When I heard about the phone call I tried to think of how Republicans might respond. It could be something like…
Trump knows that he won Georgia. He wasn’t asking for the Attorney General to make up the votes. He was asking to find the fraud.
Hold the phones guys, this is the big one, the sword that will finally cut through Trump’s bullshit and bring Republicans to their senses – PAUL RYAN has put out a statement excoriating the attempt to overturn Biden’s election.
Paul Ryan? Anyone? You remember him, right? I think he was Speaker for a couple years, ran for Vice President with McCain or somebody. Paul Ryan?
Is this recent? Do you have a recent link? I’m finding a whole lot of links to articles about this from late November, but I don’t immediately see anything really current. Example:
Yes, he said this today. From WaPo’s breaking election news thread today:
Aha! thank you for the link. I hadn’t seen that yet.
Doncha know, I always go to SDMB first for my daily news, WaPo second.
"From a purely partisan perspective, Republican presidential candidates have won the national popular vote only once in the last 32 years. They have therefore depended on the electoral college for nearly all presidential victories in the last generation.
If we perpetuate the notion that Congress may disregard certified electoral votes - based solely on its own assessment that one or more states mishandled the presidential election - we will be delegitimizing the very system that led Donald Trump to victory in 2016 and that could provide the only path to victory in 2024."
Rep. Thomas Massie along with seven republican colleagues in the House have signed onto a letter saying they will not object the results and that passage is in the letter.
Now that I think about it, he’s right. It’s in the republican party’s best interest to keep the electoral college as the arbiter of the presidential winner. Democrats would love to abolish it and make elections decided by the popular vote. They’ve won 7 out of the last 8 elections in the popular vote count. What better way for democrats to start that process by pointing the fact that it was the republicans who got the ball moving by trying to make it redundant in 2020.
Whoa!
Future presidential candidate maybe?
Excellent! Pennsylvania elected a Klingon!
But he could be OUR Klingon!
He looks like he could pound any uppity Republican into the ground without breaking a sweat, all the while quoting from his Hahvahd edumacation. Brains and brawn-- perfect combo for today’s combative political <ahem> arena.
Wasn’t he in the 40 year old virgin?
This addresses one of my concerns. I recall reading “somewhere” that there was a time limit to the overall proceedings (in addition to the two-hour debate limit), and I was somewhat worried that going beyond that limit would create an impasse which would be resolved in the House in the same manner as a tie. But I couldn’t find more detail, because such a limit doesn’t exist. So thank you(!) for the clarification.
While there’s no hard time limit, the Electoral Count Act says that if the joint session has not completed the count within five calendar days, they are not allowed any further recesses until they’re done. So they have to keep going 24/7 until they finish.
^ This.
And:
^This, too.
Some of those supporting the ‘count only votes for Republicans’ Jan 6 effort are smart enough to know that Republican domination of the US government cannot happen, any longer, if free and fair elections are permitted to happen.
As David Frum famously said:
I’m not sure that “conservatives” is the relevant term, though. These people–Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, et al–have surely earned the label “neo-fascists” by now.
Perhaps they are assuming that with all the Vice Presidential powers we are newly learning about at his command, Pence can get rid of that provision.
Remember, the Sedition Faction is requesting a “10-day” investigation of all the “allegations.” So it seems safe to say that they believe they can keep this all going up to January 20 and beyond.
Paul Ryan is not a Trumplican, so he can be ignored by the adoring masses.
All ten living Defense Secretaries have written a very powerful letter saying that the election is over, and that the DOD had better not interfere.
The letter is signed by Dick Cheney, James Mattis, Mark Esper, Leon Panetta, Donald Rumsfeld, William Cohen, Chuck Hagel, Robert Gates, William Perry and Ashton Carter.
Some interesting quotes:
“Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived,”
(Any effort by the military to settle an election dispute) “would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.”
“Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”
(bolding mine)
This is quite the statement from EVERY SINGLE FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY
EVERY SINGLE living FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY, of course.
Even so, wouldn’t the limit be a little over 50 hours, assuming they challenge every Biden state and DC and accounting for the few minutes for the states Trump won?
Well, sure - I understand Trump is lobbying Satan hard to get the undead former Secretary’s of Defense to issue a strongly worded rebuttal.