Whatever the eventual result of last week's election, and votes are still being counted, re-counted and challenged, it will not determine who is elected as the next US President.
The next US President will be elected by the Electoral College to which, according to Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution:
each state shall appoint electors:
"in such Manner as the Legislature Thereof May Direct."So as Jim Jatras, author of this FB post asks:
Will GOP state legislatures of PA WI MI do their duty?
And, speaking of the Electoral College vote, Alistaire Crooke writes:
Though the maths and maps suggests Biden will likely reach 270 Electoral votes, the old saying ‘It ain’t over ’till it’s over’, holds true. The electoral vote scenarios in the key ‘swing states’ would only apply if there is no litigation, fraud or theft. However all three are in play – If you are stuffing the ballot box, you first wait to see what the regular vote is, so that you know how many votes you ‘need’ (mathematical anomalies aside) to push your candidate over the top. Trump, somewhat rashly, gave out the GOP vote calculations at 02.30 on Wednesday, and hey-presto, loads of absentee ballots suddenly arrived at certain polling stations at around 04.00. That seems to have happened in Wisconsin, where over 100,000 Biden votes appeared seemingly out of nowhere on a flash drive delivered by hand from a Democratic district. That put Biden ahead in Wisconsin – but litigation is in process. Likewise, it appears that a huge “absentee ballot” dump appeared in Michigan that heavily favored Biden.
Related:
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The Federalist: Saturday’s Media Declaration Is A Naked Attempt To Silence Republicans, And Nothing Has Changed
Information Liberation: Mexican President Says He Won't Congratulate Biden Until Election Legal Issues Are Resolved
Information Liberation: 'Astounding': Biden Scores Insane Advantage In Mail-In Ballots In Michigan And Pennsylvania
"So as Jim Jatras, author of this FB post asks:Will GOP state legislatures of PA WI MI do their duty?"
ReplyDeleteNope, Jim. The answer is a big NO.
These guys are politicians and that means crooks and liars. That means people who sell their votes to the highest bidder and always look to see which way the wind is in power and to trim their political sails accordingly. These are not principled men and women. These are empty-shell puppets pulled by strings going high into the sky.
Empty, that is, except for greed, avarice, selfishness, and mendacity (when they can get away with it.)
I think one of Trump's biggest mistakes, and it is one which has come back to bite him again and again, has been not to come into the Presidency and immediately start taking names and kicking asses within the GOP. He needed to shake the GOP down and make it his party, with him as the head of it, its leader. He was unwilling for reasons I do not understand.
Though people asked why, for example Mitch McConnell, would castigate Trump prior to Trump's ascendancy, then become Trump's lap dog upon ascension, they appear to have accepted the authenticity of McConnell's cooperation. Maybe even Trump did.
Trump had their acceptance and alliance and loyalty when Trump had the upper hand. Trump doesn't have the upper hand any more. None of this would be happening if he did. Trump is going bye bye. It is simply a matter of whether the people who run the show will find it expedient for Trump to linger around a time, or to flush him away.
I'm cynical, but who couldn't be after all this? I'm not even sure the word cynical applies.
The problem for Trump is that he took the populist route to power, the method of tyrants throughout the ages from Pisistratus of Athens to Hitler and Mussolini of the present age.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, this has marked Trump, as it marked other American populists on the rise, as a dangerous threat to the establishment. The solution? Well for Huey Long, Governor Wallace and JFK, it was a bullet. But for Trump, a bullet would have led a cynical public to indict the CIA. So what to do? Fiddle the election, obviously. Could it not be that simple?
I'm a big fan of Huey Long.
ReplyDeleteIf you read Robert Penn Warren's book, All The King's Men, or see the dreadful hatchet job movie based on it, (winner of the 1949 Academy Award for Best Picture), you can see the establishment wasn't content to drop Long with a mere bullet. They had to drive a wooden stake through his reputation after the bullet to make sure it didn't live on after him.
I've lived in Alaska before Big Oil, during Big Oil, and now, the beginning days of after Big Oil. You have to be tougher than nails to get any kind of an even break for the people from those people...They want to take it all, and they just don't care.
I understand Long's public works in Louisiana, the roads he built and so on, are still visible and functional, and the most the people of Louisiana will ever receive as their share of the natural resource wealth. We didn't have our Huey Long. What little we got will not be sustainable or maintainable after the oil dollars no longer come in, and will turn to dust.
Do you really think Long was a tyrant? He had to be tough or they would have either co-opted him or derailed him before he got anything done. Obversely (?), Trump was not tough, not "tyrant" enough, and he's been derailed.
Most people are not going to be able to live in Alaska anymore. I believe the big plan is to manage the place as a kind of transient work camp similar to what already exists near Prudhoe Bay. Workers will fly in for their two to eight week shifts, then fly out for their one to three week rest and recreation. There will be no further attempts to establish communities with people working to make a better place for their children to follow. To actually live here as a place good for living. Except maybe it won't be people, but AI robots, and if so, they'll be warehoused for routine maintenance every once in awhile instead of going on R&R. It won't be communities,and living, either way.
Yes, Long was a fascinating character, and potentially hugely dangerous, as the plutocracy no doubt realized. Had he lived and gained the Presidency, how different would history have been? Would he have confiscated all but a small fraction of the wealth of the plutocracy as he advocated? Would he have formed an alliance with Russia, or Germany? Would he have changed the course of history? And what would he have built? Surely more than a few miles of fence.
DeleteAnd was he killed by the state? Apparently not, his self-confessed assassin being the son of a disgruntled former Louisiana State judge who Long had fired: like the Kennedy assassinations, reportedly the actions of disgruntled nobodies.
In comparison, Trump seems less problematic, yet his actions to bring jobs home, while restricting immigration, hurt corporate profits, and his self-regard is suggestive to many of limitless ambition, which given opportunity for further expression could, depending on one's point of view, have devastating consequences.
There is talk of Trump running again in '24. But urely both Republicans and Democrats can come up with better candidates than this time around.