Hodad

You were, of course, right on target.

You could read this thread or any of a dozen others. The coup and coup memos have been discussed as nauseum. The courts did as they felt was appropriate--over and over again consistently. You are welcome, as a foreigner and a layperson to voice whatever opinion you have. Whatever that is worth. And if you actually believed in Karma you'd be a better, kinder person.

"Everything" isn't. But a coup certainly is. Ballots--of all types--had their day in court. Your fantasies about legality are just that.

Exactly. No future statement is factual. All forward looking statements are statements of intent or predictions.

"How does that play out?" "Well yeah, but how does that play out?" "But I'm really curious to know how that would play out?" Jeebus. You're just like a black hole of information. No amount of answering is going to resolve your willful misunderstanding. I'm going to go explain these very basic concepts to a houseplant. That seems like a more fulfilling effort, as you're incapable of an honest conversation.

Power and authority are two different things. Of course the Vice President is not actually vested that legal authority. But did Pence have the "power" to declare it? Yes, he did. Along with a specious legal argument to justify it and the backing of the sitting president as well as numerous enablers in the legislature. And you pretend not to be familiar with democracy, but yes, when the sitting president illegally overturns a democratic election to declare himself the winner, the democracy is in crisis. That's a farking coup. There is no prescribed remedy for such a situation. So there is no satisfying outcome, one way or another. Just irreparably damaged institutions. ^^ and all of this is the same thing I told you before, but you waved your hands and pretended it wasn't there.

Bullshit. Your idea of "scrutiny" is just waving your hands around, as usual. It would have been an immediate existential crisis if Pence had agreed to go along with the scheme to reject state-certified electoral votes for Biden and had pronounced Trump the winner instead. No big deal, you say? If you believe that, maybe you're not just playing dumb.

Disingenuous denial and hand waving. Apparently that's all you're good for.

Okay, wave your hands and pretend it didn't happen--that these were just "legal theories." Wave 'em all around like a confused baby T-rex. Have fun with that. Meanwhile, back in reality there were prescribed actions taken by Trump and his co-conspirators to overturn democracy and seize power--a plot foiled by Vice President Pence. It's not even that you can't understand what transpired. You just don't have any interest in doing so because you'd like him to have another bite at the apple. For shame.

Lol. Whatever you have to tell yourself.

Sorry, but not even close. There will be an appeal. This is a ploy that has been tried and rejected by many courts in the past. The notion of special counsel is pretty well established, so this rogue decision by what seems to be an incompetent judge (or working so hard for Trump that she's willing to appear incompetent) is very likely to be overturned. This sort of disruptive reimagining of established law and practice by lower court judges typically does not end well. But in doing so, Cannon has engineered yet another delay, so mission accomplished on that front.

This cannot be a real conversation. Coups are--almost by definition--illegal. All that is required for success is to have the right people in the right positions of power at the right times. Coups short circuit the law or disregard it altogether. They succeed if they are well executed. The content of their plan is exactly how it played out--with the one dealbreaker being Pence. The other necessary components were operationalized. They tried their hardest to make it happen--including Trump sicking the mob on Pence. It would have been "fought over"? Yes, indeed, it would have--a fight with no rules. There is no prescribed remedy for such a situation. Assuming that we wouldn't slip immediately into rioting violence and potentially civil war, the best case scenario is that it goes before the SCOTUS. And with this perverse version of the SCOTUS it's anyone's guess what happens, but in either case the losing side would not accept the outcome. Does a cabal committed to overthrowing democracy listen to the SCOTUS if they are refused? They didn't listen to the voters. They didn't listen to the constitution. They didn't listen to 250 years of precedent. But in the event this SCOTUS could muster up some decency, suddenly 9 justices are a sufficient deterrent when everything else was not? With a contested and uncertain presidency on Jan 20, who controls the country? The Military? They didn't need to get everyone to agree. They simply needed to create enough chaos and dysfunction to plausibly retain power. And that's what they tried to do. The damage would have been immeasurable, delegitimizing every institution and functionally destroying the republic. All the seeds planted by the false narrative of election fraud nurtured to a disastrous harvest.

Housing discrimination case. Trump charity case. Trump University cases. Racketeering lawsuit backfire. Real estate fraud case. Rape lawsuit. 34 felony convictions. All just hack judges. Trump is awesome, he just has bad luck.🙄

A. No one actually believed these were legitimate theories. Eastman himself admitted the scheme was illegal. It was a facade for a coup. Hence why Eastman asked for a pardon. B. I did answer your question. Nothing has to "go their way." If Pence had agreed the deed--and the damage--would have been done. There is no process or procedure in our system of government to respond to a coup. The founding fathers didn't account for the unimaginable. And there is no restorative remedy for a coup that has destroyed confidence to a system of government, whether it survives or not. The same fools who believe the election was stolen would have believed the coup justified.

Tabula rasa man has entered the chat! You could just read the memo. It's presented in bullet point format. 🙄 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). 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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.

You are ridiculous. They put every element of the coup memo into action and did a full-court press on Pence to coerce him into violating his oath. Pence wouldn't play along. And it was a "legal theory" that no one agreed with. The author himself acknowledged that it was illegal. Alternate electors are not common, but could be seen as a reasonable preparation in a close race with pending recount. That was not the case with Trump. There was were no close counts on Jan. 6 when they sent those certificates to the floor of the Senate. That was done solely and exclusively in service of the attempt to overthrow democracy. And yes, OF COURSE Trump is to blame for his fanatics calling for Pence's head. Who the fark do you think was lying to them about Pence's options and obligations. Pence was a loyal enabler until the very last bright line he wouldn't cross. The MAGA crowd loved him, until Trump told them not to. You're just being a clown here. This shit all happened and is recorded history that any literature person can read about. If you support the attempted coup because the end justifies any means, have the courage to own your convictions. But to pretend like it didn't happen just makes you look ridiculous. No exaggeration whatsoever. Mike Pence, of all unlikely heroes, saved the Republic.

No, you twit. The memo was "used." They tried to carry it out. WTF do you think Trump was talking about on Jan. 6 with regard to Pence? Why do you think Trump's insurrectionists were calling to "Hang Mike Pence"? The fake elector ballots were literally on the floor of the US Senate before Pence's people rejected them. Literally, the only thing that preserved democracy that day was that Pence refused to participate in the coup.

You seem to be a fountain of misinformation on this topic, posting videos of the wrong guy, misidentifying people and whatever other random shit you see on social media. Every credible outlet is currently identifying 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, a registered Republican with motive TBD.

Lol. Do you think you're the little boy from the Twilight Zone who can rewrite reality on a whim? Sorry, the facts are the facts. The coup memo exists. The fake electors exist. Trump's Jan. 6 speech exists. And your hand-waving won't rewrite history.

And now you are blatantly lying. Blatantly. Trump lost the election, and tried to convince Mike Pence to simply declare him the winner or to declare a contingent election based of fake electors. That's not a theory or an opinion. It's documented fact. He literally tried to overthrow democracy and seize power from the people. It is beyond imagination that you self-proclaimed patriots could ever forgive such an action, turning your backs on your country in service of this singularly horrible man.

Some Americans will definitely believe this. They aren't very bright, nor educated enough to recall any xenophobic, nationalist, authoritarian, narcissists who narrowly avoided assassination attempts. 🤷‍♂️

That may be why someone shot at him. (Some people take the end of democracy very seriously.) But it's absolutely not a lie. It's 100% true.

Yes, they did. What was Trump's response? Of, that's right, to still withdraw nearly all the troops and let the Taliban have Afghanistan.

You are just stunningly dumb. If "Joe and the Dems" and had ANY interest in dictatorship and controlled those institutions, it would be over already. But they don't have any interest in dictatorship and they don't control those institutions--nor do they seek to. The press gives poor coverage of Trump because he's a pathological liar and toxic narcissist with no redeeming qualities. The law "persecutes" Trump because he's a crook, and always has been. Only one party--or the fringe of one party--has ever tried to overthrow democracy and end the Republic You sound, as always, like a goddamn lunatic.

For critical thinking, you're barking up the wrong trees. But it's rather like the question of the death penalty. How many innocents should the state murder to satisfy the primitive instinct for retributive justice against the guilty? How many citizens should the state disenfranchise to soothe unfounded fears of voter fraud? We prove eligibility when we register that is sufficient. Despite all the the fear mongering, rigorous study confirms every time that voter fraud is not a significant issue. There is no bogeyman to fight. We should not disenfranchise any eligible American solely to assuage the unfounded fears of their countrymen.