The Jan. 6 Investigation

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Armitage72 said:
During the disputes following the 2000 election, I saw people claim that the election had made the US a laughing stock around the world. I pointed out that there were a number of countries where an election like that would have been resolved by one side leading troops and tanks into the capital, so there was really nothing to laugh about. At least we're still not at that level. Yet.
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The right wing won't need tanks. They'll cook up some procedural BS that, when challenged, the SCOTUS will affirm and the Democrats in power will just roll over.

The most hated thing in this country is Disorder. An orderly and illegal power grab would be more palatable to liberals in this country than causing a ruckus. Look to Bush v Gore as the template, not tanks rolling down the streets.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
The right wing won't need tanks. They'll cook up some procedural BS that, when challenged, the SCOTUS will affirm and the Democrats in power will just roll over.

The most hated thing in this country is Disorder. An orderly and illegal power grab would be more palatable to liberals in this country than causing a ruckus. Look to Bush v Gore as the template, not tanks rolling down the streets.
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A year ago I was predicting Trump would be re-elected by a vote of 6-3 or 5-4. I'm happy to have been wrong about that, but it could still happen.
The likelihood of Biden getting to nominate and confirm a new justice is very low.
 
Trebuchet said:
A year ago I was predicting Trump would be re-elected by a vote of 6-3 or 5-4. I'm happy to have been wrong about that, but it could still happen.
The likelihood of Biden getting to nominate and confirm a new justice is very low.
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How exactly does SCOTUS do this? You do know that nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the court the authority to do this don't you?

POTUS was elected by a majority of the population and and a majority of the Electoral College. That is how the Constitution says how we elect Presidents. PERIOD.

I'm going to humor you and entertain this idea for a moment. Let's say the court does this.
1. How do they rationalize such a ruling?
And
2.How does it enforce such a ruling?

The fastest way the court could make itself entirely irrelevant would be to make such a ruling.
If I was POTUS and the SCOTUS made such a ruling, I would disband the court saying that the court overstepped its authority and clearly cannot do its job.

Your move.
 
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What if the SCOTUS doesn't want to disband, and keeps going? At some point don't you need to have some kind of police or military intervention? And who's side are they on?
 
LongFuzzy said:
What if the SCOTUS doesn't want to disband, and keeps going? At some point don't you need to have some kind of police or military intervention? And who's side are they on?
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Who cares? SCOTUS doesn't command an army or hundreds of thousands of government workers. Does it? It doesn't pay the salaries. The Executive does.

SCOTUS shows up at the court and find the locks changed. What are they going to do then? What if POTUS appoints 9 replacements?

POTUS has more Constitutional authority to do the latter than SCOTUS has to declare who POTUS is.

SCOTUS doesn't command the military.
It doesn't even command a police force.

Whereas the Executive Branch commands
The military forces.
The FBI
The CIA
The GSA
etc
etc
etc
 
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smartcooky said:
I think you probably don't realise how bloody close to that you got.

Trump was very busy in the few weeks before Jan 6 installing his own sycophants and lackeys into the hierarchy of the Pentagon, in places where he would have a better chance of getting control of the military. I shudder to think what might have happened if he had taken the next two logical steps.

1. Firing Mark Milley and installing a Trump-friendly Flag Officer as head of the Joint Chiefs.

2. Firing Jeffrey Rosen and Richard O'Donohue as acting and deputy acting AG respectively, and appointing Jeffrey Clark, who had written to the AG Rosen and insisted he announce the DoJ was investigating massive election fraud.

Trump just didn't have enough time, intelligence or wherewithal to get the job done... But he and his fellow wannabe seditionists have now created the blueprint, and unless there are some severe consequences for those people involved, they will simply regard it as a dress rehearsal to shake out the flaws. The won't make the same mistakes next time, and even if its not Trump, if they get someone who is really smart, such as Josh Hawley, into the presidency, you can kiss your democracy goodbye.

Josh Hawley scares the **** out of me. Whereas others of his ilk such as Taylor-Greene, Boebert, Gosar and Cawthorne are just dumb-**** carnival barkers, Hawley is the real deal - he's smart, intelligent and well educated - he is also a genuine right-wing, ultra-conservative scumbag... and that is a very, very dangerous combination!
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Yep!
 
acbytesla said:
How exactly does SCOTUS do this? You do know that nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the court the authority to do this don't you?

POTUS was elected by a majority of the population and and a majority of the Electoral College. That is how the Constitution says how we elect Presidents. PERIOD.

I'm going to humor you and entertain this idea for a moment. Let's say the court does this.
1. How do they rationalize such a ruling?
And
2.How does it enforce such a ruling?

The fastest way the court could make itself entirely irrelevant would be to make such a ruling.
If I was POTUS and the SCOTUS made such a ruling, I would disband the court saying that the court overstepped its authority and clearly cannot do its job.

Your move.
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What happens is that some GOP controlled state overturns an election result and appoints electors by fiat, they get sued, and SCOTUS decides not to intervene. Either that, or a GOP controlled House and/or Senate pulls some electoral college skullduggery, as was outlined by some advocating for Pence to do in 2020.

SCOTUS will never call the election directly, but what they will do is refuse to take action when someone brings a lawsuit for to challenge obvious election rigging by conservatives. They'll declare a rigged result legit, and refuse to act on lawsuits meant to challenge it.

How do you rationalize the Bush v Gore decision? SCOTUS ordered a recount to stop and declared Bush the winner, the will of the Florida voters be damned. That's how it's done.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
What happens is that some GOP controlled state overturns an election result and appoints electors by fiat, they get sued, and SCOTUS decides not to intervene. Either that, or a GOP controlled House and/or Senate pulls some electoral college skullduggery, as was outlined by some advocating for Pence to do in 2020.
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There is no mechanism for this. State legislators do not appoint electors. They don't certify electors either. Secretaries of States and Governors do. The EC only meets one day every four years and that day is prescribed by the Constitution. There is no do over.

Congress on January 6th and 7th (Also Constitutionally mandated) counted those votes and confirmed that Joe Biden is the 46th President of the United States. This is a done deal. There is no mechanism for the courts or any body to change this.

And if you were paying attention, the courts have been asked 65 times to throw out the votes and the judges (even Trump appointed judges) refused every single time.

I'm worried about the 2022 and 24 election, but not worried on bit about the 2020 elections.
SuburbanTurkey said:
SCOTUS will never call the election directly, but what they will do is refuse to take action when someone brings a lawsuit for obvious election rigging to steal it for the conservatives. They'll declare a rigged result legit, and refuse to act on lawsuits meant to challenge it.
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Doesn't matter. A judge in Georgia, Arizona or Podunk Idaho hasn't a shred of authority over the elections. I'm not saying some insane judge might not make such a ruling. But that won't change a thing.
 
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acbytesla said:
There is no mechanism for this. State legislators do not appoint electors. They don't certify electors either. Secretaries of States and Governors do. The EC only meets one day every four years and that day is prescribed by the Constitution. There is no do over.
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Those rules only apply if the people in power who are responsible for applying the rules want to apply the rules.

If a State controlled by Party X decides to appoint a slate of electors to support the Presidential candidate of Party X, the State Supreme Court has a majority of members from Party X, the US Congress is controlled by Party X, and the US Supreme Court is majority Party X, and Party X is made up entirely of purely partisan hacks who will never do anything to oppose the will of Party X, exactly who is it that will stop and say, "Hey, wait a minute, literally everything we just did is against the law! We better stop!"?

The US came awfully close to just this on January 6th. A significant number of actual elected members of Congress not only would have been perfectly happy to let something like this happen, they actually stood up in Congress and not only spoke in approval of overturning the election results, but also voted in favor of overturning the election results, and none of your "There's no mechanism!!!" complaints made a damn bit of difference to them.

The US only avoided a coup because the extremist GOP didn't quite (yet) have the number of complete scumbags in Congress needed to pull this off. But you can be damn sure they're trying to reach that magic number, and will not hesitate to use it if and when they get the chance.
 
Horatius said:
Those rules only apply if the people in power who are responsible for applying the rules want to apply the rules.

If a State controlled by Party X decides to appoint a slate of electors to support the Presidential candidate of Party X, the State Supreme Court has a majority of members from Party X, the US Congress is controlled by Party X, and the US Supreme Court is majority Party X, and Party X is made up entirely of purely partisan hacks who will never do anything to oppose the will of Party X, exactly who is it that will stop and say, "Hey, wait a minute, literally everything we just did is against the law! We better stop!"?

The US came awfully close to just this on January 6th. A significant number of actual elected members of Congress not only would have been perfectly happy to let something like this happen, they actually stood up in Congress and not only spoke in approval of overturning the election results, but also voted in favor of overturning the election results, and none of your "There's no mechanism!!!" complaints made a damn bit of difference to them.

The US only avoided a coup because the extremist GOP didn't quite (yet) have the number of complete scumbags in Congress needed to pull this off. But you can be damn sure they're trying to reach that magic number, and will not hesitate to use it if and when they get the chance.
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Indeed. Scratching my head at this willful blindness on how much of our current system relies on officials executing their duties in good faith.

Hell, the memo that was circulating the Trump White House on how Pence could kick of a series of events that ended with the Biden victory being called for Trump only didn't happen because Pence and others chickened out (which is good).

The right wing in this country have not been idle since the Trump loss. The rightly understand the pivotal roles secretaries of state and the like play in handling election results, and are ensuring Trump loyalists will be in position next time around.

This may all be a moot point because Biden could easily lose a fair election, but if that's not the case it's probably safe to assume that the Trumpists will try to steal it.
 
acbytesla said:
And if you were paying attention, the courts have been asked 65 times to throw out the votes and the judges (even Trump appointed judges) refused every single time.


.
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On top of what others have said, I wouldn't read too much into this because the vast majority if not all of these suits might have well been written in crayon and were so stupid as to boggle the mind. They were filed just so the right wing grievance machine could say that judges were meanies and biased because they rejected suits without hearings, etc.

There were suits where the lawyers would specifically disclaim allegations of fraud. It was really bad. Buying off the refs only works if the team shows up to play the game.
 
Well Congress apparently can't make someone actually show up for a subpoena so... I mean what are we even ******* talking about at this point?
 
The Left: "You have to do this. I have a book of rules here that says you have to."
The Right" "Make me."
The Left: "I'm sorry I don't think you heard me. You have to. The rule book says so."
The Right: "Make me."
The Left: "Now I'm getting angry. Do I have to show you the rule book again? You have to do it!"
The Right: "Make me."
The Left: "Okay somebody make him follow the rules!"
Me: "Who are you talking to?"
The Left: "What?"
Me: "I said who are you talking to?"
The Left: "Errr... whoever enforces the rules I guess."
Me: "That would be you."
The Left: "So... I should tell him he has to again?"
Me: *Muffled scream*
 
Horatius said:
Those rules only apply if the people in power who are responsible for applying the rules want to apply the rules.

If a State controlled by Party X decides to appoint a slate of electors to support the Presidential candidate of Party X, the State Supreme Court has a majority of members from Party X, the US Congress is controlled by Party X, and the US Supreme Court is majority Party X, and Party X is made up entirely of purely partisan hacks who will never do anything to oppose the will of Party X, exactly who is it that will stop and say, "Hey, wait a minute, literally everything we just did is against the law! We better stop!"?

The US came awfully close to just this on January 6th. A significant number of actual elected members of Congress not only would have been perfectly happy to let something like this happen, they actually stood up in Congress and not only spoke in approval of overturning the election results, but also voted in favor of overturning the election results, and none of your "There's no mechanism!!!" complaints made a damn bit of difference to them.

The US only avoided a coup because the extremist GOP didn't quite (yet) have the number of complete scumbags in Congress needed to pull this off. But you can be damn sure they're trying to reach that magic number, and will not hesitate to use it if and when they get the chance.
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Actually, they didn't. There are laws in every single state that say that voters choose the President and its electors. And in every single court without exception this process was confirmed. Now I'm not arguing against the claim that Representatives and Senators attempted on January 6th to ignore the law and were deliberately attempting a coup. They were.
The problem is as always is getting the government apparatus to go along with the coup.

This was easier to do on January 6th than it is between now and 2024 since Trump was the Executive at that time. He is not now. Biden is America's Chief Executive now. He commands the military, the DOJ, the Treasury, the GAO today.

I'm saying there is no mechanism for any court or legislature in the land to overturn the 2020 election. This doesn't mean that certain individuals might not want to attempt another coup.
 
JoeMorgue said:
The Left: "You have to do this. I have a book of rules here that says you have to."
The Right" "Make me."
The Left: "I'm sorry I don't think you heard me. You have to. The rule book says so."
The Right: "Make me."
The Left: "Now I'm getting angry. Do I have to show you the rule book again? You have to do it!"
The Right: "Make me."
The Left: "Okay somebody make him follow the rules!"
Me: "Who are you talking to?"
The Left: "What?"
Me: "I said who are you talking to?"
The Left: "Errr... whoever enforces the rules I guess."
Me: "That would be you."
The Left: "So... I should tell him he has to again?"
Me: *Muffled scream*
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Exactly.

There is no benefit (moral or otherwise) in playing nice with those intent on destroying your democracy.
 
acbytesla said:
I'm saying there is no mechanism for any court or legislature in the land to overturn the 2020 election
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Sure there is. It's called "Get ~40% of the population to believe the lie that the election was rigged" and all the "mechanism" will take care of itself.
 
acbytesla said:
How exactly does SCOTUS do this? You do know that nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the court the authority to do this don't you?

POTUS was elected by a majority of the population and and a majority of the Electoral College. That is how the Constitution says how we elect Presidents. PERIOD.

I'm going to humor you and entertain this idea for a moment. Let's say the court does this.
1. How do they rationalize such a ruling?
And
2.How does it enforce such a ruling?

The fastest way the court could make itself entirely irrelevant would be to make such a ruling.
If I was POTUS and the SCOTUS made such a ruling, I would disband the court saying that the court overstepped its authority and clearly cannot do its job.

Your move.
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They aren't going to overturn 2020. But 2024 is wide open. And they already made Bush President in 2000.
 
"They have no procedural way to overturn the election" would mean something if they cared about procedure and weren't just going to go "Let's all agree that with a base concept that denies reality."
 
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