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Mandalorian season 2 was very well done.  I think Dave Filoni may need to be the Kevin Feige of Star Wars.  I think he has the right appreciation for the universe and the stories that need to be told.

It was a little too fan servicey but it was still a lot of fun.  I also appreciate that they aren't bound to any sort of episode length so it's usually solid story from start to finish.

Not at all.  I was listening to a podcast and they talked about how the structures of democracy held....something that has helped calm my fears.  The Supreme Court didn't entertain him.  The state legislatures didn't try anything funny with electors.  All states certified their votes.  Even now, the GOP is starting to accept the results publicly.

....but

The podcaster followed that up with the idea that it only held up because of a few people.  The republican governors in Arizona and Georgia didn't blindly go along with Trump.  That one republican in Michigan didn't blindly vote against certification.  A lot of these lower level court cases have been decided by a single vote.  The system held, but a person here or a person there and things might've gone differently.  Maybe not differently enough to change the election but even one state going against the people is terrible for democracy.

I think the thing that makes me feel better about the long-term future is that Trump is unique.  Even Trumpist politicians down ballot didn't do this kind of thing.  We don't have 200+ contested elections in the House and Senate.  There's not fraud allegations and lawsuits in every election that far right politicians lost.  It's just Trump.  This seems unique to him, both because he has the power to screw with people who don't support him and because he's a child in a man's body.

If this doesn't work, and it looks like a one in a trillion chance now, then I think more established politicians (Rubio, Cruz, DeSantis, etc) wouldn't even go that route.

What worries me in the short-term is someone like Don Jr or Ivanka trying it again.  Not because I think they could win (I don't, they don't have the same power of persuasion that Trump has) but because I think they'd be more willing to try and would have nothing to lose.  And even if it was a colossal landslide, we could see chaos if they're able to get more Trump loyalists in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.  Some of those one-vote decisions could go the other way and then I don't know what happens.

That's why it should be a priority to go after people who participated in this attempt.  Either politically or legally, there should be consequences so that there isn't the same problem next time.

Biden got to 270 again!

The republican electors are sending their own votes to Congress in the hopes that it'll cause some problem.  From my understanding, Congress can retaliate.  Even if Congress fails to certify, the Democrat-led House can stall until Pelosi becomes president.  Or the House can just name Biden the Speaker of the House and he'd become president that way.

Could we just pull a Luuke (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Luuke_Skywalker) and call our movie Paralllel?

Yeah I can't believe I'm agreeing with Cornyn, but it's very important that he speak up like this.

Again, if other states were suing Texas, Texans would be freaking out and threatening to secede.  And what's so stupid is that Republicans don't see how short-sighted this is.  This will bite one of them in the butt at some point.  There will be a close race and some BS lawsuit is going to cost them the election.  This stuff always comes back around and always bites the other party in the butt.  I just cannot understand how people who won elections this year can go along with the idea that their own election wins could've been fraudulent.

Although I heard an interesting stat on a podcast (I do not have a source, unfortunately) that said that while the majority of republicans think something fishy happened in the election, something like 90+% of republicans believe that their vote was counted correctly.  Which tells me that most people believe in elections as a whole and that this might be Trump-related.

Since, as far as I'm aware, this kind of stuff isn't happening down ballot, it gives me a bit of hope that this is Trump-specific and not something we'll be dealing with every election forever now.

Well they want a live-action Spider-Verse movie.  Sony probably pushed for it, and it actually works with Phase Four and Peter's arc.  We know that something is happening to the universe in WandaVision.  We know that Wanda will be in Dr. Strange 2 subtitled The Multiverse of Madness.  And we know that Peter's world was thrown into chaos when his identity was revealed.  My guess is that Dr Strange is going to end up bringing Peter to other multiverses, either to escape the chaos in his own life or to teach him some sort of lesson about his own circumstances and how they could be worse.

If I had to guess, the guest characters will be more "Tom Welling in Crisis" than key parts.  Relevant and significant scenes but just scenes - not "Tom Holland and other Spider-Men team up to fight the Sinister Six"

Although do we know how many Sony/Disney Spider-Man movies they've agreed to make?  If this is the last one, maybe they will just throw everything against the wall and see what sticks (pun intended)

Huh.  And they picked Cardassians for their picture?

I think Trump would've blabbed it.  I just don't think he's capable of keeping a secret like that

**********

Word came out today that Trump is planning on taking Air Force One to Florida to run a competing rally on January 20th to announce his 2024 campaign.  Cool.  Fine.  Whatever.  Let's just move forward.

I have trouble with God in a lot of senses.  When you look at the world and see all the bad stuff, it's easy to see how it's possible that God could be the villain.  Or, at best, gone.  I could understand the villain God from Supernatural or the villain God from Preacher as beings that were "gone" but also, when confronted, were villainous.  There's so many things that happen in life that are both unfair and independent from the free will of others.  I decided at some point that a god that was all powerful couldn't be all good and vice versa.  If he was all powerful and all good, there wouldn't be nearly as much bad.  The all-knowing also bothered me, as God would've known before he created the world all the bad things that would happen as a result.

So I think my version of a fictional God wouldn't be all-knowing or all-powerful.  And probably not all-good - but maybe just very naive when it comes to bad.  He's a being that existed but was lonely.  So he used his immense power to create the universe.  Angels and life.  But it drained him, badly.  And when bad things started happening - rebellion and anger and hate, he was taken aback by it.  And then, whatever happened in the holy texts (whether Christian or Jewish or Muslim) sapped the rest of his power.  And now he can watch humanity and hear humanity but he can't do much else.  He's Oppenheimer - forced to watch whatever happens to his creation with little power to do much else.

And I think if I were writing Chuck, that's what I'd do.  Chuck still has influence.  He can still pop in and out and Heaven still listens to him.  But it'd be interesting if he could be killed.  Or at least overpowered by a demon or even a human.  They get him to show up in Season 11 and he's just essentially Garth.  No skills, no power - just doing his best.

I don't know how that helps with a 15-season arc.  When the devil was defeated in Season 5 and the show kept going, the show never had a logical ending.  And the only thing bigger than beating the devil is beating God.  So I see why they did that.

Although I don't know why the CW would wince at a dead God but be cool with an evil one.

Maybe.  That would surprise me a bit, but New York will throw everything at him.

Two questions that I can't seem to get answers to:

1. All but one of Trump's lawsuits have been knocked down, but if you listen to what his lawyers say, this is all part of the plan to get things to the Supreme Court.  I know the Supreme Court picks their own cases and it only takes four justices to decide to hear a case - which I'd think they'd easily get with six conservatives.  But is there any sort of deadline on that?  The electoral college votes in 10 days.  I'd think the longer this goes, the harder it would be for the Court to overturn.  I'm assuming the Supreme Court would either reject the cases entirely (as they've been knocked down pretty seriously by lower courts), but aren't we on some sort of clock?  Even if they wanted to, could the Supreme Court overrule the election in March?  How would that even work?

2. Trump is thinking about pardoning himself and his children.  Let's assume that the self-pardon works or that Trump does the "resign and Pence pardons him" trick.  What would that eliminate?  What federal charges are there looming over all their heads?  Would that eliminate all the impeachment stuff?  All the Mueller stuff?  Or is any of that state-level crime?  Is the Ivanka Trump lawsuit a federal or a state issue?  I guess I'm just wondering what that would clear the Trumps of and what would still be outstanding if he gave himself and everyone around him a blanket pardon.

I think Trump is slowly getting where he needs to get.  He admitted at his Baby Table press conference that he'd leave the White House if the Electoral College voted him out - he said all the Trumpy things about how it'd be the wrong decision and it's a fraud and all that.  He also admitted this weekend that his Supreme Court plan may not ultimately work, saying "it's hard to get to the Supreme Court"

I don't really need Trump to concede.  Or for him to pay for his crimes.  I really just need him to leave the White House, and I need the GOP to clean up as much of his mess as they can.  I need McConnell or someone else to admit that the election was fair for anyone who will listen.  Of course, there will be those that don't.  There will be people who have their doubts or flat-out believe that the election was a sham.  I'm hoping the GOP does their best, once they've gotten everything they can out of Trump, to convince Trump voters that their voice was heard.  If a segment of the GOP doesn't want to believe the results and won't listen to their own leadership, then I don't think there's anything people could do to convince them.  Republicans were big winners this election so it's not like they can even claim the whole election was a scam.  Or even that the Democrats were very good at it.

And I think a lot of those people will move on too.  Just like the pissed off liberals who eventually just went back to life with Trump as president, most of the Trumpists will eventually forget how mad they are now.  OAN and Newsmax and Fox News will go after the Biden administration instead of harping on the election.  I'm sure the Republicans will try and impeach Biden for something weak.

But not hearing Trump's name in the news every day will be nice.  That's all I really need right now.

I've seen the "how did Biden get 80 million votes" question a ton from conservatives.  But the 74 million Trump got are never questioned.  Are we saying that Trump, in the middle of a pandemic that he's done almost nothing to help and during a time where he's done nothing to help get a second stimulus bill passed *convinced* an additional 12+ million voters to vote for him?  He's done almost nothing - were 12 million people convinced by Space Force?

If Biden's 80 million votes are in question, so are Trump's 74 million.  As we've discussed, Trump usually accuses people of doing what he's already done.  I'd be willing to bet that Trump and the Republicans engaged in plenty of election shenanigans.  Seeing what Lindsey Graham tried in Georgia tells me that he tried the same stuff in South Carolina.  Did he succeed there?

I've seen polls that half Trump's voters don't believe Biden won.  I've seen polls where about a quarter of Trump voters believe it was legit.  Either way, it's not half the country.  We're talking 35-60 million people.  Which is significant but not overwhelming.  I'm interested in seeing what the Republicans do after Georgia.  It doesn't help McConnell for people not to believe in elections.  I would assume once they've gotten everything they can get out of the Trump people, the GOP will drop the fraud business.  They aren't really helping with it in the first place, and I think they'll let Trump embarrass himself in court and then they can distance.

I still don't understand why people like Ted Cruz are helping.  Doesn't Cruz want to run in 2024?  If he's content with being where he is, I guess it makes sense.  But he's actively helping his competition which is bizarre to me.

Maybe it was in the episode where Dean died a bunch of times, but didn't a reaper or Death tell the boys that they'd died many more times than that?  I can't remember the context but I keep having this thought that the universe was repeatedly fixed numerous times so that the Winchesters wouldn't die.  So whatever situation would happen where Sam and Dean would live, that's the situation that would happen.  I feel like it was pre-Chuck storyline, but I can't guarantee the scene ever even happened.

Either way, I think the "unlucky" episode proves that the Winchesters, while very talented, aren't the incredible hunters that we've been led to believe.  They have infinite deaths on, and anyone can beat any game if you have infinite chances.  And in addition to being in a very dangerous line of work, I felt like the brothers were also pretty impulsive and reckless.  Even in the final confrontation, they aren't doing much recon, and they go in just expecting to come out the other side.  With no cheat code on, one of them didn't.

Nothing is over until McConnell says it is.  And he still must think there's something to be gained in Georgia by backing Trump.

Funny thing is that a lot of Trump people on Parler are talking about skipping the runoff entirely or writing Trump's name is.  It probably won't be a lot of people, but if it's enough for one or both of the Democrats to win, that would be the funniest story of the decade.

Like pre-election, I'm now varying between wildly contradicting feelings.  On one hand, Trump's legal efforts are his only shot.  If he can get enough doubt, they can either get to the Supreme Court or get results un-certified.  Both are still fairly bad options unless the Supreme Court goes super-politicized (I think the Pennsylvania case could go 8-1 with ACB being the only Trump vote with the incredible lack of evidence they're presenting).

But I still fear hijinks.  And I'm not entirely sure why the Supreme Court would even entertain such a case.  And I don't like that Michigan is entertaining any of this.  And I don't like that Georgia is so politicized.

I get super-confident...then I dig a little deeper into the crazy, and I get nervous.  I need to just stop paying attention.  Soon enough, it'll be over and Biden will be president.

I think CW just bought Stargirl from DC.  It was still produced for DC Universe.  Kinda like how Swamp Thing is airing on the CW even though it was produced (and released on DC Universe).  I think DC probably saw the writing on the wall and decided to sell it off, but I'm pretty sure it was already complete when CW got involved.

I do think there are ways to make the show work without changing much, but we'll have to see.

*********

On Titans.  I get what you're saying.  I think the show hasn't done a great job of explaining why any of them work together.  The "multiple generations working together" aspect doesn't truly work, but I think the younger generation with Dick does.  He wants to prove he can lead a team, and they look to him for guidance.  I think it would make more sense if Kory was a teenager, but that's really the only issue I have with it.

I just like the vibe of the show.  It feels like it belongs.  I buy that it's a universe with Superman and Constantine and Green Lantern.  I buy that the sidekicks decided back in the day that they wanted their own Justice League.  It all made sense to me.

Oh man, I thought the finale was really touching.  I'm a bit surprised but not at all ashamed to say that I shed some tears.  I can wait until people have watched it to do any full commentary.

I just can't get myself excited about this.  I didn't even hate Justice League, but I've seen it.  And while not scientific at all, I've read all there there is from research on what was cut, and it doesn't seem all that different.

I'll definitely watch it, and I think it could be better.  But I wish Snyder had done a new project entirely in animation.

Well that's the thing.  Other than the attention and inability to be prosecuted, what is Trump wanting out of the job?  It's been a week and he's done *nothing*.  I don't remember who I'm quoting, but he seems to be doing everything he can to keep a job he doesn't even want.

This is my real fear.  I guess the good news is that such a person isn't really on the horizon.  If Trump is truly talking about 2024, then I think he's almost certainly the nominee.  No Republican has stood up to him yet, and I don't think anyone will between now and then.  If Trump runs again in 2024, then I think he'll do everything he can between now and 2028 to set up Don Jr. and Ivanka to run in 2028. 

None of Trump's kids are capable of anything like their father so I'd think we're at least 2032 before there's anyone who can follow in Trump's footsteps.  Hopefully 12 years down the line, we'll have the US in a more secure place.

I do remember that now (and almost certainly based some of my opinion on that memory).  I didn't read all of it so I'll respond back next week or so once I've finished season two.

The CW is showing Swamp Thing.  Like with Stargirl, the episodes are edited so I'm not sure if I'm getting the full show as intended, but it kinda drags a bit.  I still think it's watchable and compelling enough to stick with, but I think it's certainly the weakest of the DC Universe shows and I can see why it wasn't renewed.

I'm glad you liked it!  I think Stargirl has the most heart of all the DC Universe shows.  I think it'll slide pretty easily into the Arrowverse, but I agree with you - I think the production value will suffer in the same way (maybe more?) that Supergirl did.

I'm now halfway through the second season of Titans.  It's my favorite of the DC Universe shows (although Harley Quinn is so good), and I'm excited to see how it continues to grow.  I thought it was nice to bring Bruce Wayne in, although I don't buy Iain Glen in the role....at all.  I know he's supposed to be an older Bruce, but he's also supposed to be an active Bruce.  Iain Glen is almost sixty - was Batman 40 when he took in Dick?  Seems like a really weird casting choice, and I just can't see him being Batman.

It's a lot of fun.  I look forward to it every time I get a chance to watch.

Oh, not at all.  I'm no legal expert, but I've read more than enough people who are say that the lawsuits are a waste of time.  It's placating Trump, it's following orders, and at the end of the day, it will mean nothing.  I'd still like to have an active tracker of which lawsuits are ongoing and which have been denied.  Just for my own amusement.

What I am concerned about is what in the hell the Republicans are doing.  When Mike Pompeo says that there will be a transition to a second Trump administration, I really don't care.  He's a Trump employee, and if Trump doesn't win, he loses his job and all the perks that come with it.  He's hoping for a second Trump term because it benefits him.

What confuses me is why other Republicans are going through with all this.  I can kinda see how McConnell is doing it - he's the face of the Republican Party besides Trump, and if he doesn't toe the line, he's going to spend his whole day fielding angry calls from Trump.  So even if professionally he knows he needs to say the right thing, I can forgive him if he's just trying to make sure he can still get through the day.

But why are other Republicans going along with this?  Why is my asshole senator, Ted Cruz, *STILL* working for the guy who called his wife ugly and said his dad was part of the Kennedy assassination?  Why is Lindsey Graham allowing talk of voter fraud when he won an election *this year*?  Is this what they're going to be doing for the next four years?  Because when you hear the rationales, some of them make sense:

- Keep Trump happy until he's officially gone
- Keep the focus on the election so that republicans can stay focused on the Georgia runoff so they can keep the house
- Fundraising

Which all make sense - but they don't have to say anything, and all those things still happen.  Trump can still fundraise, at least one of the Republicans is almost guaranteed to win, and none of them need Trump in the next 70 days.

Either way, when it's over, we need everyone not named Trump to come out and say "we did a full audit - the election was done correctly - our democracy is secure" - that's the only way we move forward.  But that means Graham and Cruz are going to have to walk back their statements.  And the fact that they made the statements at all means a) they believe this crap or b) they knew it was wrong and said it anyway.  And both of those are terrible and dangerous.

Is anyone out there tracking what sort of lawsuits the Trump campaign is filing and which ones have been denied already?

I just think there's a bit of a power vacuum in the Republican party.  I don't think they'll want to change too much since they had an overall great election, but who steps up?  The same Cruz, Rubio crowd?  Doubtful.  The Bushes are out.  I think there are probably some younger, lesser known Republicans.  But, especially if Trump gets the network going, I think he's going to push his son HARD.  And on name recognition alone, I think he'd get his foot in the door.  Then it's just a matter of how strong the Trump name is in 2024.

There's also a chance he tries to get Ivanka into a public office.  She's probably more palatable than Don Jr but we'll see.

I think Trump would absolutely try to run again.  He'd just be Biden's current age next time.  The only question is whether or not the dementia stuff is actually true.  If it is, he might not be sharp enough to pull it off again.

I agree that Trump is one of a kind.  I just think there are many in the party that would go back to that well again.  Don again, Don Jr, or Ivanka.  Not Eric haha.

Jon Ralston covers elections in Nevada and seems to think there's no way Trump wins.  The reason why it hasn't been called, as speculated by Nate Silver, is that Nevada going to Biden actually gives him the election on Fox and the AP.  Now Fox and the AP could stand by it and just roll with "we show Biden has 270, he's the next president" but mis-calling Arizona and mis-calling the winner are two different things.  So it could be the media deciding to let Nevada sit, blaming the number of ballots, to allow Arizona to get a bit more clearer so that Fox and the AP don't have to look stupid.

I agree with this, but what is the plan?  You can point to 70 million voters and say "those people will defend him and they're well armed" but what would that level of rebellion even look like?  And how would you organize it?  And even if you did, what's the endgame there?

Any sort of coup attempt would need full support of the military, and I don't think enough people in the military support Trump.  You could argue that maybe his best case is that police support him, but military trumps police.  And I think the jump from "I support Trump" to "I'm willing to participate in a coup" might be fairly big.

Trump can cry all he wants, but his best argument is that Pennsylvania votes are going to come in later than Election Day, but there doesn't seem to be any indications that Democrats got their votes in late in any sort of large numbers.  As ireactions said, Biden's team did a good job of getting people to drop off their votes early, and all of them should count.  Maybe they could find some corrupt judges to get a case to the Supreme Court, but Trump's arguments are weak.  Even if he somehow got "Trump v Biden" in front of the court, even with a majority, I can't imagine he wins that case or what that case would even look like.

Even politically, he's running out of options.  McConnell is backing off him.  A lot of Republicans are.  It probably doesn't matter long term, but short term, the Republicans did really well and aren't going to want to taint that with a wild goose chase.

Trump has a really good shot at Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.  Biden might win by a fairly short margin.  If Trump wants, he could probably run for another office (Governor of Florida?) or whatever he wants.  And if he wants, he could probably be the frontrunner in 2024 and we could do this all over again.  But all of that probably starts with not being dragged out of the White House, crying.

And that seems like where we're headed.

The Wisconsin tweet that was making the rounds was apparently a typo and has been deleted.  There might be others, but there's definitely been some typing mistakes.

There's a county in Michigan that had the votes flipped - Biden got the Trump votes and vice-versa.  It wasn't enough to make that big of a difference but it was a few thousand votes as a swing.  If there are a few others, maybe it makes a difference (the same software was used elsewhere, but there's no evidence that any other counties were affected).

But it makes me wonder - do we have these same types of typos/errors in other elections, or is this unique to 2020?  I can't imagine it's unique - I'm guessing Trump voters are just looking for for them more and social media makes them explode.

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.

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.

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.