Election 2020: It's Melting!

The sun is out, it's 31 F, but the sun is melting the ice on the trees slowly, and lot's of it is falling into the yard and lot behind us. Looks like it's going to be a pretty tolerable day.

First, for no particular reason other than to get it out of the way, from Politico, Rich Lowry warns The Donald, What Trump Gets Wrong About McConnell "The former president has the devotion of the Republican rank and file, but sooner or later they’ll have to win elections, where the Senate GOP leader rules." But as a businessman Trump knows that no man, including himself is irreplaceable. As Charlie DeGaul once may have noted "The graveyards are full on indispensable men", Meanwhile from Sundance at CTH, Lara Trump Hints At President Trump 2024 Race. Should be be surprised?

From the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 02.19.21 (Morning Edition), William Levin at Am Think explores Woke Politics: The Democrats’ Plan for a Permanent Majority

It has six astonishing elements:

i. Enable Congress to determine who can run for President,
ii.Eliminate the Electoral College without amending the Constitution,
iii. Override the states' constitutionally mandated authority to determine presidential election rules,
iv. Grant statehood to the District of Columbia by statute,
v. Rewrite the First Amendment to limit political speech, and
vi, Enable open border immigration through executive agreement instead of Congressional action. Taken together, the program represents a comprehensive challenge to representative democracy. It deserves to be understood and debated front and center.

Why do I find none of these elements astonishing? It's not like they haven't told us so over and over.  From PM, WATCH: Florida Gov DeSantis announces new election integrity measures for future elections. Also via the Wombat's  The Geller Reports Michigan Removed 177,000 Voters from Voter Rolls in January After Certifying Biden Won Michigan by 154,000 Votes in November, or as the WaPoo whines, State GOP lawmakers propose flurry of voting restrictions to placate Trump supporters, spurring fears of a backlash. Good. 

At American Thinker Andrea Widberg thinks It's possible that Trump-supporters fell into a trap on January 6

D'Souza points out something we've all noticed, which is that, on January 6, many of the people peacefully walked and gawked through the Capitol after having been invited in — and treated respectfully — by the relatively small number of Capitol police officers on duty. If you've ever visited the Capitol in the past, you know that's not how it ordinarily works.

Even stranger is the fact that Capitol police officers, who expected to be pulling extra duty, given that everyone knew that large numbers of Trump-supporters would be flooding D.C., were instead sent home for the day. Additionally, D'Souza points out, when Trump offered 10,000 National Guard troops to help out because the rally was in town, both those in charge of the Capitol and D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser rebuffed the offer. As speaker of the House, it's inconceivable that Pelosi wasn't part of this decision.

In addition, says D'Souza:

Steve Sund, the U.S. Capitol Police Chief, called for National Guard backup two days before January 6. His offer was declined — and declined by whom? Declined by the sergeant of arms [sic] working in cohorts, in consultation with Nancy Pelosi's office.

The sergeant at arms later explained that they didn't want the "optics" of troops in town — but D'Souza states correctly that "this explanation to me makes absolutely no sense." Since January 6, the Democrats have been rubbing security in everyone's face, so those optics are fine with them.

Pelosi's been moving people around like chess pieces since then:

Now, right after January 6 what does Nancy Pelosi do? She fires the sergeant of arms [sic]. She fires the Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund and she replaces him with another guy and, very interestingly, the police union, the union that actually represents the Capitol Police, took a vote and 92% of them have voted no confidence in this quote "new leadership." In other words, in this guy Yogananda Pittman, Nancy Pelosi's man that she stuck in there. The Capitol Police are basically saying we don't think this guy is any good.

We also know from the WaPo, of all places, that the FBI had advance warning that various radical groups were planning to attack the Capitol. Yet no one did anything. It's inconceivable that they kept this information to themselves.

Well, Nancy has been in politics for more years then Niccolò Machiavelli was old when he wrote "The Prince." From Da Caller, Retired General Leading Capitol Review Has A History Of Peddling Far-Left Conspiracy Theories. Ace does an exceptionally good job of detailing how Nancy Pelosi Puts Hyperpartisan Lunatic, Conspiracy Theorist, and Hardcore Racist In Charge of Alleged "Security Review" of Capitol Incident "He claims the riot was an inside job, among other things."  What if it's Nancy's inside job? Twitter warning

Pelosi hired a bigot to hunt MAGA. pic.twitter.com/uBsksGZXfs

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) February 18, 2021

Tucker: Pelosi's named a conspiracy theorist — who claimed the Capitol riot was an “inside job” and has said some Republicans “should be treated like terrorists” — to conduct an overview of Capitol Hill security pic.twitter.com/KO5RGlt5Zo

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 18, 2021

At Da Wire, Capitol Police Suspends Six Officers For Alleged Actions Taken On January 6

Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), chairman of the subcommittee on the legislative branch, which has been investigating the police response to the riot, previously told reporters that one of the officers had been suspended for taking a selfie with a rioter and the other had been suspended for wearing a MAGA hat and giving trespassers directions. It’s not clear why the other officers were suspended.

Josh Blackmun at the Volokh Conspiracy has a long, legalistic post about  whether If Donald Trump is Convicted of Violating 18 U.S.C. § 2383, Will He Be Disqualified From Serving As President?. Not being a lawyer, it was hard to follow, but his answer appears to be no.

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup and linkfest.