'Trump Personally Called Wayne County Republicans Now Trying to Rescind Their Election Certification
[...] the two GOP members of the four-member Wayne County Board allege that they were bullied by Democrats into voting to certify the results and want their votes to be rescinded. On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that Trump himself called the two Republican members of the board after the changed vote to "express gratitude for their support." However, Jonathan Kinloch, the board's Democratic vice chairman, said it's too late for the GOPers to change their minds as the certified results have already been sent to the secretary of state. "Do they understand how they are making us look as a body?" said Kinloch. "We have such an amazing and important role in the democratic process, and they're turning it on its head."
'
https://www.thedaily...esults?ref=home
'Are you sure Trump's plan to steal the election has failed? Here's why you shouldn't be
[...] People are usually shocked when they hear that state legislatures might be able to do this, but some legislatures did it in the early days of the republic, and in a concurring opinion on the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, three Supreme Court justices, including Clarence Thomas, affirmed the validity of the concept.
[...] As we have recently been told in article after article, Republican legislators assure us, regarding the Plan B Electoral College route to Trumpian election theft, that they just wouldn't go there! They would never, ever allow themselves to be thrown into that particular briar patch. That would be outrageous. It's never been done before. It would violate state and federal law. For god sakes, man, get a grip — that would violate longstanding norms!
But, like a blue mirage, when you examine these statements more closely, the much-touted Republican guarantees tend to evaporate into a vaporous cloud of conditions and hedges. [...] The star witness, both in this piece and others, is Jake Corman, the Pennsylvania Senate majority leader[...]
So, that's that, isn't it? Not so fast. That was then, in the before times, years ago, before the election happened. Everything seems different now. [...]
[...] Now, Corman uses qualifiers, like "Under the normal circumstances" the legislature plays no role ("No Voter fraud in Pa. election but concerns about ballots, process persist, Corman says"). But the current post-election circumstances aren't necessarily "normal circumstances," are they? We see what you did there, senator.
And now Corman is deeply upset with the outrageous behavior of (Democratic) Secretary of State Kathy Broockvar[...] It seems, says Corman, that Broockvar "fundamentally altered the manner in which Pennsylvania's election is being conducted." There's a dog whistle for those with the ears to hear. That word "manner" may seem innocuous, but Corman's word choice there is heavily freighted with dangerous significance. [...]
To understand why, recall what Article II of the U.S. Constitution, the very basis of Plan B, says, "Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors" (hysterical emphasis mine). Is it sheer coincidence that Corman now says, post-election, that this "manner" has been "fundamentally altered?"
Because according to a bogus legal doctrine being pushed by none other than Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch (full disclosure: I went to the same small high school as both or them and overlapped for a year with Kavanaugh), this Article II language, on their contrived theory, means that the state legislature and the state legislature alone makes the election rules, and any other — shall we say "alteration" — of the rules by any other political actor in the normal course of the governmental process is in strict violation of the United States Constitution. Given the prevailing, currently unusual circumstances, then, one might argue that the state legislatures have no real choice, after all, but to intervene and send their own slates of electors to the Electoral College. And it would be perfectly reasonable, would it not, if three of those state legislatures just so happened to judge that Trump is the rightful winner instead of Biden?
So don't expect to see Sen. Corman stand idly by while fundamental principles are being trampled fundamentally, nosirree Bob! "We will follow the law," says Corman. And if the law, as interpreted and proclaimed by the United States Supreme Court — the supreme legal authority — says that state legislatures have the first, last, final and sole say-so when it comes to electors, then surely no one could object if Sen. Corman found himself duty-bound to bravely follow that law wherever Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and the rest of the hyper-partisan Republican extremists on the Court say it goes. After all, Corman has promised to do no less.
[...] "All of those analyses, however, are based (as they should be) on existing law and precedent. Sarat and Edelman, for example, rely heavily on the Electoral Count Act of 1887. ... Whereas the U.S. Supreme Court is highly unlikely to take a case in which Trump claims that 53 votes in Pennsylvania were illegal or that Arizona voters should not have been given Sharpies, the Court would be very likely to take up a case in which they could misconstrue the Constitution, overrule precedent, and announce that the legislatures-only theory is the law of the land. Several justices have already indicated as much."
[...] if the Kavanaugh/Gorsuch argument about state legislatures actually made sense then you could just as well argue that since "Article I, Section 8 tells us that 'Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes … to borrow money ... to regulate commerce …' and so on" by the same rationale, Congress could claim a constitutional right to act alone and could pass such laws without bothering to submit them to the president for a possible veto or to the Supreme Court for review. No one thinks the Constitution says that, and likewise no one should think it says anything like that about state legislatures either. But that doesn't mean the Republicans won't
say it means that and
act like it means that.'
[I have all too much faith in the justices' ability to come up with semi-coherent rationalizations. While they sometimes hold to their legal principles over their partisan leanings in minor cases, in major cases, partisanship has typically won out über alles.]
'[...] A couple things we have learned about the Republican Party over the years: It is radical and it is radically dishonest. Pretense is as good as principle in the Republican Party, and the possibilities are endless when one is not bound by the Principle of Non-Contradiction. Those folks can be persuaded that the most insane conspiracy theory imaginable is true, and they can make stuff up entirely out of whole cloth and believe it with every fiber of their being. For those reasons, I think it premature to categorically rule out the possibility that they will attempt Plan B.'
https://www.alternet...election-steal/
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 19 November 2020 - 05:46 PM
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Terez, on 18 November 2020 - 01:37 AM, said:
