Trump - 4 more years of this at least...

[SaferRides]

This quote is from an article in the New York Times. It's behind a paywall and I've used up all my free articles, you may be more lucky?

If it looks like a coup and it smells like a coup...

NYT is US$3 a month for the first year.

An interesting read. Mr Clark says some of the details are incorrect, but I expect the proof will be whether he still has a job at DOJ in a few months' time. I'm also not sure exactly how the DOJ could overturn the Georgia result with no proof that there was fraud.

But still, that's serious shit that one of their lawyers even suggested it to Trump.

[pritch]

The Republicans are saying the country needs to unite. That's true as far as it goes, but it seems the Republican's version of unite is that the Democrats do what the Republicans want. The thought occurs that if reunification was really their goal they should start proclaiming loud and proud that the election was not stolen and that Biden won a free and fair election.

[sugilite:Me]

This is just too delicious for words. After many years of trump turning on his closest allies, now his closest allies have finally seen who he is (not DL though). The dems would be crazy not to allow witnesses with characters like buffalo guy wanting to say how they were just following trumps instructions.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/qanon-sha...duped-by-trump
That would be slightly problematic for the former loser in chiefs lawyers to defend.

[R650R]

OK, riddle me this Mr Demonlord - If a portly individual ambles into a bank with a maga hat pulled down over their eyes, they then join a queue for a teller when they spot a security camera and cannot resist to pull the hat off and give an unscripted speech on how their disguise is one of the most beautiful and best ever seen.
He approaches the teller, hands over a demand note written with a sharpie on official government letter head. He shoves over a paper bag, telling the teller to fill it up with cash.
He then gets distracted by a mirror across the way. By the time he focuses back on the job at hand, he hears sirens in the distance. He grabs $5 out of the tellers cash draw and a paper bag, not realizing that was the tellers lunch bag, not the one with the cash in it. He makes a darting break for the door, where he opens up a umbrella too large to fit through it. After finally discarding that, his escape is further hampered - this time by a gently sloping mobility access ramp. Finally he "sprints" down the final 10 foot as he then shuffles across the road and out of sight.
Minutes later the police have followed a stain of orange fake tan lotion across the road from the bank to a burger joint.
They then follow a trail of discarded burger wrappings to the Wherethe lardgoes mini putt golf course - where they then find and arrest the perp.

Now clearly this was the fool of all fools, with no clear plan, and what was planned was executed in the poorest fashion imaginable. The whole heist made a keystone cops movie look like a documentary on sensibility. So considering all of this - was it still a bank robbery?

Democrats would have called it a Manual Cash Withdrawl by an economically challenged body positive non gender specific American.

Just like the antifa insurgency op in capital thevonly evidence of trump support is a hat that could be bought for $2 ...,,

Sounds like an FBI patsy op where they give a deranged individual the means to commit a crime to bump up there success stats....

[pritch]

Sounds like an FBI patsy op where they give a deranged individual the means to commit a crime to bump up there success stats....

That happened it's true, and more than once, but you can't keep quoting it to explain anything and everything however irrelevant. Well you can try but...

[pritch]

This is just too delicious for words. After many years of trump turning on his closest allies, now his closest allies have finally seen who he is (not DL though).

I saw a headline but not having watched the TV show I didn't pay attention first time. The Tiger King's lawyer was so sure his client was going to get a pardon that he ordered a limousine to uplift him from the jail.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainmen...hat-never-came

[pritch]

This may mean the "charge stacking" phase is underway.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...charged-threat

[husaberg]

This may mean the "charge stacking" phase is underway.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...charged-threat

It doesn't sound like a peaceful demonstration that trump fueled up to peacefully promote democracy does it.......

[sugilite:Me]

Just like the antifa insurgency op in capital thevonly evidence of trump support is a hat that could be bought for $2 ...,,

Ahhh, yes the made in China Maga hat for $2. Kind of sums up the hypocrisy of the former administration nicely.

[pritch]

Ahhh, yes the made in China Maga hat for $2. Kind of sums up the hypocrisy of the former administration nicely.

Trump might have paid $2 but I think the MAGA shit heads paid more like $35.00. A fool and his money and all that.

[TheDemonLord]

This is just too delicious for words. After many years of trump turning on his closest allies, now his closest allies have finally seen who he is (not DL though). The dems would be crazy not to allow witnesses with characters like buffalo guy wanting to say how they were just following trumps instructions.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/qanon-sha...duped-by-trump
That would be slightly problematic for the former loser in chiefs lawyers to defend.

"Preaching to the Choir"

or more specifically, telling the media what they want to hear.

[sugilite:Me]

"Preaching to the Choir"

or more specifically, telling the media what they want to hear.

I've been meaning to ask you, what do you think of the whole Trump asking Pence not to certify the election, even though as explained to him, it is a largely ceremonial process and Pence did not have the power to not certify?
If course keep in mind Trump told al his maga loonies that Pence could do it and should do it - then said maga loonies were caught on tape yelling "find Pence, hang Pence" during the capitol hill invasion.
Responsible behavior from Trump?

[TheDemonLord]

I've been meaning to ask you, what do you think of the whole Trump asking Pence not to certify the election, even though as explained to him, it is a largely ceremonial process and Pence did not have the power to not certify?
If course keep in mind Trump told al his maga loonies that Pence could do it and should do it - then said maga loonies were caught on tape yelling "find Pence, hang Pence" during the capitol hill invasion.
Responsible behavior from Trump?

I've not commented on it, but since you asked:

By your own admission, something that is 'Largely ceremonial' and not 'Purely ceremonial' must carry some form of weight to it.

I suspect that Pence may have been able to do something - but such an action would likely have a counter-balancing mechanism that would be immediately invoked and furthermore would have a large number of repercussions.

I think of it like a large number of Powers that the Queen has. Most of them are largely ceremonial, but if she wanted - she could invoke and the legal framework to legitimize them is still in place. Of course were the queen to do it, I think the UK would suddenly find itself NOT a constitutional Monarchy... Which is probably what Pence was thinking.

[sugilite:Me]

I've not commented on it, but since you asked:

By your own admission, something that is 'Largely ceremonial' and not 'Purely ceremonial' must carry some form of weight to it.

I suspect that Pence may have been able to do something - but such an action would likely have a counter-balancing mechanism that would be immediately invoked and furthermore would have a large number of repercussions.

I think of it like a large number of Powers that the Queen has. Most of them are largely ceremonial, but if she wanted - she could invoke and the legal framework to legitimize them is still in place. Of course were the queen to do it, I think the UK would suddenly find itself NOT a constitutional Monarchy... Which is probably what Pence was thinking.

You seem to have missed the part of the question asking Responsible behavior from Trump?
That suspicion Pence may have been able to do something (not that I saw reported anywhere btw) was ample reason to knowingly create danger to Pence by giving his supporters the STRONG impression that Pence could "stop the steal" as Trump puts it?

[TheDemonLord]

You seem to have missed the part of the question asking Responsible behavior from Trump?
That suspicion Pence may have been able to do something (not that I saw reported anywhere btw) was ample reason to knowingly create danger to Pence by giving his supporters the STRONG impression that Pence could "stop the steal" as Trump puts it?

The question of Responsible behavior really does hinge on whether you believe that there was a legitimate danger that Pence would be Lynched.

For me - the Rhetoric of the crowd was indeed violent, but the absence of burned down buildings or other mass acts of vandalism/destruction leads me to hold that they were just Rhetoric - words.

To get into the more interesting question:

Let's pre-suppose that Pence had that power - Should he have used it?

On the one hand, exercising it would have put a halt to proceedings and probably bought time to look at some of the issues in the Swing-States. In particular, the Texas Claim that certain states violated their own constitutions by not following their own rules is probably the most important issue to be heard. If a State can ignore it's own rules on how it should conduct an election, why should other states adhere to theirs? Further to that, if one State is 'Corrupt', and that happens to be the deciding Factor, what does that say for the other 51 states? Those are big questions that were never heard and answered.

But, on the other - if you were to tell me that a single individual could exercise arbitrary power to change the Democratic process - what other word for that is there, than Dictatorial?
I'd love to see the Governor General or the Queen or similar forcibly remove Jacinda from power and undo every law change she made - but to do so would violate other principles that I hold in higher regard: If someone can do that to my Enemy, then they can do that to me.
Further to that - what would the US Citizenry do? There's a lot of talk of Armed Revolt and such a course of action would have hastened it.

There's a 3rd tangential position which could be defined as: This situation was created by a number of factors, including mass mail-in voting for States that traditionally do not have strong or large mail-in voting procedures and systems and so all the normal processes of redress got thrown out of the window when everything else was and therefore it's not unreasonable to wield such executive power in times like this.

This really will boil down to what happens next: If the Democrats are insistent on treating nearly half the country as Domestic Terrorists and attempting to Erase Trump's legacy from Existence - it's likely to end in a shooting match and then we'll see if Biden really is the most popular Presidential candidate in history...
And to be honest, at the rate he's going:

- Telling the Illegal Migrants now is not the time (Translation "Let me stop the Border wall, tear it down and then you can come across")
- Implementing Policies that result in Job Losses
- Implementing additional Compliance costs for struggling businesses
- Mass lockdowns that disproportionally affect the lower and middle classes

I don't think it will take too long.