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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Why were texts stored on a laptop hard drive?

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

They weren't. Russian hackers have been feeding Rudy Giuliani intel; they hacked Hunter Biden's phone and took screenshots. Giuliani's story is that all this 'damaging' material was left on three laptops that Hunter Biden supposedly left with a computer repair service and that he never retrieved his hardware or paid for the repairs and the repairman delivered the drives to the FBI and sent a copy to Giuliani. The repairman first claims he didn't know who Hunter Biden was, but when asked why he didn't just wipe the laptops and resell them but instead contacted the FBI, he then claimed that Biden identified himself. When asked how he was connected to Giuliani, the repairman refused to explain. When asked why he felt compelled to contact the FBI, he said they had contacted him.

It's a feint to obscure that Russian hackers sent the material to Giuliani who contrived this air tight cover story and thought texts of Joe Biden comforting his son would somehow destroy the Biden candidacy for reasons of something or other. Because people habitually take screenshots of their smartphone text messages to store them on their laptops. I don't think Giuliani understands how texting works.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The Hunter Biden stuff is so stupid.  Even if Hunter Biden is a pedophile serial killer, it has nothing to do with Joe Biden's ability to be president.  No one cares, and the polls show that no one cares.

I get where Transmodiar is coming from.  I voted for Biden already.  I believed that Trump could be a wakeup call, but it didn't work.   And if you have any interest in Mayor Pete or Andrew Yang or AOC for president, all roads go through Joe Biden.  He's not the president we need right now, but I think he'll do.  If the Democrats get control of the Senate, we could see a lot of progressive work.  If Yang or Mayor Pete wants to be president, they can get good experience.  It isn't the perfect path, but it's damn sure the better path.

*****

Amy Barrett.  Listen, I think she's definitely too political for the Supreme Court, but she's a judge.  I think she'll take her job seriously.  And I think, from what I saw, she legitimately doesn't want to be Trump's stooge.  So I'm surprised that so many people think she'd blindly vote for whatever the president wants her to do.  As soon as she's on the court, she doesn't own Trump any more favors.  She's there for life.  She owes that to him, but she could easily rationalize that she earned it more than he gave it to her.

And if the court is brought a flimsy case, whether there are 3 Republicans, 6 Republicans, or 9 Republicans, it'll get shot down.  Trump needs a ton of help to steal the election, and it doesn't look like he has a lot of friends right now.  And I don't think "Come on, Amy!  Throw out the votes that make me not win" is going to convince 5 justices to vote with Trump.

1,564 (edited by ireactions 2020-10-21 14:05:29)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Transmodiar's view is that Trump is a wakeup call. I gave it a chance. Quinn Mallory gave it a chance.

Quinn Mallory wrote:

Our civilization's been designed to extract resources for the benefit of a few at the expense of the rest, and that's the case whether the figurehead for that system's a career politician or a reality show star.

This country's pretended for too long that racism's in the past -- or that crumbling infrastructure and rampant poverty can be ignored -- or that politicians can call themselves Democrats when they only serve corporations.

Administrations come and go. One status quo's been replaced with another, the only difference being the previous one paid lip service to civil liberties and environmental issues while the new one won't pretend to try. But our work here continues.

I think it worked to a degree. The pandemic has also revealed the massive social and economical inequalities in our society. And I think that is as much of a wakeup as there is to be found with this tactic and it's time to find another strategy.

But if Transmodiar wants to vote for Andrew Yang (who is not running), that is entirely up to him. It's his vote. No one should ever be cajoled or coerced into voting against what they feel to be right. This is America we're talking about here. Votes are earned and Transmodiar can decide whether or not Joe Biden earned his vote.

**

I hope you're right about Coney Barrett -- but the truth is that four of the current eight judges voted to throw out any mail-in ballots received a minute after the election day deadline. The stalemate meant that the previous ruling -- a three day extension on the deadline -- was upheld.

When Coney Barrett is confirmed, the four conservative-voting judges will have five among their number to overturn the previous ruling.

In addition, Coney Barrett has proven to be driven not by jurisprudence but by power. Any prospective Supreme Court judge with the vaguest sense of right and wrong would have refused to participate in a superspreader event at the White House. But she went along with it because she wants that seat; she wants power; and the fact that people would get sick and die in the process was fine by her which means she'll be in favour of voting to throw out any ballots for Joe Biden by any technicalities possible to maintain her power on the Court -- a power that would be diminished if Biden were to win the White House and the Democrats were to win the Senate and potentially pack the court with left-leaning judges to remove the five to four advantage.

Now, maybe she'll prove me wrong the way Joe Biden and John Roberts have regularly proven me wrong. Roberts, despite his conservative leanings, has regularly voted with liberal judges to maintain the supposed impartiality of the Supreme Court. Perhaps Coney Barrett will be of a similar mindset. But I'm personally not counting on it; Trump already has four judges who will rule in favour of nearly anything he wants and he's about to have five.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

ireactions wrote:

I hope you're right about Coney Barrett -- but the truth is that four of the current eight judges voted to throw out any mail-in ballots received a minute after the election day deadline. The stalemate meant that the previous ruling -- a three day extension on the deadline -- was upheld.

When Coney Barrett is confirmed, the four conservative-voting judges will have five among their number to overturn the previous ruling.

Very true.  But I think you have to remember a couple of things.

1. These guys aren't Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz.  Their jobs are secure.  They can vote however they want, and they don't have to worry about it.  Barrett knows that she's only getting on the bench through nefarious ways, but once she's on, she's on.  Not only has Roberts surprised but even Brett Kavanaugh has surprised (the thought is that he's now the median opinion).

2. I'm not talking about the Supreme Court throwing out illegitimate votes.  I think there's probably some legitimacy to the argument that votes that are received after the election might have less constitutional weight.  So I think there's a judicial argument to be made.  And if I were a Pennsylvania Democrat, I'd be making sure there there's no way that my ballot gets received later than Election Day.

What I'm referring to is Trump literally trying to cheat and trying to get the court to uphold his shenanigans.  Either getting a legislature to throw out all the votes and name him the winner or throwing out *legitimate votes* just because they were going to give Biden the election.  People are worried that just because Trump has the court, they'll always vote in his favor no matter what.  And I don't believe that all five of the "Trump votes" are that crooked.  Maybe ACB is.  Maybe Gorsuch is.  But it doesn't seem like Kavanaugh is, and I think/hope the rest of them take their jobs seriously enough not to let Trump get away with something that is clearly both unconstitutional and illegal.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Giuliani apparently got fooled by Sasha Baron Cohen, and appears to be jacking off to an actress posing as a Russian reporter in a hotel room.  Evidently it's part of the new Borat movie.  LOL!

The Hunter Biden stuff is just plain disgusting.  It's also pointless, because who the hell is really going to care?  Voters want to hear about real policies and not tabloid crap.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Grizzlor wrote:

The Hunter Biden stuff is just plain disgusting.  It's also pointless, because who the hell is really going to care?  Voters want to hear about real policies and not tabloid crap.

Like everything else, it is to play to Trump's base.  It doesn't get new voters.  It has nothing to do with Joe so it's just noise.

The FBI just tried to make some sort of election announcement - some sort of "Iran and Russia are trying to hurt the President" statement.  If that's their version of the Comey letter...good luck.

I'm officially just ready for it to be over.  If the polls are even in the right ballpark, Biden will win...maybe without even worrying about the states that count ballots late.  The race seems to be somewhat tightening nationally, but Biden got some good state polls today.  Up in Iowa, tied in Texas.  If Trump is forced to use any of his waning campaign war chest on either of these states, it's over.

If the polls are very wrong.....well, I don't even want to consider that.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Well, there is this.  If you were the candidate betting on yourself....

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-re … advantage/

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The Trump campaign is down to about 60 million against Biden having around 177 million. Trump has repeatedly taken campaign funds for his own use, as have his employees, leaving the campaign itself starved of funds and resources. That's why his TV ad buys have been so scarce. Trump has pondered writing his own campaign tens of millions, but his tax returns indicate he is extremely cash poor and I wouldn't be surprised if he had to borrow the $8,000 that he donated to his own campaign.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

And that's why I actually feel sorry for a lot of MAGA people.  I'm not talking about the obviously racist or the white supremacists or any of those assholes.  I'm talking about poor white grandmas who fell for Russian propaganda and legitimately think that the nation will win if Trump doesn't win - and then donate their last $50 to the Trump campaign.  I feel like there should be thousands of lawsuits - if I donated to the Trump campaign and he used it for non-campaign purposes, I'd be pissed.

I'm naive and I'm trying to be optimistic, and I just don't believe that 40% of my fellow Americans love this guy for nefarious purposes.  Selfish economic reasons?  Sure.  Strictly political "I've never voted Democrat in my life and I won't now" reasons?  Okay.  Even "one of the most powerful countries in the world spending all their time coming up with realistic-ish propaganda tricked me" reasons are somewhat okay.  Or even "guns are my favorite thing in the whole world" or "literally nothing in this world is more evil than abortion" people. 

But "Trump is the best" or "this guy represents me!" or people like that - I hope those are just loud people on social media.

**********

FiveThirtyEight's model seems to have stalled at around 87-88% for Biden.  It's gone up and down the last couple days without any significant movement.  I think that's pretty much where we are.  If Florida goes to Biden, it's almost certainly Biden.  If Florida goes to Trump, the door opens up.  It's still a long road (even if Trump wins Florida, but Biden gets Arizona and North Carolina, Trump has very little shot), but if Biden can just get Florida on Election night, Biden essentially has it locked up no matter what else happens.

I'd love for Biden to get my home state and he just had a poll where he's tied, but I just don't think it happens this year despite record voting here.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Or even "guns are my favorite thing in the whole world" or "literally nothing in this world is more evil than abortion" people

Every Trump voter I know falls into one of these categories

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

pilight wrote:

Every Trump voter I know falls into one of these categories

And I think that's okay.  I disagree with them, but I think they're at least coming at it from a place that can be negotiated with.  Someone that loves guns and doesn't want their guns taken away can work with everyone else.  Most hardcore gun owners are okay with reasonable restrictions that don't take away *their* guns (of course there are exceptions).  Most hardcore abortion people might be less willing to negotiate, but at least them come from a place that I can understand (no one is pro-abortion).

And I think both of these groups (if they're truly single-issue voters) only support Trump because he represents their side.  If the party flowed to a more traditional Republican, they'd stay with at least a similar level of support.  Trump is a means to an end, not a hero or an idol.

I can work with that going forward.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

As I have stated many times, this election for me is not about policy at all.  I've said many times, I would HATE Mike Pence's policies, but I would take him any day of the week over this psychopath.  This election is beyond character, it's a question of whether the President is unfit.  To me he is not even close to fit, and as many joked, a tomato can, toilet, dog, cat, bird, snake, Atari 2600, yesterday's meatloaf, etc., would be fitter.  I simply disagree with ANY rationale behind voting FOR this guy, to me they simply don't exist.  You cannot rationalize having something insane continue in this role. 

On TF's joke, I read that Trump's own legal team donated 5-figures to Biden, FIFTY BUCKS to Donald.  Ha ha ha! 

On the polling front, I saw that the Dem challenger to Mark Meadow's old house seat in NC is now ahead.  A highly ominous sign for GOP/Trump there.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The debate was actually fairly watchable last night.  Very cool that, win or lose, it's the last Trump debate I'll ever have to sit through.

Republican polls seem to be getting a bit more daring - one poll had Trump up 4 in Michigan when no other poll has Biden up less than four.  Most don't even have Biden leading by less than eight.  Biden is winning essentially every swing state according to every reputable poll.  All that's left is knowing whether or not the polls were wrong.  But they'd have to be very wrong in a lot of places.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

https://img.techpowerup.org/201024/e8dd9797-6a9b-4d48-9b91-4fdf6dd01bff.png

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Haha!

**

The watchability of the debate was actually quite disturbing. Trump affected a lower volume, his voice lower and calmer and marked only by his aggrieved whininess -- even as he was describing his wife and son being infected by a deadly virus, insisting that a virus that's killed over 200,000 people and will hit 400,000 by the end of the year is almost over, that a vaccine that isn't two weeks away is two weeks away (he's running out of two week periods) -- Trump is sociopathically, inhumanly disengaged from all the death, the lost jobs, the crushed lives, the people who've lost friends, family, children, grandparents -- and he's more interested in phony conspiracies and complaining about his bruised ego than his dying people.

You know, I have some time for Transmodiar saying that the first four years of this was a vital civics lesson because it was. Government doesn't run itself. Freedoms not defended are freedoms lost. Elected officials who don't operate within rules and norms effectively destroy those rules and norms. Checks and balances don't exist if they're not enforced.

But the idea that the first four years were not sufficiently educational and another four years would be even better -- that is as dumb as than that stupid SLIDERS REBORN script where Quinn meets Mallory. You can't do the same thing again and expect different results.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

On Twitter, SUPERNATURAL creator Eric Kripke wrote:

Eric Kripke wrote:

Okay, look. If you're in a midwest state (I'm proudly from Toledo, Ohio) and a fan of SUPERNATURAL, know this: I created Sam & Dean, so I know that they'd vote for Joe Biden. For whatever that's worth. To be fair, Dean paused a second, cause Trump banged a porn star and y'know, life goals, but Sam brought him to his senses. Then they went for pie.

After some fan response, Kripe followed up with:

Eric Kripke wrote:

A rewrite based on your notes (I missed you guys!) Dean didn't care that Trump banged a pornstar, cause Trump treated her like shit, like he treats everyone & everything. Plus Dean slept with his fave pornstar. But he still loves Casa Erotica: Cabana Nights.

Mischa Collins pointed out:

Mischa Collins wrote:

Hey, Eric, I know you haven’t worked on the show for a while, but technically, Sam and Dean have been fugitives or legally dead since Season 3. Either way, if they vote, it'd be fraud. (But they fight for the forces of good, so Joe Biden would be on their side.)

https://bleedingcool.com/tv/supernatura … one-thing/

Somewhere out there, a certain alt-right Men's Rights Activist Trumpist SUPERNATURAL fan is wailing and shrieking and crying.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

ROFL at the DS9 reference!

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Very ready for this election to be over.  Both campaigns are spreading a decent amount of misinformation, and there's good and bad polls painting a very contradicting picture.

- Contradicting stories about voter enthusiasm in Pennsylvania. The New York Times reported that voting is way down for Biden in Pennsylvania.  District polling seems to say this is wrong, and it could either be campaign leaks a) by the Biden campaign to make sure voters show up or b) the Trump campaign to energize their efforts there.  Obama went there last week which, depending on your source tells us, a) that the campaign sent their biggest gun to salvage the situation or b) the Biden campaign knows its in the bag and Obama was more of a closer

- Strange polling in Michigan.  Trafalgar is a garbage poll for a lot of reasons, but they did do a good job of finding hidden Trump voters in 2016.  Major polls closed a lot of these gaps with their sampling, but Trafalgar claims that they haven't done enough.  Biden leads big in Michigan in every poll except right-leaning ones.  Is Trafalgar still finding hidden voters, or are they grasping at straws like they did in 2018?

- Voter registration issues in Wisconsin - are more Republicans registered and voting early in Wisconsin?  It'd be a strange statistical anomaly if that was happening (when the opposite is true almost everywhere else), but the midwest is trending red.

- Texas, North Carolina, Georgia - Biden is either tied or pulling away according to the polling, but all are very-much in the margin of error.  Biden is going to visit Georgia and Kamala Texas.  Are these real possibilities that point to a Biden landslide?  Or are they wasting time and effort in places they don't need to be wasting either?

All the science and common sense show that Biden has this in the bag.  Polls look good on both a national and a state level.  The Biden campaign is acting more aggressively than defensively (implying they're going after battleground states they think they can win and not salvaging states they don't think they can win).  Trump's campaign is no help in figuring it out because it's impossible to tell what he's doing.  But Trump could have a weird effect on the polls because he's so controversial.  Not to even mention shenanigans he might try and pull off.

I'm just ready for it to be over.  A week from tomorrow.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

https://trends.google.com/trends/explor … 0my%20vote

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I saw that.  A lot of people put stock into google searches, but I don't know how much I do.  I ask google a lot of stupid things that I don't usually plan on following up on.  Some of the more fun things to do is search google and see what comes up.  And it might be more curiosity than actual interest.  Googling how to get into business school isn't the same thing as passing the GRE.  One takes demonstrably more effort.

And I'm assuming this is directly a result of the plan to move away from oil?  And I get that a lot of people make money off fossil fuels, but we're going to need a plan at some point.  "I don't care, we'll run out of oil when I'm dead" - but don't you care about your kids?  Or your grandkids?  Whether you think fossil fuels contribute to global warming or not, there aren't any more dinosaurs on their way to deliver us fresh oil.  Once it's gone, it's gone.  And I think the plan is "hey, can we get something else figured out before the oil runs out?"

(And I just googled when the oil will run out).  2053 is the estimate I saw.  I'll be almost 70.  But my daughter will only be in her 30s.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

People are Googling "Can I change my vote" because Trump encouraged people to do so and there was some effort to take some interest.

The cake is almost baked. It's no longer a question of whether or not Biden has enough votes to beat Trump. The real question is whether or not Trump's voter suppression efforts will lead to low enough margins of victory that Trump can contest the results. The Supreme Court, even without Amy Coney Barrett, will not allow mail-in ballots arriving after the election to be counted. They're going for Pennsylvania next. Brett Kavanaugh has signalled that he wants to have as many mail-in ballots thrown out as possible.

Slider_Quinn21 argues that any Democrat knows all this; that's why they either voted in person or deposited their ballot in a ballot box or mailed it in ASAP. But the reality is that Biden won't just win on Democrats; he needs independents, he needs Republicans who are appalled by Trump; he needs people seniors who might struggle to find a witness for the signature; he needs people who might not be able to mail their ballots as soon as they wish to; he needs undecideds -- and if the election results are close and contested, Amy Coney Barrett will rule in Trump's favour along with four conservative judges. She stood with Trump after her confirmation; she attended a superspreader event; she wants power. She doesn't care if people get sick for her to get power. And she won't want Biden in the White House because he is open to packing and rebalancing the court and therefore eroding her power.

Temporal Flux (an independent, as far as I can tell) is right to tell us Democrats to worry; I just don't think TF's looking in the right direction. Trump could still win. But... this is America. America's faced armadas bringing about its darkest hours time and time again under savage ultimatums from those wielding their false claims of deadly secrets wrapped in a crazed narcotica of counterfeit patriotism to feed their own hunger for blood and splendor. But for two centuries, America has always come through.

The world has predicted America's demise ever since George Washington was criticized for being a mediocre surveyor with a bad set of wooden teeth. And so far, every single person that's bet against America has lost money, because you always come back. And you can come back from Donald Trump. Temporal Flux has said Trump's successor could be worse; Transmodiar says America wouldn't be improved by removing Trump from office; they're smart guys, but sometimes, they're just wrong.

Donald Trump is incapable of using the presidency as anything but a platform for attention from crowds and rallies. He has no judgement other than his desperate need to be complimented by his intelligence without doing anything to earn it. He has no openness to the expertise of experts, no moral compass and absolutely no sense of responsibility for the over 300 million lives he is sworn to protect. And the results of this man's term in office have been catastrophic: 200,000 Americans dead. Transmodiar stuck in his house working from home. Temporal Flux could have died. Your standing in the world reduced to a punchline. This president must be removed from office. You can do that. Slider_Quinn21 has already done his part.

Trump could win. I bet Temporal Flux that if Trump won, I would write SLIDERS REBORN Part 7 which Transmodiar would inevitably have to read. I have prepared a plot just in case I have to script it and I've dug out my Season 3 DVD set in case I need to rewatch the Neil Dickson episodes to capture the actor's mannerisms. Is it likely? No. It's not likely. It also wasn't likely that someone would write a sequel to "Slide Effects," but that's happening.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Independent probably fits best.  On the books, I’m actually a registered Democrat.  My state has closed primaries, and for decades there was never a serious Republican challenger in local / state elections; so you had to register as a Democrat to get access to the primary where the actual election was taking place between multiple Democrats.  Before you got to the general election in November, everything was long since done and decided.

We still have closed primaries, but it’s no longer tied to your party registration.  When you walk in to vote, you just tell them what party you want to vote for, and then you’re locked into only voting for candidates of that party until general Election Day when you can then vote for anyone that survived the primaries.  It’s funny how things flipped with that change too.  Now most of the candidates in my state run as Republican.

My philosophy is that I vote for the best person; and sometimes there is no best person.  I’m also a firm believer in term limits, and I stopped voting for people like Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker long ago.  They have (or had) been there too long.  If there’s no one I can stomach voting for, I do a write in; and since his death, my write in candidate is always my Dad.  I think I’ll keep him as my write-in when needed.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

ireactions wrote:

Slider_Quinn21 argues that any Democrat knows all this; that's why they either voted in person or deposited their ballot in a ballot box or mailed it in ASAP. But the reality is that Biden won't just win on Democrats; he needs independents, he needs Republicans who are appalled by Trump; he needs people seniors who might struggle to find a witness for the signature; he needs people who might not be able to mail their ballots as soon as they wish to; he needs undecideds

The stats show that Democrats are overwhelmingly turning their ballots in early.  So while a lot more Democrats are voting by mail, so many of them are already getting returned.  There's a decent chance that a great majority of the Democratic vote will already be in before Election Day happens.  That's not just a good strategy for Covid, it's a great strategy in general.  If Republicans have to stand in line all day, how many of them will wait all day?  How many can afford to?  What if it's cold?  Or rainy?  What if they aren't feeling well because they went to an f-ing rally during a pandemic?  Worse yet, what if someone a few people ahead of them is coughing and they still have another hour to wait?

Trump is having big superspreader events in swing states a week or two before the election where Republicans are expected to mostly wait for Election Day.  I'm willing to bet most Trump fans would go to the polls if they didn't feel well.  But what if they *really* didn't feel well.  What if they're in the hospital?  Cases are piling up in the midwest - some of those people aren't going to be able to vote.  If you had to guess who would be more likely to catch covid right now...I'm willing to bet it's a vote for the guy who hates masks and science and not the guy encouraging masks and social distancing.  I know democrats get sick, but democrats have also voted early.

-- and if the election results are close and contested, Amy Coney Barrett will rule in Trump's favour along with four conservative judges. She stood with Trump after her confirmation; she attended a superspreader event; she wants power. She doesn't care if people get sick for her to get power. And she won't want Biden in the White House because he is open to packing and rebalancing the court and therefore eroding her power..

I don't know why more people weren't outraged by the obvious break in the separation of powers.  Especially ACB, who obviously doesn't care about the optics.  I'm willing to say that she will not take her job seriously.  The democratic message has been to get your votes in (mail in or otherwise) early.  The Democrats, for the most part, have done their part.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight says, because of this, it's not certain that the votes to be counted will necessarily be mostly Democrat.  If Democrats get their ballots in and Republicans don't, the Republican effort to throw out ballots might actually hurt them instead of helping them.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

The last time Republicans tried to suppress the vote in Wisconsin, they ultimately suppressed their own voters.

**

Regardless of my preferences, voting is a vital and personal freedom and each person's choice in the act of voting should never be criticized as that suggests their vote should be taken away from them. Criticism is best reserved for the candidates and the individual voter's conduct after they cast their vote without remarking upon the vote itself. Candidates must earn their votes and if Joe Biden does not earn Temporal Flux's willingness to waive Biden's 44 years in government, then this must be respected as Temporal Flux's choice. I told Transmodiar the same thing.

ME: "Votes have to be earned. It's okay. You can write in Andrew Yang's name on your ballot. This is America, god damn it."

TRANSMODIAR: "Hahah! You scamp. You don't even live in America."

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

ireactions wrote:

Temporal Flux (an independent, as far as I can tell) is right to tell us Democrats to worry; I just don't think TF's looking in the right direction. Trump could still win. But... this is America. America's faced armadas bringing about its darkest hours time and time again under savage ultimatums from those wielding their false claims of deadly secrets wrapped in a crazed narcotica of counterfeit patriotism to feed their own hunger for blood and splendor. But for two centuries, America has always come through.

I see what you did here. wink

ireactions wrote:

Transmodiar says America wouldn't be improved by removing Trump from office

No, I said America may not be improved, then outlined a bunch of reasons why a Biden presidency doesn't herald a return to decency or awesome federal governance. I also fully explained that Trump is a dumpster fire of a human being and a terrible president, but that maybe we haven't hit rock bottom yet and him beating Biden would force the Democratic Party to reconcile their shitty centrist politics and find a candidate that actually inspires other human beings. All the recent talk about fracking and how a Biden/Harris ticket supports it even though it's worse for the environment than oil (!) shows you they still have their heads up their asses, even if Biden acquiesces to his previous failures in legislation.

If I were Biden and my strongest rallying cry is that I'm not Trump, I'd have to have a long hard look at myself and what it means that my voting block hinges on that level of desperation.

ireactions wrote:

Donald Trump is incapable of using the presidency as anything but a platform for attention from crowds and rallies. He has no judgement other than his desperate need to be complimented by his intelligence without doing anything to earn it. He has no openness to the expertise of experts, no moral compass and absolutely no sense of responsibility for the over 300 million lives he is sworn to protect. And the results of this man's term in office have been catastrophic: 200,000 Americans dead. Transmodiar stuck in his house working from home. Temporal Flux could have died. Your standing in the world reduced to a punchline. This president must be removed from office. You can do that. Slider_Quinn21 has already done his part.

Replace Trump with Reagan and nothing fundamentally changes. Reagan was an empty vessel who was pro-union and pro-socialism until he started hosting a GE TV show in the 60s. His policies led to the deaths of millions across the globe, to say nothing about the AIDS epidemic he ignored for years while president.

Replace Trump with Bush Senior and you get a crafty dynastic asshole who is behind so much of the CIA's miserable expanse into global hegemony it makes my head spin. He also probably was involved in trying to murder his predecessor. What a piece of work - but I will say things fundamentally change when you make the swap!

Replace Trump with Clinton and nothing fundamentally changes. Clinton was a sex pest who was ostensibly pro-American until he pushed NAFTA through, a policy that led to the death of a distinctly American way of life. The number of scandals that erupted while he was in charge are legendary and numerous, but the cult of personality he created still lives to this day. Even after ordering the death of thousands in Bosnia/Serbia.

Replace Trump with Dubya and nothing fundamentally changes. Bush was an empty vessel who allowed the ignorant "experts" installed around him to control policy from minute one of his presidency. His blatant refusal to think big or embrace a moral compass that extends beyond "Saddam tried to murder my dad" led to 20 years of perpetual war where the United States is complicit in war crimes. He was reduced to a punchline while still in office. Oh, yeah, and let's not forget the response to Hurricane Katrina. Fuck you, W.

Replace Trump with Obama and nothing fundamentally changes. Obama ran on hope and change and reversed course the moment he won office. He had the opportunity to overhaul finance reform, institute single payer insurance, redistribute American wealth to the people instead of the banks in 2008, and repair some of the frayed social fabric of our nation. He did none of that, but he sure looked good while not doing it! An empty vessel that allowed himself to be pumped with every "status quo" piece of policy imaginable when asked. Also killed a bunch of kids with drone strikes. Thanks, Obama.

ireactions wrote:

Trump could win. I bet Temporal Flux that if Trump won, I would write SLIDERS REBORN Part 7 which Transmodiar would inevitably have to read. I have prepared a plot just in case I have to script it and I've dug out my Season 3 DVD set in case I need to rewatch the Neil Dickson episodes to capture the actor's mannerisms. Is it likely? No. It's not likely. It also wasn't likely that someone would write a sequel to "Slide Effects," but that's happening.

Why would I inevitably have to read part 7? I never read the first 6 parts. :-D

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

1,587 (edited by ireactions 2020-10-29 08:29:28)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

You've read Part 1 and Part 4 and the last two pages of Part 6. You've had to go through pretty much every scene of Parts 2 - 3 with me. You outlined the first draft of Part 5. If I write Part 7 of SLIDERS REBORN ("Redemption," Rembrandt vs. Rickman), Transmodiar will inevitably have to go through every single plot point and page with me over Google Hangouts. He'll say he won't do it. He'll quit. But Transmodiar always comes back to SLIDERS REBORN. He does say otherwise, and we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

**

I'm not going to defend the Clintons or the Bushes, but I will note that Obama was always slightly short of Senators in Congress to engage in his promised legislation due to Al Franken being delayed in confirmation for seven months and Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy being taken out of commission -- which opened the door to relentless Republican obstruction to any and all progressive policies making it impossible to get anything passed for wealth redistribution, single payer insurance, financial reform or even a sensibly sized stimulus package for the recession. The use of drones was bad, but it's only gotten worse under Trump. And I think we'll have to agree to disagree here as well.

**

I don't believe Obama would have refused to engage the Defense Production Act to produce personal protective equipment or held superspreader events or claimed the virus was going away at 200,000 deaths or withheld ventilators or called for militias to overthrow lockdowns or confiscated masks and ventilators from hospitals or called for testing to be slowed down or denied there was any community transmission happening or encouraged people to inject bleach. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Also, for those who think nothing fundamentally changed in going from Obama to Trump -- ah, to have the moral certainty that comes from being privileged, middle class, Caucasian, heterosexual and male.

What I take from that is that it is awesome to have:

  • Good and supportive parents

  • A stable upbringing

  • An ethnicity that doesn't engender discrimination

  • A sexuality that draws no attention

  • A middle class economic status that means you can get laid off and bounce back

  • A financial situation where you can total your car and take the economic hit

  • A level of employment where you can lose your computer and instantly replace it with one that came free in a work contest

  • A job that you can do from home

All that creates the opportunity to build a life where it doesn't matter to you who is President. And to be clear: Transmodiar earned these things. Temporal Flux has said that Transmodiar was handed everything in life. That's not true; Transmodiar was handed a strong starting point. He had to scrabble and scrape to keep it. He had to strain and strive to build on it. Transmodiar was given a good chance. He worked hard to make it a great success.

Transmodiar has a fundamental aplomb and certainty, a committed work ethic, a drive to succeed because he knows that there is nothing he cannot do; there are just things he has not learned how to do yet. This is inherent to his nature, but he was also blessed with the opportunity for his nature to be made manifest. To build a life where he is someone for whom "nothing fundamentally changes" if it's President Trump instead of President Obama or President Biden.

Too many Americans never get that opportunity and have it actively taken away from them. Too many Americans work twice as hard to get half as much if not less. And most Americans do not live lives where "nothing fundamentally changes" under a second term of President Trump.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

* Slider_Quinn21 still has full confidence in the math and Joe Biden *

But I have my moments when I lose my faith.  I've begun a regimen where I make sure I get 10,000 steps every day.  Because of various factors, this requires me to walk around my house at night with nothing to do but listen to podcasts or read things on twitter.  I used to listen exclusively to the Rewatchables or the Weekly Planet, but I've mixed in 538 and have been poring over polling data.  And while 538's model is reasonably confident in a Biden win, I also fall down rabbit holes that lead me to dark places where Trump's chances look better.

Like most Trump-adjacent things, the data is vague, debatable, or explainable.  But it's still there.  A lot of it depends on two things - the race tightening and the polls being wrong.  One or the other and it doesn't work.

And last night I had a crisis of faith.  Florida is a toss-up, even in a Biden-confident place like 538 (they have him at 65% to win Florida) so it's easy to see that one going to Trump.  Then there's Pennsylvania - most of the evidence there is anecdotal and contradictory, but there's certainly a chance Trump wins there (538 gives him a 14% chance).  What if Trump wins both?  It's over, right?

What's funny is that it's not.  As long as Biden holds Michigan (94% chance), Wisconsin (93% chance), and Minnesota (93% -chance), and either Nebraska-2 (78%), Maine-2 (55%), or Iowa (51%), then Biden just needs to win one of these states to win:

- Arizona (70%)
- North Carolina (65%)
- Georgia (57%)
- Ohio (39%)
- Texas (32%)

In other words, if you trust the polling, Biden can lose two states he's mathematically supposed to win that are remarkably different in many ways (so losing one wouldn't mean losing the other) and he still has several backup plans that are all mathematically more likely to happen than not.  He could win Arizona and Nebraska-2.  He could win Iowa and North Carolina. He could win Maine-2 and Georgia.

And even if all that falls through, he still has the same odds that Trump would've overcome to win Ohio or Texas.

Trump has to win them all.

Or break through the blue wall in the Midwest.

All possible.  Statistically unlikely.  Trust the math and it will ease your nerves during your night walks to get to 10,000 steps.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I've been playing around at 270towin.com and as far as I can tell, your math works out.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I recall hearing something about a "blue wall" in the Midwest four years ago...

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Ah, would that we could all be so uninvested in this situation that we'll just throw some snide remarks around and call it a day.

Politico has an interesting article about potential shy Trump voters.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ … 016-433619

I think it is nonsense. Five Thirty Eight notes that Trump performed better than expected, but only within the margin of error. You never know which direction the error is in.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/tr … e-of-them/

Trump's path to victory, such as it exists, would be if the polls are slightly off in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Iowa with Trump being a little ahead rather than slightly behind, but he'd also need Pennsylvania to get an Electoral College win. The odds of this? 11 out of 100. The chance of rolling a one on a six sided die. The chance of it raining in Los Angeles. Likely? No. It's not likely. Possible? Yes. It is possible.

And I am afraid. Anyone who isn't afraid of another four years of President Trump is either deranged or living a life of at least moderate privilege. But a great patriot once declared that the antidote to fear is action. Because evil triumphs when we allow it to paralyze us. But to respond by doing something, however small, is to defy the despair turns reason into panic and advance into retreat. Give one person the conviction that their small actions matter and that one person can win a battle. Give that same person an army with that same conviction united into a greater whole and they can win a war.

I post links to iwillvote.com into random corners of the internet. These are dark and desperate times.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

pilight wrote:

I recall hearing something about a "blue wall" in the Midwest four years ago...

It's the same argument every time.  2016.  2016.  2016.

Pollsters messed up in 2016.  And they were CRUCIFIED for it.  Go to any post that even references Nate Silver, and he's *attacked* for how bad a job he did.  We can argue semantics about whether or not giving someone a 30% chance to win and then they win is that big of a mistake, but trust me, he paid for it.  And  the polls themselves paid for it.  This is their Super Bowl, and they'll all admit that they blew it.

And if the 2020 election was a week after the 2016 election, then yeah, I think there'd be real doubt about the process being broken.

But they had four years to fix their process.  Four years to rebuild polling from the ground up.  Four years to find their mistakes in sampling.  Find out who they missed.  Find out what went wrong and more importantly, how to fix it.  These are very smart people that are paid a ton of money to do one thing, and they had four full years to clean up their act.

Maybe they pissed away those four years.  Maybe they made the exact same mistakes.  Maybe Trump voters are tricking and gaming the system despite polls' efforts.

But to just completely write off 4 years of efforts because of mistakes made and acknowledged is just a little naive if you ask me.

1,594 (edited by Grizzlor 2020-10-30 12:02:19)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I believe SQ21 is a Texan no?  Texas right now is simply an amazing success story for democracy.  Over 9 million votes have been cast, which is half million or so above 2016 in total.  Estimates are perhaps THREE million more votes there than 2016.  How does that stack up? 

https://bfschaffner.shinyapps.io/CES2020/

I give you the 2020 Cooperative Election Study by YouGov, featuring over 50,000 likely voters ONLINE.  That means the "lying to pollsters baloney" isn't in effect.  This is the analysis which so much will be based on.  The findings are quite in line with most of the national polling Biden +9, but check out the 2016 voter results.  Biden barely loses any Clinton vote, while Trump loses 6% which is significant in a close race.  Moreover, those who voted 3rd party, or did not vote, prefer Biden by a 2 to 1 margin. 

Trump won Texas by over 800,000 votes.  If Biden takes the "new" voters 2:1, that's a gain of perhaps 1 million votes if 3 million winds up being the "new" total.  Beyond that, 2016 voters who switch candidates alone could be a 400,000 Biden swing.  Again, this is all very broad, but now you see why Beto O'Rouke and Julian Castro are screaming about putting more $$$ and appearances into the Lone Star State. 

The CES result also falls in line with most statewide and district-based polling in states like Pennsylvania, where Trump's suburban white margins are polling 8-12 points worse than 2016.  It's true he has slightly closed the black margin, and greatly closed the Hispanic margin.  However, the Hispanic margins won't do much for him in the Rust Belt. 

I repeat *once more* Trump needs record turnout from MAGA, plus depressed turnout from Dems, plus at worst an even margin with indies, and that's just to overcome the negative demographic shift over 4 years.  Someone tell me where that's coming from?  Lying to pollster voters won't cut it.  I'm not sure WHEN these states will have the counts in sufficiently to see who won, but there's simply little to no good news for Trump in high quality polling out there.  We know his plan, it's to attempt to throw out millions of ballots.  It won't work, because I have a feeling that enough of them will have been counted nationwide to show he lost, perhaps quite demonstratively.  That might well come before the end of next week, and he won't have time to file injunctions to stop them, let alone that there are judges willing to even do so.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Grizzlor wrote:

I believe SQ21 is a Texan no?  Texas right now is simply an amazing success story for democracy.  Over 9 million votes have been cast, which is half million or so above 2016 in total.  Estimates are perhaps THREE million more votes there than 2016.

Yup.  Now Informant is also in Texas so, if anything, I just cancelled out his vote.

I honestly don't know how the extra votes don't help Biden.  Maybe Trump gained votes between 2016 and 2020, but I don't see it on the ground here.  I live in a fairly conservative area (Trump won my county by 17 points).  I've seen maybe 6 political signs total, and I'd say it's 4-2 Trump.  Just anecdotally, I don't see enthusiasm in what should be a very safe space for Trump voters to express themselves.

I hear you now.  And, no, I don't have a sign.  Signs don't prove votes, and people tend to be non-confrontational with their neighbors.  So can house signs alone prove enthusiasm?  Nope.

I live in a somewhat rural area as well.  There's a cotton field about a mile from my house.  There are longhorns a few miles down the other direction.  Go much further north and you start seeing more fields than houses.  And during elections, these fields BLOOM with political signs.  County commissioner, state reps, judges, and the like.  You can put a sign up in a field, and you run no risk of anyone knowing (unless they see you put it up, I guess).

I've seen *zero* Trump signs.  Sometimes you'll see dozens of signs in these fields.  None.  Zero.  Trump has rallied in Texas zero times.  I'm not saying Biden will pull of an epic upset, but:

- Trump isn't campaigning here.  No rallies.  No surrogates, even.  Ted Cruz is campaigning elsewhere.  And per 538, the Republicans have aired less than a 1000 TV ads for $200,000 in Texas
- Record turnout.  Untapped Republicans or previously disinterested/disenfranchised Democrats?
- Democrats consistently beat polling in Texas.  Beto O'Rourke lost to Ted Cruz, but not by much and outperformed the polls by 4 points.  If that repeats itself, Texas goes blue and Trump has 0.0 chance.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

ireactions wrote:

Also, for those who think nothing fundamentally changed in going from Obama to Trump -- ah, to have the moral certainty that comes from being privileged, middle class, Caucasian, heterosexual and male.

Nothing fundamentally changes on the part of our leaders. Does society change? Yes - but only by fighting against establishment laws and rules. Gay rights, trans rights, black rights, etc. - none of that was the result of sweeping national reforms. It was grassroots movements fighting for years to inch their way toward acceptance. The biggest obstacle was leadership.

This isn't an observation I made because I'm "privileged, middle class, Caucasian, heterosexual and male." It's an observation made by watching the shit storm brewing for decades and being able to point decisively to the elected officials who ignore their constituents and vote along party lines or with the money. I don't need to be a white guy to see that; in fact, I'd argue that people in my position are more inclined to stick to the status quo and ride white privilege as long as humanly possible.

I voted this week. Voted my conscience. No apologies.

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Isn't supporting another four years of President Donald Trump even if you don't support him an inclination to stick to the status quo of President Donald Trump? Are you sure you're as much as an iconoclast as you think?

You have the luxury of saying another four years of President Trump will be fine. You weren't in any way affected by the first four years of President Trump.

So the upshot of this would once again be: congratulations on being white, moderately affluent, and knowing you'll still retain your advantages and immunity under the status quo of a second term of President Trump. It's easy for you again to declare another four years of Trump will be a life lesson and a godsend like you did four years ago. After all, you're not the one who's going to take it in the neck for this tutorial in failing democracy.

You're not overly impacted by the absence of a national or federally supported testing plan; you're not affected by hospital supplies of PPE being seized; you don't suffer from ventilators being withheld; you won't be hunted by militias encouraged by the president to hunt black men in the streets; you won't be beaten by racists who think President Trump means they've gone mainstream. If you shot someone black, Trumpists would take up a collection to pay your legal bills. Informant would chip in!

And if Trump wins, you get another round of the civics lesson you thought so highly of the first time. I see why Trump is not to your disadvantage. Well done, you.

But regardless, a fair and free election isn't fair and free if you're chastised for voting fairly and freely, so I don't see what anyone could possibly have to say about you writing in a name on your ballot.


**

Regarding the blue wall, here's Nate Silver on why 2020 won't be 2016:

Nate Silver wrote:

Polls often miss an election by 2 or 3 or 4 points, which is what happened in 2016. Ahead of an election, people need to be prepared for the fact that having a 2- or 3- or 4-point lead — which is what Clinton had in the key states — is not going to hold up anywhere close to 100 percent of the time. You might win 70 percent the time, like in the FiveThirtyEight forecast.

That said, there are a couple of things that are identifiable. One is that a bulk of the undecided voters in three key states — Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — went toward Trump. If those undecided voters had split 50-50, Clinton would have won nationally by 5 or 6 points.

Trump can still win. In 2016, our final forecast said Trump had a 29 percent chance, and that came through; right now we give him a 12 percent chance to win in November. That’s not trivial, but it is a different landscape.

One difference is that there are fewer undecided voters this year. In 2016, there were about 13 or 14 percent undecided plus third party; it’s around 6 percent this year. That’s a pretty big difference. So that first mechanism that I described that helped Trump is probably not going to be a factor. Trump could win every undecided voter in these polls and he would still narrowly lose the Electoral College.

Biden’s lead is also a little bit larger. After the [FBI Director James] Comey letter, Clinton’s lead went down to 3 or 4 points in national polls and 2 or 3 points in the average tipping point state. Biden is ahead by more like 5 points in the average tipping point state.

We can definitely find cases in the past where there was a 5-point polling error in key states — that’s why Trump can win. But a 2016 error would not be quite enough: If the polls missed by exactly the same margin, exactly the same states, then instead of losing those three key Rust Belt states by 1 point, Biden would win them by 1 or 2 points. He might also hold on in Arizona, where the polls were fine in 2016. So it would be a close call, but one that wound up electing Biden in the end, pending court disputes, etc.

n the primary, you had a fairly explicit contrast between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Bernie’s pitch explicitly was: We are going to win this with a high turnout of younger people and people of color. We’re the biggest coalition. So we’re going to win and we’re going to win the White House that way, too. Turnout, turnout, turnout.

Whereas Biden is about persuasion and the median voter. The median Democratic voter liked Medicare-for-all but liked the public option a little bit more and felt like it seemed a little safer electorally. For better or worse, Joe Biden’s pitch has come true: The reason he is way ahead in these polls is not because Democratic turnout is particularly high relative to GOP turnout — it’s because he’s winning independents by 15 points and moderates by 30 points. He’s winning back a fair number of Obama-Trump voters and keeping a fair number of Romney-Clinton voters. The story the polls are telling is that Biden is persuading the median voter not to back Donald Trump.

Biden is a throwback politician in so many ways. He’s also a throwback in the sense he’s very coalitional. He’s not a very ideological guy. He gets branded as a moderate, which I think also reflects the bias that if you’re an older white man you can have the same policy positions but will be branded as much less radical than a young Latina might. But still, he’s able to perfectly calibrate himself to what the median Democratic voter wants, and is good about listening to different coalitions within the party. That’s why he’s been successful over a long time. He’s very transactional and good at listening to different demands from different party constituencies.

https://www.vox.com/21538214/nate-silve … on-podcast

I too am ready for this to be done. I only have enough CAPTAIN AMERICA comic books from which I can paraphrase speeches to about November 7.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Transmodiar wrote:

Trump is a boob but he's a showman - and he will run circles around Biden. You think Crooked Hillary was bad? Wait 'til the Trump campaign latches on to the Anita Hill testimony, Biden's plagiarism during his first presidential campaign, his appreciation for Strom Thurmond's support, lies about apartheid-era visits to Nelson Mandela in South Africa, lies about marching for desegregation. Not that he'll even have to - the stuff with his kid in Ukraine, or his absolute inability to say anything that makes sense during televised interviews is right at their fingertips.

I don't even like Trump. But I know Biden doesn't have the stamina or eloquence to duke it out with the president. And, in seven months, people could see Trump as the savior who kept America together during a massive pandemic. Don't assume anything.

Seven months later and the only thing Trump has run rings around is the hospital where was being treated for COViD-19 because he wouldn't wear a mask.

It's worth looking at why. Where has Trump's edge gone? Trump made Hillary Clinton look corrupt, made Ted Cruz an incoherent liar, made Marco Rubio childlike --  but Trump was terrified of Biden, got himself impeached trying to dig up dirt on him, was reduced to trying to shout him down during the first debate and cowered from the second and staggered mutedly into the third. Why couldn't our showman Trump seem to land a single punch?

Molly Jong-Fast says it's because people now know that Trump projects.

Molly Jong-Fast wrote:

For instance, everything Trump accuses Biden of doing, he does himself, only worse. So when Trump World tried to shop the idea that Biden was creepy with women, all it really did was remind people that Trump has more than two dozen sexual assault allegations on his rap sheet.

When Trump World pushed the idea that Hunter Biden was somehow corrupt, you couldn’t help but think about Jivanka and DJTJ and all the ways the Trump family has been siphoning cash out of the public coffers.

Trump World tried painting Joe as doddering and old at the same time that the president was rambling through daily press conferences and struggling to walk down a ramp.

This is the problem with projection: Once people get wise to the pathology, then every boomerang you throw at your opponent comes back and pops you in the nose.

Donald Trump is no longer an outsider promising to blow things up.

Because of Trump’s administration, the United States has endured (so far) the equivalent death toll of 47 September 11’s. The unemployment rate is double digits, and many of us cannot safely leave our homes. Weirdly enough, people now seem to view “blowing it all up” as more bug than feature. Go figure.

https://thebulwark.com/why-cant-trump-land-a-punch/

Molly Jong-Fast has also noted that Donald Trump Jr. projects. Just like his father.

Molly Jong-Fast wrote:

The president’s bleary-eyed namesake failson is obsessed with Hunter Biden, and as the campaign session from hell continues that obsession seems more and more Freudian. It happened on Glenn Beck’s radio show the day after the debate, where Junior claimed that “crackhead Hunter has now a tie, a direct tie to Vladimir Putin.”

And the Putin smear was a true “no puppet” moment coming from the Trump kid who infamously met with Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016, but was later found by Bob Mueller to be too stupid to have colluded, which some might say is the very definition of white male privilege. It all got me thinking about why Junior just can’t stop talking about Hunter.

During the debates, Trump senior attacked the president’s surviving son: “Hunter got thrown out of the military; he was thrown out, dishonorably discharged for cocaine use.” Of course this wasn’t totally true. Hunter was discharged but it was not under the category of dishonorable.

“My son, like a lot of people, like a lot of people you know at home, had a drug problem,” Biden responded. “He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him. I’m proud of my son.”

There are countless stories of Trump Senior degrading and humiliating Trump Junior, including telling him once, according to Sam Nunberg in Julia Ioffe’s piece in GQ, “Don, you can finally do something for me—you can go hunting.” And that’s not to mention the famous story of Senior not wanting to share his name with Junior because of the worry that he might be a loser.

Junior is furious. Junior is fragile. Junior is triggered. I happen to think that the phrase “I’m proud of my son” said to the audience with such intensity and conviction might be why Trump Junior hates Hunter Biden so much.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-ju … nd-telling

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

And one of the big reasons why America needs to reject Trump is that Don Jr will absolutely run for president in 2024.  And if America has rejected Trump, America will reject Don Jr.  If America embraces Trump again, Don Jr wins in 2024.

Literally no one wants that.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

And one of the big reasons why America needs to reject Trump is that Don Jr will absolutely run for president in 2024.  And if America has rejected Trump, America will reject Don Jr.  If America embraces Trump again, Don Jr wins in 2024.

Literally no one wants that.

Who says Trump Sr. will not try to run again?

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Does anyone wonder if Informant is one of the people Trump gathered in Omaha, Nebraska for a rally and then abandoned to freeze to death in the cold?

Thousands of people parked their cars in parking lots and boarded campaign-rented buses that took them to Eppley Airfield in freezing weather. After Trump's event, the President left -- and thousands of people found themselves standing four miles from their cars with the buses that delivered them to the airfield not returning to retrieve them. At least 30 people were hospitalized with hypothermia.

And, let's face it, Informant could be lying in the ground turning blue from cold and his last words would be croaking out his support for Donald Trump.

*shudders*

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

More likely he was one of the pickups trying to run the Biden/Harris bus off the road in Texas!!!  LOL kidding

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Well, he's a hypocrite, but he's also a coward. He never wants to get too far outside the mainstream. He'd probably watch from a safe distance with with long range binoculars and then throw in 50 cents to a Kickstarter to raise money for the pickup truck drivers' legal fees and call them patriots but make sure to stay far away. It's the same way he'd never march with neo-Nazis, but he'd insist that they were doing God's work. People marching for Black Lives Matter and women's rights, however, those people are monsters because Informant doesn't like black people unless they're getting gunned down and anyone who spreads Men's Rights Activists dogma is clearly afraid of girls. LOL not kidding.

Hopefully, he'll find himself even more disemboldened from his not particularly bold position after this election once he realizes that he's not going to be going mainstream.

1,604

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Were you around for the 2000 election?  I recall an argument where we battled over the true nature of Jesus!  Being raised Catholic, what I heard/was taught was that his care for the sick, elderly, and poor were of utmost prominence.  He proceeded to lecture me about Gospel passages, as if I was a child.  I had no wish to turn that into renewed "Reformation" fight, so I just gave up.  To me, he simply seemed incredibly angry, but I "turned the other cheek."

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

ireactions wrote:

Isn't supporting another four years of President Donald Trump even if you don't support him an inclination to stick to the status quo of President Donald Trump? Are you sure you're as much as an iconoclast as you think?

You have the luxury of saying another four years of President Trump will be fine. You weren't in any way affected by the first four years of President Trump.

I don't have the luxury of anything. I don't think another four years of Trump will be good; it will be terrible. But literally the only good thing that could happen this week is that Biden is elected and somehow magically starts giving a shit about the Latinx and black populations of this country, that he'll suddenly reverse course on protecting insurance companies and build a single payer system, that he'll stop defending fracking, that he'll embrace leftist ideologies championed by people of principle like Bernie Sanders, that he'll... you get the idea.

Much like "Easy Slider," "I have been to the mountain, I have pulled the rose-colored glasses off, and I can see things for what they really are." (That's a quote from my awesome review of the episode, by the way - gotta keep things Sliders-related here on the Sliders BBoard.) I expect nothing from Biden. If all you want is someone who isn't Trump and who has slightly more decorum than our current president (minus the threats of physical violence, of course), you'll get what you want. And maybe we'll get some small, incremental QOL improvements. But the US is beyond small QOL improvements; drastic things need to happen. The American public overwhelmingly supports trying some of these initiatives; see the polling on UBI or universal health care. If we don't get a leader interested in these kinds of systemic changes, bad things are going to happen and it will spill out beyond our borders.

ireactions wrote:

So the upshot of this would once again be: congratulations on being white, moderately affluent, and knowing you'll still retain your advantages and immunity under the status quo of a second term of President Trump. It's easy for you again to declare another four years of Trump will be a life lesson and a godsend like you did four years ago. After all, you're not the one who's going to take it in the neck for this tutorial in failing democracy.

No matter who wins, my moderately affluent conditions keep me afloat. A Biden victory ensures my taxes go down a little bit and people hate America a little less. None of that changes the fact that I want more from this country, from its government. If it has to crash and burn for us to learn a "life lesson" so be it. You've known me for a while, you've read my column, you know my priority is the health of the people living here, not the political class constantly squeezing us for their benefit. God forbid they take it in the neck for failing democracy.

ireactions wrote:

You're not overly impacted by the absence of a national or federally supported testing plan; you're not affected by hospital supplies of PPE being seized; you don't suffer from ventilators being withheld; you won't be hunted by militias encouraged by the president to hunt black men in the streets; you won't be beaten by racists who think President Trump means they've gone mainstream. If you shot someone black, Trumpists would take up a collection to pay your legal bills. Informant would chip in!

How do you know any of this? Are you aware of my family member who almost died from COVID because he didn't have access to a ventilator? The rest of this hyberbolic screed is just projecting my dislike of Biden into some kind of appreciation for Trump. I will say it again: Trump is not to my advantage. Neither is Biden.

ireactions wrote:

And if Trump wins, you get another round of the civics lesson you thought so highly of the first time. I see why Trump is not to your disadvantage. Well done, you.

But regardless, a fair and free election isn't fair and free if you're chastised for voting fairly and freely, so I don't see what anyone could possibly have to say about you writing in a name on your ballot.

Funny - I think you said quite enough just now.

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

1,606 (edited by ireactions 2020-11-03 08:08:26)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I don't have an opinion on your vote. I do have an opinion on the opinion that "nothing fundamentally changes" under President Donald Trump. I respect your view that Biden is a poor and uninspired choice; I reject the view from four years ago that Trump's ineptitude would reveal America's failings and therefore be the best thing for the country.

And in the face of Trump facilitating 220,000 deaths, pandemic denial, white nationalist militias, neo-Nazi insurgences and suppression of mail-in voting, I reject it again as an opinion that could only ever come from someone who isn't being targeted for harassment and assault by this presidency.

It is a rejection of the opinion, of course. Not the person.

**

Republicans tried to have 127,000 votes in Texas thrown out on account that they consider drive-thru voting illegal because it's in a tent instead of a building. They got the case to a deranged federal judge, Andrew Hanen, with a history of partisan craziness and legal rulings made up of movie quotes like he's, I dunno, posting on SLIDERS.tv or something. My expectation was that Hanen would have the 127,000 votes invalidated. My expectation was wrong, he ruled that the votes were valid.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/02/politics … index.html

"When you balance the harms you've got to weigh in favor of that -- in counting the votes," Hanen declared. Ultimately, the claim that drive-thru voting was illegal wasn't something Hanen thought he could get away with despite his obvious desire to do so. In a second term of Donald Trump, people like Hanen with power and the master they support will be emboldened; they will no longer hesitate to suppress votes even on such absurd terms.

As a great patriot once said, the line must be drawn here. This far. No farther. I'm not even an American and I can see the ripple effects hitting me and mine. It's time for Donald Trump to go.

**

And now regarding an opinion I don't respect at all:

I wasn't in SLIDERS fandom much from 2000 - 2010. But. I did note something very interesting about Informant's attitude to Chuck: he was a big fan of the Chuck character in Seasons 4, 5 and 10 where the character was in disguise or offscreen except for brief cameos and it was up to the audience to decide what to make of the character who was supposedly God himself.

Then Chuck returned in full force for Season 11 in "Don't Call Me Shurley," an episode where Chuck is presented as depressed, irritated by humanity, inclined to let all existence be extinguished by his sister, disdainful of Sam for saving Dean from his demonic existence and therefore freeing Amara, annoyed by the constant need to restore Castiel and profoundly indifferent to the well being of humans, angels, arcangels, demons and whatnot -- aside from being a 'fan' of their adventures, Rowena in particular.

Informant declared that he loved this episode and loved how Chuck was pretending to be disenchanted and distant from humanity to motivate the characters.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having a head canon, but this is most definitely not the story onscreen; Chuck abandoning humanity until Metatron changes his mind is never at any point in the episode shown to be anything other than genuine.

But Informant insisted that his interpretation was correct even when there was absolutely no onscreen evidence to indicate this was intended by the writers. Why is that?

The answer: Informant has a specific view of God and he requires that Chuck reflect that view. If Chuck doesn't reflect that view, Informant will say he does anyway or throw a tantrum -- like he did when Season 14 revealed that not only had Chuck been uncaring to human suffering, he had been actively creating it for the Winchesters because they were his "favourite show" until they refused to kill Jack (a threat to Chuck's existence) at which point Chuck decided to end reality.

Informant (on his own space, not here) screeched that this depiction of God was a betrayal of 10 years of characterization. And back in the old Bboard, he was constantly ranting about people not being religious themselves and therefore "blasphemous."

Not to get into the religious points, but the fictional character of Chuck has always been presented unflatteringly and with suspicion. As Chuck, he is suicidal, drunk, unreliable and more interested in money than saving the world. In Season 6, Castiel calls upon him for advice and guidance and is ignored. When Chuck revealed his true nature and approached the Winchesters in Season 11, he was regarded with mistrust for his absence, for his deliberately putting the brothers in the line of fire, and Season 14 decided to confirm that the Winchester's doubts had been correct.

In addition, Chuck is not God. Chuck is the originator of the fictional reality of SUPERNATURAL who has been worshipped as God -- but there is a clear distinction between the religious God and the character of Chuck who lays claim to that title but hardly lives up to it.

Informant is ultimately a zealot. There is only one acceptable presentation of Chuck; his own. There is only one acceptable version of Superman; his own.

And Informant takes the view that his personal tastes are the default when they're in the minority; that's why he's so enraptured by Donald Trump and Trumpism, a way for minority rule to continue insisting that it's the default.

That's why he lies that people don't need to distance and wear masks and lies that infanticide is legal in Virginia and lies that BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN was a smash hit. He's not stupid. He knows it's not true. He just wants to insist that his minority views are more than his own and objectively indisputable. In contrast, I've never felt that I believed much of anything that wasn't to be disputed, amended, updated, I'm aware that my opinions exist in a minority and I don't feel threatened by that. I hated AVENGERS. So did Informant. Most people liked it. As Transmodiar would say, "I am not the final arbiter of taste." We can agree to disagree and respect respective choices. But Informant? Informant got angry and had a meltdown over people preferring a CAPTAIN AMERICA movie to BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (actual title).

Informant is actively resentful of his minority views and rains judgement down upon any who trigger him by making him in any way aware of his minority position, whether that's in being a Trump voter or a fan of BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (actual title). And these days, his output is simply a relentless stream of attacks and insults towards anyone expressing progressivism of any kind; he hates transgender kids, he loves white people who shoot black people, he hates Alyssa Milano, he loves James O'Keefe.

I turned the other cheek towards him plenty and tried to see him off with pride, but now he supports the terrorist movement of Men's Rights Activists. And he's become a bioterrorist in his refusal to wear a mask.

It's time to face facts: Informant hates America.

**

I don't know where or when Informant took this turn. I don't know where he lost his way. I'm sure it's my fault. Probably should have put more effort into setting up that field trip with him and Slider_Quinn21 to go to the Alamo Drafthouse for dinner. And I don't think someone loses their way by disagreeing with me; I think it's when they are no longer able to process the fact that individual views are the views of individuals and are out to mock, sabotage and hurt anyone with a mind of their own.

And Transmodiar is absolutely right to say that I'm projecting into him. It's not fact. It is theory. My theory. Which could be wrong. And Transmodiar says it's wrong and Transmodiar knows himself better than I do, so take his word for it. But don't think like him. And don't think like me. Think like you.

I am certain that Informant hates America. And I am certain that Transmodiar loves America, loves his country, loves his people -- and he and I simply have strong ideas of how America should move forward and those ideas are colliding with each other, much in the same way our strong ideas of how SLIDERS should be presented in 2015 collided with each other. Transmodiar wanted SLIDERS to be rebooted and I wanted the sliders to be reborn. Neither of us were keen on the other person's ideas. But we still love and respect the person who originated the ideas.

**

LAUREN: "How d'you think the election will go?"

IB: "Probably fine."

LAUREN: "That's that you said about Season 4 of SLIDERS!"

Ib stares at his niece grimly.

LAUREN: "You told me to always say that to you every time you say that something will be fine."

IB: "It'll probably be fine."

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Waking up optimistic.  Biden is at 89.2% on FiveThirtyEight - just shy of the "clearly favored" level at 90%.  There's a 90+% chance that he rebuilds the blue wall in MI/WI/MN, and if he does that, then it's just a matter of getting one more state (and NE-2 if that one state is Arizona).  Now we count and wait.

At the end of the day, I want there to be peace and confidence.  I know Trump won't, but maybe this is the last chance we give him.  If he graciously accepts the results of a Biden win, spinning it into a victory by launching a Trump Network, then I'll give him that.  What I don't want is a protracted legal battle.  What I don't want is a declaration of whether or not the Supreme Court is corrupt.  I don't want Biden to win the national vote by 10,000,000 votes and for Trump to be saved by the Electoral College.

I want Biden to win a state like Texas or to sweep GA/AZ/FL/NC so there's no doubt.  I want Trump to be telling the truth that he loves America and not be an American intelligence security risk starting tomorrow, and I'm willing to give him a pass on all his crimes if we can maintain that for the rest of his life.

And most of all, I want what all of us want - I want both parties to meet on January 21 separately.  I want the Republican party to figure out how the Hell things got so warped.  I don't know who's left who could think that - Cruz and Rubio seem to be full Maga/QAnon right now.  Maybe it's younger conservatives and moderates who meet and plot a way to get back to being a truly conservative party.  And I want the Democrats to meet and figure out how the Hell they're only leading this election by 10 points.  Even if they win, they need to understand where they went wrong in the last 5 years.  Again, maybe this push is done by Mayor Pete and Andrew Yang and Amy Klobuchar and, yes, maybe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

This is probably the last election dominated by Baby Boomers.  If Gen X doesn't want anything to do with power, then someone young needs to step up.  Old people are too short-sighted.  As Mayor Pete said on a late night interview, we need a president who will be alive when the big problems are here.

Democrats didn't learn anything from 2016.  Maybe they can now.  Republicans learned the wrong lesson in 2016.  Maybe they can unlearn it now.  That's my very naive hope.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I think Democrats learned a lot from 2016 -- they didn't learn what Transmodiar wanted, but it seems to me that they learned what you wanted them to learn.

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

The Democrats took lower class white people for granted.  They assumed that, since they're in a similar situation to minorities, they'd always be a reliable part of their base.  And since it was more "cool" to campaign to minorities, to women, and to Hollywood elites, the Democrats essentially ignored the lower income white people in the Rust belt.  And Hillary lost all those states.

They went with a candidate who, as Nate Silver puts it, speaks to lower class white people AND minorities and Hollywood elites and he in turn chose a vice president candidate who appeals to law enforcement and women. They went with a candidate who declares that addressing climate change IS the path to economic recovery, good union jobs, prosperity and redemption of both the American spirit and the planet. A candidate who tells the police that they are fundamentally good people and that he will need good police officers to help stop this horror of white cops shooting black men for no reason whatsoever.

Does he actually believe that most cops are fundamentally good? I dunno, but if I needed cops to help me with anything, telling them they all suck wouldn't get me very far with them. Good politicians tell people that they are better than they actually are to inspire them to be better today than they were yesterday.

Nate Silver wrote:

Biden is about persuasion and the median voter. The median Democratic voter liked Medicare-for-all but liked the public option a little bit more and felt like it seemed a little safer electorally. For better or worse, Joe Biden’s pitch has come true: The reason he is way ahead in these polls is not because Democratic turnout is particularly high relative to GOP turnout — it’s because he’s winning independents by 15 points and moderates by 30 points. He’s winning back a fair number of Obama-Trump voters and keeping a fair number of Romney-Clinton voters. The story the polls are telling is that Biden is persuading the median voter not to back Donald Trump.

Biden is a throwback politician in so many ways. He’s also a throwback in the sense he’s very coalitional. He’s not a very ideological guy. He gets branded as a moderate, which I think also reflects the bias that if you’re an older white man you can have the same policy positions but will be branded as much less radical than a young Latina might. But still, he’s able to perfectly calibrate himself to what the median Democratic voter wants, and is good about listening to different coalitions within the party. That’s why he’s been successful over a long time. He’s very transactional and good at listening to different demands from different party constituencies.

**

Election results aren't going to be available right away tonight. We'll likely only have a good idea of who is winning without knowing who won. Five Thirty Eight breaks down what we'll know and when we'll know it here:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bo … -they-get/

I don't know what's going to happen. I know what is likely to happen.

Anyway. Once again, from the unpublished MARVEL COMICS #1000:

Captain America wrote:

I’m asked how it’s possible to love a country that’s deeply flawed.

It’s hard sometimes. The system isn’t just. We’ve treated some of our own abominably.

Worse, we’ve perpetuated the myth that any American can become anything, can achieve anything, through sheer force of will. And that’s not always true. This isn’t the land of opportunity for everyone. The American ideals aren’t always shared fairly.

Yet without them, we have nothing.

With nothing, cynicism becomes reality. With nothing, for the privileged and the disenfranchised both, our way of life ceases to exist. We must always remember that America, as imperfect as it is, has something. It has ideals that give it structure.

When the structure works, we get schools. We get roads and hospitals. We get a social safety net. More importantly, when we have structure, we have a foundation upon which to rebuild the American Dream — that equal opportunity can be available to absolutely everyone.

America’s systems are flawed, but they’re our only mechanism with which to remedy inequality on a meaningful scale. Yes, it’s hard and bloody work. But history has shown us that we can, bit by bit, right that system when enough of us get angry. When enough of us take to the streets and force those in power to listen. When enough of us call for revolution and say, “Injustice will not stand.”

That’s what you can love about America.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

You know what, you're right.  And they did do what I asked.  And, to a lesser extent, I was proud to go out and vote for Joe Biden and inspired by his message.  Perhaps I'm moving the goalposts unfairly.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Huh.

Well the polls were wrong.  Maybe not enough to end Biden but enough to make the race annoying.  Trump will be able to claim victory and fraud (like he's already done), and he'll have recounts and other legal means at his disposal.  Considering Biden will have to come from behind in all the states he's projected to perhaps win doesn't help the narrative in the country, especially among Trump voters.

It's also bad on two other fronts:

1. Polling is wrong, again.  According to one guy I follow on Twitter, it's about as bad as it's ever been.  Will it recover?  Does it need to recover?  And even if it does, will anyone alive now ever trust it again?

2. Whether Trump is defeated or not, Trumpism was not.  Anyone hoping that the victory would be decisive enough that the Republican party would look elsewhere for success has been handily defeated.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

It won’t happen, but public polling needs to stop.  It is frankly destructive at this point.

This race should not be this close no matter how you slice it.  Showing Biden so far ahead up to the end surely made some Biden voters overconfident and possibly some Trump voters demoralized.  The result in either case is the loss of some votes due to bad polls.

This shouldn’t have been this close, and now it’s a mess.  And it’s because pollsters and media were determined to prematurely declare victory over Trump for months and months and months.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I agree that public polling needs to stop. But I'm not sure how wrong the polls were/are -- yet. Polls are always wrong to a degree. They're guestimates.

In November 2018, the expected blue wave seemed to have dissipated by November 6 on the night of midterm elections. Except after a few weeks of mail-in ballots revealed many defeats to be victories and victories to be defeats. The expected blue shift of mail-in votes may make no difference. Or it may make all the difference. But we still need to wait. This was never going to be an Election Day unless Biden won Florida. It was going to be at least an Election Week. Possibly an Election Month. And Senate control could go to a January runoff. It's not over yet.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Quick electoral observations...

1. Joe Biden sought out to convert R's sick of Trump, D's who skipped 2016, young voters, independents and 3rd party '16 voters.  He excelled in that strategy across the country, even where he lost (like Texas).  He was lampooned time and time again, but may be proven a genius.

2. Trump turnout was MASSIVE.  Why?  Well unlike Joe, he never stopped the campaign GOTV, registration, ground game and his rallies.  Since he's basically ignored the virus since the spring, not a surprise.  It cannot be soothing for Donald that he put in all this work, and it primarily only helped Mitch McConnell, who I'm sure is cackling right now.  That turnout was also largely what threw the polling off again.  I think public polling can work, but you have to move away from the frigging phone calls, into online.

3. Though it seems Biden may go over 270, he currently leads at that number.  If it held exactly there, the flipped state that puts him over was largely lost to the Ghost of John McCain.  There's perhaps no greater irony, nor more just outcome given Trump's putrid treatment of a war hero.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

270 seems like a low estimate right now.  MI/WI/NV seem like locks at this point.  PA and GA are close.  NC is probably not happening.  I think if Biden can win Georgia, however closely, it legitimizes the win a bit more.  If he can get over 300 electoral votes, I think the Republicans might let him loose - especially with how well they did overall yesterday.  Keeping the Senate and making big progress in the House is huge, and they get to lose a chaotic figure.

I'm sure segments of the party will help and MAGA will be alive and well no matter what, but I gotta think Mitch McConnell is thrilled with how things went and wouldn't want to put any of that in jeopardy on a fruitless battle on behalf of Donald Trump.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Grizzlor wrote:

Joe Biden sought out to convert R's sick of Trump, D's who skipped 2016, young voters, independents and 3rd party '16 voters.  He excelled in that strategy across the country, even where he lost (like Texas).  He was lampooned time and time again, but may be proven a genius.

But has the Democratic Party lost Hispanic men and black men?  Still a ton of time to go through the data, but that's very worrisome if you're a Democrat.  For black and brown men to show up and vote *for* Donald Trump - that can't all be machismo - something is resonating with those men.  If Republicans can diversify their camps and also bring whites back into the fold, they could be a real force.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

All my favourite liberal propaganda websites are upset, hurt, shocked, traumatized and worse. They didn't get their landslide. They didn't even get a clear win. But they're looking at mostly Election Night numbers, counts of in-person votes where mail-in ballots had yet to be totaled. Some mail-in ballots still have days to arrive.

I just don't think it makes sense at this point to say whether or not the polls were wrong, whether or not Trumpism has won over men of colour -- I think we'd better see all the results first. We are not looking at the full picture right now. We're looking at red mirages that may or may not be red certainties; we are looking at blue shifts that may or may not fully shift.

It's possible that the full results will have Slider_Quinn21 moving to Canada to be my new roommate; it's possible it'll be not terrible but not great; it's possible that Democrats will have a close victory with some options to expand in the Senate with a Georgia runoff -- but it's now an Election Week (at minimum). But I will see if I can find Slider_Quinn21 an air mattress just in case.

1,617 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2020-11-04 12:01:20)

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

Ha, I love Canada.  I'd be honored to join the Great White North!

I'd even be willing to be honoured.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I have no idea if the claims are accurate, but I’m starting to see a preview of the likely legal arguments.

Allegedly, there are 3.1 million registered voters in Wisconsin, but 3.2 million voted this time.  It’s possible 100,000 new voters voted; but is it possible nearly 100% of registered voters turned out?  Not likely.

Allegedly, a voter precinct in Michigan had 138,399 votes for Biden and 0 votes for Trump.  It’s possible, but not likely.  Reminds me of the last census - my state had the only county in the US that had 0 people who identified as LGBTQ+.  No way that was true.

In any case, a possible preview of legal arguments in contesting the election.  And the US Supreme Court can rule however it wants as long as 5 justices agree.

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

I dunno what's going to happen. I'm not sure what we're looking at yet with all the mail in votes still being counted. I'm not willing to venture an opinion. I'm not a pollster (although I get the sense that even pollsters may not be considered very good at their jobs these days). I'm not a politician. I barely passed political science in college.

So, I am simply going to say that Americans are good people. They are strong, confident, bold, determined, stalwart and clever. I take all sorts of shots at Informant, but I'd never claim he wasn't powerful, certain, daring (in his way), forceful, resilient and smart. Temporal Flux, Transmodiar, Slider_Quinn21, Grizzlor and others are a credit to their nation. I trust you and your countrymen to find you way forward sooner or later. Hopefully not too much later.

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Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate

There are 3.6 million registered voters in Wisconsin

https://elections.wi.gov/node/7220