Nothing. Certainly not the United States Senate. In theory that would have to be done state by state, because the states administer their elections… But in reality what’s stopping the Barr DOJ from seizing the machines under the pretense of a sham investigation (that 40% of the population will be mainlining from Fox News) and offering federally funded free voting machines for the states made by Patriots United Transmission by Internet Network Voting Machines Inc, a subsidiary of VladiVote? Otherwise they have a week to get paper ballots printed and organize a massive count… Which of course can then be lawyered like crazy, tying up the election in court for months.
Like imagine that scenario? Say the outcome of the election hinges on Pennsylvania, which had a bunch of it’s voting machines seized a week out… So Pittsburgh and Philly are counting 1.5 million votes by hand out of a total of 6 million cast statewide… Of course in the mean time, Trump has a big lead in the already counted rural votes, and he’s declaring victory and accusing the Dems of stuffing the ballot box to beat him.
So his lawyers sue to:
A) Impose/enforce a deadline on the certification of the election that doesn’t leave enough time to count all of those votes, giving him four more years. SCOTUS picks the next president. Roberts is all, “Sorry guys, rules are rules and it says right here that you have one week to certify results.”
B) Investigate for voter fraud and decertify the results in the mean time, leaving both candidates below 270 electoral votes, while then going to SCOTUS to declare the overall election certified, thus throwing the election into the House, where Trump wins because despite a healthy majority for the Dems, the GOP still has more state delegations and that’s how the voting works for this.
And if Bernie still wins, Pelosi is very troubled by this development and opens an impeachment inquiry into Sanders immediately, which gets bipartisan support in the House and wouldn’t you know they want some witnesses in the Senate this time and Bernie gets convicted as Schumer leads the eDems charge for a bipartisan conviction.
What a spectacle, seeing some old lizard argue on live TV that the President can do anything he likes as long as he considers it in the national interest, which said President is allowed to consider to be synonymous with his own re-election interests. All because if he doesn’t argue this, people will release the evidence that he stuck his withered hog into underage girls and he might have to spend what little time remains to him in a cell instead of sunning his hideous hide on Martha’s Vineyard. We love to see it.
I haven’t thought of myself as naive during this whole thing, but I admit I did not expect the official statement from the deciding vote to be “He did it. Who cares? Fuck you.” I thought they usually say that implicitly.
All political considerations aside, couldn’t they get Ryan Seacrest or Mario Lopez to read the questions next time. This Roberts guy sucked as an emcee. Stumbled way too much and not enough smiles.
I mean Roberts is who we thought he was. The same guy that sided with the majority when the Supreme Court re-interpreted the 2nd amendment, ramped up the ability of rich people/corporations to corrupt our politics, and ruined the Voting Rights Act. Also, he dissented against gay marriage. He was appointed by Bush ffs. He was never going to let this play out in any other way.
The Democrats look at John Roberts and John Bolton to be their savior. This would be hilarious if the stakes weren’t so high.
It’s the final seconds of the Superbowl, the Dem team is about to kick a game winning field goal and who do they send out as their holder and kicker? Two guys from the other team.
No, but that’s the point I was going for. Some #resistance chodes seem to think he’s gonna swoop in and save the day, but in reality he’s stood idly by for almost two decades while our democracy eroded, so why the fuck would he do something now.
Think of all the time that could have been saved if the defense, instead of absurdly trying to dispute the quid pro quo, had just admitted that he did it, but it isn’t even close to impeachable because reasons.
Alexander’s position is:
It’s so fucking obvious that the president did the quid pro quo (for purely personal gain!), we don’t even need the witnesses.
The president is lying to your face every single day when he denies it
Cheating in elections is “inappropriate” but not impeachable
This ridiculous position should be hung around the neck of every one of Trump’s defenders. Other Senators will presumably deny all this, so maybe even if Alexander doesn’t need the witnesses, he should allow them for the sake of his colleagues who still think the call was “perfect”.