dailykos--2020-05-07--DT and Roy:  A Fable

DT and Roy:  A Fable

DT was a rocking and rolling , self-proclaimed real estate tycoon , with a raging case of ADHD and an out of control libido .
He desperately needed someone to yank on his reins .
He kicked all the way through gestation , wailed at birth and never slowed down .
His mother was , “ sensitive ” and his father was , “ busy ” so they hired DT “ keepers ” none of which lasted very long so in time they sent him away to boarding school where he worked not at all and got in trouble all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forgiveness , which he did , repeatedly .
At the time of this tale DT has been , “ working ” for a while but really he ’ s just been spending or losing Busy Daddy ’ s money in unwise real estate schemes because his impulse control is so bad and his attention span so short that he ’ s unable to really understand the transactions he calls , “ deals ” .
But he is smart .
Not smart enough to approach anything akin to wisdom or good judgment but smart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ labyrinths self-created by sexual predation and no damn business sense at all .
Roy was a sinewy snake of an old lawyer with a brilliant intellect and no moral compass .
Roy loved the labyrinth .
Plenty of places to hide and slither there .
He was the master of , who me , can ’ t be me , you must be mistaken or you misunderstood or simply , shut up or I ’ ll sue you which he did , often , winning just enough to gain the reputation as one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in court as such experiences inevitably left you stained and scorched by his special brand of verbal vomit .
Audacity , Roy had mastered audacity because audacity was an effective tactic .
In his mind effectiveness always cancelled right , wrong , good , bad , moral , immoral , up , down or sideways .
Roy had no friends .
Nobody respected him .
Everyone feared him .
And he was very effective so certain people called upon him from time to time .
One of those people was DT ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You mean DT needs a new keeper ” .
Busy Daddy replied , “ OK , you ’ re right .
You want the job ?
It pays well.
” Now DT always called Roy an , “ associate ” .
Roy thought that was funny .
He wasn ’ t an associate .
He was there to teach DT how to stand on his own so Busy Daddy wouldn ’ t have to keep bailing him out and besides Busy Daddy really didn ’ t much like DT so that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an eye on him or to fix his messes .
He made a lot of messes .
Roy was always strategic .
He had a particular lesson he wanted to teach but because DT was DT he needed to devise a delivery strategy , one which could overcome impulsivity and inattention and most importantly stick .
DT loved going to the most expensive restaurants and always sat in a booth which opened onto the room from which he could in effect hold court and gaze upon the rabble as he smiled charmingly and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he mistook for adoration .
So , on this particular occasion DT and Roy slithered into a garishly decorated gold sparkled booth for lunch .
DT stopped about midway .
Roy ’ s habit was always to sit uncomfortably close but nobody , even DT , ever said anything to him about it for fear of being bitten .
Now this time Roy sat even closer , smooching himself right up , almost on DT ’ s lap and put his arm around DT ’ s shoulders .
All this time DT was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about a deal he ’ d conceived and how he ’ d come out king of the empire .
He talked on and on until Roy said , “ DT , perhaps you could stop talking ” .
But DT seemed not to notice and kept right on , when Roy said , “ DT , you really should stop talking.
” Given that DT was DT he had none of what has become known as social intelligence .
Roy could have pulled a pistol and yelled for him to shut the hell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ noticed because regaling the universe about tales of himself was his life ’ s cause .
At this moment though Roy had a plan , a lesson he wanted to teach DT that DT would forever remember .
A more persuasive tactic was in order .
Recall that Roy had one arm around DT ’ s shoulders .
His other hand rested in his lap , below the fringe of the table cloth , unseen .
Like a cobra striking Roy ’ s hidden hand shot out and grabbed DT ’ s balls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
DT stopped talking .
Roy squeezed .
“ I suggested that you stop talking .
You ignored me.
” DT learned and remembered .
But what did he learn and remember ?
A father like figure might say this was a harsh but necessary way to teach DT to pay attention to social cues in order to save himself from having his nuts crushed .
That was not Roy ’ s intent .
Roy was imparting audacity .
Roy understood that almost everyone else in the world would never consider grabbing another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make a point or to get their attention .
That ’ s where Roy was different .
His audacity enabled him to win in any situation .
It was very simple .
There was no right or wrong , no true or false , no contracts nor boundaries , no treaties or rule books , no morality , empathy or conscience .
There was only dominating and winning the interaction of the moment .
Win no matter what and in the process all the other messy stuff that happened along the way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once mesmerized you have control and with control you have power and then they let you do whatever you want .
DT learned and remembered .
In later years DT routinely employed the lesson when speaking in public gatherings .
If any hint of opposition was encountered he ’ d strike , audaciously , and they all fell away and he could go on doing whatever he wanted .
The end .
One dictionary defines a fable as a Fictional morality tale often with animals speaking in the voices of humans .

(One dictionary defines a fable as a FICTIONAL morality often with animals speaking in the voices of humans)
DT was a rocking and rolling, self-proclaimed real estate tycoon, with a raging case of ADHD and an out of control libido. He desperately needed someone to yank on his reins. He kicked all the way through gestation, wailed at birth and never slowed down. His mother was, “sensitive” and his father was, “busy” so they hired DT “keepers” none of which lasted very long so in time they sent him away to boarding school where he worked not at all and got in trouble all the time requiring Busy Daddy to buy forgiveness, which he did, repeatedly. At the time of this tale DT has been, “working” for a while but really he’s just been spending or losing Busy Daddy’s money in unwise real estate schemes because his impulse control is so bad and his attention span so short that he’s unable to really understand the transactions he calls, “deals”. But he is smart. Not smart enough to approach anything akin to wisdom or good judgment but smart enough to plot his way through the labyrinths self-created by sexual predation and no damn business sense at all.
Roy was a sinewy snake of an old lawyer with a brilliant intellect and no moral compass. Roy loved the labyrinth. Plenty of places to hide and slither there. He was the master of, who me, can’t be me, you must be mistaken or you misunderstood or simply, shut up or I’ll sue you which he did, often, winning just enough to gain the reputation as one you don’t want to face in court as such experiences inevitably left you stained and scorched by his special brand of verbal vomit. Audacity, Roy had mastered audacity because audacity was an effective tactic. In his mind effectiveness always cancelled right, wrong, good, bad, moral, immoral, up, down or sideways. Roy had no friends. Nobody respected him. Everyone feared him. And he was very effective so certain people called upon him from time to time. One of those people was DT’s Busy Daddy.
Busy Daddy said, “Roy, DT needs a mentor”.
Roy said, “You mean DT needs a new keeper”.
Busy Daddy replied, “OK, you’re right. You want the job? It pays well.”
Now DT always called Roy an, “associate”. Roy thought that was funny. He wasn’t an associate. He was there to teach DT how to stand on his own so Busy Daddy wouldn’t have to keep bailing him out and besides Busy Daddy really didn’t much like DT so that’s why he kept hiring people to keep an eye on him or to fix his messes. He made a lot of messes.
Roy was always strategic. He had a particular lesson he wanted to teach but because DT was DT he needed to devise a delivery strategy, one which could overcome impulsivity and inattention and most importantly stick.
DT loved going to the most expensive restaurants and always sat in a booth which opened onto the room from which he could in effect hold court and gaze upon the rabble as he smiled charmingly and waved, basking in the attention which he mistook for adoration. So, on this particular occasion DT and Roy slithered into a garishly decorated gold sparkled booth for lunch. DT stopped about midway. Roy’s habit was always to sit uncomfortably close but nobody, even DT, ever said anything to him about it for fear of being bitten. Now this time Roy sat even closer, smooching himself right up, almost on DT’s lap and put his arm around DT’s shoulders.
All this time DT was talking about himself, telling some tale about a deal he’d conceived and how he’d come out king of the empire. He talked on and on until Roy said, “DT, perhaps you could stop talking”. But DT seemed not to notice and kept right on, when Roy said, “DT, you really should stop talking.”
Given that DT was DT he had none of what has become known as social intelligence. Roy could have pulled a pistol and yelled for him to shut the hell up and he likely would not have noticed because regaling the universe about tales of himself was his life’s cause. At this moment though Roy had a plan, a lesson he wanted to teach DT that DT would forever remember. A more persuasive tactic was in order.
Recall that Roy had one arm around DT’s shoulders. His other hand rested in his lap, below the fringe of the table cloth, unseen. Like a cobra striking Roy’s hidden hand shot out and grabbed DT’s balls. He looked DT in the eyes. DT stopped talking. Roy squeezed. “I suggested that you stop talking. You ignored me.” DT learned and remembered.
But what did he learn and remember? A father like figure might say this was a harsh but necessary way to teach DT to pay attention to social cues in order to save himself from having his nuts crushed. That was not Roy’s intent. Roy was imparting audacity. Roy understood that almost everyone else in the world would never consider grabbing another individual’s private parts in order to make a point or to get their attention . That’s where Roy was different. His audacity enabled him to win in any situation. It was very simple. There was no right or wrong, no true or false, no contracts nor boundaries, no treaties or rule books, no morality, empathy or conscience. There was only dominating and winning the interaction of the moment. Win no matter what and in the process all the other messy stuff that happened along the way just falls away because audacity mesmerizes and once mesmerized you have control and with control you have power and then they let you do whatever you want. DT learned and remembered.
In later years DT routinely employed the lesson when speaking in public gatherings. If any hint of opposition was encountered he’d strike, audaciously, and they all fell away and he could go on doing whatever he wanted.
The end. One dictionary defines a fable as a Fictional morality tale often with animals speaking in the voices of humans.


dailykos--2020-05-08--Massive revenue shortfall in new state forecasts (New Mexico)

The full article is here→ The full article The last time state economists released revenue forecasts , New Mexico had a massive oil boom with no end in sight .
Oh , how times have changed .
Those same economists released dire revenue projections on Wednesday , suggesting New Mexico could take in between $ 1.7 billion and $ 2.4 billion less than originally expected during the next fiscal year as the novel coronavirus pandemic and plummeting oil prices take a major toll on tax revenue and royalty payments .
“ The outbreak of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contain the spread of the virus , places significant strain on New Mexico ’ s finances , ” the economists wrote in the document .
The group of legislative and executive branch economists noted the new projections were not an official revenue forecast , but rather a review of the state ’ s income sources aimed at helping policymakers .
State legislators are expected to hold a special legislative session in mid-June in an attempt to patch the most pressing gaps in the $ 7.6 billion budget approved for the 2021 fiscal year @ @

The full article is here→ The full article
The last time state economists released revenue forecasts, New Mexico had a massive oil boom with no end in sight.
Oh, how times have changed.
Those same economists released dire revenue projections on Wednesday, suggesting New Mexico could take in between $1.7 billion and $2.4 billion less than originally expected during the next fiscal year as the novel coronavirus pandemic and plummeting oil prices take a major toll on tax revenue and royalty payments.
“The outbreak of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, along with the global responses to contain the spread of the virus, places significant strain on New Mexico’s finances,” the economists wrote in the document.
The group of legislative and executive branch economists noted the new projections were not an official revenue forecast, but rather a review of the state’s income sources aimed at helping policymakers. State legislators are expected to hold a special legislative session in mid-June in an attempt to patch the most pressing gaps in the $7.6 billion budget approved for the 2021 fiscal year.”


dailykos--2020-05-08--Hell Unleashed With Volume Of Facebook Conspiracy Theories Today - What’s It Say About Us?

Throughout this pandemic here has been a steady increase in the numbers of conspiracy theory posts on my Facebook feed around the origins of the Covid-19 virus , including Bill Gates wanting to kill people with vaccines , 5G connections and the bio weapon claim .
I woke up this morning to find every third post on my feed was a story about something called a “ Plandemic ” .
Apparently some doctor named Judy Mikovits who went to jail for stealing equipment and has some loose connection to Dr. Anthony Fauci has blown the whistle on the origins of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was no accident .
The YouTube video that has everyone riled up dramatically makes this accusation , and apparently she has evidence on how big pharma , Dr. Fauci and other dark conspirators have allowed the virus to infect humanity for money and power .
These claims are beyond absurd , lapsing in to the comical .
Except for many , they are the gospel truth .
Never mind that it ’ s been debunked repeatedly on multiple sites and by fact checkers .
According to the Facebook posters in the know , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That ’ s right , they have been paid to silence her .
I wasn ’ t too concerned until I read the comments and noticed the number of people that were buying this crap .
It was eye opening as to the numbers , especially since it would take less than a minute of research to discover that this person was not credible and the story had already been throughly busted .
This got me thinking , why is it that people are motivated to believe some random post on their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without questioning the source ?
I know I tend to feel that if I share something , it reflects back on me and my reputation .
Do others not see it that way ?
What ’ s the payoff for doing this ?
I have read a number of books and articles on how our brains process information and how beliefs are constructed , so it should not be that surprising that in times of crisis people want to feel that there must be some grand reason for these events .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this pandemic could be random .
The primitive brain may fear that without a cause to point to this increases the chances of another catastrophe randomly happening again at any moment .
If we have something identifiable to blame then this may reduce the likelihood of it repeating .
People who have researched the conspiracy theory phenomenon have noticed that it does tend to increase around catastrophic events .
For example , after 9-11 we had the truther conspiracy theories .
That time it was the government who was blamed for planning to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could aggregate power and cover up other nefarious crimes .
Then there is our own human need to feel relevant and have some control over our circumstances .
To fight back at some proxy foe we can project our anger on to .
Poor Dr. Fauci seems to be caught in the crossfire .
We are so cynical that we find it necessary to probe the motivations of anyone who might want to be selfless in a crisis .
It doesn ’ t help that Trump doesn ’ t like someone taking away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inevitable that he would be the fall guy eventually .
People who are bored of feel powerless within their lives may want to feel they are part of something bigger than themselves .
To give their life have more meaning .
Conspiracy theories can help a person feel like they are part of a group who is taking on the evil forces , uncovering the hidden truth .
The convenient scapegoat of choice is often the government or some institution with nefarious intent .
A evil billionaire maybe .
Meanwhile the real enemy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fake theories and circulate them to the easily duped .

Throughout this pandemic here has been a steady increase in the numbers of conspiracy theory posts on my Facebook feed around the origins of the Covid-19 virus, including Bill Gates wanting to kill people with vaccines, 5G connections and the bio weapon claim.
I woke up this morning to find every third post on my feed was a story about something called a “Plandemic”. Apparently some doctor named Judy Mikovits who went to jail for stealing equipment and has some loose connection to Dr. Anthony Fauci has blown the whistle on the origins of this virus. Oh, and it was no accident. The YouTube video that has everyone riled up dramatically makes this accusation, and apparently she has evidence on how big pharma, Dr. Fauci and other dark conspirators have allowed the virus to infect humanity for money and power.
These claims are beyond absurd, lapsing in to the comical. Except for many, they are the gospel truth. Never mind that it’s been debunked repeatedly on multiple sites and by fact checkers. According to the Facebook posters in the know, they are all in on it too. That’s right, they have been paid to silence her.
I wasn’t too concerned until I read the comments and noticed the number of people that were buying this crap. It was eye opening as to the numbers, especially since it would take less than a minute of research to discover that this person was not credible and the story had already been throughly busted.
This got me thinking, why is it that people are motivated to believe some random post on their feed and immediately hit the share button without questioning the source? I know I tend to feel that if I share something, it reflects back on me and my reputation. Do others not see it that way? What’s the payoff for doing this?
I have read a number of books and articles on how our brains process information and how beliefs are constructed, so it should not be that surprising that in times of crisis people want to feel that there must be some grand reason for these events. It’s scary to consider that something like this pandemic could be random. The primitive brain may fear that without a cause to point to this increases the chances of another catastrophe randomly happening again at any moment. If we have something identifiable to blame then this may reduce the likelihood of it repeating.
People who have researched the conspiracy theory phenomenon have noticed that it does tend to increase around catastrophic events. For example, after 9-11 we had the truther conspiracy theories. That time it was the government who was blamed for planning to blow up the towers so government leaders could aggregate power and cover up other nefarious crimes.
Then there is our own human need to feel relevant and have some control over our circumstances. To fight back at some proxy foe we can project our anger on to. Poor Dr. Fauci seems to be caught in the crossfire. We are so cynical that we find it necessary to probe the motivations of anyone who might want to be selfless in a crisis. It doesn’t help that Trump doesn’t like someone taking away his thunder. I suppose it was inevitable that he would be the fall guy eventually.
People who are bored of feel powerless within their lives may want to feel they are part of something bigger than themselves. To give their life have more meaning.
Conspiracy theories can help a person feel like they are part of a group who is taking on the evil forces, uncovering the hidden truth. The convenient scapegoat of choice is often the government or some institution with nefarious intent. A evil billionaire maybe.
Meanwhile the real enemy is the people who make up these fake theories and circulate them to the easily duped.


dailykos--2020-05-08--Another Reason I Love My Governor

Another Reason I Love My Governor

Every day , just about , I ’ m grateful for my Governor .
Deeply intelligent , disciplined ( military man , you know ) , able , lord knows how , to persuade a deeply conservative state to listen to science and sense .
In fact , he ’ s so danged smart , he figured out how to schmooze King Don the Bigliest into providing resources for our state and even bringing the gov to the White House to praise him on TV .
Which set up today ’ s reason to be thankful for my Governor .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ load of supplies for her work and had a brief conversation with the man who runs the warehouse .
Fine fellow , good businessman , looks after his clients and employees .
His politics are in line with the bulk of our state ’ s citizens , I ’ ve learned over the years , so I tend to steer our few conversations elsewhere .
Today , I asked him how his crew was doing in all this and he said , fine , distancing , blah .
Then said he wasn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , it was like a cold and… ” I think the governor ’ s gotten radical.
” Didn ’ t pause , didn ’ t even smile , just kept loading boxes , and said , ” Seems to me he ’ s listening to the health people and not the political people , thank goodness .
And besides ... ” Okay , maybe a little smile .
In a mask , who knows ?
” … the president thinks well of him , and that ’ s good enough for me.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ all take cares and have a nice days .

Every day, just about, I’m grateful for my Governor. Deeply intelligent, disciplined (military man, you know), able, lord knows how, to persuade a deeply conservative state to listen to science and sense.
In fact, he’s so danged smart, he figured out how to schmooze King Don the Bigliest into providing resources for our state and even bringing the gov to the White House to praise him on TV.
Which set up today’s reason to be thankful for my Governor.
I drove GF to pick up a load of supplies for her work and had a brief conversation with the man who runs the warehouse. Fine fellow, good businessman, looks after his clients and employees. His politics are in line with the bulk of our state’s citizens, I’ve learned over the years, so I tend to steer our few conversations elsewhere.
Today, I asked him how his crew was doing in all this and he said, fine, distancing, blah. Then said he wasn’t worried, it just hurt old people, it was like a cold and…
”I think the governor’s gotten radical.”
Didn’t pause, didn’t even smile, just kept loading boxes, and said, ”Seems to me he’s listening to the health people and not the political people, thank goodness. And besides...”
Okay, maybe a little smile. In a mask, who knows?
”… the president thinks well of him, and that’s good enough for me.”
...aaaaaand straight to the y’all take cares and have a nice days.


dailykos--2020-05-08--Tara Reade’s New Attorneys Wrote For Sputnik & A Trump Donor - Media Outlets Step Back

According to her new attorney , Tara Reade had a difficult time finding someone who would take her case .
She found one , high profile New York sexual harassment litigator Douglas Wigdor .
Also , a second attorney William Moran signed on .
Moran used to write and edit for Sputnik , a Russian state run publication according to United States Intelligence agencies .
Wigdor is also a Trump supporter giving $ 55,000 to his campaign .
This information is from Time magazine .
time.com/ ... Media outlets have greatly reduced their coverage of this story as Ms. Reade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ credibility damaged by new revelations about her history of accusations of others for harassment .
Women ’ s groups and supporters of high profile harassment and assault cases have pulled back their open support on this one .
Following an interview with Megyn Kelly the former Fox host declined to say if she found Reade ’ s story credible .
www.thedailybeast.com/… During the interview Ms. Reade called for Biden to drop out of the race .
There is now a response from the Biden campaign regarding her statement and the interview .
Noted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Reade .
thehill.com/ ...

According to her new attorney, Tara Reade had a difficult time finding someone who would take her case. She found one, high profile New York sexual harassment litigator Douglas Wigdor. Also, a second attorney William Moran signed on. Moran used to write and edit for Sputnik, a Russian state run publication according to United States Intelligence agencies. Wigdor is also a Trump supporter giving $55,000 to his campaign. This information is from Time magazine. time.com/...
Media outlets have greatly reduced their coverage of this story as Ms. Reade’s account keeps changing and her credibility damaged by new revelations about her history of accusations of others for harassment. Women’s groups and supporters of high profile harassment and assault cases have pulled back their open support on this one.
Following an interview with Megyn Kelly the former Fox host declined to say if she found Reade’s story credible. www.thedailybeast.com/…
During the interview Ms. Reade called for Biden to drop out of the race. There is now a response from the Biden campaign regarding her statement and the interview. Noted are the inconsistencies from previous statements made by Reade. thehill.com/...


Public Education

We must fully fund every public school to ensure every child , regardless of zip code or income , has @ @ @ @ @ Children are reading from decrepit , outdated text books and it ’ s a disgrace @ @ @ @ @ attract companies to invest in Kentucky and give Kentucky ’ s children a chance to @ @ @ @ @ Kentucky .
Most importantly though , we must pay and respect teachers like the professionals @ @ @ @

We must fully fund every public school to ensure every child, regardless of zip code or income, has a chance to succeed. Children are reading from decrepit, outdated text books and it’s a disgrace. Dynamic public schools will attract companies to invest in Kentucky and give Kentucky’s children a chance to pursue their dreams here in Kentucky. Most importantly though, we must pay and respect teachers like the professionals that they are.


dailykos--2020-05-11--The Lost Years - How Republicans Ultimately Ended American Leadership In The World

A lot of families are forced to make a decision when faced with a dysfunctional family member .
One that continually creates chaos for themselves and others .
The one that ends up in and out of rehab or jail until the day comes when the members just can ’ t take it any longer and give up on them .
America may be at that point .
We have used up all of our good will , particularly under Trump , and may have finally permanently abdicated our position as a leader , a light for democracy .
America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to take root for those who want a better life .
Maybe it was myth all along , though a persistent one that somehow endured all our attempts to discredit it through various misadventures over the the last 40 years .
How did we fuck this up ?
Coming off WWII we had it all .
We were in the best possible position for a long run of good fortune and a force for good in a chaotic world looking for guidance .
A role model for a humanistic form of governance and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helped conquer .
The American people were ready to back this ideal .
They had elected Franklin Roosevelt to four terms as President and he helped heal a nation of the wounds that resulted from unabated greed and inequality .
Surely America had learned its lesson .
We stumbled along through subsequent leaders trying to figure out how to be a responsible steward , maintain the mantle of the most important nation on earth in the 20th Century .
One of those missteps was the Vietnam War .
A tragic miscalculation that got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pass card however , the world forgave us as we seemed to have learned another lesson by pushing out Richard Nixon and electing a pious every man in the form of Jimmy Carter .
The world gave a sigh of relief that the first super power of the new age had found its way .
This contrition was short lived however .
I could write a full book on this topic , but this is a blog diary so I ’ ll be succinct and get to the main point which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is rooted in a perversion of Darwinist thinking that one group is superior to another and therefore more deserving of survival and God ’ s favor .
This is the central core behind their thinking and consequently this is how they govern .
It ’ s crude virtue is inherent in its simplicity as it comes from the basic instincts that allowed humans to be successful and survive where other species have failed .
We couldn ’ t run as fast , had small incisors and hairless bodies .
We needed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We also benefited from sticking together in a tribe who would fight to the death for this ideal .
Those that protested were banished or killed .
America under Republican leadership has become the world ’ s most predatory nation and reflects the baser instincts of humans and their limbic brain manifesting as a government .
This has never been more evident than under the Presidencies of Reagan , W. Bush and now Trump .
The world is watching what we have done to our own people and are probably wondering if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their share of tyrants with bad intentions and recognize the warning signs .
We are no longer the beacon of hope , rather we are the red beacon of danger .
We received the benefit of the doubt when we shifted to Carter and then Barack Obama .
America may have used up its right to expect the trust of the world ever again .

A lot of families are forced to make a decision when faced with a dysfunctional family member. One that continually creates chaos for themselves and others. The one that ends up in and out of rehab or jail until the day comes when the members just can’t take it any longer and give up on them. America may be at that point. We have used up all of our good will, particularly under Trump, and may have finally permanently abdicated our position as a leader, a light for democracy. America is no longer the most fertile soil to take root for those who want a better life. Maybe it was myth all along, though a persistent one that somehow endured all our attempts to discredit it through various misadventures over the the last 40 years.
How did we fuck this up? Coming off WWII we had it all. We were in the best possible position for a long run of good fortune and a force for good in a chaotic world looking for guidance. A role model for a humanistic form of governance and the antithesis of the fascist regime we helped conquer. The American people were ready to back this ideal. They had elected Franklin Roosevelt to four terms as President and he helped heal a nation of the wounds that resulted from unabated greed and inequality. Surely America had learned its lesson.
We stumbled along through subsequent leaders trying to figure out how to be a responsible steward, maintain the mantle of the most important nation on earth in the 20th Century. One of those missteps was the Vietnam War. A tragic miscalculation that got out of control. We still had a pass card however, the world forgave us as we seemed to have learned another lesson by pushing out Richard Nixon and electing a pious every man in the form of Jimmy Carter. The world gave a sigh of relief that the first super power of the new age had found its way. This contrition was short lived however.
I could write a full book on this topic, but this is a blog diary so I’ll be succinct and get to the main point which is this; Republicans have a poisonous ideology that is rooted in a perversion of Darwinist thinking that one group is superior to another and therefore more deserving of survival and God’s favor. This is the central core behind their thinking and consequently this is how they govern. It’s crude virtue is inherent in its simplicity as it comes from the basic instincts that allowed humans to be successful and survive where other species have failed. We couldn’t run as fast, had small incisors and hairless bodies. We needed to be more cunning and ruthless to thrive. We also benefited from sticking together in a tribe who would fight to the death for this ideal. Those that protested were banished or killed.
America under Republican leadership has become the world’s most predatory nation and reflects the baser instincts of humans and their limbic brain manifesting as a government. This has never been more evident than under the Presidencies of Reagan, W. Bush and now Trump. The world is watching what we have done to our own people and are probably wondering if they are next. They have seen their share of tyrants with bad intentions and recognize the warning signs. We are no longer the beacon of hope, rather we are the red beacon of danger. We received the benefit of the doubt when we shifted to Carter and then Barack Obama. America may have used up its right to expect the trust of the world ever again.


dailykos--2020-05-11--What If Trump, Biden Both Claim Victory? Legal Scholars on Plausible Scenarios, by Steven Rosenfeld

Delving into how Trump and the GOP can hijack the process , they find an untested law , procedural unknowns and few clear constitutional brakes .
This article was produced by , a project of the Independent Media Institute .
With six months to go until November ’ s 2020 election , dozens of America ’ s top legal minds convened to consider what would have been unthinkable before Donald Trump ’ s presidency .
They gathered to brainstorm what could be done to prevent the country from descending into a “ civil war-like scenario , ” as one participant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden both claim that they won the presidency—and won ’ t back down .
Their May 4 teleconference parsed a series of nightmare scenarios in the aftermath of the November 3 election that would lead to competing Electoral College results being sent to Congress from battleground states—one issued by a Republican legislature backing Trump , and another issued by the Democratic governor backing Biden .
The scenarios continued onto January 6 , 2021 , where , in a joint congressional session to ratify the Electoral College votes presided over by Vice President Mike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sent to their chambers to debate for two hours .
When they reconvened , the Senate backed the Trump electors while the House backed the Biden slate .
The question put before the scholars was what could stop the 2020 election from spiraling that far out of control or going even further downhill , as occurred in the 1876 presidential election when two candidates claimed to win , waged relentless partisan battles , and were both planning separate inaugurations—with Samuel Tilden backing down only 48 hours before Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as a country , is that we don ’ t know our history well enough to know that we came within 48 hours of inauguration day with two people claiming to be president , and the incumbent thinking about martial law—that was Ulysses Grant because he was worried that there were going to be two simultaneous inauguration sessions , ” said Edward B. Foley , director of Moritz College of Law ’ s election law program at Ohio State University and a national authority on disputed presidential elections .
He organized the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Moritz senior fellow and former U.S. Senate counsel who also is an expert on vote-counting disputes .
“ To replicate that kind of thing [ a cascading crisis ] on January 18 , 2021 , in an era with nuclear codes , seems to me an altogether more problematic scenario than even the dire circumstances of March 1 , 1877 , ” Foley continued , referring to the date Congress convened in the Hayes-Tilden dispute .
“ So it may be a Don Quixote quixotic effort to try to wrestle these legal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel some responsibility to say that we have actually been there as a country once before , and it was not pretty .
There might be no avoiding [ a calamity ] if we go down that road again.
” Never before in recent history have the nation ’ s top constitutional and election scholars convened six months ahead of a presidential election to ward off what they fear could be a constitutional meltdown if an incumbent president and his most strident partisan allies seek to disrupt or disregard counting votes and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scenarios were put before the legal and electoral scholars : • None In Pennsylvania , an outcry emerges after thousands of Philadelphia voters have not received absentee ballots .
Civil rights activists sue , and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extends the election for these voters—and anyone else in the state not getting their ballot .
Pennsylvania ’ s Republican-majority legislature countersues in federal court to block the extended voting , but it doesn ’ t stop there .
The legislature uses the extension as an excuse to certify a pro-Trump Electoral College slate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • None In Michigan , the crisis begins when early but incomplete election night returns show Trump ahead .
But as the counting continues and the momentum starts to shift to Biden , Trump tweets that he won and declares that enough votes have been counted .
Michigan ’ s Republican-majority legislature follows Trump ’ s tweets and certifies a pro-Trump slate of presidential electors .
That unilateral move prompts the Michigan Democratic Party to sue in federal court , using an argument that ’ s similar to what Republicans cited in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not be ignored .
In these two scenarios , both states ’ Democratic governors end up sending a separate certificate to Congress declaring their state ’ s Electoral College votes should be awarded to Biden .
Thus , two sets of Electoral College results from the same state are presented for Congress to sort out .
These developments spark an explosion of political posturing , partisan threats and disinformation , and more litigation .
• None In the final scenario , in Florida , a state with a GOP governor and legislative majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a major hurricane .
It can not be rescheduled before December 14 , 2020 , when the national deadline falls for all of the presidential electors to cast their ballots .
Emergency legislation ensues , and Republicans authorize a pro-Trump Electoral College slate—citing pre-election polling .
The Florida Democratic Party sues in federal court , claiming that Florida ’ s GOP can not nullify a popular vote election .
What would , could or should happen , Foley asked as the process wound its way through expected and unexpected twists and turns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ final stages .
The scholars were asked to identify where legal lines in the sand could be drawn , so that the 2020 election would not disintegrate : where laws lost their meaning , could not be enforced , and what they called “ politics not law ” could emerge to seize the presidency .
The academics were some of the nation ’ s most respected constitutional law scholars , election law experts and political scientists .
Apart from the U.S. Constitution , the only federal law laying out how to resolve a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Act of 1887 ( ECA ) .
That little-known law took 14 years to craft , with debates going back even before the 1876 presidential election debacle .
According to a scholarly article by DePaul University ’ s Stephen Siegel—said by some teleconference participants to be the most authoritative modern exposition on the ECA—the law was “ turgid , ” “ repetitious , ” and “ contradictory , ” and it had been incorrectly interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court when it stopped Florida ’ s presidential recount in 2000 , elevating George @ @ @ @ @ @ @ These nightmare scenarios and the prospect of an obscure 133-year-old law deciding a post-election battle between Trump and Biden led the scholars to say that even with its flaws , some principles or norms in the ECA had to be clarified before November .
“ In the context we ’ re imagining , any kind of rule structure that can be put on the table in any greater clarity to the focal point that we have with the Electoral Count Act is desirable because you ’ re basically in a civil war context @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” said New York University Law School constitutional law professor Rick Pildes .
“ I think that is as much as you can hope for .
It may be meaningless at the end of the day .
It may become a focal point in the midst of this civil war-like scenario.
” The scenarios presented by Foley and Huefner all start on or around Election Day with easily imaginable developments , but escalate unpredictably .
The first scenario starts with voting rights groups suing on behalf of Philadelphia voters who did not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That delay triggered legal battles , first in state court , seeking to extend the election so that Philadelphians and any other similarly affected Pennsylvanian could vote .
( In 2018 , the Pennsylvania Supreme Court , citing the state Constitution ’ s protection of voting rights , overturned an extreme gerrymander by the Republican-majority legislature in 2011 .
That case ’ s ruling suggests that the court might be open to extending voting in November . )
But the Republican Party of Pennsylvania does not sit idly by .
It filed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of voting , creating what New York University Law School ’ s Samuel Issacharoff said was a key feature of this scenario : “ a turf war ” between federal and state courts .
( In Wisconsin ’ s April 7 primary , the Wisconsin Supreme Court , federal district court and U.S. Supreme Court issued contradictory rulings concerning absentee ballots .
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the election to continue—including not extending the deadline for voters not receiving absentee ballots . )
Richard Hasen , a University of California , Irvine , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the scenario disturbing on many levels .
He initially focused on the pragmatic task of extending a vote-by-mail election in a state that did not have a history of widespread absentee voting ( which is occurring in many states in response to the pandemic ) .
“ I would hope that if the state court is going to order relief like this , it is going to do what some courts have done in the past , which is bring in election officials and ask them if this is actually doable , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not confident that Philadelphia election officials would be able to handle thousands of these ballots and be able to process them in a way that wouldn ’ t raise yet another lawsuit about the due process concerns—about the actual counting of those ballots.
” Court orders can prompt unintended consequences , Hasen said .
“ We saw it in the Wisconsin case , where the Supreme Court went to the postmark [ date on the ballot as a deadline for it to count ] .
That turned out to create a whole bunch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consistency in how the local election boards dealt with non-postmarked ballots.
” Teasing out these scenarios left Hasen and others with an uneasy déjà-vu feeling .
“ I was having nightmare flashbacks to Bush v. Gore—actually back to Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board , the first case , ” he said , where there were questions about whether a state constitution could legitimize “ changing rules for presidential elections… without the state legislature affirmatively agreeing to those changes.
” “ If that question arose [ in November ] , I expect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideological partisan division between conservatives and liberals , between Republican-appointed justices and liberal-appointed justices , should it get to the Supreme Court , ” Hasen said .
“ I don ’ t think that we have made any progress in 20 years… You can hear the arguments being made here , the echoes of exactly what we heard in Bush v. Gore.
” The Pennsylvania scenario is not without a factual basis .
Problems with delivering and counting large volumes of absentee ballots occurred in the first two statewide elections held since the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s presidential primary on April 7 and Ohio ’ s primary on April 28 .
In Wisconsin , more than 150,000 absentee ballots were not returned on time or were disqualified for other reasons , according to an April 30 court filing by the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic Party .
As of May 7 , more than a week after Ohio ’ s primary , the state ’ s 88 county election boards had yet to account for 199,693 “ outstanding absentee ” and 44,368 “ outstanding provisional ” ballots , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s website .
These are not small numbers from either state .
The volume of Wisconsin ’ s rejected ballots in its low-turnout April 2020 primary was more than six times the size of Trump ’ s 2016 margin over Hillary Clinton in that state .
Later in the nearly five-hour discussion , Michael Morley , a Florida State University law professor , made a telling point that suggested that the Democrats ’ intention to protect the vote in the Pennsylvania scenario could backfire .
Any major last-minute voting extension was likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ courts—following the U.S. Supreme Court ’ s Wisconsin primary ruling , he said .
But that last-minute change also could give the GOP-led legislature a legal excuse and argument to act on its own to certify a pro-Trump slate of electors—and send it to Congress without the Democratic governor ’ s signature .
“ You could imagine situations where the legislature is stepping in to say… ‘ We are appointing a slate of electors reflecting what we perceive to be the accurate outcome based on the election as it was conducted in accordance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be this judicial deviation from state statute , ’ ” Morley said .
In the Michigan scenario , Trump declared victory before the vote counting was finished and officially certified .
Following his cues on Twitter , its Republican-majority legislature certified a pro-Trump Electoral College slate and sent it to Congress—ignoring the state ’ s Democratic governor , secretary of state and attorney general .
In response , the Michigan Democratic Party sued in federal court , citing much the same legal argument that the GOP used in the Pennsylvania scenario : you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ midstream .
“ This scenario is built on the concept of the so-called ‘ blue shift ’ or late-counted ballot scholarship that some of us have been involved in , ” explained Foley , “ which is a phenomenon where , with nothing going wrong , but just because of the way in which we have done changes to voting since 2000 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 , it ’ s just much more likely that ballots are going to be counted , not on election night , but subsequently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ process.
” “ This [ scenario ] also builds on what was observed in Arizona and Florida in 2018 , ” he continued , citing real-life precedents .
“ The fear is that we can imagine , for example , President Trump , winning , as it were , or , at least ahead on election night in the count of votes in a pivotal state—let ’ s say Michigan—and yet that lead disappearing over the next week as additional ballots get counted .
And President Trump tweeting , as he did with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , saying , ‘ No… The initial count is good .
Let ’ s stop counting ballots because we ’ ve got an accurate count.
’ Whereas the election officials say , ‘ No , these are valid ballots .
They need to be counted.
’ And then you have a certified final result after canvassing [ the official post-Election Day reconciliation of all votes cast ] that puts the Democrats on top , and yet Trump is still protesting that outcome.
” What happens next is a mix of disinformation and bullying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more demons , namely the old trope that the process is corrupt if your side loses .
“ Again , this is all hypothetical , ” Foley said .
“ But what if the Michigan legislature says , ‘ You know what ?
We just don ’ t trust late-counted ballots .
And so we are going to assert our authority under the federal constitutional Article II to appoint electors directly.
’ So now we have this conflict between the certified result from the secretary of state that said that Biden won Michigan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michigan saying , ‘ No… We don ’ t trust that result .
We are going to appoint the Republican electors.
’ So now , the Democrats are going to federal court invoking the same concept of due process— ‘ hey , don ’ t change the rules ’ —as the Republicans cited in the scenario from Pennsylvania.
” This scenario also is not merely theoretical .
The battleground states of Michigan , Wisconsin , Pennsylvania and North Carolina all have Democratic governors and Republican-majority legislatures .
Whether the most partisan legislative leaders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trash election officials and resurrect voter-fraud tropes is an open question that can only be assessed state by state .
In Wisconsin , the GOP-led legislature forced the state to hold its April primary in a pandemic to try to secure a swing vote on the state supreme court—which backfired .
Also in April , North Carolina ’ s top-ranking Republican , Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger , slammed suggestions by the North Carolina State Board of Elections to expedite absentee voting in the pandemic , saying that the procedural reforms came from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Berger further said that he did not trust North Carolina Democratic Gov .
Roy Cooper to oversee the 2020 election .
The Michigan scenario raised the question of whether a state legislature has the authority to override the popular vote in a presidential election .
The third scenario , in Florida , where a hurricane forced the election to be canceled and it could not be rescheduled before the Electoral College met on December 14 , was a variation of this question .
A Line in the Sand—or Not ?
The core issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ act independently—either ignoring the popular vote result and/or bypassing their governor .
Later in the discussion , the question came up of whether governors could do the same .
( It turned out that the 1887 Electoral Count Act gave governors more authority than legislators . )
But for now , restricting renegade legislatures seemed to be a place where scholars could draw a line in the sand , some said .
“ I actually think that this may be one of the most important places to seek consensus , ” said Justin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for research and professor .
“ Because of the procedural problems that other people have noted : Who do you sue ?
Can you enjoin [ stop ] anything ?
Is this something that Congress should decide about what to do with different slates of electors ?
I think if you were looking for [ a ] robust consensus from a group of people across partisan boundaries who study this issue to weigh in , this would be a place… particularly because the federal courts might not be ideally empowered to make that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenge that Foley and Huefner laid out : Was there a baseline that nationally known experts in constitutional law , election administration and presidential succession could agree on ?
Was it plainly unconstitutional for legislatures to independently appoint presidential electors to benefit their party ?
But the legal answer was not clear .
Some conservative scholars on the teleconference said that Congress should take up the issue of competing slates of electors , as it did in 1960 when Hawaii submitted three slates in the photo-finish race between Democrat John F. Kennedy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might even be desirable for Congress to openly debate that clash .
But could there be an open debate , Foley asked , when in the joint session of Congress on January 6 , 2021 ( to ratify the 2020 Electoral College results ) , the presiding officer is the vice president , Mike Pence , a candidate seeking re-election ?
Some noted that Al Gore had the role after the 2000 election .
As the discussion kept going , the severity of the possible constitutional crisis and lack of clear boundaries sunk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is one of the real nightmare scenarios that could very well take place , ” said Norman Ornstein , a historian and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute .
“ We could easily imagine state legislatures in a number of places deciding that they didn ’ t like the outcome of the election , and trying to shift it to Congress—knowing or believing at that point that we might get the House and Senate disagreeing over which slates of electors to accept , and leaving it to the House of Representatives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Then leaving it in a situation where we would not have anybody getting the requisite 270 Electoral [ College ] votes.
” If the selection of the next president ended up in the House , under the 12th Amendment each state delegation gets one vote .
Currently , there are 26 delegations with a majority of Republican members , 22 with a majority of Democratic members , and two states with equal members from both parties—Pennsylvania and Michigan .
But before that eleventh-hour process would kick in , Foley said that other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Meanwhile , could scholars draw a line much closer to Election Day , he asked , by affirming the state ’ s official presidential election results ?
“ As long as independently and objectively the election officials , [ and ] the election administrators , are correct that the popular vote is an accurate count… [ is ] there a true legal answer to which certificate Congress should adopt ?
” Foley asked .
“ If that ’ s true , then maybe the legal community can rally around that point.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there has been political pressure that ’ s going to cause the Michigan legislature to want to supersede the popular vote , there ’ s going to be political pressure in Congress , for one chamber at least , to try to do that too , ” he continued .
“ Is there any point where legal intervention [ can happen ] ?
Not necessarily by a court , but by academics who can say , ‘ Wait a second .
There ’ s actually a right answer to this question that Congress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scholar present agreed that the official election results could be trusted .
“ Ned , could I jump in here , ” said John C. Fortier , director of governmental studies at the Bipartisan Policy Center .
“ There ’ s a distinction between , ‘ I think… the facts don ’ t really support that there ’ s anything [ that ] was particularly wrong here , ’ versus a decision of an election administrator .
That decision might be something you find very objectionable .
I can bring up election administrators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about whom ] people would have said , ‘ Well , they did that for bad purposes .
They made the wrong decision.
’ ” At this point the discussion entered the constitutional danger zone , where respect for laws and enforcing rules as the underpinning of elections begins to disintegrate .
The scholars wanted to respect precedent and institutional authority .
But there were likely to be problems in administering November ’ s elections in a pandemic , especially as states were poised to make unprecedented shifts to voting by mail .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Electoral Count Act , whose rules were written 133 years ago .
The longer a presidential election dispute went on , including what might happen if it went before Congress , the more dangerous it became , some scholars said .
“ This is a very difficult set of questions , ” said NYU Law School ’ s Issacharoff .
“ One question is what can be done ahead of time to try to forestall this… I don ’ t think that the Electoral Count Act is well-settled law .
It has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
It has never been applied .
The closest we came to it was its spiritual invocation in Bush v. Gore .
It is hardly a blueprint for how institutional actors can settle themselves.
” But some conservative scholars disagreed , noting that the ECA has been used recently .
“ In 2001 , members of Congress repeatedly on the floor tried to object to counting Florida ’ s electoral votes , and [ then-Vice President ] Al Gore said [ it was ] , ‘ improper under the Electoral Count Act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ professor of law at Pepperdine University ’ s Caruso School of Law .
“ In 2005 , they challenged Ohio ’ s electors—Democrats in both the House and Senate .
They debated for two hours .
They came back .
They counted Ohio ’ s votes .
In 2017 , it was a parade of objections on the floor of Congress with [ presiding Vice President ] Joe Biden saying , ‘ It ’ s over .
It ’ s over under the Electoral Count Act.
’ I agree : the two-slate [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an open , highly debatable contest .
But I do think the Electoral Count Act has served its function the last three times the Republicans have been elected , where Democrats have been contesting the election [ result ] on the floor of Congress.
” “ I think there ’ s always a question about what one says rhetorically and what actually is driving the result , ” replied Issacharoff .
“ The overriding of the seemingly expressed popular will , by legislative fiat either at the state or congressional level , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from American norms… I doubt if a single member of Congress had any idea what the Electoral Count Act was or what its provisions might say.
” The notion that “ politics , not law ” could determine the 2020 presidential election outcome began to hover over the discussion ’ s closing hours .
Scholars asked if non-legal factors , such as public opinion after the popular vote was seen as being ignored by partisans , might pressure or sway congressional actions .
“ It may make sense to , in the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ client , [ say , ] ‘ Look , you need to win beyond the margin of litigation.
’ You can also say to the people who are involved , ‘ Look , you need to win beyond the margin for intransigence , ’ ” said Lisa Manheim , a University of Washington law professor .
“ What exactly does that mean ?
Well , we have been talking for hours about all of the different places where we can have these problems .
One of the things that we can do perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problems .
We need to avoid those .
The truth of the matter is there is not a clear legal answer.
” These kinds of thresholds would likely be where the U.S. Supreme Court would weigh in , several scholars said .
“ The question of whether law applies or doesn ’ t apply is itself a legal question , ” said Elizabeth Goitein , co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice ’ s liberty and national security program .
“ In the sense [ that ] a lot of what we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the Electoral Count Act , that itself is a legal question : Whether Congress can be bound by it ; whether it is enforceable .
Which is not to say that if the Supreme Court were to resolve that question that Congress would necessarily abide by it , and then we ’ d be back in the land of politics.
” “ I agree with all of this .
If we get to this worst-case scenario , with two competing slates and split-party control of the two chambers of Congress , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Supreme Court doesn ’ t decide that question , ” said Adav Noti , senior director of trial litigation and chief of staff at the Campaign Legal Center .
He added that Chief Justice “ John Roberts , for all his reluctance to get involved in political disputes , the reason he doesn ’ t like that is to build credibility for exactly situations like this.
” “ There is no other mechanism to solve it , ” Noti continued .
“ I think the Supreme Court justices will weigh in , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , before they will let blood run in the streets .
Now maybe they will enforce the ECA .
They ’ ll say the governors get to tie-break .
Maybe they ’ ll say , ‘ No , the ECA is unconstitutional because under the Constitution , state legislatures have plenary power , so they have to have the tie break .
Maybe they ’ ll say the president of the Senate decides , unless he ’ s overruled by a majority of senators… But I think they will decide.
” But whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Supreme Court—or any legal framework—as opposed to muscling Trump ’ s appointment to a second term , is not a given .
Not when , as the Amherst College law professor Lawrence Douglas said , the nation ’ s most fervent partisans seem to be operating under diverging assumptions and principles .
“ Maybe the binary that we are drawing between law on one hand and politics on the other doesn ’ t entirely describe the gravity of the situation that we are confronting right now , ” he said .
“ Rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once these normative understandings erode , I ’ m not sure that rules are really in the position to solidify or reinforce them.
” “ This discussion makes me nervous .
I assume it makes all of us nervous because it drives home how quickly we can spiral into this dynamic in our current polarized and existential political culture , in which there are no effective legal structures that are going to govern if we get into some of these kinds of disputes , ” NYU ’ s Pildes said .
“ This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is beyond Election Day , the more rules are changed at the last minute , whether by courts that think they are doing things in good faith and are worried about protecting the individual right to vote of a few thousand people who didn ’ t get the ballots they requested for absentee voting and the like ; the more that opens up all of the capacity to destabilize the result… ” “ You can see from this discussion how quickly those kinds of changes can become the excuse for kind of blowing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s part of what I am taking away from this whole discussion.
” Steven Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of , a project of the Independent Media Institute .
He has reported for National Public Radio , Marketplace , and Christian Science Monitor Radio , as well as a wide range of progressive publications including Salon , AlterNet , the American Prospect , and many others .

rss@dailykos.com (Independent Media Institute)

Delving into how Trump and the GOP can hijack the process, they find an untested law, procedural unknowns and few clear constitutional brakes.
By Steven Rosenfeld
This article was produced by Voting Booth , a project of the Independent Media Institute.
With six months to go until November’s 2020 election, dozens of America’s top legal minds convened to consider what would have been unthinkable before Donald Trump’s presidency. They gathered to brainstorm what could be done to prevent the country from descending into a “civil war-like scenario,” as one participant put it, if Trump and Joe Biden both claim that they won the presidency—and won’t back down.
Their May 4 teleconference parsed a series of nightmare scenarios in the aftermath of the November 3 election that would lead to competing Electoral College results being sent to Congress from battleground states—one issued by a Republican legislature backing Trump, and another issued by the Democratic governor backing Biden.
The scenarios continued onto January 6, 2021, where, in a joint congressional session to ratify the Electoral College votes presided over by Vice President Mike Pence, the House and Senate were sent to their chambers to debate for two hours. When they reconvened, the Senate backed the Trump electors while the House backed the Biden slate.
The question put before the scholars was what could stop the 2020 election from spiraling that far out of control or going even further downhill, as occurred in the 1876 presidential election when two candidates claimed to win, waged relentless partisan battles, and were both planning separate inaugurations—with Samuel Tilden backing down only 48 hours before Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as president.
“My big fear, as a country, is that we don’t know our history well enough to know that we came within 48 hours of inauguration day with two people claiming to be president, and the incumbent thinking about martial law—that was Ulysses Grant because he was worried that there were going to be two simultaneous inauguration sessions,” said Edward B. Foley, director of Moritz College of Law’s election law program at Ohio State University and a national authority on disputed presidential elections. He organized the brainstorming session with Steven F. Huefner, a Moritz senior fellow and former U.S. Senate counsel who also is an expert on vote-counting disputes.
“To replicate that kind of thing [a cascading crisis] on January 18, 2021, in an era with nuclear codes, seems to me an altogether more problematic scenario than even the dire circumstances of March 1, 1877,” Foley continued, referring to the date Congress convened in the Hayes-Tilden dispute. “So it may be a Don Quixote quixotic effort to try to wrestle these legal problems into the ground. But I feel some responsibility to say that we have actually been there as a country once before, and it was not pretty. There might be no avoiding [a calamity] if we go down that road again.”
Never before in recent history have the nation’s top constitutional and election scholars convened six months ahead of a presidential election to ward off what they fear could be a constitutional meltdown if an incumbent president and his most strident partisan allies seek to disrupt or disregard counting votes and the transfer of presidential power.
Lighting the Fuse
Three nightmarish scenarios were put before the legal and electoral scholars:
In Pennsylvania, an outcry emerges after thousands of Philadelphia voters have not received absentee ballots. Civil rights activists sue, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extends the election for these voters—and anyone else in the state not getting their ballot. Pennsylvania’s Republican-majority legislature countersues in federal court to block the extended voting, but it doesn’t stop there. The legislature uses the extension as an excuse to certify a pro-Trump Electoral College slate and submits that result to Congress.
In Michigan, the crisis begins when early but incomplete election night returns show Trump ahead. But as the counting continues and the momentum starts to shift to Biden, Trump tweets that he won and declares that enough votes have been counted. Michigan’s Republican-majority legislature follows Trump’s tweets and certifies a pro-Trump slate of presidential electors. That unilateral move prompts the Michigan Democratic Party to sue in federal court, using an argument that’s similar to what Republicans cited in the Pennsylvania scenario: pre-existing election rules cannot be ignored.
In these two scenarios, both states’ Democratic governors end up sending a separate certificate to Congress declaring their state’s Electoral College votes should be awarded to Biden. Thus, two sets of Electoral College results from the same state are presented for Congress to sort out. These developments spark an explosion of political posturing, partisan threats and disinformation, and more litigation.
In the final scenario, in Florida, a state with a GOP governor and legislative majority, the governor cancels the election due to a major hurricane. It cannot be rescheduled before December 14, 2020, when the national deadline falls for all of the presidential electors to cast their ballots. Emergency legislation ensues, and Republicans authorize a pro-Trump Electoral College slate—citing pre-election polling. The Florida Democratic Party sues in federal court, claiming that Florida’s GOP cannot nullify a popular vote election.
What would, could or should happen, Foley asked as the process wound its way through expected and unexpected twists and turns that comprise the presidential election’s final stages. The scholars were asked to identify where legal lines in the sand could be drawn, so that the 2020 election would not disintegrate: where laws lost their meaning, could not be enforced, and what they called “politics not law” could emerge to seize the presidency.
The academics were some of the nation’s most respected constitutional law scholars, election law experts and political scientists. Apart from the U.S. Constitution, the only federal law laying out how to resolve a disputed presidential election was the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA).
That little-known law took 14 years to craft, with debates going back even before the 1876 presidential election debacle. According to a scholarly article by DePaul University’s Stephen Siegel—said by some teleconference participants to be the most authoritative modern exposition on the ECA—the law was “turgid,” “repetitious,” and “contradictory,” and it had been incorrectly interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court when it stopped Florida’s presidential recount in 2000, elevating George W. Bush to the White House.
These nightmare scenarios and the prospect of an obscure 133-year-old law deciding a post-election battle between Trump and Biden led the scholars to say that even with its flaws, some principles or norms in the ECA had to be clarified before November.
“In the context we’re imagining, any kind of rule structure that can be put on the table in any greater clarity to the focal point that we have with the Electoral Count Act is desirable because you’re basically in a civil war context at this point—or very close to it,” said New York University Law School constitutional law professor Rick Pildes. “I think that is as much as you can hope for. It may be meaningless at the end of the day. It may become a focal point in the midst of this civil war-like scenario.”
Scenario One: Philadelphia Disenfranchisement
The scenarios presented by Foley and Huefner all start on or around Election Day with easily imaginable developments, but escalate unpredictably.
The first scenario starts with voting rights groups suing on behalf of Philadelphia voters who did not get absentee ballots in time to vote. That delay triggered legal battles, first in state court, seeking to extend the election so that Philadelphians and any other similarly affected Pennsylvanian could vote. (In 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, citing the state Constitution’s protection of voting rights, overturned an extreme gerrymander by the Republican-majority legislature in 2011. That case’s ruling suggests that the court might be open to extending voting in November.)
But the Republican Party of Pennsylvania does not sit idly by. It filed a federal lawsuit to stop that extension of voting, creating what New York University Law School’s Samuel Issacharoff said was a key feature of this scenario: “a turf war” between federal and state courts. (In Wisconsin’s April 7 primary, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, federal district court and U.S. Supreme Court issued contradictory rulings concerning absentee ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the election to continue—including not extending the deadline for voters not receiving absentee ballots.)
Richard Hasen, a University of California, Irvine, law and political science professor, found the scenario disturbing on many levels. He initially focused on the pragmatic task of extending a vote-by-mail election in a state that did not have a history of widespread absentee voting (which is occurring in many states in response to the pandemic).
“I would hope that if the state court is going to order relief like this, it is going to do what some courts have done in the past, which is bring in election officials and ask them if this is actually doable,” he said. “I’m not confident that Philadelphia election officials would be able to handle thousands of these ballots and be able to process them in a way that wouldn’t raise yet another lawsuit about the due process concerns—about the actual counting of those ballots.”
Court orders can prompt unintended consequences, Hasen said. “We saw it in the Wisconsin case, where the Supreme Court went to the postmark [date on the ballot as a deadline for it to count]. That turned out to create a whole bunch of new issues because there was not consistency in how the local election boards dealt with non-postmarked ballots.”
Teasing out these scenarios left Hasen and others with an uneasy déjà-vu feeling.
“I was having nightmare flashbacks to Bush v. Gore—actually back to Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, the first case,” he said, where there were questions about whether a state constitution could legitimize “changing rules for presidential elections… without the state legislature affirmatively agreeing to those changes.”
“If that question arose [in November], I expect that we would see exactly the same ideological partisan division between conservatives and liberals, between Republican-appointed justices and liberal-appointed justices, should it get to the Supreme Court,” Hasen said. “I don’t think that we have made any progress in 20 years… You can hear the arguments being made here, the echoes of exactly what we heard in Bush v. Gore.”
The Pennsylvania scenario is not without a factual basis. Problems with delivering and counting large volumes of absentee ballots occurred in the first two statewide elections held since the pandemic broke in mid-March: Wisconsin’s presidential primary on April 7 and Ohio’s primary on April 28. In Wisconsin, more than 150,000 absentee ballots were not returned on time or were disqualified for other reasons, according to an April 30 court filing by the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic Party.
As of May 7, more than a week after Ohio’s primary, the state’s 88 county election boards had yet to account for 199,693 “outstanding absentee” and 44,368 “outstanding provisional” ballots, according to the Ohio secretary of state’s website. These are not small numbers from either state. The volume of Wisconsin’s rejected ballots in its low-turnout April 2020 primary was more than six times the size of Trump’s 2016 margin over Hillary Clinton in that state.
Later in the nearly five-hour discussion, Michael Morley, a Florida State University law professor, made a telling point that suggested that the Democrats’ intention to protect the vote in the Pennsylvania scenario could backfire. Any major last-minute voting extension was likely not only to be rejected by federal courts—following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Wisconsin primary ruling, he said. But that last-minute change also could give the GOP-led legislature a legal excuse and argument to act on its own to certify a pro-Trump slate of electors—and send it to Congress without the Democratic governor’s signature.
“You could imagine situations where the legislature is stepping in to say… ‘We are appointing a slate of electors reflecting what we perceive to be the accurate outcome based on the election as it was conducted in accordance with state statute—not with what appears to be this judicial deviation from state statute,’” Morley said.
Scenario Two: Overriding the Popular Vote
In the Michigan scenario, Trump declared victory before the vote counting was finished and officially certified. Following his cues on Twitter, its Republican-majority legislature certified a pro-Trump Electoral College slate and sent it to Congress—ignoring the state’s Democratic governor, secretary of state and attorney general. In response, the Michigan Democratic Party sued in federal court, citing much the same legal argument that the GOP used in the Pennsylvania scenario: you can’t change the rules in midstream.
“This scenario is built on the concept of the so-called ‘blue shift’ or late-counted ballot scholarship that some of us have been involved in,” explained Foley, “which is a phenomenon where, with nothing going wrong, but just because of the way in which we have done changes to voting since 2000 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002, it’s just much more likely that ballots are going to be counted, not on election night, but subsequently during the [post-Election Day] canvassing process.”
“This [scenario] also builds on what was observed in Arizona and Florida in 2018,” he continued, citing real-life precedents. “The fear is that we can imagine, for example, President Trump, winning, as it were, or, at least ahead on election night in the count of votes in a pivotal state—let’s say Michigan—and yet that lead disappearing over the next week as additional ballots get counted. And President Trump tweeting, as he did with respect to the Florida election in 2018, saying, ‘No… The initial count is good. Let’s stop counting ballots because we’ve got an accurate count.’ Whereas the election officials say, ‘No, these are valid ballots. They need to be counted.’ And then you have a certified final result after canvassing [the official post-Election Day reconciliation of all votes cast] that puts the Democrats on top, and yet Trump is still protesting that outcome.”
What happens next is a mix of disinformation and bullying that ignores the law and raises yet more demons, namely the old trope that the process is corrupt if your side loses.
“Again, this is all hypothetical,” Foley said. “But what if the Michigan legislature says, ‘You know what? We just don’t trust late-counted ballots. And so we are going to assert our authority under the federal constitutional Article II to appoint electors directly.’ So now we have this conflict between the certified result from the secretary of state that said that Biden won Michigan, but we have the legislature in Michigan saying, ‘No… We don’t trust that result. We are going to appoint the Republican electors.’ So now, the Democrats are going to federal court invoking the same concept of due process—‘hey, don’t change the rules’—as the Republicans cited in the scenario from Pennsylvania.”
This scenario also is not merely theoretical. The battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina all have Democratic governors and Republican-majority legislatures. Whether the most partisan legislative leaders would ignore vote-counting law and procedure, trash election officials and resurrect voter-fraud tropes is an open question that can only be assessed state by state.
In Wisconsin, the GOP-led legislature forced the state to hold its April primary in a pandemic to try to secure a swing vote on the state supreme court—which backfired. Also in April, North Carolina’s top-ranking Republican, Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger, slammed suggestions by the North Carolina State Board of Elections to expedite absentee voting in the pandemic, saying that the procedural reforms came from “progressive, liberal Democratic groups.” Berger further said that he did not trust North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to oversee the 2020 election.
The Michigan scenario raised the question of whether a state legislature has the authority to override the popular vote in a presidential election. The third scenario, in Florida, where a hurricane forced the election to be canceled and it could not be rescheduled before the Electoral College met on December 14, was a variation of this question.
A Line in the Sand—or Not?
The core issue here was whether or not legislatures could act independently—either ignoring the popular vote result and/or bypassing their governor. Later in the discussion, the question came up of whether governors could do the same. (It turned out that the 1887 Electoral Count Act gave governors more authority than legislators.) But for now, restricting renegade legislatures seemed to be a place where scholars could draw a line in the sand, some said.
“I actually think that this may be one of the most important places to seek consensus,” said Justin Levitt, Loyola Law School associate dean for research and professor. “Because of the procedural problems that other people have noted: Who do you sue? Can you enjoin [stop] anything? Is this something that Congress should decide about what to do with different slates of electors? I think if you were looking for [a] robust consensus from a group of people across partisan boundaries who study this issue to weigh in, this would be a place… particularly because the federal courts might not be ideally empowered to make that assessment.”
Levitt was responding to the challenge that Foley and Huefner laid out: Was there a baseline that nationally known experts in constitutional law, election administration and presidential succession could agree on? Was it plainly unconstitutional for legislatures to independently appoint presidential electors to benefit their party?
But the legal answer was not clear. Some conservative scholars on the teleconference said that Congress should take up the issue of competing slates of electors, as it did in 1960 when Hawaii submitted three slates in the photo-finish race between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon. They said it might even be desirable for Congress to openly debate that clash. But could there be an open debate, Foley asked, when in the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 (to ratify the 2020 Electoral College results), the presiding officer is the vice president, Mike Pence, a candidate seeking re-election? Some noted that Al Gore had the role after the 2000 election.
As the discussion kept going, the severity of the possible constitutional crisis and lack of clear boundaries sunk in and alarmed some participants.
“This is one of the real nightmare scenarios that could very well take place,” said Norman Ornstein, a historian and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “We could easily imagine state legislatures in a number of places deciding that they didn’t like the outcome of the election, and trying to shift it to Congress—knowing or believing at that point that we might get the House and Senate disagreeing over which slates of electors to accept, and leaving it to the House of Representatives to decide who would become the president. Then leaving it in a situation where we would not have anybody getting the requisite 270 Electoral [College] votes.”
If the selection of the next president ended up in the House, under the 12th Amendment each state delegation gets one vote. Currently, there are 26 delegations with a majority of Republican members, 22 with a majority of Democratic members, and two states with equal members from both parties—Pennsylvania and Michigan. But before that eleventh-hour process would kick in, Foley said that other steps and legal interventions would likely occur. Meanwhile, could scholars draw a line much closer to Election Day, he asked, by affirming the state’s official presidential election results?
“As long as independently and objectively the election officials, [and] the election administrators, are correct that the popular vote is an accurate count… [is] there a true legal answer to which certificate Congress should adopt?” Foley asked. “If that’s true, then maybe the legal community can rally around that point.”
“Because what I fear is if there has been political pressure that’s going to cause the Michigan legislature to want to supersede the popular vote, there’s going to be political pressure in Congress, for one chamber at least, to try to do that too,” he continued. “Is there any point where legal intervention [can happen]? Not necessarily by a court, but by academics who can say, ‘Wait a second. There’s actually a right answer to this question that Congress should follow.’”
But not every scholar present agreed that the official election results could be trusted.
Conservative Skepticism
“Ned, could I jump in here,” said John C. Fortier, director of governmental studies at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “There’s a distinction between, ‘I think… the facts don’t really support that there’s anything [that] was particularly wrong here,’ versus a decision of an election administrator. That decision might be something you find very objectionable. I can bring up election administrators on either side of the aisle [about whom] people would have said, ‘Well, they did that for bad purposes. They made the wrong decision.’”
At this point the discussion entered the constitutional danger zone, where respect for laws and enforcing rules as the underpinning of elections begins to disintegrate.
The scholars wanted to respect precedent and institutional authority. But there were likely to be problems in administering November’s elections in a pandemic, especially as states were poised to make unprecedented shifts to voting by mail. There were little-known and untested ambiguities in the Electoral Count Act, whose rules were written 133 years ago. The longer a presidential election dispute went on, including what might happen if it went before Congress, the more dangerous it became, some scholars said.
“This is a very difficult set of questions,” said NYU Law School’s Issacharoff. “One question is what can be done ahead of time to try to forestall this… I don’t think that the Electoral Count Act is well-settled law. It has been on the books for a long time. It has never been applied. The closest we came to it was its spiritual invocation in Bush v. Gore. It is hardly a blueprint for how institutional actors can settle themselves.”
But some conservative scholars disagreed, noting that the ECA has been used recently.
“In 2001, members of Congress repeatedly on the floor tried to object to counting Florida’s electoral votes, and [then-Vice President] Al Gore said [it was], ‘improper under the Electoral Count Act,’” said Derek Muller, professor of law at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law. “In 2005, they challenged Ohio’s electors—Democrats in both the House and Senate. They debated for two hours. They came back. They counted Ohio’s votes. In 2017, it was a parade of objections on the floor of Congress with [presiding Vice President] Joe Biden saying, ‘It’s over. It’s over under the Electoral Count Act.’ I agree: the two-slate [of electors] question is sort of an open, highly debatable contest. But I do think the Electoral Count Act has served its function the last three times the Republicans have been elected, where Democrats have been contesting the election [result] on the floor of Congress.”
“I think there’s always a question about what one says rhetorically and what actually is driving the result,” replied Issacharoff. “The overriding of the seemingly expressed popular will, by legislative fiat either at the state or congressional level, is, thus far, a radical departure from American norms… I doubt if a single member of Congress had any idea what the Electoral Count Act was or what its provisions might say.”
Politics or Law?
The notion that “politics, not law” could determine the 2020 presidential election outcome began to hover over the discussion’s closing hours. Scholars asked if non-legal factors, such as public opinion after the popular vote was seen as being ignored by partisans, might pressure or sway congressional actions.
“It may make sense to, in the same way that you’d advise a client, [say,] ‘Look, you need to win beyond the margin of litigation.’ You can also say to the people who are involved, ‘Look, you need to win beyond the margin for intransigence,’” said Lisa Manheim, a University of Washington law professor. “What exactly does that mean? Well, we have been talking for hours about all of the different places where we can have these problems. One of the things that we can do perhaps is to flag those—say those are the problems. We need to avoid those. The truth of the matter is there is not a clear legal answer.”
These kinds of thresholds would likely be where the U.S. Supreme Court would weigh in, several scholars said.
“The question of whether law applies or doesn’t apply is itself a legal question,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program. “In the sense [that] a lot of what we are asking is whether Congress can be bound by the Electoral Count Act, that itself is a legal question: Whether Congress can be bound by it; whether it is enforceable. Which is not to say that if the Supreme Court were to resolve that question that Congress would necessarily abide by it, and then we’d be back in the land of politics.”
“I agree with all of this. If we get to this worst-case scenario, with two competing slates and split-party control of the two chambers of Congress, it is almost inconceivable to me that the Supreme Court doesn’t decide that question,” said Adav Noti, senior director of trial litigation and chief of staff at the Campaign Legal Center. He added that Chief Justice “John Roberts, for all his reluctance to get involved in political disputes, the reason he doesn’t like that is to build credibility for exactly situations like this.”
“There is no other mechanism to solve it,” Noti continued. “I think the Supreme Court justices will weigh in, even if it’s a 5-4 decision, before they will let blood run in the streets. Now maybe they will enforce the ECA. They’ll say the governors get to tie-break. Maybe they’ll say, ‘No, the ECA is unconstitutional because under the Constitution, state legislatures have plenary power, so they have to have the tie break. Maybe they’ll say the president of the Senate decides, unless he’s overruled by a majority of senators… But I think they will decide.”
But whether partisan Republicans in Congress would follow the Supreme Court—or any legal framework—as opposed to muscling Trump’s appointment to a second term, is not a given. Not when, as the Amherst College law professor Lawrence Douglas said, the nation’s most fervent partisans seem to be operating under diverging assumptions and principles.
“Maybe the binary that we are drawing between law on one hand and politics on the other doesn’t entirely describe the gravity of the situation that we are confronting right now,” he said. “Rules presuppose certain presupposed normative understandings. And once these normative understandings erode, I’m not sure that rules are really in the position to solidify or reinforce them.”
“This discussion makes me nervous. I assume it makes all of us nervous because it drives home how quickly we can spiral into this dynamic in our current polarized and existential political culture, in which there are no effective legal structures that are going to govern if we get into some of these kinds of disputes,” NYU’s Pildes said. “This discussion drives home the more uncertainty there is beyond Election Day, the more rules are changed at the last minute, whether by courts that think they are doing things in good faith and are worried about protecting the individual right to vote of a few thousand people who didn’t get the ballots they requested for absentee voting and the like; the more that opens up all of the capacity to destabilize the result…”
“You can see from this discussion how quickly those kinds of changes can become the excuse for kind of blowing up the whole election. And that’s part of what I am taking away from this whole discussion.”