Not quite what you think–
A car body style produced from 1908 to 1939 with an external or open-topped driver’s position and an enclosed compartment for passengers.
Take that you filthy Prole.
But Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio doesn’t know either-
Was Donald Trump the target of a coup? No
By Louis Jacobson, Politifact
Monday, April 29th, 2019
“We define a coup d’état as the sudden and irregular (i.e., illegal or extra-legal) removal, or displacement, of the executive authority of an independent government,” wrote the Coup D’etat Project at the University of Illinois’ Cline Center for Democracy in 2013.
Michael Klarman, a Harvard Law School professor, told PolitiFact that the Russia investigation “is not a coup, because the FBI had very good reasons for commencing an investigation of Trump. It beggars belief that anyone in the FBI had the intention of subverting a duly elected president.”
Anthony Clark Arend, a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University, agreed.
“By using the term ‘coup,’ the president is suggesting that Mueller, and by extension his own Justice Department, are acting outside the law,” Arend said. Yet Mueller “was appointed and supervised by Rod Rosenstein, the president’s chosen deputy attorney general.”
Of the 12 types of coups recognized by the Cline Center, nine do not seem to have anything to do with what Trump is talking about, including military coups, rebel coups, popular revolts, dissident actions, palace coups, foreign coups, internationally mediated transitions, forced resignations, and self-coups, in which the leader strong-arms other branches of government to entrench power.
Two other types cited by the center are defined by how far they got — attempted coups (which try and fail) and coup conspiracies (which never get to the stage of being carried out). Any supposed coup against Trump would have been a coup attempt, since he’s still in office. But that doesn’t mean there actually was a coup attempt.
“Inasmuch as the Russia investigation began before Trump was elected, and at a time when it was universally assumed that Hillary Clinton would be elected, it cannot have been an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government,” said Richard Bulliet, a Columbia University historian. “It was an attempt by duly established arms of the state to prevent seizure of the government by a witting or unwitting Russian agent.”
The lead author of the Cline Center report, University of Illinois political scientist Peter F. Nardulli, agreed that Trump’s definition wouldn’t fit.
“The vast proportion of extralegal overthrows of the government involve violence,” Nardulli said. “What happened with Trump was simply the unfolding of a normal governmental procedure in accord with the rule of law. It was a totally different genre from a coup.”
Of the Cline Center’s categories, Trump would presumably be referring to a “counter coup,” which is defined as involving “the elimination of a usurper by members of the prior regime within a month of the initial coup.”
But in Trump’s case, he didn’t take office through a coup (he was duly elected by the Electoral College) and the supposed counter-coup actually began before he actually won the presidency. So calling it a counter coup is problematic, too.
“I cannot see in any way shape or form how this would be a coup in any reasonable sense of the word,” said Richard Nephew, adjunct professor and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “We have a long, historical legacy of holding to account our senior officials and representatives for their conduct.”
You want a Coup? I’ll give you a Coup, albeit a failed U.S. sponsored one.
Venezuela’s opposition put together a serious plan. For now, it appears to have failed.
By Karen DeYoung, Josh Dawsey, and Paul Sonne, Washington Post
May 1, 2019
For weeks, the Venezuelan opposition had been working on a comprehensive blueprint to finally force President Nicolás Maduro from office. Several of his top military and civilian aides were said to have been persuaded to switch sides, while others would be allowed to leave the country. There was a strong suggestion that Maduro himself might peacefully fly to Havana.
“They produced a pretty full plan,” a U.S. official said of the opposition. Implementation was tentatively set for Wednesday, although no date had been finalized.
On Monday, however, the plan started to fall apart.
Maduro, it seemed, had gotten wind of it, and opposition leader Juan Guaidó responded by rushing ahead. At dawn Tuesday, after alerting the U.S. State Department, Guaidó released a video saying that significant Venezuela military units were with him and that the moment had come to rise up against Maduro.
But after a day of bloody protests, the government remained intact. The Trump administration publicly blamed Russia and Cuba — Maduro’s top backers — for keeping him in place and discouraging expected high-level defections.
…
U.S. officials said the United States did not directly participate in the opposition’s secret negotiations with Maduro officials. “We were aware of the efforts, beginning about two months ago,” a second senior administration official said. “There were times when it seemed serious, and other times not so serious.”But “the last few weeks, it was clear that . . . they were reaching agreement” with Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, along with the head of the Maduro-appointed Supreme Court and the commander of his presidential guard, to switch sides, this official said.
While not officially recognizing Guaidó, Padrino and the others were said to be ready to sign documents declaring their loyalty to the Venezuelan constitution, under which the opposition-led National Assembly had declared Maduro’s reelection last year invalid and, on Jan. 23, named Guaidó interim president. The United States and more than 50 other countries, primarily in Latin America and Europe, have also recognized him.
In exchange, the Venezuelan officials would keep their jobs and be integrated into the new administration. For those who might want to leave the country, the United States had given indirect assurances they would not be barred from doing so, and might even be allowed access to any assets stashed overseas.
Over the past two weeks, administration officials said, they had received indications that even Maduro himself might be prepared to fly to Cuba.
On Monday, however, the opposition and the administration received word that Maduro was aware of the plan. Early Tuesday, Guaidó appeared at a military base in eastern Caracas, along with a small band of armed men in military uniforms, to announce that “Operation Liberty” had begun.
“People of Venezuela,” he said, “we will go to the street with the armed forces to continue taking the streets until we consolidate the end of [Maduro’s] usurpation, which is already irreversible.”
At about 6 a.m., Bolton called Trump and his own top aides to say the announcement had come.
At midmorning, however, Padrino appeared on live television, wearing combat fatigues and body armor, surrounded by other military officers under a large portrait of Maduro. He declared the uprising an attempted coup and denounced protesters gathered in the streets. Reports of defections and government collapse, he said, were “fake news.”
The administration, seeking to undermine Maduro’s trust in those around him, decided to out Padrino; Maikel Morena, the chief justice of the Supreme Court; and presidential guard commander Ivan Rafael Hernandez Dala by name, saying they had agreed to sign documents supporting the constitution.
When Maduro failed to appear throughout the day, Pompeo eventually declared that the Venezuelan leader “had his plane ready” but had been dissuaded from leaving by Russia.
The senior administration official noted that “when times get tough” for Maduro, including a number of failed coup attempts in the past, “he has always had a plane ready.” But, the official said, “the information we had was that he was very seriously contemplating” a departure on Tuesday morning.
“Then the Russians said don’t leave,” said the official, who characterized Russia’s intervention as “advice,” perhaps based on a reading of how the day would unfold.
Besides, Brown Commies bent on Word Domination which is our gig.
Do we still hate Commies? What about Nazis?
My whole life is an Indiana Jones lie!