It’s been an intense few days for the Republican Party. With sedition, coercion, and legal claptrapping flying around the Beltway like a sneeze at a White House superspreader, rather than addressing the crazy in multiple articles, Big Easy Magazine is going to quickly sum it up for you right here.
All Former Defense Secretaries Stand Up to Trump
First, an opinion piece appeared yesterday in the Washington Post, “All 10 living former defense secretaries: Involving the military in election disputes would cross into dangerous territory.” Indeed, all of them, including such generally diverse thinkers as Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta, James Mattis, and Mark Esper, signed off on the article.
This has come about as some have suggested that Donald Trump use the military to enforce his election. This has included people as high-ranking as Trump-pardoned felon and former National Security advisor Michael Flynn who posted a press release from We the People Convention, calling for Trump to “Invoke Limited Martial Law to Hold New Elections…” He tweeted with the comment, “Freedom never kneels except for God.” This is one of several tweets he’s made concerning the election and how it might be overturned.
The former secretaries of defense have responded to this and other loons, writing, “Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party.” They added, “As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, ‘There’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.’ Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”
In other words, they’re warning of criminal charges against acting Secretary of Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller if he fails to do his job, which does not include bending over backward to support a Trump coup.
As noted many times by many media sources, despite Trump’s attempts to stop mail-in ballots being delivered by the USPS, then to prevent them being counted, and despite attempts of having swaths of votes thrown out, including from predominantly African American communities, this election had no dire examples of voter fraud on the side of Democrats.
White House Trade Advisor is Total Liar
On January 2nd, Peter Navarro, White House Trade Advisor and the leader for Operation Warp Speed, the program to create and rapidly deliver a vaccine, who has thus far achieved vaccination interruptus in terms of numbers of people vaccinated, spoke with former New York State Judge and current Fox talking head (Justice with Judge Jeanine), Jeanine Pirro. Pirro, who presumably attended law school, spoke to Navarro about the election and “the Art of the Steal,” a new and stupid way to say the election was stolen. Navarro had this to say: “Let me break a little news for you. We did a little Zoom meeting with hundreds and hundreds of legislators across the battleground, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—these legislators, they’re hot, they’re angry, they want action. What we did as a team–Eastman, Giuliani, John Lott, we gave them the receipts. We explained how the Democrat (sic) Party, as a matter of strategy, stole this Election from Donald J. Trump, and on Monday, I’m coming out with a new report, ‘The Art of the Steal’ beyond my Twitter feed, that shows, that shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that this election was stolen. The Democrats used a lot of legal means (Editor’s note: with Republican/Trump-appointed judges) to get to an illegal end…” He went on to suggest that Mike Pence could hold a special council on this, whatever that means.
Pirro then suggested that with Mike Pence’s investigation, the certification process could be changed from January 6th to a later date, up to January 16th. However, even if Pence held a magical special council that could change the date, “January 20th cannot be changed, that’s constitutional,” said Pirro.” January 20th is Inauguration Day and the date this madness will hopefully end.
“Well, actually, it can be changed. We can go past that date.” Navarro said.“Oh,” Pirro replied.
Peter Navarro has a PhD in Economics from Harvard. He is not a lawyer. He is, however, a liar and totally wrong. On January 20th Biden becomes President. If not, the President can be decided by the House, with the Vice President being decided by the Senate. Perhaps Navarro is hoping for a President Pelosi and Vice President Trump. Theoretically, his best bet is to wait for Pelosi to be elected, and then lock her in the White House basement while Trump continues to rule from the golf course.
Taping a Fool
January 2nd was an interesting day for Trump and Georgia’s election officials. On a recorded call on Saturday, Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes that could overturn the Georgia results. In fact, he wants him to find 11,780 votes. It’s an oddly specific number or would be if it wasn’t invented to specifically overturn the results of a free and fair Georgia election.
In other words, Trump wants the Georgia Secretary of State to commit fraud. That is a crime, in case anyone is left wondering. “…and the People of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um that you’ve recalculated.” Trump said. He later added, “So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.” Again, he’s trying to commit fraud. There are actually several laws Trump may have violated in his one-hour conversation.
Since this tape was released by the Washington Post, there’s been some question of the legality of the taping. Let’s just clear that up. Georgia has a wiretapping law that is a “one-way party consent law.” In other words, as long as Raffensperger consented to the call being taped, it’s legal.
As to Trump’s legal defense for his attempt at vote tampering or fraud, former Justice Department inspector general, Michael R. Browich, said of Trump should he go before a court, “His best defense would be insanity.”
Unless there are portions of the tape that somehow negate criminal intent, "I just want to find 11,780 votes" and his threats against Raffensperger and his counsel violate 52 U.S. Code § 20511. His best defense would be insanity.https://t.co/ZAtRgiRQmz
— Michael R. Bromwich (@mrbromwich) January 3, 2021
Seditious Election Objections
January 6th is coming up tomorrow and the big question isn’t if they can derail the certification of President-Elect Joe Biden, that looks unlikely. No, the question is how many members of Congress are willing to risk outright sedition, to take a stand to proudly kiss Donald Trump’s ring, and slow the process down. These objections will fail, and history will not judge them kindly.
Let’s be clear, they know this election can’t be overturned. Or most of them do. There are people like Clay Higgins, who probably don’t understand anything outside of basic addition. However, there are opportunistic cowards like Senator John Neely Kennedy, a snake in the grass, who pretends that the election was unfairly fraudulent in the Democrat’s favor. Kennedy, unlike Clay Higgins, is not some ignorant crazy person. No, he is a highly educated and likely intelligent man.
Over 100 House members and more than 10 Senators object to Biden’s win, and they can object publicly on the floor as much as they want, but they’ll fail.
But these are the games Republicans play now. They’d rather make fools of themselves and appeal for every single Trump vote they can get than take the most basic stand for decency. Now, let’s be clear, they’re not all doing this, but enough of them are for it to be embarrassing.
