Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[DShomshak]

5 hours ago, archer said:

But my God, Trump went there chasing after one Electoral College vote in one congressional district. And he strands hundreds of his hardcore supporters in the cold for hours so that their plight is the lede in the news out of the event.

 

And he put some of them in the hospital for his narcissism...and that's even before the COVID risk.

 

<snark> Now *that's* a show of loyalty to the Great Man! The ones who went to the hospital will brag about it for the rest of their lives. </snark>

 

Dean Shomshak

[Old Man]

1 minute ago, DShomshak said:

<snark> Now *that's* a show of loyalty to the Great Man! The ones who went to the hospital will brag about it for the rest of their lives. </snark>

 

Dean Shomshak

Their brief lives, you mean?

 

We laugh, but I’ve said elsewhere that these true believers—42% of Americans—will pledge their undying love for Trump with their last gurgling breath as they drown in their own pus. It’s funny, but not. 

[Ragitsu]

Avoid the internet between post-election and pre-inauguration?

[archer]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

Their brief lives, you mean?

 

We laugh, but I’ve said elsewhere that these true believers—42% of Americans—will pledge their undying love for Trump with their last gurgling breath as they drown in their own pus. It’s funny, but not. 

 

Trump left hundreds of supporters stranded in the freezing cold last night

 

Which goes to show that even the biggest Trump supporter can be turned blue.

 

(It’s funny, but not.)

[archer]

4 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

He walks out on the interviewer. The video linked is 20 minutes, including intro and comments. They also interview the VP candidates. So, not too much Trump time in that one.

 

 

I don’t know why Donald Trump wants four more years.

 

He can’t even handle 60 minutes.

[ScottishFox]

5 hours ago, archer said:

Trump left hundreds of supporters stranded in the freezing cold last night

 

Which goes to show that even the biggest Trump supporter can be turned blue.

 

I stood outside an iHOP last night talking politics with a friend for an hour in my Artic Cool heat-dissipating shirt.  It was 39 degrees.

 

Sounds like some of these folks aren't fat enough. 

[Starlord]

I spent 3 years at Minot AFB in North Dakota.  It's never the temp that gets you, it's the wind chill.

[archer]

55 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

I stood outside an iHOP last night talking politics with a friend for an hour in my Artic Cool heat-dissipating shirt.  It was 39 degrees.

 

Sounds like some of these folks aren't fat enough. 

 

Well, some of them were waiting for the rally to start, for the rally to finish, then to finally get picked up after the police arranged either rides or ambulances for almost 14 hours with 38 degrees being the high and the low (for hours) being well below freezing.

 

One of the policemen reported that a group of seniors he approached weren't able to respond coherently due to being cold for so long.

 

(I considered a joke about how they couldn't respond coherently due to being Trump supporters but I couldn't do it without making it come across like I was being cold-blooded about the whole matter.)

 

I used to be an absolute polar bear until about five years ago. I'd wear shorts and a Hawaiian shirt until it got below freezing then I'd put on a light jacket (or a heavy jacket if my wife insisted). But even then, I'd start getting cold after three or four hours.

 

I'd imagine that people who live in Nebraska know how to dress for the weather. But dang.

 

And you need to learn to hang out at classier places to talk politics. Like a Dennys. Or Cici's.

[Old Man]

While the Trump campaign at that rally failed to pay the bus drivers they’d hired or find some other way to get their supporters home, they did manage to illegally collect their supporters’ ballots before the rally ended. So from certain perspectives it could be considered a success. 

[archer]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

While the Trump campaign at that rally failed to pay the bus drivers they’d hired or find some other way to get their supporters home, they did manage to illegally collect their supporters’ ballots before the rally ended. So from certain perspectives it could be considered a success. 

 

I hadn't heard that angle of the story.

[Old Man]

4 hours ago, archer said:

 

I hadn't heard that angle of the story.

 

I was wrong; they are not illegal in Nebraska.

[unclevlad]

So the Texas attorney general is trying to quash the local shutdown orders for El Paso...despite a *crushing* case load, insane positivity rates, and overwhelming hospitalization, ICU, and ventilator numbers.

 

When it's crushing you, your neighbors, your friends, your church, you coworkers?  It becomes personal.

 

The degree is unknown, but ya gotta think this is going to cost the Texas Republicans, if they quash the attempt to slow down this outbreak.

[archer]

I know every day now seems like a week in the run up to the election...

 

But you'll remember last week when the Director of National intelligence (and Trump toadie) John Ratcliffe stood at FBI headquarters flanked by the director of the FBI Chris Wray and the DHS director Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency Chris Krebs and told us that the emails sent out by Iran to Democrat voters across the country which threatened their lives if they didn't vote for Trump was a dirty trick designed to hurt the Trump campaign.

 

Everyone is the country looked at each other wondering how THAT works.

 

Turns out that Ratcliffe manipulated the other two guys into signing off on making that statement and borrowing the credibility of the FBI by using their HQ...all without telling them that he was going to go to the podium and lie to spin it as an anti-Trump intelligence effort when it was clearly designed to hurt Biden.

 

More winning....

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/28/john-ratcliffe-iran-433375

[DShomshak]

Incidentally, Tuesday's episode of the NYTimes radio show/podcast, The Daily, was a history refresher about Bush v Gore in 2000. As the reporter summed up, the lesson Democrats took from that dumpster-fire was theat they needed to pump up turnout to win clear victories. But the lesson Republicans drew was to prune the electorate, take control of the ballot-ounting, and have friendly partisan judges in place, all justified by claims of voter fraud. A tactic on which Trump has doubled, tripled, and hundreded down.

 

Oh, and a news article in my morning paper says that John Roberts, Bret Kavanaugh and now Amy Coney Barrett were all members of the Bush legal team in Bush v Gore. So it rather looks like the fix is in for any election cases that go to the Supreme Court.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Dr. MID-Nite]

If Trump somehow gets another four years...I officially give up on America, its "values", and humanity.

[Greywind]

And some feel the same if Biden wins.

[Starlord]

Keeping Up With The Kardashians was cancelled, so I still have some hope for American values.

[TrickstaPriest]

13 minutes ago, Greywind said:

And some feel the same if Biden wins.

 

I don't think Biden literally stacked the courts to seize control of the country regardless of an election though.  Little things like "we are taking your ability to elect people" has consequences.

[Grailknight]

Those who find moral equivalence between Biden and Trump simply lack morals.

 

Their histories are clear if anyone looks with any type of fairness.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

38 minutes ago, Greywind said:

And some feel the same if Biden wins.

 

And that "feeling" has no basis in logic or evidence, while the case against Trump has warehouses full. The equivalency simply isn't there in any meaningful way. Trying to suggest so is simply done out of fear. Fear of change...and any chance of making things better for the vast majority of Americans.

[TrickstaPriest]

I won't say whether or not the candidates are morally equivalent or not - just that the method that Trump is using to obtain power is absolutely unacceptable to me.  No country that normalizes these methods will exist in a stable democracy.  That stability, and more to the point that democracy, will not survive it.  Or, I expect, him.

[Ragitsu]

1 hour ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

I don't think Biden literally stacked the courts to seize control of the country regardless of an election though.  Little things like "we are taking your ability to elect people" has consequences.

 

If the status quo was how we got a guy like Trump, I can understand why some people are hesitant to return to that "normal".

[TrickstaPriest]

35 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

If the status quo was how we got a guy like Trump, I can understand why some people are hesitant to return to that "normal".

 

I could be understanding, but he's been literally joking about exporting, arresting, threatening people.  Not just his direct competitors, but those distantly related to them as well.  It's constant.

Try to understand what it's like to be trapped in a lease with a landlord who literally jokes with his friends monthly about the things he could do to you, or people you know, just because of some distantly related guy who got into a situation with him

[Pariah]

Final NPR Electoral Map: Biden Has The Edge, But Trump Retains Narrow Path

[Ragitsu]

13 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

I could be understanding, but he's been literally joking about exporting, arresting, threatening people.  Not just his direct competitors, but those distantly related to them as well.  It's constant.

Try to understand what it's like to be trapped in a lease with a landlord who literally jokes with his friends monthly about the things he could do to you, or people you know, just because of some distantly related guy who got into a situation with him

 

There is a reason why many have stated that their vote was against Trump as opposed to for Biden. That distinction may seem minuscule in the here and now, but it will become rather important...especially once the pandemonium dies down.