I have little faith Trump will ever face charges. Rich people usually get away with it, and it’d be hard to get a conviction on this.
And storm the Capitol building with a rioting mob? I think that notion is about as plausible as the W Virginia state senator’s lawyer trying to spin that he was a journalist “documenting” historic events as he entered the Capitol with the rioting mob.
What I meant is that in some future time (perhaps post-me, I’m 68), another usurper (of any political persuasion) could use a rushed, last-minute Impeachment as an actual stepping-stone to an autocracy. Or to put more simply, I don’t like rushing things that could set a precedent that might bite us in the ass one day.
As note, YMMV. There is much emotion right now, which also tends to cloud judgement, again IMHO.
If they were storming the Capitol with the mob, there would be no need to flash their credentials.
Well I can think of a reason. To encourage on-duty law enforcement to back off - these are “our people”, not “those people” - and facilitate getting past them.
Do you think the military and ex-military participants in the mob were deep undercover too?
I’m not having this argument. All I’m suggesting is that it would not be surprising if it turns out that there were undercover officers with legitimate reasons for being among the mob.
He isn’t that rich.
His White House counselor is seriously considering resignation. he is caught between trying to hold back a tsunami or running for his life toward the hills. This is the man that would defend him in an impeachment trial.
I believe the house will vote to impeach. Those around the president have 3-5 days to get the president to resign or sign over to pence. That will be the only thing that will hold back impeachment.
The senate is where things will stick, the senate is in recess until the 19th of Jan. when the 2 new senators will be seated and majority changes.
Ok, then. All I’m suggesting is that it would be even less surprising if there were off duty officers participating in the mob.
Law enforcement incompetence is not sufficient to explain what transpired, the “we couldn’t possibly have expected this” narrative is utter bullshit. There was clearly law enforcement collusion at some level. The only question is the degree of preplanned collusion, the degree of deliberate planning, how high up it went.
It’s not really vindictive to hold someone accountable for their crimes. And it would be a good precedent for future leaders to not attempt to lead an insurrection.
Surely if the House impeaches the Senate is recalled immediately?
My concern is that there will not be sufficient fallout. In my fantasy world, and understanding that my fantasy may not be politically and/or procedurally possible, the ideal fallout would consist of:
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the 14 (or however many there were) Republican senators in Hawley’s cabal be removed/fired and black-listed from ever having a civil service job again.
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the congresspersons who voted against validating the results of the EC be removed/fired and black-listed from ever having a civil service job again
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Kelly-Anne Conway, Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, and Kayleigh MacEnany be disallowed from ever working in the civil service again
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Trump, after appropriate legal proceedings not corrupted by his supporters and allies in any way, be sentence to a massive amount of prison time (and not in some white-collar detention facility). He has caused significant damage to the US and, because of the US’ power and influence, to the post-WW II international system
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Trump’s family (within the WH) banned from ever working in the civil service again
This in conjunction with a thorough, fact and evidence-based investigation, without Republican participation since they’ve demonstrated that they’ll have no truck with fact or science, of the whole Trumpist affair/fiasco from the time of his candidacy.
And in the long term there needs to be a serious evaluation of the US (I know, the various states’) education system so that critical thinking, civics, science are mandatory and that anything religion or faith-associated is pigeon-holed appropriately into some sort of folk-lore curricula.
Again, the above is all fantasy-based but I’m trying to avoid things like re-education camps and capital punishment etc.
As much as I’d like to see that, I think we have to be careful about disenfranchising the voters who sent them there. As despicable as they were, the objections are allowed by law.
Absolutely concur. I honestly don’t know how that can be appropriately dealt with but there have to/should be some consequences about decision making and acting based on lies. As I said (no snark intended btw) my post was my version of fantasy-land ideals.
Yeah, this is not a precedent any country needs.
I think it obviousthough that the Electoral Count Act needs to be clarified. Again, it is obvious that this wasn’t the intent of the ECA. The intent was for situations where Congress is presented either with electoral votes that are not correctly presented or submitted, or if Congress gets two slates of votes from the same state (e.g. Hawaii in 1960.) It was never the intent of the people who wrote the act that Congress just flat out refuse to count a state’s electoral votes; that is clearly and obviously against the letter and intent of the Constitution of the United States, and there isn’t any doubt in my mind that the courts would shoot it down but God, what a mess it would be.
Way back in November I started a thread about streamlining the EC and removing the potential for shenanigans. Can the Electoral College be updated constitutionally?
… can we retain the system where the winner of the popular vote in Pennsylvania gets 20 electoral votes, but make it more automatic? Skip the state legislatures and electors and just give the winner 20 points?
Of course at the time I had no idea how fucked up it could or would get. If we’re stuck with the EC, then we have to remove the potential for this level of bullshit.
They’re gonna say trump “didn’t mean” to incite a riot. He was just gently suggesting that his fans go over and watch Congress finish stealing the election from him! That’s all! And Rudy’s suggestion for “trial by combat” was just hyperbole! Silly libs can’t take a joke!
But I mean really, that’s what’s gonna happen. House impeachment will go nowhere under Mitch and even the supposedly furious Pence won’t take action on the 25th Amendment.
I’m afraid we have to accept that Trump’s shot himself and the GOP in the foot this time around and for the next 12 days people probably won’t jump to do his bidding as much as before. That’s about all we gonna get.
CFSG just RSVP’d “No” to the Inauguration.
My representative is Nydia Velazquez, who is co-sponsoring the introduction of articles of impeachment. So that’s good.
My senators are Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Chuck Schumer is currently calling for the invocation of the 25th amendment.
Kirsten Gillibrand is doing what she does, which is to not say anything of substance or commit herself too deeply, at least not that I’ve seen in the last 48 hours or so. Maybe a call to her office is in order.
IMHO it’s almost as though something analogous to de-Nazification or de-Baathization is required (I know that those are very extreme examples). There is something so philosophically rotten that needs to be excised or fixed or something.
Half the country is based on superstition, magical-thinking and mis/disinformation with a good side-plate of narrow-mindedness and racism. How does one fix that? I also think that this has its roots in the Tea Party.
How has he shot himself in the foot? He hasn’t lost a thing. He wasn’t going to remain in office anyway, and he knew that. If anything, his rabble of supporters may be (slightly) smaller, but the committed ones will double down. They’ll be even more committed.
He can make endless trouble for the next four years. For the rest of his life, in fact.
He’s coming out of this just fine. He isn’t going to be removed from office, either by impeachment or by way of the 25th amendment. And even if he was, well, see above about doubling down.