GOP State Senators who have yet to sign: Remember that mass-mailing them all in one go will probably get spam filtered. Be respectful but insistent that they sign the petition to invoke a special session. [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
GOP State Senators who have already signed: Maybe send them a thanks... to let them know they're expected to live up to their obligation. [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
https://twitter.com/Maximus_4EVR has been doing much more work to make contact lists for the state legislators, and usually updates every day with who's still holding out.
With a majority of both houses, the PA legislature can convene even though the governor refuses to call them into session. They could then act on elections issues (and if they're pissed enough to call themselves into special session, they would probably certify the Trump electors for PA).
His story is actually even more badass than that. The Janissaries fucked him over but good - at one point when he was still young, they forced him to watch as one of his closest advisors was publicly executed. The advisor apparently asked the young Sultan not to intervene, rather than risking being overthrown.
The Janissaries had once been a source of strength to the Ottoman nation, but they had grown fat and corrupt, blocking desperately needed military reforms, and worse, they would threaten the Sultan himself whenever their privileges were questioned. He knew that he had to break them utterly in order to even attempt to enact any real reform of the Ottoman state.
He plotted for years to have his revenge on the Janissaries, and eventually when all the pieces were in place, he provoked them into a confrontation. The Janissaries were confident that this would go down exactly as it had during the reign of the last few Sultans who'd dared to fuck with them, and knew they could take down the small royal guard the Sultan was permitted.
They did not anticipate that said small unit of guards were equipped with two top of the line Prussian-made cannons.
After experiencing the unpleasantness of trying to charge a prepared artillery position with swords, the Janissaries retreated to their fortified barracks, daring the Sultan to lay siege to them with the comparatively limited forces available to him (though backed by angry citizens who were also sick of the Janissaries' shit).
The Sultan declined to play the game on their terms, and had his artillerists reduce the barracks to rubble.
There's probably a moral there somewhere (other than the fact that Ottoman history is like 600 years of nonstop game of thrones craziness).
If you look at the pattern of Roberts' votes, he likes to "keep things in balance" by handing out wins like treats.
"Sure, I'm blocking Trump's re-election lawsuits, but lookie! Here's a symbolic judgement that I think will be utterly meaningless since I expect the census to be slow-walked to keep Trump from actually making use of it."
It goes beyond merely ignoring the law when the law is inconvenient, and verges on total contempt for the idea that laws even are a thing.
It's actually weird we haven't gone through a major constitutional revision. It's a testament to the flexibility of the Founders' vision. But that's pretty much over now. A system where you can openly cheat and nothing happens no longer has any legitimacy.
I for one look forward to the Second American Republic.
You know, this makes me wonder about another story recently - Russia's nuclear command plane getting looted.
https://www.rt.com/russia/508998-doomsday-plane-electronic-equipment-stolen/
I mean, it's not like there's any problems that could happen from people potentially getting access to the nuclear codes of the two premier nuclear powers.
That's definitely odd.
It's basically saying that if there's no determination on the 6th (if the electoral votes are such a clusterfuck that the contest isn't resolved), everyone is stuck with that until the 11th at the earliest since Pence is gone.
If there is a determination on the 6th, there's no turning that machine back on, whatever the outcome is.
...I mean, unless he just leaves before the vote even happens.
Another thing to file under "I have no idea what's going on, but something is". Lot of shit in that file right now.
Interesting that the visit sites they call out are basically key US allies right now. You've gotta check in with Israel (unfortunately), the mid-east, and of course Poland is all in for us and can jam a stick in the EU's wheels if they go full retard.
Yeah, Harrison Deal's death itself was kind of in the "it could be just a weird accident, but if someone doesn't swab that car for explosives they're fucking blind" territory. An investigator in the case "kills himself" on top of it, though? Nah. Now we're firmly in "assume fuckery until proven otherwise".
To be fair there was a brief party in DC, but the swamp is full of people who've been screaming about Orange Hitler for the past 4 years. They don't need to be paid to show up.
I'm admittedly not sure that counts, though, if it's not so much a pro-Biden party as an anti-Trump one.
Yeah - it didn't look quite as bad as I was hearing, when I saw the clip, but he looks frail as fuck. Like when they hug it's kind of a "not too hard, he might break" deal. And then he's just kind of led away.
They must really be sweating it, keeping him from keeling over before the 6th.
This situation is much worse than you think. California's state budget is totally fucked by the lockdowns, and they're trying to slow down admissions into state prisons (while simultaneously letting a bunch of people out) to reduce that budget item. This chokes the whole jail pipeline, backing up the county jails, etc, because judges are still holding trials and sentencing people to state prison, and then they're just sitting in county because state won't take them. This keeps them on county budget rather than state.
Then the courts are looking at the county level jails packed full of people and going "hey this is bullshit, you need to reduce prison population".
And of course this creates a "force majeure" of sorts where local officials can decide to do shit like not charge people for a whole swath of crimes. And nobody calls them on it because even if they did keep charging people for those crimes it's not like you could keep them in jail if you convicted them.
tl;dr: Get the fuck out of California.
That's the correct form of the "brawl on the 6th" scenario. It requires state legislatures to submit their own slate of electors so that there are two options.
A bunch of them seem to still be struggling to read this you-ess cone-stay-two-shone thing that kids are on about these days (it's the first they've heard of it, you see). But they've got until the 5th to get someone to explain it to them in small words.
The only situation where there would be a single slate that gets decertified is if the ODNI report is such a blockbuster that the nation as a whole is ready to revolt otherwise, and that would require pretty miraculous levels of evidence. And at that point the state legislatures would surely have acted.
This theory is a bit "Bernie can still win", except for the fact that everyone on both sides is sure as hell acting like this isn't over. And since it's not over, the question remains why Trump thinks he can win and everyone is acting like he's right. The 6th is the most obvious mechanism remaining for this to happen.
The "brawl in congress on the 6th" scenario was always the most likely one. People got their hopes up in the Texas suit because the Supreme Court could have tied this all up in a neat bow and saved us all a lot of headaches and risk.
Enough info has to come out to get the state legislatures over the line, though, and our Chi-crats will fight that every step of the way.
The only reason they would drop it would be if it falls out of their hands while we're punching them. A lot of that property was purchased by Chinese smuggling money out of China, so it's not like the Chinese government can just "dump" it. It was purchased precisely because the Chinese don't trust their government.
Severing the money flow will deflate the property market, though.
We're not going to know one way or the other probably until after this is over.
It is however true that liberals crave a narrative where people are abandoning Trump, because this plays to the liberal arrogance of "finally, everyone is acknowledging we're the smartest people in the room!" Just look at the Lincoln Project, who are shitty RINOs but were handed totally absurd amounts of money by playing to liberal arrogance.
And Trump plays off this arrogance too, certainly intentionally. Most, if not all, of the liberals in this country think that because Trump occasionally tweets with lots of exclamation marks, that he's not intelligent. So considering we are in full cloak and dagger information war at this point, it would not be unthinkable that the fight with Barr is a ruse. Not in the sense that Barr and Trump are 100% on the same page, but in the sense that Barr being "anti-Trump" now sets him up with more credibility if he backs the findings in the ODNI report, for example.
But man, I wouldn't put an ounce of fucking trust in Barr right now. If he shows up with a wheelbarrow full of indictments, everything can be forgiven, but until then he gets zero benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, if all people are doing is neurotically hitting F5 here, it's time to set aside the keyboard for a bit. Look to the world beyond the internet. Morale is important. If we forget what we're fighting for then we are already lost.
If someone is within travel distance of DC, or is in a contested state where they can call their legislators to stop fucking around, then definitely take those concrete actions towards victory.
Otherwise, take a morale day (or two).
There are only 50 state senators total, so less than that.