Politics

Trump's Not Conceding! No One Should Care!!

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=20877">William Boardman, Reader Supported News</a>

Tuesday, 17 November 2020 14:06

Boardman writes: "The era of Trump irrelevancy has dawned, and too many people are slow to see the light."

People participate in the 'Million MAGA March' from Freedom Plaza to the Supreme Court, on 14, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty)

Trump's Not Conceding! No One Should Care!!

By William Boardman, Reader Supported News

17 November 20

he era of Trump irrelevancy has dawned, and too many people are slow to see the light. No matter what Trump has the nerve to do now, none of it is likely to matter much, since the man has so little real nerve. The presidential election is effectively over, and now we�re going through the formalities. So get Trump out of your head! He had no business being there in the first place.

Two important provisos: (1) Keep an eye on what he and his family steal between now and January. The Biden administration should be prepared to try to recover the millions (or billions) of ill-gotten Trump gains from public pockets. (2) And keep an eye on his destructive appointments and policies. For now, he can do whatever any president could do, but all of it (or most) can be easily reversed soon after January 20. The Biden administration has to have the will and the courage to make the undoing quick and thorough.

And there�s the greater problem: What level of grit do the Biden people have? How clear is their vision? Actually, what IS their vision? Is there any vision? �The soul of America� is not a vision. It�s not even a real thing. It�s feel-good, pious language garbage that takes no one anywhere. The �soul of America� is not a governing principle, it�s a deceitful conceit designed to mislead any observer into imposing any random meaning on value-free rhetoric. But that�s where we are, waiting to see what the next president and his team will do to define their idea of America�s soul.

They�re off to a bad start.

More than a week after Biden�s winning vote-count reached an irreversible (almost surely) level, Biden still hasn�t assumed a presidential demeanor. He IS the President-elect in every known reality. But he�s still acting more like the presidential-wannabe. What are the Biden people thinking, spending time and energy trying to rebut Trump�s various election-fraud claims? Those claims are a house of cards that have begun collapsing from their own insubstantiality. A presidential team would simply ignore them. When reporters ask about them, just ask back: What gives them any credibility? Get Trump out of your head!

The vote fraud scam is just another Trump distraction that draws focus away from the continuing criminality of the Trump administration and its effort to destroy as much of effective government as it can in the time it has left (see provisos above).

The Biden people need a counter-narrative, but they don�t even seem to be thinking in those terms, even though they have an excellent, reality-based counter-narrative staring them in their faces.

That would be voting. That would be the absence of voter fraud.

Right now the Biden transition team is mostly a figment of media imagination rather than an actual, organized, public entity. Transition news is scattershot, usually of unevaluated importance, with no central focus. No incoming president should want two months of political blur, dominated by his opponent, to precede his taking office. No doubt the Biden people know that perfectly well, but they�re still in the fuzzy wuzzy stage of development, and the longer it lasts the harder it will be to cure.

Voting is obviously the thing of the moment, and the Biden people haven�t taken advantage of that. Right now (late, but still not too late), the Biden people should be pushing back with their own narrative centered on having won the national vote by any rational assessment. The Trump administration reports that this �election was the most secure in American history.� There should be a daily Biden election report that covers the latest positive developments, that discusses state issues, and that undermines Trump�s claims, albeit obliquely, by citing facts without reference to Trump himself.

The effect of this Biden effort (should they undertake it) would be like a long-running seminar on a core element of a healthy American democracy (an aspect of its soul, if you will). There seems to be widespread popular ignorance about how our election system works. The Biden Voting Seminar, sustained at least through Congressional certification in January, would be a civics lesson carried into public consciousness by the Trojan Horse of phony controversy. A daily affirmation of specific instances where the system worked might actually have some impact over a two-month span. The credibility of this seminar would rest on its willingness to examine any and every slightly credible claim of irregularity, and even discussing the ones that turned out to be real even though the number of votes at stake was immaterial to the election outcome. By January, this seminar might well persuade most Americans that the integrity of our voting system is real. It might even cut into the impact that twenty years of dishonest Republican claims of voter fraud have had despite their lack of evidence. (Real voter fraud has taken the form of such Republican scams as voter caging, extreme gerrymandering, and voter suppression over the past 20 years).

The moral basis of a serious voting seminar � reinforcing voting integrity � is essentially unassailable, as long as the approach is factual, low key, honest, comprehensive, reality-based, and sustained. And the beauty part of this approach is that it requires no mention of Trump or any of his distractions, except perhaps on occasion, obliquely, to underline their meaninglessness. Structurally, in terms of the election, everything Trump is up to is irrelevant and best expressed by ignoring it. This should be happening now, it should have been happening at least since November 7, and it should continue till the process is complete.

Voting issues reach deep into other areas of serious concern. Voting issues are, among other things, issues of race, issues of economic inequality, and especially issues of truth in media. Biden could, if he would, lay out a new paradigm for both government and media honesty/accuracy/clarity. These are Big Picture issues. There�s little sign of Big Picture thinking among Bidenites, despite their many decent qualities. The assumption seems to be that America�s soul only needs to be restored, which is a mirror image of Trump thinking. Insofar as there is an American soul, it�s steeped in white supremacy and begs for transformation, not restoration.

The reality that the Biden team is not making transformative efforts is a horrible harbinger of future shortcomings. A conscientious continuing voting seminar is relatively easy. How will the Biden folks manage with the hard stuff?

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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AOC Is Standing Up for the Left

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=57082">Lichi D'Amelio, Jacobin</a>

Tuesday, 17 November 2020 14:04

D'Amelio writes: "The party's leaders, rather than taking the opportunity to do some much-needed soul-searching, are focusing their crosshairs on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and the party's left wing."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (photo: Paul Snacka/AP)

AOC Is Standing Up for the Left

By Lichi D'Amelio, Jacobin

17 November 20

Since the election, Democratic centrists have harshly criticized Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Left for their own poor electoral showing. But AOC has bravely hit back � standing up for left-wing politics and refusing to be cowed by the centrist attacks.

fter what felt like the longest presidential campaign in US history � amid a pandemic, no less � the Democratic Party escaped defeat. Sort of. The dust has yet to fully settle, but the disasters down ballot point to a House and Senate where Republicans will still wield substantial power. Party centrists ran the campaign they wanted, and this was the result.

But win or lose, centrist Dems see the Left � on the streets and in their own House � as enemy number one. So the party�s leaders, rather than taking the opportunity to do some much-needed soul-searching, are focusing their crosshairs on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and the party�s left wing.

The first postelection attack came from Virginia congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer who narrowly flipped her traditionally red district in 2018 and won reelection by two percentage points. During a private, several-hour-long Democratic caucus call, Spanberger, a stringent opponent of the party�s left wing, angrily denounced calls to defund the police, the core demand to emerge from the Black Lives Matter movement, reportedly declaring that �no one should say �defund the police� ever again.� Socialism was also on her list of banned topics: �We need to not ever use the word socialist or socialism ever again.�

Other Democratic Party politicians soon joined the barrage, including West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who decried socialism and �the so-called left,� and House Democratic caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries, who insisted, �the socialism message wasn�t helpful.� More recently, South Carolina congressman and House majority whip Jim Clyburn, widely viewed as having saved Joe Biden�s seemingly dead-in-the-water primary campaign, invoked the late congressman John Lewis to warn that, much like the slogan �burn baby burn� during the Civil Rights Movement, �defund the police is killing our party and we�ve got to stop it.�

In the face of these attacks, AOC has proven herself a tireless and astute spokesperson for the Left. Instead of slinking into the background, hoping the attacks might subside, she�s hit back at centrist attempts to muddy the waters and squelch the Left.

Her strategy in responding to detractors has been threefold. First, she�s setting the record straight politically. Contrary to what the centrists would have us believe, left-wing stances aren�t electoral suicide. �Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat,� she told the New York Times. �We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. [California representative] Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.�

In an interview with CNN�s Jake Tapper, she explained: �If you look at some of the arguments that are being advanced, that �defund the police� hurt or that arguments about socialism hurt, not a single member of Congress that I�m aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding the police in this general election. And these were largely slogans, or they were demands from activist groups that we saw from the largest uprising in American history around police brutality.�

AOC is right. Mere months ago, centrist Democrats were tripping over their Kente cloths in a cringe-inducing attempt to appear solidaristic. Now, they�re turning around and attacking the core demand of a movement they supposedly support and blaming it and left politicians for their own dismal electoral showing.

Rather than throw the movement under the bus, as her colleagues are so quick to do, or offer easy answers to perhaps the most complex historical question the country faces, she calls for something politicians rarely do: deeper engagement. �I think a lot of Dem strategy is to avoid actually working through all this,� she says, �Just trying to avoid poking the bear. That�s their argument with defunding police, right? To not agitate racial resentment. I don�t think that is sustainable.�

Secondly, AOC has argued that the electoral organization and campaign infrastructure of the Democratic Party is outmoded and that she knows how to do it better. Calling out her fellow party members for �still campaigning largely as though it�s 2005,� she recently quipped: �I�ve been unseating Democrats for two years. I have been defeating Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee�run campaigns for two years. That�s how I got to Congress.�

This argument is not separate or apart from her political argument, but has to be seen as an extension of her case that the Democrats didn�t lose because they have swerved too far left. They floundered, at least in part, because they�re far behind technologically, and they chose to pitch their message to white, wealthy suburbanites rather than workers of all races. From the perspective of someone who wants to shift the party leftward, this is a crucial argument to win � inside and outside the party.

The third piece of AOC�s argument is that Democrats shouldn�t be pointing fingers and blaming each other right now, calling her detractors �irresponsible� for attacking their colleagues. While we should be wary of left politicians calling for unity, in this instance it�s smart politics and shrewd tactics. �I need my colleagues to understand that we are not the enemy,� she tells the New York Times. �And that their base is not the enemy. That the Movement for Black Lives is not the enemy, that Medicare for all is not the enemy.�

A good rule of thumb in politics is to frame your adversary as making war on you, not the other way around. That�s especially true for the Left, which, as of yet, is smaller and exceedingly vulnerable to getting shoved out, shut up, or co-opted. The task for our side continues to be building organizational and political strength � in the halls of power, in our unions, and in our neighborhoods � so that we can eventually overcome the Democratic establishment as the main political alternative to the Republicans. By fighting for working-class demands, and by fighting smart, AOC is moving us in that direction.

While there is certainly a widespread desire for the Democratic Party to champion progressive policies, the vast majority of the Democratic electorate does not yet see the benefit of an all-out intraparty war � quite the contrary, given the ever-looming threat of reactionary Republicans. The party�s left wing still has a huge task on its hands convincing much broader portions of the population that they are the more viable faction � and the faction with a nationwide strategy to defeat Trumpism.

Despite a lack of appetite among most Democratic voters for war within the Democratic Party, conflict has been roiling since 2015, when Bernie Sanders first announced his run for the presidency, pulling American socialism out of the margins and drawing millions of new, enthusiastic young people to its cause. To many, AOC is his successor, carrying the torch of a social-democratic platform that felt for a moment to be within reach. It�s still far too soon to tell who will win this struggle � but we should applaud her dogged willingness to stand with us and put up a fight.

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What a Republican Senate Really Means for the Climate

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=49182">Emily Holden, Guardian UK</a>

Tuesday, 17 November 2020 14:00

Holden writes: "Climate advocates rejoicing at Joe Biden's presidential victory are also quietly absorbing the blow of Republicans possibly keeping control of the US Senate - which would kneecap significant efforts to fight globe-heating pollution."

Law enforcement and fire personnel wait on the Enterprise Bridge during the Bear fire in Oroville, California, on 9 September. (photo: Josh Edelson/Getty)

What a Republican Senate Really Means for the Climate

By Emily Holden, Guardian UK

17 November 20

Spending on green infrastructure likely under Biden, but any hopes for climate requirements for businesses much farther off

limate advocates rejoicing at Joe Biden�s presidential victory are also quietly absorbing the blow of Republicans possibly keeping control of the US Senate � which would kneecap significant efforts to fight globe-heating pollution.

If Joe Biden is president and Congress is still divided, there will probably still be large-scale spending on green infrastructure, like renewable power, electric vehicles and transit. But any hopes for climate requirements for businesses, like a clean energy standard, would feel much farther off.

Publicly, environmental groups have claimed success, saying this election was the most focused on climate of any in history and that Biden�s plan is solid. Privately, they know that much hinges on the two undecided Senate seats in Georgia, which will decide whether Republicans or Democrats have a majority.

�Even though there might be obstructionism coming from Republican leadership in the Senate, we think that there will be many opportunities for Democrats and Republicans to come together to pass strong legislation,� said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.

�Everything doesn�t start and stop with the US Congress. In order to win on climate change we will need to continue to see leadership everywhere across society, in our schools, in our private sector, in our states across the country,� he added.

If Biden could convince Congress to spend $1.7tn on a green recovery, that would reduce US emissions in the next 30 years by about 75 gigatonnes, avoiding a temperature rise of 0.1C by 2100, according to the Climate Action Tracker. That may seem small, but it could significantly lessen the harms of the climate crisis and also encourage pollution reductions in other nations. Already the world is more than 1C hotter than before industrialization. International agreements aim to keep that to 1.5C to 2C.

Outside of Congress, Biden could pursue climate progress with agency regulations � stopping new oil and gas drilling on public lands, tightening air pollution rules that will also help with climate change and backing out of Donald Trump�s fight with California over standards for cars.

But those measures are likely to be challenged by industry and could ultimately make their way to a final decision by the conservative supreme court, which Trump and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, were able to lock in weeks before the election. Plus, the new president could for some time have his hands full just reversing Trump�s cuts to environmental protection.

Pushing for emissions reductions through executive authority could also make moderate Republicans less likely to support bipartisan efforts.

Even some Democrats could be hesitant to significantly increase the federal deficit for the purpose of climate stimulus spending, said Ben Pendergrass, senior director of government affairs for Citizens Climate Lobby.

While a progressive Green New Deal is not in the cards, inaction also won�t be tolerable for most lawmakers, Pendergrass said. He believes people who care about climate change �should view this as an opportunity�.

Under a moderate president who is concerned about climate change, Republicans could have more space to support the expansion of renewable energy and green infrastructure, even if they won�t vote to penalize fossil fuels.

�We really need bipartisan dialogue and cooperation on climate to create lasting solutions,� Pendergrass said.

Biden�s first climate work will be through stimulus funds aimed at lifting the economy out of the pandemic downturn. Climate change is one of four crises spotlighted on his government transition website, along with the pandemic, the economic recovery and racial equity. The focus of the Biden climate plan is to �create union jobs by tackling the climate crisis,� the website says.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright, climate policy director at the liberal thinktank the Roosevelt Institute, said every dollar of stimulus funding will either help or hurt climate action.

�Even things that are very good for people are not necessarily carbon neutral because they�re going to spend that money on gasoline, on power that�s coal-fired and natural-gas-fired. And that�s not their fault,� Gunn-Wright said.

Fossil fuel companies have sought and claimed about $5.8bn in pandemic assistance, according to her group. Easy-to-fund, shovel-ready projects like expanding highways threaten to lock in emissions.

Wright said although a stimulus package will not include big decarbonization measures, like additional legal authorities for agencies, it will be a significant start.

�There are a number of big new laws we�re going to need,� she said.

Kate Larsen, a director at the economic research firm Rhodium Group, said a Democratic majority in the Senate would be critical to getting a good portion of the way toward the goals the US agreed to in the international Paris climate agreement, but without that majority, stimulus spending is the �fastest way a Biden administration can jumpstart clean energy efforts�.

The firm found the US spent just 1.1% of its stimulus dollars on green measures. The EU and its member countries, by comparison, spent 18.8% on pro-environment efforts.

Many states and businesses too will be trying to reduce their climate footprints, although some are clinging to a fossil-fuel based economy. Democrats saw losses in state legislatures that will probably hamper climate efforts.

A Biden administration could aim to help states cut emissions, but the pandemic has critically injured already weak state budgets and resources.

A group representing state clean air officials in October stressed the importance of getting �significant increases in federal grant funding� to protect public health. The National Association of Clean Air Agencies represents the state departments that regulate the pollution that makes people sick and also causes climate change.

Paula DiPerna, a special adviser to CDP (the Carbon Disclosure Project), said businesses are more likely to be on board with climate action because they have suffered from the lack of regulatory continuity and certainty that comes from the pendulum swing of American elections.

�If you marry the climate change challenge with the infrastructure improvement, I think you have a trigger for economic recovery. That�s Biden�s strength,� DiPerna said.

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Will Trump Burn the Evidence?

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=30270">Jill Lepore, The New Yorker</a>

Tuesday, 17 November 2020 09:26

Lepore writes: "Donald Trump is not much of a note-taker, and he does not like his staff to take notes. He has a habit of tearing up documents at the close of meetings."

Donald Trump. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Getty Images)

Will Trump Burn the Evidence?

By Jill Lepore, The New Yorker

17 November 20

How the President could endanger the official records of one of the most consequential periods in American history.

onald Trump is not much of a note-taker, and he does not like his staff to take notes. He has a habit of tearing up documents at the close of meetings. (Records analysts, armed with Scotch Tape, have tried to put the pieces back together.) No real record exists for five meetings Trump had with Vladimir Putin during the first two years of his Presidency. Members of his staff have routinely used apps that automatically erase text messages, and Trump often deletes his own tweets, notwithstanding a warning from the National Archives and Records Administration that doing so contravenes the Presidential Records Act.

Trump cannot abide documentation for fear of disclosure, and cannot abide disclosure for fear of disparagement. For decades, in private life, he required people who worked with him, and with the Trump Organization, to sign nondisclosure agreements, pledging never to say a bad word about him, his family, or his businesses. He also extracted nondisclosure agreements from women with whom he had or is alleged to have had sex, including both of his ex-wives. In 2015 and 2016, he required these contracts from people involved in his campaign, including a distributor of his �Make America Great Again� hats. (Hillary Clinton�s 2016 campaign required N.D.A.s from some employees, too. In 2020, Joe Biden called on Michael Bloomberg to release his former employees from such agreements.) In 2017, Trump, unable to distinguish between private life and public service, carried his practice of requiring nondisclosure agreements into the Presidency, demanding that senior White House staff sign N.D.A.s. According to the Washington Post, at least one of them, in draft form, included this language: �I understand that the United States Government or, upon completion of the term(s) of Mr. Donald J. Trump, an authorized representative of Mr. Trump, may seek any remedy available to enforce this Agreement including, but not limited to, application for a court order prohibiting disclosure of information in breach of this Agreement.� Aides warned him that, for White House employees, such agreements are likely not legally enforceable. The White House counsel, Don McGahn, refused to distribute them; eventually, he relented, and the chief of staff, Reince Priebus, pressured employees to sign them.

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How Pence and GOP Senators Could Try to Steal the Election

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=57067">David Sirota and Julia Rock, The Daily Poster</a>

Monday, 16 November 2020 14:18

Excerpt: "Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig says Americans must act now to prevent the vice president and Senate from trying to use the Electoral College to give Trump a second term."

Vice President Mike Pence. (photo: Getty Images)

How Pence and GOP Senators Could Try to Steal the Election

By David Sirota and Julia Rock, The Daily Poster

16 November 20

Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig says Americans must act now to prevent the vice president and Senate from trying to use the Electoral College to give Trump a second term.

ince Donald Trump lost the election, he and GOP state legislators have suggested that the race was marred by voter fraud, and Trump administration officials have been publicly talking about Trump remaining president. On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence reportedly told a conservative group that there is already a �plan� for a second Trump term.

Though Republicans have not produced any evidence to substantiate the fraud claims, they have continued to promote the fraud allegations � which could serve as a rationale for state legislatures, Republican electors and Mike Pence to try to use the Electoral College system to hand Trump a second term.

The unlikely-but-possible scenario revolves around the prospect of competing slates of electors. That situation has only arisen once in the modern era, when in 1960 then-vice president Richard Nixon faced a decision on whether to recognize Hawaii�s Republican or Democratic electors during the joint session of Congress to certify that year�s election results.

The mini controversy spotlighted the pivotal role that the vice president can potentially play in the Electoral College system � and according to Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig, it should worry everyone right now.

In an interview with The Daily Poster, Lessig explained how Vice President Mike Pence could try to recognize slates of Republican electors sent to Congress from five Biden states where GOP legislators have started voicing allegations of voter fraud. In that situation, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate would be in a position to decide on Pence�s move � and if they backed him up, Lessig says they could potentially throw the presidency to Trump.

So far, GOP leaders in four of those states are saying they will not try to replace Biden electors with Trump electors in defiance of certified election results.

Lessig�s group Equal Citizens is launching a petition on its website that calls on Republican U.S. senators to commit right now to uphold elector slates that represent the will of the popular vote in all states.

What follows is an excerpt of The Daily Poster�s discussion with Lessig. The transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Do you think it is a real possibility that Trump and the Republicans can use the Electoral College system to steal the election?

We have a very creaky and poorly thought-out system for moving from the vote that people cast for president to the actual inauguration of a president. And that system has worked, so long as both parties act in good faith. And so in good faith, Al Gore walked away from a contest in December of 2000. In good faith, Richard Nixon walked away from a contest in December of 1960. And that's the way the system has worked. It has depended on good faith.

If one party doesn't act in good faith, making up claims of fraud, making up challenges to the ordinary process, the system is extremely fragile and no one really knows how it spins out of control. Especially if the vice president is aligned with the party who is acting in bad faith.

What does the vice president have to do with it?

We have to back up to see where he enters this story. The people vote, and the votes in the states determine who the electors from each state are. And as this happened in every single election since 1876, states send one slate of electors to the Electoral College and those electors vote for the candidate they've been sent to support... And the process for counting those votes is one that the vice president oversees.

The Constitution makes him the custodian of the electoral votes, and he opens them and Congress then counts them. And so long as there's one slate from every state, there's no problem, but if he opens them and there's more than one slate from a state, then, all sorts of shenanigans could unfold.

Let's start with where the dispute could start, which is at the state legislative level. How possible is it for Republican state legislatures to choose a slate of electors different from the one chosen by voters, and do states have laws preventing this from happening?

This theory that the state legislatures have the power to appoint a slate of electors contradicting the results of the election has been pushed by the right wing radio talk show, host, Mark Levin. There are two grounds on which you might rest that theory.

One is federal law (which) says that if a state has decided to pick its electors through an election, and that election has "failed," then the legislature can select the slate of electors in another way.

The other ground that this theory could rest on is just the Constitution itself. And that's what Mark Levin says, that Article II of the Constitution gives the state legislatures the power to pick whatever slate of electors they want... But there are problems with each of these theories�

If you say that it's a "failed" election, you actually have to show it was a failed election. You can't just make up the idea that there was fraud here. You've got to establish that there was fraud. And if there was fraud that somehow undermines the election, then maybe we should be able to talk about this as being a failed election. But there's been nothing that's established that there is any kind of fraud�

That means we have to look at the constitutional argument. And the constitutional argument has three fundamental flaws with it. The first fundamental flaw is, the Constitution gives the legislatures the power to pick the electors, no doubt, but it also gives Congress the say on what day... Congress said the electors will be selected on November 3rd. November 3rd has already happened. And the only electors that can be appointed under federal law are the people who are appointed on November 3rd. There's no power for the state legislatures now to appoint a slate of electors because obviously it's after November 3rd.

The second problem with it is that this power that Levin says legislatures have �� the power to ignore what the people have said in an election �� no legislature ever in the history of the nation has exercised (it). No legislature has ever thought it had the power to veto the vote of the people and pick its own slate of electors. So this power that Mark Levin says is (in) our Constitution, is a power that just has never been exercised by anyone.

And the third problem with this claim is in relation to the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in July about the power that electors have. In that case, the question was whether electors, people who actually cast the vote, can cast their ballots however they want... what the Supreme Court said was, it may be that originally electors had this discretion, but democracy has overtaken the framers' design.

What about the idea that the Republicans can manufacture a political context and environment outside of the scope of the current law, that then creates the conditions for the state legislatures to change their state laws. Is that possible?

You're right to worry about what the political environment empowers these legislatures to do. They're not empowered by the law. I think the law is clear. But in this political context, if they can raise enough anxiety or panic about these elections�

Let's imagine that these five (Biden states with Republican) state legislatures do appoint another slate of electors. And let's imagine that the slates of electors cast their ballots on December 14th and they send their certified results to Mike Pence and Pence opens them on January 6th and begins to process them�

The Arizona slate gets opened up, and there's one slate that purports to be for Joe Biden, and another slate that purports to be for Donald Trump. Now, this turns out to be really important. Arizona has a Republican governor. So imagine the Republican governor signs the slate for Donald Trump...

Under the rules for counting electoral votes, the vice president could say, I've got two slates here, I'm going to recognize the slate signed by the Republican governor. There would be an objection. And if there's an objection that's signed by both a senator and a member of the House of Representatives, then the two bodies would separate, the senators would walk back over into the Senate, and they would decide whether they're going to uphold the objection or reject it.

Now we can imagine that the Democratic House will vote to uphold the objection. They'll say that Biden's slate should be counted. Then the question is whether the Republican Senate votes to reject the objection. So let's start with the most partisan assumption � let's assume all the Republicans hang together. That means that the houses have disagreed about which slate should be counted. And if the houses disagree about which slate should be counted, under the rules for counting the slate of electors, it's the slate of electors signed by the governor that gets counted. So that means it would be the Republican slate that gets counted.

But here's why that would be a very stupid move for the Republicans to make. Because of the five states that this game could be played in, three states have Democratic governors and only two states have Republican governors, Arizona, and Georgia. So that means if they counted the slates that the governors of count have assigned, Joe Biden would still have enough votes in the electoral college, because he would have Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and that would put him over 270. So that's not what they would do if they're going to play this game.

Instead, what they would do if they're going to play this game, is that the houses would separate, the Republican Senate would vote to affirm the Republican slate of electors, the Democratic house would vote to affirm the Democratic slate of electors. That means that both houses have not voted to reject the move by the vice president to count the Republican slates. And if they don't reject the move by the vice president to count the Republican slate, the Republican slate gets counted. And so what that means is, if the houses disagree, Mike Pence's ruling stands and Mike Pence's ruling would be, on the assumption we're making, would be for the Republican slate in all five of those cases. And he would therefore count Donald Trump and himself into the presidency.

If voters want to call their elected officials to ensure that the popular vote in their state is respected, which politicians should they be pressuring?

We are launching a petition on our website at equalcitizens.us. that calls on Republican senators to affirm that they are not going to vote against the vote of the people in any of these states.

What is the actual vote you are asking those senators to commit to casting?

So again, the scenario we're imagining is Arizona comes up, and there's a Republican slate signed by the governor and the Democratic slate that is in accord with the certification of the secretary of state in Arizona. And Mike Pence says, I believe the Constitution gives the Republican legislature the power to appoint their electors however they want, because I've read the words of the great constitutional scholar, Mark Levin, and that's what he has said. Immediately there's an objection filed to the ruling of the chair and each body that has to decide how it's going to vote on the objection.

And what the objection is saying is no, you can't recognize the Republican slate. You have to recognize the Democratic slate, the Democratic House will vote to say, we agree with the objection and the Republican Senate will have to vote to decide whether it's going to agree with the objection.

So five Republican senators would have to vote with the Democrats in the Senate to say that they believe that the objection should be sustained�

Who exactly sends each slate to Mike Pence in the Arizona example?

The legislature is not involved. The governor is not involved. The secretary of state is not involved. The secretary of state and governor and legislature are involved for the purpose of selecting who the electors are. In Arizona, there will be 11 people who believe that because of the election results, as certified by the secretary of state, they are the electors for the state of Arizona. They will then gather in a room, and they will cast their ballots according to the 12th Amendment, and they will sign them and certify them in the way the 12th Amendment says, and they will send them to Mike Pence, and Mike Pence will receive them. And Mike Pence, on January 6th, will open up the ballots from Arizona. And under the scenario we're talking about, there'll be one slate who purports to be voting for Joe Biden and another slate that purports to be voting for Donald Trump.

So in this example of two slates being sent from one state, the vice president is the initial judge of which slate of electors is valid, and Congress is the ultimate arbiter?

I don't think there's any question as a matter of law about the power that the vice president has. I don't think the vice president has any legal power to judge which slate of electors ought to be counted... But as a matter of practical political power, the vice president is also the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress that is counting the electoral votes. And as the presiding officer, he gets to say what he wants. And so when he opens the certificates, as the presiding officer, he can say, as presiding officer, I deem the Republican slate from Arizona to be the slate that will be counted.

And when he says that, it's open for Congress to overturn the presiding officer's ruling, that's what happens with any presiding officer, but the only way they get to overturn it is if both houses agree that it ought to be overturned. So that's where the source of this really dangerous power in the vice president lies.

What are the odds that all of this actually happens?

I'm quite certain that if ten Republican senators said tomorrow, hell no, I'm never going to vote against the vote of the legitimate vote of the people in any state, it would all fizzle out tomorrow.

But if the Republican senators continue to... play along with the president's suggestion, that there's a reason to question these results, and the political movement, which is being fueled by right-wing media right now, to get people to demand that those Republican state legislatures 'do their duty' as Mark Levin has put it, I'm scared, because if they 'do their duty' as Mark Levin conceives of it and creates an alternative slate of electors, that begins to trigger in people's minds, the possibility. And that possibility is certainly there that Mike Pence plays this game in the way I've described it. And then at that stage, it really depends on the senators standing up in the face of a real possibility of electing president Trump.

Isn�t there also a question of whether Mike Pence plays along?

Right there are many, many profiles in courage here. And this is not actually the original profile in courage because, from my perspective, at least what they would be doing is doing the right thing against great pressure from the other side. But regardless, the mini profiles in courage are at least five Republican senators saying, we believe in democracy over Donald Trump, and the mini profile in courage would be Mike Pence saying, I'm not going to sacrifice democracy for Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

What terrifies me about it is, it's clear that somebody is thinking about the violence that follows. We have a fired Defense Secretary and a replacement of pretty senior people in the Defense Department. What is that for? Why would you even waste your time as the president right now worrying about firing your Defense Secretary?

From the standpoint of, they will do whatever it takes to win, I'm telling you that's the path that they would have to follow in order to win.

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