Pence and 6 Jan: FOG, RINOs, subterfuge, sabotage - GOP Legislators Sue Pence - RUN OUT THE CLOCK ON THIS ONE!!! -- USA 2020 Elections: Thread

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 09:52:51AM +1100, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 07:18:14PM +1100, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 05:58:48PM +1100, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> > >    BREAKING: GOP Legislators Sue Vice President Mike Pence In Effort to Overturn 2020 Election
> > >    https://trendingpolitics.com/breaking-gop-legislators-sue-vice-president-mike-pence-in-effort-to-overturn-22-election/
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > The following could actually be a good thing. If it's the same case?:
> > 
> > 
> >    Louie Gohmert Sues Mike Pence
> >    https://welovetrump.com/2020/12/28/louie-gohmert-sues-mike-pence/
> > 
> >       Wait, what?
> > 
> >       Representative Louis Gohmert A Republican of Texas just filed a lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence.
> > 
> >       Don’t worry friends, it’s actually a good thing!
> > 
> >       Gohmert’s lawsuit requests a federal judge in Texas to strike down the Electoral Count Act of 1887  as unconstitutional, and to grant Pence full authority to choose pro-Trump electors.
> > 
> >       If passed by the Supreme Court, Trump will without a doubt remain in office.
> > 
> >          ... Representative Louis Gohmert (R., Texas) filed a lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence on Monday, in an attempt to grant Pence the authority to overturn the results of the general elections.
> > 
> >          Congress will certify the election results on January 6, in a session presided over by the vice president. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 requires the vice president to affirm the winner of the elections, in a largely ceremonial capacity.
> > 
> >          However, Gohmert’s suit requests a federal judge in Texas to strike down the 1887 law as unconstitutional, and to grant Pence authority to appoint pro-Trump electors. The move would effectively ensure that Trump returns to office.
> >          https://news.yahoo.com/rep-gohmert-sues-pence-last-192151675.html
> > 
> > 
> >          Congressman Louie Gohmert is a patriot who loves this country and a dear friend of mine.
> >          God bless him for exploring every single opportunity to support our great President and election integrity.
> >          We need more Members of Congress like Louie Gohmert! pic.twitter.com/R51c0DDVEJ
> >          — Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) December 28, 2020
> > 
> >       [also] https://www.newsmax.com/politics/mike-pence-lawsuit-louie-gohmert-electoral-college/2020/12/28/id/1003349/
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > We shall see...
> > 
> > If -this- case is NOT heard prior to 6 Jan, then Pence can exercise his rightful constitutional authority REGARDLESS of the 1887 Electoral Count Act, and the demon rats would have to bring a constitutional claim AGAINST Pence's rightful exercise of constitutional authority.
> > 
> >    "Any law which is against the constitution is NO LAW AT ALL, it is a nullity, entitled to no obedience."
> 
> 
> Historical precedent is indeed, absolutely, on Pence's side, and a court case may well bring only legal precedent AGAINST Pence! :
> 
>    Harvard Law Expert Calls on Mike Pence to Act As Thomas Jefferson Did in Upcoming January 6th Vote Count
>    https://trendingpolitics.com/harvard-law-expert-calls-on-mike-pence-to-act-as-thomas-jefferson-did-in-upcoming-january-6th-vote-count/
> 
>       ... “Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, among the most revered founding fathers of our country, only became President because he used his unilateral power as President of the Senate to open and count the presidential ballots in his own favor.”
> 
>       ... Nevertheless, Jefferson failed to pause before counting Georgia’s four electoral votes into the Republican column, declaring the final vote as if nothing were amiss. Had Georgia’s ballot been excluded, the vote count…would have admitted all five candidates into a runoff in the House… Without the decisive use of his power as President of the Senate, Jefferson might never have become President of the United States.
>       ...



Pence's power on 6 January 2021, NOTWITHSTANDING any possible dodgy court ruling to the CONTRARY, is constitutional, plenary and unappealable.

You read that right:

   Here’s How Mike Pence Could Still Send President Trump The 232-222 Win!
   https://welovetrump.com/2020/12/29/heres-how-mike-pence-could-still-send-president-trump-the-232-222-win/

      ... On January 6, a joint session of Congress will open with Vice President Pence presiding as president of the Senate. His power will be plenary and unappealable. You heard that right. As president of the Senate, every objection comes directly to him, and he can rule any objection “out of order” or “denied.” His task will be to fulfill his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and to ensure that the laws be faithfully executed. This is a high standard of performance, and V.P. Pence will have two choices. He can roll over on “certified” electors, or he can uphold the law.

      Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution gives state legislatures “plenary authority” as enunciated in Bush v. Gore. This is key, since the counting of votes is discussed in Article II, the 12th Amendment, and 3 USC 15. To this we must add the history of counting and objections recounted by Alexander Macris (here and here).
      https://macris.substack.com/p/if-chaos-is-a-ladder-americas-election
      https://macris.substack.com/p/who-counts-the-votes-of-the-presidential

      Put bluntly, it's as clear as mud.  Add to that the fact that the contested states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have sent dueling slates of electors to D.C.  This means that the V.P. has to decide how he will handle the situation when two sealed envelopes are handed to him from any of those states.

      Macris points out that in 1800, even with constitutional deficiencies in Georgia, Thomas Jefferson blithely counted defective electoral votes from Georgia, effectively voting himself into the presidency.
      https://macris.substack.com/p/who-counts-the-votes-of-the-presidential

      This demonstrates that the president of the Senate is the final authority on any motions or objections during the vote-counting.  There is no appeal.  That doesn't mean there won't be any outrage.  Whatever Pence does, people will be angry.  But what does the law demand?

      ... Any process that does not follow these [state election] rules is not an election.  Anything that proceeds from it cannot be regarded as having any lawful import. 

      ... The same thing applies to elections.  If there are a handful of improper votes, we can suggest that there was in fact an election, perhaps tainted, but the election wasn't materially harmed.  But when the people charged with managing the election decide to ignore the law, whatever process they supervise is not the process defined by the law.  Therefore, it is not an election.

      This leaves V.P. Pence with a dilemma.  He is a gentleman who regards our governmental traditions with a degree of reverence, so he will be reluctant to take any bold action.  But as an honorable man, faced with massive illegality, he must act to protect the law.  Consider how things might go down as the two closed envelopes from Georgia are handed to the V.P.  Rather than opening them, he says:

         In my hand are envelopes purporting to contain electoral votes
         from Georgia.  They are competing for consideration, so it is
         essential that I consider the law that governs this.  That law,
         according to the Legislature of Georgia and Article II, Section
         1 of the U.S. Constitution is the Georgia statute that includes
         procedures for signature-matching on absentee ballots, a
         requirement that all absentee ballots be first requested by a
         legitimate voter, and that election monitors be meaningfully
         present at all times while votes were counted.

         The Georgia secretary of state, who is not empowered by the
         U.S. Constitution to make changes to election law, entered into
         a Consent Decree that gutted these protections enacted by the
         Georgia Legislature.  The processes that he prescribed and were
         ultimately followed were manifestly contrary to that law.
         Further, the State of Georgia, in unprecedented concert with
         other states, suspended counting of ballots in the middle of
         the night, covering its conspiracy with a false claim of a
         "water main break."  We now know from surveillance video that
         many thousands of "ballots" were counted unlawfully in the
         absence of legally required observers.

         Finally, the State of Georgia, under the authority of secretary
         of state Brad Raffensperger, a non-legislative actor, used
         fatally flawed Dominion voting machines that have been
         demonstrated to be unreliable.  In testing, the error rate of
         Dominion machines has exceeded 60%, far in excess of legal
         limits.  They are designed to facilitate fraud without creating
         the legally required paper trail.  This alone is far more than
         enough to swing an election.

         Since the state of Georgia has failed to follow the election
         law established by its legislature under Article II, Section 1
         of the Constitution, it has not conducted a presidential
         election.  Therefore, no "presidential electors" were appointed
         in Georgia.  Further, "electors" "certified" by non-legislative
         actors pursuant to this process are in fact not "presidential
         electors."  The competing slate of "electors" is similarly
         deficient, having not been elected through a presidential
         election.

         Therefore, the chair rules that Georgia has not transmitted the
         votes of any presidential electors to this body.  Georgia
         presents zero votes for Donald Trump and zero votes for Joseph
         Biden.

      The central point is that the VP, as the presiding officer and final authority, has the unquestionable authority to declare that the states in question have not conducted presidential elections.  There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, but no one has the authority to override his decision.
      https://nationalfile.com/law-prohibits-pence-from-accepting-electoral-votes-from-fraudulently-certified-states-constitutional-lawyer/

      The statement says nothing about who might or might not have "won" the contested states.  Rather, by not following their own laws, as enacted by their own legislatures, they have violated Article II, Section 1.  Thus, they have not conducted an election, and their results are void.

      If the votes of all seven contested states are registered as zero, President Trump will have 232 votes, and Joe Biden will have 222.  The 12th Amendment says, "[T]he votes shall then be counted[.] ...  The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President[.]"

      In plain language, Donald Trump will be re-elected, since he has a majority of the actual electoral votes.  There will be no need to involve the House of Representatives to resolve a contingent election.

      Richard Nixon chose not to contest the 1960 election because he felt that winning that way would lead to an ungovernable country.  If V.P. Pence does this, that same argument might be made.  But is the country governable even now?  Blue states such as California, Oregon, Washington, New York, New Jersey, and Michigan are already operating in an openly lawless manner with their "emergency" "COVID-related" restrictions.  Their denial of the civil rights of law-abiding citizens is horrific.  Their refusal to do basic policing and law enforcement is a recipe for open war.  How much worse would things be if the V.P. lived up to his oath and upheld the law?

      Ted Noel posts on multiple sites as DoctorTed and @vidzette.
      Image: Michael Vadon via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.