I don’t know if this is becoming a thing, but it is interesting.
I am a Republican presidential elector, one of the 538 people asked to choose officially the president of the United States. Since the election, people have asked me to change my vote based on policy disagreements with Donald J. Trump. In some cases, they cite the popular vote difference. I do not think president-elects should be disqualified for policy disagreements. I do not think they should be disqualified because they won the Electoral College instead of the popular vote. However, now I am asked to cast a vote on Dec. 19 for someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office.
[…]
Mr. Trump urged violence against protesters at his rallies during the campaign. He speaks of retribution against his critics. He has surrounded himself with advisers such as Stephen K. Bannon, who claims to be a Leninist and lauds villains and their thirst for power, including Darth Vader. “Rogue One,” the latest “Star Wars” installment, arrives later this month. I am not taking my children to see it to celebrate evil, but to show them that light can overcome it.
Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s pick for national security adviser, has his own checkered past about rules. He installed a secret internet connection in his Pentagon office despite rules to the contrary. Sound familiar?
Finally, Mr. Trump does not understand that the Constitution expressly forbids a president to receive payments or gifts from foreign governments. We have reports that Mr. Trump’s organization has business dealings in Argentina, Bahrain, Taiwan and elsewhere. Mr. Trump could be impeached in his first year given his dismissive responses to financial conflicts of interest. He has played fast and loose with the law for years. He may have violated the Cuban embargo, and there are reports of improprieties involving his foundation and actions he took against minority tenants in New York. Mr. Trump still seems to think that pattern of behavior can continue.
The author of this op-ed is Christopher Suprun, who is from Dallas. He joins Art Sisneros in being unwilling to cast his vote for Trump, though he parts ways with Sisneros by remaining an elector. There are faithless electors from time to time, with two of them this century, but I think it’s fair to say that we may see more of them than usual this year. Whether it becomes more than a footnoted curiosity some day or something more I couldn’t say, but it is interesting. The Trib and Think Progress have more.
A pity Sisneros quit rather than stay in and vote for a different GOPer. It could get interesting if enough electors voted for someone like Kasich to throw this to the House. Some Dem electors are willing to do it. While Kasich is publicly saying “don’t vote for me”, does anyone really think he’d pull a Sherman here? 2016 may have one last plot twist for us.
The bottom line- Trump is not up for this job, but his ego won’t allow him to face that reality. I would disagree with a President Kasich on many things, but at least he would actually be qualified AND he can behave like an adult.
I hope the “faithless”, or faithful depending on how you look at it, electors are not a footnote in history, but rather an event that brings reform to the electoral college.
Here is a good start:
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com
Flypusher, I too with Sisneros would have stayed through with his conviction for vote for someone else or at least abstain. The unfortunate side effect would be the vile, ugly, violent behavior and comments, including death threats, that Suprun has already received.
One reason we are in this mess is all the people, starting in the summer of 2015, who have been appeasing the Trump fan base. Candidates like Cruz and Jeb and Rubio didn’t go after Trump a year ago as they could have and should have, and many of us suspect it was because they figured they could pick up those voters after Trump dropped out. So here we are now, and some of the dregs of that base are the sorest winners I’ve ever seen and are feeling free to harrass and even assault other people. There’s dire warnings of what they might do in the unlikely event enough Electors revolted to send this to the Congress. I sympathize with Mr. Suprun’s troubles for taking a stand, but I hope he holds firm. We badly need some courage here and we all need to stand up to these bullies. Trump doesn’t care enough to call them off.
I’m aware that there is some harassment of Electors from the left, and I don’t approve of that either. But pointing out how they will own a piece of Trump’s coming disasters? That’s legit if you’re not making threats.
@Flypusher:
Pushing a false narrative will never make something true. The violence we have seen during this election season has predominantly come from the left. Trump campaign rallies? We find that the anti-Trump protestors were paid by the Dem. party. BLM? Their violence speaks for itself, and was celebrated at the DNC convention, as the families of dead criminals were also celebrated.
Look at what happened at Texas A&M yesterday. Who was violent and attacking state troopers there? It wasn’t Trump supporters. Yes, I concede that there have been a few isolated incidents of rogue Trump supporters behaving badly, but when we look at organized, persistant, and frequent violence? Yep, all coming from Hillary partisans.
Tell me Bill, does BLM have any legitimate grievances or not? Was Tamir Rice a criminal? Or Phillando Castille? Did people with minor offenses like Eric Gardner and Walter Scott deserve to be killed?
As for your narrative of all the violence at Trump rallies being started by paid leftist, BS. There’s plenty of video out there of a number of them acting deplorable all on their own volition over this past year. They’re still chanting “Lock her up” during these post-election rallies. That is highly disturbing.
Tamir Rice was an unfortunate kid who did not deserve to be shot. The police rolled up and pretty much executed that kid. I was horrified by what I saw. Tamir is a true victim. Castille? Guy was old enough to know when it is a good idea to follow instructions, yet he failed at that basic task. Sad that he was shot, but sometimes, stupid hurts. As to the rest of them, Gardner, Scott, the “gentle giant” et al……criminals. Not really people I would be out protesting for, much less committing arson, looting, and assault for. Call me unsympathetic.
As to the “lock her up” chant, people want to see the law enforced, fairly, and without prejudice. There are plenty of people who have been tried and jailed for mishandling classified information. Having Marina, the housekeeper, pull classified documents off the fax machine? Yeah, that’s illegal, since Marina the housekeeper doesn’t have a security clearance. Comey outlined her crimes, which include her lying under oath to Congress, for 11 hours. The “lock her up” folks want to see those lies punished. Roger Clemons came very close to going to prison for lying to Congress. Why does Hillary get a free pass?
Why do you find it disturbing that American citizens would seek a redress of their grievances from government? The Donald is the captain now, to shamelessly steal a line from a movie. His supporters are asking him to get her charged with that perjury, that mishandling of classified info, and whatever pay-for-play might have occurred at the Clinton State Department.
So you and all those Trump fans are outraged over Clinton’s e-mail server, yet not at Trump wanting Petreaus on his staff, someone who is currently ON PROBATION for giving classified material to his mistress. You are concerned about pay-for- play at the Clinton Foundation, but not the fact the Trump just had to settle several fraud suits (and there’s more to come) and NY busted his foundation, and he won’t release his taxes so we don’t know enough about who’s loaning him $, and all the conflicts of interest he hasn’t addressed. Wow. Just more IOKIRDI hypocrisy. Also if Comey had actually said that she lied under oath, I’m pretty sure we would have all remembered it. And she would have been charged with something.
As for Mr. Castile, he told the cop he had a weapon, as he was supposed to do, but was killed anyway. That cop has now been charged, so the DA doesn’t agree with you. As for Gardner and Scott, wow. Minor crimes justified them being killed. Unbelievable. Brown is the only example you cited where there was any justification of the use of force, but even there Furgeson officials conducted a textbook case of how NOT to handle such an incident.
But you’re at least willing to say too bad about Rice. AFAIK, the cops who shot him haven’t even been fired.
One more thing:
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”
H. L. Mencken
US editor (1880 – 1956)
Punishments should fit the crime. An unarmed man running away from you is not a threat, and you are not justified in shooting him. Someone mouthing off to a cop does not warrant putting him into a chokehold.
You should care about the scoundrels and criminals getting due process Bill. If their Constitutional rights are respected, you can feel more secure in yours.
I think appointing Petraeus (sp?) is a mistake. The whole “Trump U” saga was probably a mistake for Trump, too. He’s an imperfect person. Having said that, that doesn’t come close to accepting donations for preferential treatment by the US government. If Trump does that, I’ll be the first one calling for his head on a pike. As to the tax returns, if there was something illegal there, why hasn’t it been prosecuted? Why was it not prosecuted before The Donald announced he was running for president?
@ Flypusher:
Agree with your quote, and most of your post, but you start to go South (IMHO) when you say that mouthing off doesn’t warrant a chokehold. What warranted the chokehold is a guy caught plain as day breaking the law, who refuses to submit to being arrested for his crime. Was the crime chicken****? Yes. Was it a crime? Yes. Had Garner just agreed he was busted and put his hands behind his back to be cuffed, he would still be here today, probably still committing petty crimes.
Garner’s crime merited giving him a ticket. Not being arrested. Plus that chokehold was against NYPD policy. No excuses.
The tax returns matter because of 1) potential conflict of interest. What if he’s in debt to Russian banks? Or any other foreign entities? Don’t the voters have the right to know? 2) his sole selling point was “I’m great at business”. He certainly bragged about his assets. But what about his debt? Don’t the voters have the right to all the data needed to evaluate that claim?
As for being willing to call for Trump’s head, I suspect that I will be holding you to that in the near future.
Am slowly being convinced Bill Daniels is nothing more than a [‘400 lb man sitting on his Mother’s downstairs couch’] troll who posts outrageous statements to incite the masses.
Bill Daniels’ hateful, racist invective peppered with outright lies has made the comments section on this blog pretty rough for a while, but this thread of trolling, hateful comments justifying the murder of Americans and lying about violent hate crimes pushes pretty close to the line. I think an outright ban on him from this blog is called for.
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C.L. and Joe,
A perfect example of the “NEW MORAL MAJORITY”. God bless our new founding fathers. Nothing in Bill’s comments are racist. Have a Merry Christmas.
I want to quote Bill Daniels here “Pushing a false narrative will never make something true.” To me this is the scariest part of a future with Brightbart in charge of the media. I am astonished at the right wing followers ability to see and push only the pieces of the narrative they want to focus on. So much hypocrisy! People like Bill Daniels here are a product of the divisiveness and false news spewed by Fox news over the last 8 years in particular and I just see it getting worse with Trump at the helm. The man in our article is even more important in these times to stand up Trump before we move ever closer to complete media control as in China and N Korea. #Fahrenheit451