Electoral Vote Counting Day Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, January 6, 2021
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121 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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“Minority Leader Mitch McConnell” has a nice ring to it.
So far, so good.
This is what we can expect from the GOP for the next 2-4 years: A whole lot of conservative butt hurt whining about every little thing, most especially about how mean DEMs are to them.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Obama should definitely wear a tan suit to Biden’s inauguration.
Me and my big f’n mouth. No edit function today, jumpin’ thru hoops again. Jax? Just slap me the next time.
In relation to @OzarkHillbilly, I read this yesterday at TPM: A Fox News Host Thinks Society Is ‘Rigged’ Against Republicans
No, it is rigged against contemptible, corrupt, lying, thieving, amoral, slime ball MF’ers who think they can sentence us to lives of serfdom, while they trash the planet and rape our country in service of the wealthy, while killing the elderly and people of color with impunity.
If you don’t like it, try not being it.
Trump will be addressing the “rally” in D.C. from the Ellipse at 11 a.m. today.
Face? Say goodbye to nose:
Whadya wanna bet that the greedy law breaking assholes who hired them are at the front of the vaccine line?
Not the Onion: Denmark launches children’s TV show about man with giant penis
LMPO.
@OzarkHillbilly: If the Governor knows there are undocumented workers, then he needs to arrest the owners and managers of those facilities for breaking the law. Yeah, right.
@OzarkHillbilly: From John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at Columbia:
John McWhorter
@JohnHMcWhorter
·
17h
“Amen and A-woman” is a long-lived Southern/black preacher signature. Rep. Cleaver meant it as a kind of witticism. He doesn’t think AMEN actually has the word MEN in it; he wasn’t being hyper-anything.
The conservative media are like cicadas in the summer. They get loud in unison at every trivial thing.
A friend of mine suggests that if Brian Kemp hadn’t stolen the election from Stacey Abrams, she might not have begun the campaign of vengeance that culminated in these victories.
@Teve: She would have been too busy governing in a time of pandemic to do it.
Mitch McConnell has been flipped on his back.
@Teve:
@JohnSF: I’m definitely not helping. 😛
Heh:
When you lose Drudge…
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this is the War and Peace of pictures: Atlanta, US
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager, speaks during a press conference at the Georgia State Capitol to address alleged voter irregularities.
Don’t cry for Confederate Barbie. I’m sure she had a great payday out of her time slumming it in the Senate.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trump lost the House for the GOP
Trump lost the Presidency for the GOP
Trump lost the Senate for the GOP
Trump will lose his imaginary overthrow of the Electoral College
So much winning.
But so much damage in the last 4 years.
This was a great experiment by the GOP. Again. Some day that will realize that putting their faith in racists, tax breaks for the rich, and embracing the radical right is really their Lucy-with-the-football.
———————
Just saw a video of a woman (wearing the perfunctory MAGA hat and flag attire) in Georgia being interviewed on the GOP loss. She stated:
Someone should tell her that her vote DID count. But she lost. And it doesn’t mean that your vote doesn’t count if you lose. It just means that she is (gasp!) in the minority.
@Liberal Capitalist:
This reminds me of someone I knew who was a Republican living in Massachusetts. He’d claim that he was disenfranchised. I’d say, “No, you’re not. You’re just outnumbered.”
@OzarkHillbilly: Yep, this is the modern Republican Party. A pandemic? Global Warming? Cyber Attacks? “As one of only 100 Senators in the most powerful legislative body in the world I promise you I will spend 100% of the time ensuring that the name of the founder of the Ku Klux Klan is not removed from any high school in the Confederacy… er, I mean, these great United States!”
@OzarkHillbilly:
THAT. WILL. PREACH.
Moving on from politics, I found something odd in the hospital parking lot the other day.
Parking has become automated in much of Mexico. You get a ticket from a machine at the entrance, pay it a machine with cash, and then insert it into a machine at the exit. This is very common. At the hospital, though, as I was checking what time I’d come in, I noticed my car’s licence plate number was printed on the ticket.
Now, how the hell do they figure that out?
It turns out there’s a camera at the entrance, and one at the exit, which reads license plates and assigns them to the ticket. I imagine this is to prevent anyone from leaving with a different car than they came in with (drive a stolen clunker in, abandon it, steal a nice Mercedes, and drive off).
So, no big mystery. But now I’m wondering if license plate data is being sold. Perhaps how often I visit a particular hospital is of little value, but the system could be easily integrated to every parking lot or garage in shopping malls, supermarkets, office buildings, restaurants, hotels, etc.
BTW, that hospital has outrageous parking rates. perhaps not by US standards, but by Mexican ones it is. The rate is $3 per hour. It’s also very near my home (about a 6 minute drive). I considered driving home and taking an Uber or a cab both ways. If we weren’t in a pandemic, I would have.
The common rate is $1 per hour, with fancier places charging $2. Some lots charge $0.75. A few hotels have really high rates for non-guests, but that’s to discourage use for long periods of time.
@Kathy: How’s your mother doing?
@OzarkHillbilly:
She’s getting out today, but the doctors still don’t know what, if anything, might be wrong.
Thanks for asking.
I want to call out the inept vaccine response from my current state, Maryland, as well as my former states of NY and CT and where I used to work, NJ, as well as my original state of Illinois.* Sure, they were handed a bum deal by the Trump administration, but the reason we pay more taxes and put up with more regulation than the Trump states is because we expect them to be competent and to solve the difficult problems. Let Alabama and Tennessee and Mississippi make excuses and whine. I expect decent states to rise to the occasion.
*Yes, I’ve left out the Trump states that I lived in, as governance there is explicitly about using manufactured racial and ethnic tensions in order to keep the current class structure in place, and therefore explicitly NOT about delivering services, responding to crises, or keeping their populace safe. In fact, if you are going to create what is essentially a third world government, a contented rabble is a dangerous rabble.
I’m curious. Do either Loeffler or Perdue have a seat for today’s proceedings in the Joint Session? I would think no. However, I would expect that Warnock and Ossof don’t either, so the Senate is 50-48 R at the moment, and shenanigans may proceed.
@Kathy:
I’m glad to hear this. I hope she remains well.
@Kathy: fingers crossed.
My favorite meme going around FB right now is Stacey Abrams photoshopped as Olenna Tyrell saying, “Tell Donald. I want him to know it was me.”
LOL…the MAGA types are having trouble finding parking in DC. (This is my shocked face.)
@Jay L Gischer: Warnock and Ossoff definitely do not (their votes still have to be certified by the state before they can take office).
Regarding Loeffler and Purdue–I think she does get seated, he does not, but I’d have to check that.
@OzarkHillbilly:
New R
talking pointscare tactic: If Dems are in control they’ll have TV shows aimed at children with men flapping their penises about.@Jen:
The Trumpkins will reply that finding a place to park is difficult only because so many millions of them flocked to D.C. to support their savior.
After years of dutifully kissing Trump’s hefty behind, Pence is about to become the object of MAGA hatred and effigies and death threats.
ETTD
Well, it’s 11:18 a.m. and Trump still hasn’t shown up to address his adoring fans, which he was supposed to do at 11 a.m. How long will they wait?
11:31…still no Trump. Nor any other speakers.
@Kathy:
They also scan the plates to deal with those who claim the machine put the wrong time on their ticket.
That license plate tech was easy for them to obtain, LE in metro areas are all getting it. What it does in cop cars is automatically read license plate numbers in front of the cruiser and checks them with data-bases for stolen, et al. It also instantly looks up whether or not that license plate has a current tax-tab associated with it. If it detects something it notifies the officer. Mentioned only so occasional tab-scofflaws such as myself are properly warned the odds of getting nabbed have gone up rather significantly.
Well, Trump is 55 minutes late, and all those fools are still milling around waiting for him to show up.
@CSK:
What’s the university rule, you need only wait 20 minutes for a tardy professor?
@dazedandconfused: “That license plate tech was easy for them to obtain”
You’ll be stunned to learn they’ve been using it in China for years…
@Sleeping Dog:
At my school it was 15 minutes. This was widely known as the Quarter Rule.
@Sleeping Dog:
I believe so.
Well, Trump finally turned up, only an hour late. He’s behind bullet-proof glass.
He says he will never concede.
@dazedandconfused:
I vaguely recall reading about that not that long ago.
I’ll check other places where I park frequently, too.
Merrick Garland is AG.
@Teve: Gotta wonder if he would have gotten the nod if it was still McConnell’s Senate…
Comey advises in a new book that trump should not be prosecuted after he leaves office.
I’d agree with that, in the sense that he should be prosecuted right now before he leaves office, but that’s not what Mr. Comey means. So we disagree.
Not only should Trump be prosecuted, he should be imprisoned, along with a great many in his cabinet and among his WH staff and advisors. It was failure to prosecute Nixon, or to even hold him accountable, that gave us Iran-Contra and the raft of criminal activities under Trump.
It’s time for America to step up and stop setting bad precedents.
If any person by virtue of their exalted political position cannot be prosecuted, then there is a class of people, however small, who are above the law. We cannot have that and a functioning democracy.
I believe it has already been mentioned, but Politico has video up of a woman harassing Romney because well, from what I heard (I listened to about 50% of the video)…she is angry he did not fall in line and support Trump’s claims of fraud.
I am sincere when I say this, poor guy…he does not deserve that. When he lost his chance to become President he did not turn into a putz that just fell under the thrall of folks like Trump, instead he has stepped up on occasion to voice his displeasure with the GOP and still he tried to fall in line as much as possible to support McConnell and Trump, but credit where credit is due he was one of the first to recognize how ridiculous Trump’s post election claims were and did not back track from his words that it was wrong of Trump to try and overwrite the will of the people.
I do not know why it made me emotional (and I lean Democrat even though I still say I am undecided to anyone who asks me) but I just feel that folks should leave Romney alone. He does not deserve to be heckled/lectured by dingbats.
Also, I hope post video that he gets some sort of enhanced security detail.
Some Trumpers on Parler are confused. Trump was supposed to bring the Ironclad Evidence today, but he’s babbling about Oprah and calling Biden voters stupid and his phone call to Raffensperger was really a good phone call.
I have no words to describe this. Just read it and watch it.
http://www.thenewportbuzz.com/all-passengers-forced-off-plane-after-2-grinning-trump-supporters-refuse-to-wear-masks-spew-n-word/27115
These are the people who love Trump.
@Teve:
Yawwwwwwn.
Glad I practiced.
The applause makes them more despicable.
@Teve:
Yes, indeed. Marjorie Taylor Greene herself promised that the evidence for a Trump victory would be presented today, and that it would be “overwhelming.”
Oh my…for some reason I find this completely hysterical:
Trump’s devastation of the Republican Party is nearly complete
Emphasis mine, obvs.
Steve Scalise is proof that a near-death experience doesn’t automatically make you re-think your life. At least not in a way that makes you a better person.
It starts.
The Trump wing of the Trumpublican Party(TM) has objected to Arizona’s electoral votes.
Pence has refused to comply with Trump’s demand that he throw out the Electoral College votes of the five “disputed” states.
I hope his Secret Service detail is vigilant, because the Trumpkins are going to be threatening to kill him.
There can be no double standard.
McConnell
Trump should be busted for inciting to riot. A horde of his supporters is trying to storm the Capitol Building.
The Capitol Hill Club has been cleared because of a bomb threat.
@Mister Bluster: you really would benefit from figuring out how to correctly use blockquotes.
Christ, these guys are worthless jokes. Concerns of legitimacy on the Right are exclusively the invention of Trumpists with no idea how the process works. Concerns of legitimacy on the Left are rooted in government actions that deny citizens the ability to vote at all.
Republicans lost, and now they’re pathetically leaning on distrust of their party’s efforts to suppress votes as a way to justify their toddler-brained king’s tantrum. The GOP tried to shut down the USPS and denied voters rights in Florida and did everything they could that they thought wouldn’t look just that little bit too unseemly to bend the vote in their favor, and they still lost. And when they lost, their pathetic leader tried to change that – even crossing the little bit too unseemly line.
These people should be shut out of government forever.
@CSK: They’ve apparently evacuated members and staff from the Capitol building and on Twitter it was just said that Pence has been ushered out of the Senate for his safety?
This is frightening. And embarrassing.
The Marching Morons are as we speak physically breaking into the Capitol.
Who could have guessed that failure to repudiate Trump’s bogus claims of a stolen election could lead to such a thing…?
Protesters are trying to break down the front doors of the Capitol Building. Where the hell are the Capitol Police? Why has it reached this point?
Let’s have Divided Government! Let’s have 50/50 power sharing with these assholes storming the Capitol! That’ll be smart and productive!
@Kingdaddy: (glances at white skin on forearm) No idea.
@Kingdaddy: It’s like, what, 500 people? WTF are the police doing? They deployed thousands of cops to control huge swaths of the city during the BLM protests – now they can’t find 50 people to push these idiots back? Did they use all their pepper spray over the summer and forgot to restock on Amazon?
And now the president is tweeting in support of the protestors too. Jesus H Christ.
@ptfe:
Congratulations, GOP! You now qualify as “an organization that has advocated for the violent overthrow of the US Government” for purposes of security clearance investigations.
@Jen:
McConnell as well just defied Trump, so he’s going to have to watch his back.
Yes, this is frightening and embarrassing.
@Kingdaddy:
The Capitol Police appear to be badly outnumbered.
Can anyone doubt if these hadn’t been Trumpers and other Klansmen but had been black citizens of Washington, there would be live ammunition raining down on them?
This would be a great time for the remnants of the Republican Party to disavow the violence by dropping their remaining objections to the EC votes.
But then we live in the real world.
And, sorry to have to say this, but if Trump is not prosecuted after he leaves office, there’s no chance for democracy to survive past a few more years. Pence has to indicate he won’t pardon Trump should he resign first, and any self-pardon ought to be litigated past exhaustion.
Since 2009, and even before, we have been warned by law enforcement, FBI, Homeland Security, etc about the danger from far right thugs and terrorists. Now this is the culmination of treating them with kid gloves, excusing terrorists like the Bundys, and generally ignoring the problem because of far right political correctness.
@CSK: if Trumpers wanna throw hands let’s get the National Guard in there.
@Kingdaddy: @ptfe:
Capitol police are maintaining the barricades and tackling those trying to enter.
@Mu Yixiao: Not sure what your point is. The protesters are already in the Capitol Building.
@Kingdaddy:
You asked where the police are. They’re on the site trying their best. From NPR:
I’ve always maintained that non-Trump Republicans are terrified of Trump’s supporters. And I have to say that, given what I’m seeing happening in and outside The Capitol today, I can understand why. This is a howling, out-of-control, bloodthirsty mob.
If you haven’t seen it, check what I posted here: @CSK:
Let the National Guard go weapons hot.
@Mu Yixiao: There are several police forces in DC. The Capitol Police seem to be on their own, and wholly unprepared for a mob invasion of the Capitol Building.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_agencies_in_the_District_of_Columbia
@Teve: National Guard, via the Defense Department, has decided to sit this one out.
@Jen: if this is correct, then we know why Dick Cheney et al wrote that note. The military is in on the coup
14 more days of Trump pulling this shit.
@MarkedMan: CBS has just reported that the National Guard are en route to the Capitol, so could just be mixed signals in a bad situation. Still, wow.
After dinner, just turned to BBC News. My God!
What the hell is happening in Washington?
The Capitol is being seized by a mob.
Someone there needs to put this down quick or you could have mass casualties.
@Jen:
I think in the case of the D.C. National Guard, the president himself, i.e. Trump, has to call them out, and you know he’s not going to do that. He’s enjoying this.
CNN is reporting the building is on lockdown. That should mean they are not inside. It’s a fair bet the cops are only going to start if they attempt to break down the doors. Looking at the feeds I see no rifles or firearms. It’s still technically a peaceful protest. I see people hoping for a fight. Unless no-choice, don’t oblige them.
The plan appears to be to wait them out. After about 4-5 hours that crowd should be thinning and that’s when the cops should make their move. I see someone set an 18:00 curfew. Don’t expect anything much before then.
So when order is restored, are these Republican assholes going to keep objecting to the vote?
@Teve:
I hate to say this, but who commands the National Guard in DC?
If Trump has suborned that chain of command this could go horribly wrong very fast.
Or if thousands of the Trump rally people follow up the stormers.
How secure are the legislators?
Bloody hell.
BBC is interviewing Republican congresspeople.
@dazedandconfused:
Protesters ARE inside the building. There’s live views of it on BBC.
They’re calm at the moment, but who knows what might happen.
@dazedandconfused:
Seen pics of them inside.
It looks like at least part of the complex is breached.
@dazedandconfused:
The “protesters” are inside the senate chamber. They’re stealing various documents. One is standing on the dais yelling that Trump won. Shots have been fired inside the building and tear gas has been deployed, though no one seems to know by whom.
Well f@ck me its our old acquaintance Mr Mjolnir tat. In the seat of the Chairman of the Senate!
Governor Northam has just authorized deployment of the Virginia National Guard to the Capitol, along with 200 Virginia State Troopers. My first reaction was “I wonder which side the state troopers will be on…”
@CSK: The Pentagon approved the Mayor’s request to have the National Guard deployed two days ago (https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/04/politics/muriel-bowser-dc-national-guard-protests/index.html ). Not sure what the heck is happening.
@JohnSF:
Obviously he’s a replacement for the guy who was standing on the chair screaming that Trump won.
@Jen:
Me neither. But it’s awful.
This wouldn’t be happening if anyone–ANYONE–else had been elected in 2016.
I just realized…why is no one questioning why Twitter is still allowing Trump to use their platform to incite a coup? I know in the past folks said that Twitter is not really anti-Trump using their platform and that putting up the messages about potential Trump tweets being incorrect is as far as they would go to box Trump in on social media because they love the potential $$$ he makes the company, but after today Twitter may come rue the moment in time that they had to completely close Trump’s twitter accounts (his real Trump one, not the one assigned to whomever occupies the White House).
Twitter will act shocked when Biden’s admin comes crashing down on them like a ton of bricks but Trump’s words today on twitter are a bell that cannot be un-rung and they have to know they screwed up and hyper scrutiny of their company and others in Silicon Valley are going to come at them fast and furious. Twitter has no one to blame but themselves when the incoming admin crawls up their rear ends and makes life unhappy for them.
Let this sink in:
Armed security personnel (plain-clothes Capitol Police?) with weapons drawn holding the intruders at the House doors.
@JohnSF:
So it appears. I see they have fully evac-ed the politicians so there was no compelling need to draw the line at the door. The ones inside appear to be getting arrested in your link.
Still nobody hurt, and as long as nobody is hurt this is great. Yes, let’s have the nature of MAGA Trump supporters on full display. Does anyone think this stuff helps Trump?
@dazedandconfused:
PBS has been reporting for about an hour that at least one person — presumably a protester — has been shot in the chest and was receiving CPR, and (unconfirmed) that half a dozen have been taken to the hospital.
So far I find this more embarrassing than alarming. A Keystone Koup, as it were. I hope I won’t have cause to regret saying it later on.
This is also a good time to invoke the 25th amendment.
It won’t happen, but we should remember this come 2022, 2024, 2026, etc.
@dazedandconfused:
Depends where the Congresspeople are.
I’d assume they have been moved via secure passages to a place of safety.
But there could be good reason for holding that entry. Dunno.
@DrDaveT:
That happened early. I was watching BBC live when a guy started yelling at the reporter that a woman had been shot in the crowd.
John Podhoretz demands Trump’s impeachment and removal:
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/john-podhoretz/donald-trump-should-be-impeached-and-removed-from-office-tomorrow/
Tweets from National Review contributors:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/nr-tweets-electoral-college-count-2021/
@Kathy:
It might just, maybe.
Pence has openly broken with Trump.
So has McConnell.
At any rate if Pence won’t go with the 25th, Congress should hold an emergency session and impeach ASAP.
This is beyond anything tolerable, and directly incited by Trump.
Well, CNN has just called the second GA Senate seat for Ossoff…yay?
What a flippin’ day.
@Teve: How will this end?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_jNklBqVCA
@Kingdaddy:
When he told Sinclair “You have forgotten something,” I’m sure Kosh did not mean the appointment with Delenn.
@Teve:..
quotes…
———–
everybody’s a
critic
——–
as I have stated in the past:
(quoting myself)
ZDNet claims a new malware delivery lure features a Trump video (mentioned at the 5th paragraph).
It’ seems appropriate to hide malware in malware, no?