Thursday, September 24, 2020

No Peaceful Transfer of Power

Wow. Trump is again declining to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election. In light of RBG's death and another coming stolen Supreme Court justice, this takes on a whole new meaning. Has a US president ever said such a thing before, let alone this many times, let alone this close to the election? AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday again declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the Nov. 3 presidential election.

“We’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said at a news conference, responding to a question about whether he’d commit to a peaceful transfer of power. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”
Last month Trump told Sean Hannity
This year, with a judge no longer watching, the Republicans are recruiting 50,000 volunteers in 15 contested states to monitor polling places and challenge voters they deem suspicious-looking. Trump called in to Fox News on August 20 to tell Sean Hannity, “We’re going to have sheriffs and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys” to keep close watch on the polls. For the first time in decades, according to Clark, Republicans are free to combat voter fraud in “places that are run by Democrats.”
which sounds exactly like something a fascist would do, does it not? 

And The Atlantic goes on about what you've all heard, the doubt Trump has sown about mail-in voting, about votes counted after Election Day, about foreign interference (the nerve), and more. It's worth reading.

There's no way there isn't going to be a big mess after the day of the election, unless Biden wins very big. And probably not even then. Probably not even then.  

Added: The Majority Leader from the Great State of Hypocrisy twote

28 comments:

Entropic man said...

That's not Trump, its Nehemiah Scudder.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_This_Goes_On—

David in Cal said...

David - This is a fake issue. The question was like, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

I watched that press conference. The question was both ridiculous and scummy. It was ridiculous because Trump has shown no inclination to not accept the election. Furthermore, Trump obviously does not have that power. Would the military follow any defeated President if he declined to leave office? Of course not.

The question was scummy, because it plants the idea in the public mind that Trump might somehow ignore the results of the election. Trump had no escape. If Trump had forthrightly denied the ridiculous question, his denial would have been newsworthy. A denial also would have raised the idea that Trump might take some crazy action.

Cheers

David in Cal said...

David - there's good reason to fear the accuracy of untested, mass mail-in voting. BTW here's an article from today:

U.S. Attorney: Military Ballots, Cast for Trump, Found Discarded in Pennsylvania

https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/09/24/u-s-attorney-military-ballots-cast-for-trump-found-discarded-in-pennsylvania/

Here's another New Local Election Ordered in N.J. After Mail-In Voter Fraud Charges

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/nyregion/nj-election-mail-voting-fraud.html

Cheers

Thomas said...

DiC I get a strong impression that if Trump did try to steal the election you would be the first to support him, claiming that there had to be election fraud. Yes, the US voting system sucks, has always sucked, bu mail-in voting is a minor problem compared to gerrymandering, voter suppression, electronic voting with easily hacked machines that leave no paper trail to verify if their result is accurate and so on.

David Appell said...

What will be interesting to see is if/when Trump wins the election legitimately, him shutting up about fraud completely and insisting the election was fraud free.

Though he couldn't do that even last time when he lost the popular vote and had to insist millions of votes weren't counted.

Psychopath.

David Appell said...

Breitbart, David? Come on.

David in Cal said...

David - The report of the dumped military ballots was reported by many media.

Cheers

David Appell said...

David, OK, then you should have cited a reputable source.

David Appell said...

And besides, isn't *TRUMP* in charge of the military???

David in Cal said...

David - there are no reliable media sources IMO.

David in Cal said...

David - another reason why the reporter's question was ridiculous is that a statement by the President would be no guarantee of malevolent action in November. That is, suppose Trump had both the inclination and the power to make a military overthrow of the government after losing the election. A promise today would not prevent him from doing that.

Cheers

J. D. said...

I watched that press conference. The question was both ridiculous and scummy. It was ridiculous because Trump has shown no inclination to not accept the election.

DiC: Scummy, really? This isn't the first time you've took issue with reporters doing their job of holding politicians to account. Calling them scummy though just shows how well Trump's propaganda has worked on his supporters. The other day they were cheering him at a rally for saying a reporter being hit by a rubber bullet was "a beautiful sight". That is scummy, as is the vitriol and cruelty Trump posts on his Twitter feed.
As for saying Trump has shown no inclination to not accept the election, once again, really? Fox reporter Chris Wallace asked him the same question and he wouldn't say he would accept the result. I'm pretty sure there have been other instances too But anyone who has been taking notice for the last few years knows that Trump won't accept if he loses. He didn't even accept when he won the presidency in 2016. He spent months complaining about "millions of fraudulent votes" because he couldn't stand the fact that he had lost the popular vote by nearly three million. He even set up a commission to try and prove it.
If he does lose he will claim it is voter fraud and probably take it to court and he won't hesitate to post "liberate" to encourage armed supporters on to the street again.

David Appell said...

David, there are certainly sources more reliable than Breitbart, which is a propaganda machine.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
It was ridiculous because Trump has shown no inclination to not accept the election.

DAVID!!?#

Buddy, I simply cannot understand where you're coming from! I feel like we're on different planets, man.

Read this, please:

"A list of the times Trump has said he won't accept the election results or leave office if he loses," CNN 9/24/20

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/24/politics/trump-election-warnings-leaving-office/index.html

J. D. said...

David - The report of the dumped military ballots was reported by many media.

Yes the Washington Post quotes election law experts who are appalled at the way Trump with the support of the justice department are using this to cast doubt on the integrity of the election before the facts are known.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/pennsylvania-discarded-ballots/2020/09/24/c99a3580-feaf-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html

David Appell said...

David in Cal said...
there are no reliable media sources IMO.

I don't write for the MSM, but having written journalism for Scientific American, Physics World, Yale Climate Connections, long ago Psychology Today and Audubon and New Scientist, they demand that you get things right and spend a lot of time making sure you do. Talking to people who write for the MSM, hearing their presentations, it's no less for them, but more. I've read many times about writing for the New Yorker -- they fact check every last little thing.

You can be cynical if you want and write off all media, but I don't think that's either accurate or fair. I'm also not sure on what factual basis (bases) you're making that judgement.

J. D. said...

It's comical as well to see the right wing media trying to exaggerate the significance of those discarded votes when the much bigger issue is the corrupt interference of Trump and his cronies.
Attorney General William Barr has been successfully delaying any court cases that could show Trump's corruption until after the election. In an interview he justified his interference by saying that if Trump lost the election America would be on the road to socialism. So that's an unelected official employed by a president elected by a minority of voters saying he has a right to interfere in the election if he thinks he won't like the result. To give Trump some credit, who thought he would be capable of turning America into a banana republic in so short a time?
Then there is the postmaster general slowing the mail to destroy confidence in postal voting. As confirmed by a judge who said.“At the heart of DeJoy’s and the Postal Service’s actions is voter disenfranchisement, DeJoy’s actions fly in the face of Congress’s intent to insulate the management of the Postal Service from partisan politics and political influence.”
Of course that's just a small sample but let's worry about a handful of discarded votes that's not even been fully investigated yet.


David Appell said...

JD wrote:
So that's an unelected official employed by a president elected by a minority of voters saying he has a right to interfere in the election if he thinks he won't like the result.

Worse, Barr isn't employed by the President, he's employed by the American people. Trump is treating Barr like his personal lawyer, and Barr is letting him, when in reality Barr is nothing of the sort -- Barr is the top lawyer for the US, not Trump. It's total corruption (again!). Compare to the Saturday Night Massacre in 1973, when two attorneys general resigned on the same evening rather than follow Nixon's order to fire a special prosecutor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Massacre#:~:text=U.S.%20President%20Richard%20Nixon%20ordered,Ruckelshaus%20refused%2C%20and%20also%20resigned

Barr is a complete and utter toadie. But then, which Republican isn't now?

David Appell said...

Here's a short URL to the Saturday Night Massacre:

https://is.gd/F3rr48

Note that one of those who resigned was the infamous Robert Bork.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
That is, suppose Trump had both the inclination and the power to make a military overthrow of the government after losing the election. A promise today would not prevent him from doing that.

That's right, he's a major liar -- you can't believe a word he says.

David Appell said...

BTW, I don't think the military's high command would follow any order from Trump to get involved in the election aftermath. He hasn't treated them with respect. He hasn't treated individual military members with respect -- McCain, Shah, pardoning war criminals, etc. He wimped out of the draft himself. But mostly, the military men have, unlike Trump, honor, and know it's not their constitutional place to get involved.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-election-military-transfer-power-1534208
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/us/politics/trump-military-election.html

David Appell said...

...and military women... Sorry.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
David - there's good reason to fear the accuracy of untested, mass mail-in voting. BTW here's an article from today:
U.S. Attorney: Military Ballots, Cast for Trump, Found Discarded in Pennsylvania


You mean these, umm.... nine ballots? Nine?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/barr-trump-pennsylvania-ballots-investigation/2020/09/25/5e4990a0-ff3b-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html

Because there's absolutely no possible way that could have happened by accident, is there?

Nine. Yet it's become a national crisis that Trump is milking as hard as he can, I hear (I don't watch TV).

J. D. said...

DiC: U.S. Attorney: Military Ballots, Cast for Trump, Found Discarded in Pennsylvania

After investigation it was found the ballots were discarded accidently by a contractor. What this highlights again is the corruption of Trump and Barr. They went against the normal practice by announcing something under investigation to try and undermine confidence in the voting system. This was highly publisized with Trump embellishing the story on Fox News and his campaign put out a press release stating this proved the Democrats were trying to steal the election. The result of the investigation has hardly been mentioned anywhere though. Breitbart have not published a retraction above their story.

David Appell said...

Of course Breitbart won't publish a retraction. Trump won't correct the story. Neither will Barr. They are all corrupt and dishonest and without shame. They embarrass America and they are embarrassing Republicans and yet Republicans follow them around like clowns in a clown car.

Maybe David will at least clarify and accept that it was a simple error and not the end of the Republic.

David in Cal said...

David - Bork did NOT resign. He is indeed "infamous" as you say, but that's entirely unfair. He did fire the SP, but, as he explained, he needed to do that or else resign. He felt that the Justice Dept. needed to avoid losing its entire leadership. The rest of his bad reputation was due to Democratic mud-slinging. That's their greatest skill. Bork is an intelligent, honorable man whose career was free of scandal. That's more than one can say about Joseph Biden. (The scandal is that Biden's son Hunter got millions of dollars from a corrupt Ukrainian energy company while Biden was in charge of Ukrainian policy.)

Cheers

David Appell said...

Yes, David, you're right, thanks for correcting me. I read too fast.

Elliot Richardson resigned, then William Ruckelshaus on the same day. Bork snapped his heels together, straightened his back and saluted, saying Yes Sir, Sir, Yes Sir and did whatever he was asked. It is it true or just a rumor that he then got Nixon's robe and slippers for him?

I'm sure the evil Democrats couldn't possibly have had any good reasons to oppose Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork#U.S._Supreme_Court_nomination

David in Cal said...

David - note that The Economist agreed that the scurrilous attacks on Bork were false. And, Biden participated in the falsehoods.

Bork responded, "There was not a line in that speech that was accurate."[29] In an obituary of Kennedy, The Economist remarked that Bork may well have been correct, "but it worked."[29] Bork also contended in his best-selling[30] book, The Tempting of America, that the brief prepared for Sen. Joe Biden, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, "so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility."

Trump obviously lacks integrity. But, Biden also lacks integrity.

Cheers