2020 Elections - Trump FIRED

[Typical Lax Dad]

Nice compilation of traitors' statements to activate and incite their foot soldiers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz-zWeq ... TrevorNoah

MAGA!

[Matnum PI]

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1
1 hour ago
Election deniers in the Georgia state Senate have been stripped of their chairmanships: Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan demoted three Republican senators who backed attempts to overturn the presidential vote over baseless allegations of irregularities. bit.ly/3oCx80V

[Matnum PI]

Not "should have said". Should say. Trump should say that the election was not stolen. @benshapiro, that's a big deal. and has nothing to do with the media.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics ... index.html

[MDlaxfan76]

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1
1 hour ago
Election deniers in the Georgia state Senate have been stripped of their chairmanships: Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan demoted three Republican senators who backed attempts to overturn the presidential vote over baseless allegations of irregularities. bit.ly/3oCx80V

That's exactly the sort of discipline McConnell would be wise to enforce, at least for the Senators who objected post insurrection siege.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like McCarthy can get there with the House (which would be good for the GOP) but I suspect Pelosi will crack down on the most egregious conduct that actually breaks House rules or the law.

[DMac]

Impeachment Scoreboard

TEAM NANCY...2
TEAM TRUMP...0

[Carroll81]

So, I read a transcript on 2 sites of the speech Trump gave. It is full of quite a bit of made up stats and theories. He sounds like the blowhard and sore loser that he has always been. But I am having trouble finding the part where he calls for a riot. As a matter of fact I only see 2 spots where he talks about marching to Congress.

In the first one he specifically says, "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

Please tell me where he tells people to go to congress and riot, loot, terrorize...

Here are my references:
https://wtop.com/asia/2021/01/transcrip ... itol-riot/
https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/tru ... AURW5CDUI/

[seacoaster]

Carroll81, I think it was 3rdPersonPlural who posted a pretty good video concerning the "incitement to riot/First Amendment" interplay somewhere. Here is another pretty interesting trip to the First Amendment nerd bar on the same subject; thought it might interest a few people:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opin ... e=Homepage

"As the country reels from the spectacle of a Capitol overtaken and top U.S. officials scrambling for their lives, the House voted on Wednesday to impeach President Trump for, among other things, “inciting violence against the Government of the United States.” Lawmakers are right to insist that Mr. Trump pay the highest price for fomenting a deadly assault on democracy; he should be convicted and banned from holding public office.

But in pursuing this vital end, legislators should ensure that their extraordinary case against Mr. Trump cannot later be construed to broaden the legal definition of incitement in general. “Incitement to violence” is a strictly defined legal concept that allows speech meeting certain criteria to be punished notwithstanding the Bill of Rights. If the closely watched proceedings against Mr. Trump can be interpreted as precedent-setting insofar as the law of incitement is concerned — morally speaking or otherwise — we would risk a perverse result whereby those impeaching Mr. Trump for his abuses in office could make it more perilous for future dissenters and reformers to hold the powerful to account.

Incitement is one of several narrowly delineated exceptions to the First Amendment; others include libel, slander and what are called “true threats.” These categories of harmful expression can be punished by the government despite the First Amendment’s expansive protection of free speech. The problem is that “incitement,” as we use the term colloquially — language aimed to goad others on to action — is a much broader concept than what is recognized under the law.

The legal test for incitement was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio, a 1969 case involving a Ku Klux Klan leader named Clarence Brandenburg who had urged revenge against the federal government but had not prodded his followers to take violent action. The Court found that the Ohio statute under which Brandenburg had been convicted was unconstitutionally overbroad and would deter and punish too much potential speech. The court held that for incitement to fall outside the First Amendment’s protections, three criteria must be met. First, the advocacy must be intended to spur lawlessness; Second, the encouraged lawbreaking must be imminent, or about to happen right away. Third, the speech must be likely to cause such lawbreaking to occur. Before Brandenburg, jurisprudence had defined incitement more loosely, permitting restrictions on speech based on a mere “bad tendency” to bring about a harm the government had a right to prevent.

The tighter Brandenburg test reflected a shift toward a wider berth for political speech that had begun with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissent in the 1919 case of Abrams v. United States. That landmark case involved a group of immigrants who were prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for distributing pamphlets opposing U.S. intervention in Russia. Although their conviction was upheld, Holmes’s famous dissent introduced the concept of an open marketplace of ideas, warning Americans to be “eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.” Holmes’s analysis set in motion a long series of decisions that over time expanded protections for activists, communists, labor organizers and others voicing controversial or dissident opinions.

Donald Trump is the first modern president to be seriously accused of engaging in incitement himself. At a 2016 campaign rally, he badgered the crowd to remove a group of demonstrators, saying “Get ’em out of here.” The protesters were pushed and shoved and one of them was punched in the stomach as he and the others were forcibly removed. At that point, Mr. Trump said “don’t hurt ’em.” The injured later sued Mr. Trump arguing that he had incited a riot. But in September, 2018 a Cincinnati appeals court found that Mr. Trump’s “don’t hurt ’em” admonition, even if it seemed like an afterthought, meant that he had neither advocated nor intended riotous violence.

If a court were to judge the president’s statements leading up to the Capitol Hill riot, it might well find that the latter two of the three Brandenburg criteria were satisfied: violent mayhem erupted right after Trump’s fiery speech at the Ellipse, meeting the requirements of both imminence and likelihood. But as incendiary and irresponsible as Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 remarks were, a court would be unlikely to conclude that they advocated violence under the strict operative legal standard.

In his rambling diatribe, Mr. Trump lied brazenly and made bellicose but ambiguous statements like “you have to show strength” and “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” In calling upon people to join him in marching to the Capitol, he said that their goal would be to imbue Republicans with “the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.” He urged marchers to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Mr. Trump never quite encouraged violence, legally speaking, and, as he had at the 2016 rally, put on record that the approach to resistance that he contemplated was peaceable.

To many, the context of the last four years made the eruption of violence on Capitol Hill seem anything but shocking, and the case for incitement in the colloquial — and the political — sense seems clear. But the strict legal test for incitement demands that the relationship between the targeted speech and the elicited action to be proximate, meaning that Trump’s long track record of prior incendiary statements cannot be grounds for a finding of incitement on Jan. 6. Evidence that violence was plotted ahead of time, and that some marauders set off for the Capitol before some of the president’s most inflammatory remarks, might also undercut any legal finding that Mr. Trump’s words were a primary cause of the havoc.

That the law as it stands probably would not recognize the president’s remarks as incitement does not necessarily mean that it should not do so. Mr. Trump’s claim earlier this week that his remarks outside the White House were “totally appropriate” is preposterous: He deceived his supporters, disgraced his office and ordered the subversion of democracy. The rise of social media, the heated rhetoric of the Trump era, and recent spikes in hateful speech and hate crimes have raised important questions about whether decades-old First Amendment precedents can adequately arbitrate hazardous speech in an age of digital media and demagoguery. It is reasonable to ask whether a more expansive definition of incitement ought to be considered; for example, if Mr. Trump was found to have been aware of plans for an attack when he spoke, that could color the interpretation of his words. It is also fair to ask whether the authority wielded by those in high positions should inform the incitement test, recognizing, for example, that the legitimization of extreme tactics by a sitting president is far more damaging to democracy than similar claims by an ordinary citizen. Scholars have debated these issues in law review articles, and new ideas may soon work their way into the law.

But as they hastily grapple with Mr. Trump’s unprecedented pillage of constitutional norms, Congress should take care not to inadvertently lower the First Amendment guardrails for speech more generally. In debating the charges against Mr. Trump at his trial, members of Congress and those commenting on the issues should make clear that their vernacular references to incitement are distinct from how the term is used in its strictly legal sense.

Progressives have a strong stake in keeping the First Amendment carve-out for incitement fairly narrow. Historically, this exacting standard has protected not just right-wing activists like Brandenburg, but also dissenters on the left, including socialists, antiwar protesters, flag-burners and civil rights advocates. In the 1982 case of NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware, for example, the Supreme Court found that a civil-rights leader’s threat to break the “damn neck” of anyone flouting a boycott of white stores was not incitement, even though acts of violence against boycott violators were later committed. The court found no evidence that the organizer ever “authorized, ratified, or directly threatened” violence, and rejected claims that he had a “duty to repudiate” the violence that followed. The leeway the Claiborne court acknowledged for an advocate to “stimulate his audience with spontaneous and emotional appeals” is essential to the work of movement organizing.

Despite Claiborne, conservatives still try to use the doctrine of incitement to deter or punish agitation for social change. In 2016 a police officer sued the Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson after a rally that Mr. Mckesson organized erupted into violence and the officer was injured — even though there was no evidence or even suggestion that Mr. Mckesson had expressly sanctioned the mayhem. Still, it took an appeal to the Supreme Court to reject lower court rulings that would have held Mr. Mckesson liable for coordinating the protest, gutting the Brandenburg test. (Rather than tossing the case entirely, the court sent it back to Louisiana for further proceedings, meaning that Mr. Mckesson’s legal predicament persists.)

Last year, the South Dakota Legislature, targeting anti-pipeline protests, passed a new law creating a crime of “incitement to riot” that defined riots as acts of violence that can include as few as three people. If the stringent legal test for incitement were watered down in order to punish Mr. Trump, the result could be heightened legal exposure for countless others who deserve protection for their speech and assembly rights. Moreover, the strict standard in the United States for incitement has been influential globally and is referenced in a seminal 2011 U.N. human rights resolution that addresses how religious intolerance can be combated without trampling free expression. Any proposals to ease the U.S. legal standard should take into account the risk of legitimizing authoritarian leaders around the world who use spurious charges of incitement to quash their political opposition.

That the legal doctrine of incitement to imminent violence should not be expediently molded to meet the moment does not mean that Mr. Trump should go unpunished. The framers of the Constitution delineated the parameters of impeachment broadly, knowing they could not foresee every scenario in which it might be warranted. Scholars generally agree that the grounds for impeachment are not limited to committing legally prosecutable crimes; there is a reason the power to impeach was granted to the legislative (and therefore political) branch rather than the judicial (and therefore legal) branch. There is a very strong case that Mr. Trump’s efforts to thwart the Constitution, subvert the election results, encourage insurrection and intimidate officials into obstructing the democratic process meet the impeachment standard.

It is important, as we move toward an exigent impeachment trial, that we avoid conflating what is impeachable with what is illegal. It is up to Congress to decide whether Mr. Trump’s behavior violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. It is up to courts to decide when incendiary language meets the legal standard of incitement, consistent with the First Amendment. In performing its constitutional role in impeachment, Congress should take special care not to alter the constitutional standard for incitement."

Suzanne Nossel (@suzannenossel) is the chief executive of Pen America and the author of “Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All.

[a fan]

Please tell me where he tells people to go to congress and riot, loot, terrorize...

First of all, you're leaving out, oh, about a year's worth of speeches and tweets about how the election was going to be fraudulent.

For me? It's impeachable to tell the world that America's elections are fake when every Court in our land has said otherwise. End of story.

If you don't understand why doing what Trump did isn't inherently dangerous? No amount of discussion is going to convince you that you CANNOT say what Trump has said as a President.

He played the game of mob boss----not saying the EXACT words "kill that man", so he can walk, while the people who stormed the Capitol rot in jail.

But sure, he didn't say "go riot, loot, and terrorize". Well spotted. I guess we're all set as a Nation now.

[Matnum PI]

RT @kylegriffin1: The man photographed holding a Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capitol during the riot has been arrested in Delaware, two law enforcement officials said. The man, Kevin Seefried, was wanted by the FBI. https://t.co/UtAervAfew

[kramerica.inc]

So, I read a transcript on 2 sites of the speech Trump gave. It is full of quite a bit of made up stats and theories. He sounds like the blowhard and sore loser that he has always been. But I am having trouble finding the part where he calls for a riot. As a matter of fact I only see 2 spots where he talks about marching to Congress.

In the first one he specifically says, "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

Please tell me where he tells people to go to congress and riot, loot, terrorize...

Here are my references:
https://wtop.com/asia/2021/01/transcrip ... itol-riot/
https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/tru ... AURW5CDUI/

Don't waste a crisis. Just like Nancy installing metal detectors.

I understand that the officials were scared by what was going on outside. My position remains that the protest and ensuing riot were egged on directly by Trump. And his statement during the riot was incredibly weak sauce and detestable, made with a nod and wink.

But I am still waiting to see reliable preferrabley 1st hand info about:

1. How the protestors got inside
2. Were they armed

Inital reports were that they were let inside by Cap Police and not armed.

So does anyone have anything with video or pictures?

Until then it seems like a lot of hyperbole. Something akin to Brian Williams "close-call" on a helicopter mission in Iraq.

[seacoaster]

So, I read a transcript on 2 sites of the speech Trump gave. It is full of quite a bit of made up stats and theories. He sounds like the blowhard and sore loser that he has always been. But I am having trouble finding the part where he calls for a riot. As a matter of fact I only see 2 spots where he talks about marching to Congress.

In the first one he specifically says, "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

Please tell me where he tells people to go to congress and riot, loot, terrorize...

Here are my references:
https://wtop.com/asia/2021/01/transcrip ... itol-riot/
https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/tru ... AURW5CDUI/

Don't waste a crisis. Just like Nancy installing metal detectors.

I understand that the officials were scared by what was going on outside. My position remains that the protest and ensuing riot were egged on directly by Trump. And his statement during the riot was incredibly weak sauce and detestable, made with a nod and wink.

But I am still waiting to see reliable preferrabley 1st hand info about:

1. How the protestors got inside
2. Were they armed

Inital reports were that they were let inside by Cap Police and not armed.

So does anyone have anything with video or pictures?

Until then it seems like a lot of hyperbole. Something akin to Brian Williams "close-call" on a helicopter mission in Iraq.

I (and 72 and a fan) responded to this load of horsesh*t from Kramer on the Conservative Ideology thread.

[DMac]

Please tell me where he tells people to go to congress and riot, loot, terrorize...

First of all, you're leaving out, oh, about a year's worth of speeches and tweets about how the election was going to be fraudulent.

For me? It's impeachable to tell the world that America's elections are fake when every Court in our land has said otherwise. End of story.

If you don't understand why doing what Trump did isn't inherently dangerous? No amount of discussion is going to convince you that you CANNOT say what Trump has said as a President.

He played the game of mob boss----not saying the EXACT words "kill that man", so he can walk, while the people who stormed the Capitol rot in jail.

But sure, he didn't say "go riot, loot, and terrorize". Well spotted. I guess we're all set as a Nation now.

That pretty much wraps it all up in a nutshell.
+1

[ggait]

Carroll81 -- Few lawyers (typical take below) think Trump could be convicted in criminal court (unanimous jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, etc. etc.) of the crime of incitement.

But pretty much everyone thinks Trump absolutely deserves to be impeached/convicted. Even the GOP. None of them are arguing that he didn't breach public trust, abuse power, disqualify himself for holding public office. The only anti-impeachment arguments were either emotional (it is too divisive) or technical/process (he's already leaving soon, so what is the point).

End of the day, if 67 Senators vote to convict (which has never happened to a president) then it is (by definition) a lawful conviction. Under the Constitution, the grounds for impeachment are left wide open for Congress to determine. And there is absolutely no legal review or appeals for impeachment proceedings. The safeguard is the Senate super-majority vote requirement. If there's 67 votes against you (which would have to include many members of your own party) then you did it and deserve the punishment.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... e-n1254258

[MDlaxfan76]

Carroll81 -- Few lawyers (typical take below) think Trump could be convicted in criminal court (unanimous jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, etc. etc.) of the crime of incitement.

But pretty much everyone thinks Trump absolutely deserves to be impeached/convicted. Even the GOP. None of them are arguing that he didn't breach public trust, abuse power, disqualify himself for holding public office. The only anti-impeachment arguments were either emotional (it is too divisive) or technical/process (he's already leaving soon, so what is the point).

End of the day, if 67 Senators vote to convict (which has never happened to a president) then it is (by definition) a lawful conviction. Under the Constitution, the grounds for impeachment are left wide open for Congress to determine. And there is absolutely no legal review or appeals for impeachment proceedings. The safeguard is the Senate super-majority vote requirement. If there's 67 votes against you (which would have to include many members of your own party) then you did it and deserve the punishment.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... e-n1254258

Which does not put one in jail. Pretty critical difference.

[old salt]

Looks like GOP chickensh*ts will coalesce around the notion that there is, constitutionally, no post-office impeachment. This is the reason Luttig put the piece in the WaPo: so "conservatives" had a creditable position to avoid an impeachment trial, asserting the Senate no longer "has jurisdiction" over Trump after 1/20@12:01.

Clever and, predictably, wrong on the Constitution again.

But wait, was it the WP or NYT who assured us that Mitch supported impeachment & conviction ?
He hasn't spoken to Trump in weeks & his wife resigned her cabinet post.
Another wishful unnamed sourced bombshell story, fabricated to influence an outcome, fizzles.
Without 67 commited Senate votes to convict, then 50 to bar future service, it's all just more political theater.

[seacoaster]

Looks like GOP chickensh*ts will coalesce around the notion that there is, constitutionally, no post-office impeachment. This is the reason Luttig put the piece in the WaPo: so "conservatives" had a creditable position to avoid an impeachment trial, asserting the Senate no longer "has jurisdiction" over Trump after 1/20@12:01.

Clever and, predictably, wrong on the Constitution again.

But wait, was it the WP or NYT who assured us that Mitch supported impeachment & conviction ?
He hasn't spoken to Trump in weeks & his wife resigned her cabinet post.
Another wishful unnamed sourced bombshell story, fabricated to influence an outcome, fizzles.
Without 67 commited Senate votes to convict, then 50 to bar future service, it's all just more political theater.

These topics are unrelated. Elder-care much?

[old salt]

Looks like GOP chickensh*ts will coalesce around the notion that there is, constitutionally, no post-office impeachment. This is the reason Luttig put the piece in the WaPo: so "conservatives" had a creditable position to avoid an impeachment trial, asserting the Senate no longer "has jurisdiction" over Trump after 1/20@12:01.

Clever and, predictably, wrong on the Constitution again.

But wait, was it the WP or NYT who assured us that Mitch supported impeachment & conviction ?
He hasn't spoken to Trump in weeks & his wife resigned her cabinet post.
Another wishful unnamed sourced bombshell story, fabricated to influence an outcome, fizzles.
Without 67 commited Senate votes to convict, then 50 to bar future service, it's all just more political theater.

These topics are unrelated. Elder-care much?

So are you exempting Mitch from the GOP chickenshi*ts ? Which WP story do you ref ?
Was it the WP or NYT bombshell that hyped our hopes that Mitch was on the impeachment train , & would lead his caucus to conviction ?

[njbill]

Well, post leaving office, a subpoena to appear would not be as simple to avoid...legal folks, what say you on this?

If you mean for his impeachment trial, yes, hard to avoid. Of course, the House managers would have to want to subpoena him and the Senate would have to vote to allow the subpoena.

T**** would almost certainly plead the Fifth. In a criminal trial, the defendant's invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege can't be used against him. In a civil trial, it can. The other side would be entitled to an inference that the truthful answer to the questions avoided on Fifth A. grounds would have been harmful to the party taking the Fifth.

An impeachment trial in the Senate is not a civil or criminal trial. It is a unique animal. The Senators would be free to attach whatever weight (or no weight) to T****'s taking the Fifth they saw fit.

It would get blockbuster TV ratings (we know how much T**** likes big ratings), but I doubt he would end up testifying live at his Senate trial.

If you mean a subpoena in other cases, yes, he'll have a much harder time avoiding or delaying compliance. Can't say he is busy doing the people's business (golfing, watching Fox).

[MDlaxfan76]

Well, post leaving office, a subpoena to appear would not be as simple to avoid...legal folks, what say you on this?

If you mean for his impeachment trial, yes, hard to avoid. Of course, the House managers would have to want to subpoena him and the Senate would have to vote to allow the subpoena.

T**** would almost certainly plead the Fifth. In a criminal trial, the defendant's invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege can't be used against him. In a civil trial, it can. The other side would be entitled to an inference that the truthful answer to the questions avoided on Fifth A. grounds would have been harmful to the party taking the Fifth.

An impeachment trial in the Senate is not a civil or criminal trial. It is a unique animal. The Senators would be free to attach whatever weight (or no weight) to T****'s taking the Fifth they saw fit.

It would get blockbuster TV ratings (we know how much T**** likes big ratings), but I doubt he would end up testifying live at his Senate trial.

If you mean a subpoena in other cases, yes, he'll have a much harder time avoiding or delaying compliance. Can't say he is busy doing the people's business (golfing, watching Fox).

Thanks I was adding in the factor of having been pardoned, whether by Pence or Biden or 'self-pardon'...how does that effect taking the 5th in a criminal proceeding, how does it effect in an Impeachment trial? I'm guessing the Impeachment is the same, he can do whatever he wants, the Senators can judge...