Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

16 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

As for space, if I could send Trump, his family, his inner circle and his true believers to Mars tomorrow. I would tack another 2 trillion onto the deficit  and count it as  the best government projects in US history after the National Highways and Hoover Dam.

 

Don't forget the Senate enablers.  They aren't true believers;  they just use him (and he uses them) to advance their own goals.

 

And come tomorrow, I suspect they'll have secured a lasting victory regardless of the outcome of the election.

[DShomshak]

Possibly of interest. Center-right columnist David Brooks concludes that the American war of ideas over the role of government is over, and liberal Democrats have won. He cites polling statistics to prove it.

• Opinion | How Democrats Won the War of Ideas - The New York Times

  www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/opinion/democrats...

  The era of big government is here. By David Brooks Opinion Columnist Over the last 100 years, Americans have engaged in a long debate about the role of markets and the welfare state. Republicans ...

   

  Dean Shomshak

   

   

[L. Marcus]

Now the idea is up against an Originalist Supreme Court, tho.

[Greywind]

10 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

With respect, that's exaggeration. A case can be made that the Democrats' most prominent message has been, "not Trump," which targeting of the sitting POTUS is hardly novel in American politics, from either major party. But the Democrats had a broad platform in the last election, and they came out of their recent convention with an updated platform. You can read a summary of it here if you'd like.

 

The whistle blower story about Ukraine emerged in August of 2019, and articles of impeachment against Trump were filed in December of that year -- hardly the Democrats' first action in the wake of his election. And I personally have not seen as justifiable grounds to impeach a POTUS since Nixon.

 

Various people and groups assert that U.S. president Donald Trump has engaged in impeachable activity both before and during his presidency,^[1][2] and talk of impeachment began before he took office.^[3][4] Grounds asserted for impeachment have included possible violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by accepting payments from foreign dignitaries; alleged collusion with Russia during the campaign for the 2016 United States presidential election; alleged obstruction of justice with respect to investigation of the collusion claim; and accusations of "Associating the Presidency with White Nationalism, Neo-Nazism and Hatred", which formed the basis of a resolution for impeachment brought on December 6, 2017.

[Pariah]

On 10/24/2020 at 12:51 AM, ScottishFox said:

Some of the electoral map landslides have been whoppers.

 

 

 

Margins of victory in the popular vote are interesting, but not particularly meaningful. Popular vote does not, and has not ever, determined who becomes the President. The President has always been elected by the States through the Electoral College, never by popular vote. Good, bad, or indifferent, those are the rules. Continuing to talk about the popular vote, while interesting, is not particularly meaningful.

[Lord Liaden]

3 hours ago, Greywind said:

 

Various people and groups assert that U.S. president Donald Trump has engaged in impeachable activity both before and during his presidency,^[1][2] and talk of impeachment began before he took office.^[3][4] Grounds asserted for impeachment have included possible violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by accepting payments from foreign dignitaries; alleged collusion with Russia during the campaign for the 2016 United States presidential election; alleged obstruction of justice with respect to investigation of the collusion claim; and accusations of "Associating the Presidency with White Nationalism, Neo-Nazism and Hatred", which formed the basis of a resolution for impeachment brought on December 6, 2017.

 

Yes, various parties did assert that, beyond the Democrats. The House of Representatives voted down a motion for impeachment brought by two Democratic representatives in 2017; the majority of Democrats voted against it. When the Democrats regained control of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi initiated several investigations of the President and his staff, but resisted calls for impeachment until the Ukraine scandal broke.

[Greywind]

And who is at the heart of the Ukraine scandal?

Biden by way of his son.

[megaplayboy]

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

 

Margins of victory in the popular vote are interesting, but not particularly meaningful. Popular vote does not, and has not ever, determined who becomes the President. The President has always been elected by the States through the Electoral College, never by popular vote. Good, bad, or indifferent, those are the rules. Continuing to talk about the popular vote, while interesting, is not particularly meaningful.

Strategies to win the EC while losing the popular vote, OTOH, strike one as a bit obscene.  "we know the other party is more popular at the national level, but here's a way we can win by threading the needle with narrow victories in a handful of battleground states".  Once a party rationalizes that, it's a short hop to rationalizing minority rule in general, which is yet another step on the way to authoritarianism and tyranny.  

[Pariah]

26 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

Strategies to win the EC while losing the popular vote, OTOH, strike one as a bit obscene.  "we know the other party is more popular at the national level, but here's a way we can win by threading the needle with narrow victories in a handful of battleground states".  Once a party rationalizes that, it's a short hop to rationalizing minority rule in general, which is yet another step on the way to authoritarianism and tyranny.  

 

Agreed. But I'm not clear on how that's different than focusing campaigns on Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida while ignoring most of the Central and Mountain time zones.

[Old Man]

4 minutes ago, Pariah said:

 

Agreed. But I'm not clear on how that's different than focusing campaigns on Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida while ignoring most of the Central and Mountain time zones.

 

Once you've rationalized minority rule, you've rationalized cheating on the election.  Which is why we are now seeing a spate of targeted post office sabotage, gerrymandering, intimidation at polling locations, voter roll purges, ballot drop box removal, polling location removal, and a long running campaign of disinformation designed to question the results of the election long before election day.

[Ranxerox]

42 minutes ago, Greywind said:

And who is at the heart of the Ukraine scandal?

Biden by way of his son.

 

No, the heart of the Ukraine scandal was Trump and Giuliani.  They made it very clear that what was important to them was that Ukraine announce that they were investigating the Bidens, and that they were willing to withhold approved aid until they got the announcement.  It was the announcement that was important to them, not evidence of wrong doing or exoneration.  The important thing was to score the political hit.

 

Speaking of exonerating evidence, Joe Biden has been exonerated of wrong doing in Ukraine by multiple parties.  This includes a Republican led Senate investigation that concluded just last month. Link 

 

So if the Senate Republicans found him innocent in an election year, you can best believe that Biden is a pure as the driven snow on where the Ukraine is concerned.

 

As for the new "evidence" of "Hunter Biden's" laptop, Fox news wanted nothing to do with it and the laptop because they viewed it overly suspect.  Indeed the New York Post writer who wrote up the story had his name removed from the byline because he did not view his own story as being credible.  Giuliani is known to be a target of Russian intelligence efforts.  Everything about the story stinks like 5 day old five day old halibut.

 

So no this not about Biden or his son.  This is about grifters, and gullible people who are choosing to believe them

[Lord Liaden]

Donald Trump has brought into politics the lesson he learned from his many years as a "salesman": If you repeat a lie often and with conviction, many people will believe it must be true. Then they won't accept contrary evidence, because they're unwilling to admit they were fooled.

[archer]

On 10/25/2020 at 2:03 AM, Greywind said:

 

The Democrats entire platform for the last 4 years has been "not Trump". Starting from the time he was elected. Their first action was to find (or make up) ground for impeachment.

 

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump made it a habit to stay at Trump properties whenever possible. When he got a Secret Service detail assigned to him, like they do when someone becomes a serious contender, the Secret Service rented rooms at the Trump properties in order to stay close to him.

 

That was entirely legal.

 

After Trump was sworn in, he's made a habit of staying at Trump properties with his now expanded Secret Service detail also staying...with Trump continuing to get paid for renting them rooms.

 

That's a direct violation of the Constitution which doesn't allow the president to turn a profit off of being president and is definitely an impeachable offense.

 

The first time he did that was less than two weeks after being sworn into office. I screamed bloody murder at the time.

 

He's also repeatedly rented out Trump properties to the government so that he could hold presidential functions there. Not incidentally "someone somewhere in government happening to do business with a Trump business". This is the president deliberately scheduling events to happen on his own property, presenting a bill to the government, and accepting payment in direct violation of the Constitution.

 

Now I can't speak for the Democrats or Republicans as to why they didn't act but Trump should have been impeached and removed from office shortly after being sworn in based solely on information which was readily available without any investigation.

 

And I complained here when the Ukraine email thing looked like it was heading toward impeachment because the Democrats didn't choose to include other charges which would have built a stronger case against Trump and have shown a pattern of reckless disregard for the law and the Constitution.

[TrickstaPriest]

1 minute ago, archer said:

He's also repeatedly rented out Trump properties to the government so that he could hold presidential functions there. Not incidentally "someone somewhere in government happening to to business with a Trump business". This is the president deliberately scheduling events to happen on his own property, presenting a bill to the government, and accepting payment in direct violation of the Constitution.

 

Now I can't speak for the Democrats or Republicans as to why they didn't act but Trump should have been impeached and removed from office shortly after being sworn in based solely on information which was readily available without any investigation.

 

And I complained here when the Ukraine email thing looked like it was heading toward impeachment because the Democrats didn't choose to include other charges which would have built a stronger case against Trump and have shown a pattern of reckless disregard for the law and the Constitution.

 

This.  I wholly wanted the impeachment to address this from the very bloody beginning.  His financial BS was an issue long before literally anything else they could bring up.

[archer]

"Hunter Biden" sex tapes have been released on (Rudy and Bannon's buddy) Chinese billionaire's "news" website which I linked to a couple of day's ago.

 

Here's an article on a real news site about the alleged tapes.

 

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1688167/alleged-hunter-biden-sex-tapes-china-steve-bannon/

 

I put "Hunter Biden" in quotes because I honestly have no idea what he actually looks like nor have I wanted to find out then watch the sex tape to see if I think it's really him.

 

If someone else wants to do that investigative journalism, be my guest.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Beau of the Fifth Column predicted this on his YouTube channel just today. He said we can expect a flurry of spurious "news stories" related to the Bidens to be released between now and election day, to attempt to sway undecided voters while distracting from Trump's failures. All too late to be proven or disproved before the vote.

 

I can only imagine how you Yanks must feel having to put up with this behavior. I'm truly sorry.

[Old Man]

17 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

I can only imagine how you Yanks must feel having to put up with this behavior. I'm truly sorry.

 

So are we.

 

I suppose I could ask what Hunter Biden's sex life has to do with anything, but that's because I easily fall into the trap of trying to analyze a fog-of-scandal psyop.

[Ragitsu]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

I can only imagine how you Yanks must feel having to put up with this behavior. I'm truly sorry.

 

We're used to having our chains yanked.

[Starlord]

- Montana population:  1.069 million (2019).  The state of Montana has 3 electoral votes.

 

-  Ohio population:  11.69 million (2019).  The state of Ohio has 18 electoral votes.

 

The state of Ohio has 10.9 times the population of Montana.  Thus, according to the Electoral College, my vote is worth far less than a resident of Montana.  The EC is a stupid idea created for a different time when the cast majority of the population had no information on, or access to, their leaders.

 

The POTUS is the representative for the entire nation and should be elected by popular vote. If you are worried about smaller states being marginalized, I call BS! That is what your state reps are for! They each have equal votes in the Senate and the house even though they represent different sized populations.

[Pariah]

Nevertheless, candidates aren't stumping for Montana's three electoral votes. They campaign for Ohio's 18 electoral votes like it's the end of the world--and in a lot of elections, it is. 

 

In the end, the result is the same. Candidates spend big chunks of time and money to win States like Ohio, while lumping Montana in with "those square states in the West that all look the same".

[archer]

6 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

 

We're used to having our chains yanked.

 

That's why we're called Yankees.

[Hermit]

I am very scared of getting my hopes dashed... again. Tennessee is lost. But Texas? TEXAS is contested? I thought it would take another decade for it to go purple let alone blue. IF Texas goes Biden, it could be a coffin nail in Trump's hopes for re-election. And might make the GOP realize becoming Trump's flying monkeys may not have been the best long term move for the party.

 

But I don't trust the polls and I don't want to hope too hard. 

[archer]

20 minutes ago, Hermit said:

I am very scared of getting my hopes dashed... again. Tennessee is lost. But Texas? TEXAS is contested? I thought it would take another decade for it to go purple let alone blue. IF Texas goes Biden, it could be a coffin nail in Trump's hopes for re-election. And might make the GOP realize becoming Trump's flying monkeys may not have been the best long term move for the party.

 

But I don't trust the polls and I don't want to hope too hard. 

 

I honestly don't think you have anything to worry about when it comes to Biden getting enough votes in the right states to win the Electoral College. (Though I'll admit to being a natural-born worrier.)

 

 

I do think there's reason to worry that Trump will interfere in some way to stop votes from being counted.

 

"Counted" not "recounted" or "quibbling about provisional ballots or hanging chads".

 

====

Oct 25

 

The poll showed Biden ahead in Texas with the support of 48 percent of likely voters, compared with 45 percent for Trump. The results represent a shift from the same poll in September, when Trump led by 2 percentage points. One difference from September is that Biden has expanded his lead among Hispanic voters from 30 percentage points to 48.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/25/texas-biden-trump-poll-432217

[archer]

The White House plans to host a swearing-in ceremony for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Monday night following her expected confirmation.

 

Unfortunately, this isn't a joke considering what happened last time the White House hosted an event for her.

 

It's just about the perfect incubation time from the swearing-in party until election day.

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/522736-white-house-to-host-swearing-in-event-for-barrett-on-monday-night

 

 

[Lectryk]

1 hour ago, Hermit said:

And might make the GOP realize becoming Trump's flying monkeys may not have been the best long term move for the party.

 

 

Don't have any sympathy for the GOP - this path is the one the party has been following my entire life, from Nixon onward.  They thrive in the space of inequality, oppression, suppression, etc.  Trump just brought their behavior out into the open more obviously to more people at once, is all you're seeing.  They would have gotten to where we are now if left to their own devices sooner or later - the changing demographics of the country (and the fear that Trump's campaign manipulated) would have guaranteed us a Trump-like candidate within the next 3 cycles anyway.  And playing/preying on the same issues that Trump did, would have gotten that person elected.

 

Each party uses coded language to a greater or lesser degree to get elected, but the Republicans govern to that language more than the Democrats do.