Interesting Links for 08-01-2021

[andrewducker]

Covid in Scotland: 'Well over half' of care home residents vaccinated

(tags:vaccination Scotland )

UK now has more new Covid cases per capita than any other country in the world

(tags:pandemic UK Doom viaSwampers )

Two more life-saving Covid drugs discovered

(tags:Pandemic GoodNews medicine )

"They're shooting at us. They're supposed to shoot BLM, but they're shooting the patriots."

(tags:USA politics racism police violence )

Trump pressured Pence to engineer a coup, then put the VP in danger

(tags:politics USA republicans )

New edition of Warhammer to be set in Washington DC

(tags:Warhammer politics USA funny satire )

Republicans Control Whether Trump Stays Or Goes

(tags:USA politics )

The Capitol Police failure to stop a Trump mob, explained

(tags:police politics USA epicfail )

Comments

[calimac]

I think the 538 writer is correct that Trump's removal isn't going to happen, but I must raise objections to this statement:

"For starters, Section 4 seems designed to deal with a president being seriously injured or mentally incapacitated — it’s not written like a tool that allows officials to replace someone whose decisions people disagree with, as is the case with Trump."

No, profound disagreement with Trump's decisions has existed all along. What's motivating this renewed call for his removal is a conviction that he is seriously mentally incapacitated, and his statements on Wednesday provide ample evidence of that.

[andrewducker]

I missed that. What did he say?

[calimac]

You missed that? That was kind of the heart of the story. You missed him inciting the riot in the first place, a clear case of sedition? You missed the video message his advisors made him do to ask the rioters to leave, which he turned by ad libbing into a further airing of his fanciful grievances, and which caused Facebook to ban him? Mental illness would be a polite way of describing this behavior.

[andrewducker]

I knew about the sedition, but that's not a sign of mental illness. I wasn't aware that he'd said anything that was more of a sign of mental illness than his previous rambling speeches.

[calimac]

Well, yeah. That's been evident all along.

But the constitutional impact of the latest shenanigans is that it shows graphically what he can't be trusted not to do - and that's why officials are seriously considering invoking Section 4. Two weeks is too long to live with this.

[calimac]

nb note "legal advice" thread in the next day's link roundup, which refers to "the potential for an invocation of the 25th amendment, on the basis that you are CRAZY" - it's a basic and accepted concept that he is.