US Elections 2020

[MrFanti]

But the Atlantic article that I linked concerns the way in which some Conservative and more extreme White Americans view Black Americans, rather than what Black Amercans think of themseves. I understand the GOP has had a solid 10% of the Black votee in recent years and I think we can agree that yes, it is wrong to lump all Black Americans together. But I do wonder if even that 10% truly agrees that the 45th President has done more for Black Americans than any President since Lincoln. I assume he has heard of Lyndon B. Johnson, but with this guy, you can't be sure.

You would be quite surprised at what that 10% believes......
And to say 90% vs 10% isn't an accurate representation either as there are also a number of Black Americans who ride both sides of the fence (so to speak) depending on subject.

[Stavros]

You would be quite surprised at what that 10% believes......
And to say 90% vs 10% isn't an accurate representation either as there are also a number of Black Americans who ride both sides of the fence (so to speak) depending on subject.


You mean, like Vernon Robinson?

"Robinson holds a number of views which many would consider outrageous – “The UN is possibly the greatest abuser of children on the planet”; the World Health Organization “subscribes to a far-left ideology”; Sweden has a high suicide rate because “everything is free except the citizens”; the abortion rate in the US is a “hidden holocaust” of “black babies”; too many progressive-leaning sportspeople these days are “Lenin’s useful idiots,” transgender-inclusive policies will stop black girls from getting track scholarships to college; people born to illegal immigrants in the US shouldn’t get citizenship; people are being fired from their jobs in Dallas because they don’t speak Spanish; “The Democrats want open borders because they need new voters” – but it’s worth noting that most are in line with what the president has said himself. Indeed, Robinson was doing shock tactic conservatism long before Trump: in 2006, one of his campaign ads for Congress attacked feminism, same-sex marriage and “aliens” who “come across our unguarded Mexican border by the millions”. In the same cycle, he made waves by climbing that if his opponent had his way, “America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal immigrants and homosexuals”. Little wonder he has embraced Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” with unbridled enthusiasm."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/vernon-robinson-super-pac-trump-black-americans-reelect-president-2020-election-b420765.html

[broncofan]

Trump did get a bit of a post convention bump in his numbers. All polls have some margin for error and it's possible there is systematic error. But if you give Trump every state that is within two percentage points of current polling averages (up or down), he still loses the electoral college right now.

Of the states that are close, we have Texas, which is historically a red state and in which Trump is up in polling by less than a percentage point. I have to assume Trump probably carries Texas but if he lost it, I can't imagine he'd win the election. There's Florida, which always seems to disappoint the Democrats, where Trump is down by 2.8% points. He is up by close to a percentage point in Ohio, and I assume maybe he really will win Ohio given that the margin of victory was close to 500,000 votes in 2016.

But it bears repeating that he could win all of these states, by no means a certainty and still lose. That would happen if he loses Michigan, where he's down 7.4%, Wisconsin, where he's down 7.1%, Minnesota, where he's down 6.4%, and Pennsylvania, where he's down 5.1%.

I know people don't have a lot of faith in polling but I have trouble seeing Trump winning any of the states I list in the last paragraph except for Pennsylvania. And if he does, he still has to make sure he doesn't lose Florida, Ohio, or Texas.

Biden should continue campaigning hard in swing states and take nothing for granted. But let's hope there's nothing that really shakes up these results by November.

The margins by which Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in 2016 should give Republicans pause. Hillary was reviled by large parts of this country (unfairly in my view), but people do not have really strong negative reactions to Biden.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/pennsylvania/

[broncofan]

The above assumes Biden doesn't get any surprise negative results in states that Hillary won. The thing is, of the states I've looked at, he's consistently doing better than Hillary was. He's up by 6% in Nevada and 11% in Colorado. Shit, he's up in North Carolina and Arizona, which Trump won by margins of 2.7% and 4% respectively.

Long story short: if you can believe that Trump has suffered any loss of popularity from 2016 or that Biden is slightly more popular than Hillary, Trump's margins of 23,000, 44,000, and 11,000 votes in the decisive states of (all else equal) Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan give lots of reason for optimism.

[Stavros]

There are a few reasons. I always vote in person but I don't think it should be necessary when there's a pandemic even though I'm not super high risk. I think that requiring the vote to be in person is intended to suppress the vote rather than protect against fraud.

I was curious about the process as well. I am already registered to vote, but I had to go through the additional step of filling out an application for a ballot, which is then processed and if approved a ballot is sent to the address at which you're registered.

One ulterior motive I have is that I want to convince my parents who are in their late 70s to get a mail in application. My mother believes it is her responsibility to show up at the polls on election day and cast a ballot against Trump. I haven't been able to convince her that getting a mail in ballot is safer, is legal in Pennsylvania without the requirement that anyone have a reason. If I can give her a sense of how long it takes and how easy it is, then maybe I demystify it for them.

Finally, if my state has provided a process to vote by mail without any qualifying reason, I thought why not do it if I can get a ballot in advance and make sure I deliver it well in advance? I'm not certain I made the right choice here but a ballot is on the way and I will be sending it back well in advance of the deadline.

Thanks for this- I understand your point about voting in person in the midst of a pandemic -I have never had to queue up to vote and dont believe it has ever happened in the UK but I might be wrong on that. Perhaps in US districts - I think I mean Precincts?- there should be more polling stations per head of populaton?

Here are some weird and wonderful polling stations in the UK
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/stately-homes-caravans-pubs-polling-stations-chosen-71006

Re: your posts on States and Stats:
Do you or does anyone else think the Revelations of St Bob will impact voter choice, notwithstanding the fact that many Americans have already voted and can't change their minds now?

And what was Bob doing all this time, sitting on such explosive information while Americans have been falling ill and dying? I was struck by how feeble his first book -Fear- was, his complete lack of interest in the President's pre-history as a rent collector for dad, his multiple failed businesses, his financial ties to Felix Sater, the extensive ties to the Russians and the illegal assistance the campaign received from Russians in 2016- as Bob is a Republican, I suspect he laments the slow death of his party but is reluctant to use the President to kick it into its grave.

[broncofan]

My sense about polling stations is that there's inconsistency. Some places it's sufficient and there's no wait and some places there are long lines. I've never had a super long wait, the kind I've heard about on the news, but that shouldn't happen.

I'm a bit puzzled by Woodward's revelations because it doesn't seem to tell people much that we didn't know. The Chinese government has experience dealing with pandemics that we don't and they weren't able to suppress it. They have good emergency care and good doctors who were using both condensed oxygen and ventilators to keep people alive. They were also trying every drug that is currently available to us, including antivirals and steroids. Despite all of this we were getting reports of case fatality rates not that much different to what they are now. They had thirty year and forty year olds who were dying, including a doctor who was a whistleblower.

We also know at this time that experts inside the cdc and HHS were exchanging emails about how this was a pending disaster. I guess the only thing we now know is that Trump subjectively knew what we should have expected a normal functioning person to know given the information he had available to him. At every step of the way he played down the virus and gave bad advice. His insistence on testing hydroxychloroquine beyond the point of failure has had the effect of draining participants from other clinical trials that were more likely to be effective. In total, his egotism and desire for political advantage not only cost lives but he almost explicitly traded human lives for political advantage. I suppose now we know that not only would a well informed person have known the risk but even a dullard surrounded by talented health experts would know and he did.

I do think little by little some of the information is seeping through. There is a percentage of the public who probably can't be reached as long as he keeps up the culture wars. I think he'd survive an audio tape of him admitting to not caring that people are dying better than a picture of him wearing a pussy hat.

[blackchubby38]

The longest I had to wait on line to vote was about 2.5 hours back in 2008. It was early in the morning before people were going to work.

In 2012, 2016, and the last NYC mayoral election, I voted in the afternoon and I was in and out in about less than 10 minutes.

The polling stations are in the community centers of the my co-op. It will take a little doing, but I can see them being able to follow social distancing guidelines. But as long as everyone is wearing a mask, things should be okay. So even though I do have the option of mail in voting, I plan to vote in person.

[Stavros]

Next question: the 'youth vote'-the article in the link argues the youth vote was a jey factor in the Democrats taking back the House in 2018, but does it mean that the same cohort of voters,plus new voters will vote for Biden/Harris, when they may have been attracted in 2018 by their local candidates? And, one must assume, not all 18-25 yar olds are Democrats. In addition, the list of third party candidates linked below includes the Green Party, and Maverick candidates likes Kanye West, probably better known than Texas-based concert pianist Jade Simmons, also linked below.

That complacency, that specific groups of people will vote a certain way, may not be certain -but can the 'youth vote' play a decisive factor?

The youth Vote
https://www.voanews.com/student-union/plenty-signs-surging-youth-vote-will-play-major-role-2020-us-election

Third Party Candidates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_and_independent_candidates_for_the_202 0_United_States_presidential_election#Candidates_w ith_ballot_access_to_fewer_than_270,_but_at_least_ 50_electoral_votes

Jade Simmons
https://jadesimmons.com/

[filghy2]

Trump did get a bit of a post convention bump in his numbers. All polls have some margin for error and it's possible there is systematic error. But if you give Trump every state that is within two percentage points of current polling averages (up or down), he still loses the electoral college right now.

You may have seen it already, but FiveThirtyEight currently give Trump a 24% chance of winning, although that has been declining recently. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
Incidentally, they give Trump a 38% chance of winning at least one state he didn't win last time, so you might be taking that possibility too lightly.

Nate Silver has also calculated the probabilities of a Biden victory for different margins in the popular vote. If the margin is 2-3% then the odds are a bit less than even, but they rise strongly as the margin gets larger. (The margin in 2016 was 2.1%.) A system that gives one side a 2-3% head start is clearly not very democratic.

[broncofan]

Nate Silver has also calculated the probabilities of a Biden victory for different margins in the popular vote. If the margin is 2-3% then the odds are a bit less than even, but they rise strongly as the margin gets larger. (The margin in 2016 was 2.1%.) A system that gives one side a 2-3% head start is clearly not very democratic.
I'm guessing that's a function of margins of victory being bigger in Democratic states. Still, it doesn't make sense to have a federal election apportioned by states. It already feels like there's inertia trying to get Republicans to vote against really extreme figures like Trump. It would be nice if we had two parties in this country devoted to our founding principles and rule of law, separated only by reasonable differences in policy. And I don't delude myself into thinking policy differences ever feel civil or anything less than life-changing but there is a qualitative difference in what the GOP has become and I wonder if our system's lack of sensitivity to the popular vote has reduced accountability enough to cause it.

[broncofan]

Incidentally, they give Trump a 38% chance of winning at least one state he didn't win last time, so you might be taking that possibility too lightly.
Thanks. I have to do my homework a bit on that.

The good news is that even without other big surprises for Dems like Ohio, Florida, or Texas there is good polling in Arizona and North Carolina. So if GOP flips a small state, we might pick up 11 electoral votes in Arizona or 15 in NC. Not that GOP flipping states doesn't matter bc we could easily lose these two AND the GOP flips one.

Looking at the last election numbers and 538 polling averages it looks like GOP has the best chance in Minnesota (10 votes), New Hampshire (4), and Nevada (6). Colorado (9) is sometimes somewhat close but Biden has a 10 point lead in polls right now. Virginia (13) often is too but Biden has close to an 11 point lead. The scenario I thought of with only PA, MI, and WI flipping was a narrow enough margin that even NH flipping would bring the Dem from 273 to 269. I could be missing something since I'm eyeballing it.

I know the Democratic party is working very hard in Pennsylvania right now. In a system like ours where voter participation is pretty low, get out the vote efforts often are more effective than efforts targeting undecideds or disaffected Republicans. But I've heard that PACs are focused on both right now. Lots can happen and so many ways this election can go, so we'll see.

[MrFanti]

Democrat Tulsi Gabbard Says Netflix is Complicit in Child Sex Trafficking for 'Child Porn' Film 'Cuties'
https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-netflix-cuties-child-trafficking-1531474

Would make a much better POTUS than Biden IMHO....

[MrFanti]

You mean, like Vernon Robinson?

"Robinson holds a number of views which many would consider outrageous – “The UN is possibly the greatest abuser of children on the planet”; the World Health Organization “subscribes to a far-left ideology”; Sweden has a high suicide rate because “everything is free except the citizens”; the abortion rate in the US is a “hidden holocaust” of “black babies”; too many progressive-leaning sportspeople these days are “Lenin’s useful idiots,” transgender-inclusive policies will stop black girls from getting track scholarships to college; people born to illegal immigrants in the US shouldn’t get citizenship; people are being fired from their jobs in Dallas because they don’t speak Spanish; “The Democrats want open borders because they need new voters” – but it’s worth noting that most are in line with what the president has said himself. Indeed, Robinson was doing shock tactic conservatism long before Trump: in 2006, one of his campaign ads for Congress attacked feminism, same-sex marriage and “aliens” who “come across our unguarded Mexican border by the millions”. In the same cycle, he made waves by climbing that if his opponent had his way, “America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal immigrants and homosexuals”. Little wonder he has embraced Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” with unbridled enthusiasm."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/vernon-robinson-super-pac-trump-black-americans-reelect-president-2020-election-b420765.html

No.
I mean folks like Kimberly Klacik, Joe Collins, and a few others.

Now I can go tit-for-tat with you bring up Black Democrats that hold a number of outrageous views as well if you'd like......

Both parties have ridiculous individuals within - and hopefully, you're smart enough to see that.....

But just by mentioning Vernon Robinson, you've proved my point that the Black community is not monolithic in thought and I thank you for that!

[Stavros]

Democrat Tulsi Gabbard Says Netflix is Complicit in Child Sex Trafficking for 'Child Porn' Film 'Cuties'
https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-netflix-cuties-child-trafficking-1531474

Would make a much better POTUS than Biden IMHO....

She would indeed, if she had the courage to tackle that legal thing you have in he US called Child Marriage- set aside the volume of 'cute kids' on American tv in soaps, gymnastics (ban all under-18 year-olds from competitions), dance documentaries and so on, and focus less on Netflix and more on your own corrupt Union where this is concerned-

"Only two US states (http://https://www.tahirih.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Reflection-Paper_Making-Progress-But-Still-Falling-Short_FINAL_January-22-2020.pdf) – Delaware and New Jersey – have set the marriage age floor at 18 with no exceptions. Twelve states do not have any set age limit, and six allow girls under the minimum age to get married if they are pregnant. In those states the laws “are weaker than child marriage (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/child-marriage) laws in countries like Afghanistan, Honduras and Malawi”, Girls Not Brides CEO Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell says."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/child-marriage-us-states-america-minimum-age-bride-girls-a9467121.html

"In 87% of child marriages, the minor is a girl; 86% of the time she is marrying a legal adult. Based on these numbers, advocates argue that the vast majority of marriages with minors (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-approved-thousands-of-child-bride-requests-and-its-legal/) would otherwise constitute statutory rape."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/child-marriage-in-us-cbsn-originals/

Yeah, go for a French film most people will never see, and ignore the problem that mght be happeining next door or across the street. Are any of the Candidates opposed to chilld marriage in the USA?

[filghy2]

And I don't delude myself into thinking policy differences ever feel civil or anything less than life-changing but there is a qualitative difference in what the GOP has become and I wonder if our system's lack of sensitivity to the popular vote has reduced accountability enough to cause it.

Yes, policy differences are one thing, but when a party is condoning blatant lying, law-breaking and hate-mongering it has clearly crossed a line. I think you are right about the effect of electoral bias - if the Republican Party needed a majority of votes to gain power then just pandering to their base would no longer be a winning strategy and they would be forced to appeal more to the middle ground.

[broncofan]

This is just an afterthought but at least one completely sociopathic move of Trump's would be cut off without an electoral college. This crap where he plays red state blue state and tries to deny federal funding and assistance to people in states he has no chance of winning would be less appealing without an electoral college. He knows he'll lose California, but if it would matter whether he loses it by 4 or 5 million votes it might encourage him to put out the fires that are ravaging the west coast. What would he do if he wins a second term and doesn't have to worry at all about winning elections?

[broncofan]

But just by mentioning Vernon Robinson, you've proved my point that the Black community is not monolithic in thought and I thank you for that!
Nobody's arguing that point. Not one single person said the Black community is monolithic or implied it.

Here is a fact for you since an you seem only able to repeat yourself and don't have much interest in the election generally: an overwhelming majority of the Black community will vote for the Democratic Party in November. In fact, of minority communities the division here is about as lopsided as it for any. Compare this to Cuban-Americans. Compare to Mexican-Americans. Compare to Asian-Americans. Compare to Jewish-Americans. Compare to LGBT. No minority community is monolithic and no vote is ever unanimous. 90% is a fairly large number though. I wasn't going to include Muslim-Americans only because I assumed the percentage would be similarly lopsided but in the first article I found it said 13% of Muslims vote Republican. Anyhow, there you go. No community is monolithic.

[Teydyn]

You put a Trump sign on your lawn it gets burned down.
You wear a MAGA hat you are attacked or get fired.

And you all seriously believe in polling numbers? As if these people tell someone calling them the truth...

[broncofan]

You put a Trump sign on your lawn it gets burned down.
You wear a MAGA hat you are attacked or get fired.

And you all seriously believe in polling numbers? As if these people tell someone calling them the truth...
You can read the posts above to see what I think about polls. They're not perfect and they may miss some Trump voters but I don't have anything other than data to go on.

There are certainly people who don't want to admit they support Trump but I'm not sure polls don't try to assure participants their privacy is somewhat protected. Nevertheless it might be a factor.

[Stavros]

Two questions:

1) What happens to people in Oregon and California who have lost their homes in the dreadful fire storms? Can they vote if they no longer have the address on the register because it burned to the ground and they are in temporary accommodatiion elsewhere?

2) I read that the NYPD Union has declared it supports the President. Is this legal? In the UK police officers can vote, but they are not allowed to make any political statements or be seen supporting a political party or movement. I also wonder how this makes people in a Precinct feel knowing their local cops support a politician they don't approve of, and in particular when/if there are issues of trust between the citizens and the police which through the public support for a President who now belives in 'retribution', make them fear for their lives?

Would it not make more sense for the Police to be re-named the Republican Guard?

[blackchubby38]

Two questions:

1) What happens to people in Oregon and California who have lost their homes in the dreadful fire storms? Can they vote if they no longer have the address on the register because it burned to the ground and they are in temporary accommodatiion elsewhere?

2) I read that the NYPD Union has declared it supports the President. Is this legal? In the UK police officers can vote, but they are not allowed to make any political statements or be seen supporting a political party or movement. I also wonder how this makes people in a Precinct feel knowing their local cops support a politician they don't approve of, and in particular when/if there are issues of trust between the citizens and the police which through the public support for a President who now belives in 'retribution', make them fear for their lives?

Would it not make more sense for the Police to be re-named the Republican Guard?

1. I don't know the answer to that.

2. Unions are allowed to endorse candidates in elections. If I'm not mistaken, my union endorsed Bernie Sanders during the primary. Which I thought was weird because the way I understand it the Medicare for All position sort of frowns upon employee health plans.

As for how the people in a precinct feel, probably no different from the other times when the PBA has endorsed other Republican candidates. Its just something most people accept. I also think a majority of the rank and file of the NYPD can separate who their union endorses and/or who they vote for and the job they have to do.

[Stavros]

I think there is a diffculty here. I assume there are law enforcement officers whose political views are too extreme even for the so-called Republican party, and that a lot of people know this without the Union declaring its support for the President. The difficulty is in knowing if 2020 will be the most contested on the ground, if, for example, armed militias decide to 'stand guard' outside polling stations with their fingers on the triggers of their AR-15's, their bodies festooned with ammunition belts, wearing hats and t-shirts with provocative slogans -knowing that local law enforcement will not make any attempt to move them away. A more outrageous scenario with armed militias taking possessio of ballot boxes would also not be challenged by the sympathetic police.

The basis for the scenarios in which armed militias become part of the visible fabric of elections is provided by the increase in support for the terrorist who travelled to Kenosha to murder people, who is now described as a hero-

"Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, who this month was charged with committing intentional homicide in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has instead found himself being defended by Donald Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump), and hailed as a hero by rightwing punditry and an assorted bunch of Republicans and conservatives.
Experts warn that Trump’s embrace of Rittenhouse, who sat in the front row at a Trump rally in January (https://www.thedailybeast.com/kenosha-protest-shooting-suspect-kyle-rittenhouse-stood-front-row-at-iowa-trump-rally-in-january) and was in Kenosha as part of a rightwing militia nominally there to protect property, could pave the way for more vigilantism in Trump’s name – and have catastrophically violent results come November.
“Trump has made the election about the idea of citizen paramilitaries, federal forces and the government administration, against looters, rioters, demonstrators and Democrats,” said Joe Lowndes, professor of political science at the University of Oregon.
“With [Trump’s] continual messaging that there is election fraud, that mail-in ballots are going to be a form of election theft, what happens on election day, or the days that follow that? What happens if there are states where it’s unclear for a few days who the winner is?”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/15/kenosha-shooter-kyle-rittenhouse-trump-republicans

The key point is that a partisan police force cannot be trusted, precisely because it has taken a stand for one candidate against another, with the assumption that the Attorney General on recent form, will also take sides with the armed militias against City and State authorities, and that the purpose behind this is to ensure a second term for the incumbent, who cannot lose the election, because he never loses. At the very least, chaos is the ladder on which the man who today a the White House embraces wth passion the unelected dictatorships of the Middle East -in this case Bahrain and the UAE- seeks to climb back into an office he has defiled and does not deserve to occupy.

It mght sound hysterical, but is the USA on the road to civil war? What happens when a sitting President refuses to accept the result of an election he loses, or appears to lose, with contested results in more than one State- and the Attoney General and the Supreme Court support his claims?

[Stavros]

"Of all of Trump’s authoritarian moves as president, it’s his approach to the 2020 election that serves as the clearest signal that America is on the brink of an institutional democratic crisis, and on the verge of becoming the sort of hybrid regime that Vladimir Putin created in Russia or that Viktor Orban put in place in Hungary."
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trump-republicans-democracy-at-risk-210055864.html

[MrFanti]

She would indeed, if she had the courage to tackle that legal thing you have in he US called Child Marriage- set aside the volume of 'cute kids' on American tv in soaps, gymnastics (ban all under-18 year-olds from competitions), dance documentaries and so on, and focus less on Netflix and more on your own corrupt Union where this is concerned-

Are Biden/Harris tacking this?
I still stand with Gabbard....

[MrFanti]

Nobody's arguing that point. Not one single person said the Black community is monolithic or implied it.

Here is a fact for you since an you seem only able to repeat yourself and don't have much interest in the election generally: an overwhelming majority of the Black community will vote for the Democratic Party in November. In fact, of minority communities the division here is about as lopsided as it for any. Compare this to Cuban-Americans. Compare to Mexican-Americans. Compare to Asian-Americans. Compare to Jewish-Americans. Compare to LGBT. No minority community is monolithic and no vote is ever unanimous. 90% is a fairly large number though. I wasn't going to include Muslim-Americans only because I assumed the percentage would be similarly lopsided but in the first article I found it said 13% of Muslims vote Republican. Anyhow, there you go. No community is monolithic.
I'm just adding balance.
If you're going to mention someone on the fringe and then "call it a day", then I can do so just as well....
Most successful presidents (Clinton for example) hover within the middle ground and not on the far fringes of either side.

[MrFanti]

You can read the posts above to see what I think about polls. They're not perfect and they may miss some Trump voters but I don't have anything other than data to go on.

In 2016, the polls had Hillary smashing Trump....

[MrFanti]

I think there is a diffculty here. I assume there are law enforcement officers whose political views are too extreme even for the so-called Republican party, and that a lot of people know this without the Union declaring its support for the President. The difficulty is in knowing if 2020 will be the most contested on the ground, if, for example, armed militias decide to 'stand guard' outside polling stations with their fingers on the triggers of their AR-15's, their bodies festooned with ammunition belts, wearing hats and t-shirts with provocative slogans -knowing that local law enforcement will not make any attempt to move them away. A more outrageous scenario with armed militias taking possessio of ballot boxes would also not be challenged by the sympathetic police.

The basis for the scenarios in which armed militias become part of the visible fabric of elections is provided by the increase in support for the terrorist who travelled to Kenosha to murder people, who is now described as a hero-

"Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, who this month was charged with committing intentional homicide in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has instead found himself being defended by Donald Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump), and hailed as a hero by rightwing punditry and an assorted bunch of Republicans and conservatives.
Experts warn that Trump’s embrace of Rittenhouse, who sat in the front row at a Trump rally in January (https://www.thedailybeast.com/kenosha-protest-shooting-suspect-kyle-rittenhouse-stood-front-row-at-iowa-trump-rally-in-january) and was in Kenosha as part of a rightwing militia nominally there to protect property, could pave the way for more vigilantism in Trump’s name – and have catastrophically violent results come November.
“Trump has made the election about the idea of citizen paramilitaries, federal forces and the government administration, against looters, rioters, demonstrators and Democrats,” said Joe Lowndes, professor of political science at the University of Oregon.
“With [Trump’s] continual messaging that there is election fraud, that mail-in ballots are going to be a form of election theft, what happens on election day, or the days that follow that? What happens if there are states where it’s unclear for a few days who the winner is?”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/15/kenosha-shooter-kyle-rittenhouse-trump-republicans

The key point is that a partisan police force cannot be trusted, precisely because it has taken a stand for one candidate against another, with the assumption that the Attorney General on recent form, will also take sides with the armed militias against City and State authorities, and that the purpose behind this is to ensure a second term for the incumbent, who cannot lose the election, because he never loses. At the very least, chaos is the ladder on which the man who today a the White House embraces wth passion the unelected dictatorships of the Middle East -in this case Bahrain and the UAE- seeks to climb back into an office he has defiled and does not deserve to occupy.

It mght sound hysterical, but is the USA on the road to civil war? What happens when a sitting President refuses to accept the result of an election he loses, or appears to lose, with contested results in more than one State- and the Attoney General and the Supreme Court support his claims?

Do you know what percent of Law Enforcement officers are Republican/Democrat/Independent?
Pretty bold guess/assumption by you considering that most Law Enforcement Unions have traditionally backed Democrat mayors.

[Stavros]

Are Biden/Harris tacking this?
I still stand with Gabbard....

Not as far as I know, as I think this is a taboo subject, unless the QAnon hysteria over California's SB145 Bill provokes a serious amount of thought but crucially, debate. The Bill concerns relations between teenagers where a relationship straddles the age of consent, and seeks to remove the criminal penalty an older boy or girl (but mostly male) might suffer for having relations with, say, a 15 year old, but also with regard to gay relations which had previously been exempt from reform-

"Wiener’s proposed law dealt with people who are convicted of having non-forcible sex with minors above the age of 14 and who are themselves no more than 10 years older than the minor. Judges in such cases were able to exercise discretion when deciding whether or not to place a convicted offender on the registry if the sex act was penile-vaginal sex but not if it was anal or oral sex or non-penile sexual penetration. The bizarre status quo stemmed from a 2015 California supreme court ruling which reasoned that if the victim in such a case became pregnant, placing the offender on the registry would make it harder for them to provide for the child.
To Wiener, this inequity was part of the legacy of the criminalization of LGBTQ+ people. “It used to be much more explicit and obvious in terms of anti-sodomy laws,” he said. “This is one example where the judge can keep straight kids off the registry, but the gay kids have to go on the registry. It’s mortifying that in 2020, in California, this discrimination continues to exist in our penal code.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/16/qanon-republicans-conspiracy-theory-politics-save-the-children

What might appear rational to you and me, has been transformed by QAnon into a conspiracy in which California becomes a paradise for paedos, thus-

"One such attack came in January 2020, when the website Law Enforcement Today (LET) published an inflammatory article (https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/ca-lawmakers-introduce-bill-to-protect-pedophiles-who-sexually-abuse-kids/?fbclid=IwAR2opxeioCsEn6vguMVn906x2dyCRhcCvV6gkG64 63vIeWZBLKa4-LYFVZM) headlined: “California lawmakers introduce bill to protect pedophiles who sexually abuse innocent kids”. “If you’re a pedophile and want to rape sweet, innocent, young children, then California is the state for you,” the piece began, before blatantly mischaracterizing the provisions in the bill."

So it seems to me that there is an hysterical campaign being organized that demonizes the rational approach to teenage relations, but gives a free pass to the more suspect relations between older men and teenage girls -as in over 35-40+ which can result in a legal marriage. It may be part of the campaign to demonize the Democrats as 'radical left' and thus by definition, immoral, and I believe the President's Junior has waded into this controversy knowing little about it, but it does nothing but distract conversation on real problems merely to convince people to vote for a man who says in the same statement that he 'under-played' the potential impact of Covid 19 on the US and then upped it.

Tulsi Gabbard appears to me to be voicing concerns without thinking through the issues, which suggests she never was Presidential material, but is an old fashioned blue stocking who prefers to spend her weekends taking tea with the Daughters of the American Revolution.

[filghy2]

You can read the posts above to see what I think about polls. They're not perfect and they may miss some Trump voters but I don't have anything other than data to go on.

There are certainly people who don't want to admit they support Trump but I'm not sure polls don't try to assure participants their privacy is somewhat protected. Nevertheless it might be a factor.

The RealClearPolitics poll average just before the 2016 election had Hillary Clinton with a 3.3% margin in the popular vote. The actual margin was 2.1%, which is well within the normal margin of error. That hardly seems consistent with the claim that the polls missed large numbers of Trump voters; eg because they were reluctant to reveal their true intentions. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_st ein-5952.html

I think I posted this before, but this analysis by Nate Silver sugggests that the polls were no more inaccurate than they had been in the past. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/

[filghy2]

It's interesting that the same poster who is continually criticising Joe Biden and complaining about the Democratic Party moving to the left seems to have had quite different views only two years ago.
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?29951-Hillary-Clinton-I-Used-to-Love-Her/page22

"And it's my opinion (yes everyone has one) that Sanders stood a better chance of defeating Trump than Hillary."
"I think Joe Biden would have been the better President."
"Oh and speaking of Biden....Had he ran, I also believe he would have defeated Trump also......"

[broncofan]

It's interesting that the same poster who is continually criticising Joe Biden and complaining about the Democratic Party moving to the left seems to have had quite different views only two years ago.
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?29951-Hillary-Clinton-I-Used-to-Love-Her/page22

"And it's my opinion (yes everyone has one) that Sanders stood a better chance of defeating Trump than Hillary."
"I think Joe Biden would have been the better President."
"Oh and speaking of Biden....Had he ran, I also believe he would have defeated Trump also......"
It's clear he's not saying what he ultimately means but in this case what is going on? I think he wants to always be in a position to say he WOULD support a Democratic candidate if Democrats made the right choice but his excuses are incompatible and don't fit any pattern of ideology. You go to the left he says you're extremists. You go to the center he might still say you're extreme but then he gets to say they're bland and unoriginal as well.

If anyone thinks I'm just trying to dump on Mr. Fanti, including Mr. Fanti, that's not really true. The above views combined with his current views don't really make sense except as a smokescreen. What else is new.

Thanks for posting the polling information. I knew it was out there and wanted to look for it but got too lazy. That was my sense and why maybe I'd say for safety sake if Florida and Ohio are within a percentage point, maybe Trump takes them comfortably. But I see state leads of 8% as durable as long as Biden doesn't do anything terrible and a 4% lead in Pennsylvania as a real lead but possibly a bit closer. Nate Silver wrote something today chastising people for not seeing the potential state by state margin of error as correlated. I assume this means he's warning people that you do have to concern yourself with systematic error that consistently lowers Trump's polling a bit and if it's the case, it might occur everywhere rather than at random. But your post is instructive as we are not talking about polling averages that miss huge swathes of Trump voters.

[broncofan]

And in the previous 2018 link Mr. Fanti says that Sally Wasserman interfered with the primaries. The head of the Democratic National Committee was Debbie Wasserman Schultz. While people do mix up names I would expect someone who vehemently felt the Democratic establishment cheated Bernie to know who the DNC chair was, unless he was just stirring up shit as an afterthought.

[MrFanti]

Income and Poverty in the United States: 2019
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html#:~:text=Median%20household%20income%20was %20%2468%2C703,and%20Table%20A%2D1).
Some interesting data points from the US Census Bureau:

The 2019 poverty rate of 10.5 percent is the lowest rate observed since estimates were initially published in 1959 (Figure 7 and Table B-5).

Median household income was $68,703 in 2019, an increase of 6.8 percent from the 2018 median of $64,324 (Figure 1 and Table A-1).

The 2019 real median incomes of family households and nonfamily households increased 7.3 percent and 6.2 percent from their respective 2018 estimates (Figure 1 and Table A-1). This is the fifth consecutive annual increase in median household income for family households, and the second consecutive increase for nonfamily households.

The 2019 real median incomes of White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic households all increased from their 2018 medians (Figure 1 and Table A-1).

Real median household incomes increased for all regions in 2019; 6.8 percent in the Northeast, 4.8 percent in the Midwest, 6.1 percent in the South, and 7.0 percent in the West (Figure 1 and Table A-1).


Now of course, this reflects everything pre-COVID...

[MrFanti]

And in the previous 2018 link Mr. Fanti says that Sally Wasserman interfered with the primaries. The head of the Democratic National Committee was Debbie Wasserman Schultz. While people do mix up names I would expect someone who vehemently felt the Democratic establishment cheated Bernie to know who the DNC chair was, unless he was just stirring up shit as an afterthought.
I stand corrected in names - but the facts remain the same.
The DNC slanted the primaries to favor Hillary over Sanders & you could probably make a half-way decent argument that the DNC and also THE MEDIA did it again this year & slanted the primaries for Biden over Sanders.

And I still believe that had this NOT been done by the DNC - we would be discussing President Sanders now instead of President Trump

[MrFanti]

It's clear he's not saying what he ultimately means but in this case what is going on? I think he wants to always be in a position to say he WOULD support a Democratic candidate if Democrats made the right choice but his excuses are incompatible and don't fit any pattern of ideology. You go to the left he says you're extremists. You go to the center he might still say you're extreme but then he gets to say they're bland and unoriginal as well.

If anyone thinks I'm just trying to dump on Mr. Fanti, including Mr. Fanti, that's not really true. The above views combined with his current views don't really make sense except as a smokescreen. What else is new.

Thanks for posting the polling information. I knew it was out there and wanted to look for it but got too lazy. That was my sense and why maybe I'd say for safety sake if Florida and Ohio are within a percentage point, maybe Trump takes them comfortably. But I see state leads of 8% as durable as long as Biden doesn't do anything terrible and a 4% lead in Pennsylvania as a real lead but possibly a bit closer. Nate Silver wrote something today chastising people for not seeing the potential state by state margin of error as correlated. I assume this means he's warning people that you do have to concern yourself with systematic error that consistently lowers Trump's polling a bit and if it's the case, it might occur everywhere rather than at random. But your post is instructive as we are not talking about polling averages that miss huge swathes of Trump voters.

I'll say it yet again.
I support Tulsi Gabbard - who would make a much better POTUS than Biden IMHO....

You don't have agree with me (which is actually nice and shows independent thought rather than collective thought).....

[Stavros]

And I still believe that had this NOT been done by the DNC - we would be discussing President Sanders now instead of President Trump

Really, Mr Fanti? This plus your support for the morally holiier-than-thou Gabbard makes me wonder about your sense of judgment.

Why did Obama win his first election? Because he was young, articulate and had a passion for things positive and wanted change. That Clinton became the successor candidate might have made sense if the US was to have a woman in the White House, but it was a reversion to another age, the 1990s, just as Sanders would never have been elected with his aggressive tone, his negative copy, and the fact that he too is from another age for most Americans.

I can see Biden winning because in the midst of this crisis he looks safe and comforting, but what Obama did was tap in to what we outside it, have always believed is America's strength -compared to this place- adaptability to new things, the desire to go forwards not backwards, the science and the capital to do better things before anyone else. See it that way and you can see how the last 4 years has been a frog-march backwards in time. But if you did travel back to the 1970s, you wouldn't like it.

Oh boy, do you people need real change. And what a dismal time to be seeing self-inflated fools incapable of using generations of medical and administrative to co-ordinate action against Covid 19, because so many budgets have been slashed, and so many good people give a cheque and a 'get lost' email. Sanders? Gabbard? If they are top of your list, you are in real trouble, and you don't even know it.

[filghy2]

And...The Democratic Party has lurched so far left, it is no longer the party of Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton


The "far left" here in the states are the new progressives coming into power. I.E., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, IIhan Omar, and, Rashida Tlaib. The Kennedy and Clinton Democrats for example would have taken an early an immediate stance in the violence that's happening within the U.S. cities - all of which interestingly have Democrat mayors as well. Also, 3 Pelosi backed candidates have now lost progressive candidates as well (the latest being Pelosi backed Joseph Kennedy losing to progressives backed Ed Markey).


The DNC slanted the primaries to favor Hillary over Sanders & you could probably make a half-way decent argument that the DNC and also THE MEDIA did it again this year & slanted the primaries for Biden over Sanders.

And I still believe that had this NOT been done by the DNC - we would be discussing President Sanders now instead of President Trump

How exactly are these positions compatible? I take it you understand that Sanders is well to the left of Biden.

[filghy2]

It's clear he's not saying what he ultimately means but in this case what is going on? I think he wants to always be in a position to say he WOULD support a Democratic candidate if Democrats made the right choice but his excuses are incompatible and don't fit any pattern of ideology. You go to the left he says you're extremists. You go to the center he might still say you're extreme but then he gets to say they're bland and unoriginal as well.

In the same disingenuous way that he pretends to be an independent even though he only ever criticises one side. The question is why he has this anti-Democrat Party fixation. I suspect it's because libertarianism leads him to favour the party that professes anti-government ideology. I also don't why he thinks he's fooling anyone, but logical thinking is obviously not his strong point.

[filghy2]

IMHO, Tulsi Gabbard was the best of the Democrats....


2) Democrat Tulsi Gabbard is a much better candidate (IMHO) than Joe Biden - hands down.



And that person IMHO, like I said earlier was Tulsi Gabbard.


That being said, like I said in an earlier post, Tulsi Gabbard was my favorite of the Democrat primary candidates and she would smoke Trump in a debate.


Speaking of Democrat TULSI GABBARD, here's a stance of hers that's very close to this forum:



Tulsi Gabbard would make a much better POTUS than Biden IMHO....


I still stand with Gabbard....


I'll say it yet again.
I support Tulsi Gabbard - who would make a much better POTUS than Biden IMHO....

Yeah, we qot that message, but Tulsi Gabbard is not on the ballot. Being around you must be like Groundhog Day.

[Stavros]

I can't comment on Ruth Bader Ginsburg because I know little about her other than what I have seen on tv this evening. It poses a dilemma for the Senate with regard to both the timing issue as far as the selection process is concerned, and the possibility that the outcome of the election might depend on a Supreme Court vote.

Perhaps the President will nominate either his eldest son or Ivana, on the basis that his favourite States such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE are run as family firms, and maybe it is time for the USA to try it out?

Whaddaya think?

[KnightHawk 2.0]

I can't comment on Ruth Bader Ginsburg because I know little about her other than what I have seen on tv this evening. It poses a dilemma for the Senate with regard to both the timing issue as far as the selection process is concerned, and the possibility that the outcome of the election might depend on a Supreme Court vote.

Perhaps the President will nominate either his eldest son or Ivana, on the basis that his favourite States such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE are run as family firms, and maybe it is time for the USA to try it out?

Whaddaya think?Completely agree that it does poses a dilemma for the US Senate with regard to the timing of the election process,and the possibility that the outcome of the presidential election might depend on a Supreme Court vote,I think that the Demagouge And Malignant Narcissist and Pathological Liar Donald Trump is going to nominate a conservative judge to fill Ruth Bader Ginsberg's seat, and his loyal enabler Moscow Mitch is going to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote,and try to ram it through before election day as a favor to his so-called leader.

[broncofan]

https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/09/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-feminist-pioneer-and-progressive-icon-dies-at-87/

This was a good short write up on Ginsburg's life and tenure on the court. Mitch McConnell said within an hour of her death that they were going to try to get her successor confirmed before the next president takes office despite the fact that in 2016 Scalia's seat became empty with many more months to the election. Mitch invented some rule about not nominating a new Justice in the year of an election but I'm sure there's some loophole or reason he thinks it doesn't apply here. Or maybe they're just corrupt enough that they don't care to even explain why they shouldn't follow the principle they invented.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/09/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-feminist-pioneer-and-progressive-icon-dies-at-87/

This was a good short write up on Ginsburg's life and tenure on the court. Mitch McConnell said within an hour of her death that they were going to try to get her successor confirmed before the next president takes office despite the fact that in 2016 Scalia's seat became empty with many more months to the election. Mitch invented some rule about not nominating a new Justice in the year of an election but I'm sure there's some loophole or reason he thinks it doesn't apply here. Or maybe they're just corrupt enough that they don't care to even explain why they shouldn't follow the principle they invented.Not surprised at all that Moscow Mitch said that him and his cohorts were going to try and get a successor confirmed before the next president takes office,they are also the same ones who refused to hold a hearing to confirm Barack Obama's nomination for the Supreme Court Merrick Garland back in 2016,but they sure had no problem confirming Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanagh though,the Republican Controlled Senate is corrupt and doesn't care to explain why they shouldn't follow the principle they invented.

[Stavros]

I am probably missing something here, but it seems to me that when it is said RBG's replacement will define the law for a generation, I am not sure how.
It is the case that Conservative Justices do not automatically 'toe the line' on judicial decision, as has happened so many times in the past, and I think Justice Roberts voted against some aspect of the President's law-making this year or last year. What strikes me about the Supeme Court since 2017, is not that they are repealing historic laws, but declining to defend them when such laws appear to be violated or undermined by States, the two most obvious being Abortion, and Voting Rights.

It thus appears that to undermine the historic laws of the 1960s, the Supreme Court actually does nothing, but defers to the State, so that as with the re-definition of term limits that makes an Abortion all but impossible, there is no need to repeal Roe-v-Wade, or in the case of voter suppression, the Voting Rghts Act of 1965 need not be repealed as State's can decide who can or cannot be on the electoral register and if they flagrantly violate the 1965 law, they know the Supreme Court will do nothing about it.

Two more things I take away from today's coverage-

1) Lindsay Graham having dug a hole for himself with his plea 'use my words against me', must find that people do; though I am sure he will find another set of words that relieves him of the embarrassing position in which, on his own evidence, no replacement for RBG should be made until 2021, but the words will not be 'I resign my seat'.

2) Is it not the case that the Constitution does not specify how many Justices sit on the Supreme Court? If he wanted to, could President Biden increase the number from 9 to 11, or 13?

Why is it, that when this President breaks conventions, the Democrats don't do so too?

Last thought -I read someone wants Michelle Obama to be nominated, ho-ho. I was sort of joking with my previous post on this, as the hot favourite so far is as Amy Barrett -one of the Roman Catholics who have ascended to the top tiers of power in the USA, confirming that the historic hostility to Catholics in the USA appears to have abated.

[broncofan]

It thus appears that to undermine the historic laws of the 1960s, the Supreme Court actually does nothing, but defers to the State, so that as with the re-definition of term limits that makes an Abortion all but impossible, there is no need to repeal Roe-v-Wade, or in the case of voter suppression, the Voting Rghts Act of 1965 need not be repealed as State's can decide who can or cannot be on the electoral register and if they flagrantly violate the 1965 law, they know the Supreme Court will do nothing about it.

This is right. What would happen with Roe is that a state could just pass a law that makes abortion illegal. Or make it impermissibly difficult to get an abortion. Someone would sue the state in federal court and the federal district could provide an injunction against enforcement of the law. If the District Court doesn't provide an injunction (the first layer of breakdown imo), it can get appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the first level of appeal in federal cases. And if they don't act, the Supreme Court does not have to take the case. The Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction is discretionary. To hear it four Justices would have to grant a writ of certiorari, which then puts it before the court.

Another way it could happen though is that a ban on abortion could be struck down on appeal and the Supreme Court does grant writ so they can overturn Roe.

You are absolutely right though that the Supreme Court could allow the stripping of protections through inaction. Trump has not just started to stack the Supreme Court but other federal courts as well. In Pennsylvania, one of his appointments said that certain shutdowns of non-essential businesses is unconstitutional even though there's no case law or reasoning that justifies that view.

I do think Roberts is an honest man though I don't agree with his judicial philosophy. I think Gorsuch seems like a fairly honest jurist but with a fairly extreme judicial philosophy. I don't feel that way about Kavanagh who strikes me as an unprincipled, somewhat amoral person.

[broncofan]

2) Is it not the case that the Constitution does not specify how many Justices sit on the Supreme Court? If he wanted to, could President Biden increase the number from 9 to 11, or 13?
The Constitution says that Congress can decide the size of the Supreme Court. The law that created a Supreme Court with 9 Justices was the Judiciary Act which was passed in 1869.

If the Republicans really want to say that they feel it's okay to set out a principle that was arbitrary to begin with and then only follow it when it benefits them, I believe Democrats should say they will play politics as well. They could create a Supreme Court with 15 Justices and have Biden immediately appoint 6 of them.

Of course, such a law would be based on backlash to Republican's actions with respect to Garland and now Ginsburg's appointment and would require a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress to pass since no Republican would vote for it.

[Stavros]

The Constitution says that Congress can decide the size of the Supreme Court. The law that created a Supreme Court with 9 Justices was the Judiciary Act which was passed in 1869.


Thank you for these insights. I have looked up the 1869 Act, and wonder, if a new Administration seeks to expand the Supreme Court, say, to 13, would it also have to increase the number of Circuit Courts across the USA? And why are there only 9 for the whole country anyway?

One other thing: why put up a statue to RBG? Have we not leared how problematic statues are becoming? My view on this, for what it's worth, is that in Ancient Egypt and Greece, Statues were either exclusively of Gods or unknown 'types' -eg, warrior, young girl, boy etc- or in the case of Egypt the Pharoahs, such as Ramses II who were Gods in Human Form, or humans who became Gods. This is crucial in Ancient Rome which has multiple statues of the Gods and Goddessees, and later of humans such as Julius Caesar-who wanted to be seen and remembered as Divine. I believe this concept of sanctity has been part of the Statue Culture in Europe with the regrettable fact that a large number of people in the UK have been 'immortallised' in Statue form who would be best forgotten.

One curious fact here, is that in all of France, there are only two Statues of Napoleon Bonaparte -one is in the Invalides, the other in the Louvre- there are none in public.

It might be better to re-name a street after RBG, rather than build a statue. That's my two-cents worth.

[broncofan]

I'm putting the nomination of the Supreme Court Justice, most likely Amy Coney Barrett, in a thread about the election because the nominee will probably be confirmed no matter what happens during the confirmation process.

My objection to the nomination is not the proximity of it to the election but that Republicans invoked a rule that only applies to Democrats. I actually think it's a nonsense rule to begin with. The President has a mandate throughout his term.

I'm sure Amy Coney Barrett will be an awful Justice and cause all sorts of problems over her tenure but I wonder whether there is anything Democrats can do to prevent her appointment. If the answer is no, they should not heavily contest the confirmation process. Everyone always ends up sympathizing with a person being grilled. Unless you uncover treason or that she tortured animals, it will be politically unpopular to grandstand, even if you think that's what the moment calls for.

There's simply no procedural or substantive way to prevent her appointment, no matter how awful it is. And the election coming up is the only thing we have control over. The outcome of that election will be sensitive to public perception about the conduct of congressmen in the Democratic party, fair or not.

[blackchubby38]

The only chance the Democrats had at stopping Barrett's nomination was 4 years ago. But some Democratic voters decided to make excuses for not voting for Hillary Clinton and stayed home on Election Day. You reap what you sow.


As for how the Democrats should conduct themselves during the confirmation hearings, they should debate her on legal briefs and/or decisions and do their best to leave her religious beliefs out of it. Only make it an issue if Barrett makes it an issue.

[Stavros]

As my impression so far is that she promotes herself as a moral guardian with regard to Abortion, albeit one who seeks to remove the rights if US citizens when they become pregnant, the line of questioning that might make her uncomfortable would ask why she has accepted the nomination from someone so corrupt.

For example, she could be asked if she agrees the Federal Election Law of 1971 makes it illegal for an American election candidate to canvass or receive support from a foreign national during an election, and then be asked to confirm that the FBI was entitled to investigate the Republican Party’s 2016 campaign for violating that law. She could be asked to confirm that both the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report documented illegality noting at least 11 counts of Obstruction of Justice, and then be asked why the President was impeached.

What respectable judge would want to be nominated to the Supreme Court by a man who has violated his oath of office, who has never read the Constitution, and doesn’t think its provisions apply to him?

Why would a respectable judge Promoting her personal, Roman Catholic Morals, want to be nominated by a man who has described Americans as “total scum, they’re human scum”; and who has retweeted a description of the former First Lady of the USA and Senator for New York State and Presidential candidate, as a “skank”?

And why would such a morally decent woman want to be nominated by a tax cheat? There is a crook in the White House who could also be a traitor- does she want to be known hereafter as ‘the Traitor’s Judge”?

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Thank you for these insights. I have looked up the 1869 Act, and wonder, if a new Administration seeks to expand the Supreme Court, say, to 13, would it also have to increase the number of Circuit Courts across the USA? And why are there only 9 for the whole country anyway?

One other thing: why put up a statue to RBG? Have we not leared how problematic statues are becoming? My view on this, for what it's worth, is that in Ancient Egypt and Greece, Statues were either exclusively of Gods or unknown 'types' -eg, warrior, young girl, boy etc- or in the case of Egypt the Pharoahs, such as Ramses II who were Gods in Human Form, or humans who became Gods. This is crucial in Ancient Rome which has multiple statues of the Gods and Goddessees, and later of humans such as Julius Caesar-who wanted to be seen and remembered as Divine. I believe this concept of sanctity has been part of the Statue Culture in Europe with the regrettable fact that a large number of people in the UK have been 'immortallised' in Statue form who would be best forgotten.

One curious fact here, is that in all of France, there are only two Statues of Napoleon Bonaparte -one is in the Invalides, the other in the Louvre- there are none in public.

It might be better to re-name a street after RBG, rather than build a statue. That's my two-cents worth. Agree that it might better to re-name a street after Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=
And why would such a morally decent woman want to be nominated by a tax cheat? There is a crook in the White House who could also be a traitor- does she want to be known hereafter as ‘the Traitor’s Judge”?[/QUOTE]

i should concede that in many cases cited by the NYT tax law was not broken, that the areas of interest may be the mansion in upstate New York, and the ‘fees’ paid to his daughter Ivana. Also, the immorality of a system that appears to excuse colossal debt and the fact that his lawyers have got him out of paying tax will bring a smile to those opposed to taxation. But it stinks.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

i should concede that in many cases cited by the NYT tax law was not broken, that the areas of interest may be the mansion in upstate New York, and the ‘fees’ paid to his daughter Ivana. Also, the immorality of a system that appears to excuse colossal debt and the fact that his lawyers have got him out of paying tax will bring a smile to those opposed to taxation. But it stinks.Completely agree 1000%. It does stink.

[broncofan]

In addition to paying almost nothing in taxes, and claiming losses on his tax returns while likely claiming income in loan documents, Trump owes more than 400 million dollars, most of which is due in less than 4 years. In commercial real estate, it is not uncommon to refinance, though most investors have collateral that is worth far more than their outstanding loans by the time their balloon payment is due. They are able to refinance because they have built up equity in their properties over five or ten years and the banks can see that lending to them is not a huge credit risk.

Trump, on the other hand, does not make money. It is possible to have losses on paper with real gains, but the more plausible explanation is that he's very good at getting loans and very bad at investing in and managing real estate. What if Deutschebank or whoever doesn't want to refinance? Why should they? Does he actually build equity in these properties? Does the man do anything well except lie and commit fraud?

[filghy2]

Trump, on the other hand, does not make money. It is possible to have losses on paper with real gains, but the more plausible explanation is that he's very good at getting loans and very bad at investing in and managing real estate. What if Deutschebank or whoever doesn't want to refinance? Why should they? Does he actually build equity in these properties? Does the man do anything well except lie and commit fraud?

That also suggests that the people lending to him after unlikely to have been doing so on normal commercial grounds, but because they expect it will buy them influence (which will cease if he loses in November). Anyone applying for a regular government job would be unlikely to get the required security clearance with these financial exposures, yet the man who runs the show can apparently do it with no questions asked.

You do have to wonder how much his behaviour in running for President and apparently wanting to hold onto the job by any means possible is actually being motivated by financial considerations.

[filghy2]

I wonder whether the revelation of Trump's tax-dodging will have any effect on the election. People who care about these things will likely have already assumed he was doing it. I think his working class supporters tend to excuse this kind of behaviour because it's what they would do if there could get away with it. Many people don't seem able to draw the logical connection that if rich people don't pay their share of tax then others will end up paying for it in one way or another.

[Stavros]

You do have to wonder how much his behaviour in running for President and apparently wanting to hold onto the job by any means possible is actually being motivated by financial considerations.

Look in more detail at the nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia and the people involved- Flynn, Barrack, and of course Jared Kushner with his investments in Israel and Saudi Arabia, which one assumes he relinquished control of when he became Under-President to make decisions while daddykins is tweeting, watching tv or playing golf.

Consider the speed with which Tony Blair in 2006 shut down the investigation into allegations of bribery in relation to BAE Systems and the al-Yamama arms deal. Then ask if it is possible to conclude a major deal in the Middle East without the passing from A to B of ‘Bonus Payments’ neither the tax authorities nor ‘We, the People’ are aware of. One wonders if men called David Dennison and John Barron have bank accounts in the US Virgin Islands?

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26565/the-saudis-may-want-the-bomb-and-the-white-house-might-end-up-helping-them-get-it

[broncofan]

I wonder whether the revelation of Trump's tax-dodging will have any effect on the election. People who care about these things will likely have already assumed he was doing it. I think his working class supporters tend to excuse this kind of behaviour because it's what they would do if there could get away with it. Many people don't seem able to draw the logical connection that if rich people don't pay their share of tax then others will end up paying for it in one way or another.
The interesting thing is that his base might care more than he's not a good businessman than that he's a cheat. Yet of course there is nothing morally wrong with being bad at business and Trump's history of cheating people has left a trail of wreckage.

I'm not sure the degree to which his supporters can be reached at all at this point but I think it's better to point out that this is a guy who cannot make money with tens of millions in inheritance and with hundreds of millions in credit at low interest rates.

As you said, the loans do not seem like they're on normal commercial grounds and I am curious what claims he made in his loan documents. You expect that whatever he claimed people lending hundreds of millions of dollars knew he was a solvency risk and wanted leverage over him.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

I wonder whether the revelation of Trump's tax-dodging will have any effect on the election. People who care about these things will likely have already assumed he was doing it. I think his working class supporters tend to excuse this kind of behaviour because it's what they would do if there could get away with it. Many people don't seem able to draw the logical connection that if rich people don't pay their share of tax then others will end up paying for it in one way or another.It might have alittle effect on the election and with undecided voters,but not with his base of delusional supporters who will think it's fake news by the media and the Democrats to take down their so-called president. and agree his working class supporters will excuse this kind of behavior,because it's what they would do if they could get away with it. and they view him as a successful business mogul,which he really isn't.

[Stavros]

I watched the whole of the tv debates which began just after 2am here. It was a mess, and I hope they won’t repeat it. Biden is not a great public speaker, and I am not really sure what he is proposing with regard to the immediate management if COVID 19, and was not impressed with his proposals on the environment which sounded ok but lacked detail. He was strong on voting, but could have made more on the voter suppression tactics of the QAnon-Republican Party, and could have made a better presentation on community rather than confrontational policing, giving examples of where it appears to work, such as Boston.

Other than his outrageous remark on the Proud Boys, the President was just noise, slogans, and could easily have been challenged either by Biden or Wallace. Thus,

1) if the Obama era is characterised by slow economic growth, the record shows that the last four years have not shown economic growth exceeding the previous eight. Historically, economic growth under Obama is low by comparison with previous decades, but allowance must be made for the recession inherited in 2009, while by comparison, the successor administration inherited economic stability and growth but has failed to exceed previous levels, pre-COVID, and has obviously suffered since. And since when does the ‘greatest economy in the history of our country’ mean staggering levels of household debt with chronic failures to pay off monthly credit card bills; a colossal and growing national debt he is increasing by a minimum $1 trillion a year, not to mention the existence of food banks, voucher schemes and reality on the ground in states like Mississippi?

2) If the President is claiming widespread fraud and a rigged election, does that mean if he wins his victory will have been rigged?

3) As I pointed out before, it is simply ignorance and silly to say Biden did nothing for 40 years when there is a published record from his years in the Senate and as Vice-President.

I think voters would be better served with one-on-one examinations of policy by a seasoned but tough interviewer, in which more detail would need to be presented. But it may be, as Knighthawk says in the previous post, that decisions have been made, though if it is true 14% of voters have not made up their minds, that is a significant number- but will the tv debate inspire them to even vote?

[filghy2]

But it may be, as Knighthawk says in the previous post, that decisions have been made, though if it is true 14% of voters have not made up their minds, that is a significant number- but will the tv debate inspire them to even vote?

It will probably inspire many to not watch future debates. Blowing up the debates seems strange behaviour from the candidate who is behind and needs to make up ground.

Perhaps they should just cut his sound if he continues to ignore the rules in future debates.

[broncofan]

I watched the whole of the tv debates which began just after 2am here. It was a mess, and I hope they won’t repeat it. Biden is not a great public speaker, and I am not really sure what he is proposing with regard to the immediate management if COVID 19, and was not impressed with his proposals on the environment which sounded ok but lacked detail.
I noticed this during his one on one debates with Bernie. I like him better than Bernie but kept thinking Bernie's answers were more detailed and succinct.

I'm not trying to make excuses for Biden but he has a stutter and the kind of hectoring that Trump engaged in means Biden falls back on a few defense mechanisms he has. He laughs, he smiles, he says "come on man" or something. It was not easy for him to respond when interrupted and while I think good debaters can do better I'm not sure it's especially important for a leader to be nimble enough to deftly deal with that kind of bullshit. Strategically I think it's important for Biden to try to avoid getting into the gutter with Trump.

I will tune into the town hall as well because format will be important for these debates. Either because the interaction is with the audience or because there might actually be effective moderation.

Two notable points from the debate: 1. Trump knows Pennsylvania is a problem for him. He is trying to incite violence in Philadelphia, where good voter turnout can end his nightmare reign as douchebag in chief; 2. He could not condemn white supremacists like even an adult would do. Forget the standby comments about the proud boys, he could not say racism and white supremacism is a danger for society and I condemn it. He's evaded the subject before but this was an important reminder and might hurt him.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Last night's presidential debate between Donald Trump and the Democratic Nominee Joe Biden was a trainwreck and dumpster ,everytime Joe Biden tried to answer a question from the moderator Chris Wallace , Trump kept interrupting and talking over him,and hurling insults and spreading lies about mail in ballots which has been disapproving numerous times, his response on the global pandemic,which he and his administration has mishandled from the beginning,and when giving the opportunity to denounce white supremacy,he instead deflected the question and made a dangerous remark on the right wing militia group the proud boys,and he also showed how uneducated and unhinged he is and way in over his head to be president and leading the country,and moderator Chris Wallace lost control of the presidential debate from the beginning, hopefully the next two presidential debates won't be as chaotic as this one was. and Joe Biden needs to speak directly to the voters and tell them why they should elect him as the next president, and do his best not to respond to every disparaging remark Donald Trump throws his way.

[filghy2]

I noticed this during his one on one debates with Bernie. I like him better than Bernie but kept thinking Bernie's answers were more detailed and succinct.

I think Trump's obnoxious behaviour actually lets Biden of the hook a bit because it means the focus is on Trump's character rather than Biden's policy views. Many Republican commentators are saying this.

I wonder whether Trump is starting to give up on trying to win the election by appealing to undecided voters, given the lack of movement in the polls. Nate Silver says that he is further behind at this stage behind than any candidate since Bob Dole in 1996. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-chances-are-dwindling-that-could-make-him-dangerous/ He may be increasingly focussed on firing up his base to support him in refusing to accept the outcome of the vote.

[broncofan]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1311892190680014849

Hot off the press ladies and gentleman. The man whose incompetence and callousness caused tens of thousands of deaths has tested positive for covid along with Melania. This will certainly effect the race but too early to say how.

[Paladin]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1311892190680014849

Hot off the press ladies and gentleman. The man whose incompetence and callousness caused tens of thousands of deaths has tested positive for covid along with Melania. This will certainly effect the race but too early to say how.


Affect, not effect.

[Stavros]

I don’t know if this is the ‘October Surprise’ because on one level it is not a surprise.

I do not wish this illness on anyone, but the President has become a victim of his arrogant refusal to accept that there are people smarter than him. Be it military affairs, sport, politics, the arts, or medicine and science, the President is inferior in experience and knowledge to most people. There is no law that says a President must be smart, but the Presidency, of whatever party, gives the incumbent access to a comprehensive range of expertise and knowledge. If the President decides not to use it, then he or she must accept the consequences.

But this also means that those who serve the President must do their job. And if it is the case they are or have been too scared to tell the President to wear a mask, that he must either not engage in events where large numbers of people congregate or limit those gatherings, and distance people at them, then they are culpable for the infection. We know enough about Covid-19 to know how the virus is transmitted, it is simply not good enough for intelligent people to elevate themselves above everyone else and presume they are immune. This is true of the President and his staff as it is of Governors and Mayors. None of us are immune to facts.

The worst affected places, be it the UK or the US have exhibited in too many instances a failure of politicians to implement, from the start, the most severe measures available to them. The refusal to act fast and in a comprehensive nationwide manner in the US is something the American people must deal with. But in 2020 and with the level of clinical expertise and knowledge that we have it was always the case that ignorance was not an option.

For the man and the country, this is another step backwards for the USA.

[broncofan]

Affect, not effect.
You are definitely correct. That's about the only thing I've ever seen you get right. I've been making a lot of mistakes like that lately.

[filghy2]

One thing that's clear is that we can't trust what the administration tells us about the President's condition. The doctors' press conference and subsequent clarifications sounded like an exercise in evasion. It also looked like it had been scripted by Hollywood with all those men in white coats.

[broncofan]

One thing that's clear is that we can't trust what the administration tells us about the President's condition. The doctors' press conference and subsequent clarifications sounded like an exercise in evasion. It also looked like it had been scripted by Hollywood with all those men in white coats.
I also expect that they lie but I'm not sure what they want the narrative to be. Initially they didn't want people to know he has covid because it makes him look reckless, which he is.

Now that we know he has it, maybe they don't want it to look severe because he's downplayed the severity of the disease for other people and he's generally vain and doesn't want to look vulnerable. On the other hand, if they think he's probably going to survive it, maybe they want to spin the story that he's stoic and went through hell and there's something inspiring about his recovery. If he recovers expect to hear stories about how bad it got and really poignant quotations from Trump about his commitment to the American public.

Just knowing the facts up until his illness it already looks disqualifyingly bad. He held a super spreader event without even reasonable precautions and more than a dozen of his own party members got sick and then he did not notify the thousands of people who were possibly exposed during the incubation period, from white house staff to debate workers. The steps they took to prevent the spread of illness would not pass scrutiny for someone even marginally competent and really tell the story about why our outbreaks in this country have been so bad.

[Stavros]

New spin: he wants to share the suffering of the American people.

But, he gets Gold Star treatment at one of the finest private hospitals in the USA, with some of its finest physicians, and access to the full range of medicine and therapies available, including those in an experimental stage of development- but not Hydroxychloroquine.

The cost is borne by the taxpayers, 20 million of whom, if the President succeeds, will lose their health care as the Affordable Care Act is finally laid to the rest. When he was photographed in the Presidential suite at Walter Reed signing blank sheets of paper, it was his new health care plan.

There is something deeply wrong with our leaders. Boris Johnson asked simple questions about his own policies on Covid-19 was unable to answer, when asked the cost of a new hospital in Leeds fumbled with some notes on the floor and still didn’t know. Is it any wonder that Johnson is losing the trust of both the people and his own party just as the President is exposed for the fool that he is?

At least in a month’s time the US will be taking a new path to the future, and I hope one that restores the public faith in Government, while in the UK we have yet another month of ‘negotiations’ about Brexit because after more than 4 years and with less than three months to go, we have no idea what it will mean in practice.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

One thing that's clear is that we can't trust what the administration tells us about the President's condition. The doctors' press conference and subsequent clarifications sounded like an exercise in evasion. It also looked like it had been scripted by Hollywood with all those men in white coats.Agree that we can't trust what the Trump Administration tells the american citizens about the President's condition,because they don't want it to look like that he didn't the pandemic serious,which he didn't. and has downplayed it from the beginning and saying that it was going to go away during the warmer months, which it didn't. and his administration is going to be damage control trying to get ahead of reports about the president's condition. and it does look like it has been scripted by hollywood.

[filghy2]

Just knowing the facts up until his illness it already looks disqualifyingly bad. He held a super spreader event without even reasonable precautions and more than a dozen of his own party members got sick and then he did not notify the thousands of people who were possibly exposed during the incubation period, from white house staff to debate workers. The steps they took to prevent the spread of illness would not pass scrutiny for someone even marginally competent and really tell the story about why our outbreaks in this country have been so bad.

They don't seem to have learnt either, as they've just exposed people forced to travel with him in the car for the sake of a photo op. If he comes through it okay, what are the chances that he's going to do the quarantine period properly?

[KnightHawk 2.0]

New spin: he wants to share the suffering of the American people.

But, he gets Gold Star treatment at one of the finest private hospitals in the USA, with some of its finest physicians, and access to the full range of medicine and therapies available, including those in an experimental stage of development- but not Hydroxychloroquine.

The cost is borne by the taxpayers, 20 million of whom, if the President succeeds, will lose their health care as the Affordable Care Act is finally laid to the rest. When he was photographed in the Presidential suite at Walter Reed signing blank sheets of paper, it was his new health care plan.

There is something deeply wrong with our leaders. Boris Johnson asked simple questions about his own policies on Covid-19 was unable to answer, when asked the cost of a new hospital in Leeds fumbled with some notes on the floor and still didn’t know. Is it any wonder that Johnson is losing the trust of both the people and his own party just as the President is exposed for the fool that he is?

At least in a month’s time the US will be taking a new path to the future, and I hope one that restores the public faith in Government, while in the UK we have yet another month of ‘negotiations’ about Brexit because after more than 4 years and with less than three months to go, we have no idea what it will mean in practice. Agree that is how his administration is going try and spin the narrative,by claiming that Donald Trump wants to share the suffering of the american people, and is working hard for them, but in reality he's the one that caused the suffering from his mishandling of the pandemic. and isn't working hard for them at all. meanwhile his enablers are moving full speed ahead to rush through his nominee for the US Supreme Court so he can get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and if he succeeds,the taxpayers who are paying his treatment will lose their health coverage,and those blank papers that he was photographed signing yesterday shows that he no health care plan at all. and i also hope that in a month the new path will restores the public faith in government, and is lead by a president and a vice president who will put the interest of the people ahead of their own,and lead the US out of the darkness.

[broncofan]

They don't seem to have learnt either, as they've just exposed people forced to travel with him in the car for the sake of a photo op. If he comes through it okay, what are the chances that he's going to do the quarantine period properly?
Concern for others or concern for what is right will never factor into the decision. The only way he would quarantine is if he thought breaking quarantine would harm him politically.

Psychiatric diagnoses are often made too casually and it's increasingly common for people to speculate about whether someone is a narcissist or a sociopath or if someone with technical ability has asperger's. Yet there is something useful about the sociopath designation when it comes to Trump and I'm sure I'm not the only person who's dealt with a sociopath.

People in general don't have the emotional tools to deal with a sociopath. Most of us have an instinct for mercy or compassion and when I hear that Trump is having trouble breathing I feel bad. Yet Trump feels bad for nobody but himself and if and when he recovers he will mercilessly take advantage of any situation for his own benefit no matter what the cost. I'm not sure what the answer is....just keep pushing and try to win this election. But never assume that any situation could change Trump for the better or that he could actually develop a conscience, even through suffering.

[broncofan]

White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany tested positive for Covid today after testing negative every previous day. Biden tested negative yesterday but is not out of the woods yet. As doctors have noted Trump was likely infectious during their debate last Tuesday and talking and yelling shed a lot of virus. Obviously I hope that Biden continues to test negative.

[Stavros]

“I feel better than I did 20 years ago,”.

Of course you do, numpty, you’re on stimulating drugs.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany tested positive for Covid today after testing negative every previous day. Biden tested negative yesterday but is not out of the woods yet. As doctors have noted Trump was likely infectious during their debate last Tuesday and talking and yelling shed a lot of virus. Obviously I hope that Biden continues to test negative. I also hope that Joe Biden continues to test negative for CO-VID 19.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

“I feel better than I did 20 years ago,”.

Of course you do, numpty, you’re on stimulating drugs. Completely agree 1000%.

[broncofan]

“I feel better than I did 20 years ago,”.

Of course you do, numpty, you’re on stimulating drugs.
I think the steroids are masking respiratory distress and making him feel euphoric. He almost certainly has pneumonia and while it's possible he just gets better I think it's unlikely it's a direct path. When his doctors say he's not out of the woods yet they're not just being humble as he's still quite sick. He wouldn't be on steroids if he weren't and they wouldn't be so opaque if he weren't.

And yes, 6 mg of dexamethasone can make someone feel like they can run through a wall. In asthma they give you high doses like this (though the dose equivalent of prednisone is 40 mg and I've gone as high as 60 mg) but doctors give them in "bursts". You don't want someone to be on a high dose of a corticosteroid for too long because it suppresses your own cortisol production. My point is that eventually they have to stop the steroid...

[Stavros]

I slept early to watch the VP debate live from 2am here. If Harris edged Pence, bias aside, it may be because she is the more animated, deeply felt and expressive human of the two, owing to the restraint bordering on monotony of Pence’s way of speaking.

Both avoided answers to questions making sure they made points not relevant to the question, and while Harris, for all I know about her record as a Prosecutor and AG in California- not much- defended her record, Pence told outright nonsense about ISIS, COVID-19 and the economy- but Harris often failed to land decisive blows.

Pence criticised the state of the Federal stockpile of PPE left over from the Obama years, but Harris could have asked why in three years they never replenished it.

Pence criticised slow growth under eight years of the Obama Presidency, yet in the pre-Covid years rates of growth have not exceeded Obama’s. And not a word about trillions and trillions of dollars of debt!

The US played an important role in the defeat of ISIS, but so too did the Russians, the Syrians, and on the ground, the militias in Iraq organised by Qasem Suleimani, while a significant amount of ground fighting was done by the Kurds in Iraq, and particularly in Syria- Harris could have pointed this out, and added that when the fighting was over, the Americans stabbed the Kurds in the back to deal with Turkey.

Harris could have twisted the knife on China, pointing out that offshoring jobs from the US to Asia began when Reagan was President, that trade with China benefited many US corporations, that the President was shut out of that trade until 2017, that for all his attacks on trade with China, his daughter’s trade has been above criticism. She has made more money from China than Hunter Biden might have.

The knife could have gone in over the COVID-19 Task Force, arguing Pence from the start was sidelined by Jared Kushner- what, in fact, did Pence do these past seven months?

Harris was strong on health care, but could have battered Pence more to point out that after nearly four years, no replacement to the Affordable Care Act has emerged.

Harris could have listed all or key environmental regulations scrapped by the Administration, and failed to clarify if the Green New Deal is Biden/Harris policy.

When Pence accused Obama of spying on the Republican team in 2016, Harris could have pointed out this is a lie, that the campaign team was investigated because they broke the law, and added that Mueller identified eleven cases of obstruction of justice.

Lastly, where was the debate on culture regarding public monuments and the legacy of slavery, civil war and segregation in the US, and where was the debate on Education? There was none.

It was a step up from the Presidential debate, but so much more could have been achieved.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump was at it again yesterday making baseless claims about mail in ballots,even though it has been proven this is no evidence voter fraud by mail,and lashing out at Attorney Bill Barr,pressuring him to prosecute his political rivals,shows how desperate he is to hold on to power and knows he's losing in the polls,and is willing to use every underhanded tactic to get re-elected,including telling his enablers in the senate to focus on ramming through his supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett
and confirm her to the US Supreme Court before election day,so he challenge the results in court when he loses,because he thinks that the Supreme Court will rule in his favor.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

I slept early to watch the VP debate live from 2am here. If Harris edged Pence, bias aside, it may be because she is the more animated, deeply felt and expressive human of the two, owing to the restraint bordering on monotony of Pence’s way of speaking.

Both avoided answers to questions making sure they made points not relevant to the question, and while Harris, for all I know about her record as a Prosecutor and AG in California- not much- defended her record, Pence told outright nonsense about ISIS, COVID-19 and the economy- but Harris often failed to land decisive blows.

Pence criticised the state of the Federal stockpile of PPE left over from the Obama years, but Harris could have asked why in three years they never replenished it.

Pence criticised slow growth under eight years of the Obama Presidency, yet in the pre-Covid years rates of growth have not exceeded Obama’s. And not a word about trillions and trillions of dollars of debt!

The US played an important role in the defeat of ISIS, but so too did the Russians, the Syrians, and on the ground, the militias in Iraq organised by Qasem Suleimani, while a significant amount of ground fighting was done by the Kurds in Iraq, and particularly in Syria- Harris could have pointed this out, and added that when the fighting was over, the Americans stabbed the Kurds in the back to deal with Turkey.

Harris could have twisted the knife on China, pointing out that offshoring jobs from the US to Asia began when Reagan was President, that trade with China benefited many US corporations, that the President was shut out of that trade until 2017, that for all his attacks on trade with China, his daughter’s trade has been above criticism. She has made more money from China than Hunter Biden might have.

The knife could have gone in over the COVID-19 Task Force, arguing Pence from the start was sidelined by Jared Kushner- what, in fact, did Pence do these past seven months?

Harris was strong on health care, but could have battered Pence more to point out that after nearly four years, no replacement to the Affordable Care Act has emerged.

Harris could have listed all or key environmental regulations scrapped by the Administration, and failed to clarify if the Green New Deal is Biden/Harris policy.

When Pence accused Obama of spying on the Republican team in 2016, Harris could have pointed out this is a lie, that the campaign team was investigated because they broke the law, and added that Mueller identified eleven cases of obstruction of justice.

Lastly, where was the debate on culture regarding public monuments and the legacy of slavery, civil war and segregation in the US, and where was the debate on Education? There was none.

It was a step up from the Presidential debate, but so much more could have been achieved.Completely agree that wednesday's vice presidential debate Mike Pence and Kamala Harris was a step up from the presidental debate,and so much more could have been achieved,and wasn't the trainwreck and dumpster fire that the presidential debate was.

[Stavros]

Completely agree that wednesday's vice presidential debate Mike Pence and Kamala Harris was a step up from the presidental debate,and so much more could have been achieved,and wasn't the trainwreck and dumpster fire that the presidential debate was.

The US is a divided society, and because it has been so for more than a hundred years, the divisions run deep -the question is whether or not the US, if it cannot be wholly united, can be healed of its poisonous wounds. The best you can hope for from Biden and Harris is a return to competent government, and a more caring attitude to the environment. For complex reasons the questions that have yet to be asked, let alone answered on the future of work and jobs, and because of Covid-19 the future of public health and indeed, the City, must shape the future, but can either Biden or Harris offer some idea of what the future will look like if they win the Presidency and Congress?

It seems to me that four more years of chaos and arrogance in the Presidency, and legislative backwardness in Congress will make a bad situation worse. And yet, the US has shown over the last 100 years that it can survive the worst that politics and economics produces; that it is flexible enough to incorporate immigrants and marginal social groups into the main body of society without diminishing the values and aspirations of the Constitution that a Revolution created.

The difference with the UK could not be more stark -for I feel that the UK is not just divided, but broken. Brexit has not united the UK behind a vision of independence from Europe, capable of maintaining its status as one of the richest countries in the world. It has broken the very idea of Union, with Northern Ireland gradually moving towards the realization that its future lies in a re-unification with the Irish Republic, and with independence for Scotland back on the agenda. Independence for Wales has never been as vigorous or widespread as the movement in Scotland, but what the mis-management of Covid-19 has done is alienate the Welsh from the UK Government. Indeed, even in England, there is a damaging rift between the Government in London and areas of the North -Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle- that feel ignored and left out of critical decision making, the irony being that the 'Red Wall' constituencies in these areas voted for Boris Johnson.

Johnson is better educated than his American counterpart, but clearly education alone does not explain a colossal sense of self-admiration undermined by so sloppy an approach to management. Boris Johnson appears to find the burdens of responsibilty too great to bear, and is in addition so lazy a worker he leaves decision making to other people which is why he is frequently unable to answer questions about his own policy. It is another irony, that Johnson sees himself as a latter-day Churchill rescuing the UK from the European Union, but only embraced this cause to get David Cameron's job, for personal reasons derived from their shared experiences of Eton and Oxford where Johnson was a year or two ahead of Cameron. The result is that Johnson has never truly believed in Brexit, but is convinced he can make it work.

Churchill, judged over the whole of his political career, was a flop -it was the Second World War that revived his career and by which he is best remembered -and for the most part, he spoke for Britain and was admired as a wartime leader. Johnson, also a flop in his earlier career, as London Mayor, is leading the UK to oblivion not victory, his so-called independence from the EU emerging with so many compromises -on Northern Ireland, on fishing, on intelligence and security, on banking and state aid- we might wonder why we are leaving at all, other than to note we leave on poor terms, the details of which we still don't know, barely months before the formal separation begins.

The US is indeed at a critical moment, but I am not sure the South will break away, that four more years means the independence of Callifornia, though it would be four more years of division and desperation. If it were a matter of bets, I would bet on the US not the UK, but I am biased. Because I live here, and can see what damage the Conservatives have done, and see no prospect of a broken Britain being repaired.

[filghy2]

This election campaign appears to have shattered the myth of Trump as a political genius. He has been so inept at appealing to undecided voters - in particular by continually drawing attention to his own personality flaws - that he would possibly be better placed if they had locked him in a room without any electronic devices.

Was he ever a political genius, or did he just fluke a win in 2016 due to a combination of favourable circumstances? Was his approach one that could only be effective against an unpopular opponent when Trump was the outsider with no record in government? Trump has never moved far from his default approach of playing 'us vs them' politics, which is why he has struggled to expand his support beyond the 40% or so of committed Trump fans. His only response seems to be to double down on trying to appeal his base.

One thing that has changed between 2016 and now is that last time Trump was talking a lot more about policies to improve the lot of average Americans, albeit a lot of it was vague and never followed up. Trump's policy agenda for the next 4 years has been largely absent from the discussion (the Republican party does not even have a policy platform). It's as if he is asking Americans to endorse him as emperor with the US government as his personal fiefdom.

It looks like most Americans are going to decide to cancel the next season of the Trump reality show. Hopefully it will be the blow-out that the polls are predicting. That probably won't make any difference to whether Trump accepts the result, but it should mean the Republicans are less likely to support his attempts to hold onto power and more likely to want to move on from Trump.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

The US is a divided society, and because it has been so for more than a hundred years, the divisions run deep -the question is whether or not the US, if it cannot be wholly united, can be healed of its poisonous wounds. The best you can hope for from Biden and Harris is a return to competent government, and a more caring attitude to the environment. For complex reasons the questions that have yet to be asked, let alone answered on the future of work and jobs, and because of Covid-19 the future of public health and indeed, the City, must shape the future, but can either Biden or Harris offer some idea of what the future will look like if they win the Presidency and Congress?

It seems to me that four more years of chaos and arrogance in the Presidency, and legislative backwardness in Congress will make a bad situation worse. And yet, the US has shown over the last 100 years that it can survive the worst that politics and economics produces; that it is flexible enough to incorporate immigrants and marginal social groups into the main body of society without diminishing the values and aspirations of the Constitution that a Revolution created.

The difference with the UK could not be more stark -for I feel that the UK is not just divided, but broken. Brexit has not united the UK behind a vision of independence from Europe, capable of maintaining its status as one of the richest countries in the world. It has broken the very idea of Union, with Northern Ireland gradually moving towards the realization that its future lies in a re-unification with the Irish Republic, and with independence for Scotland back on the agenda. Independence for Wales has never been as vigorous or widespread as the movement in Scotland, but what the mis-management of Covid-19 has done is alienate the Welsh from the UK Government. Indeed, even in England, there is a damaging rift between the Government in London and areas of the North -Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle- that feel ignored and left out of critical decision making, the irony being that the 'Red Wall' constituencies in these areas voted for Boris Johnson.

Johnson is better educated than his American counterpart, but clearly education alone does not explain a colossal sense of self-admiration undermined by so sloppy an approach to management. Boris Johnson appears to find the burdens of responsibilty too great to bear, and is in addition so lazy a worker he leaves decision making to other people which is why he is frequently unable to answer questions about his own policy. It is another irony, that Johnson sees himself as a latter-day Churchill rescuing the UK from the European Union, but only embraced this cause to get David Cameron's job, for personal reasons derived from their shared experiences of Eton and Oxford where Johnson was a year or two ahead of Cameron. The result is that Johnson has never truly believed in Brexit, but is convinced he can make it work.

Churchill, judged over the whole of his political career, was a flop -it was the Second World War that revived his career and by which he is best remembered -and for the most part, he spoke for Britain and was admired as a wartime leader. Johnson, also a flop in his earlier career, as London Mayor, is leading the UK to oblivion not victory, his so-called independence from the EU emerging with so many compromises -on Northern Ireland, on fishing, on intelligence and security, on banking and state aid- we might wonder why we are leaving at all, other than to note we leave on poor terms, the details of which we still don't know, barely months before the formal separation begins.

The US is indeed at a critical moment, but I am not sure the South will break away, that four more years means the independence of Callifornia, though it would be four more years of division and desperation. If it were a matter of bets, I would bet on the US not the UK, but I am biased. Because I live here, and can see what damage the Conservatives have done, and see no prospect of a broken Britain being repaired.Agree the best US Citizens can hope for from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
is a return to a competent government,and a more caring attitude to the environment,and i think that Biden and Harris can offer an idea of what the future will look like if they win the presidency and congress,where they will listen to health experts and scientists and come up with a plan on how to deal with the COVID 19 Pandemic,by increasing testing for everyone and contract tracing and reopening schools safely,and get the economy back on track by creating good paying jobs, and fix the healthcare system so people can afford it,and rejoining the paris climate accord. and leading the US out of the darkness,healing and uniting the nation as well,unlike like Donald Trump who has spent the last 3 1/2 years stoking fear and division and dividing the country with his toxic rhetoric,and attacking and degrading people who don't agree with him,and continues to show how incompetent he and doesn't understand how the government work,and is desperate to how on to power by using underhanded tactics,and also agree that the US is at a critical moment,and i think the american people will send him and his corrupt administration a message at the polls.

[IwuvFBBs]

so my take on the whole US elections is that I've never been more embarrassed to say I'm an American. In 2016, Hillary had every chance to win but she didn't because she didn't appeal to the most abundant demographic - lower to middle class white Americans. That's precisely what Trump did and won by a landslide.

In 2020 the Biden-Harris duo is in my opinion the best and worst combination democrats could have pushed. Tulsi destroyed Kamala at the debate stage and people magically forgot about it. Biden's biggest push is that he was VP when Obama was president. My fear with Biden winning (and that's a big if) is that he might get Epstein'ed out and Kamala becomes president, thus we have someone unfit for presidency once again in charge. Second to that is that Biden is the segue for big corporations to have even more power in politics. If you want to further divide America, look no further than this happening. The good thing about their combination is that they unite both the social and corporate democrat interests under one party. Assuming that Kamala was the more moderate option for social democrats, she's a strong asset regardless of her history as attorney general in California. The #VoteBlueNoMatterWho folks are in for a surprise when their diversity candidate's history is revealed to them, should they choose to listen.

The obligatory Trump part - his way of going about important issues is unfit for office. I disagree that the President should be held to a higher standard than the people who voted for them BUT the Donald has made no changes to improve his character. Unfortunately, Democratic led strategies to remove him have failed thus earning him more of the "good guy" persona he needs to win. Seriously, if Democrats would just project themselves as the people's party they can win. Easily. But instead, they focus their efforts to push their own political agendas which most people don't care. He fails to acknowledge science and medical experts on subjects he knows nothing about which has led to real harm people outside those fields are only beginning to experience. He and his team cut NSF funding significantly and the COVID crisis could've been handled much better. Don't get me wrong, Democrats would've screwed us as well but he had the shot and missed the mark. Trump represents a cultural rejection to corporate America and that's good. Communities should come before bureaucracy, but the Trump of today fails to represent your average American. However, his influence and persona are enough to steer people into voting for him to oppose the corporations backing Democratic leadership.

And to those who wonder why globalization and corporate rule are a problem, I believe the COVID pandemic is enough evidence to show that if we all depend on the same power source, we're doomed when the plug is pulled.

[broncofan]

That's precisely what Trump did and won by a landslide.

Trump won by a pretty small margin. Had Hillary won Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin she would have won. Trump won those states by approximate margins of 44,000, 11,000, and 23,000. That means the entire election hinged on 78,000 votes out of about 136,000,000 votes cast nationwide. Or maybe a fairer way to present it is with the population of those states as a denominator. But it was a very close election in the electoral college as a result.

[filghy2]

Second to that is that Biden is the segue for big corporations to have even more power in politics.

Trump represents a cultural rejection to corporate America and that's good.

What planet have you been residing on over the past 4 years? Trump's main economic policy priorities have been to cut taxes on corporations and wealthy people and to gut corporate regulation in most areas. Why do you think the stock market was booming (at least until COVID-19)? Trump is a plutocrat's president - all the populist anti-elite stuff was always totally phoney.

[Stavros]

so my take on the whole US elections is that I've never been more embarrassed to say I'm an American. In 2016, Hillary had every chance to win but she didn't because she didn't appeal to the most abundant demographic - lower to middle class white Americans. That's precisely what Trump did and won by a landslide.

In 2020 the Biden-Harris duo is in my opinion the best and worst combination democrats could have pushed. Tulsi destroyed Kamala at the debate stage and people magically forgot about it. Biden's biggest push is that he was VP when Obama was president. My fear with Biden winning (and that's a big if) is that he might get Epstein'ed out and Kamala becomes president, thus we have someone unfit for presidency once again in charge. Second to that is that Biden is the segue for big corporations to have even more power in politics. If you want to further divide America, look no further than this happening. The good thing about their combination is that they unite both the social and corporate democrat interests under one party. Assuming that Kamala was the more moderate option for social democrats, she's a strong asset regardless of her history as attorney general in California. The #VoteBlueNoMatterWho folks are in for a surprise when their diversity candidate's history is revealed to them, should they choose to listen.

The obligatory Trump part - his way of going about important issues is unfit for office. I disagree that the President should be held to a higher standard than the people who voted for them BUT the Donald has made no changes to improve his character. Unfortunately, Democratic led strategies to remove him have failed thus earning him more of the "good guy" persona he needs to win. Seriously, if Democrats would just project themselves as the people's party they can win. Easily. But instead, they focus their efforts to push their own political agendas which most people don't care. He fails to acknowledge science and medical experts on subjects he knows nothing about which has led to real harm people outside those fields are only beginning to experience. He and his team cut NSF funding significantly and the COVID crisis could've been handled much better. Don't get me wrong, Democrats would've screwed us as well but he had the shot and missed the mark. Trump represents a cultural rejection to corporate America and that's good. Communities should come before bureaucracy, but the Trump of today fails to represent your average American. However, his influence and persona are enough to steer people into voting for him to oppose the corporations backing Democratic leadership.

And to those who wonder why globalization and corporate rule are a problem, I believe the COVID pandemic is enough evidence to show that if we all depend on the same power source, we're doomed when the plug is pulled.

Although I agree with some if your points, I think that the experience of the Obama administration reveals how difficult it has become to introduce radical social legislation. Not only was the Johnson administration the most radical since FDR, it broke the bi-party consensus on the anvil of race, while the extension of state involvement in the economy has been fought ever since and indeed, come to define the Republican Party. One can applaud the Obama team for rescuing the banking sector, but since the 19th century the US has had the most unstable banking sector in the capitalist world with the exception of Argentina, yet exhibited in Government the same ‘duty of care’ that makes a mockery of free markets and, moreover, requires the tax payers to bail out billionaires. There is a strange irony in an electorate that voted in 2016 for a man who echoed their bitterness at the way things have gone, who himself has been in debt and exploited the law on bankruptcy and debt to substitute his losses with tax payer bailouts.

I have argued before that the Democrats are too soft to implement real changes be it in health care or education, and I doubt Biden and Harris can do it. If they win in 2020 it is a step back, albeit a step back from the edge if a cliff. McConnell and Graham are the legacy of Newt Gingrich, whose confrontational politics has done so much to erode the kind of bi-partisan consensus that gets things done in Congress. The bitterness and rage that exists there is not conducive to good government, while the creation of a Presidency immune to the rule of law is precisely the kind of danger Washington and Jefferson feared when they began this experiment in politics.

Were there to be a landslide victory then, in theory the Democrats could make real changes, but in practice they may have lost the the judiciary, and I think will be too scared of alienating the men with money. Politics might be, like life, disappointing, in this case, it could be tragic. For I think the new generation of voters want real change, on guns, on education, on health, above all on jobs. If four more years of nothing is the price paid for an idiot in the White House, what would the purpose of politics be?

[broncofan]

I have argued before that the Democrats are too soft to implement real changes be it in health care or education, and I doubt Biden and Harris can do it. If they win in 2020 it is a step back, albeit a step back from the edge if a cliff.

Biden's policies are soft, particularly in the healthcare arena but what will matter most is whether Democrats win the Senate. Republicans will likely have completed their court-packing exercise by the time the election is over with and a genuine extremist in Amy Coney Barrett will have been nominated to the court. The significance of this is that Republicans will be able to challenge any healthcare law that is passed and even if the grounds for the challenge are not strong, they have a chance to succeed in nullifying the law.

In the case of Biden I agree about the softness of his policy prescriptions but how much of the lack of change you'd like to see just reflect the reality of U.S. culture and our political system?

I also disagree with the above post by IwuvFBBs arguing that Democrats also would have messed up covid response. Do I think any Democrat would have been prescient and handled this disaster as well as countries with experience? No, but I do think there are Democrats who could have done an average job, which would have resulted in about 160,000 fewer deaths. The current Republican mania about masks and public health efforts and other insanity would have been less potent as the opposition than is the current case.

[broncofan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/us/politics/ohio-mail-ballots-trump.html

It's not time to hit the panic button yet but this is definitely a reason for concern. Hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots that people have requested in Ohio and Pennsylvania are at least 10 days late in reaching voters. The majority of mail-in ballots have been requested by Democrats and if they don't receive their ballots they would have to fill out a provisional ballot at the polls on election day.

The company outsourced to handle the mail in ballots has been flying a Trump flag at their headquarters. It's too early to say whether this is a case of negligence or if it's intentional. At this point I'd assume it's not intentional but even if they try to rectify this they are likely to suppress some votes.

I received my ballot and already delivered it to my election office. It even shows up electronically that my ballot has been received. Of course, I requested a mail in ballot on September 8 and did not receive it until September 28. If people who requested their ballots in early October have not received them yet, what kind of glut will there be for those who request mail in ballots all the way up until the deadline of October 27? I personally know six people who requested their ballots more than two weeks ago and have not received them. Watch this space because if this problem is not fixed it will have an impact.

[Stavros]

Bronco fan, re your two posts-

- I have said it before but the implication of what has been reported so far is that election management ought to be taken away from the State and provided by an Independent Electoral Commission. There are too many suspicions that votes are not being counted, or lost, or rejected for flimsy reasons. It beggars belief that the US in 2020 should have such basic problems.

- re the previous topic, I wonder what Republicans think is the difference between a leftist and an ultra-leftist or indeed those two and a socialist, as if electing Biden and Harris is going to mean the state ownership of business, a one party state, the abolition of fhe Constitution and so on, with the weird reality that the State is now intervening in the economy to the tune of billions of dollars a year, so that if anyone is practising ‘State control’ it is the Republican Party. If the State withdrew and insisted on letting the market deal with COVID-19 the economy of the US would collapse in a week. That billions are spent compensating for tariffs further illustrates the fact that if you want financial (mis-) management, elect a Republican not a Democrat.

As for the Democrats obsession with the Middle Class and safety first, suppose the Middle Class want radical change? Why do we assume the suburbs are populated by people resistant to change, when they voted for some version of it in 2016?

[blackchubby38]

Bronco fan, re your two posts-


As for the Democrats obsession with the Middle Class and safety first, suppose the Middle Class want radical change? Why do we assume the suburbs are populated by people resistant to change, when they voted for some version of it in 2016?


I think it depends on the type of radical change that you're talking about. Because if a person worked a good portion of their adult lives to make a better life for themselves and their family and they moved to the suburbs, they may feel like radical change isn't what's needed to solve all of the country's problems.

[filghy2]

I think it depends on the type of radical change that you're talking about. Because if a person worked a good portion of their adult lives to make a better life for themselves and their family and they moved to the suburbs, they may feel like radical change isn't what's needed to solve all of the country's problems.

I'm wondering what it would take to convince you that your system is broken and that some fundamental changes are needed. I'm not sure 'radical' is the right word because in most cases we are talking about things that have been the norm in other developed countries for a long time. American exceptionalism these days means that the US is generally an example for other countries of what not to do.

Consider these facts:
- real wages for the bottom 90% of US workers have barely risen over the last 40 years; ie virtually all of the income gains have gone to those at the top
- not only is inequality greater in the US than in other developed countries, but inter-generational mobility is also lower (ie your lot in life is more likely to be determined by the family you were born into)
- the US spends nearly twice as much on health care as other developed countries but health outcomes (eg life expectancy) are worse
- life expectancy for non-college educated white Americans is falling, which is virtually unprecedented for a developed country
- the murder rate in the US is way higher than any other developed country and (not coincidentally) so is the rate of gun ownership

And if recent events haven't convinced you that your political and electoral system requires fundamental changes then I give up.

[Stavros]

I think it depends on the type of radical change that you're talking about. Because if a person worked a good portion of their adult lives to make a better life for themselves and their family and they moved to the suburbs, they may feel like radical change isn't what's needed to solve all of the country's problems.

I raised a point and you quite rightly ask what I mean by it, and of course I don’t know enough about suburban America to answer it. That said, and to embellish some of filghy2’s remarks above, let me put it like this.

Raising alarm by claiming Democrats are now led by radical leftists or whatever alarming term that works, begs these questions:

-do Middle Class Americans want more gun control or less, if not a repeal of the 2nd Amendment, then at least a ban on the sale and ownership of classes of firearms intended for the battlefield? Reform is possible, it is desirable- but is it what most people want?

- do most Americans want the kind of health care we have in European countries such as the UK, Germany, France and Sweden? Polls in the UK have shown people are willing to pay higher rates of tax for improved public services, is the US so remote from such ideas? Do Middle Class Americans regard Sweden as a socialist hell? So I wonder if, when the argument is made properly, if Americans want more than even the Affordable Care Act provides were they to be asked? Or, to put it another way, do they think health care needs change, be it with words like ‘sweeping,’ or ‘radical’?

- education is a difficult one, because I am not sure Middle Class Americans would accept my view that education apartheid is a barrier to achievement. I doubt, given their stagnant incomes, that most Americans can afford a private education for their children, but does expensive and private mean excellence? A socialist education service equalises opportunity, even if it does not create equality, yet I wonder why Americans seem to think, if they do, there is some organising principle akin to witchcraft that nevertheless produces outstanding engineers, chemists, doctors nurses and dentists, musicians, lawyers, poets and even politicians, all originating in a state systems funded from taxation. Our education system in the UK has suffered from the education apartheid created by Tory and Labour (Blair in particular) Governments, but it doesn’t need to be like this, and I would rather our models be Sweden and Finland.

What is it that Americans fear? Taxes? State control? For all your freedoms and liberty, the State, be it Federal or Local has a lot of power and control, and I don’t see much libertarian progress in dismantling the state taking place in the last four years.

Thus, again, I see Biden and Harris as being too tame to effect real change, but wonder if they are missing a tide of opinion, notably among first time voters, that could bring the change to America Obama extolled on that memorable night in Chicago in 2008. It might not be as important as the Second American revolution of 1867, so it won’t be a third revolution or ‘founding’, but have not the last four years not laid the foundations of something new? For what is politics for? And what is there to fear in Municipal Socialism? But as history shows, real change in America is profoundly challenging.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/19/why-the-second-american-revolution-deserves-as-much-attention-as-the-first/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/19/why-the-second-american-revolution-deserves-as-much-attention-as-the-first/)

[blackchubby38]

I'm wondering what it would take to convince you that your system is broken and that some fundamental changes are needed. I'm not sure 'radical' is the right word because in most cases we are talking about things that have been the norm in other developed countries for a long time. American exceptionalism these days means that the US is generally an example for other countries of what not to do.

Consider these facts:
- real wages for the bottom 90% of US workers have barely risen over the last 40 years; ie virtually all of the income gains have gone to those at the top
- not only is inequality greater in the US than in other developed countries, but inter-generational mobility is also lower (ie your lot in life is more likely to be determined by the family you were born into)
- the US spends nearly twice as much on health care as other developed countries but health outcomes (eg life expectancy) are worse
- life expectancy for non-college educated white Americans is falling, which is virtually unprecedented for a developed country
- the murder rate in the US is way higher than any other developed country and (not coincidentally) so is the rate of gun ownership

And if recent events haven't convinced you that your political and electoral system requires fundamental changes then I give up.

I have never said that this country's political and electoral system doesn't require some fundamental changes. I think the disagreement lies in how we should achieve those changes, what those changes should be, and how far those changes should go.

While I might not talk about how other developed countries do things, I actually respect how they do it and I can see how under the right circumstances some of those policies could be implemented here.

But I think since its clear that we have to come to an impasse as to how to enact change in this country, I'm going to give up too.

[blackchubby38]

I raised a point and you quite rightly ask what I mean by it, and of course I don’t know enough about suburban America to answer it. That said, and to embellish some of filghy2’s remarks above, let me put it like this.

Raising alarm by claiming Democrats are now led by radical leftists or whatever alarming term that works, begs these questions:

-do Middle Class Americans want more gun control or less, if not a repeal of the 2nd Amendment, then at least a ban on the sale and ownership of classes of firearms intended for the battlefield? Reform is possible, it is desirable- but is it what most people want?

- do most Americans want the kind of health care we have in European countries such as the UK, Germany, France and Sweden? Polls in the UK have shown people are willing to pay higher rates of tax for improved public services, is the US so remote from such ideas? Do Middle Class Americans regard Sweden as a socialist hell? So I wonder if, when the argument is made properly, if Americans want more than even the Affordable Care Act provides were they to be asked? Or, to put it another way, do they think health care needs change, be it with words like ‘sweeping,’ or ‘radical’?

- education is a difficult one, because I am not sure Middle Class Americans would accept my view that education apartheid is a barrier to achievement. I doubt, given their stagnant incomes, that most Americans can afford a private education for their children, but does expensive and private mean excellence? A socialist education service equalises opportunity, even if it does not create equality, yet I wonder why Americans seem to think, if they do, there is some organising principle akin to witchcraft that nevertheless produces outstanding engineers, chemists, doctors nurses and dentists, musicians, lawyers, poets and even politicians, all originating in a state systems funded from taxation. Our education system in the UK has suffered from the education apartheid created by Tory and Labour (Blair in particular) Governments, but it doesn’t need to be like this, and I would rather our models be Sweden and Finland.

What is it that Americans fear? Taxes? State control? For all your freedoms and liberty, the State, be it Federal or Local has a lot of power and control, and I don’t see much libertarian progress in dismantling the state taking place in the last four years.

Thus, again, I see Biden and Harris as being too tame to effect real change, but wonder if they are missing a tide of opinion, notably among first time voters, that could bring the change to America Obama extolled on that memorable night in Chicago in 2008. It might not be as important as the Second American revolution of 1867, so it won’t be a third revolution or ‘founding’, but have not the last four years not laid the foundations of something new? For what is politics for? And what is there to fear in Municipal Socialism? But as history shows, real change in America is profoundly challenging.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/19/why-the-second-american-revolution-deserves-as-much-attention-as-the-first/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/19/why-the-second-american-revolution-deserves-as-much-attention-as-the-first/)

To answer your first question, I think most middle class Americans do want gun control. But they don't want the 2nd amendment repealed.

When it comes to healthcare, I'm not sure how most Americans feel about that. So I can only speak for myself as someone who at one time in my life was on Medicaid/Medicare because I was on disability. But now through my current job has one of the best employee health plans there is.

I believe there should be something similar to the UK's national health service for those who can't afford healthcare and/or those who want it. But there should still be a place for private health insurance in this country.

Education is a bit tricky because I think college is not for everyone. Therefore I think we should be focusing are energies on finding other ways to make sure a person gets the necessary skills to find a decent paying job/career.

[Stavros]

To answer your first question, I think most middle class Americans do want gun control. But they don't want the 2nd amendment repealed.

When it comes to healthcare, I'm not sure how most Americans feel about that. So I can only speak for myself as someone who at one time in my life was on Medicaid/Medicare because I was on disability. But now through my current job has one of the best employee health plans there is.

I believe there should be something similar to the UK's national health service for those who can't afford healthcare and/or those who want it. But there should still be a place for private health insurance in this country.

Education is a bit tricky because I think college is not for everyone. Therefore I think we should be focusing are energies on finding other ways to make sure a person gets the necessary skills to find a decent paying job/career.

You offer a mature perspective on policy, but one that to me illustrates the cultural gap that exists between the US and Europe. There are plenty of gun owners in Europe, albeit not at the same volume per person. But is it the case the 2nd Amendment ought not to be repealed, or a resigned belief among Americans like you that it cannot be, that the best you can hope for is a fiddling around with the details?

This seems to me to avoid asking what guns are for. You have armed forces that operate on land, on sea, in the air, and in intelligence terms everywhere else. You have a National Guard, and armed law enforcement in every community- what purpose can the 2nd Amendment serve given the changes that have taken place since the Constitution was written, and taking into consideration the various amendments that have refined what it means to be a citizen?

Moreover, as the armed militias prove, their existence stands in opposition to the Rights of citizens under the very same Constitution that created those Rights, and until you resolve this contradiction your politics will enable the privatisation of violence that threatens the integrity of the Union, indeed, of every State and County. For what is basic to a Liberal Democracy is that a degree of personal liberty is surrendered to the State by the citizen in return for public safety and that the concept of political obligation is rooted in the view that the a State - not private citizens- must guarantee that safety.

Throw in the perennial problem of Race and you can see how toxic the contradictions have become, and how easy it is to see that the US could collapse in an orgy of violence. I think you are too nice a guy to admit that you need to tackle gun law with a radical fist, and either repeal it, or refine the details to the extent that armed militias are viewed as what in fact they are: terrorists.

You have great health care, millions of Americans have nothing close. Why not create a sense of community that emerges from all your differences, recognising that a shared need for the security of universal health care creates a bond between people more reasonable than some appeal to the intellectual emptiness known as Patriotism?

I agree not everyone is suited to a college education, but can you guarantee that a basic education, with vocational options included, is offered to every citizen? Too many people fall into gaps created by unequal funding (we have this problem in the UK), so that education too often becomes an aspiration rather than an expression of the so-called Nation.

Unless, and until you have politicians with the real courage to implement major changes to policy then divisions in American society will persist, but in some cases may fester and cause more problems than you need. Or maybe I fail to appreciate the political culture which resists the kinds of changes I think you need. In which case, the 46th President may not be so different from the 45th, even if he, or she has the common decency not to swear in public and use the Office of the Presidency for financial gain.

But as history shows you can change, if infrequently, why not now? You might not get another chance.

[filghy2]

I believe there should be something similar to the UK's national health service for those who can't afford healthcare and/or those who want it. But there should still be a place for private health insurance in this country.

Education is a bit tricky because I think college is not for everyone. Therefore I think we should be focusing are energies on finding other ways to make sure a person gets the necessary skills to find a decent paying job/career.

You may prefer something more like the Australian system, which is less 'socialistic' than the UK's (eg most doctors here are in private practice). Private health insurance and private hospitals exist in parallel with the public system. Essentially the government provides a good basic level of health cover, but if you want more you can take out private insurance.

I think employer-provided health insurance is a bit of a red herring. It only exists in the US because of generous tax concessions, so much of it is already being paid for by the taxpayer. Also, it's part of your employment package, so the employer cost is really coming out of wages you would otherwise have received. As I noted, it's not a good value for money deal because the overall cost of health care is much higher in the US.

The Australian system for funding higher education may also be of interest. Universities are mostly public and the government covers a certain percentage of tuition fees. The rest is covered by income-contingent loans, where repayments only start once your income exceeds a certain level.

[filghy2]

But I think since its clear that we have to come to an impasse as to how to enact change in this country, I'm going to give up too.

Even if the dice are loaded against change it can still be achieved if enough people are prepared push for it. What if FDR in the 1930s said that change was all too hard because Americans didn't want big government and, anyway, there had always been ups and downs in the economy? What if Lincoln had said that getting rid of slavery was too hard? What if people in the 1950s had said that abolishing segregation was too hard?

Ultimately 40-45% of Americans can only impose their views on the country if the majority choose not to fight against it. Trump and his cronies want you to give up in despair because it serves their purposes.

[broncofan]

Just to give an update: I know nobody was hanging on every word for my anecdote but just wanted to give an update because I said I know a bunch of people who were waiting on ballots. Everyone I know who was waiting on a ballot in PA has gotten their ballot and sent it in. I do anticipate it's probably going to work out for most people though some mail in ballots will probably be nullified for not being timely and for some minor errors filling them out. Still checking the polling at 538 every day. We'll see how it goes.

[broncofan]

I watched the second debate last night and thought Joe Biden did a good job. Biden does seem to have a pretty good handle on policy but is hampered by his inability to express himself gracefully. Trump interrupted less and made fewer insults but still lied in nearly every answer and made at least a couple of racist remarks.

The thing that I hope has really been hammered home is that Trump has caused about 150,000 preventable deaths. This is not just the conclusion of a recent research paper by academics at Columbia University but a fairly obvious point given the number of U.S. deaths from covid compared to the global total.

If this alone doesn't disqualify him for re-election then perhaps the fact that he is stunningly corrupt and has no respect for our form of government should. But maybe I can't judge a debate between someone who I know is objectively repugnant and a decent person with a sense of civic responsibility. We'll see what happens November 3rd and in the days that follow.

[Stavros]

But we did learn from the President what the future holds, not his next four years as President, but four years of Biden: the stock market will crash on day one; then the wider economy will collapse; there will be no air conditioning and no central heating, and just when you sit down to watch a ball game, the electricity will cut out- oh, and in all new buildings and renovated existing ones, there will be mandatory small windows...

...but how tame is Biden? No response to the preposterous claim the 45th President has done more for Black Americans than any President since Lincoln- was Biden incapable of rebutting this by citing LBJ? He wasn’t even articulate in defending his record as Senator, sponsoring the Violence Against Women Act, or pointing out that the HN1 response claimed to be a disaster was anything but and that its legacy was more or less trashed by the incoming administration.

Maybe they are so fed up they can’t be bothered to make a fist of it?

[broncofan]

...but how tame is Biden? No response to the preposterous claim the 45th President has done more for Black Americans than any President since Lincoln- was Biden incapable of rebutting this by citing LBJ? He wasn’t even articulate in defending his record as Senator, sponsoring the Violence Against Women Act, or pointing out that the HN1 response claimed to be a disaster was anything but and that its legacy was more or less trashed by the incoming administration.

Maybe they are so fed up they can’t be bothered to make a fist of it?

I've definitely lowered expectations. Imagine what a good debater would have done with Trump on both offense and defense. Some of us are so overwhelmed by the bullshit and the lack of fairness that outrage feels wasted and hard to sustain.

Biden still holds leads in polling in Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and even North Carolina. Though I'd have loved to see a debate performance that really exposed the Trump administration's failings in vivid detail, a victory in the election could make a difference of hundreds of thousands of lives and will more than suffice for me.

If Trump loses and the margins are obvious, we'll also have to see whether he's willing to concede. Even if tradition and prosecutorial restraint makes it unlikely he will face legal jeopardy, does any of that apply to people in his orbit who have been involved in corrupt, illegal acts? Losing the Presidency means he loses control of the Justice Department, the pardon power, and any threats of intimidation or bluster lose all teeth. This is going to be a fascinating next ten days if Biden is successful.

[Stavros]

What about the transition period? Is it not the case that any losing or outgoing President can do lots of things between November and January? He may have ‘Conservative’ judges as a legacy, but he may also want to be as disruptive as he can be knowing there is nothing left, sort of like a tenant trashing the apartment he is leaving to spite the landlord...

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Over 5 months ago House Democrats passed the H.E.R.O.E.S Act,a stimulus bill designed to fund the U.S.Postal Service,Money for more testing and personal protective equipment for frontline workers,expand unemployment benefits and another round of stimulus checks for families,and over 5 months later it is still sitting on Senate Majority Leader's Mitch McConnell's desk and hasn't been brought to the senate floor for a vote,and yesterday Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly to advance Amy Coney Barrett final supreme court confirmation,which will be held Monday Night,and this shows that
Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites,who back in 2016 didn't hold any confirmation hearings for Barack Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court and said that it was to close to an election and that the next president should chose the nominee for the Supreme Court,and 4 years later they break their own rule by ramming through Donald Trump's nominees,and this power grab also shows that Republicans know their time in control of the senate will be coming to an end.

[IwuvFBBs]

I'm confused or perhaps ignorant to your comment. How has Trump caused over 150,000 preventable deaths?

The timeline I'm aware of is that Democrats were against travel bans from highly affected places (China) back at the start of 2020 while Republicans were not. Disregarding political ideologies, it's obvious that restricting travel from key areas reduces the spread of the virus. I recall Trump recommending people to drink bleach to stop the virus. I'm always at odds on this because I can't see how people excuse them taking bleach (which obviously kills you) because the president said so. On the other hand, as president you don't say dumb things like that. Trump keeps saying more tests = more cases which is obvious. I don't believe this to be a significant margin but I have heard news of people testing positive when they don't have the virus. A very serious issue is that COVID related deaths are an ambiguous topic as of right now.

Another critical piece of information is the John Hopkins worldwide mortality rates. The US is doing far better than many countries with respect to COVID related mortality. If this is due to doctors not attributing the cause of death to COVID and instead by other diseases facilitated by COVID we don't know. We can speculate that our private health care system manipulates COVID info but we can't attest to it.

There's an obvious corruption issue but saying that Trump caused COVID deaths doesn't help. If anything, we should audit healthcare records because it's surprising that the US is doing a much better job at treating COVID than other countries with 1st grade healthcare systems. Unless of course, health care in the US is one of the best in the world but I'd need someone from a different country to verify this claim.

[Stavros]

I'm confused or perhaps ignorant to your comment. How has Trump caused over 150,000 preventable deaths?

The timeline I'm aware of is that Democrats were against travel bans from highly affected places (China) back at the start of 2020 while Republicans were not. Disregarding political ideologies, it's obvious that restricting travel from key areas reduces the spread of the virus. I recall Trump recommending people to drink bleach to stop the virus. I'm always at odds on this because I can't see how people excuse them taking bleach (which obviously kills you) because the president said so. On the other hand, as president you don't say dumb things like that. Trump keeps saying more tests = more cases which is obvious. I don't believe this to be a significant margin but I have heard news of people testing positive when they don't have the virus. A very serious issue is that COVID related deaths are an ambiguous topic as of right now.

Another critical piece of information is the John Hopkins worldwide mortality rates. The US is doing far better than many countries with respect to COVID related mortality. If this is due to doctors not attributing the cause of death to COVID and instead by other diseases facilitated by COVID we don't know. We can speculate that our private health care system manipulates COVID info but we can't attest to it.

There's an obvious corruption issue but saying that Trump caused COVID deaths doesn't help. If anything, we should audit healthcare records because it's surprising that the US is doing a much better job at treating COVID than other countries with 1st grade healthcare systems. Unless of course, health care in the US is one of the best in the world but I'd need someone from a different country to verify this claim.


The argument is simple: had the US Government acted sooner than it did to contain the virus, fewer people would have been infected, and fewer would have died. The evidence shows that countries which acted promptly using test and trace systems curbed the spead of the disease early in its life-cycle, South Korea being the best example, if we allow for actions by island states like Taiwan, Iceland and New Zealand having a natural barrier to the spread of infection, though this clearly does not explain how the UK has fared so badly. Being an island, or a group of island states ought to have been an advantage, but it was not.

Yes, the deaths per capita do not put the US top of the table, Belgium being so densely populated has, I understand, the worst record on this. Whether or not deaths due to Covid-19 are accurate is a difficult one, after all, most Africans infected with Malaria die from liver failure, but their livers would not fail were it not for the invasion of the malarial parasite. And why would doctors lie about a patient's death?

The US record of infections is lamentable, and crucial to this is to understand that many people can be infected and not know it, that many can suffer from Covid-19 and return to normal life, but that many do not, and that health-related problems may afflict someone for months, even years to come- Covid-19 is not just about death. Being infected and forced to quarantine also has economic effects, which could be losing income, or even losing a job.

And it is also about health care, and while the US scores highly in some areas, it fails in others (see the first link below). Thus, the main argument remains:

-the US did not create a test and trace system from the very beginning so that it could monitor who had been infected, when and where, and follow up their movements and social interactions, as was essential in combating HIV/AIDS in the 1980s.

-the 'travel ban' was imperfect: on 9/11 the US was shut down, nobody entered, nobody left (except for the 'plane carrying bin Laden's family members who were in the US at the time). This year, only Chinese nationals were barred from entering the US, up to 40,000 US citizens were allowed in from China (one of whom was responsible for the viral outbreak in Washington State), and there were no bans from Europe and the most infected area at the time, Italy, which became the source of many US infections on the East Coast.

-the Obama Administration left a pandemic plan which the succeeding administration binned because anything with Obama's name on it was binned. The lack of PPE early on in the crisis was caused by the Republicans in Congress refusing to fund its replenishment, because they opposed anything with Obama's name on it. And when Under-President Kushner was in day-to-day control of PPE it was denied to Democrat Stats and cities out of childish, if political spite, a good example of how not to conduct pubic health policy.

-Whatever the President said, and says, can be dismissed as he is an ignorant man, an incompetent manager, and indifferent to the pain of other people. That said, social media has played what might in some cases be a catastrophic role in misleading people, such as the sick lies promoted by Sean Hannity on Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh on his talk show. These examples are tantamount to being an accessory to a crime, were Covid-19 a weapon used to kill people or make them ill. In these cases, there was a staggering dereliction of duty to tell the truth, and was done merely to protect the reputation of a man who went on to promote a bogus 'cure' in hydroxychloroquine, and the uses of ultra-violent light and bleach, proof were it needed, that the wrong man was in the most important job, and not leading the US, but failing it, enabed by his friends in the media.

Two links that give a profile for you to consider -

The US compared to other countries-
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/how-us-compares-other-countries-responding-covid-19-populations-risk-health-system

A more polemical view
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/

[broncofan]

I'm confused or perhaps ignorant to your comment. How has Trump caused over 150,000 preventable deaths? .
A recent study by Columbia University conducted by epidemiologists concluded as much. I'll link it if you don't find the rest of my argument convincing but logic should tell you the same thing.

The U.S has 4% of the world's population and 20% of the covid deaths. If the U.S. had its proportionate share of deaths then it would have 4% of the world's deaths. That would be 48,000 deaths (1.2 million times 4%) instead of 232,000 deaths. 232,000 minus 48,000 equals 184,000 deaths above its proportionate share.

The third thing I would say is that the United States is ranked 10th worst in deaths per capita out of 193 UN member countries. Do you not think being ranked 183rd out of 193 is bad? 183rd out of 193 is not good, it is not average, it is poor. And as I say below, per capita numbers should favor neither large nor small countries, though epidemiologists think they slightly favor larger countries.

Early on epidemiologists believed per capita numbers favor more populous countries because they have to be overwhelmed in more regions before their numbers are bad whereas a small, densely populated country can have very bad numbers per capita with one outbreak. So, the U.S. has the most deaths overall and the 10th most per capita.

As the wealthiest country in the world, one that can institute health measures and provide relief to the public, the U.S. should have done at least an average job per capita. An average job would have seen 184,000 fewer deaths.

As for the health measures, it's kind of shocking to me that you're still mentioning travel bans. They can be helpful but the country was seeded all over the place and spread takes place from within. Once a country has community spread, distancing, masking, and testing along with consistent public health messaging prevents further spread.

[broncofan]

A recent study by Columbia University conducted by epidemiologists concluded as much. I'll link it if you don't find the rest of my argument convincing but logic should tell you the same thing.

The U.S has 4% of the world's population and 20% of the covid deaths. If the U.S. had its proportionate share of deaths then it would have 4% of the world's deaths. That would be 48,000 deaths (1.2 million times 4%) instead of 232,000 deaths. 232,000 minus 48,000 equals 184,000 deaths above its proportionate share.

The third thing I would say is that the United States is ranked 10th worst in deaths per capita out of 193 UN member countries. Do you not think being ranked 183rd out of 193 is bad? 183rd out of 193 is not good, it is not average, it is poor. And as I say below, per capita numbers should favor neither large nor small countries, though epidemiologists think they slightly favor larger countries.

Early on epidemiologists believed per capita numbers favor more populous countries because they have to be overwhelmed in more regions before their numbers are bad whereas a small, densely populated country can have very bad numbers per capita with one outbreak. So, the U.S. has the most deaths overall and the 10th most per capita.

As the wealthiest country in the world, one that can institute health measures and provide relief to the public, the U.S. should have done at least an average job per capita. An average job would have seen 184,000 fewer deaths.

As for the health measures, it's kind of shocking to me that you're still mentioning travel bans. They can be helpful but the country was seeded all over the place and spread takes place from within. Once a country has community spread, distancing, masking, and testing along with consistent public health messaging prevents further spread.There's more I can say about some of the issues you raise in your post such as the role of testing in identifying cases and whether deaths are properly attributed but I decided not to since they're kind of peripheral given the subject of this thread. If we had less testing, we'd have the same number of covid deaths (or more because we'd have prevented spread less effectively) but a higher case fatality rate. Excess deaths data also indicates that deaths are not being improperly attributed to covid. And if you want me to explain why I think Trump has not achieved an average public health outcome I could but it should be fairly obvious given the dozens and dozens of false statements he's made during a national emergency that have endangered people. It's been exasperating to follow.

[Stavros]

The President's mantra, but one that does not soothe...

"Covid, Covid, Covid is the unified chant of the Fake News Lamestream Media. They will talk about nothing else until November 4th., when the Election will be (hopefully!) over. Then the talk will be how low the death rate is, plenty of hospital rooms, & many tests of young people."

Maybe someone should tell him he will still be responsible for it until January. Another scary thought.

Fauci says 2021 may see the virus brought under control, but does not see a return to normal until 2021-2022-

"America’s top public health official on infectious diseases, Anthony Fauci, has warned that everyday life is unlikely to resume until late 2021 or into 2022, while right now the coronavirus pandemic is getting “worse and worse”.

I regret to say that I think he is right. But, as this is the worst virual challenge to public health for 100 years, it was never going to be a sideshow.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/oct/27/us-election-2020-live-voter-turnout-donald-trump-joe-biden-barack-obama-latest-presidential-elections-news-updates

[filghy2]

This is a useful article on how the polls compare to last time, what went wrong with polling and how it was interpreted in 2016, and what has changed since then.
https://www.vox.com/21538156/biden-polls-lead-election-trump-2020-2016

[filghy2]

As the wealthiest country in the world, one that can institute health measures and provide relief to the public, the U.S. should have done at least an average job per capita. An average job would have seen 184,000 fewer deaths.

The US also has a smaller share of elderly people in its population, compared to Europe. As COVID mortality is much higher for the elderly, that implies it should have a much lower death rate if the quality of response had been about the same. Instead, the US death rate per million is higher than only two European countries (Belgium and Spain).

You can also compare the US to a fairly similar country next door. Canada's death rate is 265 per million, compared to 703 per million for the US. If you had the same death rate as Canada there would have been 145,000 fewer deaths.

[broncofan]

This is a useful article on how the polls compare to last time, what went wrong with polling and how it was interpreted in 2016, and what has changed since then.
https://www.vox.com/21538156/biden-polls-lead-election-trump-2020-2016
Thanks. I read it and found it helpful. The one concern I would like Yglesias to allay is about the counting of mail in and absentee ballots. Wisconsin has ruled that it is no longer sufficient to simply have your mail in ballot postmarked by election day, they need to arrive that day. Republicans in Pennsylvania brought the same case but the Court was deadlocked at 4-4 and they may not re-litigate it. But there is the potential for a substantial number of votes to be invalidated.

In at least one county in Pennsylvania they say they are not going to count mail in ballots until November 4. The effect of this is that election day votes will be tallied on November 3rd and those that arrived by mail will then be tallied the next day. There is a likely partisan split with mail in favoring Democrats since we are less likely to think Covid is a hoax. If Trump is leading he may try to claim victory before all of the votes are tallied.

One thing I can say that is good is that Democrats have been extremely vigilant in all of these battles and done everything possible to mobilize the base and fight suppression. When the Wisconsin decision came down, there was an enormous fund-raising drive and the money was used to text and call people to encourage them to turn in their ballots in person. Within two days something like 60% of the outstanding ballots had been turned in. So I have no complaints about our efforts but the unusual circumstances with the pandemic, with the composition of the Supreme Court, and with the intent of the GOP to suppress Democratic vote is a greater concern in this election.

That said, if people really look at the electoral college last election and the margins of victory for Trump, it does appear to have been a perfect storm. That doesn't mean it can't happen again because a ton of states are within striking distance for Trump. Here's hoping we get a little bit of good fortune and the election is called for Biden early, there is no violence, there is a peaceful transition, and some semblance of normal governance is restored.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

The President's mantra, but one that does not soothe...

"Covid, Covid, Covid is the unified chant of the Fake News Lamestream Media. They will talk about nothing else until November 4th., when the Election will be (hopefully!) over. Then the talk will be how low the death rate is, plenty of hospital rooms, & many tests of young people."

Maybe someone should tell him he will still be responsible for it until January. Another scary thought.

Fauci says 2021 may see the virus brought under control, but does not see a return to normal until 2021-2022-

"America’s top public health official on infectious diseases, Anthony Fauci, has warned that everyday life is unlikely to resume until late 2021 or into 2022, while right now the coronavirus pandemic is getting “worse and worse”.

I regret to say that I think he is right. But, as this is the worst virual challenge to public health for 100 years, it was never going to be a sideshow.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/oct/27/us-election-2020-live-voter-turnout-donald-trump-joe-biden-barack-obama-latest-presidential-elections-news-updates
Agree,someone should tell Donald Trump that he will still be responsible for the CO-VID Pandemic until January ,and no matter how times he keeps claiming that the US is rounding the corner,or it's going to away soon,the pandemic isn't going to end until there is a safe and effective vaccine that works and everyone is vaccinated. and Dr. Anthony Fauci absolutely right when he said that everyday life is unlikely to resume until late 2021 or into 2022.

[Stavros]

Is it legal for Nigel Farage to endorse the President at a public rally? Should the Election law not ban any US citizen from seeking, and/or receiving help from a foreign national? And how did Farage get into the country anyway?

[blackchubby38]

I just voted, in and out in less than 10 minutes.

[Stavros]

I just voted, in and out in less than 10 minutes.


One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind...?

[filghy2]

I just voted, in and out in less than 10 minutes.

That's the norm in Australia. The longest I've ever waited was around 20 minutes, when I chose to vote around the peak time on election day. That is as it should be in any civilised country.

[Stavros]

I have never had to wait in line to vote, never having seen a line. I can see the church hall used as a polling station from my kitchen window, it is one of five polling stations in my ward, which is the sub-division of the Parliamentary constituency. These five stations account for approx 7,788 electors (2019 election). My recollection of my days as election organizer for the Labour Party in London in the 1980s is that there were about 4 polling stations in our Ward. I think 4-5 is standard, depending on the size of the Parliamentary constituency and whether or not it has urban as well as rural voters.

I wonder if there are stark variations in the number of polling stations in the US, be they in large cities or rural areas, and how this impacts voter behaviour. I don't think any voter should be more than a 5-10 minute walk to their polling station, though I accept this might not be possible in remote areas of Wales and Scotland or even rural areas in England.

[Jericho]

Is it legal for Nigel Farage to endorse the President at a public rally? Should the Election law not ban any US citizen from seeking, and/or receiving help from a foreign national? And how did Farage get into the country anyway?

Slithered in on a trail of slime!

[blackchubby38]

I have never had to wait in line to vote, never having seen a line. I can see the church hall used as a polling station from my kitchen window, it is one of five polling stations in my ward, which is the sub-division of the Parliamentary constituency. These five stations account for approx 7,788 electors (2019 election). My recollection of my days as election organizer for the Labour Party in London in the 1980s is that there were about 4 polling stations in our Ward. I think 4-5 is standard, depending on the size of the Parliamentary constituency and whether or not it has urban as well as rural voters.

I wonder if there are stark variations in the number of polling stations in the US, be they in large cities or rural areas, and how this impacts voter behaviour. I don't think any voter should be more than a 5-10 minute walk to their polling station, though I accept this might not be possible in remote areas of Wales and Scotland or even rural areas in England.

My regular polling place is right across the street from house. But the early voting station, which is what I did this past Saturday is about a 10 minute walk.

Like I said before, the longest I had to ever wait on line to vote was about 2.5 hours back in 2008. It was early in the morning before people were going to work.

In 2012, 2016, and the last NYC mayoral election, I voted in the afternoon and I was in and out in about less than 10 minutes.

When they started doing early voting here in New York State a week ago, there were long lines and waits. For example, both my father and sister in law each waited for two hours. I actually walked past my early voting station on the first day, saw how long the line was, and decided to leave. I made sure to give myself two days for the opportunity to do early voting before it was over. I think one of the reasons why the lines and waits were so long throughout the state was because everybody was in hurry to do it as soon as possible. Once everyone did, you started hearing less and less about those two issues.

I know in other parts of the country there have been long lines and waits. But there were other states that started doing early voting a month ago.

[blackchubby38]

Win or Lose, Trump and Biden's Parties Will Plunge Into Uncertainty


http://news.yahoo.com/win-lose-trump-bidens-parties-134212544.html

[Stavros]

Win or Lose, Trump and Biden's Parties Will Plunge Into Uncertainty
l (http://news.yahoo.com/win-lose-trump-bidens-parties-134212544.html)

The article you have linked is on the money, indeed, Jeff Flake was on Channel4 News in the last hour arguing that it is no longer possibe for the Republicans to win voters they don't try to appeal to -identfied by their youth and diversity -the 'base' no longer forms a solid enough platform, while as you know, the Democrats now have to juggle left and right, on issues such as climate change, health care and immigration. My guess is that if they win, Kamala Harris has the hardest job riding Biden's moderate platform -more focused on getting over the Covid crisis than other policies, much as in 2009 he had to deal with the financial crisis- while shoring up supporters for her 2024 run at the White House. And I assume a lot will depend on whether AOC and people like her have more, or less supporters in the House and Senate.

Moreover, the US is not alone in this regard. Boris Johnsn's Brexit adventure has not so much split the Conservative Party as all but transformed it into an ideological campaign, named Brexit. And what Covid has done, with its massive state intervention in the economy, is trash Margaret Thatcher's legacy, and beg the question, 'What is a Conservative'? The major defeat of the old socialist parties in France, Italy, the Netherlands, and if not their defeat, their eclipse in Germany, has seen a rise in 'the right' whether it is the moderate versions in France and Germany, or the more strident ones in Hungary and Poland -but all have shown themselves struggling with Covid, and even before Covid I am not sure what it was that the 'Right' had achieved that is of long lasting significance.

So I think we are living through an era of doubt, about the competence of politicians and their parties, and that what used to define them seems no longer to make sense.

From another perspective, I think the US is better placed to survive intact, notwithstanding the disturbing rise of armed militias. In the long term, Democrats have done what Lincoln did in the 1860s -rescued America from its own flirtation with self-destruction. Thus, FDR rescued the US from economic oblivion in the 1930s and 1940s. LBJ liberated the US from the curse of segregation, and Obama rescued the banking and financial system from collapse. The Clinton Presidency to some extent liberalized American society but played a key role in major concusions to armed conflict in Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, and the Middle East, even though it failed elsewhere, but you can't get everything right. Whether or not Biden can restore some of that sense of mission based on the values the US believes in, remains to be seen, but he is better placed than anyone else to restore pride in American institutions, and faith in its politicians.

The UK, by contrast, has Brexit to deal with, and in my view is a broken country, and in the worst position in Europe.

The alternative is too grim to think about.

[Stavros]

So all votes count? Then why is the President attempting to stop States from counting them? If there are so many postal votes it may take days to count them, how can we be sure that some States have settled their account? And, while it is well known that the 'Latino' vote in Florida tends to vote against the Democrats, voter suppression has almost certainly benefited the Republicans.

Long way to go, a pity the President can't keep his mouth shut.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

So all votes count? Then why is the President attempting to stop States from counting them? If there are so many postal votes it may take days to count them, how can we be sure that some States have settled their account? And, while it is well known that the 'Latino' vote in Florida tends to vote against the Democrats, voter suppression has almost certainly benefited the Republicans.

Long way to go, a pity the President can't keep his mouth shut.Completely agree that there is a long way to go in the 2020 US Presidential Election,and no one is going to know the outcome til all the ballots are counted.

[blackchubby38]

Regardless of what happens, I think two things are certain going forward.

1. I think the Democrats can forget about winning Florida again in the foreseeable future.

2. Polls should never be used again and the polling industry should collapse onto itself. I didn't really trust any of the polls that I was seeing. But I wanted to see how the things went before commenting on them.

[Jericho]

The UK, by contrast, has Brexit to deal with, and in my view is a broken country, and in the worst position in Europe.


Oh cheer up, it might be a resounding success.
It'll do you good to get out in the fresh air, digging patriotic turnips for the soup kitchens...Assuming there's any of us left alive on Plague Island, that is!

[broncofan]

Regardless of what happens, I think two things are certain going forward.

1. I think the Democrats can forget about winning Florida again in the foreseeable future.

2. Polls should never be used again and the polling industry should collapse onto itself. I didn't really trust any of the polls that I was seeing. But I wanted to see how the things went before commenting on them.
1. Biden lost Florida by 3%. I don't know how you come to the conclusion that's insurmountable in future elections. It is now a red state but certainly a fairly close state in total vote.

2. There is no other guide than polling and however much error there is, refining polling methodology and accounting for uncertainty will continue. It's also possible that a lot of the error we are seeing is accounted for by ballots that were not delivered by USPS even after an order by a federal judge to sweep facilities for ballots. It's one thing to say you don't trust polls and another thing to have some alternative. Tea leaves?

Finally, let's see what happens when final tallies come in. It's close right now. Of course Trump doesn't want all votes to be counted because what remains in the midwestern states are mail in votes which went overwhelmingly for Biden.

[Stavros]

Oh cheer up, it might be a resounding success.
It'll do you good to get out in the fresh air, digging patriotic turnips for the soup kitchens...Assuming there's any of us left alive on Plague Island, that is!

Turnips? Soup Kitchens? I will probably just leave the country, if I can persuade my sister to let me stay at hers...

[Stavros]

Some thoughts on the above posts-

Polls -the polling organizations got the UK election badly wrong in 2017 because they decided there would be a low turnout by young people and re-distributed their votes. In France, polls are not allowed a week before the election, and in France, they vote in two rounds over two weeks on a Sunday.

Voter suppression has surely been a factor in Florida, Texas, and other Southern States, while jerrymandering of Districts must make it harder for Democrats to win in Texas which allegedly has more Democrats than Republicans, indeed as Filghy2 pointed out some time ago, most Americans vote Democrat but Republicans pick up more seats. This suggests to me that if the Democrats want to be bold they must focus on electoral reform, as well as amending the Constitution by making it clear that a President cannot use the Office to make money.

The saddest thing to me, is that it appears there are a lot of Americans who don't care if people fall sick and die from Covid-19. The President, and some Republican Governors, in Florida in partiular, have been reckless and indifferent with regard to the virus, but it seems many people prefer the illusion of an 'open economy', which also begs the question, do Americans want a 'National Health Service' or something like it?

It appears there has not been a Third Party candidate taking votes away from either of the two main antagonists, though I read somewhere Kanye West is mulling a 2024 run.

Lastly, for now, the results suggest the US remains a bitterly divided country, that Biden has failed to sweep away the most obnoxious, corrupt and pompous liar ever to have been President. It says a lot about the country that they would even vote for such a preposterous moron who some think is terrified of spendng the next 10 years in court fighting one case after another, mostly on tax. But even if he goes, the lunatics are still in the asylum, from sneering Mitch McConnell to the QAnon woman. It looks ugly, it sounds ugly, and I wonder if he wins, how much Biden can do.

[Stavros]

I forgot to note that Sarah McBride becomes the first Transgendered Representative in the House, but I don't know much about her, or Delaware, except the State has zillions of registered companies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54806677

[Stavros]

Oops, Senator. I was typing it while on the phone, coincidentally correcting someone's English...and just back from a day out in Birmingham too -the last concert at Symphony Hall before a new lockdown- so a tiring day.

[blackchubby38]

1. Biden lost Florida by 3%. I don't know how you come to the conclusion that's insurmountable in future elections. It is now a red state but certainly a fairly close state in total vote.

2. There is no other guide than polling and however much error there is, refining polling methodology and accounting for uncertainty will continue. It's also possible that a lot of the error we are seeing is accounted for by ballots that were not delivered by USPS even after an order by a federal judge to sweep facilities for ballots. It's one thing to say you don't trust polls and another thing to have some alternative. Tea leaves?

Finally, let's see what happens when final tallies come in. It's close right now. Of course Trump doesn't want all votes to be counted because what remains in the midwestern states are mail in votes which went overwhelmingly for Biden.

1. https://www.yahoo.com/news/miami-cubans-disrupted-biden-path-080048101.html

Until the Democrats find away to win over Cuban voters again, Florida is going to remain a red state for quite some time.

2. Nice sarcastic answer about the tea leaves. If I come up with an alternative to polls, you will be the first to know.

[broncofan]

https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1324011567759921154

You can look for news articles about what the Postmaster General Louis Dejoy did. He was ordered by a federal Judge to sweep facilities and process remaining ballots and he defied that order. There are some states it probably had an impact on.

Of the votes that are in right now it looks like Biden won Arizona narrowly, Wisconsin narrowly, Michigan narrowly, Nevada and NE2 district narrowly which would reach the magic number of 270. When the remaining ballots come in for Pennsylvania, mail in ballots that had arrived before November 3rd, Biden will likely have won Pennsylvania. These votes aren't legally contestable. Pennsylvania has sequestered ballots that were postmarked by the 3rd but will arrive late in the case of challenge. The margin will be even bigger if those votes survive subsequent challenge and can be added to the total. The outcome is not certain but betting markets went from Biden being a 2 to 1 favorite at the beginning of the night to Trump being a 1.6 favorite by about 1 am to Biden now being about a 5 to 1 favorite. Lots of things can still happen.

Wisconsin is within the range that Trump will be able to request a recount, which is fair in my opinion. At a 20,000 vote deficit it is unlikely the result will be overturned (recounts often lead to changes of a couple hundred votes). We will see what happens in the coming weeks but the legal challenges Trump can make would not even survive a Republican Supreme Court if he lost the vote when ballots that arrived by November 3rd are counted.

[broncofan]

I feel zero percent confident about any result except that it's unlikely votes that arrived by November 3rd will be invalidated no matter who the Judge is. As for votes, ABC just retracted its call of Arizona for Biden because it made it too early. Even if it ends up going for Biden, Fox and AP should probably retract the call as well since it's very close.

With respect to polling, I agree they had a ton of systematic error. I just don't know what people mean when they say they won't use them or take an interest in them. In the sense that people will be interested in what's going on there's nothing other than the election day vote that could tell them anything. So anyone interested is going to look at polls.

[blackchubby38]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxudXp4oZw

[broncofan]

Even if people don't trust polls, which might be the case, they will still want to know what they say to anchor their beliefs. People might look at them and believe there is systematic error that favors one candidate and then estimate how much. It will not be the end of people using samples from a population to make inferences about the tendencies of that population. The alternative is that we try to divine what's going on simply by what our close friends say or what some random pundit says. Which is a form of sampling but is a smaller and even more biased sample than was used in this election.

Anyhow, Trump is absolutely shameless. He has declared himself the winner of states he didn't win. He has sent Rudy Giuliani to Pennsylvania to threaten lawsuits but it's not even clear what their cause of action is. Really pathetic and dangerous stuff.

[filghy2]

There's an old saying that you can ask an expert or you can ask your uncle. Experts are obviously fallible, but I suspect they are much less fallible than your uncle.

Polls exist because there is a demand for them, especially from media organisations and political parties. I can't see that changing, as the media will still want to write stories. Without polls they would be reduced to asking a sample of voters, which is just a low-grade poll.

The big problem pollsters have is that hardly anyone responds to them these days. I read somewhere that the response rate is down to a few per cent. Unless I'm expecting a call I never answer an unidentified caller because I know It's likely to be somebody trying to get money out of me. So we can thank phone scammers for the failure of polls.

In theory, pollsters can correct for any biases if they know how the characteristic of respondents compare to the overall voter population. The problem they have this time is that much of this info comes from exit polls, which may be skewed because so many people voted early or by mail.

Interestingly, it looks like Trump's chances of retaining Arizona depend on late mail-in votes skewing to him. It will be super-ironic if the result hinges on this after his all his lies about mail voting. https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2020-election-results-coverage/

[filghy2]

Lastly, for now, the results suggest the US remains a bitterly divided country, that Biden has failed to sweep away the most obnoxious, corrupt and pompous liar ever to have been President. It says a lot about the country that they would even vote for such a preposterous moron

It's particularly galling that more Americans already have voted for Trump than in 2016, despite all he has said and done over the past 4 years, despite his obvious tin-pot dictator tendencies and despite his abrogation of responsibility on a national crisis. Either they can't see what is happening in plain sight, they don't think it matters or they actually approve of it. If it wasn't for COVID-19 Trump would likely have won already.

I know the result is disappointing, given the expectations suggested by the polls, but bear in mind that Biden is leading the popular vote by 2.5% and that is likely to increase further. In most electoral systems that would translate into a decisive victory. In Australia the margin is rarely more than 2-3%, so if one side was starting with a 3% advantage the other party would almost never be able to win.

[broncofan]

I don't like to predict anything in elections but Pennsylvania votes are coming in at a rate that suggest Biden will end up winning by 200,000 votes. I'm not really sure what Trump and Giuliani and Mcenany think they're going to argue in court. What's their legal theory?

If he loses I'll be happy enough he's gone, even if it's not the repudiation we wanted and even if we don't get the Senate. And it is possible that Dejoy cheated us out of the senate.

Think of it this way. If Trump had lost a few hundred thousand more votes in the right places, it could have been a lopsided electoral college vote. It still wouldn't have been good enough. We're a sick society if more than 20% of people think this daily spectacle was okay. Some of his tweets should be in a fucking museum showing how far we've sunk. I went to public school growing up and it wasn't a great school district. Everyone who's finished fifth grade should know this is not how elections are contested or how elected officials act. People voting for him are pieces of shit. I'm not even 100% sure we've won this election but I'm sure about that.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324108200141082624?s=20

[filghy2]

We're a sick society if more than 20% of people think this daily spectacle was okay.

Not only does almost half the country apparently think it's okay, but most of them seem to relish it. It's unlikely that a more conventional Republican with the same policies would be as popular with the Republican base. It's as if they think the job of President is not to fix problems and try to build a better country for all Americans, but to be a sort of super-troll who sticks it to people they don't like.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

I don't like to predict anything in elections but Pennsylvania votes are coming in at a rate that suggest Biden will end up winning by 200,000 votes. I'm not really sure what Trump and Giuliani and Mcenany think they're going to argue in court. What's their legal theory?

If he loses I'll be happy enough he's gone, even if it's not the repudiation we wanted and even if we don't get the Senate. And it is possible that Dejoy cheated us out of the senate.

Think of it this way. If Trump had lost a few hundred thousand more votes in the right places, it could have been a lopsided electoral college vote. It still wouldn't have been good enough. We're a sick society if more than 20% of people think this daily spectacle was okay. Some of his tweets should be in a fucking museum showing how far we've sunk. I went to public school growing up and it wasn't a great school district. Everyone who's finished fifth grade should know this is not how elections are contested or how elected officials act. People voting for him are pieces of shit. I'm not even 100% sure we've won this election but I'm sure about that.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324108200141082624?s=20Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump and his enablers Kayleigh McBimbonany and Rudy-The Patsy-Giuliani coming up with lawsuits to challenge the results of the presidential election shows how desperate they are to hold on to power. and agree that some of his tweets should be in a museum showing how far the US has sunked.

[Stavros]

some of his tweets should be in a museum showing how far the US has sunked.

Mausoleum would be more appropriate than a museum...

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Mausoleum would be more appropriate than a museum...Agree 1000%.

[broncofan]

It remains to be seen whether Dejoy complied with Judge Sullivan's orders about the sweeps. Initial reports were that he didn't but now the reports are more opaque.

I've seen it claimed that 300,000 ballots went missing from USPS but there's no evidence of that.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/politics/usps-missing-ballots-fact-check/index.html?utm_content=2020-11-05T20%3A16%3A23&utm_medium=social&utm_term=link&utm_source=twCNNp (https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/politics/usps-missing-ballots-fact-check/index.html?utm_content=2020-11-05T20%3A16%3A23&utm_medium=social&utm_term=link&utm_source=twCNNp)

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Once again without any evidence Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump is making false accusations about him being cheated out of a victory,and vowing to go to the US Supreme Court to overturn, shows that he doesn't understand how the election process works and thinks that after election day has come and gone,the election is over and he should of won a second term,but he is completely wrong ,because that is not how it works,every ballot that is received on election day,whether it's a mail-in or an absentee ballot,or casted in person is counted by volunteers and certified by county and state officials. and there is a major contrast between the 2 candidates who is running for president,Joe Biden: who is acting more presidential and is saying the following,be patient and count every vote,Donald Trump on the other hand:is acting like a petulant teenager who was grounded for a month by his parents,making baseless accusations about the election being stolen from him,filing lawsuits and sowing doubt about the election and riling up his base of delusional supporters.

[Stavros]

It remains to be seen whether Dejoy complied with Judge Sullivan's orders about the sweeps. Initial reports were that he didn't but now the reports are more opaque.

I've seen it claimed that 300,000 ballots went missing from USPS but there's no evidence of that.
(https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/politics/usps-missing-ballots-fact-check/index.html?utm_content=2020-11-05T20%3A16%3A23&utm_medium=social&utm_term=link&utm_source=twCNNp)

And the tedious fact that when ballots go missing, they are Republican voting ballots; when there is fraud, it is Democrats stealing from the Republicans. If the President wins Pennsylvania, will it be due to fraud? Of course not.

Menwhile, Junior not only threatens total war, war to the death to re-elect his dad, on the basis that the election is being stolen, he has attacked 'Republicans' for not coming to daddy's aid, given that the Republican Party now belongs to them, and if you don't like it, then leave it-

"It’s time to clean up this mess & stop looking like a banana republic!"
https://au.news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-jr-vows-to-fight-to-death-after-fathers-dangerous-claims-030009463.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS91cmw_ c2E9dCZyY3Q9aiZxPSZlc3JjPXMmc291cmNlPXdlYiZjZD0mdm VkPTJhaFVLRXdqQXdMWDQydTNzQWhXUU44QUtIZUNLQ2lZUTBQ QURlZ1FJQ2hBViZ1cmw9aHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZhdS5uZXdzLn lhaG9vLmNvbSUyRmRvbmFsZC10cnVtcC1qci12b3dzLXRvLWZp Z2h0LXRvLWRlYXRoLWFmdGVyLWZhdGhlcnMtZGFuZ2Vyb3VzLW NsYWltcy0wMzAwMDk0NjMuaHRtbCZ1c2c9QU92VmF3MUExbDJN MTRRUDFsU1FuOGNScktWTg&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAJQnLdUUAX61XSkGHLPDtZl_JIf Kht8tep85cV4MnQ-36r8u852Z_9QGLI0ELAIXfcRWWPOKIiPEZbTT3VrUqhUGmmQ8_ _D8CxdRN2ErcNNv0zQhLx08YhxFo6G0-hz4EcRRruHS3RtobXil7kq_aQXskf5b4nrOXRjk9Db5uEB

Not sure if it was before or after this plea that Lindsay Graham and Marc Rubio did go on tv to defend their Boss against the hailstorm of fraud and the diet of bananas they think the Democrats will decree to be America's National Breakfast.

Or they could just wait for the votes to be counted, and accept the result.

[filghy2]

Not sure if it was before or after this plea that Lindsay Graham and Marc Rubio did go on tv to defend their Boss against the hailstorm of fraud and the diet of bananas they think the Democrats will decree to be America's National Breakfast.

You really have to wonder why these people continue to be willing to trash their reputations by supporting claims they must know are ludicrous for the sake of a man they must know is on the way out. Lindsay Graham is particularly egregious because he was a Trump critic early on, but seems to have sold his soul for the sake of a few crumbs from the tyrant's table.

[filghy2]

It's interesting that the Murdoch media seem to be making a concerted effort to distance themselves from Trump's claims. We know that Murdoch likes to back winners, so he may have concluded there is no benefit in supporting the flailing antics of a loser as he goes over the edge.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/06/are-trumpworld-and-fox-news-headed-for-a-messy-divorce-434775
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/07/trump-fox-news-joe-biden-rightwing-media

[Stavros]

It appears there has not been a Third Party candidate taking votes away from either of the two main antagonists, though I read somewhere Kanye West is mulling a 2024 run.


It seems I might be wrong about this, as the Guardian/Observer today has looked at the thin margins of victory for Biden in states where the Libertarian candidate jo Jorgensen took a significant number of votes, though they admit the assumption is that they would otherwise have gone to Republicans -

"In the Republican stronghold (https://www.onlineathens.com/news/20201105/when-was-last-time-georgia-voted-blue-itrsquos-been-nearly-30-years) of Georgia, which will award 16 electoral college votes, Biden presently bests Trump by fewer than 8,000 ballots. The percentage-based breakdown puts this into sharp relief: Biden has won 49.5% of the votes compared to Trump’s 49.3%.

Jorgensen has won the remaining 1.2% – which now totals 61,792 votes. That number is more than seven times the Trump-Biden split there. The Associated Press has not yet called Georgia’s results. On Friday, state officials announced (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/06/georgia-recount-us-election-biden-trump) a recount.
Numbers from Arizona, which the AP has already called in favor of Biden, are also noteworthy. With 90% of the vote counted, Biden holds 1,626,943 votes to Trump’s 1,606,370 – a 49.6 to 48.9% divide. Jorgensen has landed 49,182 votes, or 1.5%. Arizona awards 11 electoral college votes.

In Wisconsin, which Trump won by 22,748 votes in 2016, Biden has been called as the winner, with 1,630,570 votes compared to his opponent’s 1,610,030. Jorgensen got 38,415 votes, which is more than the difference between these candidates. Wisconsin has 10 electoral college votes.
That said, a vote for Jorgensen is not by any means necessarily a vote that Trump would have otherwise won."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/08/libertarian-jo-jorgensen-donald-trump-joe-biden

[Stavros]

As to what happens next to the defeated President, assuming that his legal challenges fail and there are no, or not enough 'faithless electors' to reverse the result so far, there is speculation he will try to maintain his dominance of the Party to run again in 2024. Or, that he will create a news company of his own, something that has traction is, as Filghy2 points out above, he has been abandoned by Rupert Murdoch.

The most remarkable third option was proposed last night on Channel 4 News in the UK last nght. Timothy Snyder argued that with mounting debt problems that must be resolved over the next four years, and with litigation over tax affairs current and more pending, he says the 45th President is a 'flight risk' and could well deal with his problems by leaving the country, but did not speculate on where he might go to be beyond the law...

https://www.channel4.com/news/what-could-trump-do-in-next-76-days-and-is-he-a-flight-risk

[mrtrebus]

goodbye & good riddance mr trump

[trish]

We failed to take the Senate, failed to remove Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, we lost seats in the House but still retain it my a small margin. Nevertheless, I am so fucking relieved.

[filghy2]

We failed to take the Senate, failed to remove Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, we lost seats in the House but still retain it my a small margin.

I guess the conspirators who stole the election from Trump forgot about those other races.

I think it's fair to say that the outcome was a rejection of Trump rather than an embrace of the Democrats. The result is going to reopen questions about the small target strategy of relying on Trump's unpopularity rather than offering a more ambitious policy agenda. It may be papered over for a while in the euphoria of victory, but I'm sure these questions will intensify as it becomes clear how hamstrung this administration will be without the Senate.

[filghy2]

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out within the Republican Party, once the legal avenues are existed and people can't hide behind the argument that there are still issues to be resolved. The Trumpists will try to enforce absolute loyalty but there must he hard-heads who understand that refusing to move on and obsessing about the myth of the stolen election is not likely to be a good strategy for winning the next one.

[broncofan]

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out within the Republican Party, once the legal avenues are existed and people can't hide behind the argument that there are still issues to be resolved.
They don't seem to be punished very much for abhorrent behavior. We also found out that while we have "low-propensity voters" that we can turn out when participation increases they do too. Their voters came out in force just like Democrats did.

I don't take it lightly that Rupert Murdoch has limits to what he'll accept. Those limits seem kind of arbitrary given what he's already been on board with but there appears to be a threshold he won't cross. Either that or he just doesn't think that helping to turn the U.S. into an authoritarian state by fueling Trump's delusions is something that would end up profiting the Republican party or his family business.

I am not sure what policies will make the Democratic Party more popular but I really wish there was widespread buy in to the idea that we have to respect democratic norms as well as basic norms of fairness. The damage Fox News has done is incredible and it remains to be seen whether they've created something they can't control as they get outflanked by outlets more committed to being crazy.

[Stavros]

If you don't like Mondays and you voted for Biden, you won't like this Monday. The practical business of ensuring that a transition takes place, is being held up by the refusal of the President to accept he has been defeated. It appears one key element of this is the refusal of the woman in charge of the 'General Services Administration' to sign the documents that release official funds and office space for the Biden Transition Team, as reported in this morning's Guardian wth regard to Emily Murphy-.

"Murphy is “refusing to sign a letter allowing Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week”, the Post reported, noting that her job includes signing “paperwork officially turning over millions of dollars, as well as giving access to government officials, office space and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner”.
This is a rarely-discussed duty, typically executed without incident in the period after a new president is elected. It’s a formal letter from the federal government acknowledging the winner of the race, separate from the media calls. But the Post found that almost 36 hours after the projection of a Biden win, Murphy had not written the letter, and that the “the Trump administration, in keeping with the president’s failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one”.

In addition, someone called Mark Levin has argued that the President can still remain in place by winning votes in the Electoral College-

"Levin has been sympathetic to the president’s false and unsubstantiated claims about fraud and the ongoing efforts to undermine the integrity of the election. He has also called for GOP state legislatures to ignore the election results and send electors who will vote for Trump instead of Biden."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/nov/08/us-election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-kamala-harris-coronavirus-covid-19-live-updates

Can this be done legallly?

[broncofan]

In addition, someone called Mark Levin has argued that the President can still remain in place by winning votes in the Electoral College-

"Levin has been sympathetic to the president’s false and unsubstantiated claims about fraud and the ongoing efforts to undermine the integrity of the election. He has also called for GOP state legislatures to ignore the election results and send electors who will vote for Trump instead of Biden."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/nov/08/us-election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-kamala-harris-coronavirus-covid-19-live-updates

Can this be done legallly?
Mark Levin is a right-wing radio personality. An awful personality and person. In most states it is prohibited by law for the elector to vote for anyone other than the person who won the popular vote in that state and those laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court. I haven't seen a survey of those states that don't have laws forbidding it vs. those that do but I believe it's an extremely unlikely outcome. Below is an article about "faithless electors."

The other legal avenues don't look very promising to Trump. Recounts probably won't accomplish anything, trying to invalidate the ballots that PA segregated might be moot if there are fewer than the margin of victory. I believe when Trump's legal cases are thrown out and the recounts are finished he won't have any avenues left.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/electoral-college-2020-faithless-electors/6159795002/

[broncofan]

Mark Levin is a right-wing radio personality. An awful personality and person. In most states it is prohibited by law for the elector to vote for anyone other than the person who won the popular vote in that state and those laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court. I haven't seen a survey of those states that don't have laws forbidding it vs. those that do but I believe it's an extremely unlikely outcome. Below is an article about "faithless electors."

The other legal avenues don't look very promising to Trump. Recounts probably won't accomplish anything, trying to invalidate the ballots that PA segregated might be moot if there are fewer than the margin of victory. I believe when Trump's legal cases are thrown out and the recounts are finished he won't have any avenues left.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/electoral-college-2020-faithless-electors/6159795002/
https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/11/07/pa-electoral-college-popular-vote/

PA is one of the states without a law forbidding faithless electors but this just came up on my twitter feed.

[Stavros]

Mark Levin is a right-wing radio personality. An awful personality and person. In most states it is prohibited by law for the elector to vote for anyone other than the person who won the popular vote in that state and those laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court. I haven't seen a survey of those states that don't have laws forbidding it vs. those that do but I believe it's an extremely unlikely outcome. Below is an article about "faithless electors."


Thanks for the link and the clarification -this to me is the key paragraph -and one that aso relates to public employees who object to marrying same-sex couples, it's about the job description in their contract, not their personal views-

""The Supreme Court made it clear that the elector is not there to vote his or her conscience. The elector is there to vote how the state dictates," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California-Berkeley Law School. "Most states now forbid faithless electors."

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Republican Senators Lindsey (SC) and Ted Cruz (TX) and chairwoman of the Republican National Committee Rona McDaniels had no problem with the media back calling the presidential election in 2016,because their so-called leader Donald Trump won the election and congratulated him,and now 4 years they have an issue with the media because Donald Trump lost re-election,and and going on television echoing the same baseless claims that their so-called leader is making. shows that they sore losers and how far the Republican Party has sunked over the last 4 years.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Donald Trump's niece Mary Trump warned that her uncle would be proned to "meltdowns" in the period between his electoral defeat and president-elect Joe Biden's inauguration next year. "This is what Donald's going to do: he's not going to concede,although who cares. What's worse he's not going to engage in normal activities that guarantee a peaceful transition", Mary Trump told the Guardian. In the interim,she said, he'll be having meltdowns upon meltdowns right now. He has never been in a situation like this before''. " All he's got right now is breaking stuff,and he's going to do that with a vengeance she added.. And Donald Trump already begun the meltdown by firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/525109-mary-trump-warns-of-meltdowns-by-trump-in-next-few-months

[Stavros]

There have been some gushing articles in the UK press about Stacy Abrams, notably in the Guardian and the Independent. D some of you have any thoughts on her future, and would she make a better President than Kamala Harris? One paper thinks she could be the next Attorney General.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

There have been some gushing articles in the UK press about Stacy Abrams, notably in the Guardian and the Independent. D some of you have any thoughts on her future, and would she make a better President than Kamala Harris? One paper thinks she could be the next Attorney General.I think that Stacey Abrams would be a good candidate for the Secretary of State in the Biden-Harris Administration,however i think that Kamala Harris would make a better president.

[broncofan]

Commentators in the U.S. are trying to figure out whether we're looking at a slow-motion coup. The best guess of most legal analysts is that this is merely an attempt to placate Trump's ego before Biden takes office and give Trump something to talk about for the next four years. Doing that has risks of its own but I'm more interested in what happens January 20th.

The first thing I'll say is that legal analysts believe the lawsuits will all end up being dismissed or will not involve enough votes to matter in the case of the segregated ballots in Pennsylvania. The investigation that Barr has opened has resulted in one resignation already even though Barr's memo indicated he is only going through the motions to satisfy Trump. The issue of faithless electors is a loophole that I wish more states would close but would be more likely an issue in this election if Biden expected 270 electoral votes instead of 306.

There doesn't seem to be a path for Trump to remain in office short of commandeering the military to use force in order to maintain his power. The ballot recounts will proceed but not change the outcome. The voter fraud investigations might turn up things that Republicans can claim is odd or seem funny but will not turn up systematic fraud that benefited Biden to the tune of tens of thousands of votes. And the legal claims for throwing out all mail in ballots are so laughable that any Justice who countenanced those claims would be known to posterity as a laughing stock. But it's all unnerving.

[Stavros]

Broncofan, I think you are right to look to the longer term, but it is also important to ask what is happening with the Repubican Party. I was struck by this comment made by Lindsay Graham

-"The US will never again elect a Republican president unless lawmakers "do something" about mail-in voting, Senator Lindsey Graham said on Monday."

What strikes me about it, is the lack of any sense by Graham that if his party were to improve its image, and develop policies that appeal to a wider set of voters, they would benefit from any kind of voting system, be it by mail or in person.

It seems to me these guys are stuck in a mindset that has so enveloped them they can't think outside it. Similarly, at this moment in time, because Trump did better than expected, indeed scored the second highest vote in history, they can't decide if they should dump him or stand by him, knowing that if they dump him they can reclaim their party and open up the leadership to a younger generation; but if they stick with him, the party of Lincoln is gone. The key question, will he still command so many votes in 2024 as he has done in 2020 is impossible to answer.

This all sounds academic, but I think the people around the President are determined to fight on in the slim hope that they can still retain the White House. Presumably they think they have won Alaska, can win Arizona and Georgia in a recount, Pennsylvania if they can force a recount there -can it be done if the/a court decrees mail in ballots fraudulent and inadmissable?

Can the Attorney General have key Democrat officials in Pennsylvania arrested for election fraud, not because they might be guilty, but just as a publicity stunt, one that will enrapture the 70% of Republicans who think the election was rigged?

The intriguiing thought for 2024 is that Donald Junior might compete with his Dad for the nominaton, that his Dad might break away from the GOP and form an independent party, particularly if he thinks he has been betrayed by the GOP, if they decide to dump him. For all his servile arse-licking, I undersand Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden have been friends for many years- could the Iceman Come through for Joe -especically if the GOP loses Senate seats in Georgia?

One final thought seeing the crane on the news, the one setting up the stage for the inauguration -would it not be better for Biden to have a simple swearing in ceremony in the White House, rather than a big public event? It would make sense in the context of Covid-19 and also avoid the embarrassment of not seeing one President hand over to another, given that the 45th will probably be sulking -in Florida?

[blackchubby38]

It seems to me these guys are stuck in a mindset that has so enveloped them they can't think outside it. Similarly, at this moment in time, because Trump did better than expected, indeed scored the second highest vote in history, they can't decide if they should dump him or stand by him, knowing that if they dump him they can reclaim their party and open up the leadership to a younger generation; but if they stick with him, the party of Lincoln is gone. The key question, will he still command so many votes in 2024 as he has done in 2020 is impossible to answer.



One final thought seeing the crane on the news, the one setting up the stage for the inauguration -would it not be better for Biden to have a simple swearing in ceremony in the White House, rather than a big public event? It would make sense in the context of Covid-19 and also avoid the embarrassment of not seeing one President hand over to another, given that the 45th will probably be sulking -in Florida?

I don't think its been the party of Lincoln for quite some time. Its more the party of Reagan and if the other Republicans stick with him, than that party is truly gone.

The main issue is that Trump and more importantly his supporters and/or the people who voted for him aren't going away anytime soon. If not ever. So the other Republicans have to find way to excise Trump from the party, but keep some of his supporters and the people who voted for him in the fold, while opening up the party to a younger generation.

As for your second question, it would be better if Biden had a simple swearing in ceremony than a big public event. But I get the sense (especially after the events of last Saturday) there are some who are going to push for the latter. Especially since you have the historical moment of the first woman to be sworn in as a the VP.

[Del06]

I must say it's refreshing to see this level of discussion on a porn site! My contribution: I've been afraid all along of a coup, and I think we may be moving towards one with Barr coming out swinging, and Trump putting his lackeys in charge at the Pentagon. I've thought that the main bulwark against a coup would have been the military. I'm thinking the military must be at least divided, both the top brass and the grunts. It looks like Trump is getting his top brass in line.

[filghy2]

What strikes me about it, is the lack of any sense by Graham that if his party were to improve its image, and develop policies that appeal to a wider set of voters, they would benefit from any kind of voting system, be it by mail or in person.

The problem is that that party has gone so far down it's current track that it is too hard to turn back, especially as the rank and file love the unrelenting 'us vs them' war that Trump embodies.

The critical juncture seems to have occurred after the 2012 election loss when the Republican National Committee did a report on ways to broaden the party's appeal, but it went nowhere because the party membership hated it. Since then their strategy has basically been to double down on appealing to their existing base, while relying on electoral manipulation to ensure they can continue to govern with minority support.

This doesn't seem like a viable long-term strategy unless the US effectively ceases to be a law-based democracy. But as they haven't paid any big electoral price so far it's unlikely many in the party will want to risk incurring the wrath of the party base by pushing for a different direction.

[filghy2]

Commentators in the U.S. are trying to figure out whether we're looking at a slow-motion coup. The best guess of most legal analysts is that this is merely an attempt to placate Trump's ego before Biden takes office and give Trump something to talk about for the next four years. Doing that has risks of its own but I'm more interested in what happens January 20th.

The critical point seems to be what happens once the legal challenges are exhausted, presumably in the Supreme Court. I assume this will be some time before the Electoral College deadline of December 8. If Trump still refuses to concede and demands that the party support him they will have to choose to either go over the cliff with him or repudiate him.

I suspect McConnell and most of his colleagues are praying that Trump will grudgingly accept reality and spare them this invidious choice. Perhaps they will try to talk him down by promising that they will make the country ungovernable for Biden and that Trump (or his nominated successor) will have an inside run to win in 2024.

[Stavros]

I must say it's refreshing to see this level of discussion on a porn site! My contribution: I've been afraid all along of a coup, and I think we may be moving towards one with Barr coming out swinging, and Trump putting his lackeys in charge at the Pentagon. I've thought that the main bulwark against a coup would have been the military. I'm thinking the military must be at least divided, both the top brass and the grunts. It looks like Trump is getting his top brass in line.


I don't think a traditional Coup is possible in the US because one man would need the support of all three branches of Government, and it is not clear how he would rule over 50 states if they repudiate his authority. There has been a cultural coup in the sense that the President has abandoned the 'norms and values' that used to be expected of the Office -a degree of dignity, temperate language, an aversion to corrupt practices, but there is the question of Executive Orders. This unilateral form of power, though it can be challenged in Congress and the Courts, was allegedly forced on Obama because of an obstructive Congress, but his successor has used it, and seems to enjoy the power he thinks it gives him, and Biden I have read may have to use unusual means to get things done if the Democrats don't win the Senate and McConnell decides to sabotage policy. But that is not really a Coup. More like Presidents testing the limits of their powers.

[Stavros]

I don't think its been the party of Lincoln for quite some time. Its more the party of Reagan and if the other Republicans stick with him, than that party is truly gone.
The main issue is that Trump and more importantly his supporters and/or the people who voted for him aren't going away anytime soon. If not ever. So the other Republicans have to find way to excise Trump from the party, but keep some of his supporters and the people who voted for him in the fold, while opening up the party to a younger generation.
As for your second question, it would be better if Biden had a simple swearing in ceremony than a big public event. But I get the sense (especially after the events of last Saturday) there are some who are going to push for the latter. Especially since you have the historical moment of the first woman to be sworn in as a the VP.

I appreciate your insight on these matters, and believe it nor not forgot about Reagan's influence when writing the above post. But I am not sure if it is the Party of Reagan these days, because he was not an economic nationalist, and in foreign policy his nuclear deal with the USSR was a major source of a cleavage in the party with those who thought he should have exacted more from the USSR to weaken them, becoming the Neo-Cons of the 1990s as a reaction. (Bolton, on page 15 of his book implies that Trump's hostility to the Reagan-Gorbachev INF Treaty was based on something Bolton had said on Fox News).
Indeed, if you then factor in the TEA Party movement, you might agree the GOP has moved in successive waves so far toward being an extremist party that neither Lincoln nor Reagan, or even GW Bush recognize it as their own. I hesitate to describe it as a Fascist party even though 'America First' is a re-cycling of Fascist and anti-Semitic slogans from 'old Europe' of a century ago, and there is both an extreme hostility to immigrants, and a current of vile hatred against minorities that was a common part of European fascism.

Instead, I think that there is a stronger Libertarian current in the Party than there has been since the 19th century, but that this accounts for the confused identity the party now has, much as the Conservative and Unionist Party in the UK has now become a Brexit party breaking with many of the Party's traditions, as well as its members. Moreover, I think there are confusions over policy in the Christian Democrats in Germany, while Macron in France doesn't seem to lead an identifiable party, but governs on a day-to-day basisi, or lurch from one crisis to another, be it Islamic terrorism or the pending impact of Brexit on the French economy.

Thus Trump entered an open field and used/uses resentment and confrontation to command the votes of discontented people, even though he chose the very vehicle for his success that has been responsible for much of the USA's ecnonomic and social problems, with the proposition, you might or might not agree with, that he might form his own party if he doesn't get what he wants from the GOP, a party to which he owes zero loyalty, but which he expects to be loyal to him. Obsessed with his view that the people love him, that here are enough to give him the power he craves, and the victory he needs, the future looks uncertain at the level of party politics, and we might as well throw in the critical remarks Ocasio-Cortez had to say about her Party's losses in the House and the tenor of the campaign.

We live in a volatile time -will the fall-out from this election lead to the settling of scores and clear the way in 2024 for a more boring return to what was once considered normal?

[Stavros]

The problem is that that party has gone so far down it's current track that it is too hard to turn back, especially as the rank and file love the unrelenting 'us vs them' war that Trump embodies.

The critical juncture seems to have occurred after the 2012 election loss when the Republican National Committee did a report on ways to broaden the party's appeal, but it went nowhere because the party membership hated it. Since then their strategy has basically been to double down on appealing to their existing base, while relying on electoral manipulation to ensure they can continue to govern with minority support.

This doesn't seem like a viable long-term strategy unless the US effectively ceases to be a law-based democracy. But as they haven't paid any big electoral price so far it's unlikely many in the party will want to risk incurring the wrath of the party base by pushing for a different direction.

Fascinating argument, I had not heard about that 2012 report and I agree with the rest of your post. I think both main parties have problems identifying with the majority of Americans, but the ability of Repubicans to continue winning seats at local and Federal level means a catastrophic defeat has not forced them to reform. But if the Democrats are safe rather than bold, will they pay the price?

[Del06]

In addition to the military, yes Stavros, he would need Congress and the Court. But the Senate would probably go along with it; the Dems in he Senate and the House would be safe rather than bold (as you say in another post), except for the Squad and their ilk, who would probably be arrested on some pretext. And the Court -- well, that's basically his already. Not to say this is going to happen, but I don't think you're thinking outside the box of normality. We've got a delusional sociopath who would like to be a dictator, with the support of maybe 70% of Republicans (according to one poll I just read about) and the ability to command a lot of the repressive apparatus, and the support of a lot of big money. I don't see any readiness or ability in the Biden team to confront this. I hope I'm wrong.

[filghy2]

If the US goes down the authoritarian path it seems more likely to occur in a creeping quasi-legal fashion, as has occurred in places like Hungary and Poland, rather than an overt military takeover. Usurping power by force after your own judicial appointees have ruled against you would probably be a bridge too far, even for this Republican party. People like Mitch McConnell seem to want to maintain a veneer of respectability to what they do, which is why he avoids specifically endorsing Trump's claims. Apart from anything else, the consequences are too unpredictable - eg prolonged civil unrest would not be good for business.

Rather than a concerted plan I think what we are seeing is more likely the impulses of a delusional malignant narcissist, combined with a party of moral cowards responding in whatever way they think will serve their political interests. I doubt that the Trumpists would actually have the competence to execute a coup plan - that press conference at the Four Seasons garden centre car park seemed to sum up their amateurishness.

[blackchubby38]

I appreciate your insight on these matters, and believe it nor not forgot about Reagan's influence when writing the above post. But I am not sure if it is the Party of Reagan these days, because he was not an economic nationalist, and in foreign policy his nuclear deal with the USSR was a major source of a cleavage in the party with those who thought he should have exacted more from the USSR to weaken them, becoming the Neo-Cons of the 1990s as a reaction. (Bolton, on page 15 of his book implies that Trump's hostility to the Reagan-Gorbachev INF Treaty was based on something Bolton had said on Fox News).
Indeed, if you then factor in the TEA Party movement, you might agree the GOP has moved in successive waves so far toward being an extremist party that neither Lincoln nor Reagan, or even GW Bush recognize it as their own. I hesitate to describe it as a Fascist party even though 'America First' is a re-cycling of Fascist and anti-Semitic slogans from 'old Europe' of a century ago, and there is both an extreme hostility to immigrants, and a current of vile hatred against minorities that was a common part of European fascism.

Instead, I think that there is a stronger Libertarian current in the Party than there has been since the 19th century, but that this accounts for the confused identity the party now has, much as the Conservative and Unionist Party in the UK has now become a Brexit party breaking with many of the Party's traditions, as well as its members. Moreover, I think there are confusions over policy in the Christian Democrats in Germany, while Macron in France doesn't seem to lead an identifiable party, but governs on a day-to-day basisi, or lurch from one crisis to another, be it Islamic terrorism or the pending impact of Brexit on the French economy.

Thus Trump entered an open field and used/uses resentment and confrontation to command the votes of discontented people, even though he chose the very vehicle for his success that has been responsible for much of the USA's ecnonomic and social problems, with the proposition, you might or might not agree with, that he might form his own party if he doesn't get what he wants from the GOP, a party to which he owes zero loyalty, but which he expects to be loyal to him. Obsessed with his view that the people love him, that here are enough to give him the power he craves, and the victory he needs, the future looks uncertain at the level of party politics, and we might as well throw in the critical remarks Ocasio-Cortez had to say about her Party's losses in the House and the tenor of the campaign.

We live in a volatile time -will the fall-out from this election lead to the settling of scores and clear the way in 2024 for a more boring return to what was once considered normal?

While I wouldn't be able to break down into percentages, I believe these are the factions of the Republican party:

Neoconservatives
Tea Party/Libertarians
Trumpers
Other- I'm guessing that includes any Republicans who could lay claim to Reagan's legacy.

While I don't even want to start thinking about 2024 yet, there are two names that have been mentioned as viable candidates for the Presidential nomination. Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. From what I can tell, Pompeo is a Neoconservative, while Haley has been a bit difficult to categorize.

Now taking into consideration that the party is able to remove Trump from the equation, but not the effect he has had on the party, I can see it being tough for Neoconservatives from gaining control. While it didn't appear that way at times, Trump's talk about ending the endless wars that the country has been involved in was one of the reasons why he was popular with some Republican voters. So I think the last thing they're going to want to do is hand the party over to someone who sounds like they still want to go to war with Iran.

So I think the future of the Republican party is going to come down to a fight between the Libertarian wing and the Trumpers/Others. Whoever it is going to be has to find a way to harness the energy and the enthusiasm of the Trump voter/supporter minus the fear/hatred of the other to become leader of the party.

[broncofan]

The critical point seems to be what happens once the legal challenges are exhausted, presumably in the Supreme Court. I assume this will be some time before the Electoral College deadline of December 8. If Trump still refuses to concede and demands that the party support him they will have to choose to either go over the cliff with him or repudiate him.

I suspect McConnell and most of his colleagues are praying that Trump will grudgingly accept reality and spare them this invidious choice. Perhaps they will try to talk him down by promising that they will make the country ungovernable for Biden and that Trump (or his nominated successor) will have an inside run to win in 2024.
I think you're right but wonder whether the cases will make it to the Supreme Court. There is a well respected law firm here (Jones Day) that is challenging the ballots in Pennsylvania that were postmarked by November 3rd but arrived between November 4th and November 6th. Before the election the Supreme Court had been deadlocked on the legality of these ballots.

One of the most basic guidelines for whether courts hear cases is that there must be redressability (a doctrine based on the idea that courts must hear "cases and controversies" rather than issue advisory opinions). The outcome of the court's holding has to actually change the position of the litigants and I don't believe that losing by 35,000 votes instead of 45,000 votes is a redressed wrong now that we know the number of ballots. Maybe they can argue that Trump's ego is so fragile that a difference in vote total actually does cause a harm the court should recognize. We know the composition of the court is shaky but I think they should not grant certiorari to hear it.

This is by far the position with the most legal support. The other ones, including an equal protection challenge against mail-in ballots, will not go anywhere I don't think.

I hear your other point in another post about quasi-legal methods of seizing power. I think the things we saw them do in the lead up to the election were consistent with that kind of attempt. They violated the Hatch Act by abusing their power to campaign from the White House, they used the office of Presidency to try to suppress votes, and the performance of the Postmaster General was maybe sufficient but could not be described as good. If things go as expected, anything else they do will have to be more brazen and will result in incredible unrest. He would destroy this country if he tries to stay on after losing this election.

[filghy2]

While I wouldn't be able to break down into percentages, I believe these are the factions of the Republican party:

Neoconservatives
Tea Party/Libertarians
Trumpers
Other- I'm guessing that includes any Republicans who could lay claim to Reagan's legacy.



Would it be correct to describe the differences between these factions as follows?

Neoconservatives - those whose primary concern is hawkish foreign/defence policy
Tea Party/Libertarians - those whose primary concern is hostility to government
Trumpers - those whose primary concern is nationalism/nativism, including white nationalism (this seems to be the main thing that distinguishes Trump from a more conventional Republican)

Another possible category is evangelicals - those whose primary concern is a conservative vision of the US as a Christian nation.

I'm not sure whether Reaganites are really a separate category, given that small government was also his main focus. The Tea Party seems like a more extreme outgrowth of Reaganism.

One issue is how much these different strands are actually in conflict. The Tea Party, Trumpists and evangelicals have been united in their strong support for Trump, so it seems that their views do generally overlap. In theory, small-government believers should be against trade restrictions, but they seem to have been prepared to accept them as long as they get their way on tax cuts and deregulation.

[blackchubby38]

Would it be correct to describe the differences between these factions as follows?

Neoconservatives - those whose primary concern is hawkish foreign/defence policy
Tea Party/Libertarians - those whose primary concern is hostility to government
Trumpers - those whose primary concern is nationalism/nativism, including white nationalism (this seems to be the main thing that distinguishes Trump from a more conventional Republican)

Another possible category is evangelicals - those whose primary concern is a conservative vision of the US as a Christian nation.

I'm not sure whether Reaganites are really a separate category, given that small government was also his main focus. The Tea Party seems like a more extreme outgrowth of Reaganism.

One issue is how much these different strands are actually in conflict. The Tea Party, Trumpists and evangelicals have been united in their strong support for Trump, so it seems that their views do generally overlap. In theory, small-government believers should be against trade restrictions, but they seem to have been prepared to accept them as long as they get their way on tax cuts and deregulation.

I think the Christian/Evangelicals category could apply to if not some, but all the rest of the other categories. Especially Neoconservatives who have been known to carry a small version of the Bible with them. That's why I didn't list them as separate group.

The reason why I put Reaganism as a separate category is because along with small government, his other major concern was defeating what he considered to be biggest threat to national security at the time, the Soviet Union. He spent a lot of money to do it to. I also would like to think that if he were alive today, he wouldn't look to kindly on who has been in office for the past 4 years.

[broncofan]

What's interesting is that Neo-Conservatives caused some of the most recent and obvious harm of these groups and are probably the most represented among Never Trumpers. The Iraq war was a humanitarian, moral, tactical, and financial disaster and their status was weakened within the party by the end of Bush's second term. I'm not sure if we would consider McCain a Neo-Conservative but he was the last influential Republican I can think of who was absolutely nuts when it came to foreign policy but would reach across the aisle on social and economic issues from time to time.

The only thing I can think of with Neo-Conservatives is that they wanted to use whatever tactics that could help them achieve the world they wanted outside our borders, but have gotten squeamish now that our own fragile democracy is in peril. I appreciate that some of them understand how our government is supposed to work though it's a shame they didn't take the same interest in international legal norms.

Anyhow, I'm not sure I'm right about the trends within their party but Evangelicals didn't defect from Trump and Tea Party types were very inconsistent in their antagonism to big government. The white nationalist scum are Trump's own nurtured base and won't defect.

I think ultimately there are some people who are Republican by default because they've been taught that Liberals look down on them or they believe some racist myths but aren't as committed to racism as the alt-right for instance. Some of these votes can probably be won by appealing to their personal financial interests and to their interest in steady employment. The problem is getting them to see the threat the Republican party poses to both. Maybe this last group would be "cultural Republicans" whose support of the Republican party is really based on a hodge-podge of myths about what Liberals want to achieve and what Republicans actually do when placed in positions of power.

[Stavros]

While I wouldn't be able to break down into percentages, I believe these are the factions of the Republican party:

Neoconservatives
Tea Party/Libertarians
Trumpers
Other- I'm guessing that includes any Republicans who could lay claim to Reagan's legacy.

While I don't even want to start thinking about 2024 yet, there are two names that have been mentioned as viable candidates for the Presidential nomination. Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. From what I can tell, Pompeo is a Neoconservative, while Haley has been a bit difficult to categorize.

Now taking into consideration that the party is able to remove Trump from the equation, but not the effect he has had on the party, I can see it being tough for Neoconservatives from gaining control. While it didn't appear that way at times, Trump's talk about ending the endless wars that the country has been involved in was one of the reasons why he was popular with some Republican voters. So I think the last thing they're going to want to do is hand the party over to someone who sounds like they still want to go to war with Iran.

So I think the future of the Republican party is going to come down to a fight between the Libertarian wing and the Trumpers/Others. Whoever it is going to be has to find a way to harness the energy and the enthusiasm of the Trump voter/supporter minus the fear/hatred of the other to become leader of the party.


Your post illustrates what to me are the confusions of a party that has lost its identity. In general, macro-historical terms, the problem that I have with American Conservatism is that, as I understand it, they seek to Conserve the Orginal intent of the Constitution, but the American Revolution was a Liberal Revolution and the Constitution is a Liberal document-

-First, because it is opposed to to Monarchical rule, expressed in the separation of powers of government;

-Second, because in its language, the Constitutional rights conferred on citizens are universal, power is devolved from the centre and resides with the People, which means all of them, regardless of creed, colour and sexual orientation or gender identity.

To me this explains why Conservatives have had to resort to sophistry in language, and the brute force of Congressional, Presidential and Supreme Court powers to deny American citizens their Constitutional rights, and why they have so often lost the argument.

At a more micro-historical level, I see contemporary Conservatves defining theselves in relation to the New Deal Consensus that dominated US policy making from 1933 to 1980, on the basis that in spite of the revival of Conservative ideas in the 1950s and 1960s, spearheaded by William Buckley and Irving Kristol, in actuality Nixon failed to reduce State intervention in society and the economy, but crucially, neither did Ronald Reagan, even though he became the champion of Markets over the State, whether or not those markets were Global or Local (and Global triumphed).

Reagan was supposed to end the idea FDR is associated with -'government is the solution'- and offer markets instead. Taxes were to be as low as possible, and blue collar workers would lose their rights to collective bargaining for better wages and conditions as Unions were smashed- but there was no overhaul let alone the abolition of welfare or Medicare or Medicaid; immigration did not become the toxic issue it is today; and in spite of the cultural hostility to sexual orientation, when Reagan reconciled with Rock Hudson, being queer didn't seem to be an evil. Throw in the first term hostlity to the USSR, and the second term accommodation of the USSR with the nuclear arms deal, and you can see why Reagan's supporters were so outraged they decided they needed to refine Conservatism anew, even if Neo was neither from the Matrix nor the Lion King.

But, and I think this is crucial, if Republicans have never been able to reconcle their so-called Conservatism with the Liberal origins of the political system the US has had since 1787, their belief in individual liberty and fiscal responsibility ought to translate into a welfare free economy with minimal public spending, whereas welfare was not tackled seriously by Reagan and when he left office the country had the highest public debt in its history- what was Conservative about that?

Moreover, the Neo-Cons also failed to tackle welfare, they committed to spend record levels on defence, while using the 'Originalist' arguments in law to shred as many Liberal laws as they could, targeting the Voter Registration Act of 1965, but it seems to me that on a wide range of issues, there was nothing really Conservative about them, they were just repeating the mistakes of the past, and that this is why Trump was able to storm into the party and kick it into the long grass.

Because, right on time, Obama in the introduction to the first volume of his Presidential book that is about to appear, has offered a new definition of the Republican voter-

"Those Americans, Obama writes, were prey to “the dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the modern Republican party – xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward black and brown folks”."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/12/barack-obama-memoir-donald-trump

Gone is any mention of Fiscal Responsibiity; no mention made of Markets working better than Goverrnment, indeed, I believe Trump has said he doesn't believe in free, but in Fair Markets, fair as defined by him. Race remains, but in any scenario is the ineradicable score of the country; but enter now the anti-immgrant feeling, and perhaps most of all the paranoia and anti-intellectualism, for historically Americans might vote one way or another, but whichever side they were on, the achievements in science and engineering, from space travel to computing was not party based, just as a wide selection of fine actors, writers, film directors and others in the arts could be red or blue and still be admired.

Maybe my personal affection for clear intellectual statements, of a lineage of political intent based on sound philosophical premises is too remote from everyday life, and maybe we don't know what political parties stand for anymore, because they have lost touch with their core base, have tried to please or appeal to so many constituencies, or too few they have satisfied none.

But look again at Obama's list, and ask yourself what in practical terms are the policies derived from what are mostly emotions, rather than reasons? The result, if not chaos, is a mish-mash of bad policy making, policies that fail when implemented, or when implemented are sloppy, even cruel -an immigration policy that separates children from their parents, and appears not to care about the consequences in the short term, regarding the condition in which those children are kept, or the long term damage separation from parents at such a young age may cause. The incompetent handliing of Covid-19, based on a scepticism bordering on contempt for science- what this shows is the fundemantal practical probem I now see with the US Republican Party and the Conservative and Unionist Party of the UK, albeit in different contexts: they don't work.

They have failed since the 2008 crash to restore the economy to good health, they have failed to deliver on a wide range of policy issues in relation to housing, education, health, transport and welfare, while austerity in the UK, and in the US the wholesale shredding of jobs in the bureaucracy has left many departments, criticially the EPA and State bereft of qualified and talented people where appointments are made on the basis of loyaly to one man, rather than expertise in a chosen policy area. During the Obama years I recall a Republican on the radio calling for an end to welfare on this basis: 'If you take away their welfare, those people will get jobs' -in the last four years the war on welfare never happened. Indeed, Kansas is a model of incompetence here -the slashing of state taxes that left it unabe to meet its public spending commitments, the result: bankuptcy, or a reverse of policy. And all at a cost of wasted money.

It means to me that party politics is at a critical point, and that the Democrats have an uphill struggle to get their agenda started, while in the UK I think we live in a broken country and that Covid-19 + Brexit from January may lead to the break-up of the UK.

As for Trump, I think he wants a movement rather than a party, a movement that in effect disregards the Constitution as a dead letter, refusing to recognize that all Americans are equal just as they refuse to recognize the validity of a free and fair election process. It means the next four years may decide if the Republican Party survives as a Party with a distinct identity and political platform, or just becomes a personality cult.

Perhaps I am being melodramatic, but if so many Americans have lost faith in their Constitutional Republic, what is it that they want to replace it? And what about 'the others', who do want it? I am just pleased I don't live in the US, even though its domestic politics tends to have international consequences.

We certainly live in interesting times, but without the certainty.

[filghy2]

The reason why I put Reaganism as a separate category is because along with small government, his other major concern was defeating what he considered to be biggest threat to national security at the time, the Soviet Union. He spent a lot of money to do it to. I also would like to think that if he were alive today, he wouldn't look to kindly on who has been in office for the past 4 years.

Yes, Reagan was a mixture of foreign policy hawk and small government believer, and I think he was less interested in the "culture wars" than most of today's Republicans. He was also more pragmatic. The people who put him on a pedestal seem to have forgotten that he supported some tax increases after his initial tax cuts blew out the deficit, even though they pillory Bush Senior as a RINO for doing the same thing.

Today's Republican Party seems to be mainly a marriage of small government and cultural conservatives, with foreign policy taking a back seat. But I'm not sure there's going to be a struggle between these two strands because they seem to be well-accommodated. I think the small government people understand that their agenda isn't sufficiently popular in isolation (because it favours the rich), so they need the culture wars to attract working class votes.

[filghy2]

I think ultimately there are some people who are Republican by default because they've been taught that Liberals look down on them or they believe some racist myths but aren't as committed to racism as the alt-right for instance. Some of these votes can probably be won by appealing to their personal financial interests and to their interest in steady employment. The problem is getting them to see the threat the Republican party poses to both. Maybe this last group would be "cultural Republicans" whose support of the Republican party is really based on a hodge-podge of myths about what Liberals want to achieve and what Republicans actually do when placed in positions of power.

After the 2016 election there was a lot of discussion about whether Trump's support among the working class was explained by economic or by cultural factors. If it's economic then, as you suggest, the Democrats may be able to win them back over time with the right policies. If it's cultural then it will be much harder without selling out their principles and splitting the party.

I suspect it's mainly the latter, but I'm sure there are some who voted for Trump again because they gave him credit for the pre-COVID economy and see the virus as something outside of his control. The problem for the Dems is that they've inherited a difficult economic situation and their opponents are bound to block any efforts to address it, as they did under Obama.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Donald Trump's niece Mary Trump warned that her uncle would be proned to "meltdowns" in the period between his electoral defeat and president-elect Joe Biden's inauguration next year. "This is what Donald's going to do: he's not going to concede,although who cares. What's worse he's not going to engage in normal activities that guarantee a peaceful transition", Mary Trump told the Guardian. In the interim,she said, he'll be having meltdowns upon meltdowns right now. He has never been in a situation like this before''. " All he's got right now is breaking stuff,and he's going to do that with a vengeance she added.. And Donald Trump already begun the meltdown by firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/525109-mary-trump-warns-of-meltdowns-by-trump-in-next-few-months And the meltdown continues with Donald Trump firing via tweet Christopher Krebs the former director of the Cybersecuriy and Infastructure Administration in the United States Department of Homeland Security, and Trump's explanation for the firing was that Christopher Krebs statement about the 2020 Presidential Election being one of the most secured was false. and this latest firing shows that Donald Trump can't accept the reality that he lost the presidential election by 74 electoral votes {306-232},and doesn't understand how elections work and being labeled a sore loser and will fire anybody who disagrees with him, meanwhile the republicans in Congress and the US Senate have silent by letting him do what he wants,whenever he wants and is enabling Trump by echoing his baseless accusations about widespread voter fraud and irregularities,which has been disproving by Democratic and Republican Secretaries of States. And Mary Trump was absolutely right when she said her uncle would be proned to meltdowns in the period between his electoral defeat and president-elect Joe Biden's inauguration next year. and it's on full display for the world to see.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

And the meltdown continues with Donald Trump firing via tweet Christopher Krebs the former director of the Cybersecuriy and Infastructure Administration in the United States Department of Homeland Security, and Trump's explanation for the firing was that Christopher Krebs statement about the 2020 Presidential Election being one of the most secured was false. and this latest firing shows that Donald Trump can't accept the reality that he lost the presidential election by 74 electoral votes {306-232},and doesn't understand how elections work and being labeled a sore loser and will fire anybody who disagrees with him, meanwhile the republicans in Congress and the US Senate have silent by letting him do what he wants,whenever he wants and is enabling Trump by echoing his baseless accusations about widespread voter fraud and irregularities,which has been disproving by Democratic and Republican Secretaries of States. And Mary Trump was absolutely right when she said her uncle would be proned to meltdowns in the period between his electoral defeat and president-elect Joe Biden's inauguration next year. and it's on full display for the world to see.CONT: The firing of former director of the Cybersecurity and Infastructure Administration Christopher Krebs yesterday who rejected Donald Trump's claims about widespread voter fraud,shows how petty and vindictive really he is and can't accept reality that he lost and his time in power will be coming to an end whether he likes it or not. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/chris-krebs-fired-by-trump/index.html

[Stavros]

The Guardian has published an intriguing account of how the President can remain in office. What I think is important about it, is that is seems to me to be part of the attitude to law that Trump learned from Roy Cohn, where the proposition seems to be that if a course of action is not explicitly illegal, then do it and take the consequences. In the case of this election, it means that a 'norm' that means election results are not challenged unless there is blatant evidence of something illegal or procedurally incorrect, is reversed, and the election is challenged whether or not irregularities have taken place.

Where it becomes sinister, is the claim that the language of the Constitution does not give officials in a State the right to determine its electors, but the State Legislators. Here, for example, is Newton Gingrich as cited in the account-

"Usually, the secretary of state or governor certifies the vote. State legislators generally have no role in the process. But Trump supporters have seized on language in the US Constitution that says each state shall appoint electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.”
“Everyone should remember the central role of state legislatures in picking a president,” Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the US House of Representatives, said on Twitter on Saturday. “The Legislature, not the Secretary of State, Governor or court.”
The Trump campaign took this argument a step further on Wednesday, claiming in a lawsuit that the administration of Pennsylvania’s election was so flawed that state officials had usurped the power of the legislature to set election rules.
The campaign’s proposed fix: let the state’s Republican-controlled legislature appoint electors and declare Trump the victor of the state, even though Biden won the popular vote."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/nov/20/us-election-trump-michigan-biden-georgia-live-updates?page=with:block-5fb7b0858f08abc6a8cb4ff4#liveblog-navigation (this segment appears at 11.47)

And this at 11.45-
"Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s lawyers, told Fox Business television on Thursday “The entire election, frankly, in all the swing states should be overturned, and the legislatures should make sure that the electors are selected for Trump,” .

Athough I don't think this would get through the Courts owing to a lack of proof-?- it is the aggressive way in which the vote is being undermined by these challenges that I think is feeding a belief among some voters that their democracy is now a sham, indeed one voter in Texas claims he is prepared to take up arms against the Biden Presidency-

"Brett Fryar, a 50-year-old chiropractor, owns a small business in Texas. He has two undergraduate degrees and a master*s degree, in organic chemistry. He told Reuters “If President Trump comes out and says: ‘Guys, I have irrefutable proof of fraud, the courts won’t listen, and I’m now calling on Americans to take up arms,’ we would go.”
(same link as above at 13.10).

The Biden transition team is resisting attempts to deal with these challenges with litigation of their own, standing back perhaps to let this theatrical nonsense play itself out -yet surely, as a matter of both law and principle, if the Administrator of the GSA, Emily Murphy, took an Oath to defend and protect the Constitution, does this not mean she must adhere to the job she is supposed to do, rather than take any notice of what the President says and wants? Can she be legally forced to do her job, or is it yet another parsing of the language that she cannot do it until the election has been finally certified in December? Not sure how this works.

[holzz]

Sue Trump for frivolous lawsuits.

if he can scrape up any evidence, considering many states have thrown him out, fine.
if not, make a law to punish him once he's out.
Since many GOPers have said to throw in the towel - including Bush Jr. and Romney, there may even be some GOP Congresspeople and Senators who would vote on a bill, even if the Dems have a minority in both houses.

[Stavros]

Rudolph Giuliani and his 'legal team' have committed so basic an error in their affidavits claiming electoral fraud, it makes you wonder what has happened to a man who has boasted about being a member of the Bar for 50 years -

"In its wild news conference Thursday, President Trump’s legal team promoted a very simple-sounding theory that seems likely to be central to its voter fraud allegations: that many precincts in the key states had more votes than actual voters, particularly in Michigan and Wisconsin.
“Well, in Michigan and Wisconsin, we have over-votes in numerous precincts of 150 percent, 200 percent and 300 percent,” Giuliani said.
Sidney Powell alleged that it was “up to 350 percent in some places.”
Within hours, the evidence for that claim began to crumble."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/20/trump-campaigns-much-hyped-affidavit-features-big-glaring-error/

-Because the team can't tell the difference betwen Michigan (MI) and Minnesota (MN) -neither can I, but I not a lawyer be. The affidavit has listed precincts from one state inflating the voter turnout in another

Maybe Mr Giuliani should engage in some due diligence, it's what interns do, innit?

[broncofan]

-Because the team can't tell the difference betwen Michigan (MI) and Minnesota (MN) -neither can I, but I not a lawyer be.
People should be filing complaints with the state bar for every attorney who has filed a frivolous lawsuit, collected a sworn affidavit that included perjury, or who has wasted the public's time spreading conspiracy theories that they are then afraid to repeat in court.

Below is the link for the model rules which all states adopt with minor variations (each section is elaborated on in a separate section labeled "comments"). At first glance, I think Trump's lawyers should be disciplined for violation of 1.1 competence, 1.3 diligence, 3.1 meritorious claims and contentions, 4.1 truthfulness in statements to others, and 8.4 misconduct (see 8.4c). I've read appeals court reviews of disciplinary findings by the state bar and while the first two are sometimes harder to find violations of except where deadlines are missed and the client himself complains, the last two should be a problem for these attorneys.

The claims and contentions are not advanced on a good faith basis and the legal theories are not just untested or novel, they are completely without merit or any chance of success. The attorneys, particularly Giuliani and Powell, have repeatedly lied to the public about matters within the scope of litigation. If Rule 4.1 is supposed to include only third parties involved in the representation I would think rule 8.4 prohibiting conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit etc would cover it.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/model_rules_of_professional_conduct_table_of_conte nts/

[Stavros]

I am unable to grasp the full legal technicalities you provide, but if it is a matter of politics, I wonder if these people will ever be held accountable by their own profession, if only to maintain the standards of practice in law that citizens have a right to expect. And not just because of the fees these people charge. From what little I have read about it, it seems the incoming Biden administration is not going to use time/waste time in revenge actions against either the President or his supporters, because they want to 'move on' and have higher priorities.

But if this means Giuliani and the others 'get away with it' because people can't be bothered or dismiss it as 'well, that's just Rudy', does this not help to erode standards in public life? The two might not be comparable, but in the UK Boris Johnson in his handling of an enquiry into bullying by the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, not only asked the investigating team to 'go easy' on her, they refused to hear testimony from witnesses, and even then when Johnson said he would take no action on the report, its author, a senior civil servant, resigned, apparently in digust. But this is where are these days, when Ministers of the Crown don't just make mistakes, which we can allow at times, but willlfully act in bad conscience, or without one, and refuse to resign or take responsibiity, or even blame others for their mistakes. Boris Johnson, when he was Foreign Secretary misled Parliament when describing the purpose of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's visit to Iran, and as a result she remains a prisoner in Tehran, threatened with an extended sentence. Years ago, he would not have resigned because the Prime Minister would have sacked him. He is now the Prime Minister.

Is it any wonder people become cynical about politics when they can see and hear their democratic system being undermined by the people who swear an oath to protect it?

[holzz]

step down orange man!!!
You have no evidence. I do0n't even like you, but i would support you out of principle if you had evidence.
If not, gtfo and let "sleepy Joe" in. Not so "sleepy" when he beat you.

[Stavros]

Depending on how you feel about it, either 24 hours that has helped restore some old fashioned respect for the law, or the deterioration of bitter sectarian politics into war.

One expects the President to condemn anyone and everyone who does not agree with him, but to advance the belief that Texas must now consider independence outside the US is in its tone as seditious as the bogus law suit the Supreme Court declined to hear.

"A Texas state lawmaker has vowed to introduce legislation allowing a referendum for voters to cast their ballots on whether to secede from the United States.
“The federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans. That is why I am committing to file legislation this session that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation,” Texas state Rep. Kyle Biedermann (R) shared on Facebook on Tuesday.
Biedermann said the legislation aligns with the Texas Constitution, which reads “The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.”
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/529713-texas-lawmaker-to-file-bill-calling-for-vote-on-secession-from

Is this sort of thing going to be the norm in the US now? Or is someone, perhaps the next Attorney General, going to take action to disbar manifestly incompetent lawyers, and call to account elected representatives seeking to overturn the result of a democratic election just because they don't like it, or even worse, don't want to offend Trump? Or is the next Government going to do nothing in the hope these neo-Confederates are just going to go away, their campaigns fizzle out?

[broncofan]

Republican lawmakers are upset that the Supreme Court failed to grant certiorari in the case filed by Texas. There seems to be a widespread belief that the Court has refused to hear the dispute because they don't think it has merit. It did not get that far and the decision was not a matter of discretion but a Constitutional mandate. The plaintiff did not meet the standing requirement for their case to be heard and it would be unconstitutional for the Supreme Court to allow it to proceed. Just as the executive branch has limits to the exercise of its power so too does the Judiciary. Donald Trump took to twitter to complain about the Court refusing to hear this bundle of conspiracy theories because of "standing" which he put in quotation marks. To him standing requirements are a newly invented hurdle to keep him from prevailing in an election he lost but for anyone familiar with the Constitution they are the prerequisite to the exercise of the Court's authority and keep the Judiciary from deciding matters that are political in nature or otherwise not cognizable legally.

Nobody who has signed on to these delusional, frivolous filings should ever be trusted again. Pathetic doesn't even scratch the surface.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Republican lawmakers are upset that the Supreme Court failed to grant certiorari in the case filed by Texas. There seems to be a widespread belief that the Court has refused to hear the dispute because they don't think it has merit. It did not get that far and the decision was not a matter of discretion but a Constitutional mandate. The plaintiff did not meet the standing requirement for their case to be heard and it would be unconstitutional for the Supreme Court to allow it to proceed. Just as the executive branch has limits to the exercise of its power so too does the Judiciary. Donald Trump took to twitter to complain about the Court refusing to hear this bundle of conspiracy theories because of "standing" which he put in quotation marks. To him standing requirements are a newly invented hurdle to keep him from prevailing in an election he lost but for anyone familiar with the Constitution they are the prerequisite to the exercise of the Court's authority and keep the Judiciary from deciding matters that are political in nature or otherwise not cognizable legally.

Nobody who has signed on to these delusional, frivolous filings should ever be trusted again. Pathetic doesn't even scratch the surface.The US Supreme Court once again shoots down Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump's quest to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election,an election he lost by 74 electoral votes and the popular vote by over 7 million,he and his enablers thought by ramming through an nominee to the US Supreme Court,that he was going to get re-elected and stay in power,however they were in for a rude awakening when SCOTUS told them that their case was dismissed.and completely agree that the 126 Retrumpicans and 18 Attorney Generals who signed on to the delusional,frivolous filings should ever be trusted again.

[holzz]

the president shouldn't nominate SCOTUS judges. they shouldn't appoint people based on poltiical leanings but on judicial competence. If a judge makes consistently good judgments, promote them.

[Beaver1]

Orange Man is bad!

[Stavros]

the president shouldn't nominate SCOTUS judges. they shouldn't appoint people based on poltiical leanings but on judicial competence. If a judge makes consistently good judgments, promote them.

It is up to Americans to begin this debate. If they move to a system where Supreme Court Justices are nominated by other members of the Court, or a congregation of Justices on the Supreme Court and the Circuit Courts, for example, you might find so-called Liberal judges nominating Liberals, Conservatives nominating Conservatives, and the arguments over bias would continue, and doubtless be fed by the Sectarian policies that have divided the US for so long.

The UK had and continues to have a system in which the Bench nominates its own, but on what basis we do not always know. In his controversial book, The Politics of the Judiciary (1977), JAG Griffiiths argued that the top jobs on the Bench went to men who either knew each other because they went to the same schools or Oxbridge together, or nominated those who had travelled the same path after them. How much has changed since the 1970s? We do now have a Supreme Court, thanks to Tony Blair's reforms, but how did the Justices get there?

Currently, nine of the twelve Justices on the Supreme Court of the UK graduated from either Oxford or Cambridge, the other three graduating from Edinburgh, Durham and Manchester. Four also have degrees from Harvard Law School.

Eight of the Nine Supreme Court Justices in the US graduated from two law schools -Harvard and Yale, while Justice Barrett graduated from Notre Dame.

I don't know what reform looks like, but it seems to me the backgrounds of our senior Justices is drawn from a small number of institutions, as if a law degree from, say Southampton University might get the graduate a good job, but probably not see him, or her crown their career on the Bench. I imagine the same is true of the US, but at least the candidates for the Supreme Court must be challenged in public, in the Senate, and may even be rejected. We don't get to choose in that way in the UK.

[Stavros]

The man needs help. Help him, someone.

"Michael Flynn (https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/michael-flynn), President Donald Trump’s (https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/donald-trump) former national security adviser who was pardoned by the president last week for lying during the Russia investigation, wants Trump to declare martial law (https://www.huffpost.com/topic/martial-law) and “temporarily suspend the Constitution” until a new election is held.
Flynn, who had been awaiting sentencing for (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-pardon-michael-flynn_n_5a216c7fe4b03350e0b64a66)lying to the FBI (https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/fbi) about his Russian contacts before Trump’s pardon, on Tuesday retweeted a news release from a right-wing Ohio group called We The People Convention asking the president to declare martial law so troops can supervise a do-over of the 2020 election.
Flynn tagged many conservative celebs in his post and added: “Freedom never kneels except for God.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/michael-flynn-martial-law-new-election_n_5fc7d3e6c5b6f3fe59724a45?ri18n=true&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS92 Mi9jb2xsZWN0Q29uc2VudD9zZXNzaW9uSWQ9M19jYy1zZXNzaW 9uXzVkZmFiODkwLTEwZDAtNDlkYi1hNGNjLTIyMDBhOTM2MDYw MA&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAK1bS6CDcWTi4l6ks7Wq4dA30w1U vUmca-4_Q2AxfIBDOQoC3mapymVRyVc1iYiKDMCkE0oEUGQY7b-glAEXgfCX3b2s6fnOzWreFG_DO6nQMLNsnIe0Gz3Vd2fimyq72 mAkMft87C41GRoL8a3-2cAQXn5QSXbmX8hNhqNHqYrI

[KnightHawk 2.0]

The man needs help. Help him, someone.

"Michael Flynn (https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/michael-flynn), President Donald Trump’s (https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/donald-trump) former national security adviser who was pardoned by the president last week for lying during the Russia investigation, wants Trump to declare martial law (https://www.huffpost.com/topic/martial-law) and “temporarily suspend the Constitution” until a new election is held.
Flynn, who had been awaiting sentencing for (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-pardon-michael-flynn_n_5a216c7fe4b03350e0b64a66)lying to the FBI (https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/fbi) about his Russian contacts before Trump’s pardon, on Tuesday retweeted a news release from a right-wing Ohio group called We The People Convention asking the president to declare martial law so troops can supervise a do-over of the 2020 election.
Flynn tagged many conservative celebs in his post and added: “Freedom never kneels except for God.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/michael-flynn-martial-law-new-election_n_5fc7d3e6c5b6f3fe59724a45?ri18n=true&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS92 Mi9jb2xsZWN0Q29uc2VudD9zZXNzaW9uSWQ9M19jYy1zZXNzaW 9uXzVkZmFiODkwLTEwZDAtNDlkYi1hNGNjLTIyMDBhOTM2MDYw MA&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAK1bS6CDcWTi4l6ks7Wq4dA30w1U vUmca-4_Q2AxfIBDOQoC3mapymVRyVc1iYiKDMCkE0oEUGQY7b-glAEXgfCX3b2s6fnOzWreFG_DO6nQMLNsnIe0Gz3Vd2fimyq72 mAkMft87C41GRoL8a3-2cAQXn5QSXbmX8hNhqNHqYrICompletely agree that Michael-Lying Pile Of Shit-Flynn needs help after saying those despicable and dangerous comments.

[Eponymous Lee]

09-12-2019

Would a Biden-Harris ticket be a worthwhile compromise to unite the 'safe as houses' Biden faction with Harris the acceptable candidate for the 'radicals'? And it would once again put a woman in the frame for the top job, in 2024.


Hey Stavros, the votes are in.
You win the meritorious award for most plausible election prediction of 2019. Your award certificate and medal will be shipped promptly.

https://i.ibb.co/PCp29yD/cert-l.jpg https://i.ibb.co/ZKfQ1Gq/Meritorious-Service-Medal-1.jpg








Disclaimer notice: Please allow 8 to 9 years before filing a complaint if your items do not arrive.
please send (Shipping and printing costs £ 9.75) to 29 Station Road, Polegate
East Sussex, BN26 6EA)

[Stavros]

Flattered though I might be, a) Biden-Harris was not that hard to predict, and b) I have no interest in, or use for medals.
I want money.

[broncofan]

Just to give some warning if this snuck up on anyone. The Warnock-Loeffler and Ossoff-Perdue senate races are going to be decided on Tuesday. Democrats can get to 50 senators with Vice President Kamala Harris being the deciding vote if Warnock and Ossoff win in Georgia. I have no idea what will happen but am hopeful Democrats control the senate given how much damage Mitch McConnell's partisanship has caused.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Just to give some warning if this snuck up on anyone. The Warnock-Loeffler and Ossoff-Perdue senate races are going to be decided on Tuesday. Democrats can get to 50 senators with Vice President Kamala Harris being the deciding vote if Warnock and Ossoff win in Georgia. I have no idea what will happen but am hopeful Democrats control the senate given how much damage Mitch McConnell's partisanship has caused. The races between Jon Ossoff-David Perdue and Raphael Warnock-Kelly Kelly Loeffler are very tight and will come down to the wire, and i hope that Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock wins those races and flip the senate blue,and i am also hopeful that the Democrats will control the US Senate,and repair the damage that the King Of Enablers Mitch McConnell Partisanship has caused the last 6 years.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

On Wednesday January 6 the US Congress and Senate are suppose to come together for a joint session of congress to count the votes and certificate the results of the 2020 Presidential Election,however most House Republicans along with 12 Republican Senators plan on objecting to the results by claiming that there is evidence of widespread voter fraud,even though State and
Federal Courts including the US Supreme Court shot down those claims,and the reasons why House and Senate GOP Members are pulling this despicable partisan stunt because they think it will keep them in the good graces of the D.A.M.N and Sore Loser and his base of delusional supporters,and are terrified of receiving mean tweets,being primaried and losing their seats in the US Congress and Senate if they don't along with his false claims,but unfortunately for them their despicable partisan stunt will backfire,and the results will get certified and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as the next president and vice president of the United States on Wednesday January 20th whether they like it or not.

[blackchubby38]

Just to give some warning if this snuck up on anyone. The Warnock-Loeffler and Ossoff-Perdue senate races are going to be decided on Tuesday. Democrats can get to 50 senators with Vice President Kamala Harris being the deciding vote if Warnock and Ossoff win in Georgia. I have no idea what will happen but am hopeful Democrats control the senate given how much damage Mitch McConnell's partisanship has caused.

The results of that race will not only determine who controls the Senate, but I think will also be the closing argument of what the 2020 US Elections were all about.

If Perdue and Loeffler win, than that means that not only did the Democrats fail to take the Senate, but they lost some seats in the House and in the state legislatures. Which means that the elections were all about getting Trump out of office, but a majority of Americans are either still not buying the Democrats' message. Or the Democratic party has done a poor job at convincing some Americans to vote for them.

We have talked before about how the future of the Republican party, but I think the Democratic Party would have to start doing some soul searching if they lose both seats on Tuesday.

If Warnock and Ossoff win, I think it will lessen the sting of those other losses and at the same time ensure that some things may actually get done in the Senate.

On a side note, Nancy Pelosi was voted speaker of the House again. While I'm not surprised about that, what I'm surprised about is that the "squad" voted for her. Lets just say Twitter is not happy about it.

[filghy2]

Just to give some warning if this snuck up on anyone. The Warnock-Loeffler and Ossoff-Perdue senate races are going to be decided on Tuesday. Democrats can get to 50 senators with Vice President Kamala Harris being the deciding vote if Warnock and Ossoff win in Georgia. I have no idea what will happen but am hopeful Democrats control the senate given how much damage Mitch McConnell's partisanship has caused.

Aside from the direct implication for the Senate, the vote will also be important for what it tells us about the electoral implications of the Trumpist's brazen attempts to subvert democracy. If there are no adverse implications for the Republican party that does not augur well for the future.

[Laphroaig]

Washington Post reporting on a Trump phonecall where he begs and threatens the Georgia secretary of state to find votes for him.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1345792166715600897

Part of the recording.

https://twitter.com/keithedwards/status/1345796238722129923

[broncofan]

Washington Post reporting on a Trump phonecall where he begs and threatens the Georgia secretary of state to find votes for him.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1345792166715600897

Part of the recording.

https://twitter.com/keithedwards/status/1345796238722129923
If anyone hasn't listened I really recommend taking a few minutes. Trump is confabulating some nonsense about switched voting machine parts and shredded ballots. Ultimately he is trying to commit election fraud and doing it through extortion.

Raffensperger warned Trump on twitter not to lie about him before he released the video. It would be shocking if there aren't more videos of Trump trying to cheat.

It's astounding how much one person can lie. He said somewhere on there that he won Georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes...I don't ever want to hear from a Republican again about the value of honesty, rule of law, our Constitution, science....a whole list of subjects that are pretty much off limits to them.

[broncofan]

Aside from the direct implication for the Senate, the vote will also be important for what it tells us about the electoral implications of the Trumpist's brazen attempts to subvert democracy. If there are no adverse implications for the Republican party that does not augur well for the future.
I hear you. I think it's important for what it tells us and what it tells them. We need them to lose and make the attribution to Trumpism. Maybe they make a pivot if they see this is a losing strategy. We know that's the only way they change course. The audio speaks for itself, to people of all ages and levels of education. If they've lost the Presidency, the House, and Senate then there is also a window of opportunity for reform.

For Republican enablers it has not been enough of a deterrent to know they will be portrayed as villains to posterity. People don't seem to give a shit about that. Posterity is later. It's a real shame we can't show them history books from fifty years in the future.

[broncofan]

The results of that race will not only determine who controls the Senate, but I think will also be the closing argument of what the 2020 US Elections were all about.

If Perdue and Loeffler win, than that means that not only did the Democrats fail to take the Senate, but they lost some seats in the House and in the state legislatures. Which means that the elections were all about getting Trump out of office, but a majority of Americans are either still not buying the Democrats' message. Or the Democratic party has done a poor job at convincing some Americans to vote for them.

We have talked before about how the future of the Republican party, but I think the Democratic Party would have to start doing some soul searching if they lose both seats on Tuesday.

If Warnock and Ossoff win, I think it will lessen the sting of those other losses and at the same time ensure that some things may actually get done in the Senate.

On a side note, Nancy Pelosi was voted speaker of the House again. While I'm not surprised about that, what I'm surprised about is that the "squad" voted for her. Lets just say Twitter is not happy about it.
I disagree. Gaining or losing seats is much less important than a change in the balance of power. Even more the case in such a polarized environment.

Before the race the Republicans controlled the Presidency and the Senate. After the race, at most they control the Senate by two votes. If they lose the Senate it is a big loss for Republicans because Democrats can pass bills by party vote. Even if they win those races, their President will still be the first incumbent to lose since George H.W. in 1992 and they will have lost power relative to before the election.

As for a change in messaging for Democrats, I'm not really sure what direction you think they can go. It's not easy to unseat an incumbent President and if the election looks like it was a referendum on Trump it could be because his negligence has killed tens of thousands and his corruption is mind-boggling.

[broncofan]

If Perdue and Loeffler win, than that means that not only did the Democrats fail to take the Senate, but they lost some seats in the House and in the state legislatures.
I don't really understand the logic. Losing seats in the House without a change in majority is bad but gaining seats in the Senate and failing to get a majority is also bad. Heads they win tails we lose?

From my viewpoint, before the election Trump was President and Republicans controlled the Senate. Now Biden is President and it's possible Republicans will not even control the Senate.

[Stavros]

Washington Post reporting on a Trump phonecall where he begs and threatens the Georgia secretary of state to find votes for him.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1345792166715600897

Part of the recording.

https://twitter.com/keithedwards/status/1345796238722129923

I listened to the whole of the recording last night on the Washington Post website. What strikes me about it is the relentless repetition that Trump needs, as it is something he does in his rallies. 'We won by a lot' and similar phrases are repeated again and again, suggesting he has real difficulty in expressing himself except in stock phrases. Another is the way he tacks on to remarks the argument 'this has never been heard of before' or 'the worst in American history', 'people can't believe it'- he seems incapable of spontaneous expression. It also seems he has been fed a pack of lies by fawning sycophants, much as a medieval tyrant is constantly told by Court flunkeys how intelligent he is. I think we know all this, but the real question is did Trump break the law, and is anyone going to do anything about it?

[Stavros]

As for a change in messaging for Democrats, I'm not really sure what direction you think they can go. It's not easy to unseat an incumbent President and if the election looks like it was a referendum on Trump it could be because his negligence has killed tens of thousands and his corruption is mind-boggling.

I agree with Blackchubby, because the election has not setttled the questions that ask what it is that the Democrats and Repubilcans stand for as parties. In the case of the Republicans, they are in a crisis of their own making because they don't know what to do about Trump- one can even ask if the Republican Party still exists, while the Democrats are split on whether or not to play it safe over the next four years or be bold and radical.

I wonder if the 'Squad' and their allies are waiting for Pelosi and Democrats like her to either go in 2022 or retire and thus see their 'radical agenda' as something for the latter part of the first term, though it is not clear Biden is signed up to it. Some issues, like Climate Change can be acted on with a compromise on the 'Green New Deal', but some sense needs to be made of policing and law enforcement where reform rather than defunding is the issue. I think the US Government has to confront the reality that Law Enforcement Officers have been infiltrated by members of Armed Militias -I saw a report on UK tv which showed LEO with III Percent badges sown onto their uniforms. How much of the lethal force being used is not just down to the kind of training officers get and their personal hostility to Black people, but is part of an unofficial 'Civil War' the Militias are waging against what they see as 'Liberal America' from inside law enforcement?

Biden needs to be bold, and to ask Congress to hell him reform the Presdency, Congress and the Electoral System. Is is too much to ask?

[Laphroaig]

I listened to the whole of the recording last night on the Washington Post website. What strikes me about it is the relentless repetition that Trump needs, as it is something he does in his rallies. 'We won by a lot' and similar phrases are repeated again and again, suggesting he has real difficulty in expressing himself except in stock phrases. Another is the way he tacks on to remarks the argument 'this has never been heard of before' or 'the worst in American history', 'people can't believe it'- he seems incapable of spontaneous expression. It also seems he has been fed a pack of lies by fawning sycophants, much as a medieval tyrant is constantly told by Court flunkeys how intelligent he is. I think we know all this, but the real question is did Trump break the law, and is anyone going to do anything about it?

I haven't listened to the whole hour and I'm not sure if this is in the clip I posted or another one, but one fragment that struck me was when Trump was basically told not to believe everything on social media. His response was "it wasn't from social media, it was from Trump media". Strongly suggests he only listens to whatever sources are biased towards him. Personally, I wonder if that's one reason he's still in denial over the election result having only been fed positive polling numbers and other information.

[blackchubby38]

I disagree. Gaining or losing seats is much less important than a change in the balance of power. Even more the case in such a polarized environment.

Before the race the Republicans controlled the Presidency and the Senate. After the race, at most they control the Senate by two votes. If they lose the Senate it is a big loss for Republicans because Democrats can pass bills by party vote. Even if they win those races, their President will still be the first incumbent to lose since George H.W. in 1992 and they will have lost power relative to before the election.

As for a change in messaging for Democrats, I'm not really sure what direction you think they can go. It's not easy to unseat an incumbent President and if the election looks like it was a referendum on Trump it could be because his negligence has killed tens of thousands and his corruption is mind-boggling.

I think this article will explain things:

messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201207&instance_id=24780&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=146170897&segment_id=46245&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F4b0e7360-b5da-5a8b-a9f1-a9be6f6e4421&user_id=47d6a93fbeccff63f43a867ab6dc4804

[blackchubby38]

I don't really understand the logic. Losing seats in the House without a change in majority is bad but gaining seats in the Senate and failing to get a majority is also bad. Heads they win tails we lose?

From my viewpoint, before the election Trump was President and Republicans controlled the Senate. Now Biden is President and it's possible Republicans will not even control the Senate.

Yes and that's why I'm saying that if the Democrats win the Senate, it will lessen the sting of the losses that they incurred on Election Day. The Democrats may have the majority in the House, but its a slim one.

Let me ask you this, before Election Day, what were the expectations for how the Democrats were going to do. Because from what I can recall, they seem to be pretty high.

[broncofan]

Yes and that's why I'm saying that if the Democrats win the Senate, it will lessen the sting of the losses that they incurred on Election Day. The Democrats may have the majority in the House, but its a slim one.

Let me ask you this, before Election Day, what were the expectations for how the Democrats were going to do. Because from what I can recall, they seem to be pretty high.
I expected Democrats to win the Presidency and the House. I was hopeful about the Senate. I suppose I wasn't judging victory based on expectations just prior to the election but compared to status quo ante. If a ten to one favorite in a boxing match wins eight out of twelve rounds I don't consider it a setback or a defeat even if the odds implied something more emphatic.

The question for me was whether they increased their ability to pass legislation and control the direction this country takes. The incumbent has historically done very well in our Presidential elections and Trump winning re-election, something Clinton, GW, and Obama did, would have been a nightmare.

I think winning the House (which is gerrymandered), winning the Presidency (with an incumbent tried to cheat repeatedly and used a pandemic to suppress votes), and having a chance to get 50 seats in the senate is a victory even if you expected more simply because they controlled the Presidency and the Senate.

[blackchubby38]

I expected Democrats to win the Presidency and the House. I was hopeful about the Senate. I suppose I wasn't judging victory based on expectations just prior to the election but compared to status quo ante. If a ten to one favorite in a boxing match wins eight out of twelve rounds I don't consider it a setback or a defeat even if the odds implied something more emphatic.

The question for me was whether they increased their ability to pass legislation and control the direction this country takes. The incumbent has historically done very well in our Presidential elections and Trump winning re-election, something Clinton, GW, and Obama did, would have been a nightmare.

I think winning the House (which is gerrymandered), winning the Presidency (with an incumbent tried to cheat repeatedly and used a pandemic to suppress votes), and having a chance to get 50 seats in the senate is a victory even if you expected more simply because they controlled the Presidency and the Senate.

I didn't expect more. I didn't think they would lose seats in the House.

[filghy2]

I expected Democrats to win the Presidency and the House. I was hopeful about the Senate. I suppose I wasn't judging victory based on expectations just prior to the election but compared to status quo ante. If a ten to one favorite in a boxing match wins eight out of twelve rounds I don't consider it a setback or a defeat even if the odds implied something more emphatic.

The question for me was whether they increased their ability to pass legislation and control the direction this country takes. The incumbent has historically done very well in our Presidential elections and Trump winning re-election, something Clinton, GW, and Obama did, would have been a nightmare.

I think winning the House (which is gerrymandered), winning the Presidency (with an incumbent tried to cheat repeatedly and used a pandemic to suppress votes), and having a chance to get 50 seats in the senate is a victory even if you expected more simply because they controlled the Presidency and the Senate.

The overall vote margin in the House was 3.1%, compared to 4.5% in the Presidential vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_House_of_Representatives_electi ons
That suggest that the percentage of voters who rejected Trump but also rejected the Dems In Congress was relatively small.

It's true that there was a sizable swing away from the Dems compared to 2018, but that margin would still have delivered a very decisive victory in any reasonably fair electoral system. I think a lot of Americans don't appreciate just how much their system has been corrupted.

[Stavros]

I haven't listened to the whole hour and I'm not sure if this is in the clip I posted or another one, but one fragment that struck me was when Trump was basically told not to believe everything on social media. His response was "it wasn't from social media, it was from Trump media". Strongly suggests he only listens to whatever sources are biased towards him. Personally, I wonder if that's one reason he's still in denial over the election result having only been fed positive polling numbers and other information.


It is a tedious hour, because of the repetition and the claims Trump makes that are simply not true -'we won the state'. It is risky to base an assessment on the few books about him I have read, but I think we can agree that Trump has no intellectual curiosity, indeed, not much of an intellect. Other than Scotland and Slovenia -and he only went there once to please his wife- he has never willingly travelled outside the US, and doesn't even seem to have travelled much inside it before he became President. His ignorance of things outside the immediate orbit of his bodily functions and money suggests he is also easily impressed by people he knows are better informed than he is, even if he claims he knows better than most people. I had never heard of the woman on the phone call, Cleta Mitchell, and we don't know who has been feeding Trump verifiable rubbish, such as the claim Trump made on twitter that Brad Raffensperger's brother Ron 'works for China' when Brad Raffensperger doesn't have a brother. Surely at some point the President must query where all these bogus claims come from that make him look stupid? Again, consider Giuliani presenting an Affidavit to a court in Michigan that claims that electoral fraud took place in counties listed in the Affidavit that were not in Michigan, but Minnesota. It is not as if there is any doubt about the claims, they are all proven to be bogus, and when Raffensperger insists the election count is accurate it just gets a blanket denial-

"Raffensperger: We believe that we do have an accurate election.
Trump: No, no you don’t. No, no you don’t. You don’t have. Not even close. You’re off by hundreds of thousands of votes."

It is simple really, Trump can't bear the fact that he lost the election, and anyone offering him 'proof' he won it will be listened to, but this makes it all personal, rather than a matter of state. The question now is how many times is Trump going to either break the law or commit an impeachable offence, and get away with it? Surely at some point the law must be held more important than the delusions of a failed candidate?

And today the election official in Georgia has presented a complete rebuttal of every claim the President made (link below)

Transcript of the phone call is here-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html

Georgia's rebuttal of Trump's claims here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEYvOTvqlFs

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Washington Post reporting on a Trump phonecall where he begs and threatens the Georgia secretary of state to find votes for him.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1345792166715600897

Part of the recording.

https://twitter.com/keithedwards/status/1345796238722129923 Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger begging and threatening him is illegal and very dangerous,and shows that he's delusional and isn't willing to accept the fact that he lost the presidential election by 74 electoral college votes and the popular vote by over 7 million,and is trying to hold on to power by intimidating elected officials,and knows what awaits him when his term ends in 15 days. And meanwhile his enablers in Congress and the Senate haven't said anything and have been silent,because they are too busy trying to overturn an election that was called nearly 2 months ago. but if a democratic president would of done something like this,they will have been in a uproar with plenty to say and ready to impeach him. and this also shows how toxic and corrupt the Republican Party has become under the D.A.M.N. over the last 4 years.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

It is a tedious hour, because of the repetition and the claims Trump makes that are simply not true -'we won the state'. It is risky to base an assessment on the few books about him I have read, but I think we can agree that Trump has no intellectual curiosity, indeed, not much of an intellect. Other than Scotland and Slovenia -and he only went there once to please his wife- he has never willingly travelled outside the US, and doesn't even seem to have travelled much inside it before he became President. His ignorance of things outside the immediate orbit of his bodily functions and money suggests he is also easily impressed by people he knows are better informed than he is, even if he claims he knows better than most people. I had never heard of the woman on the phone call, Cleta Mitchell, and we don't know who has been feeding Trump verifiable rubbish, such as the claim Trump made on twitter that Brad Raffensperger's brother Ron 'works for China' when Brad Raffensperger doesn't have a brother. Surely at some point the President must query where all these bogus claims come from that make him look stupid? Again, consider Giuliani presenting an Affidavit to a court in Michigan that claims that electoral fraud took place in counties listed in the Affidavit that were not in Michigan, but Minnesota. It is not as if there is any doubt about the claims, they are all proven to be bogus, and when Raffensperger insists the election count is accurate it just gets a blanket denial-

"Raffensperger: We believe that we do have an accurate election.
Trump: No, no you don’t. No, no you don’t. You don’t have. Not even close. You’re off by hundreds of thousands of votes."

It is simple really, Trump can't bear the fact that he lost the election, and anyone offering him 'proof' he won it will be listened to, but this makes it all personal, rather than a matter of state. The question now is how many times is Trump going to either break the law or commit an impeachable offence, and get away with it? Surely at some point the law must be held more important than the delusions of a failed candidate?

And today the election official in Georgia has presented a complete rebuttal of every claim the President made (link below)

Transcript of the phone call is here-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html

Georgia's rebuttal of Trump's claims here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEYvOTvqlFsAs long as his enablers in Congress and the US Senate stay silent and let him continue to abuse his power and commit illegal impeachable offenses,he will continue to get with away breaking the law. and it is good to see Republicans like Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling standing up to Donald Trump and debunking false claims by him over the past several months.

[broncofan]

The overall vote margin in the House was 3.1%, compared to 4.5% in the Presidential vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_House_of_Representatives_electi ons
That suggest that the percentage of voters who rejected Trump but also rejected the Dems In Congress was relatively small.

It's true that there was a sizable swing away from the Dems compared to 2018, but that margin would still have delivered a very decisive victory in any reasonably fair electoral system. I think a lot of Americans don't appreciate just how much their system has been corrupted.
I think you're right that we need to put in perspective the fact that a two to three percent handicap is enormous in a two party system. Maybe it partly explains why Republicans have been able to give up principles, make people ignore outcomes, and appeal only to tribal loyalty. You'd think there would be something else restraining more of them, like an aversion to falsehoods, and an unwillingness to accept behavior whose adoption by their adversaries would create hell on earth for everyone.

But I think you're right. The corruption of our system has allowed a level of impunity that their morals will not rein in. I'm hopeful they face another defeat that does it for them. But not too hopeful.....we'll see.

[filghy2]

It is risky to base an assessment on the few books about him I have read, but I think we can agree that Trump has no intellectual curiosity, indeed, not much of an intellect.

We should actually be grateful for his lack of intellectual abilities because that has been his undoing in the end - especially his idiotic denialism on the pandemic. Even if he didn't want to follow some of the medical advice, a more intelligent person would have recognised that he needed to be seen to care and to be working hard to address the health and economic impacts.

Similarly, it has only been his brazen and ham-fisted attempts to overturn the election result that are leading many Republicans to finally break with him. A more intelligent person would have seen that this would not work and looked for some other strategy toward either running or controlling the nomination in 2024. It's ironic that this man is so fixated on retaining power when he has completely lost interest in governing. I can't see how spending the next four years obsessing about the myth of the stolen election, rather than the country's problems, can possibly be a foundation for winning in 2024.

The only political skill Trump seems to possess is in appealing to his cult following, which is not sufficient for most purposes. In anything that requires going beyond that he flounders cluelessly.

[filghy2]

I haven't listened to the whole hour and I'm not sure if this is in the clip I posted or another one, but one fragment that struck me was when Trump was basically told not to believe everything on social media. His response was "it wasn't from social media, it was from Trump media". Strongly suggests he only listens to whatever sources are biased towards him. Personally, I wonder if that's one reason he's still in denial over the election result having only been fed positive polling numbers and other information.

It's a classic closed feedback loop. Trump media feeds the prejudices and delusions of Trump and his supporters for political and commercial reasons. That in turn becomes the 'evidence' for the delusions. Any contrary information is rejected as fake news from people who are anti-Trump. And of course the people who work for Trump have learned that it's not a good idea to tell him anything he doesn't want to know.

The only way the loop can be broken is if inconvenient realities become so undeniable that they can't be spun away. It's not clear what might do that. Over 300,000 deaths from coronavirus was obviously not enough.

The interesting question about Trump is whether he actually believes what he says in his own mind or is just cynically adept at lying. I suspect it started as the latter but he can no longer tell the difference between truth and his own wishes.

[broncofan]

The interesting question about Trump is whether he actually believes what he says in his own mind or is just cynically adept at lying. I suspect it started as the latter but he can no longer tell the difference between truth and his own wishes.
Sometimes it seems he's very aware he's speaking falsely because of the timing of the lies. The lies get more desperate as he hears bad news and recently the lies bring about more bad news. His insistence prior to the election that mail-in ballots were fraudulent probably suppressed his own turnout. If he loses tonight, and it looks like he will, it might be because people aren't able to live with the same contradictions he can. You tell them their vote doesn't count, they don't vote.

Tens of thousands of people who died likely believed covid was not much worse than the flu up until they couldn't deny it any longer. Their family members watched them die horrible, painful deaths. Why did he lie about Covid? At some level I suspect he knew he didn't have the organization or competence to deal with it. His staff could have told him that you can't lie about death tolls and you can't bluff in a scenario where the effects are so objectively provable. He tried anyway because the thought of doing anything honestly must make him shudder.

The Republicans chose mass death and unprecedented corruption and the disgrace of it is theirs to live with.

[Laphroaig]

Sometimes it seems he's very aware he's speaking falsely because of the timing of the lies. The lies get more desperate as he hears bad news and recently the lies bring about more bad news. His insistence prior to the election that mail-in ballots were fraudulent probably suppressed his own turnout. If he loses tonight, and it looks like he will, it might be because people aren't able to live with the same contradictions he can. You tell them their vote doesn't count, they don't vote.

Tens of thousands of people who died likely believed covid was not much worse than the flu up until they couldn't deny it any longer. Their family members watched them die horrible, painful deaths. Why did he lie about Covid? At some level I suspect he knew he didn't have the organization or competence to deal with it. His staff could have told him that you can't lie about death tolls and you can't bluff in a scenario where the effects are so objectively provable. He tried anyway because the thought of doing anything honestly must make him shudder.

The Republicans chose mass death and unprecedented corruption and the disgrace of it is theirs to live with.

All the clips in this Twitter thread are ridiculous but this one is insane.

"I'm going to give everyone three action steps ... turn to the person next to you and give them a hug. Someone you don't know ... it's a mass-spreader event! It's a mass-spreader event!"

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1346540391143788544

Edit: for some reason the link keeps going to the beginning of the thread, so screenshot of the clip I'm talking about.

1291980

[filghy2]

Sometimes it seems he's very aware he's speaking falsely because of the timing of the lies. The lies get more desperate as he hears bad news and recently the lies bring about more bad news.

What I find interesting is that Trump doesn't seem to care whether his lies sound plausible, whereas most practised liars put some effort into appearing plausible and avoiding obvious inconsistencies. He's definitely a believer in the Goebbels dictum that if you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it people will come to believe it.

But as you say, much of his behaviour is explained by his lacking the competence to do anything else. He's probably not smart enough to ensure his lies are plausible.

[broncofan]

What I find interesting is that Trump doesn't seem to care whether his lies sound plausible, whereas most practised liars put some effort into appearing plausible and avoiding obvious inconsistencies. He's definitely a believer in the Goebbels dictum that if you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it people will come to believe it.

I thought about this over the past couple of weeks. In particular, what you say about Goebbels because it never really made intuitive sense to me. Why is a lie more believable if it's outlandish? How do you make it plausible if you are also making it "big"?

Maybe there's a difference between telling a lie to a single person and having to lie to millions of people where any inconsistency, even a small and calculated one, will eventually be exposed. If you lie to the public, you need their complicity in the lie. They have to want to believe you, it has to be consistent with their biases, and by making it big you inflame the emotions that have overpowered their reason. Anyone who is willing to believe Barack Obama is a Communist would also believe he's a Stalinist and has built gulags. So why not say the latter? The people you're lying to want you to succeed in lying. They're only going to complain about being lied to when it leads them to doom or accountability.

One thing that the Trump era has shown is that there are very few things in our system that provide a clear scorecard to measure a politician's performance. Trump is like the guy who pretends to push the train as it leaves the station and it really did take a disaster to show he does nothing useful and is completely unfit for anything except reality tv. Sad!

On a serious note though, with the House, the Presidency, and 50 Democratic Senators the outcome has been excellent. If the Republicans are only bluffing about completely dismantling our Constitutional form of government this strategy would appear to be a failure. Their move.

[broncofan]

All Americans who care about our system of government owe a huge debt of appreciation to Stacey Abrams. She helped get out the vote in Georgia during the Presidential election. And her efforts during the Senate run-off likely made the difference and are the reason Mitch McConnell is no longer Senate Majority Leader. Super grateful about that.

[broncofan]

Trump incited his supporters to storm the Capitol building. They breached security, entered the chamber, and some man wearing an animal skin took photo ops. While this was going on there was no support for the capitol police, who were outnumbered. Trump controls the National Guard who were not called until this had gone on for a while.

He has spent two months stoking this violence. His fellow Republicans from Jordan to Cruz to Graham helped him do it by feeding the public obvious lies and conspiracy theories. It wasn't bad enough when he nearly got Governor Whitmer killed. He has now caused a breach of our capitol building and then slow played the response.

He should be impeached and removed, however symbolic the act seems. He should also be prosecuted for any crimes he has committed without favor.

Edit: Trump just released a statement still claiming fraud or which there's no evidence. Republicans should initiate impeachment against their own guy. This is absolute insanity.

[Stavros]

If the President does not resign immediately, but given the way he has spoke of Pence, could the VP fulfill his duties in certifying the result of the election in Congress, and then resign? Can an Impeachment be done within 24-48 hours?

[broncofan]

I don't know too much about impeachment procedures but if we try to move ahead with it we'll hear more. I think it's likely Trump won't have federal law enforcement track down and arrest everyone who was in the Capitol. But it's important everyone who was pictured in there is located, arrested and prosecuted after January 21st.

[blackchubby38]

If the President does not resign immediately, but given the way he has spoke of Pence, could the VP fulfill his duties in certifying the result of the election in Congress, and then resign? Can an Impeachment be done within 24-48 hours?

Supposedly it is possible to do an impeachment within 24-48 hours.

But I think the invoking the 25th Amendment is also on table.

[blackchubby38]

I don't know too much about impeachment procedures but if we try to move ahead with it we'll hear more. I think it's likely Trump won't have federal law enforcement track down and arrest everyone who was in the Capitol. But it's important everyone who was pictured in there is located, arrested and prosecuted after January 21st.

Apparently the FBI and Secret Service are already on the scene. So I don't think you have to wait until after the 21st for them to be located and arrested.

[broncofan]

Apparently the FBI and Secret Service are already on the scene. So I don't think you have to wait until after the 21st for them to be located and arrested.
This started five hours ago though. I followed it from that time and it took several hours before the national guard were dispatched and even then not at Trump's behest. There are a lot of good career law enforcement but whether they are going to pursue some of the people who left is not clear.

Trump is still the head the executive branch for 15 days. And his response to people entering our capitol and his tweets calling them patriots doesn't instill confidence in me that everyone would be pursued as vigorously as they should if he has any discretion left.

[broncofan]

I'm saying all that because I saw video of people who breached the building freely leaving and several reporters on twitter said people had been allowed to leave. Maybe they'll be pursued but if not now it has to be a priority to arrest anyone who breached the entrance no matter how long they hung around.

People broke into our capitol, broke stuff, fired weapons, wrote murder the media on a wall, carried the confederate flag into the chamber, wore Nazi insignia. And so far I read only about a dozen have been arrested. That's already wrong.

[filghy2]

Supposedly it is possible to do an impeachment within 24-48 hours.

But I think the invoking the 25th Amendment is also on table.

Surely the penny must now have finally dropped for saner Republicans that this is not going to end well for the party. Trump will happily take them down with him. The McConnell strategy of appeasing Trump and his fanatical supporters just encourages them to go further. If a split in the party is inevitable why not bring it on now rather than waiting until things get even worse?

That said, I doubt they will do anything meaningful. Habits of paralysis because any action is risky are hard to break.

[broncofan]

That said, I doubt they will do anything meaningful. Habits of paralysis because any action is risky are hard to break.
They wouldn't get credit for it. They aren't concerned about the welfare of the country. So they likely won't act.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump and his inner circle are solely responsible the disgusting,dangerous and heinous act that took place earlier day when his Pro-Trump Rioters and Insurrectionists stormed the US Capital and took over both chambers,and the people who committed this act are not patriots as he claims there are,they are domestic terrorists and thugs who should be arrested and prosecuted. and his enablers in Congress and the US Senate are responsible for creating this monster who has no regard for the rule and only cares about himself. and i sure as hell don't want to hear from Republicans saying that are the party of law and order,when clearly they're not. and it is time for the Vice President Mike Pence and Congress to get together and invoke the 25th Amendment and removed immediately and shouldn't be allowed to serve the last 2 weeks of his term,because he has shown he is unfit and unstable to be president.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

The day of reckoning has arrived for the Republican Party who for the last 4 years has enabled and allowed Donald-D.A.M.N-Trump to commit impeachable offenses and abuse his power and to do whatever he wanted,and let him go unchecked and didn't do a damn thing to keep him in check and looked the other way when he committed impeachable offenses,are no longer in control of the US Senate and are now the minority party. And with Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff defeating Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in the Georgia Runoffs for the US Senate,the balance of power has shifted in the Democrats favor and they will be control of the Senate. and will make it easier for Joe Biden to implement his agenda and unite and heal the United States.

[Stavros]

If the President does not resign immediately, but given the way he has spoke of Pence, could the VP fulfill his duties in certifying the result of the election in Congress, and then resign? Can an Impeachment be done within 24-48 hours?


I am not sure now it would be a good idea if Mike Pence resigned -it would be a major shock if it happened, but Trump would then be free to appoint Ivana Marie as the first female Vice-President, to spite Kamala Harris, and to prove he doesn't care about the Office or the values it is supposed to represent. And I don't doubt if she took the job it would be to 'heal' the nation...

[filghy2]

I'm saying all that because I saw video of people who breached the building freely leaving and several reporters on twitter said people had been allowed to leave. Maybe they'll be pursued but if not now it has to be a priority to arrest anyone who breached the entrance no matter how long they hung around.

People broke into our capitol, broke stuff, fired weapons, wrote murder the media on a wall, carried the confederate flag into the chamber, wore Nazi insignia. And so far I read only about a dozen have been arrested. That's already wrong.

Questions also need to be asked about why these people were able to so easily storm what should be a highly-secure building. Why were the police so unprepared when what happened should hardly have come as a surprise? The police response certainly seems to have been remarkably light-handed compared to the earlier BLM protests. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/06/us-capitol-attack-compared-response-black-lives-matter-protests/6570528002/

[broncofan]

Questions also need to be asked about why these people were able to so easily storm what should be a highly-secure building. Why were the police so unprepared when what happened should hardly have come as a surprise? The police response certainly seems to have been remarkably light-handed compared to the earlier BLM protests. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/06/us-capitol-attack-compared-response-black-lives-matter-protests/6570528002/
The difference is stark. We've seen this President has managed to make everything political. Perhaps yesterday's squad was the average force and not the beefed up force for his adversaries bc in his mind the fascists we saw yesterday were a liberating army. I exaggerate but he clearly sees them as on his side and would never choose country over self.

I'm also curious if we ever find out what he was saying when the breach first occurred. How did he respond to requests for national guard? I also want info on the slow play bc any rational person would see breach of the capitol as the highest level of emergency possible. And I don't see anyone else stalling on dispatching national guard other than him.

In response to blackchubby I now think you're right that the people who were there are going to get arrested. I saw alarming pictures and right now dozens of people who committed what I think are pretty serious crimes are at home. But FBI is collecting pictures and video and identifying people so there are plenty of professionals left in government. Not really pleased that capitol police somehow let people who commit felonies go, but maybe they were overwhelmed.

[broncofan]

I saw it on twitter but I don't know how many of you have seen all of the pictures. There is something chilling about seeing a man walking through our capitol waving a confederate flag. Someone pointed out that this never came close to happening during the Civil War.

So even though on one level it was a breach by conspiracy nutjobs that never had a chance of overtaking our government, there is something troubling about people freely walking around in our capitol waving flags representing treason and racism while the President calls them patriots and doesn't make any vow to arrest and prosecute them.

[Laphroaig]

It's shocking.

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1347092214753726465

1292300

This was funny though...:dead:

https://twitter.com/xy467chr/status/1346967957302292481

[broncofan]

https://twitter.com/xy467chr/status/1346967957302292481
Lol. My benign intent was to storm the building that is the seat of our democratically elected government and dismantle it. Their overreaction was to spray something caustic in my stupid face.

People on twitter are discussing whether Trump should be impeached, whether 25th amendment should be invoked, or nothing. I think the 25th amendment is the wrong way to go if I understand it correctly. My understanding is that it's to cover physical or mental incapacity.

One could say Trump is mentally incapacitated but really it's meant to cover situations where the President has deteriorated. He's always been amoral and unfit in the same way he is now. I also don't support nothing on the basis of him being out of office in 2 weeks. The practical effect is not the point. Force Republicans to vote on this because what he's done is at least impeachable. It doesn't matter whether it changes the next two weeks.

[Laphroaig]

Lol. My benign intent was to storm the building that is the seat of our democratically elected government and dismantle it. Their overreaction was to spray something caustic in my stupid face.

People on twitter are discussing whether Trump should be impeached, whether 25th amendment should be invoked, or nothing. I think the 25th amendment is the wrong way to go if I understand it correctly. My understanding is that it's to cover physical or mental incapacity.

One could say Trump is mentally incapacitated but really it's meant to cover situations where the President has deteriorated. He's always been amoral and unfit in the same way he is now. I also don't support nothing on the basis of him being out of office in 2 weeks. The practical effect is not the point. Force Republicans to vote on this because what he's done is at least impeachable. It doesn't matter whether it changes the next two weeks.

My ignorance of American politics is probably about to show but can he still be impeached after he's left office? Most of what I've read suggests that whatever route might be taken, 25th or impeachment, would take longer than his remaining two weeks in office to enforce. So is this a purely symbolic gesture or does beginning such proceedings now carry more weight than if action was left till after he's out of office. Assuming he doesn't lock himself in the White House bunker which wouldn't be such a bad bet...