Perhaps befuddled 'Mericans do not care if they loose their democratic government but some of US still do. So, here at PNG we follow the unfolding of the J6 Insurrection investigation with patriotic interest. And there is a bombshell to report, if you can spare the bandwidth for a microsecond. Readers of PNG know of the meretricious Eastman Memo, a sort of coup by the numbers instruction sheet authored by former Supreme Court clerk and Trump sycophant, John Eastman. Now, a second memo has surfaced in which a Trump campaign lawyer, Jenna Ellis, [photo: Getty Images] detailed how to disenfranchise millions of Americans in one easy putsch of which A. Hitler would have been proud. Apparently, her memo was convincing enough for chief of staff Mark Meadows to email it to VP Pence's top aide.
In it Ellis describes how VP Pence should reject the returns of six swing state Electoral College votes on unsubstantiated grounds of fraud, and direct the legislatures of those states to send back by January 15th alternate slates of Electors. When the deadline passed without those altered votes, the election would devolve to the House of Representatives, just as it did in the contested election of 1876, where the state delegations would vote for the next President. Repugnants enjoy a one state margin, thus insuring Herr Trumpilini would be declared the winner contrary to the expressed will of the people in the popular vote.
Meadows transmitted Ellis' memo on December 31st. It was followed by a Trump staff memo, which incorrectly claimed Thomas Jefferson had used his position as Vice President in a similar way in 1801. Trump told his mob on the Ellipse, "Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country." His comments were obviously directed at Pence inside the House chamber where he was preparing to certify the election results. Trump had called Pence on the morning of January 6th saying, “You can be a patriot or you can be a pussy,” Pence's participation was crucial to the coup plan unfolding in Congress. The mob's role was to intimidate Congress into allowing valid votes to be rejected by the Vice President. Think of them as the soundtrack to this theater of the grotesque.
Treachery that does not succeed is still treachery. The sad fact that the corporate media refuses to call a spade a spade does not make the coup plotters' actions any less reprehensible. Tragically, the plot to kill democracy in America had fellow travelers all the way down the political ladder to GOP state legislators and local election officials who consciously cast doubts on their own voting mechanisms they approved before the 2020 election. The GOP has revealed itself as a craven cult of spineless opportunists willing to sell their souls and betray their country to remain in power.
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| Hayes (R) v. Tilden (D): the Electoral College in 1876 |