THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGIN
Psycho secession: Texas’ lost-cause lawsuit was the first shot in a new Civil War
Published December 12, 2020
By Lucian K. Truscott IV, Salon- Commentary
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President Donald Trump and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (Facebook).
They didn’t bother with writing articles of secession this time. No, Ken Paxton, the disgraced attorney general of the state of Texas, did that for them when he filed a lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the presidential election. On Wednesday, Missouri and 16 other states filed a brief with the court seeking to join the Texas lawsuit, which alleges that the four decisive swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia violated the Constitution by allowing mail-in voting in the November election. On Thursday, a majority of the Republican caucus in the House, 126 members of Congress, signed on to the lawsuit along with the instigator in chief, Donald Trump. Twenty-five states and territories signed a brief opposing the Texas lawsuit. Friday evening, the Supreme Court rejected the suit out of hand.
The 18 states and 126 members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, are seceding from democracy. It amounts to nothing less than an act of sedition by the entire Republican Party, 70 percent of whom believe that Joe Biden’s election was illegitimate, according to a Quinnipiac poll released on Thursday. In contrast, 98 percent of Democrats think Biden’s victory was legitimate, along with 62 percent of independents.
The last time anything like this happened was in 1860, when the election of Abraham Lincoln led almost immediately to declarations of secession by seven states between Dec. 20, 1860 and Feb. 1, 1861. Two months later, on April 12, the bombardment of Fort Sumter began, and the Civil War was underway.
It’s not a shooting war — yet — but Texas didn’t just file a lawsuit this week, it set a match to the Constitution of the United States. It isn’t just that these Republicans don’t recognize Joe Biden as our next president. They don’t want to be part of the democracy that this country was founded on. They don’t respect the votes of their fellow citizens. They don’t want what more than 80 million people wanted when they cast their votes in this election. They want what Donald Trump wants.
Thankfully, it’s not the whole country. The Quinnipiac poll found that 60 percent of registered voters think that Biden’s victory was legitimate. But it wasn’t the whole country in 1860, either. It was only after the election of Lincoln that the Southern states seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery.
This time there isn’t a single issue, there’s a single man: Donald Trump. In this way, what’s happening right now in this country is eerily similar to what happened in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Trump has identified and used the same sort of mass hysteria Hitler did — a sense of resentment among his supporters that somehow they have been left behind and misunderstood and humiliated, and that only he, Trump, understands them and is willing to stand up for them and will bring back their rightful way of life.
So far, Trump has only played around with the kind of violence that Hitler made use of to achieve power and then consolidate it. Trump used implied violence in the chants of “Lock her up” that energized supporters at his rallies in 2016 and throughout the campaign of 2020. By staying silent this year when armed protesters occupied the State Capitol in Michigan, Trump implied his support, and his exhortations to “liberate” states that were mandating lockdowns to fight COVID were taken by many as invitations to violence.
Now armed protesters have gathered outside the home of the Michigan secretary of state, and Georgia election officials report that they are receiving death threats and racist voice mails. The Republican Party of Arizona has retweeted exhortations from those who say, “I’m willing to give up my life for this fight,” suggesting it’s time to “die for something.” The New York Times reported this week that the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission has said that “people on Twitter have posted photographs of my house.” Another tweet mentioned her children and threatened “I’ve heard you’ll have quite a crowd of patriots showing up at your door.”
The conservative website The Bulwark reported this week that far-right websites have been posting addresses and other personal information about Republican elected officials in Georgia, superimposing target crosshairs over images of their faces. Right-wing Republicans are in full cheerleader mode trying to turn Kyle Rittenhouse, who is accused of murdering two people and wounding another at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest, into a hero of the Trump cause. A Democratic state representative in Pennsylvania told the New York Times that “we’ve been getting emails all the time, all hours of the day and night,” and that “they’re getting more angry, and a lot of calls are saying we won’t be forgetting.”
This kind of stuff is not a joke. The fantastic lie that has gripped the Republican Party started out with everyone going along with Trump’s fantasy and kind of humoring him. But now it’s taken a deadly turn. Trump has been calling Republican state representatives on the phone and pressuring them to go along with his demands that they ignore the votes that have taken place in swing states and appoint electors that will vote for him. If they step out of line, they’re branded as traitors, cowards, RINOs. He’s doing this kind of stuff to his own people, to loyal Republicans who have voted the party line since they were in short pants.
When you add in what’s been happening in red states with COVID, it’s jaw-dropping. Governors and Republican-controlled state legislatures are so intimidated that they won’t pass mask mandates and bar closures, not to mention rules against mass gatherings. COVID cases and hospitalizations in red states are off the charts. They are lining up refrigerated trucks outside hospitals in states like North and South Dakota. Republicans are killing their own people in craven attempts to keep Donald Trump from attacking them on Twitter. God only knows what’s going to happen in those states when the COVID vaccines become widely available, although we’re getting some idea with reports of people standing up at meetings of county commissioners pledging not only that they won’t wear masks, they’ll also refuse to be vaccinated.
The Mason-Dixon line is psychological this time. These people have lost their minds. They have seceded from sanity and reason. This Civil War isn’t being fought with rifles and pistols. It’s a war fought with lies and delusions. This week it passed the number of Americans killed in World War II, and its victims are just as dead as the bodies buried at Anzio and Normandy. Americans are dying every time Mitch McConnell stands up and blocks a COVID relief bill. They are dying every time a Republican senator like Ron Johnson presents testimony from an anti-vaxxer as if it were a sane person instead of an outright idiot. They’re dying by the thousands with their mask-less hubris. They’re dying for Donald Trump, but at least for now, our democracy has not died with them.
US: In Texas, Trump supporters and lawmakers threaten secession if Biden win is certified
Trump and his party have been claiming voter fraud in the November polls
Web Desk December 13, 2020
After the US Supreme Court rejected Texas' bid to throw out voting results in four key states that president-elect Joe Biden won in November's presidential election, the Texas Republican Party issued a statement raising the spectre of secession. “Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a union of states that will abide by the constitution,” said party chairman Allen West. He said the court's order had established "a precedent that says states can violate the US Constitution and not be held accountable". Trump and his allies have been claiming voter fraud in the November polls.
A Texas lawmaker even announced plans to introduce a referendum pushing to secede from the US. Republican lawmaker Kyle Biedermann said in a statement, according to Fox News: "The federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans. That is why I am committing to file legislation this session that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the state of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation.”
The US Supreme Court had earlier rejected a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election in several key battleground states won by Joe Biden, effectively ending President Donald Trump's bid to challenge the outcome of the November 3 polls. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a bid from Texas' attorney general, and backed by Trump, to block the ballots of millions of voters in battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that went in favour of president-elect Biden, who won 306 electoral seats in the polls. Only 270 seats are required for winning the race to the White House.
The election results will be formally certified next week by a 538-member electoral college.
The 'secession' statement raised hackles within the Democratic Party. There are increasing calls to sanction the lawmakers who supported the same, and to exclude them from the Congress, citing Section 3 of the fourteenth amendment of the US Constitution.
House majority leader Steny Hoyer said the Supreme Court's decision should put an end to Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the presidential election that he lost. The results are clear, there was no widespread fraud, and Joe Biden is the next president of the United States, he said. "The 126 Republicans who signed on in support of this case should be ashamed of themselves for putting their own political interests before the interests of our nation, the Constitution, and our democratic principles," Hoyer said.
Supporters of President Donald Trump announced they will stifle Washington on Sunday with a pair of rallies. The rallies come a month after a pro-Trump demonstration that drew at least 10,000 people to the capital. The day began with Trump thrilling his supporters by driving by in his limousine and ended with scattered clashes between Trump supporters and local activists. Sunday's rallies are meant as a show of force just two days before the electoral college meets to formally elect Joe Biden as the next president.
-Inputs from agencies
Published December 12, 2020
By Lucian K. Truscott IV, Salon- Commentary
\President Donald Trump and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (Facebook).
They didn’t bother with writing articles of secession this time. No, Ken Paxton, the disgraced attorney general of the state of Texas, did that for them when he filed a lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the presidential election. On Wednesday, Missouri and 16 other states filed a brief with the court seeking to join the Texas lawsuit, which alleges that the four decisive swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia violated the Constitution by allowing mail-in voting in the November election. On Thursday, a majority of the Republican caucus in the House, 126 members of Congress, signed on to the lawsuit along with the instigator in chief, Donald Trump. Twenty-five states and territories signed a brief opposing the Texas lawsuit. Friday evening, the Supreme Court rejected the suit out of hand.
The 18 states and 126 members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, are seceding from democracy. It amounts to nothing less than an act of sedition by the entire Republican Party, 70 percent of whom believe that Joe Biden’s election was illegitimate, according to a Quinnipiac poll released on Thursday. In contrast, 98 percent of Democrats think Biden’s victory was legitimate, along with 62 percent of independents.
The last time anything like this happened was in 1860, when the election of Abraham Lincoln led almost immediately to declarations of secession by seven states between Dec. 20, 1860 and Feb. 1, 1861. Two months later, on April 12, the bombardment of Fort Sumter began, and the Civil War was underway.
It’s not a shooting war — yet — but Texas didn’t just file a lawsuit this week, it set a match to the Constitution of the United States. It isn’t just that these Republicans don’t recognize Joe Biden as our next president. They don’t want to be part of the democracy that this country was founded on. They don’t respect the votes of their fellow citizens. They don’t want what more than 80 million people wanted when they cast their votes in this election. They want what Donald Trump wants.
Thankfully, it’s not the whole country. The Quinnipiac poll found that 60 percent of registered voters think that Biden’s victory was legitimate. But it wasn’t the whole country in 1860, either. It was only after the election of Lincoln that the Southern states seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery.
This time there isn’t a single issue, there’s a single man: Donald Trump. In this way, what’s happening right now in this country is eerily similar to what happened in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Trump has identified and used the same sort of mass hysteria Hitler did — a sense of resentment among his supporters that somehow they have been left behind and misunderstood and humiliated, and that only he, Trump, understands them and is willing to stand up for them and will bring back their rightful way of life.
So far, Trump has only played around with the kind of violence that Hitler made use of to achieve power and then consolidate it. Trump used implied violence in the chants of “Lock her up” that energized supporters at his rallies in 2016 and throughout the campaign of 2020. By staying silent this year when armed protesters occupied the State Capitol in Michigan, Trump implied his support, and his exhortations to “liberate” states that were mandating lockdowns to fight COVID were taken by many as invitations to violence.
Now armed protesters have gathered outside the home of the Michigan secretary of state, and Georgia election officials report that they are receiving death threats and racist voice mails. The Republican Party of Arizona has retweeted exhortations from those who say, “I’m willing to give up my life for this fight,” suggesting it’s time to “die for something.” The New York Times reported this week that the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission has said that “people on Twitter have posted photographs of my house.” Another tweet mentioned her children and threatened “I’ve heard you’ll have quite a crowd of patriots showing up at your door.”
The conservative website The Bulwark reported this week that far-right websites have been posting addresses and other personal information about Republican elected officials in Georgia, superimposing target crosshairs over images of their faces. Right-wing Republicans are in full cheerleader mode trying to turn Kyle Rittenhouse, who is accused of murdering two people and wounding another at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest, into a hero of the Trump cause. A Democratic state representative in Pennsylvania told the New York Times that “we’ve been getting emails all the time, all hours of the day and night,” and that “they’re getting more angry, and a lot of calls are saying we won’t be forgetting.”
This kind of stuff is not a joke. The fantastic lie that has gripped the Republican Party started out with everyone going along with Trump’s fantasy and kind of humoring him. But now it’s taken a deadly turn. Trump has been calling Republican state representatives on the phone and pressuring them to go along with his demands that they ignore the votes that have taken place in swing states and appoint electors that will vote for him. If they step out of line, they’re branded as traitors, cowards, RINOs. He’s doing this kind of stuff to his own people, to loyal Republicans who have voted the party line since they were in short pants.
When you add in what’s been happening in red states with COVID, it’s jaw-dropping. Governors and Republican-controlled state legislatures are so intimidated that they won’t pass mask mandates and bar closures, not to mention rules against mass gatherings. COVID cases and hospitalizations in red states are off the charts. They are lining up refrigerated trucks outside hospitals in states like North and South Dakota. Republicans are killing their own people in craven attempts to keep Donald Trump from attacking them on Twitter. God only knows what’s going to happen in those states when the COVID vaccines become widely available, although we’re getting some idea with reports of people standing up at meetings of county commissioners pledging not only that they won’t wear masks, they’ll also refuse to be vaccinated.
 |
| http://www.rgnorman.co.uk/artphotoslife.asp?pid=275 |
US: In Texas, Trump supporters and lawmakers threaten secession if Biden win is certified
Trump and his party have been claiming voter fraud in the November polls
Web Desk December 13, 2020
After the US Supreme Court rejected Texas' bid to throw out voting results in four key states that president-elect Joe Biden won in November's presidential election, the Texas Republican Party issued a statement raising the spectre of secession. “Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a union of states that will abide by the constitution,” said party chairman Allen West. He said the court's order had established "a precedent that says states can violate the US Constitution and not be held accountable". Trump and his allies have been claiming voter fraud in the November polls.
A Texas lawmaker even announced plans to introduce a referendum pushing to secede from the US. Republican lawmaker Kyle Biedermann said in a statement, according to Fox News: "The federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans. That is why I am committing to file legislation this session that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the state of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation.”
The US Supreme Court had earlier rejected a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election in several key battleground states won by Joe Biden, effectively ending President Donald Trump's bid to challenge the outcome of the November 3 polls. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a bid from Texas' attorney general, and backed by Trump, to block the ballots of millions of voters in battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that went in favour of president-elect Biden, who won 306 electoral seats in the polls. Only 270 seats are required for winning the race to the White House.
The election results will be formally certified next week by a 538-member electoral college.
The 'secession' statement raised hackles within the Democratic Party. There are increasing calls to sanction the lawmakers who supported the same, and to exclude them from the Congress, citing Section 3 of the fourteenth amendment of the US Constitution.
House majority leader Steny Hoyer said the Supreme Court's decision should put an end to Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the presidential election that he lost. The results are clear, there was no widespread fraud, and Joe Biden is the next president of the United States, he said. "The 126 Republicans who signed on in support of this case should be ashamed of themselves for putting their own political interests before the interests of our nation, the Constitution, and our democratic principles," Hoyer said.
Supporters of President Donald Trump announced they will stifle Washington on Sunday with a pair of rallies. The rallies come a month after a pro-Trump demonstration that drew at least 10,000 people to the capital. The day began with Trump thrilling his supporters by driving by in his limousine and ended with scattered clashes between Trump supporters and local activists. Sunday's rallies are meant as a show of force just two days before the electoral college meets to formally elect Joe Biden as the next president.
-Inputs from agencies
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