Nancy

Documentation. Witnesses. Facts. Truth. That's what they're afraid of.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Fight, Dammit! (UPDATED)

I'm sitting about two blocks from the White House as I type this...




I only have a minute, but Dahlia Lithwick and David S. Cohen have a piece up at the NYT about the Democrats' possibilities of overturning this election:

There’s no shortage of legal theories that could challenge Mr. Trump’s anointment, but they come from outsiders rather than the Democratic Party. Impassioned citizens have been pleading with electors to vote against Mr. Trump; law professors have argued that winner-take-all laws for electoral votes are unconstitutional; a small group, the Hamilton Electors, is attempting to free electors to vote their consciences; and a new theory has arisen that there is legal precedent for courts to give the election to Mrs. Clinton based on Russian interference. All of these efforts, along with the grass-roots protests, boycotts and petitions, have been happening without the Democratic Party. The most we’ve seen is a response to the C.I.A. revelations, but only with Republicans onboard to give Democrats bipartisan cover.
Take the recount efforts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. While the Democratic Party relitigates grudges in the press, Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who received about 64 million fewer votes than Mrs. Clinton, has led the effort. The Democrats have grudgingly participated from the sidelines, but only because public perception forced them to. This effort has proved feeble, with a Pennsylvania judge denying the request because it was “later than last minute.”
Contrast the Democrats’ do-nothingness to what we know the Republicans would have done. If Mr. Trump had lost the Electoral College while winning the popular vote, an army of Republican lawyers would have descended on the courts and local election officials. The best of the Republican establishment would have been filing lawsuits and infusing every public statement with a clear pronouncement that Donald Trump was the real winner. And they would have started on the morning of Nov. 9, using the rhetoric of patriotism and courage.
There are so many conflicting opinions and stories, but what I do know is, when Dahlia Lithwick writes about the law, you listen. Democrats, FIGHT!

UPDATE (12/14/16. 6:41 PM): Rude Pundit has more on exactly why this is so urgent:

After all the lunatic conspiracy theories of this stupid century that's in its hormonal teenage years, the 9/11 insider job, the climate change "hoax," birtherism, and the multiple nefarious crimes of Hillary Clinton and her cronies, we are facing something that is more real than any of it. Right now, there is more evidence than all of those combined times 1000 that Russia, a nation that is antagonistic to the United States, might have, at the very least, taken advantage of a trove of hacked emails to push the needle just enough to get a dangerously inexperienced egomaniac with business ties to Moscow elected president. (This is not to mention the assist from the Republican FBI director.) It's also entirely possible that Russia fucked with the election on multiple fronts, up to and including manipulation of a candidate. And the evidence is not coming from internet savages and talk radio masturbators, but from sources at intelligence agencies and major media outlets. Yeah, the CIA has done a shit-ton of evil in the world. But they sure as hell aren't always wrong.
So all of this is scary, man. Like stomach-dropping scary. One preservation instinct that will kick in really quickly is to try to forget about it, to just let the installation of the Trump presidency happen and go about our business. We all pretended that George W. Bush actually won in 2000 and didn't burn the joint down. Except this time is different. People across the political spectrum understand that Trump is a real and present danger to Americans, whether through eliminating their health insurance or getting us into more idiotic wars. We need to know the extent of Russian interference as quickly as possible. And, if such interference existed, the election itself needs to be challenged on every possible front. Take things to the Supreme Court. If President Obama has evidence that the Trump campaign had any coordination with Russia in regards to the hack, the response needs to be forceful and direct, possibly including arrest of those involved. Either we give a damn about democracy or we don't. At the very least, let us believe that Trump was elected without foreign intervention. Let us just be disappointed with his idiot hordes as he sends us to the reeducation camps.
Not one word in there is hyperbolic.

There is no "proof" of Russian interference (i.e. no smoking gun), but based on the kind of evidence that's come out over the course of months or even years, there is no court in the country, including conservative ones, that would not put a stay on any actions going forward until things are sorted out in any other context.

If Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi do nothing about this, it will change my opinion of  them and their legacy drastically for the worse. I do not want the first set of political heroes I've ever had in my 36 years (man, I've been cynical) to go down as cowards who allowed a hostile foreign government to have caused every goddamn thing that they've accomplished to be flushed down the toilet and then have that toilet stuffed with dirty, fetid baby diapers.