Actually we do. My wife rides BART daily. My daughter currently takes the train every Friday night home from Fresno and back there on Sunday. When son went to SLO he took the train home for holidays.
I will actually defend Vance, ironically on a subject adjacent to what weâve just been talking about. The racist attacks from the more extreme MAGAts on Vance because his wife is second generation Indian American are deeply unacceptable and inappropriate. This is another example of the awful character of Fuentes et al, and a reminder that Trump needs to apologize for having had a private dinner with Fuentes and Kanye West.
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âIf I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,â Vance said in an interview with ABC News this year. âThat is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020. I think thatâs what we should have done.â
My scenario goes like this:
In 2028, Trump is term limited but picks his successor. It could be Vance or Donald Jr or somebody else. The election is close, but the Ds win.
Come Jan 20, 2029, Vance is presiding over the joint session to count electoral votes. He decides some are not valid. Maybe because Attorney General Jeffery Clark did what he wanted to do in 2021 â write letters to state legislators claiming that the DOJ was investigating serious problems with voting.
If the Rs donât have the vote to throw out EVs according the the 2022 law, Vance declares that the âElectoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Actâ is simply unconstitutional and then Vance declares some EVs are invalid. This results in no majority and a vote in the House which the Rs will certainly win.
The Ds sue and get a SC hearing. The SC, with maybe even more Trump appointees, declares for the Rs and we have a new R president.
Or, if the SC rules against the Rs, Trump simply ignores the ruling. His hand picked loyalists at the top of the Secret Service treat the R as the winner and the D as the loser. They escort the R into the WH.
There may be riots in the streets. If so, Trump invokes the insurrection act. General Michael Flynn, now commanding US troops in the eastern US (or, some similar Trump loyalist) orders his troops to quell the rebellion.
This sounds incredibly far-fetched, like the plot of an silly piece of political fiction. But, Iâve reached the point where I think this is where we are headed.
Yikes, thatâs really scary.
Could it not be a simpler situation than this?
President Trump in an official act commands the military to arrest all electors. They will be released if they vote for Vance as President, otherwise theyâre executed.
This is presumed to be an official act and is extremely difficult to adjudicate otherwise, even if President Trump doesnât further officially imprison judges who might rule against him.
We have already arrived at a point where Trump could be convicted of actual crimes, and it didnât seem to matter, so I am not sure the immunity thing really changes anything. Impeachment is the same remedy it was previously, and the one that will be neglected based on opinion. The only real path to hold Trump accountable is through voters and their support of the elected officials that back Trump. Again, the immunity thing did not change that, and those officials could have made different decisions on January 6th, and they will maybe make a different one next time.
I suppose he could. I think modern dictators keep up the appearances of democracy as much as they can (and still stay in power). My scenario where Vance simply sets aside ballots in few âquestionableâ states and we still have a vote in the House seems more âdemocraticâ.
I hope the military does what it is supposed to do: fight for people who couldnât fight for themselves. Like Willy.
Perhaps.
Iâm seeing a study claiming that the ratio of Republicans:Democrats in the military is 1.7:1 for active duty (1.6:1 for veterans ; 0.95:1 for citizens.) In modern days, Republican is a synonym for MAGA.
I no longer feel comfortable trusting in the history and traditions of our longstanding organizations and procedures to keep our democracy functional.
All it takes is a dedicated minority that will carry out the will of their leader. They donât need to get the entire military or even the entire Republican portion on board.
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Better keep that boat handy.
Rep. Adam Schiff calls on Biden to drop out of the race
Holy fuck, the Deep State finally got to Schiff.
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As fun as this little aside has beenâŚBiden had an interview on BET where he laid the groundwork for gracefully bowing out âif a Doctor told him he has a condition where he couldnât continueâ
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Itâs called old age and diminishing abilities
Biden just tested positive for COVID
Wait until Trump tests positive for ⌠oh, right - you never have something if you donât test for it.
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Testing for Covid only results in more people getting Covid /s
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Pretty sure he had it. Took a helicopter to get Paxlovid of something like that.
Ah, just learned some interesting context. Note that Iâm not mocking Vance for this part of his life - he has plenty else to mock. Itâs just good context.
Sounds like JD (born James Donald after his father) had a rough childhood. His mother divorced his father when he was young and told him that heâd never see his biological father again. Then she fell into drug addiction and abused him.
That largely explains to me why he thinks that women should stay in âviolentâ and âunhappy marriagesâ rather than âchange their spouses like they change their underwear.â
He was also an atheist until recently, having been baptized in 2019 (though his public display of conversion may have been earlier). What a turnaround, going from an atheist who calls Trump a reprehensible idiot and the American Hitler, to now being a MAGA Christian running with the Hitler idiot.
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