Check off why you so admired Donald Trump, and signed that oath to cast your vote in the electoral college to make him the President of the United States. Could you imagine that within a single week he would betray everything he stood for, reverse the reasons that you admired him? He thinks he has you in the bag, and you can't look now at what he really is and decide you’ve been scammed. Well, guess what, as an Elector for the President of the United States you can cast your vote for anyone you want. The Constitution gives you, each of the five hundred and forty Electors the authority to use your discretion to determine the next President of the United States of America. Every state law that says you must vote for the person you pledged to is invalid. Here's the explanation from Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe as quoted in U.S.A. today
……..the constitutionality of imposing a fine on a “faithless elector” is “open to doubt, and it is even more doubtful that a court would compel any Elector to be ‘faithful’ to the State’s winner-take-all outcome. Nor is it likely that the Vice President, who presides over the process of opening the Electors’ ballots and counting the votes cast by the 538 Electors, would feel free to ‘correct’ a faithless Elector’s vote. So, in theory, if enough Electors pledged to Mr. Trump decline to make him President-elect and vote instead for Secretary Clinton, she would become the President-elect and would be the 45th President upon taking the Oath of Office on January 20, 2017.”
Forget that this is written on a left wing website, and follow what Trump said before the election and what he says and does now that he thinks the people, you the elector are required by law to rubber stamp the majority of your state- votes that were procured by his acting abilities that he has the audacity to reverse right after the election. You have to watch the big man himself on “60 Minutes” as he takes off his mask, and starts to kiss ass of those who he was claiming were criminals only days before. .
Hillary Clinton: You remember his saying “put her in jail” over and over. When asked on the “60 Minutes Interview” about whether he would really appoint a special prosecutor now he says, “I don’t know, “I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to hurt them. They’re, they’re good people.” WHAT!!!!!! And about Barack Obama, who along with Hillary he told us was the “founders” of ISIS, not that they left a hole by pulling out of Iraq that allowed this cancer to grow, but actually founded, meaning designed and planned the murderous mob, Well now he is best buddies with him, hoping to consult with him many times in the future, and says that he has done some many great things.
He said over and over that he wold clean out the the swamp of Washington D.C, meaning insiders but mostly the army of lobbyists, people who are paid vast sums to actually write the laws complete with small print that keeps their employers off the hook while socking to the little guy. These are the very people he is now appointing to key position in his administration.
We know that Trump was against going to war against Iraq, but didn’t have a platform to make himself absolutely clear about it. He did say during the campaign “no more” that we aren’t going to go to war with every country who doesn’t have government that we don’t like. Now that he thinks he is going to be President, who is he considering for Secretary of State, but two people who were vocal cheer leaders for this disastrous war. First there is John Bolton, known as the most gung ho of the Neo cons, and second is none other than Rudy Giuliani. Rudy sure is tough, and could be a great attorney general, but he really wants to go after the Clintons, so he’s not even being considered for this job, but for that of Secretary of State. Another name for that cabinet post “Chief Diplomat” for the country, Whatever Rudy is, is sure as hell has never been accused of being diplomatic.
Only two days after it looked like Trump won the election and had this in the bag, that high wall on our Southern border that he promised us maybe a thousand times, described in loving detail, complete with the special door and later the underground protection against tunnels, has been downgraded to a fence, nothing more than an extension of what the country has been building for decades. Those illegal Mexican immigrants are no longer murderers and rapists, but now “good people” ---— except that he may get around to deporting all of them.
Trump played a role of the people’s candidate for two years, and he does deserve an special Emmy for staying in character. But for those who care to open their eyes, not to what the biased media says, but to actually watch the videos of actual Donald J. Trump’s words, we see who he is, why he and the Clintons had socialized, been guests at their children’s weddings. This entire two year campaign had been nothing but a very expensive and elaborate charade, similar to professional wrestling. The difference is that we know that the two people pounding each other will later go out to share a beer They are not real enemies but both engaged in pretend, entertaining the viewers while really having the same values.
So Trump electors, you who are in the Constitutional position to actually think for yourselves, which is what our founders defined, not as an accident, but to prevent this most powerful position to be bestowed on one who would betray the principles they struggled so hard to preserve. So forget about how you got this position but think what it means, that for the next two months the Electors who are nominally committed to Donald J. Trump are the most important people who will shape our civilization.
Now practicalities: We now know that both houses of Congress will be in Republican hands, which means a liberal president will have minimal authority. If she nominates a Justice for the Supreme Court who is other than balanced, such as Anthony Kennedy or John Roberts, it will not even be taken up by Congress. Every liberal now knows that the next Donald Trump type may not be a performer, but one who both captures the frustrations of the majority of Americans but who also actually identifies with them, and has steeped himself in an understanding of the vast complexity of government, both domestic and international.
Donald J. Trump should be freed to go to his Fifth Avenue Tower, enhance his wealth and cavort with other ultra rich celebrities. He couldn’t resist getting out of the President-elect gig last night where he sneaked off to the most expensive restaurant in New York to pal around with his real friends, those who can afford fifty dollar hamburgers and thousand dollar dinners for two. He couldn’t hold back ensuring them that he was on their side, not those poor slobs who who would believe the character he played during the campaign.
…...but NBC News reporter Hallie Jackson was able to snag a reservation and gain access inside the restaurant, where she caught President-elect Trump on video appealing to patrons who represent a sampling of the wealthiest denizens of the five boroughs. “We’ll get your taxes down,” Trump appealed, “don’t worry about it.”
At the restaurant he let the cat out of the bag, saying to those who could afford eating there, it was their taxes are to be lowered, and not yours. He is no more a man of the people than any of the the other oligarchs, the only difference he is a better actor. Let’s give him the lifetime achievement award, but for God’s sake, don’t let him be the President of the United States. And you, the Electors were given the Constitutional authority to do exactly this.
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While the above was written as if it were directed to those Electors pledged to Donald Trump, this is to DK readers in a re-post. In checking out Wikipedia I found that the clear Constitutional right of Electors to vote their conscience even if contrary to their pledge was not in the main article on “Electoral College” I removed and replaced what had been there with the following. This could turn out to be an editing war which I will gladly pursue.
I suggest D.K readers take what I wrote seriously. Many of the Trump extremists must be upset that he is now showing his true stripe, which far from the hatred he had feigned towards the Clintons and President Obama. It is those Electors who had believed that his promises who are possibly ready to change their vote to HRC, since the policies could be very similar but we would have competent and seasoned persons in the cabinet. Your recs will make this come up in Google, and could just possible enhance the ongoing movement to make the Electoral college into a genuine vote, which is exactly what the writers of our Constitution had in mind.
Faithlessness — Wikipedia Article
A faithless elector is the term commonly used for one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than the candidate of the party that they pledged to vote for or does not vote for anyone. Twenty-nine states plus the District of Columbia have laws to punish faithless electors. In 1952, the constitutionality of state pledge laws was brought before the Supreme Court in Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952). The Court ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as removing electors who refuse to pledge.
As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a functionary of the state, not the federal government therefore, states have the right to govern this aspect of electors. The constitutionality of state laws punishing electors for actually casting a faithless vote contrary to their pledge, rather than refusing to pledge, has never explicitly been decided by the Supreme Court. Justice Robert Jackson wrote in his dissent in Ray v. Blair, "no one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated what is implicit in its text – that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices." More recent legal scholars believe "a state law that would thwart a federal elector’s discretion would clearly violate Article II and the Twelfth Amendment."[7]
While many states have laws punishing a faithless elector after the fact, some states such as Michigan, in defiance of the Constitutional intent, also specify a faithless elector's vote be voided.[52]