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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26696 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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I seem to recall this big controversy about the crossfire hurricane thing.

And you know that SCOTUS case in 2000.

There is a big difference between using recount laws for the purpose for which they were intended (even if those recount laws later turn out to be unconstitutional) and filing lies with the court. Neither Bush nor Gore was ever accused of filing briefs containing false factual claims - the key facts of Bush v Gore (that recounting punch card ballots accurately was sufficiently difficult that there wasn't time for an accurate statewide recount before the electoral College deadline, and that the margin of error of the original count exceeded Bush's margin of victory) were never disputed.

Trump's State court challenges to the 2020 election are criminal if and only if they were based on knowingly false factual claims. Both the Federal and Georgia indictments promise to bring evidence that they were.

The electoral counts of 2001, 2017, and 2021 (and probably a few others I've missed) all included members of congress making motions to dismiss the electoral votes of entire states to change the outcome of the election. To their credit, none of the standing VPs entertained these motions, but "tried to officially overthrow the counted votes" is a bar we passed quite a while ago without much fanfare: none of the representatives making these motions saw consequences from doing so.

Making frivolous objections to electoral votes based on false claims of electoral irregularities (which wouldn't include 2001, but would probably include 2005 and definitely include 2017 and 2021) is bad and the congresscritters who did it should feel bad. But they are protected from prosecution by the Speech and Debate clause, so this isn't a case of selective prosecution. The House should probably have censured the Reps who made frivolous objections in 2017 - although most of them never got the chance to make false allegations on the record, so it would presumably only have been for disorderly conduct.

Incidentally, the VP doesn't have any discretion whether to entertain an objection - under the rules at the time, he has to accept it and allow a debate if it is supported by at least one Rep and at least one Senator (as in 2005 and 2021), and can't accept it if it is only supported by Reps (as in 2001 and 2017). (It now requires a fifth of the members of each house to force a debate on an objection).

Tell me more about crossfire hurricane. What did they do to keep Obama in the White House and prevent Trump becoming president?

  • -11

Hey you can “own” your property but we the government get its fruits and we decide what you do with the property. But that isn’t communism since you know you own the property.

The claim was that he backed Hillary's bid, no? If we narrow it to Obama going for a third term then clearly not.

I'm not aware of any particular action on the part of Trump in Georgia so opening an investigation into a political rival on less than solid basis is at least equivalent.

Ok, what did Obama do after the election to try to make Clinton succeed him instead of Trump?

I don't know about that, but I do know it's very funny to watch the clip of Obama on SNL doing literal mic drop about 'Trump will never be president' and then the media shots of him in the White House meeting Trump (instead of Hillary) to do the handover of power.

It makes me laugh, at least.

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