Friday, January 13, 2023

How Republics Die-Tyrants, Patriots And The Faithless. Part III

 



    

                                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXrWGJ96B14


    If you can stand more than a minute of this video without breaking something you are a better person than I am. "...peddling lies and misinformation..." says the laughing hyena. You can literally see her trying very hard NOT to break out into her signature cackle as she shovels the shit to the camera. But never let a crisis go to waste. She ends the video with her call to pass new Federal Voting Laws to ensure Democrat hegemony.

    In a subsequent interview with Hakeem Jeffries on PBS he checks off all the boxes from the J6 report. "The Big Lie". "Violent Attack". "Incited by.. President Trump". He claims the J6 Select Committee report is to find out the truth but in reality all it did was point fingers. Around the 3:50 mark of the video link below Judy Woodruff states in her interview with Jeffries how Liz Cheney approached him as the event was unfolding and spoke to him about how to hold President Trump accountable. Jeffries had stated this in a previous interview.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GVsrZOcKu0

    So, don't blow smoke up my ass about how this entire Star Chamber was about telling the truth. It was Cheney's intention to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the former President.

    As the stories trickled out across the media numbers fluctuated wildly about the deaths and injuries both of police and protestors. It is important to flood the media with speculation. This helps to solidify public opinion. Subsequent facts that bear out later will lose their impact because the propaganda has already taken hold in the minds of Americans.

    Dozens of police were killed or injured were the tearful testimonies of officers live on the made for television hearings. The body cam footage is very graphic. Footage and computer imagery outline in detail how the security of the Capitol was sorely lacking. Calls for reinforcements went unanswered. National Guard were no where to be found until much, much later.

    One can only imagine the carnage if armed National Guard opened fire on the crowd.

           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsQTY9083r8

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibWJO02nNsY

(NOTE: Around the 12:30-35 mark of the second video the murder of Ashli Babbit can be seen.)

    Between 3:00-3:30 pm Pelosi and Schummer were on the phone with acting AG Jeffery Rosen and Gov. Northam of VA while holed up in a conference room. In both conversations she explicitly places blame on President Trump.

How did she know this? What evidence did she have?

           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B8x8ZbFmtc


    At 1:20 pm Republican Representative Paul Gozar from Arizona rose to speak on the floor of his objection to the electoral count from his state. At 11pm it had failed to pass. At 12 am 70 House Republicans contested the Electoral votes from Georgia. It too failed to pass. Members objected to Michigan and Nevada. The seconding of the Michigan objection was "in writing". Pence gaveled it away. At 12:15 am Senator Hawley signed on to an objection from Pennsylvania to no avail. At 3:30 am multiple Senators objected to Wisconsin but it failed as well.

    On multiple occasions the vote was contested. The mail in ballots, questionable certifications and the denial of a separate slate of Electors were summarily ignored. Despite the debate over the VP role in this proceeding Pence abdicated his responsibility to ensure that a proper investigation take place and that the will of the voters be heard.  Regardless of the fact that the 12th Amendment places the VP in a ceremonial role he sure had no problem with the gavel. His refusal to hold off the voting until investigations were completed sheds doubt on the entire fiasco.

    According to the J6 report the President was "crazy". However if  State Legislators from contested states were willing to sign on to an investigation, other Electors and House/Senate members were objecting on the Capitol floor; How was this a legitimate election?

   No one in charge wanted to do anything. The pleas from Trump and his legal team were shot down time after time by Judges, Governors and even members of his own Cabinet.

The fix was in.

    The Electoral process is, well...Ummm... Messy.

    The Constitution leaves it up to the states so there is not a lot of guidance there. Each party selects electoral members. There are 29 states, including DC, that require electors vote for their party nominee. Fines, penalties and ouster from the party can be imposed if an elector votes OUTSIDE the party line. The remaining states do not hold members to such restrictions however consequences do exist.

And, this has happened more times than you realize.

    However there is a catch.

   "....each state legislature has the ability to determine how its constitutionally-mandated electoral votes (equal to its total Congressional representation) are assigned to specific candidates.....In 48 states, the state legislature currently mandates that the winner of the majority of citizen votes (known as the popular vote) receives all of the state’s electoral votes..."

This is known as a winner-take-all or unit rule procedure.

                        https://electoralvotemap.com/

    So, how is it that the rules apply along party lines to vote for the nominee while state legislatures impose laws based on 'winner take all' popular votes? Electors are working under three sets of rules.

1. 29 state parties demand electors vote party lines.

2. 21 state parties don't.

3. State Law demands electors vote according to who ends up with the most popular votes.

    Maine and Nebraska are two outliers that can split their electoral votes. 

Then, there are what is known as Faithless Electors. 

I told you this was messy.

    There have been 167 Faithless Electors throughout US history. These people literally vote their conscience and exist primarily in the 21 states I mention above. It is perfectly legal and Article 2, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution codifies this. Our Founders were very clear to allow such dissent to keep check on unbridled (d)emocracy.

    According to Georgetown student and intern to (D-NY) to Eliot Engel, Raffi Piliero writes about Faithless Electors. 

".. This is unfortunate, as this concept, one very rarely written about, discussed, or debated, has the potential to create a range of undesirable effects on our elections....A constitutional oddity at best and a design with the potential to nullify millions of votes at worst, the system of faithless electors is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off at the least inopportune time; to hand the election to someone who got a minority of the vote..."

    These were the Electors the Trump team, Reps and Senators as well as various State Legislators were talking about. There were plenty of dissenters in the 2020 election. But, as Piliero states there was probably very little knowledge out there about such an anomaly that has historical precedent.

"...The 2016 presidential election represented the largest number of faithless electors against living candidates since 1836. A total of 10 faithless electors went against their party’s wishes with eight Democratic and two Republican faithless electors... A trio of electors expressed their displeasure with Republican nominee Richard Nixon across three elections. Oklahoma elector Henry Irwin opposed Nixon and Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960, opting for a ticket of Harry Byrd and Barry Goldwater. In 1968, Lloyd Bailey from North Carolina went against Nixon’s campaign to vote for independent candidate George Wallace. Virginia Republican elector Roger McBridge opposed Nixon’s re-election campaign by casting his vote for Libertarian Party candidate John Hospers... Following the 1832 presidential election, Vice President Martin Van Buren’s lack of popularity in Pennsylvania led 30 state electors to cast ballots for William Wilkins....

     Throughout the J6 report the phrase appears multiple times stating that Trump's concerns were "baseless". That there was "no evidence" lending credence to his claim that there could exist a separate slate of Electors. In fact the report claims over and over his demand to have those Electors added to the count was illegal. And those who stood by their convictions were summoned to The Star Chamber.

    Instead of the lawsuits and Congressional objections being allowed to sift out the details and give voice to those dissenters the system kept chugging along under the ruse of a "peaceful transition of power". There simply was not enough time and not enough support amongst those in power.

 And those in power knew this.


....And That Is The Diatribe....



No comments:

Post a Comment