Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

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> House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to members on Friday that she's spoken to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley about preventing President Trump from accessing the nuclear codes.

If Miley does it, wouldn’t it be a military coup, and isn’t Nancy Pelosi encouraging it? All the existing US law both statute and Constitutional is that the president is Commander in Chief of the US military and has sole authority to launch nukes.

Congress can impeach, but I am not sure I am happy with a precedent of political leaders going to the military and telling them to abrogate the constitutional authority that their political opponent has.

There are already other Constituional remedies such as impeachment or the 25th Amendment to deal with a rogue President. Telling the military to unilaterally assume authority in a matter is not one of them.

The military should Never be brought into any political dispute. That path only escalates and leads to ruin.

Where, in the constitution, is the President authorized to wage war without the consent of Congress?

It would not be a coup because it doesn't aim to oust the president. At worst the generals in question would be guilty of disobeying orders, and that's assuming the order was legal in the first place.

Usurping one of the three co-equal branches of government would qualify as a coup, we are not a kingdom or monarchy beholden to the executive.

You're right about that, but this isn't an example of usurpation since no one would be asserting the power to launch nuclear weapons.

The attempt by the President's supporters to overthrow Congress is a far better example.

To my mind, this effort by Pelosi (if true) is more dangerous than anything Trump said this week.

Really? Advocating the violent overthrow of Congress and the rule of law by a sitting president is less worrisome than trying to prevent that same sitting president from murdering tens of millions of innocent people in your name?

> trying to prevent that same sitting president from murdering tens of millions of innocent people in your

Any evidence at all that this was a thing?

So you would rather gamble human civilization on the chance that it might not be true, with a psychopath that has shown he is willing to do anything to stay in office?

> willing to do anything to stay in office

So far he has tweeted, initiated legal actions and abided by the rulings.

Where is your evidence that he will "do anything to stay in office"?

That is a reference to a nuclear first strike.

Odd. I watched Trump's speech and I watched and heard him tell protestors to literally go home and not engage in violence, and then it was reported Trump activated the DC national guard to defend the capital. We must live in different universes.

Yes. I live in the universe where it was actually Pence who approve sending in the Guard.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/national-guar...

Give me the quote that justifies your statement that Trump was "Advocating the violent overthrow of Congress and the rule of law"

Another example (same speech):

> And after this, we're going to walk down and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down--

> We're going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we're going to walk down to the Capitol--

> And we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

> Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.

> We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. Lawfully slated.

How is that an example of violent overthrow? Stating that Congress should act in a particular way is advocating violent overthrow?

Another example (same speech):

> And I would love to have if those tens of thousands of people would be allowed the military, the Secret Service and we want to thank you and the police and law enforcement great you're doing a great job, but I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them, please?

That's it? That is your evidence that Trump was going to initiate a military overthrow of the government?

I do think was careless and even erroneous in many of his assertions but that is miles away from advocating for the violent overthrow of the government.

For example:

> We will never give up; we will never concede. We will stop the steal. We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol…We’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones…the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.

So advocating for Senators and representatives to vote in a particular way is a problem?

The sitting president advocating that Congress ignore the law is problematic, yes.

The certification by Congress is ceremonial, it's a counting of the results provided by the states, not an evaluation of those results.

I don't believe that is correct. Congress has the power to reject electors and has done so on several occasions.

There are established procedures for this process: https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/explaining-how-congress-...

Okay fine, but guess what a Democratic house is going to do with objections when there aren't wild irregularities, they are going to reject the objections. If the chambers are split, it becomes ceremonial.

You'd almost think the law they wrote was intended to make it ceremonial, while reserving the capability to do something in the face of a real problem.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/politics/pelosi-letter-on-nuc...

All it says in the letter is that she discussed the process with someone at the Pentagon.

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