All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Seabass]

Just in case anybody was curious what Trumpist lawn order looks like as it waddles out the door...

'In Trump’s final days, a rush of federal executions'

As President Donald Trump's days in the White House wane, his administration is racing through a string of federal executions.

Five executions are scheduled before President-elect Joe Biden's 20 January inauguration - breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition.

And if all five take place, Mr Trump will be the country's most prolific execution president in more than a century, overseeing the executions of 13 death row inmates since July of this year.

Republicans calling themselves pro-life is like if I were to call myself pro-Republican.

[Cunt]

Welcome back. How's your cardio these days.

Thanks!

As to cardio, I try to do an amount daily that shows I respect my heart. It would be reckless, bordering on disrepsectful to be fat in times like these.

[Scot Dutchy]

You must have enjoyed the elections. Right up your street Cunt. Plenty of corruption and lies with your fucking leader being the spoilt brat that he is. Of course you believe his every word. Why did you come back? Just to get yourself banned again or maybe be half civilised?

[pErvinalia]

Just in case anybody was curious what Trumpist lawn order looks like as it waddles out the door...

'In Trump’s final days, a rush of federal executions'

As President Donald Trump's days in the White House wane, his administration is racing through a string of federal executions.

Five executions are scheduled before President-elect Joe Biden's 20 January inauguration - breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition.

And if all five take place, Mr Trump will be the country's most prolific execution president in more than a century, overseeing the executions of 13 death row inmates since July of this year.

How's Trump responsible for executions? Surely it's a state justice thing?

[pErvinalia]

Welcome back. How's your cardio these days.

Thanks!

As to cardio, I try to do an amount daily that shows I respect my heart. It would be reckless, bordering on disrepsectful to be fat in times like these.

How does it feel to have backed a loser? You must be sad your hero is now finished.

[Hermit]

Just in case anybody was curious what Trumpist lawn order looks like as it waddles out the door...

'In Trump’s final days, a rush of federal executions'

As President Donald Trump's days in the White House wane, his administration is racing through a string of federal executions.

Five executions are scheduled before President-elect Joe Biden's 20 January inauguration - breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition.

And if all five take place, Mr Trump will be the country's most prolific execution president in more than a century, overseeing the executions of 13 death row inmates since July of this year.

How's Trump responsible for executions? Surely it's a state justice thing?

Not exclusively.

Capital punishment by the United States federal government E.g:

The federal death penalty applies even in areas without a state death penalty since federal criminal law is the same for the entire country and is enforced by federal courts, rather than by state courts. From 1988 to October 2019, federal juries gave death sentences to eight convicts in places without a state death penalty when the crime was committed and tried.

[pErvinalia]

Yes I know that. But unless these are all Federal executions, the question still remains - what does this have to do with Trump? And even if they are federal executions, does the President have anything to do with who gets executed when?

[Cunt]

You must have enjoyed the elections. Right up your street Cunt.

I thought it was funny when storefronts got boarded up in preperation for what we are told was a free and fair US election.

Plenty of corruption and lies with your fucking leader being the spoilt brat that he is.

Weird switch, but yes, my leader is a spoilt brat. Pretty hair though.

Of course you believe his every word.

I believe him when he said that he would use the covid crisis to further his pre-pandemic efforts to...something. I don't remember what, just that he openly said he would use the crisis that way.

Might affect his credibility.

Why did you come back? Just to get yourself banned again or maybe be half civilised?

I like a few people here. You might not believe that, but it's why I still read them.

Welcome back. How's your cardio these days.

Thanks!

As to cardio, I try to do an amount daily that shows I respect my heart. It would be reckless, bordering on disrepsectful to be fat in times like these.

How does it feel to have backed a loser? You must be sad your hero is now finished.

I know you think I 'backed' Trump, but I just cheered. From out of country.

I get what you are saying though. It looks like he might lose. As soon as it looks convincing, we'll know which of the predictions were right, and which were a bit early.

Of course, if you are REALLY sure, you can still bet on the outcome. Easy money, for the smart folks. Or so I hear.

Yes I know that. But unless these are all Federal executions, the question still remains - what does this have to do with Trump? And even if they are federal executions, does the President have anything to do with who gets executed when?

This might be off your main topic, but didn't Trump fuck himself by stupidity, when he legislated more death penalty stuff for federal crimes? I mean, if he is going to be prosecuted as soon as he leaves office, he really made a bad call.

[Tero]

How long are you planning to stay, Cunt?

[Woodbutcher]

Good to see you back, Cunt. Stick around at least until Biden takes over in the States, after Trump is gone we'll be short of topics here. We might have to, heaven forbid, talk about UK or Australia. Or if all else fails, Netherland.

[Cunt]

Good to see you back, Cunt. Stick around at least until Biden takes over in the States, after Trump is gone we'll be short of topics here. We might have to, heaven forbid, talk about UK or Australia. Or if all else fails, Netherland.

Why not talk about the recent story Ezra broke about your Trudeau? (ok, our Trudeau)

Biden taking over will be about as uneventful as Trump taking over. (the 'other side' will screech)

[Animavore]

Today’s big story remains the loss of our neighbors to Covid-19. Today, our official death count passed the number of those killed in the 9-11 attacks. On that horrific day in 2001, we lost 2977 people to four terrorist attacks. Today, official reports showed 3,140 deaths from Covid-19, the highest single-day toll so far. Hospitals are overwhelmed, our health care workers exhausted.

As the country suffers, Trump has launched a new approach in his attempt to steal the 2020 election. While he has previously insisted that he actually won, and that his “win” must be recognized, this morning he tweeted simply “OVERTURN.” Republican leaders have ducked the question of Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Joe Biden’s win in the election by saying that the president has a right to challenge an election through legal means. Few of them commented on this new attack on our democracy.

Instead, the Republican attorneys general of seventeen states supported a lawsuit Texas has asked the Supreme Court’s permission to file against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, suing them over their voting processes. A majority of voters in those four states voted for Biden, thus giving him their state’s electoral votes and the presidency. The states that want to sue are all Republican-majority states. They are hoping they can get the Supreme Court to allow them to sue, and that it will then agree with their complaint and throw out the votes from those states so the Republican legislatures there can then choose their own electors and give the win to Trump.

Astonishingly, this argument comes from the party that claims to oppose “judicial activism.”

The states that have declared their support for Texas’s lawsuit are: Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. They are essentially asking the Supreme Court to disfranchise the majority in the United States and to let them put their chosen president in the White House. This assault on American principles is breathtaking.

Trump has also filed a motion to join Texas’s lawsuit in his personal capacity as a presidential candidate. His lawyer says that he “seeks to have the votes cast in the Defendant States unlawfully for his opponent to be deemed invalid.” Tonight, at a White House Hanukkah party, Trump told the crowd that with the help of “certain very important people, if they have wisdom and if they have courage, we are going to win this election.” The attendees chanted “four more years.”

Legal experts say this case is a non-starter. University of Texas Law Professor Steve Vladeck writes, “It is lacking in actual evidence; it is deeply cynical; it evinces stunning disrespect for both the role of the courts in our constitutional system and of the states in our elections; and it is doomed to fail.”
But the fact that Republican leaders have accepted, rather than condemned, this attempt to overturn a legitimate election says they are willing to destroy American democracy in order to stay in power. On CNN tonight, former Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican himself, called the lawmakers supporting Trump’s attack on democracy “morally and ethically bankrupt.”

Republicans might be stoking attacks on our electoral system because they know the courts will shut them down. After all, Trump’s lawyers are currently 1-51 in court, and it is unlikely the Supreme Court will take up Texas’s lawsuit. So siding with Trump is a cheap way for leaders to avoid alienating his voters when they will want those voters in 2022.

But they are playing a deeply cynical and wildly dangerous game. Yesterday, the official Twitter account of the Arizona Republican Party asked followers if they were willing to die to overturn the election, then posted a clip from the film “Rambo” in which the main character is threatening someone’s life, saying “This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.”

Today, talk show host Rush Limbaugh told his listeners that they are, in fact, still a majority but they are plagued with “RINOs” who are selling them out. “I actually think that we’re trending toward secession,” he said. “I see more and more people asking what in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York? What is there that makes us believe that there is enough of us there to even have a chance at winning New York? Especially if you’re talking about votes….” (New York City has more people than 40 of the 50 states.) He went on: “There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs. We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way.”

The theme of civil war, and of America tearing itself apart, was one pushed hard by Russian operatives in 2018. On Twitter, “Civil War” trended today. An actual civil war is highly unlikely, but the unwillingness of leaders to stop this language is already leading to death threats against election officials. The longer they permit it to go on, the worse things will get.

Republicans are working to undermine the incoming Democratic administration in other ways, too. Last week, Attorney General William Barr announced that he appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham as special counsel in October to investigate the FBI agents who worked on the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. While the law about special counsels says they must come from outside the government, Barr claims to have found a loophole in that rule. Durham can be fired only for specific reasons such as conflict of interest or misconduct. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) applauded the appointment and the continuation of the investigation.

Today Biden’s son Hunter told the media that he has just learned that he is under investigation by the Department of Justice for tax issues, although CNN suggested it is a much wider financial investigation than that, and that it began in 2018. The Justice Department is also investigating a company related to Joe Biden’s brother James. While the DOJ is supposed to be independent of the president, these investigations echo Trump’s own calls for such investigations. Immediately Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) called for a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, and tonight, Trump tweeted that “10% of voters would have changed their vote if they knew about Hunter Biden…. But I won anyway!”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Fox News Channel personality Laura Ingraham today that Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) should be “removed from Congress” after an Axios report that a Chinese intelligence operative had worked to ingratiate herself with California lawmakers between 2011 and 2015. The operative targeted a number of politicians, including Swalwell, and she fundraised on his behalf, but there is no evidence she broke any laws. In 2015, FBI officers alerted Swalwell, who immediately cut all ties to her. He was never accused of any wrongdoing. The operative left the country unexpectedly during the FBI investigation.

Although the Axios story was about Chinese espionage, right-wing media is aflame with attacks on Swalwell in what seems an attempt to discredit a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Don Jr. tweeted that Swalwell “was literally sleeping with a Chinese spy,” an allegation that is nowhere in the story, although the story mentions that two unidentified midwestern mayors had affairs with her.

The White House appears to be trying to sabotage the Biden administration not only by keeping the Biden team from information it needs, but by tying its hands and slowing it down. The day after the election, the Trump administration proposed a new rule requiring the new Department of Health and Human Services appointees to review most of the department’s regulations by 2023. The rule would automatically kill any regulations that haven’t been reviewed by then. This would mean that, just as the new administration is trying to fight the coronavirus, it would be slammed with administrative paperwork. The department’s chief of staff denies the unusual move is political, saying that a review is necessary because one hasn’t been done for 40 years.

Now that the transition process has finally started, Trump loyalists are blocking meetings, or sitting in on them to monitor what is being said, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency. At Voice of America, Trump’s appointed head, Michael Pack, has refused to give meetings or records to Biden’s team. For their part, Biden’s transition folks are avoiding fights in order to get whatever information they can.
Republican senators are also signaling that they intend to delay confirmations on Biden’s nominees, although in the past 95% of Cabinet nominees have had hearings before an inauguration, and 84% of those were approved within three days. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), for example, questioned the experience of Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra. Becerra is the Attorney General of California, and he sat on the House Committee on Ways and Means, which oversees health issues, during his 24 years in Congress. “I don’t know what his Health and Human Services credentials are,” Cornyn told The Hill. It’s not like [Trump’s HHS Secretary] Alex Azar, who worked for pharma and had a health care background.”

https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrich ... 7137169337

The US is so close to fascism now.

[Hermit]

Yes I know that. But unless these are all Federal executions, the question still remains - what does this have to do with Trump? And even if they are federal executions, does the President have anything to do with who gets executed when?

Nobody sentenced to die by federal courts has been executed for 17 years. In July 2019 William Barr, who is a member of Trump's cabinet and has been appointed as the nation's top law enforcement officer (Attorney General) by Trump, announced that executions will resume. There were 61 individuals on the federal death row at the time. Since then there have been eight executions at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Grauniad claims if the next five executions go ahead as planned, they will make Trump the most prolific execution president in over 130 years.

[Animavore]

Sounds about right.

[pErvinalia]

Yes I know that. But unless these are all Federal executions, the question still remains - what does this have to do with Trump? And even if they are federal executions, does the President have anything to do with who gets executed when?

Nobody sentenced to die by federal courts has been executed for 17 years. In July 2019 William Barr, who is a member of Trump's cabinet and has been appointed as the nation's top law enforcement officer (Attorney General) by Trump, announced that executions will resume. There were 61 individuals on the federal death row at the time. Since then there have been eight executions at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Grauniad claims if the next five executions go ahead as planned, they will make Trump the most prolific execution president in over 130 years.

Fair enough.