Cont: Trump’s Coup - Part 2

[wareyin]

Dissect the common figure of speech into oblivion, then, and pretend you don't understand the point. Fine.

For it to apply, there ought to be at least something at least approaching analogous.



Just for the kickoff:

439, 54 Stat. 670, 18 U.S.C. § 2385 is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government by force or violence, and required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the federal government.

And why doesn't that apply?

 

[Thermal]

For it to apply, there ought to be at least something at least approaching analogous.

The mindset is. But this is boring.

And why doesn't that apply?

Because they had not done so. You're up. So far you are losing badly on your asertion that it is not codified into law. I have proven it is. Prove otherwise, slugger.

 

[CORed]

The simplest way to put this:

The Dildo Stormers were a pack of dogs chasing a car. They caught it, and of course didn't know what to do with it. You and yours think the dogs were plotting an organized carjacking.

This is not complicated. A coup, by any definition, is an attempt to wrest power undemocratically. The dildos had no actual objective. They were ******* dogs chasing a ******* car. Go put Spot and Fido on the stand and charge them with conspiracy to commit carjacking. Whatever. I say throw the rabid things in the pound for what they really did.

I think the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who planned and executed the breach did have a plan. Remember that they actually set up a functional gallows. I do not think "Hang Mike Pence" was hyperbole. They meant to do it. I believe their plan was to capture members of Congress, hold them hostage, and kill as many as they had to to force a vote to overturn the election. I don't think it was a plan that actually had much chance of succeeding, but I think that was their intent. There were also a bunch of people who just wandered into the Capitol after the security was breached and acted like idiots, you know, just peaceful tourists.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Hanging would have been too lenient for him.

Only appropriate punishment would have been Vogon Poetry.

 

[Warp12]

I think the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who planned and executed the breach did have a plan. Remember that they actually set up a functional gallows. I do not think "Hang Mike Pence" was hyperbole. They meant to do it. I believe their plan was to capture members of Congress, hold them hostage, and kill as many as they had to to force a vote to overturn the election. I don't think it was a plan that actually had much chance of succeeding, but I think that was their intent. There were also a bunch of people who just wandered into the Capitol after the security was breached and acted like idiots, you know, just peaceful tourists.

Ok, so where do we start, here?

Forget it.

 

[gnome]

I dunno. What propositions you got?

Seriously, my argument is to be objective and accurate, versus hyperbolic and swooning. I don't think that should be too high a bar on a skeptics forum. Call a coup a coup, and call mindless violent douchebaggery in kind.

So we might be on a false dichotomy here, because I think there's something more significant about an attempt to subvert an election by force, that was stopped far further along than it had any business achieving, than your described "mindless violent douchebaggery". If you can see that I'll give up on trying to convince you it's an attempt to overthrow the government. We can decide for ourselves what we want to call it.

 

[d4m10n]

He got 8 months is prison. I think that's certainly not too little time, but I don't really know how much more would be appropriate. This is really uncharted territory.

I'd've preferred something more in line w/ trying to interrupt the constitutional transfer of power. Perhaps a liftime of Januarys in election years.

 

[Thermal]

So we might be on a false dichotomy here, because I think there's something more significant about an attempt to subvert an election by force, that was stopped far further along than it had any business achieving, than your described "mindless violent douchebaggery". If you can see that I'll give up on trying to convince you it's an attempt to overthrow the government. We can decide for ourselves what we want to call it.

Well....agreed. I've been saying all along that their interfering with the electoral process is inexcusable and a heavy crime. It's just not a coup. Shooting tires out, to use an earlier analogy, is a serious crime, but a different one thsn carjacking. The Dildos shot the tires out (to further abuse it) and the tires were changed and democracy on it's merry way in short order. That wouldn't have been the case were they jacked.

But happy to agree that they are all felons who will soon be languishing in cells, where they belong.

 

[Stacyhs]

When you have rioters inside the Capitol and they're calling to hang the Vice President, actively searching for other members of Congress, saying “While we’re here, we might as well set up a government,” and “1776—it’s now or never,” a member of Congress, Lauren Boebert, tweeting “Today is 1776,” and another rioter yelling “Donald Trump is the emperor of the United States . . .” then it's an attempted coup.

When you have a leader of some of those insurrectionists saying “This is the opportunity to galvanize the patriots of this country behind a real solution to these problems that we’re facing. If we can’t get a country that we deserve to live in through the legitimate process, then maybe we need to begin to explore some other options. Our Founding Fathers would get in the streets, and they would take this country back by force if necessary. And that is what we must be prepared to do,” it's an attempted coup.

When you have people leaving the riot and saying, “We have guns, too, m*********s!” With a lot bigger rounds!” And another man, wearing a do-rag that said “**** your feelings,” saying "If we have to tool up, it’s gonna be over. It’s gonna come to that. Next week, Trump’s gonna say, ‘Come to D.C.’ And we’re coming heavy,” and another saying “We need to come back with guns. One time with guns, and then we’ll never have to do this again, ” it was an attempted coup.
(Quotes taken from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/among-the-insurrectionists)

Call it any other name you want but a coup by any other name is still a coup.

 

[Thermal]

I think the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who planned and executed the breach did have a plan. Remember that they actually set up a functional gallows. I do not think "Hang Mike Pence" was hyperbole. They meant to do it. I believe their plan was to capture members of Congress, hold them hostage, and kill as many as they had to to force a vote to overturn the election. I don't think it was a plan that actually had much chance of succeeding, but I think that was their intent. There were also a bunch of people who just wandered into the Capitol after the security was breached and acted like idiots, you know, just peaceful tourists.

That gallows looked entirely like a knock-down prop to yours truly, but it's really here nor there. Someone spent hours building it, then...what? Forgot they came there to commit a broad daylight premeditated murder? See, to my way of thinking, it was a prop, and having served its purpose, was knocked back down and drove casually home, the way I build and transport mini floats for Halloween parades. Their behavior was precisely consistent with my view of their motivations.

If they were indeed mass political assassins, do you find it at all odd that they threw up their hands and gave up so easily? No standoff, demanding Pence? No firearms or anything brought out of the trucks? Again, in my view, 100% consistent with my view of their motivations. A little inexplicable with yours.

 

[gnome]

That isn't very reassuring. I think not much happened because the congresspeople were successfully evacuated. They came without weapons because they could too easily get caught with them before getting the action off the ground. Didn't we find out that some of the groups prepared weapon caches offsite?

I think what plan they had (as I agree they were poorly organized) involved overwhelming the security by numbers, counting on the minimized response and possibly even help by some of the police. I genuinely think they believed they had enough of "their own" in law enforcement that they expected a lot of police would join them on the spot.

Then having control of the building, some high value hostages, and some police on their side, they'd plan on getting the weapons in while more serious reinforcements were still being mobilized against them. If they really did plan on killing anyone, I figure this would be when that happened. They may have even hoped that if Trump started openly aligning with them, that some military units would assist them as well. I think they hoped that Trump would tweet the "storm is upon us" line. The more cynical of the ringleaders among them might have hoped Trump would be unable to resist doing it just to see what happened.

But as much as the police response and requested reinforcements was either bungled or deliberately hobbled (I still think we need to be more certain which), they were not joined by any of the capitol police, and were not able to get to the congresspeople before they were evacuated. Trump was slow to denounce them, but also he did not try to commit himself to their cause. And so it fizzled instead.

 

[wareyin]

The mindset is. But this is boring.

The mindset between just doing a thing on the spur of the moment vs the thought out planning days or weeks ahead? You sure?

Because they had not done so. You're up. So far you are losing badly on your asertion that it is not codified into law. I have proven it is. Prove otherwise, slugger.

So your assertion that the alien registration act didn't apply to the coup hinges on the fact that the prosecutors didn't charge anyone? That's circular logic, and also fails to take into account the fact that prosecutors rarely charge people with every possible broken law, especially one that became a lot more difficult to apply after 1957. I found one use in 1961, but nothing since then.

Is that the best you can do?

 

[Lurch]

He got 8 months is prison. I think that's certainly not too little time, but I don't really know how much more would be appropriate. This is really uncharted territory.

But there's the case of some black woman mistakenly voting because her probation wasn't fully served, and she got 5 years.

It's a ****** up justice system that permits this kind of disparity.

 

[Warp12]

But there's the case of some black woman mistakenly voting because her probation wasn't fully served, and she got 5 years.

It's a ****** up justice system that permits this kind of disparity.

Link?

 

[gnome]

A less ambitious plan--many might have thought that if the certification of EV's could be decisively prevented, that the "House delegations vote on it one per state because there was no majority" would kick in and secure Trump's presidency. Nevermind that being a misreading of the Constitution, considering that they thought Pence could unilaterally generate that result. They wanted to try to make it happen themselves.

 

[gnome]

Link?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/01/texas-woman-jailed-five-years-voting-probation

According to the Washington Post, of 38 Texas prosecutions for illegal voting between 2005 and 2017, only one resulted in a sentence of more than three years. It involved a public official knowingly registering several non-citizens to vote.

But in 2015 the state elected attorney general Ken Paxton in part on a platform of rooting out voter fraud. He decided to make an example of Ortega. Announcing Ortega’s indictment, Paxton said election integrity was “essential to our democracy and a top priority of my administration”.

 

[Stacyhs]

McCarthy just named these men to the House Jan. 6 investigative committee:

Jim Banks
Kelly Armstrong
Rodney Davis
Jim Jordan
Troy Nehls

All of them are outspoken Trump loyalists, especially Jim JORDAN.

 

[Warp12]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/01/texas-woman-jailed-five-years-voting-probation

At the time of the 2016 election Mason was on probation, having served nearly three years of a five-year sentence for defrauding the federal government. A former tax preparer, in 2011 she was accused of illegally inflating refunds for clients. She was convicted the following year.

Mason was put on a three-year term of supervised release and had to pay $4.2m in restitution, according to court documents.

Casual criminal... $4.2m in restitution. Clearly race was the main issue, as it is key in the reporting.

Please mods, move this BS.

 

[eerok]

McCarthy just named these men to the House Jan. 6 investigative committee:

Jim Banks
Kelly Armstrong
Rodney Davis
Jim Jordan
Troy Nehls

All of them are outspoken Trump loyalists, especially Jim JORDAN.

Isn't it the Grand Obstructive Party after all?

 

[Stacyhs]

Banks on Jan. 6:

Wallace continued to push Banks, finally asking “is Joe Biden the legitimate president of the United States?”

“Yes, Joe Biden was elected. He was inaugurated on Jan. 20,” Banks said.

“Is it a lie that the election was stolen? Did he contribute to the insurrection on the Capitol?” Wallace said.

“I’ve never said that the election was stolen. I’ve said I have very serious concerns with how the election was conducted last November because of COVID rules that loosened voter identification laws. That’s why I objected on Jan. 6. I’ll never apologize for that,” Banks said, referring to how he and other Republicans objected to certifying the Electoral College votes for Biden.

https://nypost.com/2021/05/09/gop-rep-banks-liz-cheney-is-a-distraction-and-must-be-ousted/

He just gave a politician's answer for not wanting to come out and say "the election was stolen."

R. Davis was the only one of the five to have voted for the independent investigation.

Kelley Armstrong seems to vote pretty much along party lines but I haven't seen him make any outright outrageous and false remarks about Jan. 6 some some others. Of course, he did vote not guilty in both impeachment trials. He's a first term rep.

Troy Nehls is also a first term rep. and former sheriff. He also voted against certifying the election. So we know where he stands.

Jim Jordan...we all know where that Trump sycophant stands.