Leslie McAdoo Gordon 🇺🇸 Profile picture
Oct 3, 2020 24 tweets 5 min read Read on X
You may have seen recently that Nancy Pelosi was campaigning in Michigan. She wasn't just doing that to support Joe Biden. The Democrats are preparing for a scenario in which the House of Representatives has to choose the President under the Constitution. /1
That could happen if the electoral college votes are tied 269 to 269 or if neither candidate receives 270 votes, which could in theory be the case if one or more states cannot get its electors together by the deadline in order to cast their votes. /2
In that situation, the House of Representatives chooses the President. But, it does NOT do so by each MEMBER of the House voting. It does so by each STATE casting one vote. So, to win, a candidate needs to get 26 or more of the states to vote for him. /3
Presumably to cast its one vote, the delegation from each state confers with it's own members & decides by majority vote which candidate to vote for. (There are no rules for that anywhere to my knowledge.) /4
So, for example, Washington state has 10 Members of Congress. They decide together how to vote Washington's one vote. In Washington, 7 members are Democratic & 3 are Republicans, so the Washington delegation would presumably vote for Joe Biden. /5
Thus, it's important to know what the split is between Republicans & Democrats for each state to see how each state would likely vote in this scenario. In one state, Michigan, there is also an Independent who might make a difference (Justin Amash). /6
And remember that the election on November 3, 2020 can/will change this. The Congress that would select the President is NOT the one sitting now, but the one that will be sworn in in January 2021. /7
But to see where the issues are, we can look at the current makeup of the current Congress. Right now, 25 states have at least 60% members who are Republican, 20 states have at least 60% members who are Democratic, and 5 states where neither party has 60% or more. /8
These are the 25 Republican states: /9
These are the 20 Democratic states: /10
These are only 5 states where the split is very close. Neither party has 60% or more in this 5 states. Florida leans Republican, Pennsylvania is even, Arizona & California lean Democratic, Michigan is even if Amash goes right or leans left if Amash leans left. /11
If today's Congress was voting, Florida is majority Republican (by one member), so Trump would have 26 states & win the Presidency. Joe Biden would have to get all 5 of these close states to vote for him & 1 of the Republican states. In the current Congress, Joe wouldn't win./12
Notice that Michigan is 50/50 if Justin Amash votes with Republicans, but is majority Democrat if he votes with them. So, the Michigan delegation would have to figure out what to do to cast it's vote if they are tied at 50/50. /13
Pennslyvania is also 50/50, so it would have the same problem as Michigan, while Arizona and Colorado are like Florida, they slightly lean toward one party (Democratic) - by one vote, so presumably would vote for Biden, but it's close. /14
So that's the current situation if today's Congress was voting on the issue, but the next Congress is who will vote, so unless there's a big change in states that have 60% majorities, these 5 states are critical for deciding the Presidency if the House must vote on it in Jan. /15
And the percentage split makes it look a little misleading, because while it's 52 to 48 Republican in Florida & 57 to 43 Democratic in Colorado, for example, in actuality that difference is only ONE seat. In theory, five seats in the House could decide the Presidency. /16
It also makes the seat Amash is vacating extremely important. If the Republican wins that seat, Michigan is 50/50, if a Democrat wins that seat, Michigan is 57% Democratic. /17
This is why they are pushing in Michigan & Pennsylvania -the 2 states effectively 50/50 now & Florida (R by 1 seat). If they can win by 1 seat in those states & hold their 1 seat leads in Arizona & Colorado the Dems have 25 states. Joe would need 1 more to win in a House vote./18
In the event that the states were to split 25 to 25 in the voting, they would have to keep voting until they break the tie. A quorum of 2/3 of the states are needed; each state is represented if at least one of its delegation is present; a majority of the states voting wins. /19
One can only imagine the horror that a tie 25 to 25 vote would be. There'd be lobbying (and who knows what else) against the delegations that have the slimmest majorities. Maybe delegations would have different rules for deciding their state's 1 vote. It could get very ugly. /20
Of course, if one of the candidates get a majority in the Electoral College (270 votes), we won't have to worry about any of this. /21
Makes it important to vote, folks. Every election, every race. /22
Another thing you could take away from this is that if you have some money to donate for races or a race, it might be wise to give it candidates in those 5 states who need help to hold their red seat or flip it red. /23

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More from @McAdooGordon

Jul 24
There once was a General named Clapper,
By trade a clandestine wiretapper,
But he joined the Steele Hoax,
Now his rep is a joke,
And his life is going down the crapper.
There once was a G-man named Comey,
Who didn’t see Steele was a phony,
He said: “Hilary is Ok!,
It’s the Donald who must pay!”
Cause he couldn’t tell shit from baloney.
There once was a lawyer named Page,
Who was lovely but not very sage,
Her texts to her man,
Only helped get him canned,
As they wallowed in impotent rage.
Read 16 tweets
Jul 20
Boiled down:

Hoaxers: “Trump, you can’t be POTUS even tho you just somehow won the election. No, no, no.”

DJT: “Hahahaha. Watch me. Losers!”

Hoaxers:
Hoaxers then proceed to do a whole bunch of things to try to make actual reality -in which DJT is POTUS- match up to their “reality” in which he can’t be.

That’s was IMPOSSIBLE to achieve in Fall & Winter 2016-2017.

But they tried anyway.

It’s a non-rational conspiracy.
Non-rational conspiracy is rare. It’s usually confined to a very small number of people because it’s based on actual mental illness & a few other factors, like coercion &/or psychological pressure. Think Manson Family.

But it can be based on group psychoses or shared psychological stress rather than outright mental illness. Large suicide pacts are an extreme example, like the Jim Jones incident. John Brown’s raid could be seen in this light too. And perhaps the Gunpowder Plot in Britain.
Read 6 tweets
Jul 16
Supreme Court picks - age analysis

I thought I'd take a look & see what I think about whether DJT in his current term and/or JD Vance (assuming he takes it next) or whoever might next be POTUS after DJT will have many SCOTUS picks.

Here's how it shapes up - just based on age.
The "average" age that a Justice retires (either from a voluntary retirement or a death) is about 78/79, but that's based on historical data and the Justices in modern times retire at later ages for a number of reasons.

So, I looked at the actual last ten Justices to retire and/or die (which yielded two slightly different groups as 2 have retired but not yet died so there's no # for their death age to use.)
If you average the ages of the last 10 retirement ages, you get 82.3 years of age, & if you average the last 10 death ages (many of which are after retirement), you get 87.9 years of age. So, taking that range, how many years before the current Justices likely leave the Court, one way or the other?
Read 7 tweets
Jul 16
Excellent reporting by @ProfMJCleveland about how the DC federal judges are not impartial when it comes to DJT/his administration, much less giving them the deference due the duly elected co-equal branch of govt - & admitted to CJ Roberts at the judicial conference this Spring.👇🏻
I remain of the view that ALL judges who were in the DC federal courthouse on J6 were in fact affected by that event & it is impossible for them to be impartial in such cases as they are required to be by law. This was outrageously evident when a bunch attended DJT’s arraignment.
I would extend that to any judge in that courthouse who handled a J6 case. They are hopelessly tainted by those cases.

They should all recuse themselves or Congress should legislate that any judge in those 2 groups is barred from handling any case involving the administration.
Read 4 tweets
Jul 8
So you understand:

1. No tax money goes to Planned Parenthood for abortions directly. That has been prohibited by law for many years.

2. Congress does not “fund” Planned Parenthood directly for the other services it provides either.

3. Rather, Planned Parenthood receives Medicaid payments for non-abortion services rendered to people who are on Medicaid, just like other medical care providers.

4. Planned Parenthood in addition to abortions provides the following services:

birth control, STD testing and treatment, pregnancy testing and options counseling, emergency contraception, “gender-affirming” care, Pap tests, breast exams, and vaccinations.

5. The “funding” cut off by the OBBB are these payments thru Medicaid.

So the issue in the litigation is going to be whether Congress can constitutionally cut Planned Parenthood out of the Medicaid Program in the way that the OBBB does it.
The same kind of problem would arise if a different Congress passed a law saying religious medical providers who are in the Medicaid program could not receive Medicaid payments for medical services they provide because they also provide religious instruction or counseling to their patients.
Medicaid is an entitlement program created by the Congress. The payments it makes are not like grants or other forms of federal funding, which the Congress controls directly.

When Congress spends money on something that is available to the public generally as an entitlement, you run into the questions of whether it can then cut some people out, which can turn on the reason for the cut, because the Constitution prevents the Congress from making laws that violate certain rights, including religion and viewpoint.

So there’s a genuine issue in this Planned Parenthood case. But it requires a lot more analysis than the Mass. district judge has given it.
Read 4 tweets
Jun 19
DHS needs to circulate a memo to all state governments to make all their state officials & judges aware that ICE officers DO NOT need a “judicial” warrant to arrest immigrants in a public place. An immigration warrant issued by ICE is all that is required under federal law.
If state officials interfere with arrests based on those warrants, they are unlawfully interfering with federally agents under 18 USC 111. If they do so with “physical contact” with the agent, it’s a felony.

(These non-judicial warrants don’t permit entry into a home.)
So, for example, in the Brad Lander situation, he’s wrong that the agents have to show a judicial warrant to make the arrest; & holding on to the arrestee to prevent the agents from making it is a federal offense, at least a misdemeanor.
Read 13 tweets

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