Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

Trump sent Raffensperger a letter asking him to decertify election.

I covered that letter. It is too rambling, incoherent, and baseless to be evidence to anything by itself. However, Trump is still being investigated for that earlier phone call, an ongoing case as your link shows. This would be more evidence of motive in that case, I assume.

Trump might have ran that letter past his lawyers to make sure it didn't read "do this thing or I'll take action" aka an actual threat. It read more "I heard this one guy on TikTok said something, you should look into it because you suck and I hate you".

I wonder what the rules are about "So you want us to do an investigation with no evidence? I don't work for you, so you'll have to front us the money before we start". Trump has no legal standing to ask Georgia to investigate a Georgia crime without either filing charges or suing. He lucked out this time -- the matter he addressed was already under investigation. But next time, I want Raffensberger to say "We'll look into it when your check clears".

[Hollycakes]

Just saw this too.
Trumps statement about the Ohio Senate race:

"Anybody that changes the name of the once storied Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians should not be running for the United States Senate representing the Great People of Ohio," Trump wrote. "The Atlanta Braves didn’t change their name, and the Florida State Seminoles didn’t change their chant, but Cleveland has, and they were there first. Despite this, a man named Matt Dolan, the son of the owner of the team, said he is against Cancel Culture. Do those two things really work together? In any event, I know of at least one person in the race who I won’t be endorsing. The Republican Party has too many RINOs!"

That one thing disqualifies him from being able to run.
Also, it makes you not a republican it seems.
Obligatory chimp sounds.

[s_bushido]

Still think they should have changed the name to the Cleveland Crackers or the Cleveland Caucasians for a year. You know, just to see how it went.

[Shadowferal]

Still think they should have changed the name to the Cleveland Crackers or the Cleveland Caucasians for a year. You know, just to see how it went.

How about the "fighting Irish?"

[Levelfive]

Memo shows Trump lawyer's six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election.
and
Trump sent Raffensperger a letter asking him to decertify election.
(two items i just stumbled upon in looking at the news today)

The fact that Trump isn't already in custody for Election Fraud and Conspiracy to Commit speaks volumes to the issues we face as a country. I don't know if we have a way out, either, as Trump was about the dumbest dictator-wannabe that ever sprouted. Someone like Cotton will fare much better, and do far more damage.

Should be a much bigger story:

"PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL
January 6 scenario

7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate. The 12th Amendment merely provides that “the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” There is very solid legal authority, and historical precedent, for the view that the President of the Senate does the counting, including the resolution of disputed electoral votes (as Adams and Jefferson did while Vice President, regarding their own election as President), and all the Members of Congress can do is watch. The Electoral Count Act, which is likely unconstitutional, provides: If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State; but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in section 5 of this title, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its law; and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State. But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted. This is the piece that we believe is unconstitutional. It allows the two houses, “acting separately,” to decide the question, whereas the 12th Amendment provides only for a joint session. And if there is disagreement, under the Act the slate certified by the “executive” of the state is to be counted, regardless of the evidence that exists regarding the election, and regardless of whether there was ever fair review of what happened in the election, by judges and/or state legislatures.

So here’s the scenario we propose:

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."

John Eastman, Constitutional lawyer, Senior Fellow of democracy-hating Claremont Institute, the vanguard of complete moral and intellectual collapse and capitulation to the nakedly fascist project.

[Flarelaine]

I covered that letter. It is too rambling, incoherent, and baseless to be evidence to anything by itself

... unless it's Exhibit A in a psychiatric evaluation.

[Breccia]

... unless it's Exhibit A in a psychiatric evaluation.

If "I believe the election was stolen without evidence" is enough, we'll need 74 million more padded cells.

- - - Updated - - -

Abbott, still waiting on SCOTUS to rule in his favor Turmp-3, says "By the way, it includes abortion-inducing medication too".

[Breccia]

Memo shows Trump lawyer's six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election.

Should be a much bigger story

Especially these parts:

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.

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.

The word for this is "dictatorship". If you're allowed to challenge votes against you, and then using evidence of those challenges (not the results, the challenges themselves) to claim there are no valid electors, then you are proving democracy doesn't matter.

By the way, Pence isn't getting respect for this, in the same way I don't respect someone who doesn't kick a puppy. Fucking Joker doesn't kick puppies, and he's about as Chaotic Evil as it gets. Failing to do something deplorable doesn't make you a good person, it just means that you have a limit and didn't cross it.

In a sense, Pence is lucky he didn't do this. Whether he just had a line he didn't want to cross, or saw that doing this would make things worse, doesn't really matter. But imagine if he had done this, flat-out declared Trump the winner because reasons. Imagine the immediate backlash from every single nation ally of ours. The UN, for example, would have every reason to declare this a dictatorial power grab and expel the US instantly. Then there's the issue of Milley and one would assume others, watching Trump do an illegal power grab, saying "You know what, fuck this" and siding with the rest of America against tyranny. Also, we've already seen even Trump's SCOTUS appointees aren't 100% Kool-Aid drinkers, and imagine if they'd said "No, you can't do that." Now Pence, Trump, and a lot of his allies are on the record officially trying to seize power illegally. That's textbook treason. Arrested. Tried. Executed.

Remember, every single claim of fraud so far has been laughed out of court. There would be no good-faith basis for Pence to declare the states invalid. It's possible Trump waited until Pence let enough of the 7 States go past him to know he wasn't onboard, then wound up a murderous insurrection to drag him into the streets and lynch him.

Now, normally I would say "Woodward has proven himself a trusted source of factual information and I believe him when he says this is true". But this is blatant objective treason we're talking about here. If that memo was actually written and sent, it needs to be found and turned over to the murderous insurrection committees. Should that happen, hopefully, we can find which law that plan broke...or if it's not technically illegal to conspire to commit treason, shore up the rules to prevent that from happening ever. Basically, "my power is absolute" needs to have a giant red asterisk written next to it. A Vice President throwing out votes that aren't for him with no factual basis needs to be prevented.

To put it another way: let's assume Obama/Biden saw the results in 2016 and did the same thing?

"Well there weren't 26 blue states--"

Not the point. What if Biden had said "Florida and Texas are too close to call, plus Some Guy On Twitter said he saw a white guy in a hoodie moving boxes, I'm throwing them out, my close personal friend Clinton wins"? Republicans would have been livid, and rightly so. That's not America. That's not even Mexico.

If this memo exists, it must be found and made public. In the meantime, I wouldn't mind seeing Graham, Lee, and Pence under oath testifying to exactly this situation. They'll refuse, and we'll immediately know what that refusal means.

[Benggaul]

Monday quickie report:

86,072 new cases; 746 deaths, bringing the total to 694,619. Not including Florida. Cases are way down over last week and the week before, but are still higher than the highest peak of the previous Summer and more than double the total on this date last year. We're not in good shape heading into the fall.

There is good news on the horizon:

Pfizer says its Covid jab safe for children aged 5-11

It will still take time for emergency approval and distribution, but this is an important step.

Stay safe, folks.

[Breccia]

Monday quickie report

Hey that's what I call it when Graham's wife and I--

There is good news on the horizon:

Pfizer says its Covid jab safe for children aged 5-11

This is good news. I'm putting the cart before the horse here, but if schoolchildren can be vaccinated before the holidays, it will make returning from the holidays a much lower spike than last year.

[PhaelixWW]

Here's a special Fuck Florida double-header:

USA Today: Florida man dies of COVID-19 just minutes before his first grandchild is born

A Florida man died from COVID-19 this month just 20 minutes before his first grandchild was born.

Shane O’Neal, 40, died from COVID-19 at approximately 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 3. His daughter, Kylie Dean, gave birth to her son, Preston, at 3:49 a.m. the same morning.

Dean, an ICU nurse, told USA TODAY that her father was “super excited” about the birth of his first grandchild.

“Every time he’d go to the store, he’d pick up some baby clothes or baby toys,” she said.

But her father, who was from the Jacksonville, Florida, area, tested positive for COVID-19 last month and was hospitalized for his symptoms. Dean said her father was not vaccinated against COVID-19, but he was scheduled to receive his inoculation the same week he tested positive for the virus.

Miami Herald: Florida’s next surgeon general opposes mask, vaccine mandates

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a new surgeon general for Florida on Tuesday, a Harvard-trained doctor who advocated for an approach to the coronavirus pandemic that emphasizes protecting individual rights over community-based precautions.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, a UCLA researcher who expressed skepticism of vaccines to end the pandemic, said Tuesday that he would “reject fear” as a public health strategy.

“Florida will completely reject fear as a way of making policies,” Ladapo said. “That’s been something that’s been unfortunately a centerpiece of health policies.”

As surgeon general, Ladapo will oversee the state’s Department of Health, Florida’s lead agency on combating the coronavirus pandemic. He replaces Dr. Scott Rivkees, a pediatrician whose last day was Monday.

Ladapo indicated on Tuesday that he’ll play a more prominent role than Rivkees, who was noticeably absent from public appearances over the last year.

Since the start of the pandemic, Ladapo has penned op-eds in the Wall Street Journal challenging main assertions by national health experts.

On Tuesday, he told reporters he wanted to address the “climate of mistrust” among the public about the nation’s coronavirus response, which has been a consistent theme of DeSantis’ since the start of the pandemic.

“That was a direct result of scientists, my colleagues, some of them, taking the science and basically misrepresenting it to fit their agendas,” Ladapo said. “This idea that people don’t get to make their own decisions on issues of health is wrong, and it’s not something that we’re going to be about.”

When asked whether the state should be promoting vaccines on Tuesday, Ladapo replied that too much emphasis had been placed on vaccines.

“The state should be promoting good health, and vaccination isn’t the only path for that,” Ladapo said. “It’s been treated almost like a religion, and that’s just senseless.”

He said the state should be supporting many measures for good health: “vaccination, losing weight, exercising more [and] eating more fruits and vegetables.”

Like, the words... I don't even...

[Edge-]

Like, the words... I don't even...

What the fuck does, "reject fear" even mean?

We removing seatbelt laws because those are for cowards?
Food safety standards because we're not a bunch of sackless cucks?
Traffic laws because those are for the spineless?
Banning night lights for children because that's for pussies?
Mandatory horror movie screenings to get people to overcome their fears?

Medical licensing boards really do seem like they could use a revisiting, because there are clearly a lot of licensed medical professionals who are issuing disturbingly bad medical "advice".

[s_bushido]

What the fuck does, "reject fear" even mean?

Well, since apparently Florida is a state that can't vote to eject their governor prematurely, they don't have to fear being replaced for another ~year and a half. Plenty of time to murder thousands more people in the name of "Freedom!"

[Edge-]

Well, since apparently Florida is a state that can't vote to eject their governor prematurely, they don't have to fear being replaced for another ~year and a half. Plenty of time to murder thousands more people in the name of "Freedom!"

Not gonna lie, I'm genuinely curious for the 2022 elections to see how the covid deaths impact voting in some of the slightly purple-ish states. Have Republicans managed to kill off enough of their base to lose power? Tune in on Nov. 2020 to find out!

[Poopymonster]

What the fuck does, "reject fear" even mean?

These inDUHviduals won't be motivated by fear into doing anything.
*ALSO*
These inDUHviduals need to take a gun with them to Publix in case Antifa tries to inject Gay Isis into Nascar.

[Fugus]

What the fuck does, "reject fear" even mean?

We removing seatbelt laws because those are for cowards?
Food safety standards because we're not a bunch of sackless cucks?
Traffic laws because those are for the spineless?
Banning night lights for children because that's for pussies?
Mandatory horror movie screenings to get people to overcome their fears?

Medical licensing boards really do seem like they could use a revisiting, because there are clearly a lot of licensed medical professionals who are issuing disturbingly bad medical "advice".

Wouldn't these views of his be grounds to get him banned from practicing in the healthcare profession? Hell, that would call the credibility of his college of choice into question if they graduated someone that stupid.

[s_bushido]

Not gonna lie, I'm genuinely curious for the 2022 elections to see how the covid deaths impact voting in some of the slightly purple-ish states. Have Republicans managed to kill off enough of their base to lose power? Tune in on Nov. 2020 to find out!

If this ends up having any impact on voting think it might come down less to the raw bodycount and more to the friends and families of the deceased getting a wakeup call that fuckers like DeSantis don't care whether or not they live or die. We'll see. Because hundreds of thousands had died in the lead-up to the 2020 elections and Trump still received the 2nd most votes of a presidential candidate ever. The right in this country is broken, but not in a way that will prevent people from coming out and voting against their own well-being. At least not yet.

[Edge-]

Wouldn't these views of his be grounds to get him banned from practicing in the healthcare profession? Hell, that would call the credibility of his college of choice into question if they graduated someone that stupid.

One would hope, but given that "demon sperm makes you infertile" lady still has a medical license, I'm skeptical.

I get the concern, policing personal views of doctors can get dangerous very quickly, but this is like...fairly straightforward shit.

[Rasulis]

Here's a special Fuck Florida double-header:

Like, the words... I don't even...

It's Florida.

Biden vaccine push so far has failed to increase COVID shots delivered in Florida

President Joe Biden's recent push to encourage more people to get the COVID-19 vaccine has failed to move the needle much locally or statewide so far.

Latest data from the Florida Department of Health shows that the number of people getting their initial COVID-19 vaccination in Brevard County fell for the seventh straight week.

The figure was 2,407 during the week of Sept. 10 to Sept. 16. That's less than one-third of what it was during the week of July 30 to Aug. 5, when 7,610 people in Brevard got their first shot.

Similarly, statewide figures have steadily fallen from 290,769 first doses during the week of July 30 to Aug. 5 to 122,315 first doses during the week of Sept. 10 to Sept. 16.

Brevard-based state health officials and the county's emergency management director expressed concern about the falling numbers during the Brevard County's latest COVID-19 briefing on Friday.

We know a fifth wave is coming.

[Fugus]

One would hope, but given that "demon sperm makes you infertile" lady still has a medical license, I'm skeptical.

I get the concern, policing personal views of doctors can get dangerous very quickly, but this is like...fairly straightforward shit.

Yeah, very concerning and completely devalues the worth of a Medical license in America.