Trump Aides Veto Coup Suggestion

[toucana]

According to a New York Times report, president Trump proposed re-hiring recently sacked conspiracy theorist lawyer Sidney Powell as a ‘special counsel’, and also canvassed the idea of declaring martial law to overthrow the 2020 election results, as per the suggestion of disgraced General Michael Flynn his former National Security Adviser (NSA) who is a client of Powell.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/trump-oval-office-meeting-special-counsel-martial-law/index.html

This heated meeting took place in the Oval Office on Friday evening, and rapidly degenerated into multiple screaming matches according to sources, as chief of Staff Mike Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone pushed back hard on the more lurid suggestions, saying there was no constitutional basis for them

Another idea originally floated in the meeting by Rudy Giuliani was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them for evidence of ‘fraud’.

According to a Twitter thread by NYT journalist Maggie Haberman, disgraced former NSA Michael Flynn who was fired for dishonesty after only 24 days in the job back in 2017 - (the shortest tenure on record) - was actually present at this meeting in the Oval office on Friday.

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1340363388988354570

One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.

"It was heated -- people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it," one of the sources said.


<Joke> Q - What do you call a coup that can be described in 17 syllables ?
A - a Haiku ! </Joke>

[TheVat]

Good joke. The Oval Office madness seemed to me reminiscent (in terms of people trying to handle Trump) of this famous film scene....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em7Dyy00WL8

[jocular]

Which is as long (almost) as it took me to get the joke ;)

Amy one of those 3 characters would have been preferable to the last "incumbent" of the Oval Office

[toucana]

I did wonder if the film clip was going to be this one:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWL06waOAGw

Directed by John Frankenheimer and shot in part in the White House itself during 1963, with the active encouragement of JFK, who thought that Seven Days In May might be an appropriate and timely warning to some.

It was based on the novel of the same name by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, published in September 1962. The character of JCS General James Mattoon Scott was said to have been based partly on General Edwin Walker who was fired by JFK in 1961, and partly on General Curtis Lemay of SAC with whom Kennedy had numerous disagreements.

[TheVat]

I suggested Young Frankenstein and you came back with young Frankenheimer -- perfect!

Sounds like something worth rewatching. We are maybe fortunate that our current top brass here are more Kirk Douglas than Burt Lancaster, as regards their revulsion at Trump's behavior.

At this point, I'm channeling Malcolm Tucker as regards executive purview on such matters. Trump should pop a jaunty bonnet on his overthrow plans and ram it up the _____ with a lubricated horse ____.

[toucana]

It’s been a while since I last saw Seven Days In May on screen. Like other Kennedy era movies such as PT109 and Executive Action, it doesn’t often appear on TV re-run schedules. It probably looks too melodramatic and unrealistically kitsch to fit in with modern programming tastes - After all, nothing like that could ever happen in USA in real life could it ?

PT109 was based on JFK’s WW2 experiences as a young naval captain fighting the Japanese in the Solomon Islands. Kennedy and his crew were shipwrecked on an island after their torpedo boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer during a night action.

I watched the original version of PT109 on its UK release in July 1963, and recall hearing later that some US movie theatres in Republican states put up publicity posters saying “Come and watch how the Japs almost got JFK !” - (Just in case you think that hyper-partisan politics is a wholly new phenomenon in America.)

[Serpent]

I thought it might be this one
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070184/

But at least you'll have his legacy of byooootiful buildings (possibly with Confederate generals out front and blood red Christmas trees inside) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... chitecture

[charon]

I think toucana's got 'Let's Start A New Thread' syndrome*. Still, I suppose the world would be a sadder place without it.

_{*I've seen it before, you know :-)}

[charon]

I don't care what they do any more, they're yesterday's news. Normal service will be restored shortly.

Shouting and screaming
In support of a lame duck
Is not dignified!