US Politics

https://twitter.com/EmersonLotzia/status/1344854137528340482

https://twitter.com/SbonesTompaine/status/1345716013367783427?s=19

1 Attachment

Someone leaked a tape of a call to the Washington Post of Trump speaking to the Georgia governor where he asks him to “find” enough votes to overturn the result.

It’s fucking crazy stuff mixed with vague mob style threats

https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1345815768013926403

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=80&v=OtHqqkpfmMU&feature=youtu.be

Whats the news on Trump? things seem to quiet.

Grauniad write-up:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/03/trump-georgia-raffensperger-call-biden-washington-post

All ten living former Defence Secretaries inc Romney Rumsfeld and Cheney have signed a letter saying this is fucked

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html#click=https://t.co/F8jGDtYPhn

Even Donald fucking Rumsfeld - remember when he seemed to be the most unhinged wingnut ever to get into a position of significant power and influence?

Donald Rumsfeld, the voice of reason. Jeyzus.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

you know?

Ten quite different people managed to get together to write that letter, so it must have felt quite urgent for them. Do they know something about things going on in the military that we don’t know about (yet)?

This was coordinated by notorious libtard Dick Cheney so you know things have got bad

I can imagine this is going to cause some problems for Delaware.

In what capacity could the army be used by Trump? Would they really accept some sort of order to use force to keep him in the White House?

I think it likely that those orders would last only until 1200 EST (1700 GMT) 20 Jan.

Also, I think as Biden is now President Elect, I think they'd have the power to veto a command from a mentally unstable exiting president SURELY

Not at all. It turns out that a lot of american political procedure is based on honour and integrity, two things Trump lacks.

Posse Comitatus Act basically rules out any domestic use of the armed forces anyhow; states would have to request it, and given as how e.g. the Texas challenge was laughed out of court, there's zero basis for that.

He's Commander in Chief of the military.

[Edit: I got my info from Designated Survivor which didn't go into that detail @Thrustvector ]

[Edit 2: Hang on, maybe it did. Something to do with National Guard in S1?]

I'm optimistically interpreting it as a signal from the (comparatively) sane* wing of the Continuity Republican party that there is cross party political support for the 'Military',
(Defence Chiefs of Staff?) to ignore any vote/election quashing Presidential Order from Trump.

• Still not proper Republicans as they were all happy to run a ballooning deficit.
  

Posse Comitatus Act basically rules out any domestic use of the armed forces

Its text only specifies the Army and Air Force. The Navy, its Marine Corps, the Coastguard, Homeland, Prisons Service, FBI, BATF, DEA and Space Force are all federal agencies (edit- not all are technically ‘agencies’) with military or paramilitary capabilities, and aren’t subject to the PCA. They have their own regulations though.

Ha, the best sources! (Not like loads of my knowledge comes from The West Wing, no sirree...)

My take on that letter is it's just a reminder to the military that whatever crazy shit Trump may try and pull (and he's clearly more than a little deluded/desperate), their oath is to the constitution rather than to anything else. TBF the heads of the professional military (as opposed to whatever bootlicker Trump installs as acting SecDef) are usually pretty clear on that.

Yeah, the omission of the Navy/Marine Corps from the act is slightly weird, given that the Marines have the equivalent of a couple of rapidly-deployable infantry divisions; as you note, the Act's provisions are applied to the Navy through regulations. The Coast Guard are a law enforcement organisation as well as a uniformed service, but they're presumably constrained in a similar fashion (and, purely pragmatically, are less likely to have the forces suitable for staging a coup).

the Marines have the equivalent of a couple of rapidly-deployable infantry divisions

For those who might be unaware, the US Dept. Of the Navy maintains 10 aircraft carrier strike groups (ships and submarines centred around an aircraft carrier) and nine expeditionary strike groups (also ships and submarines but centred around a smaller aircraft carrier and a batallion of Marines with tanks and vehicles for amphibious assault). A technique used in geopolitics to identify where the US’ truly wants to project its power is to keep an eye on the whereabouts of the carrier groups and the Marine expeditionary groups. The South China Sea seems to be a popular place to go.

Edit- obviously these groups keep their whereabouts hush hush, so when they actually say where they are it’s because they intend to make a point.