Election integrity and the transfer of power

[Jaymann]

Lindell said he left the White House deeply deflated by the lawyers’ nonplussed reaction to his blockbuster “evidence” and O’Brien’s objection to the notion that Trump has the power to unban all social media accounts unilaterally.

I approve of governmental regulation of speech to ensure that only people that can properly define "nonplussed" are allowed to use it in a sentence.

Whenever I subtract, the answer is nonplussed.

[Max Peck]

When you consider how much crazy a Magat like Lindell brings to the table, a sane person might well be left nonplussed by such a meeting.

[Isgrimnur]

Things I didn't know - apparently Pelosi is individually responsible for Capitol security. Luckily Graham and his Republican buddies are on the case.

US Capitol Police - Oversight

Authorizing Committee
Senate Committee on Rules and Administration

[malchior]

Nice. FWIW I think it came across but I was being sarcastic. Seeing who is involved I still wouldn't point to any of these people. The people who were truly accountable all got the axe. Lindsey is just being a loathsome dumpster human.

[Isgrimnur]

Oh, I know. And I caught the sarcasm. It's just such a thoughtless dig.

[Holman]

https://twitter.com/mikebalsamo1/status ... 14497?s=21

What a country we live in.

[Defiant]

Aren't there like 15,000 national guards there? How do they do any kind of real vetting of that many people in 2 days?

(Please tell me it's not just google searches of "is [insert name] an extremist?")

[Jaymann]

It's 25,000, but they have an inside track on the Hugo Chavez algorithm.

[Grifman]

Aren't there like 15,000 national guards there? How do they do any kind of real vetting of that many people in 2 days?

(Please tell me it's not just google searches of "is [insert name] an extremist?")

They only need to vet the ones that will be near Biden/Harris. That should be a more limited number.

[Kraken]

Aren't there like 15,000 national guards there? How do they do any kind of real vetting of that many people in 2 days?

(Please tell me it's not just google searches of "is [insert name] an extremist?")

They only need to vet the ones that will be near Biden/Harris. That should be a more limited number.

How far away is sniper range?

[malchior]

I've never been more dismayed. I knew it'd be bad. I knew we were in the abyss but they are pretty much openly selling pardons to the rich right now. And everyone is outraged except the people who could stop it.

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1 ... 2153001985

[Octavious]

Shocking nobody.... He's actually pardoned way less people that previous presidents, but of course the people he pardons are horrible. I will be really pissed but not surprised if he pardons rioters.

[Defiant]

Shocking nobody.... He's actually pardoned way less people that previous presidents, but of course the people he pardons are horrible. I will be really pissed but not surprised if he pardons rioters.

If he did, I imagine there's a significantly bigger likelihood that he gets convicted in the Senate. Given that and that he doesn't care about them at all, I think it's unlikely he does that.

[Kraken]

There's no law against selling pardons, is there? I mean, the Constitution makes the power absolute, so no such prohibition would pass muster, right? It's like the Catholic church selling indulgences, except not imaginary. Maybe my outrage meter is broken, but I'm only registering 2 out of 8 tentacles for this one.

[malchior]

There's no law against selling pardons, is there? I mean, the Constitution makes the power absolute, so no such prohibition would pass muster, right? It's like the Catholic church selling indulgences, except not imaginary. Maybe my outrage meter is broken, but I'm only registering 2 out of 8 tentacles for this one.

This is why our country is the way it is. We've been boiled to the point that complete lack of values, equity, and appearance of complete corruption is passed off as 'well it is not illegal'.

[El Guapo]

There's no law against selling pardons, is there? I mean, the Constitution makes the power absolute, so no such prohibition would pass muster, right? It's like the Catholic church selling indulgences, except not imaginary. Maybe my outrage meter is broken, but I'm only registering 2 out of 8 tentacles for this one.

Seriously? That's obviously bribery.

Bribery of Public Officials
Bribery most often refers to bribery of public officials, the giving of money (or something else of value) in exchange for a public official acting in a way that benefits the defendant. All states have laws against bribing public officials in order to weed out public corruption. There are also federal laws against bribery. Traditionally, bribery was limited to judges who took money in exchange for ruling a certain way. Over time, bribery statutes have broadened. While in the past some states bribery laws only applied to public employees, nowadays, any public official – even one who serves as a volunteer – can usually be considered a public official for purposes of bribery.

Today, a person commits the crime of bribery by giving or offering a public official or public employee something of value in return for some official action (or in exchange for the public official not doing something he or she is legally obligated to do), benefitting the defendant. Most bribery laws target the giver of the bribe, but it is also illegal for a public official to accept or solicit anything of value in exchange for a particular action. The following are examples of bribery:

making payments to a county officer’s re-election campaign in exchange for a county business contracts
giving a health inspector money or alcohol to ignore a violation
offering to reward a legislator with an all expenses paid vacation if the legislator votes a certain way, or
a judge requesting a job for her child in exchange for ruling a particular way in an upcoming case.

[Carpet_pissr]

Shocking nobody.... He's actually pardoned way less people that previous presidents, but of course the people he pardons are horrible. I will be really pissed but not surprised if he pardons rioters.

I read somewhere he’s expected to pardon close to 100 tomorrow.

I’m just assuming that will include any rioters who have already been arrested. Himself, his whole fam, Giuliani, the little kid who cut the grass at the WH, that hot little number that caught his eye last week, etc.

I wonder to what extreme our now quaint, naive system of norms will be pushed like this before Congress takes some kind of action to codify some of these things to prevent such abuse in the future.

It’s almost like every single fucking thing that Trump wanted to do, that he likely got pushback on from (previous) advisors, due to ‘that’s just not done, Mr President’, he asked, ‘well is it illegal?! No? Then DO IT.”

[Holman]

Pardoning Capitol rioters would seal his fate in the senate, which is why Lindsay Graham has been desperate to persuade him not to.

[Carpet_pissr]

Pardoning Capitol rioters would seal his fate in the senate, which is why Lindsay Graham has been desperate to persuade him not to.

Care to make a wager?

1. He seems to be in unhinged mode. Doubtful he’s listening to any reasonable voices around him a t this point.
2. What reasonable voices around him? They’ve all scattered via firing, resigning, hiding, etc.
3. I get the sense that if/when reasonable voices get to him, and try to sway him from doing something he already has his mind set on, it’s damn near impossible. DJT’s gonna DJT, fuck the ‘safe’ or ‘smart’ option!

[Paingod]

Pardoning Capitol rioters would seal his fate in the senate, which is why Lindsay Graham has been desperate to persuade him not to.

Hm.

Pardon the people who make up his base - his soldiers and ongoing source of income - or pander to people who make a career out of flip-flopping and won't provide any kind of support in 2 days.

[Holman]

Patriots all.

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1 ... 89509?s=20

Last reported news is that she packed up some stuff and told her mother she was going away. She has not been apprehended.

[Carpet_pissr]

Aren't there like 15,000 national guards there? How do they do any kind of real vetting of that many people in 2 days?

(Please tell me it's not just google searches of "is [insert name] an extremist?")

They only need to vet the ones that will be near Biden/Harris.

?! I certainly hope that’s not the plan.

[Carpet_pissr]

Pardoning Capitol rioters would seal his fate in the senate, which is why Lindsay Graham has been desperate to persuade him not to.

With or without the two newbies being sworn in?

[Defiant]

Less than 50 hours.

[Holman]

I don't think the 25,000 Natl Guardsmen will be crowded around Biden/Harris. They probably won't even be nearby in large numbers, simply because the optics would be bad. They'll be available in DC in case a riot erupts, and that's something that could only happen a few blocks away.

For the part of the ceremony that takes place at the Capitol, the dignitaries will all be behind a bulletproof wall. (That's been the case for decades, but it will probably be larger and wider from now on.) Most of the rest of the celebrations will be indoors or virtual.

Fortunately, people who monitor the depths of right-wing social media have suggested that there's little talk of a mass gathering like we saw on January 6. The arrests seem to have greatly demoralized the mob. Of course it's still possible that some small radicalized group will try something, but they'll be up against security never before seen.

[Holman]

Pardoning Capitol rioters would seal his fate in the senate, which is why Lindsay Graham has been desperate to persuade him not to.

With or without the two newbies being sworn in?

There won't be a trial until it is Schumer's senate. (Warnock and Ossoff are likely to be sworn in on Thursday.) Trump will escape 2/3 conviction unless he does something bad in the meantime, and pardoning insurrectionists would be it.

[LawBeefaroni]

I don't think the 25,000 Natl Guardsmen will be crowded around Biden/Harris. They probably won't even be nearby in large numbers, simply because the optics would be bad. They'll be available in DC in case a riot erupts, and that's something that could only happen a few blocks away.

Any NG in proximity to Harris/Biden probably won't be armed. Not with live ammo anyway.

[malchior]

Patriots all.

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1 ... 89509?s=20

Last reported news is that she packed up some stuff and told her mother she was going away. She has not been apprehended.

Who the heck naturally figures out who the SVR are? I wonder where she went to school. There is a chance she was recruited.

[malchior]

https://twitter.com/JesseDamiani/status ... 8987927552

[Jaymann]

Countdown to Biden inauguration as President:

2 days

Agolf starts selling pardons like a sideshow barker. When advised this is illegal, he responded, what are they gonna do, impeach me?

[Smoove_B]

I'm confident she wasn't the only one. Things are about to get really interesting, I'd imagine.

[LordMortis]

Can I assume that behind the scenes, they have video from the Capitol Building security itself, and this will all come to a head in the coming weeks/months?

[malchior]

Can I assume that behind the scenes, they have video from the Capitol Building security itself, and this will all come to a head in the coming weeks/months?

I assume they know otherwise they wouldn't be dropping an actual name. Hopefully we'll get an investigation when Congress settles down - maybe a 9/11 style report by the end of summer/early fall.

Especially since we keep learning disturbing details. This morning WaPo published that militia members from Ohio possibly tied to the Oath Keepers, 3-Percenters, and/or Proud Boys were identified as the group moving up the Capitol steps and allegedly led the assault that led to the security breach.

Watkins and Crowl were among about 10 individuals recorded at the U.S. Capitol wearing combat helmets, ballistic goggles, tactical vests and Oath Keepers patches who “move[d] in an organized and practiced fashion and force[d] their way to the front of the crowd” to lead the siege and break-in, FBI affidavits said.

Lawyers for the four defendants could not immediately be identified.

The Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, and the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, have drawn particular attention from FBI agents investigating the attack on Congress, as they work to determine whether those groups organized or directed the violence to block certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. Officials have said the Proud Boys in particular are an important focus of the FBI investigation.

“All these extremist groups are being looked at in terms of their participation at the Capitol,” acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin said Friday.

Oath Keepers patches and logos were prominently worn by a number of those in the mob that day. It is one of the largest self-described militia groups in the United States, claiming tens of thousands of members. The group’s founder has argued that current and former U.S. military and law enforcement members can adhere to their oath to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” while refusing orders or even fighting to resist tyranny.

The Oath Keepers gained a measure of notoriety last summer when its members showed up at Black Lives Matter protests wearing military gear and carrying weapons as a kind of self-declared vigilante force to prevent vandalism. Before that, they appeared at the 2014 standoff at the Bundy ranch in Nevada and the protests in Ferguson, Mo.

[The Meal]

https://twitter.com/JesseDamiani/status ... 8987927552

That's the sort of thing that'd make a staffer quit after two weeks on the job.

[malchior]

https://twitter.com/JesseDamiani/status ... 8987927552

That's the sort of thing that'd make a staffer quit after two weeks on the job.

Could be. He was a McConnell guy. Perhaps he thought he signed up with a rising star and instead saw a rabid dog.

[LordMortis]

It only took until mid January and the government drawing the line at seditious riots for the last of the Trump/MAGA/Blue Line yard signs and flags to disappear from my normalized commutes to the grocer/work. All that remains is one We Support Our Police yard sign that replaced a Trump yard sign.

[Octavious]

We still have a few up in town. The one guy replaced it with a gigantic don't tread on me flag. So that's nice... There's still a house by my work that has a huge Trump shrine. I'd take a picture but I don't want to get shot.

[Jaymann]

I wonder if they have video surveillance showing who removed the panic buttons...

[LordMortis]

The one guy replaced it with a gigantic don't tread on me flag. So that's nice.

My out of the way commute had one up three weeks ago when last I drove that way. I have no idea when it popped up because I get out so little and when I do it's almost always along one of three paths to a specific destination and home again and that flag was not in my normal pathing. It's the one I wonder if is still there. The thing was a full sized flag like we used to hang in school but hanging off the 2nd story of a house.

The next time I get carry out food and it is outside of my normal travel lines, I'll take note if it is still there. But that could be a long while.

[Alefroth]

What happens to the guard members who don't pass the vetting? Is there a place for you in the NG if you're deemed unfit to guard the president?