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Moving on.... it's Biden/Harris Administration time (#124)

999 replies

Roussette · 24/01/2021 14:17

Previous thread...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4141906-For-there-is-always-light-Thread-123-is-belong-to-President-Biden?watched=1&msgid=103967923#103967923

OP posts:
Thread gallery
27
Mittens030869 · 02/02/2021 17:40

Agreed. It's worrying the number of Republican Party members who have shown that they don't care about democracy. They know that Trump tried to overturn a democratic election result and they don't care.

AcrossthePond55 · 02/02/2021 17:43

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

If you could do whatever you wanted in the way of insurrection and then if you didn't succeed in your aims resign from your federal post and face no penalty for anything you did while you held a federal position, it would be rather absurd. Or so I feel.
This is exactly what the Dems are arguing. If the 'you can't hold a Senate trial when no long in office' stands, then all a POTUS (or any other official) has to do is wait until the lame duck period to do their dirty work, or do it and then resign.

You can't indict a sitting president + can't convict in the Senate after resignation/leaving office = get out of jail free card as far as being able to continue to use elected offices to further your dirty work.

There IS precedent for impeachment and trial after resignation, the Secty of War William Belknap in 1876. He was both impeached AND tried (although acquitted) after he resigned in a panic as the House was taking his impeachment to a vote.

As far as Graham threatening to subpoena FBI officials, go head on asshole. Because chances are that any failure to act is going to lead right back to Doofus or one of his minion. Just like the trail for the failures in the Natl Guard and Capitol Police are leading right back to the acting Secty of Defense Miller, a Doofus appointee.

Be careful what you wish for Lindsay, you just may get it. Or get more than you bargained for.

FridayNightAtTheBronze · 02/02/2021 19:07

Trump has pretty much provided the blueprint in how to overthrow the American government over the last few months. All it will take is someone smarter to follow in his footsteps, and learn from the mistakes he made during his attempted coup and do it better next time.

If he is acquitted, then the door is left wide open for someone to try again and actually succeed. I hope the Democrats manage to convict him, but it isn't looking likely.

The Republicans really are a repugnant bunch. Can you imagine how they would have behaved if it was a Democrat doing this?

lionheart · 02/02/2021 20:57

www.axios.com/trump-oval-office-meeting-sidney-powell-a8e1e466-2e42-42d0-9cf1-26eb267f8723.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic

'Four conspiracy theorists marched into the Oval Office. It was early evening on Friday, Dec. 18 — more than a month after the election had been declared for Joe Biden, and four days after the Electoral College met in every state to make it official.'

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 02/02/2021 22:32

Well, doesn't this just sum the incompetents up.

But Powell ... named a county in Georgia where she claimed she could prove that Dominion had illegally flipped the vote.
Herschmann interrupted to point out that Trump had actually won the Georgia county in question: "So your theory is that Dominion intentionally flipped the votes so we could win that county?"

lionheart · 02/02/2021 22:50
Grin
lionheart · 02/02/2021 23:31

Ronan Farrow on the woman with the bull-horn:

www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-pennsylvania-mothers-path-to-insurrection-capitol-riot

lionheart · 02/02/2021 23:34

' “She’s very granola, very crunchy,” a friend, who asked not to be identified, told me. “Does yoga, eats vegetarian, homeschools all their kids.”'

lionheart · 02/02/2021 23:57

The Atlantic.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-capitol-rioters-arent-like-other-extremists/617895/

'We analyzed 193 people arrested in connection with the January 6 riot—and found a new kind of American radicalism.'

DuncinToffee · 03/02/2021 00:06

Thanks for those links lionheart, it made for some interesting reading Shock

PerkingFaintly · 03/02/2021 00:29

Interesting reading indeed. This is about people who are falling under the cult of Trump.

I'm going to guess that many are going to turn out not even to be Trump voters, or certainly not the Trump base MAGAts. What the insurrection movement did was harness people who cared about justice and rightness. It lied to them and told them a great wrong was occurring – but that they could put it right! "Here are the buses, we will take you there and he will tell you what to do."

Hence the people asking journalists who had phones, "What is he telling us to do next?" after they'd surged up to the Capitol and phone signals were poor (service may have been cut, or the towers may have been jammed by sheer numbers).

And I'm almost certain that's happening in other fields as well.

If you're a disruptivist, you don't care too much who your army is. You just want any army out there breaking stuff. So you just find the people who Care About Stuff – could be save the whales – and wind them up like clockwork and point them in whatever direction will be useful for you today.

It was clear on the day (from the excellent Donie O'Sullivan reporting for CNN, among others), a lot of people at the Capitol on the day believed they were doing a good, selfless thing... even if they weren't too sure what it was.

The entirely meaningless but heartfelt "save our children" marches are another example.

All being targeted and then herded on social media.

lionheart · 03/02/2021 01:13

Thank goodness for this and damn Trump and his cronies for doing this in the first place:

abc7.com/joe-biden-executive-orders-immigration-policy-speech-press-conference-today-family-separation-task-force/10247757/

gwenneh · 03/02/2021 03:44

[quote lionheart]Ronan Farrow on the woman with the bull-horn:

www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-pennsylvania-mothers-path-to-insurrection-capitol-riot[/quote]
What’s frightening to me is this woman could have been any one of my DC’s classmates mothers...so many of them fit the description.

CanadianJohn · 03/02/2021 04:40

Interesting video on YouTube, a defense attorney explains the law regarding impeachment, and possible defenses.

Please note also the first comment regarding precedents.

Roussette · 03/02/2021 08:28

www.axios.com/trump-oval-office-meeting-sidney-powell-a8e1e466-2e42-42d0-9cf1-26eb267f8723.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter

I had to link this I read yesterday written by Jonathon Swan of Axios. He's the journo who interviewed Trump in one of the most bizarre interviews ever.

This piece describes a meeting Trump had on December 18th with Sidney Powell, her entourage, Michael Flynn, and other aides and legal team.

'Trump was no longer focused on any semblance of a governing agenda, instead spending his days taking phone calls and meetings from anyone armed with conspiracy theories about the election. For the White House staff, it was an unending sea of garbage churned up by the bottom feeders

The hours to come would pit the insurgent conspiracists against a handful of White House lawyers and advisers determined to keep the president from giving in to temptation to invoke emergency national security powers, seize voting machines and disable the primary levers of American democracy.'

The meeting is completely and utterly crazy and led up to 6th January. I actually had to read it twice to get my head round it.

In more normal times... Joe and Jill Biden attend a memorial for the policeman killed in the riots.

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Roussette · 03/02/2021 08:54

Some very interesting links and articles. And that legal explanation CanadianJohn is fascinating. It seems to hinge on the word 'and' which should be 'or'.
Removal from office and disqualification from further office.
Removal from office 'or' disqualification from further office.

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merrymouse · 03/02/2021 10:22

The Trump defence are arguing that allegations of fraud are protected by 1st amendment.

However, he went much further than alleging fraud. He specifically said that he had won by a landslide and declared victory.

DGRossetti · 03/02/2021 10:24

[quote CanadianJohn]Interesting video on YouTube, a defense attorney explains the law regarding impeachment, and possible defenses.

Please note also the first comment regarding precedents.

[/quote] US conspiracy law(s) are quite a thing.

I wonder if there's any scope to dump impeachment for Trumps actions as president, and simply charge him with conspiracy, since he's still continuing in the behaviour that stems from his urged insurrection ? A charge that wouldn't be covered by a pardon.

If nothing else, it would fuck the Republicans over. They'd have no power now.

NotaRealLawyer · 03/02/2021 10:31

Thanks for the link CanadianJohn. Very skilled in getting her analysis of the situation over, in a fifteen minute, window.

Given the time, she didn't refer to the fact that constitutional lawyers argue that: there IS precedent for trying officials out of office, (albeit not a President.) William W. Belknap, Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of War, resigned just hours before the House of Representatives impeached him.

The Senate tried him. A substantial number of senators insisted throughout that they had no authority over a government official who had already resigned, so no two thirds majority vote.

I saw this first as an article in Bloomberg. However, by remarkable chance, I see that ITV is running a piece on it.

www.itv.com/news/2021-02-03/former-us-secretary-of-war-william-belknap-impeached-in-1876-will-be-key-in-donald-trumps-impeachment-trial

NotaRealLawyer · 03/02/2021 10:37

What I don't get is why Trump isn't being charged under State laws?
People died and were seriously injured. Others feared for their lives.

If it were my son who had died at the hands of this mob. I'd want to know why people were more interested in stopping Trump standing for Office again, rather than charging him with incitement/conspiracy like others are being charged.

I'd be glad if someone could explain that to me.

DGRossetti · 03/02/2021 10:38

Precedent is all moot if the Senate isn't going to convict.

What peril does Donald Trump face ?

NotaRealLawyer · 03/02/2021 10:42

@DGRossetti

Precedent is all moot if the Senate isn't going to convict.

What peril does Donald Trump face ?

Exactly my own view. I've an interest in the constitutional debates because I find them interesting on on level. But if it was my family member injured or killed, I'd be saying wtf is going on here? Lock him up!