trump off the CO ballot

[Meadmaker]

Excuse me for not following it all very closely, but isn't the logical outcome an appeal to SCOTUS, who will rule in the orange turd's favour?

It seems very likely.

[President Bush]

Whether the president is an ¨officer¨ in the language of the 14th Amendment... was apparently discussed at the time.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php ... nt.615509/

[arthwollipot]

Trump, though, is not merely stupid. In fact, he's not stupid. He's delusional. He thinks if he says it, it makes it so. So he could come up with that nonsense, and then fire any lawyer who wouldn't go along with it.

I've said before that I don't think Trump is stupid. I think he's of average intelligence. What he is, though, is profoundly mentally ill. His narcissistic personality disorder is such that he is incapable of seeing value in anything that doesn't benefit him. He is, in his mind, literally the most important person on the planet, and everything he says and does is based in that fundamental premise. He has the right to do anything he wants, and the people who want to stop him doing what he wants are only doing so because they have an irrational personal grudge against him.

[Meadmaker]

Trump, though, is not merely stupid. In fact, he's not stupid. He's delusional. He thinks if he says it, it makes it so. So he could come up with that nonsense, and then fire any lawyer who wouldn't go along with it.

I've said before that I don't think Trump is stupid. I think he's of average intelligence. What he is, though, is profoundly mentally ill. His narcissistic personality disorder is such that he is incapable of seeing value in anything that doesn't benefit him. He is, in his mind, literally the most important person on the planet, and everything he says and does is based in that fundamental premise. He has the right to do anything he wants, and the people who want to stop him doing what he wants are only doing so because they have an irrational personal grudge against him.

I think that's all true.


The reason I have trouble with keeping him off the ballot is related to that. He just made a speech. I don't think he even intended to incite (much) violence. I don't think he intended the mob to storm the Capitol. I think he was playing some sort of weird legal game. To him, the law is just something that powerful people use to their advantage. I think he was trying to get a mob to show how powerful he was, and that it was ok for the lawmakers to "do the right thing", and acknowledge him as President-elect. The idea that doing so was illegal didn't really matter to him, because "legal" is whatever the powerful people says it is. In his mind, judges can do whatever they like. The Vice President can refuse to count votes. Congressmen can refuse to certify states. State legislators can replace electors. That's all "legal" in Trump's mind. They have the power to do it. How can it be illegal if they have the power?

So, was he backing an insurrection? Well, right from election night, he was refusing to acknowledge the election results. He was trying to get people to break the law by not certifying votes, except in his mind that wasn't breaking the law. Manipulating the law isn't breaking the law, in his mind.

But in the end, what he was doing was incompatible with democracy, so I'm willing to say that he is engaging in insurrection by not calling it off once it began.

But my opinion isn't really very significant. What will the high nine say? I think we will find out.


It's sad we have to think about it. Trump clearly has shown contempt for democracy, but he might get elected anyway. That shouldn't happen. Refusing to accept an election result should be an automatic disqualification not just through legal maneuvering. It should make every single American say no to his attempt to regain the White House. Where did we go wrong that so many of us can't see that?

[President Bush]

this just in...

Then-President Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News and revealed publicly for the first time.

On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they'd look "terrible" if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings.

"We've got to fight for our country," said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. "We can't let these people take our country away from us."

McDaniel, a Michigan native and the leader of the Republican Party nationally, said at another point in the call, "If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. ... We will get you attorneys."

To which Trump added: "We'll take care of that."

Palmer and Hartmann left the canvassers meeting without signing the official statement of votes for Wayne County, and the following day, they unsuccessfully attempted to rescind their votes in favor of certification, filing legal affidavits claiming they were pressured.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/ ... 004514007/

maybe time to resurrect the Lyndon Johnson campaign slogan run against Barry Goldwater...

[grayman]

"Trump recorded pressuring Wayne County [Michigan] canvassers not to certify 2020 vote":

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/ ... 004514007/

[stanky]

These two parties haven't been a democracy in a long time. Maybe ever. They differentiate themselves by what they promise, which is very oppositional to the other party. But they can't deliver the promises, nor did they intend to. That way, there's always something to promise the next time. If the job got done, the whole carrot and stick system would crumble.

If crime was fixed, cops would lose jobs. Criminals should have a union. They could go on strike to hurt the justice system should it need to. They're job creators.

[Admin]

It's sad we have to think about it. Trump clearly has shown contempt for democracy, but he might get elected anyway. That shouldn't happen. Refusing to accept an election result should be an automatic disqualification not just through legal maneuvering. It should make every single American say no to his attempt to regain the White House. Where did we go wrong that so many of us can't see that?

That's the truly frightening part to me - he's so obviously an extremely sick cunt who shouldn't ever have got close to the presidency that my mind boggles how he's even in the race, let alone a chance of winning.

It's why The Simpons picked him for their parody episode - the person absolutely least fit to be president.

Until it happened.

[Meadmaker]

It's sad we have to think about it. Trump clearly has shown contempt for democracy, but he might get elected anyway. That shouldn't happen. Refusing to accept an election result should be an automatic disqualification not just through legal maneuvering. It should make every single American say no to his attempt to regain the White House. Where did we go wrong that so many of us can't see that?

That's the truly frightening part to me - he's so obviously an extremely sick cunt who shouldn't ever have got close to the presidency that my mind boggles how he's even in the race, let alone a chance of winning.

It's why The Simpons picked him for their parody episode - the person absolutely least fit to be president.

Until it happened.

And I can understand and forgive the voters in 2016, and even the voters in 2020 who stood by him. I don't agree with them, but I don't think voting for Trump in either 2016 or 2020 made you a bad person. However, his post-election shenanigans are unforgivable, and people should see it. It's sad they don't.

[stanky]

Unlike some, I think Trump is stupid. The way he speaks...can you make that up, to appear stupid? And never let on, by accidentally speaking intelligently? Like, on a hot mic? Not that i've ever heard. The guy is certifiably moronic. I can't imagine that he's ever scored above average on any general test for college aptitude, much less an i.q. test. If so, he's never let them be seen. In fact, he's gone to great lengths to hide any trace of that stuff.

He does seem to possess a ruthlessness and narcissism that has enabled his rise to fame and infamy. Though, to ride that all the way to the White House, imho, involved the efforts and manipulations of various power brokers and their agendas. I see the Donald as a hapless puppet of a dark and greedy trend; all too common in many other nations. To me, it looks like the agenda of "Let's get it while we can, and damn the details!" However, unlike most of my peers, i also see Biden in the same light. He pretends otherwise with hints of an agenda of change, but an objective look at the actual facts demonstrate no real will toward any of the loftier goals that lure us in, to once again, believe in something good coming from an essentially archaic and rotten power structure. Frankly, it's hard to see any positive change coming from either party. Both have layed down and played dead, while our intractable problems gain more traction. The bombs keep dropping; the plastic keeps flowing into the ocean; the entertainment gets shittier; poverty and homelessness grows; whistle blowers get prison; c.e.o.'s of the worst corporate inclinations get wealthier; health gets increasingly worse (speaking of America, btw.) and if anything, the so-called liberal presidents have been the worst. Yeah, tough pill to swallow; hell, i voted for them too. Obama and Clinton were far right dream candidates...should we ever get past the superficial media portrayals.
Should Trump be deemed a threat to this relentless flow (all in the same direction) there's no way he'd be allowed to re-gain a role in it, however ceremonial it actually is. I'd guess that Trump, the person, has no particular agenda beyond his own aggrandizement. Certainly not as the savior of brain-dead phony christians whom evidently, make up a decent % of the voters. Yeah, frightening.
Hence, we're helpless against the obvious degradation of our bio-habitat. The only candidate actually serious about addressing it (RFK jr) is so toxic, that most media is forbidden to mention his name. In spite of that obvious black-out, he gains in the race. Should the propaganda campaign to squash him fail, he will not survive. To any whom believe that the U.S. and it's puppet leadership are above assassinating popular political figures, well, you might need to bone-up on your history studies. Ever wonder why these tragic murders always represent those who would challenge that underlying power structure? It's never the Cheney's or Kissingers. Or Pinochet's or even Putin's and Kim's. "We" install puppets, after killing wildly popular agents of decency and change. That's no secret anymore. Yet, we still can't quite believe it, in regard to our own country. Here, we tend to cling to a long ago exposed fantasy of basic goodness and change. No chance of that, within this overlying framework of a pretend democracy.