34 Comments
User's avatar
GryffenStrong's avatar

Hi, hope you had a great time! Does invoking that act mean he has control of everything and cannot be removed legally? Hello from Scotland!

Expand full comment
✊Rebel Girl's avatar

Hello back! No, invoking the Insurrection Act would not give him control of everything, nor would it make him immune from legal removal. The big question here is: would this Republican-led Congress and/or right wing supermajority on the Supreme Court act when necessary?

The President remains subject to the U.S. Constitution, federal laws, judicial review, and the established processes for removal from office. Those established processes are: impeachment and removal by Congress, OR the invocation of provisions of the 25th Amendment regarding a President’s inability to carry out his duties. Even when the Insurrection Act IS invoked, the Constitution and its protections for civil liberties do not disappear.

Invoking the Insurrection Act is NOT a declaration of martial law, which typically involves the military taking over civilian government functions. But thank goodness under current law, the president has no authority to unilaterally declare martial law.

Expand full comment
GryffenStrong's avatar

Hi and thank you!

Do you really think he cares about that though?

Total newbie and no legal experience at all but he's setting himself up as dictator for life (hopefully gerbil years)

Expand full comment
✊Rebel Girl's avatar

Gerbil years, lol! 🤞🤞🤞

Expand full comment
✊Rebel Girl's avatar

Nope, he doesn’t care! And he has too many enablers right now. In fact, this was all written for him and his minions in Project 2025!!

If these Republicans in Congress do not grow a spine, and these lower court rulings (which are holding Trump in check) continue to be reversed, we’re screwed.

Expand full comment
Larry D. Lowry's avatar

That's exactly what he's trying for!

Expand full comment
Larry D. Lowry's avatar

Yes. But the House and Senate are Republican controlled. The Supreme Court has proven it's loyalty to Trump. If violence happens on our side, he can invoke the Insurrection Act.

Expand full comment
Michael Reid's avatar

Yes

Expand full comment
Upstart Raven's avatar

Hope to visit soon! I have some relatives there…thinking of possible escape routes

Expand full comment
GryffenStrong's avatar

Hope you have an amazing time with us in our beautiful country - feel free to pop me a message if your stuck on anything and I'll send you to who can help x

Expand full comment
Lois Mitchell's avatar

Hi, I was just reading replies. My Grandmother was from Scotland. I wish that I could get away from this. Every day it's something else. Is it hard to immigrate to Scotland. I am retired and have a dog and cat.

Expand full comment
Upstart Raven's avatar

No. It’s more complicated and less extreme than that but very scary nonetheless

Expand full comment
✊Rebel Girl's avatar

Hello back! No, invoking the Insurrection Act would not give him control of everything, nor would it make him immune from legal removal. The big question here is: would this Republican-led Congress and/or right wing supermajority on the Supreme Court act when necessary?

The President remains subject to the U.S. Constitution, federal laws, judicial review, and the established processes for removal from office. Those established processes are: impeachment and removal by Congress, OR the invocation of provisions of the 25th Amendment. Even when the Insurrection Act IS invoked, the Constitution and its protections for civil liberties do not disappear.

Invoking the Insurrection Act is NOT a declaration of martial law, which typically involves the military taking over civilian government functions. But thank goodness under current law, the president has no authority to unilaterally declare martial law.

Expand full comment
Larry D. Lowry's avatar

It would mean he could use the military against the American people. This could stop elections or any real form of government services. He could then declare Martial Law. Then, it would probably be over for us.

Expand full comment
✊Rebel Girl's avatar

The President CANNOT cancel an election under either circumstance. I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t sure so I checked, lol.

FROM GOOGLE:

The President of the United States cannot cancel federal elections under the Insurrection Act, martial law, or any other emergency power. The Constitution and federal law are explicitly designed to prevent the President from interfering with the election process to remain in power.

Insurrection Act and Elections:

The Insurrection Act allows the President to deploy U.S. military troops domestically to assist civilian law enforcement in suppressing an insurrection or enforcing federal laws.

It does not grant the President the authority to seize control of civilian government functions, such as administering elections, or to suspend the Constitution.

Invoking the Act has no legal mechanism for altering the date or process of a federal election.

Martial Law and Elections:

Under current law, the President has no unilateral authority to declare martial law nationwide.

Even if martial law were declared (which typically only occurs in a situation where the civil courts are no longer functioning), it would not legally allow the President to cancel elections.

Elections are run by the individual states, and the dates for federal elections are set by federal statute enacted by Congress in 1845.

The Constitution mandates that the President's term ends on January 20th at noon, regardless of whether an election has occurred, ensuring a peaceful transfer of power.

Authority to Postpone Elections:

Only Congress has the authority to change the date of a federal election, and any such change would require a bill to pass both the House and the Senate and be signed into law.

Historically, federal elections have never been postponed or canceled, even during major crises such as the Civil War, two World Wars, or pandemics.

The framework of U.S. law and the Constitution intentionally distributes power and sets fixed terms for officeholders to ensure elections proceed as scheduled and to prevent any single person from undermining the democratic process.

Expand full comment
Robert  Taylor's avatar

Doubtful. Been awhile since his last. He suffers from ID. He’s been lobbying Big Pharma heavily

Expand full comment
Ballard Graham's avatar

Let us not forget that the felon unleashed a violent insurrection on J6, and was never held accountable for doing so! He sees the Dems as a weak adversary that he can just vanquish with little effort through his incessant lies! I truly hope that the Dems stand their ground on this government shutdown until the felon and his regime guarantee the subsidies for the ACA! Oh! And put it in writing!

Expand full comment
Annie Hoy's avatar

Great info today. How can you continue to be so calm! I'm a retired journalist and I so appreciate the Break Down. I guess we just have to take this one day at a time. And brush up on our personal tools of being able to discern between truth, fact, fiction and bullshit. Hats off!

Expand full comment
✊Rebel Girl's avatar

Amen!

Expand full comment
Ballard Graham's avatar

The question should be “when will the felon invoke the Insurrection Act not will Trump invoke the Insurrection Act”! He will find an absurd reason to do so and by the time the courts react, he will have done what he wanted to do by invoking it! Mark my words!

Expand full comment
Steve's avatar

Yes! The moral of the story is win.

Once Democratic’s win Congress in an enormous victory, we can impeach Trump, and prosecute for real crimes. Not prostitute for your own crimes.

In order to do this Democrats must just keep it clean. Know who we are. We are liberal social Democrats, who work for change, we’re also pragmatic in terms of reality. I hope we’ve all learned that the very clear message is you have to win. Because the opposition is the GOP. And when that’s the case, everyone has to put their own issues aside to keep that group isolated as much as possible.

I’m afraid that didn’t happen in 2000 and it didn’t happen in 2016. In both cases they split the Democratic Party and we elected the two worst candidates in history. So what caused those splits?

If I was the GOP, I would look for a candidate on the far left that would also help me and my candidates.

In 2016, the GOP and the Russians chose Bernie Sanders to do that. The Russians hacked the Democratic headquarters to leak out disinformation about Hillary and the Democrats, insinuating. they were crooks.

Bernie didn’t dispute that. He used it. Trump called Hillary, “ Crooked Hillary,” and he had crowds chanting “ lock her up”

She still beat all of them, the GOP Trump, the Russians, the misogynist and the Bernie Bros, who 12% of voted for Trump and another 12% didn’t vote at all .

The moral of the story is that if we didn’t split the Democratic Party, there wouldn’t not be a republican president in this century.

The Democrats put Trump in office. The far left helped enormously . Someone should mention that to them. But I’ll tell you in advance, they have been programmed to not listen. Unless you’re spewing all the infective tic toc jargon, you get tuned out. They’re very emotional as we were when we were young.

History would tell us that the far left can become unhinged when they are in power

We need a voice on the far left .But we don’t want to be dictated to. The far left and the far right become dictators. And it’s us, the grownup in the middle, that hold the world together.

We don’t want to split the atom .

Expand full comment
DBA's avatar
Nov 6Edited

There hasn’t been anything close to J6 when fatdons goons attacked their own country!

Expand full comment
Barbara Ehrlich's avatar

Bovino is a freak! Where the hell did Trump find this guy?

Expand full comment
Diane's avatar

Thank you for breaking it down 👌🏻

Expand full comment
Larry D. Lowry's avatar

He can't until we get violent! Their are judges holding him back.

Expand full comment
Myrtle Glindy's avatar

Whoa

Expand full comment
LeslieN's avatar

Isn't that already being done with the thugs & goons pardoned by Traitor? Being paid by the head after being given the ridiculous directive by Stephen Miller to arrest 3k people a day or whatever that creep comes up with?

Expand full comment
Barbara King's avatar

Oh how I love The Breakdown!

Expand full comment
Stephanie's avatar

Great report, as usual. Thank you,Allison.

Expand full comment
✊Rebel Girl's avatar

Hello back! No, invoking the Insurrection Act would not give him control of everything, nor would it make him immune from legal removal. The big question here is: would this Republican led Congress and/or right wing supermajority on the Supreme Court act when necessary?

The President remains subject to the U.S. Constitution, federal laws, judicial review, and the established processes for removal from office. Those established processes are: impeachment and removal by Congress, OR the invocation of specific provisions of the 25th Amendment pertaining to the President being “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. Even when the Insurrection Act IS invoked, the Constitution and its protections for civil liberties do not disappear.

Invoking the Insurrection Act is NOT a declaration of martial law, which typically involves the military taking over civilian government functions. But thank goodness under current law, the president has no authority to unilaterally declare martial law.

Expand full comment