American Politics: Discuss and Debate (Page 27 of 57)

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

ROFL at the DS9 reference!

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

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.

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.

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.

I see what you did here.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 has also noted that Donald Trump Jr. projects. Just like his father.

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

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

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."

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."

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.

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.

**

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.