Octopus Overlords

Alefroth wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:00 pm

malchior wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 8:57 pm https://mobile.twitter.com/Cernovich/st ... 1513269248

This is going to fuel the fire even more.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 11:51 pm If the House votes to impeach on Monday, can McConnell just sit on it until January 20?

Unagi wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 11:54 pm

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 11:51 pm If the House votes to impeach on Monday, can McConnell just sit on it until January 20?

There is more to the impeachment than just the removal.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 11:51 pm If the House votes to impeach on Monday, can McConnell just sit on it until January 20?

He claimed that he had found the zip-tie handcuffs on the floor. “I wish I had not picked those up,” he told me. “My thought process there was I would pick them up and give them to an officer when I see one. . . . I didn’t do that because I had put them in my coat, and I honestly forgot about them.”

Archinerd wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 1:51 am From the New Yorker article;

He claimed that he had found the zip-tie handcuffs on the floor. “I wish I had not picked those up,” he told me. “My thought process there was I would pick them up and give them to an officer when I see one. . . . I didn’t do that because I had put them in my coat, and I honestly forgot about them.”

When he arrived at the Capitol, he said, he assumed he was welcome to enter the building.

Grifman wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 2:04 am

Archinerd wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 1:51 am From the New Yorker article;

He claimed that he had found the zip-tie handcuffs on the floor. “I wish I had not picked those up,” he told me. “My thought process there was I would pick them up and give them to an officer when I see one. . . . I didn’t do that because I had put them in my coat, and I honestly forgot about them.”

The zip ties are the least of his worries at the moment.

When he arrived at the Capitol, he said, he assumed he was welcome to enter the building.

Seriously, he expects us to believe that he didn't know the EC vote was going on, that just anyone can't walk onto the floor of the Capitol anytime they want to?

Donald Trump still has 11 days in office.

Article II of the Constitution vests full executive power in the president, including the post of commander in chief of the armed forces. Since World War II, this has included the power to use nuclear arms—“the president’s weapons,” as nukes are called in the defense community—without contradiction or countermanding.

Read: The real Cuban missile crisis

No special exception limits the actions of lame-duck presidents. Trump will have the full panoply of his powers right up until noon on January 20. After the storming of the U.S. Capitol, even these final few days are too much of a risk to endure.

Trump is an unstable and desperate man who has incited violence against the government of the United States. He cannot be trusted with the keys to Armageddon, and so he must be removed by any legal and constitutional means available.

Since the insurrection on Wednesday, Trump has tried in his diffident and childlike way to calm the waters with a weak statement acknowledging Joe Biden’s win, an acceptance Trump apparently sees as a gracious willingness to compromise after his initial seditious insistence on fighting to the end. This change in tone, however, was merely Trump following his usual pattern, in which he says something horrifying, panics his staff—and his lawyers—and then is pushed out in front of the cameras to say he didn’t really mean any of it, while he winks and indicates that he meant every word of it.

And sure enough, just hours after his grudging act of contrition, Trump was back on Twitter with an all-caps exhortation to his followers to take him both seriously and literally. “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” he tapped out furiously, “will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

...

Congressional Republicans, for their part, are resisting calls to remove Trump, arguing instead that we should all just clench our teeth and tough it out. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, has called for impeachment if Trump does not resign. But she has also told her caucus that she has spoken with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to “discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.”

This move is flatly unconstitutional. Pelosi has the right to ask questions as part of Congress's oversight, but she does not have the right to ask for options to circumvent the president's Article II powers. This is an unhealthy signal to the executive branch, and especially to the military, intelligence, and justice communities, to ignore the elected president and to function without an authority in power until Biden arrives.

This circumvention of the Constitution happened once before, albeit by a Cabinet officer rather than at the behest of a legislator. When Richard Nixon was in his final agony, rumored to be drinking heavily and having conversations with the portraits in the White House, Senator Alan Cranston phoned Defense Secretary James Schlesinger to warn about “the need for keeping a berserk president from plunging us into a holocaust.” Schlesinger told the U.S. military that any “unusual orders”—such as using nuclear weapons—should be verified by him or Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. What we didn’t know at the time was that the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, was in worse shape than Nixon. His health was failing, and he was addicted to sleeping pills. In October 1973, perhaps gambling that Nixon was too compromised to respond, Brezhnev threatened to send troops to the Arab-Israeli War then under way. Kissinger and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Thomas Moorer, decided to act. They issued a worldwide military alert—including elevating the ready status of U.S. nuclear forces—on the night of October 24.

The Soviets backed down. But it could have ended very differently.

We can’t keep hoping for the best or relying on those not in charge to keep Trump in line. Even one day more is too long for him to be in the White House. We escaped disaster over just a few days in 1962 and in the dark of an autumn night in 1973. Peace was kept, in part, by the presence of steady professionals such as Schlesinger and the Kennedy team, the likes of whom are nowhere to be found in Trump’s Washington.

We no longer have a margin for error. A second impeachment is the only reliable solution, and it should take place immediately.

Kraken wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:01 am Reasons (cribbed from someone's FB post) to impeach and convict after the fact:

1. Loses his 200k+ pension for the rest of his life.
2. Loses his 1 million dollar/year travel allowance.
3. Loses lifetime full secret service detail
4. Loses his ability to run in 2024

#4 is the biggie, but the other reasons aren't trivial.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:12 am In all seriousness, what does he get if he loses the "full secret service detail?" A smaller one? A stipend for private security? Nothing?

LawBeefaroni wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:12 am

In all seriousness, what does he get if he loses the "full secret service detail?" A smaller one? A stipend for private security? Nothing?

LawBeefaroni wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:12 am
In all seriousness, what does he get if he loses the "full secret service detail?" A smaller one? A stipend for private security? Nothing?

Kraken wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:01 am Reasons (cribbed from someone's FB post) to impeach and convict after the fact:

1. Loses his 200k+ pension for the rest of his life.
2. Loses his 1 million dollar/year travel allowance.
3. Loses lifetime full secret service detail
4. Loses his ability to run in 2024

#4 is the biggie, but the other reasons aren't trivial.

Unagi wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:20 pm

Kraken wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:01 am Reasons (cribbed from someone's FB post) to impeach and convict after the fact:

1. Loses his 200k+ pension for the rest of his life.
2. Loses his 1 million dollar/year travel allowance.
3. Loses lifetime full secret service detail
4. Loses his ability to run in 2024

#4 is the biggie, but the other reasons aren't trivial.

Do his pardons hold ?

Specifically, can a President that is actively being impeached for Event X, Self-Pardon for Event X ?

Kraken wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:24 pm

Unagi wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:20 pm

Kraken wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:01 am Reasons (cribbed from someone's FB post) to impeach and convict after the fact:

1. Loses his 200k+ pension for the rest of his life.
2. Loses his 1 million dollar/year travel allowance.
3. Loses lifetime full secret service detail
4. Loses his ability to run in 2024

#4 is the biggie, but the other reasons aren't trivial.

Do his pardons hold ?

Specifically, can a President that is actively being impeached for Event X, Self-Pardon for Event X ?

This question came up, in passing, earlier. As I understand it, one cannot be pardoned for crimes one was impeached and convicted over; the other interpretation is that one cannot be impeached for crimes one was pardoned of; this has never been tested. I'd like to believe that he can't self-pardon for treason, but who knows? Odds are that we'll find out eventually.

Max Peck wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:30 pm

Kraken wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:24 pm

Unagi wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:20 pm

Kraken wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:01 am Reasons (cribbed from someone's FB post) to impeach and convict after the fact:

1. Loses his 200k+ pension for the rest of his life.
2. Loses his 1 million dollar/year travel allowance.
3. Loses lifetime full secret service detail
4. Loses his ability to run in 2024

#4 is the biggie, but the other reasons aren't trivial.

Do his pardons hold ?

Specifically, can a President that is actively being impeached for Event X, Self-Pardon for Event X ?

This question came up, in passing, earlier. As I understand it, one cannot be pardoned for crimes one was impeached and convicted over; the other interpretation is that one cannot be impeached for crimes one was pardoned of; this has never been tested. I'd like to believe that he can't self-pardon for treason, but who knows? Odds are that we'll find out eventually.

Doesn't it come down to the fact that pardons fall into the legal domain while impeachment is purely political? My impression is that a self-pardon would not prevent the impeachment/conviction but it could prevent federal criminal charges (but not state-level criminal charges, or civil litigation IIRC).

My follow-up question is "Since the District of Columbia is not a state, are all crimes committed in that jurisdiction considered federal or can someone be charged with the equivalent of State-level crimes?"

Fascinatingly, the Defense Department is referring to Wednesday’s pro-Trump riot as “the January 6, 2021 1st Amendment Protests.” To be precise, and as others have pointed out, this is a memo issued by the office of the acting Defense Secretary, the fifth person appointed by President Trump to lead the Department of Defense.

Max Peck wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:48 pm Gaslighting to the bitter end.

Holman wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:40 pm I'm still trying to get my head around cop behavior on Jan 6.

On the one hand, there's footage of cops opening the gate and waving protesters in, but there are also fights at the barricades, and then there's this:

(Pretty disturbing video)

https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/statu ... 11714?s=20

Holman wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:40 pm I'm still trying to get my head around cop behavior on Jan 6.

On the one hand, there's footage of cops opening the gate and waving protesters in, but there are also fights at the barricades, and then there's this:

(Pretty disturbing video)

https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/statu ... 11714?s=20

malchior wrote:The Atlantic

Donald Trump still has 11 days in office.

Article II of the Constitution vests full executive power in the president, including the post of commander in chief of the armed forces. Since World War II, this has included the power to use nuclear arms—“the president’s weapons,” as nukes are called in the defense community—without contradiction or countermanding.

Read: The real Cuban missile crisis

No special exception limits the actions of lame-duck presidents. Trump will have the full panoply of his powers right up until noon on January 20. After the storming of the U.S. Capitol, even these final few days are too much of a risk to endure.

Trump is an unstable and desperate man who has incited violence against the government of the United States. He cannot be trusted with the keys to Armageddon, and so he must be removed by any legal and constitutional means available.

Since the insurrection on Wednesday, Trump has tried in his diffident and childlike way to calm the waters with a weak statement acknowledging Joe Biden’s win, an acceptance Trump apparently sees as a gracious willingness to compromise after his initial seditious insistence on fighting to the end. This change in tone, however, was merely Trump following his usual pattern, in which he says something horrifying, panics his staff—and his lawyers—and then is pushed out in front of the cameras to say he didn’t really mean any of it, while he winks and indicates that he meant every word of it.

And sure enough, just hours after his grudging act of contrition, Trump was back on Twitter with an all-caps exhortation to his followers to take him both seriously and literally. “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” he tapped out furiously, “will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

...

Congressional Republicans, for their part, are resisting calls to remove Trump, arguing instead that we should all just clench our teeth and tough it out. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, has called for impeachment if Trump does not resign. But she has also told her caucus that she has spoken with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to “discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.”

This move is flatly unconstitutional. Pelosi has the right to ask questions as part of Congress's oversight, but she does not have the right to ask for options to circumvent the president's Article II powers. This is an unhealthy signal to the executive branch, and especially to the military, intelligence, and justice communities, to ignore the elected president and to function without an authority in power until Biden arrives.

This circumvention of the Constitution happened once before, albeit by a Cabinet officer rather than at the behest of a legislator. When Richard Nixon was in his final agony, rumored to be drinking heavily and having conversations with the portraits in the White House, Senator Alan Cranston phoned Defense Secretary James Schlesinger to warn about “the need for keeping a berserk president from plunging us into a holocaust.” Schlesinger told the U.S. military that any “unusual orders”—such as using nuclear weapons—should be verified by him or Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. What we didn’t know at the time was that the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, was in worse shape than Nixon. His health was failing, and he was addicted to sleeping pills. In October 1973, perhaps gambling that Nixon was too compromised to respond, Brezhnev threatened to send troops to the Arab-Israeli War then under way. Kissinger and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Thomas Moorer, decided to act. They issued a worldwide military alert—including elevating the ready status of U.S. nuclear forces—on the night of October 24.

The Soviets backed down. But it could have ended very differently.

We can’t keep hoping for the best or relying on those not in charge to keep Trump in line. Even one day more is too long for him to be in the White House. We escaped disaster over just a few days in 1962 and in the dark of an autumn night in 1973. Peace was kept, in part, by the presence of steady professionals such as Schlesinger and the Kennedy team, the likes of whom are nowhere to be found in Trump’s Washington.

We no longer have a margin for error. A second impeachment is the only reliable solution, and it should take place immediately.

msteelers wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 1:14 pm But on the other hand, the power to destroy the entire world lies completely with one individual! Which absolutely nobody should feel good about.

In the memo, obtained by The Washington Post, McConnell’s office notes that the Senate will not reconvene for substantive business until Jan. 19, which means the earliest possible date that impeachment trial proceedings can begin in the Senate is the day before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated.

..

Absent a unanimous agreement before Jan. 19 to formally begin acting on any articles of impeachment, the McConnell memo outlines an expected scenario should the House impeach Trump in the coming days:

●On Jan. 19, the Senate would receive a message from the House that it has appointed impeachment managers, and that the Senate would be ready to receive it.

●On Jan. 19 or 20, the House impeachment managers would exhibit the articles.

●On Jan. 20 or 21, the Senate would proceed to consideration of the impeachment articles at 1 p.m., and officially begin the trial. McConnell’s memo noted that the “Senate trial would therefore begin after President Trump’s term has expired — either one hour after its expiration on January 20, or twenty-five hours after its expiration on January 21.”