Still lots of concern about what happens on January 6, given the recent conduct of President Trump and many in the House and Senate.

Bottom line: It'll be a ridiculous (maybe worse) political circus but legally it absolutely will not change the outcome of the election.

Thread:

1) Let's start with this VP business (Trump saying he hopes Pence "comes through," the Gohmert lawsuit). That's a big nothing. Under the Constitution, the VP's only role is to "open all the certificates" and, under federal law, to "read" them. It's entirely ceremonial. That's it.
2) Imagine if the VP actually did have the power to unilaterally reject votes. Any VP, in any year, could simply declare his own party the winner. Biden could have declared Hillary Clinton in Jan. 2017 over Trump; Cheney could have declared Romney in Jan. 2009 over Obama; etc.
3) I don't believe Pence will try it. And if he does, it'll be about as effective, constitutionally and legally, as using one of those oversized ceremonial "keys to the city" to actually open up the bank building.
4) Now, Congress. There's a federal law called the Electoral Count Act of 1887. (Note: this is a law but *not* part of the Constitution itself; this comes up again). That law says if one member of the House and one member of the Senate raise objections, Congress must debate.
5) Here's where you'll see much of the theatrics. Senators and Reps can and will take to the floor and go nutty during the "debate." They'll all have their run, Ted Cruz and the like will get the vapors and feign outrage, etc. But it's a show, that's all.
6) The Electoral Count Act law (again, not in the Constitution itself) says Congress then can decline to count certain electoral votes only if there's a majority vote of *both* the Senate and House.
7) This won't happen. More than enough GOP Senators are against this nonsense that there won't be a Senate majority, and there's a 0.00% chance in the Democratic-controlled House.
8) Now, some ask: but what if one party controlled both Senate and House -- could that party unilaterally toss out all votes for the other party's presidential candidate? Under the letter of the Electoral Count Act, yes. BUT:
9) First, there's a legitimate argument that the Act itself is unconstitutional. The argument, in sum, is that it violates separation of powers for Congress to essentially override voters and pick the President (who heads, and according to some conservatives, IS, another branch).
10) Thankfully, neither party has ever tried this. Both have been too fundamentally decent for this kind of craziness. And if one ever did, there would be a legit legal challenge and wind up in federal courts, quickly.
11) Finally, NO, the inauguration cannot be postponed. The Constitution itself sets the end of the President's term for January 20 at exactly noon. It takes a Constitutional amendment (2/3 of House, 2/3 of Senate, 3/4 of states) to change that. Not happening by Jan. 20 (or ever).
12) There's real harm being done here. The President and others are spinning wild lies, hurting our standing in the world, and undermining our democracy. And some are trying to fire up an outburst at the rally in DC tomorrow.
13) So this is all absolutely terrible for the country. But it simply will not succeed, and will not change the outcome of the 2020 election.

END

More from Trump

1. Yes, Trump will claim to intend to target GOP senators up for reelection in '22 (like he did to Thune with Kristi Noem) if they don't join in @HawleyMO's sedition on Jan. 6, but the fact is, it's not clear whether Trump will be successful in ANY of those efforts & voting yes


2. to hedge off these threats will also create fissures & fractures for these incumbents among other elements of their party that could complicate their renominations. Indeed, what worries me the most about the potential for the country to slip into @anneapplebaum territory is

3. that what should be robust and intense push back from the party establishment against actually ending democracy- bc that's what Trump's request would do, if it was granted, is fairly muted. What we SHOULD be seeing from the mainstream of the party is threats to strip committee

4. assignments, chairs, privileges, even reelection funds, if anyone gets involved in this bullshit- in the House & the Senate, and the fact that you don't see it is more than a story of McConnell & McCarthy being afraid of Trump & his base. Its a story of receptivity, of the

5. level of receptivity the congressional and party leadership is dealing with both within the rank and file membership of the party and within its donor class, and THAT, my friends, is why you find me so concerned. That, and my decision to finally pull @anneapplebaum's book
To those who want to actually help Claudia Conway after her mom (Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former aide) posted her underage daughter’s nudes to Fleets, fill out a report on the NCMEC CyberTipline.
CPS refused to help her.
#HelpClaudia


Kellyanne Conway has a well-documented history of verbally abusing, gaslighting, and threatening her daughter. It gets worse when highly public things go viral (such as exposing the truth about Trump and Conway catching COVID-19 last October). Kellyanne coerces false statements.

Insider did a thorough chronological background of the history of exposing her parents abuse and control of her here:
https://t.co/ncjaEyLOSC

We all know that “statement” last year was coerced. She talks constantly about being abused by them.


Personally? I suspect Kellyanne is a narcissist. From my own experience being sexually and emotionally abused by a narcissist, they are obsessed with controlling the narrative (coerced typed statement), discrediting their victim (posting her nudes) & gaslighting

If you haven’t experienced gaslighting or aren’t familiar with it, it’s when someone causing you harm (physical, emotional, sexual, financial, etc) twists the facts and asserts that reality is just you being delusional and you don’t actually understand what happened.
You’d think that if Pence could overturn the election like Trump claimed then Biden surely would’ve taken up that chance


Also this is such a small thing but one thing I noticed in that Trump campaign ad the defense just ran, there were no citations, unlike every clip that the impeachment managers showed

Michael Van Der Veen is giving us the full Fox News Primetime Defense.

PROCESS ARGUMENT.

DRINK.

Lol my guy this is the chance to rebut the evidence that they’ve presented against Trump.

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
॥ॐ॥
अस्य श्री गायत्री ध्यान श्लोक:
(gAyatri dhyAna shlOka)
• This shloka to meditate personified form of वेदमाता गायत्री was given by Bhagwaan Brahma to Sage yAgnavalkya (याज्ञवल्क्य).

• 14th shloka of गायत्री कवचम् which is taken from वशिष्ठ संहिता, goes as follows..


• मुक्ता-विद्रुम-हेम-नील धवलच्छायैर्मुखस्त्रीक्षणै:।
muktA vidruma hEma nIla dhavalachhAyaiH mukhaistrlkShaNaiH.

• युक्तामिन्दुकला-निबद्धमुकुटां तत्वार्थवर्णात्मिकाम्॥
yuktAmindukalA nibaddha makutAm tatvArtha varNAtmikam.

• गायत्रीं वरदाभयाङ्कुश कशां शुभ्रं कपालं गदाम्।
gAyatrIm vardAbhayANkusha kashAm shubhram kapAlam gadAm.

• शंखं चक्रमथारविन्दयुगलं हस्तैर्वहन्ती भजै॥
shankham chakramathArvinda yugalam hastairvahantIm bhajE.

This shloka describes the form of वेदमाता गायत्री.

• It says, "She has five faces which shine with the colours of a Pearl 'मुक्ता', Coral 'विद्रुम', Gold 'हेम्', Sapphire 'नील्', & a Diamond 'धवलम्'.

• These five faces are symbolic of the five primordial elements called पञ्चमहाभूत:' which makes up the entire existence.

• These are the elements of SPACE, FIRE, WIND, EARTH & WATER.

• All these five faces shine with three eyes 'त्रिक्षणै:'.