This is a story playing out all over the country, but since Trump won Louisiana there are eight electors and the same number of alternates who are pledged to vote for Donald Trump for president when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19 – and right now they’re being absolutely hammered with e-mails, Facebook messages and even phone calls from people who’ve been ginned up to “lobby” them not to vote for The Donald.

Here was Garrett Monti, a Trump elector from Luling, on Saturday morning about 24 hours after the campaign began…

Monti said he’s been getting an e-mail about every minute since then, from Clinton supporters almost uniformly out of state.

He’s not alone. Several of Louisiana’s other electors have had their e-mails, social media feeds and even phone lines hammered by “polite” people making soft demands that they change their vote and become faithless electors.

There is even a website – a bad one – for the people attempting this half-assed coup d’etat: faithlessnow.com. At that site the contact information of Republican electors was published, which led to the campaign of harassing them.

That’s changed, because – shockingly – all it did was irritate these people, who are after all simply private citizens volunteering to participate in the political process…

An earlier version of this page asked you to contact Republican Electors directly. After consulting with the Democratic Electors in the #HamiltonElectors movement, it was decided it is better for citizens to NOT contact the Electors directly. Why you ask? Electors are not like Congressmen or Senators. For the most part, they are ordinary citizens like us. They may hold state or local level political positions or just be citizens who are active in their political party. Most of them have regular jobs and live an ordinary life like you and I. They do not have the office staff that a Senator or Congressman might have. This means when we call them or email them, they have to take all those calls and wade through all those emails personally. What would you do if you were getting a hundred phone calls a day from strangers? You would turn the phone off, stop checking your emails, and drop out. If that happens, it makes it far more difficult for their fellow Electors, who might be able to convince them to drop Trump, to contact them. There are Democratic Electors, and hopefully soon Republican Electors, working behind the scenes to make this happen and us blowing up the phones of Republican Electors will make it more difficult for contact to be made. So I am begging you, PLEASE DO —NOT— contact the Electors directly. This is why I took down the list of Electors from this website. Based on the emails I have been receiving, I believe we have got their attention. Now it is time to dial it back and promote media exposure and leave the contacting to the smaller group of people who may be able to convince them.

But elsewhere in the left-wing blogosphere the campaign continues unabated.

Here was one item which got this debacle rolling – a piece at the Huffington Post by someone named Douglas Anthony Cooper which suggested a “lobbying” effort…

These so-called “faithless electors” are vanishingly rare, which is as it should be — this is a unique circumstance, which requires emergency measures. Ignore the epithet: these electors would not be remotely faithless; this act would be faithful to the letter and intent of the Constitution. It would be patriotic.

A crucial fact here is that votes in the Electoral College are cast anonymously. An elector need not reveal that he or she is the one who chose to support another candidate. This shields an individual from retribution.

Why should Democrats fight for this? Because any conceivable choice on the part of the Electoral College and the House, however extreme, would be preferable to Trump.

This would not be an abuse of the Constitution. Quite the opposite, as I say: it would be the proper use of the Constitution to prevent the abuse of a general election. The Founding Fathers would have approved. More: they would have been distressed to see this not happen, given the circumstances. They chose to found a republic that was not a direct democracy, and this is why: a simple binding majority vote provides no check upon the election of a tyrant. (This election was an exception, ironically: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, and direct democracy would have spared the world the terrifying promise of a Trump presidency.)

If you honor the Founding Fathers — and the Constitution — then you will insist upon employing the emergency measures coded into the very definition of the republic.

So, how do you accomplish this? The process is simple: write to electors in states that went red, and beg them to vote their conscience. The complete list of relevant electors can be found here, with contact information: “Flip the 37.”

I’m urging everyone to do this: not simply Democrats, but responsible Republicans. Modern history has witnessed few events more admirable than bipartisan efforts to thwart racist demagoguery: most recently in France, when decent people on the left and the right combined — despite their mutual loathing — to prevent the election of Marine Le Pen.

So, embrace decency. It’s not just a civic duty; it’s a moral duty. It is a categorical imperative.

Once you have written letters, the next step is to agitate loudly for just this solution. The nation must see rallies, marches, blogs and editorials. Let these electors know that you’re on their side, that you will support them in what would be unquestionably a courageous act. An act of heroism. Even though votes are cast anonymously, electors will likely be threatened and slandered as a group. But patriots have withstood worse.

Trump supporters will scream; there will likely be violence, and perhaps riots. But these people did not write the Constitution; they do not get to rewrite it; and they are bound by it. It will not be civil war. Genuine Trump supporters are a minority within a minority; they will be opposed by genuine Republicans, as well as Libertarians, Democrats, and Greens. They will lose.

Occupy the Constitution. The alternative is unthinkable.

This is completely unacceptable and batshit crazy, and naturally it has zero chance of working. All it amounts to is a bit more civil version of the temper tantrums being thrown by a bunch of paid rioters in the streets of Democrat-run cities.

Republicans didn’t act this way when Barack Obama, a red-diaper baby who said before he took office that he would side with Muslims in the event of an all-out civilizational conflict with the West, was elected in 2008. And no, Donald Trump is not a worse threat to the republic than Barack Obama.

They’re talking about making Harold Hamm the Secretary of Energy in a Trump administration.

Harold Hamm is the CEO of Continental Resources. He’s the guy who cracked open the Bakken Shale and launched America’s domestic energy boom.

Harold Hamm as Energy Secretary likely means a full-on American investment in an oil and gas boom, making this country energy independent to a large extent and even cracking open the export market, particularly for natural gas. That means drilling and fracking more or less coast to coast.

Meanwhile, Louisiana’s governor and his private cabal of plaintiff attorneys are busy trying to sue every oil company in America on legal theories which have already been dismissed in court. Which means they’ll be drilling and fracking more or less coast to coast – except here, where they should be doing it first. Edwards’ approval rating is above 50 now – most of the opinion polls done in October had him hovering around 55 percent, which is a good 20 points below where Bobby Jindal was at this point in his governorship – but it won’t stay that way when the oil and gas industry is decamping for locales across the country where the getting is good. Edwards clobbered David Vitter in last year’s gubernatorial runoff in southwest Louisiana, the heart of oil and gas country, and that’s where his support is going to melt away the fastest. It’s possible the next Supreme Court justice could have Louisiana connections… A federal appellate judge with deep Louisiana roots is on President-elect Donald Trump’s short list for a Supreme Court nomination. University of Louisiana at Monroe and Tulane University graduate William H. Pryor was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2004 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Alabama. Trump first announced Pryor as one of 11 judges on his list last spring as we was locking up the Republican nomination. Pryor is the brother-in-law of Monroe hotel developer James Moore Jr., who is also a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors. Moore played host to Pryor during last week’s LSU-Alabama game in Baton Rouge. Moore said Pryor is a huge Alabama fan, but one of he and wife Kris’ daughters graduated from LSU last spring. Kris and Moore’s wife Lynn are sisters who grew up in West Monroe. Pryor, 54, is a Birmingham native, but came to ULM on a band scholarship. “It’s a great reflection on ULM to have a graduate considered for such a high honor,” ULM President Nick Bruno said. “We’re all pretty excited,” Moore said of his family. “His attitude is that if he’s called to serve by (Trump) it will be an honor. It’s really an honor just to be mentioned on the short list.” Along these lines, something that we’ll be following pretty closely is the federal appointments in Louisiana as the Trump administration gets going. Among those positions, there will be U.S. Attorneys appointed in New Orleans (the Eastern District of Louisiana), Baton Rouge (the Middle District) and Shreveport (the Western District), federal marshalls, and as many as 10 federal judges for district courts – not to mention there is a judgeship available for the 5th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals based in New Orleans; Louisiana Supreme Court justice Greg Guidry is apparently on the list for that one. The U.S. Attorney positions could be a big deal. After all, when Jim Letten was the U.S. Attorney in New Orleans he was an extremely consequential figure, for good and bad. Letten did a lot of good work attacking political corruption in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, cleaning out some of the worst scumbags in Louisiana politics like Bill Jefferson and Aaron Broussard and paving the way for slight improvements. Letten also made a complete ass of himself in the James O’Keefe case, prosecuting the conservative filmmaker for what was essentially a harmless prank to ridicule Mary Landrieu for not taking constituent calls after her Obamacare vote. But there is a great deal of work left to do in the New Orleans area where political corruption is concerned, as without a firm hand in the U.S. Attorney’s office since Letten’s departure they’re back to robbing the public blind – and not just in Orleans. We’re told Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, who is also a lawyer of solid repute, is being considered for the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District. That would make for a major win for Louisiana – Skrmetta has been around Louisiana politics for a good while, has ties throughout the law enforcement community in the region and has the requisite understanding for the job. We’d love to see him get it. For Today’s Last Thing, we have animal cruelty. OK, not really.



