Trump's Coup d'état.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Just make the deliberations closed. Makes the whole exercise just a waste of time. No speeches reach the outside.

That will shut down those conspiracy theories!

 

[acbytesla]

3 USC 15. That's the law that says how objections are handled. There is up to two hours of debate and then a vote. Nothing in that law grants authority to the leaders of either House to simply dismiss an objection as unsustained.

An objection is going to be something like "the votes were not regularly given" or that "the appointment of the electors was not lawfully certified."

No, but they can move for the previous question and end debate immediately if 2/3rds approve the motion.

 

[Trebuchet]

They would probably have some discretion to determine whatever doubt means to them.

It depends on what the definition of "is" is.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

No, but they can move for the previous question and end debate immediately if 2/3rds approve the motion.

Maybe. This gets weird because it is not under normal parliamentary procedure or House rules. This is done under the Electoral Count Act which says "each Senator and Representative may speak to such objection or question five minutes" up to two hours. Nothing there about calling the previous question or any means of ending debate.

If it was allowed to have 2/3 end debate, that could result in an objection back in the joint session on the grounds that they were not given the required time to debate, which would than have to go back to two hours of debate and a vote on that objection. And so on. Objections all the way down. Maybe.

There isn't much to go on because they abandoned trying to establish Joint Rules a long time ago and objections to electoral votes have only happened twice since the ECA was passed.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Cruz has no charisma.

And his wife’s ugly. Everybody says that.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Just make the deliberations closed. Makes the whole exercise just a waste of time. No speeches reach the outside.

Ding ding ding!!!!!

Best point on this topic made so far.

 

[acbytesla]

Delete

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That will shut down those conspiracy theories!

Who cares? Like anything will shut them up anyway.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Congress convenes at noon tomorrow. When January 3 falls on a Sunday, the previous Congress usually moves the opening day to the next day, but that didn't happen this year for some reason.

This will have the election of House Speaker and Senate president pro tempore and other House and Senate leaders. Adoption of rules. Swearing in of new members.

There will be a joint resolution providing for a joint session to count electoral votes on January 6. That is usually a formality. Considering Sen. Gohmert's recent lawsuit, there may be objections to this resolution because it normally incorporates federal law, which would include the Electoral Count Act. So there may be some squabbling over the language.

 

[Tero]

11 Republican senators join Hawley and say they'll "vote on January 6 to reject the electors" from certain states.

Ted Cruz
Ron Johnson
James Lankford
Steve Daines
John Kennedy
Marsha Blackburn
Mike Braun
Cynthia Lummis
Roger Marshall
Bill Hagerty
Tommy Tuberville

Full joint statement embedded in tweet: https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1345423296544829441?s=19

All 11 are demanding a 10-day audit of election returns in states they claim are "disputed." They suggest in the joint statement that they expect their effort to fail.

What's an election commission? Oh, the finance thing. That they can do.
https://www.fec.gov/

They have no access to votes.

 

[eerok]

And his wife’s ugly. Everybody says that.

Cruz has such a punchable face. He reminds me of the ancient cast iron Punch and Judy toy at my grandmother's. The beard helps, but not enough.

Who the hell doesn't want to punch him? And I'm a shameless pacifist.

To be honest, I'm afraid to look at his wife. I just don't want to know.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What's an election commission? ....

Anything designed to sound reasonable and official.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

What's an election commission? Oh, the finance thing. That they can do.
https://www.fec.gov/

They have no access to votes.

They are talking about a different type of election commission. The type that existed briefly in 1877 before Congress passed the current law intended to stop what Cruz and his co-conspirators are trying to do.

I'll have to re-post from another thread:

There isn't a legal way to do a 10 day audit. By law the counting begins January 6. No recess may be taken after the 5th calendar day.

There are only two ways to maybe do that. Unanimous consent by the joint session, which isn't going to happen. Or by not incorporating federal law when the joint resolution is passed providing for the joint session.

They say "In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission -- consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices -- to consider and resolve the disputed returns. We should follow that precedent."

But that isn't a precedent. That nonsense is exactly why Congress passed the Electoral Count Act of 1877.

 

[acbytesla]

Gohmert's appeal to the 5th circuit was dismissed.

 

[Norman Alexander]

3 USC 15. That's the law that says how objections are handled. There is up to two hours of debate and then a vote. Nothing in that law grants authority to the leaders of either House to simply dismiss an objection as unsustained.

An objection is going to be something like "the votes were not regularly given" or that "the appointment of the electors was not lawfully certified."

...up to two hours. That would seem to permit the 30 seconds it would take to dismiss an objection on the voices.

 

[dirtywick]

Gohmert's appeal to the 5th circuit was dismissed.

Of course it was. The guy he’s suing is the same guy that he wants to give more expansive powers. That’s like suing someone you owe money to in order to give them even more money.

 

[Meadmaker]

11 Republican senators join Hawley and say they'll "vote on January 6 to reject the electors" from certain states.

Ted Cruz
Ron Johnson
James Lankford
Steve Daines
John Kennedy
Marsha Blackburn
Mike Braun
Cynthia Lummis
Roger Marshall
Bill Hagerty
Tommy Tuberville

Full joint statement embedded in tweet: https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1345423296544829441?s=19

All 11 are demanding a 10-day audit of election returns in states they claim are "disputed." They suggest in the joint statement that they expect their effort to fail.

I have thought about what I would like to see happen for these 11 folks. There's crucifixion, but that seems unlikely.

So I have another thought about what I think Joe Biden should do. I'm not sure when he should do it, but here's what I would like to see.

Joe Biden announces that, as President, he will appoint a presidential commission to investigate allegations of vote fraud, and vote suppression. Announce that this is necessary due to unfounded allegations that were made after the last election, and that it is necessary to create confidence that elections really are free and fair in America.

The commission will address a few questions:
1) Is there any evidence of vote fraud in the election results of the 2020 election?
2) Are there rules and regulations that tend to suppress voter turnout or discourage people from voting, including by making the process unnecessarily complex.
3) Is voting by mail a secure and reliable means of voting, making it easy for legal voters to cast ballots, ensuring that illegal voters do not cast ballots, and making it possible to deliver and accurately count the ballots that were case?
4) Is there any way to speed up counting of mail in ballots without compromising election integrity?

Let the Republicans who objected to the process serve on or appoint some of the members of the commission, maybe even a majority of the members.

I'm inclined to say that Biden ought to wait until he is President to do that.


We all know what the outcome of a fair inquiry would be. There is no reason to believe there was significant vote fraud, but there were things that caused spoiled ballots, signature mismatches, or other reasons for ballots to get rejected, suppressing overall turnout. There are a couple of ways the commission report could turn out. Either the Republcan appointees can go along with the process, inevitably writing that there is no evidence of fraud, or they can lie about it, issue a terrible report, and the minority, i.e. Democratically appointed members, issue a separate report, exposing the fraud in great detail.

It probably won't happen, but I would like to see it happen.

 

[dudalb]

I think that would be genius on Biden's part.. appoint a comission to investigate both voter fraud and voter supression.
watch how quickly the GOPer in congress would object.

 

[dudalb]

I think it's a case of all Sneators trying to get in good with the Trump base for their reelections.
Which brings me back to my strong support for terms limits.......maybe politicians would be less prone to this kind of thing if they knew, going in, they would only be there for a few years, and could not make a 20 year career out of it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have thought about what I would like to see happen for these 11 folks. There's crucifixion, but that seems unlikely.

So I have another thought about what I think Joe Biden should do. I'm not sure when he should do it, but here's what I would like to see.

Joe Biden announces that, as President, he will appoint a presidential commission to investigate allegations of vote fraud, and vote suppression. Announce that this is necessary due to unfounded allegations that were made after the last election, and that it is necessary to create confidence that elections really are free and fair in America.

The commission will address a few questions:
1) Is there any evidence of vote fraud in the election results of the 2020 election?
2) Are there rules and regulations that tend to suppress voter turnout or discourage people from voting, including by making the process unnecessarily complex.
3) Is voting by mail a secure and reliable means of voting, making it easy for legal voters to cast ballots, ensuring that illegal voters do not cast ballots, and making it possible to deliver and accurately count the ballots that were case?
4) Is there any way to speed up counting of mail in ballots without compromising election integrity?

You think if Biden does X,Y &Z it's going to matter one iota to these idiots?

They had no evidence. Went to court what 50-60 times? Nothing! Nada!

Let's call this what it is: jumping on the fund-raising gravy train, posturing for Trump's base, and some of the idiots in Congress probably have drank the koolaid, gallons of it. None of that is going to change because Biden's plays their game.

If there is to be an election commission it should look at the voting machines in both Kentucky and South Carolina that were connected to the internet and susceptible to actual hacking.

The Atlantic: Trump Is Looking for Fraud in All the Wrong Places

The defeated president tried to sow doubts about Georgia and other swing states that laboriously upgraded their voting systems, while safe red states keep using antiquated equipment.

South Carolina’s Voting Machines Are Vulnerable to Attacks

Two of the state’s voting systems connect to the Internet, making them accessible for voters who are stationed overseas but also increasing the risk of cyberattacks and data breaches that could result in fraud....

"We've had over 100 cybersecurity researchers review the system, they haven't been able to get in the system or compromise it," confirmed Bryan Finney, the founder and president of Democracy Live.

Yet in June, a final-year PhD candidate at MIT and a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan analyzed the OmniBallot platform and found it wanting.

"We find that OmniBallot uses a simplistic approach to Internet voting that is vulnerable to vote manipulation by malware on the voter's device," wrote the researchers. "In addition, Democracy Live, which appears to have no privacy policy, receives sensitive personally identifiable information — including the voter's identity, ballot selections, and browser fingerprint — that could be used to target political ads or disinformation campaigns."

Raw Story: BUSTED? Why the numbers behind Mitch McConnell's re-election don't add up

In 2017, a Public Policy Polling Survey asked Kentuckians, “Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Mitch McConnell's job performance?" Only 18% approved. He clawed his rating back up to 39% on the eve of the election.

McConnell, leader of Senate Republicans, rarely holds town hall meetings with Kentucky voters—not since a heated exchange with an angry constituent went viral.

So, what exactly drove these angry Kentuckians to reelect Mitch McConnell with a 19-point advantage over opponent Amy McGrath—57.8% to 38.2%?

Even as Republicans across the country still insist that the election was rife with fraudulent Democratic votes, no one's asking how McConnell managed one of the most lopsided landslides of the Nov. 3 election.

And no it wasn't because McGrath was not a strong candidate, she was.

Yes, by all means let's have that election commission to look into McConnell's and Graham's elections. Turn these bastards on their heads.