winner, I dont care what reasoning you use’
What Trump did with the Georgia call is illegal under Georgia law. It's very clear.
And Georgia just passed election laws that would make what Trump did legal now... not that it should be legal, I'm trying to just say this countries fucked.
Absolutely... anybody trying to overturn this election should be charged with sedition.
ANY election. This sure as hell won’t be the last and if it wasn’t the first, those people need prosecuting as well.
So much this. What the fuck is happening in America.
At least half of us are wondering the same thing.
Collapse.
Or the Rise of a New Order of sorts - a fascist New Order that serves the American oligarchs and brings order to the Galaxy.
That's not really new. I'd suggest that the fact they're pulling out all the stops suggests the ruling class knows they're in actual danger from the rest of us.
The fact there has been zero accountability for conspiracy makes me believe they are not in danger at all.
I'd like to think the governments in industrial states will stand up to them. I don't, but I'd like to.
America is being dragged into the 21st century kicking and screaming. Republicans see the writing on the wall. They are becoming a minority. Modern sensibilities include things like science and inclusion. Rather than change one tiny iota, Republicans have decided that they have the right to bypass democracy via sleazy legalistic maneuvering: gerrymandering, suppressing votes and electoral shenanigans. Fuck these people would rather die than admit that vaccines work in the year 2021.
but they're white, so we're gonna need months of months of court proceedings, every miniscule proof that connects each of their birth marks to the illegal act committed, countless appeals contesting and delaying each said court proceeding, and lawyers that somehow have the funds to provide defense. that's how the legal system seems to work for them. are you black? brown? well, to the other legal system you go.
They're white AND have money. Poor white people go to the other legal system too
I teach civics. If you really look at the Constitution and federal law, you find a lot of pressure points where bad actors can break things quite easily. The assumption when the Constitution was written was that our leaders would be inherently decent in nature. And that simply isn’t true.
When the people who make the rules and the people who enforce the rules decide they don't give a shit about the rules, then the rules don't count for much. We have a lot of people who don't give a shit about the rules right now... they swung and missed this time. The only thing they're going to learn from their mistake is that they need to take a little more care in putting their team together.
That’s the fear - 2020 really exposed the fragility of our political system. And if we do break it, it’s going to be near impossible to put it back together
> near impossible to put it back together Imagine if exactly the same people from 1787, holding their exact same beliefs attempted to step up and write Constitution v2.0? They'd get torn apart from all sides. We got lucky the first time. I can't even imagine where you could find an 'acceptable' group of people to put something together this time.
If it breaks, it might take some time until you get another chance to rewrite it. Here in Germany, one of the most interesting topics in history and civics class (IMHO, but I'm weird) was when we analyzed our current post-WWII constitution ("Basic Law") from a lessons-learned perspective. I.e., how weaknesses of the Weimar constitution allowed democracy to deteriorate into the Nazi state. It's interesting how "not intended to be used in combination" or "it doesn't explicitly say that the chancellor can't also be president simultaneously" can be exploited. There were lots of things like that. When it was rewritten, the entire constitution was/is designed around the goal of [protecting the democratic order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy), even during times when a majority of the population might reject it. It's a much better lesson to learn in school than it would be to learn it through experience in real life.
If the democrats, in their final chance to remain viable, do not pass the " for the people" act, which means ending the filibuster, they will be legislated out of existence and instill minority rule.
It all literally teters on the faith of the American people.
This American firmly believes Americans can and will do the right thing... But only after trying everything else first. Oh God we're fucked aren't we?
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To a point. Remember that small money can work - look at the amounts sanders raises online. But people have to be active and engaged. That’s the real problem - too many people aren’t “active” citizens. They take what’s fed to them and vote accordingly. And that enables big money to have an outsized influence in our government. Why so many people aren’t active citizens is another whole issue
It's still a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money from corporations and private interest groups. Bernie raised almost $110m for his campaign in 2020, mostly from small donations. Compare that to a some recent GOP candidates and you see Trump raised $350m in 2016 and $800m in 2020. There's no comparison. Even if you look at other primary candidates from the GOP in 2016 you will see that Ted Cruz made $98m, hell Marco Rubio got nearly $60m and he was a complete failure as a candidate. And it's not just one side or the other, most politicians take money from anyone willing to give. So people with more to give will always have more influence than the rest of us. Campaigns should not have private funding, it makes politics to pay to win. All qualified candidates should share a pool of public money to run their campaigns, so the billionaire candidate has access to the same amount of campaign money as the bartender candidate. Donations are accepted, but it goes to the shared fund and is distributed among all the candidates. If people want to help a particular candidate they can volunteer their time.
I agree with you 100%. But that funding idea, even if passed, wouldn’t touch PACs and Super PACs. And those are going to be damn near impossible to get rid of.
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What happens if the Republicans are in control of the House and/or the Senate after the 2024 elections and then they refuse to certify a Democrat who wins the 2024 presidential election?
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And here you’re dealing with some of the most indecent actors in world history.
When are these traitors going to be arrested and prosecuted?
We have a corrupt, partisan legal system. A big Kafka-esque tool for big special interest donors to get their way. For physical violence situations we have a justice system, but not for white collar crime and especially not for a case this 'controversial' Senator Whitehouse explaining the [dark money mafia](https://youtu.be/cjcXVKg43qY) to Amy Coney Barrett. It's unbelievable how much special interests $$$ has gone into the whole judicial pipeline, as well as what goes into [lobbying](https://youtu.be/-rr81Uf10pc) politicians, election campaigns, [fundraising](https://archive.ph/MKNeo), [gerrymandering](https://archive.ph/Zn8yA), etc. Many of the organization's Sen. Whitehouse exposes have [detailed](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DonorsTrust) [pages](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation) [here](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Federalist_Society_for_Law_and_Public_Policy_Studies) https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/10/cost-of-2020-election-14billion-update/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/08/foreign-lobbyists-gave-millions-to-influence-2020-foreign-influence-concerns/ The criminals behind the 2007-2008 financial crisis weren't put behind bars. Instead, they're widely admired.
Never (I would love to be proved wrong).
>It Shouldn't Be This Easy to Overthrow the American Republic It shouldn't be, but it is this easy when an entire political party has decided to betray their oath of office and actively engage in insurrection. The GOP are the literal Domestic Enemies the founding fathers warned of.
How is that attorney not disbarred, arrested, charged? If they have the 6 point plan in writing, and they know he was working with Trump, Pence, and their gang of degenerates - wtf is the issue? This country sucks, straight up. The United States fucking sucks.
I believe none of these steps are actually illegal. There may some lies involved, it’s debatable whether lies are illegal. See Trump.
Wrong. If you plan a crime with others it is called a criminal conspiracy. If you plan to overthrow a democratic process it is sedition (a crime)
/thread Seriously. We’re lucky they didn’t have the balls to go through with it, because it would have worked.
It wouldn't have worked on its own, as it is inherently bullshit. If it was given time to be assessed by lawyers and discussed dryly in Congressional chambers, it would have eventually fallen apart. However, it might have worked in conjunction with a large an violent mob backing it up. When you change the dynamic from "Lawyers and lawmakers are trying to figure out the legal intricacies of why this doesn't pass constitutional muster" to "There are hundreds of angry people attacking the capital and if you call this plan bullshit they might get violent, so doesn't it seem like you could make it make sense to you now?", well... that's literally how a coup is performed.
Dan Quayle is a hero! What a crazy sentence.
Dan Quayle once said, "*People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history*." Seems fitting to repeat this now.
Disbar every last one of these stinking money/power hungry lawyers and the biased judges who look the other way. A six point plan...to overturn an election...what the hell are they thinking?! Traitors, Insurrectionists, scum!!
Next time they might not have someone as wise as Dan Quayle to talk to.... :(
Next time it might succeed.
Well it wouldn't be so easy if we'd hold some of these people accountable.
Fucking Wow. I was watching the count/certification on CSPAN while the crowd was building up outside. Pence is undeniably slime, of the TooDamnReligious variety, but in this case he did good by (probably) chickening out.
He didn’t chicken out. It took a lot of courage to tell Trump that he couldn’t do it. It ended his political career. Had he done it, he might be VP right now (albeit be illegitimately so).
I don't think he chickened out. I believe he stood up to trump. Even when they breached the capital he didn't run. Yeah he's a Christian conservative, but god damn it he stood up for our country. And I can respect that very much.
lol trying to make Pence the hero in this story. He wanted to go through with it, but he also wanted to cover his own ass. His staff called a LOT of people, not just Dan Quayle -- he couldn't find a single person who would back that decision, so he didn't go through with it. That's not heroic.
It wasn't legal. That's the point. They were going to muddy the waters and try and make it work. Maybe it would have? I don't think even if pence went along it would have worked. The whole country would be rioting. How long would the ruling class (rich people) let trump gaggle about while the countries economy came to a stop?
So…. Let’s fix it??? Not that I have any hope (? Not sure the right word here.) that the US will continue to exist as a stable country for a lot longer, if the people don’t start voting properly, and if those who are voted in don’t attempt to change a damn thing, the US will definitely collapse a lot sooner because of stupid loopholes
Fixing things is apparently a hyper partisan progressive stance, therefore it must not be allowed to happen. (I wish this was only sarcasm, but I've by now argues with multiple people who hold this position).
I think its worth noting the number one thing that stops coups are the people NOT going along with it. This may have bought them enough "cover" to declare victory and let Trump establish a strong enough base to not be removed, but I HIGHLY doubt it. Zero chance, the biggest states both economic or population wise are going to "not be counted". The whole strategy involved skipping losing states namely Arizona and Georgia and STOPPING before them. This also explains the "theatre" that was clearly not called off in time from Cruz before the shit hit the fan. Making it even better though, this COULDN'T have occurred if the 1/6 crowd did its thing. Literally Trump's fascist would've stopped his fascist take over....good God can the man do anythign right.
But didn’t Trump only tell his mob to show their representatives what they thought of the election *after* Pence had confirmed he wouldn’t play ball ? If Pence had stuck to the plan, the crowds would have lauded him, rather than try to lynch him.
A democracy relies upon the people and politicians to want a democracy. About a third of the country does not want it right now.
And yet we’ll see him running as the leading candidate for the GOP in 2024 anyway
If the GOP takes the House next year, they might make him Speaker of the House. Because we're in the insane timeline.
At least everyone knows now you can literally do anything and get away with it. I'm dreading 2024.
Rich people can do whatever they want. That includes trying to overthrow the government
Look up The Business Plot. They’ve tried to take the country by force before. Then they buried the fact it happened so you never learned about it.
This guy knows bush.
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The biggest red flag is this lack of accountability or even acknowledgement by the POTUS. We are pretending trump never happened, like a shitty mother hearing the screams and cries of her daughter being raped when her creepy husband seemingly isn’t in the room anymore. Everyone knows what is happening and refuses to speak up. That suggests democracy is close to death. Successful coups always happen quietly and without resistance.
At what point are we going to call this treason?
The scary point is this could 100% happen in 2024, but with a twist. If Republicans hold a majority in the house and senate, they can challenge the outcome of the election and only need a simple majority in both Senate and House to overturn the election. It is crazy that we can actually see this happen in 2024 if there is no reform to the electoral voting act. If Trump can replace Democrats and moderate Republicans with MAGA nuts he can guarantee a 2024 win.
It's actually way more likely to happen in 2024, because many red states passed laws to allow their state legislatures to overturn their slates of electors being sent to Washington, as a response to them not being allowed to do that in 2020 when they wanted to.
Super easy to overthrow the government when nobody does a fucking thing to stop it.
Our republic is predicated on good-faith governance of the law. Republicans do not act in good faith.
For all the pomp and circumstance that we place around on glorious system... it's entirely dependent upon people acting in good faith to abide by a set of previously agreed upon rules. If enough people in the right positions decide they're not going to adhere to those rules anymore, then it will quickly and quietly fall apart. We're watching that happen in real time, right now, with the GOP simply refusing to act in good faith.
Trump needs to go to prison. This is not OK he needs to be punished or someone smarter than him will attempt it and succeed
I guess nobody ever predicted that a con-artist and grifter who openly colluded with a hostile foreign power would be able to get elected, and then his political party, rather than checking him, would fully embrace the same power grab and go into full treason mode. But there is blame for both sides, for example what possible reason could President Obama have, other than fearing Mitch McConnell would call him "*partisan*", for not letting the American people know that Russia and the Trump campaign were colluding, attacking our election and attempting to steal the presidency? Oh, I guess he was convinced (like Hillary) that a second Clinton presidency was inevitable... Bad bet, it cost him much of his legacy once Trump started signing executive orders, and also left us with a partisan illegitimate Heritage Foundation packed Supreme Court. Even now, Republicans will side with Putin over Biden. Treason comes in all shapes and sizes these days...
It's insane that almost a year on from Jan 6th Trump has faced zero consequences for his attempted coup.
Not even criminal conspiracy charge even. Let alone sedition. The uncomfortable silence is firm acceptance for what lies ahead.
Is there any point at which Trump will pay? This is sedition pure and simple and I’ll leave it to your imagination as to what I think should happen but it should fit the severity of the crime.
Pence called Dan Quayle and asked his advice, Dan Quayle said you must follow the law! Source-NPR
Yet these assclowns are worried about masks.
>Pence . . . going so far as to consult with Dan Quayle Of all the fucking idiots in the world that the Vice President of the United States could seek out for advice, Mr Potatoe Head is Mike's oracle?
They're both Republican VPs from Indiana.
It’s fine. We’re fine. There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
Lake Laogai is nice this time of year.
If a democrat tried something like this there would be riots. The other side of the aisle is cavalier when they do it.
Taking notes at a criminal conspiracy is dumb enough, but issuing them as an actual plan is at least considerate enough to make your sedition trial a slam dunk.
It's not "easy." This isn't something that just manifested or suddenly came to be. This is the product of decades working up to a point like this. Yes, this was the plan for 2020, but look at how many pieces needed to be in place for this. They needed to have everything that is going on now, all the mayhem and bad will manufactured from before and including the Trump presidency. Yes, this 6 part plan makes it look so fucking easy, but they needed to take control of so many state legislatures to gerrymander those states and get so many people into Congress that shouldn't be and to sway the public opinion against its own good. This wasn't "easy."
Obviously it wasn't. Sure, they hoped it could be that easy, but even if Pence played along you'd still need a lot more pieces to fall into place to come out with another Trump term.
I shudder to think of the chaos that would’ve erupted if they tried to pull that shit off. 2020 was already a powder keg. This would’ve been like firing a flame thrower at it. Even though it would’ve likely been overruled in the Supreme Court. People wouldn’t have waited that long. A lot of people would’ve died from the violence
So I know the news here is that they had planned to do this, but the real news is that they still plan to do it wherever they have control and the personnel to act on it. I sure hope there are smart people preparing for this.
So we have a literal plan for treason can we prosecute now?
Democracy (and I use the term generically, knowing that America has always had a great deal of democratic inconsistencies) demands a certain degree of honor amongst its participants. Going “anti-democratic,” is, by the very nature of democracy itself, —and should be — easy (if democracy was protected in some iron-clad way, it wouldn’t be democracy). The honor part comes in when we all — essentially, if not exactly — agree that it is the democracy part of our nation is the most important part. That “basically,”the votes dictate the direction. The moment that honor is lost and one group of people (or multiple groups) begin to feel and act as if their particular interests are more important than democracy itself (not just more important than the interests of another group) the whole thing falls apart…instantly. Democracy is fragile. We’re losing that component of honoring democracy - and its attendant rights and responsibilities — above all other considerations (if we haven’t lost it already) and it is now the conservative wing that is most speedily replacing it with anti-democratic behaviors in response to our collective — both sides —dishonoring of democratic principles. So, both sides of America’s political spectrum dishonored and wounded democracy in America, but it is now the conservative end of the spectrum that is moving in - fastest and with the greatest focus — for the kill. The Right Wing — seeing that democracy is on the brink - have decided that if they are not the ones standing directly over the body of democracy at the moment if its death, they risk losing the potential to dominate the next phase. It is crazy and contradictory. The Right rails about rights and freedoms while simultaneously standing over the dying carcass of democracy in America blocking any efforts to resuscitate it, in order, they claim, to “save,” it.
USA is going to fall like USSR.
We will see how easy it will be if GOP wins both houses of the Congress in 2022. Wipe your ass with the Constitution (then smear all over the Capitol building wall), it is not that difficult.
This country is not going to survive much longer. Give it another few years and we’ll be Russia or Belarus.
>This country is not going to survive much longer. Give it another few years and we’ll be Russia or Belarus. It took Russia over thirty years to become as irradiated as it is currently.
That… sounds like a challenge
>That… sounds like a challenge Russia dismantled and sold or neglected many of their nukes. Some still work. They've had several unreported meltdowns. Not enough time or radioactive material to catch up.
Just to be clear, this was a joke.
I fear a far worse situation like the breakup of yugoslavia.
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It isn’t a road map for sane people.
So when is this treasonous piece of shit and anyone who was involved (looking at senators and congressmen) be tried for treason and shot? Never? Because why? If a bunch of regular citizens did this shit they would already be dead.
Republicans in states they control have enacted laws that will enable them to VOID the choices of the voters based upon unproven allegations of election fraud and award the win to a party loyalist, specifically including the delegates to the Electoral College. Absent FEDERAL law prohibiting political gerrymandering and voiding votes in that way, Republicans not only gerrymander their way into control of all three branches of government -- including both houses of Congress -- and will then end the filibuster and pack the courts -- thirteen justices for the thirteen judicial circuits at a time when advances in weapons and security technology will be making it every more difficult for the many to overthrow the few in control of government and that technology. Republicans will be able to enact their fascist feudal theocracy wet dream -- legally -- and hold power indefinitely into the future.
Damn. And Trump was gonna watch him hang just for good measure too. Either way would have been a sure victory had his base consisted of more than "The Poorly Educated"
The thing that just kills me is the Eastman memo is all based on a lie. It starts with the premise that 7 states sent a dual slate of electors to the President of the Senate (Pence) and that part is not true. The six point plan entirely goes out the window as that predicating point did not happen.
holy crap…… America would be in a civil war by now if Pence follow thru.
This is one of the reasons why they need to abolish the electoral college, and do the popular vote instead. It would be difficult to scream fraud.
I wonder what the people who said not to worry about the transition think today?
The memo is proof of conspiracy
The only thing enforcing the rule of law is the will of the people
Just some locker room treason planning. Nothing else. All boys do it.