2020: Worst year ever
2021: Hold my beer
No, read ThelmaLou’s cite carefully.
Initially Trump “rebuffed and resisted” requests to mobilize the NG. Then there were more conversations and ultimately Trump delegated - he said to the acting secretary that he should take any necessary steps to support civilian law enforcement requests in securing the Capitol and federal buildings.
No doubt civilian law enforcement requested support, and that support was then provided, in accordance with Trump’s delegation.
In other words, more bluntly, Trump the populist ditherer didn’t want to be seen to be giving the order to call out the NG on His People, so he washed his hands of it by saying “you are authorised to do what you gotta do, I’m not going to be seen to do it”.
Seems the Senate is well on the way to crushing the objections. The House will be a greater annoyance due to the larger number of people who’d need convincing to behave themselves.
Right, same here. SecDef was told “your call” and Pence being the one actually under siege would be the one to speak with.
As Princhester said, it’s DJT doing his usual “I never said THAT” schtick. That way if all goes to hell he can say “well that’s because you were weak, I would have solved it easy if they’d let me”.
Pontius Pilate?
Six days in, and it has has already been a surreal year.
Rubio is saying objecting is stupid after what happened today. And he’s saying that what happened today was like what was going on in Cuba and why Cubans left, and talking about how our enemies are laughing at us.
Not what I expected.
Eh, at least Pilate was all “There’s no violation of Roman law here; if you’ve got a problem with this guy deal with it yourselves.”
House is voting. This takes quite a while as they vote in clumps.
Inverted, but yes
Honestly, why do these things still have to be done by voice roll call? Can’t we rig up some sort of buzzer system?
Here’s the live C-SPAN link to the House.
@asterion, the House is using electronic devices - 'course, there’s a lot more of them.
Ddamn; Marco Rubio is still an idiot.
I keep debating this. Trump could do a lot of damage as President. He could order bombs dropped on Iran. But maybe that can be handled, like drunk Nixon in his final days. Whatever Trump says, Pence says Sure Mr. President. And then does nothing. OTOH, if he is removed, his Twitter goes away. Even FOX is not going to take his calls.
In the House there is a remote device, but it’s a limited number of terminals and the members have to insert or tap a card to verify its them voting, and NP has been very insistent in that they will observe separation any time that they possibly can.
In the Senate it is by roll and by the clerk actually seeing/hearing the individual Senator vote to verify it’s them.
So it sounds to me like Trump had not explicity given an order to not mobilize the National Guard today, but was perhaps non-responsive, just not interested in talking about it; so after consulting with counsel they decided that his prior standing instructions were adequate cover that Trump had effectively given authorization.
It may be bullshit, but it sounds like they have legal cover for mobilizing the National Guard without an explicit order from Trump today.
No. Of course not. That’s not how it works. It takes a few days.
I guess Lindsey Graham realized that hanging onto individual 1’s coattails wasn’t going to get him anywhere so now he’s on the look for a new bff.
Does the “acting” SecDef have the authority? “Acting” implies he was never confirmed by the senate.
Which circles back to a debate we had here a few months ago…who needs senate confirmation if you can just go with “acting” heads? Which gets weird because “acting” heads still need…some previous confirmation? I forget, it is all very confusing.
What this all shows (along with the whole Trump admin) is government-by-norms is no longer workable. It is a fundamentally broken system (and I squarely blame conservatives for breaking it).
I do not like our chances to patch those gaping cracks in the system either.
that is the second time today I have heard this. Doesn’t the amendment say “immediately removed from office”?
He was sucking up to Pence pretty good. Maybe he’s angling for being VP for two weeks.