That Texas lawsuit to invalidate the election results of 4 other states and just give the presidency to Trump? Rejected.
Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.
Gosh. How will Texas Republicans react? They suggest that they and 17 other states should form their own union, a Confederacy if you will, and go their own way.
Texas GOP chair says in light of Supreme Court tossing out Texas case, "Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.” pic.twitter.com/j84IKPrwqy
— Ben Wermund (@BenjaminEW) December 12, 2020
This sure sounds awfully familiar. The last time they tried that, it didn’t turn out so well for Texas.
Also, those 106 “congressman” [sic]? Traitors, every one. Kick them out.
I think THIS time the response should be, “Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!” Let Texas support all of those loser states who can’t take care of themselves without US financing them.
But the last time they tried that they were Democrats. Now that they’re god-fearing Republicans, it should work out just fine. Right?
What was it Hitler did in his bunker when he realized all was lost? He conveniently escaped prosecution. Just sayin’…
This was completely predictable. But I bet Trump still isn’t happy with Ken Paxton. He really thinks one of these things can work for him.
Was there a feeling like this in 1861 I wonder.
Seditionists, every one. Some may be traitors too, of course. (I’m very disappointed that “seditionist” appears to be incontestably the correct word, instead of something interesting like “seditor”.)
Shouldn’t we give Texas back to Mexico?
It’s exactly as if the Republicans are LARPERs.
(Some of their hard-core adherent base, probably not)
@7
Texas: The only state in the union that was at one time, its own separate autonomous nation. And with our help it can be again.
FREE TEXAS!!!
@9- Ray Ceeya
“Free Texas”? Hell no. I say give it back to Mexico and give the latter any extra weapons systems and intelligence it needs to quell the inevitable uprisings. Mexico gets oil. We lose redhat [X]
idiots. Fair deal.
We could opt to keep Austin as a West Berlin like zone for those Texans who can prove they are not Alamo memory crazed batshitters.
The alternative is to wait out the eventual transformation of Texas into a blue state.
[X]- not to be confused with the Linux distro
@9 OK, the “Bear Republic” only lasted 25 days, but they like flying that flag everywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Republic
you know at the root of this is the same racism that existed in 1860’s this time they are really fighting to keep the African Americans and other like minded people from casting a legal vote because they are not real true Americans.. thus voting them out of being the minority in power
They did not get to leave the union then and should not get to leave the union now.
there are sizable populations within those states that should get a say in how they are governed and not condemned to live under that old tyranny that is what the racist are so mad about now.
uncle frogy
I’d like to congratulate Joe Biden on becoming the president-elect…yet again. (I would have preferred Sanders, but “the people have spoken.”)
Full disclosure: my home state of Missouri was one of the ones that joined the lawsuit. I promise I didn’t vote for any of the shameless ones, but I still feel a little ashamed myself.
People were saying that they’d have to drag trump kicking and screaming . Well he’s being dragged out and he is kicking and screaming, just not literally !
@9, 11 — You seem to be forgetting Hawai’i, which was legitimately an autonomous nation until its government’s overthrow by (mostly American) sugarcane planters and its annexation by the U.S.
Of course there is the scenario that the redhat states breakaway to form the Theocratic Republic of Dumbfuckistan. Given Florida’s contribution in the recent election and role in Texas’ case, I will be stuck in that neofascist republic. I expect a covert rescue operation to get me out.
Remember those Texas tourism commercials from the ’90s?
“Texas, It’s like a whole other country”
Let’s make that happen again.
I wonder if Biden is tired of all the winning by now. I know I am.
I think a good argument can be made that secession is illegal.
The people who live in those states have rights as US citizens. If a majority of the folks in those states vote to secede, those citizens still retain those rights.
Of course, this is all just blowing smoke.
@13 I’m not sure if Sanders would have been much better (age, the fact that he suffered a heart attack, unpopularity among the Dem higher-ups which would have led to them sabotaging his agenda along with the GOP). I preferred Warren, Harris, Gillubrand, Castro, and Booker to either of them.
As a parting gift, to prove we have no hard feelings, you can have all the F-35s, all the contracts for future F-35 production, and our aircraft carriers too.
Gotta disagree with Crip Dyke. That’s kind of an expensive going-away gift. Can’t we just get them a gift card to Bed Bath and Beyond?
Re: brucegee1962 @ #19…
My father used to maintain that the Civil War changed one word. It changed “the United States are a nation” to “the United States is a nation”.
In regards to all those Republican AGs that supported the Texas suit… The Republican AG of Wyoming didn’t, on grounds of “states rights”.
The dumbest thing about the Texas lawsuit is that their main argument — that the executive branch of the states in question changed the rules of the election without the required approval from their legislature — applies just as much to Texas as anywhere else.
Governor Abbot doubled the early voting period (amazingly enough), added drop boxes for main-in ballots in every county, and even allowed drive-through voting to assist with social distancing. Given that last one was done solely in Houston where the Democrats are in the majority, not surprisingly, the Texas GOP sued to invalidate all 127,000 votes cast using the drive-through, but none of the conservative dominated courts in Texas would even give them a hearing.
@#22, jimatkins:
They should be given the bill for the F-35s.
@25 tacitus
That’s a disturbingly plausible scenario. What if to add legitimacy to these claims, these red states started tossing their own votes and ceding control to their own state legislatures? It still wouldn’t work, but it would add credence to their argument.
If we’re going to start making demands on moral and ethical grounds, I want everybody who voted for the Iraq war in prison for crimes against humanity, first.
What has Mexico ever done to you to deserve this?
+++
I say let them. Offer to take in all the people who want to move into the rest and let the idiots try.
I’m just not sure what to do with Lousiana…
Give Texas back to Mexico. Buhbye!
Since we’re busy not learning anything from history, at the end of that particular civil war, let’s make the new confederation sign a surrender that has them shoulder all the blame along with crippling reparations. Their old government should be overthrown and abolished. Finally, for that extra-painful texan cherry on top: limited weapons, no military and a demilitarised zone toward the Mexican border. Of course they’ll eventually rise up again – history says so – and elect a special kind of arsehole as their leader, but I’m reasonably confident that Trump War II will be swift and decisive. Just don’t let them annex anything before it starts.
@ komarov
If they were to reject the Union in this 2nd Civil War scenario, the biggest problem is they’re screwed at the hurricane season. Unless god really is on their side, they are going to receive a huge receive a huge reality check. Their two economic powerhouses are both on the Gulf Coast. I’d like to see how well they deal with another Katrina without blue state support.
As a secessionist myself (a supporter of Scottish independence from the UK) I do find it ironic that so many liberal Americans – citizens of a nation which came into existence through an act of secession – seem to think that suggesting secession from the USA can be automatically condemned. I understand the historical reasons for that attitude but really, what was bad about the secession of the Confederacy was the motive for secession – the maintenance of slavery. And of course the current mutterings from “red states”* have a similar motivation: maintaining the primacy of white men. But suppose SCOTUS had done as Trump wanted and probably expected, and overturned the election (as they might well have done if the election had been as close as 2000, or if Sanders rather than Biden had won it for the Democrats). Would “blue states” have had any recourse other than secession, or at least, moves in that direction?
Really, why are Americans so perverse in their terminology? Everywhere else, red is socialist and in most places, blue is anti-socialist.
The last paragraph of #33 is a footnote – I don’t know what happened to the asterisk.
@33
Terminology. Whatever. Isn’t Brexit a sort of secession?
…..
Re: “Kick them out.”
Heh, if only. They are terrified of their great, wrathful god Trump and his mighty legion of voting, flying monkeys.
bruceg @ 19
Of course, this is all blowing smoke
Certainly. The ‘pugs are completely and utterly mad (in both contexts of the word). Like trump, they have a maturity level of about 5 or 6 years old and are totally incapable responding to loss or denial without pouting and threatening to take their toys and go home.
@33
Well, two things – 1) If you treat “red” as, “What socialism in most countries that have actually used it as a government, instead of merely as a set of institutions, turned into.”, then you get authoritarianism, injustice, oppression… exactly what the current leadership of GOP seems to want most, for everyone exempt white men. 2) The color use is a strange byproduct of the US media. It gets real… weird. Prior to 1980 there was a sort of agreement that the GOP was blue, and the DNC was red, except for a few years in which the “red scare” was still a big thing, and basically you could tell what “side” the media was on, more or less, by which one of them used red for a party – no one wanted “their side” to be “red”, so they used blue for their “allies”, and red for the “enemy”. So it was more or less random as to which one was used, and depended entirely on which party the media company was “backing”. In 1980 though this was formalized as “red = GOP”. And, given the bullshit they keep pulling, and how much its exactly like every insane dictatorial/authoritarian, etc. country, complete with a lunatic that “loves” all the dictators of the world, hilarious….
Here you go:
Election coverage used to switch the color scheme around, but it started to settle in 2000.
Anyway, good luck getting an American rightwinger to concede that any standards can be set outside the US, or that the world outside the US even exists except as place to bomb or (rarely) take vacations. They love being red. I wonder if all the decades of anti-communism were just an expression of envy.
You misspelled “stupidity” ;-)
Seriously, yes, I suppose it is, since secession is not necessarily from a sovereign state.
Kagehi@37, PaulBC@39
Thanks – I knew a bit of that history, but not the full story. But left parties everywhere still tend to use red – you’d think the Republicans would object to being portrayed as red. I guess it’s fair enough that the Dems don’t want to claim red, since they are really a centre-right party. But why not (say) purple and orange? OK, orange has a political significance in Northern Ireland, but not generally.
I think it’s damaging for the US to split up, but I don’t think secession by itself is the problem. It can be disputed and that’s why you eventually fight a war over it, having no legal recourse that everyone is willing to agree to. I think Lincoln got it backwards saying:
Slavery was the moral wrong that had to be eliminated. Allowing the union to split up would have allowed it to persist, so it really wasn’t an option to let the slave-holding states go their own way.
While I’m tempted to say that California is a big enough place with a diverse enough geography and enough resources to go it alone as a nation (it clearly is) I think it’s suboptimal compared to being part of the US. At the same time, a breakup of the US today would be a very different situation. Slaves could not “vote with their feet.” Today, if some people want to turn Kentucky, Utah, or Alabama into a theocracy or whatever it is they want to do, I am inclined to say go ahead, at least when I get frustrated about it. It seems like a different nation already. I’m also convinced they need us more than we need them, so let them try.
An intact union is still a strong preference for me, and it’s part of national folklore (if not law) that the Civil War made this into a requirement. History doesn’t set requirements, and anything could happen. But the US as a nation would cease to exist in that case. There is no amicable secession process that does not overturn a 150 years or more of national identity.
Another thing about red (and blue but especially red) is there aren’t enough primary colors so they’re going to get used for a lot of different things. The Chinese flag is red. Is it because they call themselves communist? Well, I think red was already used traditionally, e.g. at the Lunar New Year. It seems mostly a coincidence that it can also be associated with communism. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermilion#Chinese_red Taiwan’s flag also has more red than any other color.
Blood is red and it’s attention-getting. Personally, I think it fits that the party of crazies gets to be the color usually associated with violence and emergencies. I don’t mind being blue.
AOC suggested that this be called “A Confederacy of Dunces.” Yes.
@33, the red state/blue state thing was the random thought of a TV news producer, in, I believe, 2000, when it occured to them that making the election-night map in which the states that had voted for Gore would be colored one color, and the states that voted for Bush a different color, would be catchy.
Since most Americans have no knowledge at all of history or culture or even the location or existence of the rest of the world, red and blue were randomly picked for Republicans and Democrats. One stupid decision, and it stuck.
I have given up warning my fellow Democrats “Are you really sure you want to say ‘Uncle Joe’?” I agree that there is more than one famous uncle Joe, and many families have their very own. But it’ll always say “Stalin” to me.
KG @40
Really? That’s where you want to go?
Anyway Scotland looks like it’s now halfway to independence. Get on with it already.
Secession within the US would be unimaginably messy compared to say Brexit. States have steadily grown more interdependent since 1776. For that matter red states aren’t entirely red. I know I’d be up in arms if my state tried to secede out from under me. It could well end up in an imbroglio that would make Northern Ireland or the Levant look small scale, IMO.
Btw, America not going to the metric system is perverse. The colors that parties of this particular county use for decoration is hardly noteworthy.
I feared Trump would be bad, but not this fucking bad. If he had managed to steal the 2020 election I have no doubt that it would be the last legitimate presidential election for years to come. If he were president in 2024, I’m certain he’d try to finagle his way around the 22nd Amendment. I don’t know how, the wording of the amendment is pretty cut and dry, but after watching the Paxton Ploy unfold I’m sure he would attempt to undo the law by some devious means. Perhaps he’d contend that the 22nd Amendment itself was somehow an unconstitutional intrusion on his right to run a third time. The fact that I’m even entertaining such bizarre thoughts shows how much his diseased psyche has infected the entire nation.
@47 I can’t exactly say Trump was worse than expected. My biggest fear was Trump and the GOP congress acting in concert, but he was surprisingly ineffective. They didn’t quite manage to overturn ACA. The most damaging legislation passed was the tax scam of 2017. It was the one predictable thing Republicans do: undermine the ability of the public to derive revenue from the economy while increasing wealth concentration as much as possible. For that alone, I am sure many wealthy people (not just Republicans) consider his presidency a great success. (That merely affluent people such as myself got reamed on state income and property tax isn’t a huge thing, but it may have hurt him on the margins among suburban Republicans.)
His effect on the judiciary–notably but not just SCOTUS–is something that will last for decades. We’re just seeing that slow poison seep in now. The funny thing about it is that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass either way. FedSoc handed him a list and he dutifully read off the names. But to the religious right as well as other parts (anti-environmentalists, anti-rights of the accused) this is the biggest piece of the Trump pie.
Taking back the House in 2018 was a huge change. I am not sure how well that’s appreciated. I mean, Americans generally understand this, but if Trump had been empowered with another two years of a congressional majority, it would have been a very different presidency. Instead, he tweeted and did what he could from the executive side to destroy environmental protections, and harm people in other ways. Executive power is big but limited compared to what you can do with congress.
On balance, it is not as bad as I feared on November 9, 2016. It is just very different. He’s more of a fuck-up than I ever imagined. Also, he really would like to destroy fair elections as a basis of governing, not just so he can stay in office, but so white minority rule can be established. What I anticipated was at once more conventional, but at the same time he was prevented from his worst abuses simply by his own incompetence.
If I can be forgiven for finding a silver lining here, he seemed genuinely reluctant to get the US into a protracted war, and that’s unusual, even if his reasons were purely selfish. He would have blundered into one eventually, given enough time, so that’s more of a dodged bullet than anything.
I’m not sure what you’re on about. All I said in response to you @40, other than agreeing with you, was a jest. Seems your nym is well-chosen.
Well according to recent polls, a majority in Scotland would like to – and although nothing in politics is certain, that majority is likely to grow, as there’s a steep age-gradient: 4/5 of 18-24 year-olds are pro-indy. But few people want a new referendum next year – there’s the small matter of a pandemic to deal with – and the SNP, which is likely to have an overall majority after the elections to Holyrood in May, don’t seem to have any plan for what to do after Johnson denies the request for one, as he will. My hunch is that they will wait for the next UK general election, due in 2024 (but could be earlier), and hope for a hung Parliament, when they can demand another referendum as the price of supporting a minority government.
KG @33: If I were still living in England, I know which party I would want to vote for in 2024; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Independence_Party. But kicking the Tories out would take precedence, so it would probably be Labour.
I’m not sure a “world government” would ever be workable, but I am in favor of open borders and universal protection of human rights. I am not sure how we get there with nations getting smaller not larger.
Rob Grigjanis@50,
Ha! I hadn’t heard of them. Of course, it would be useful for Scotland to have a buffer state between it and the bulk of England!
PaulBC@51,
I don’t know. The important thing is that issues which crucially affect the whole world (such as pandemics and climate change) should be decided at global level (in as fair and democratic way as possible), but this might be easier to achieve, or at least approach, if no one state had the hegemonic power the USA has had (and potentially, China might achieve).
if the party in power in the “red states” did not use voter suppression and Gerrymandering and other means to limit the opposition’s voice they would not be the party in power at all.
The talk about session is just what is desired by those who are basically anti-democratic authoritarians.
There is no obstacle to international agreement between states that is related to their size, the main obstacle seems to be more to do with democratic agreement and special interest power then state power derived from the consent of the governed.
there are a whole lot of people world wide including in the US that are not given an honest voice in governance.
until that changes I doubt there will be much else change either I am profoundly sorry to say.
uncle frogy
then you have not looked very closely at what he actually did.
ALL of his actions since his first week in office have HUGELY destabilized the ME, including dropping out of the peace agreement with Iran, providing MASSIVE funding to the Saudis to continue their “war” (atrocity) in Yemen, SUPPORTING the role of the USSR in Syria, while (I guess you forgot), randomly bombing a Syrian civilian airport because “reasons”. He withdrew from all economic and political groups that were working to place China’s ambitions in the pacific in check, with the results you have (have not even noticed?) in Hong Kong, the South China sea, Taiwan, and huge economic pressure across the entire pacific rim.
…and I’m just scratching the surface here.
in short, if you think Trump was GOOD for reducing the level of death caused by war…. you are a completely ignorant fool, and should be so embarrassed you should go into the corner for 2 weeks and think about what you did.
you are the reason the rest of the world thinks Americans are SOOOO utterly fucking ignorant.
really, Paul, you know far far less about what is going on in the world than you think you do. and I say this from watching you post and saying nothing for months now.
take a step back. turn off your fucking ego. YOU KNOW VERY LITTLE.
take this as serious advice, because you are a smart guy, and your heart is in the right place, but your ego far outweighs your knowledge.
I’m pretty sure I have some help in this. I would be shocked if I’m really that influential at all.
And ego? I dunno. I know more about politics than I used to, and read much more news than ever, but it’s really not my area of expertise. I have viewpoints like anyone else.
I agree that Trump’s foreign policy has been destabilizing and I even said that it would be likely to result in a war eventually. I just don’t think that was ever his intent. He wants the spotlight on himself. Not something I say out of deep knowledge, just the kind of judgment I would make observing anyone.
Give Texas back to Mexico- good idea and you could develop MexMex restaurants.
Rob @50, I don’t know how long you’ve been out of the UK, but Labour currently seems to have little resonance with the pro-brexit blue collar, anti Corbin north, so I’m not sure that’s the way to oppose the conservatives.
PaulBC @ #56
That’s my opinion. Trump’s unable to focus on anything that doesn’t satisfy his immediate petty needs. Prosecuting even a minor conflict would require more commitment than he’s capable of.
ajbjasus @57: I’ve been away for a long time, but try to keep track of developments. The Brexit vote in the North was disappointing, with only the large urban areas voting (barely, except in Newcastle, IIRC) remain. But Labour still outperformed the Tories (albeit with significant % decreases) in the last general election in all three northern regions (especially the North East). Still a huge gap between the North and the rest of England outside London.
Rob Grigjanis@59,
Ah, but the meeja have decreed that the big story of the 2019 election is that Labour have lost the working class, and the north. Trying to shift that narrative on the basis of mere facts, as you are doing, is pissing into the wind.
KG @60:
Good job I’ve had lots of practice!
This feels like a long set up.
Beginning of year, start claiming there will be an election fraud.
Target illegal immigrants as candidate fraudsters.
Covid presents an opportunity to split Dem and Thug voters by voting method.
Push to supress mail votes by damaging the postal service, restricting drop boxes, getting Maga twits to burn and blast drop boxes.
Claim there was fraud and the election results =proof. Go after all the mail ballots in court without evidence.
Build a big image that the lie is truth because its gone on for so long and its so obvious and “we have all the evidence, you’ll see”.
Talk about the courts doing the law properly as unconstitutional. Prove black is white. All go to hell.
DanDare@62 It’s a case where vigilance paid off. Anyone paying attention, e.g. to FiveThirtyEight or probably any media outlet not part of the Trump Cinematic Universe knew that election night was likely to be confusing because mail-in ballots were counted later.
Personally, I was very worried and recommended to anyone who’d listen that they just go vote in person if they could. The idea of safe voting in a pandemic sounds good, but it was very clear that there would not be a good faith implementation. (I am in California, with little doubt of outcome and I voted a couple days early by handing in the ballot directly to a poll worker.)
Fortunately, the media covered the “red mirage” as well as they could. It might very well have turned out differently.
Rob, KG.
I live in a post industrial Northern city, and anecdotally cannot ever recall die hard Labour Party supporters voicing their disillusionment as they have. It may be temporary, and Brexit driven, but it is dangerous to complacently assume they will automatically return.
@3 Adolf committed suicide ,but there are plenty of dimwits out there who think he escaped to South America .
Can’t see the donald doing anything like that ,he might just sod off down to his pad in Fl and stay there .