Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Cygnia]

[unclevlad]

In software, there's an aphorism.  Good, fast, cheap...pick 2.  You can't have all 3.

 

In voting, it's convenient for the voters, robustly reliable (any fraud would be small-scale at best), easy to count.  One is manageable;  two is getting hard.  All three...dream on....

[TrickstaPriest]

18 minutes ago, Greywind said:

Trump tells people to vote in person.

People are surprised when the majority of mailed ballots are for Biden.

 

I am not unsympathetic to people who don't understand or who are afraid of shenanigans going on.  But my point to those people is that Trump literally had four years, and two years of an entire Republican congress, to investigate or create commissions for this sort of thing.  He could have done anything to assist in this process.  He did not.  I don't think he cared to.

 

1 minute ago, unclevlad said:

In software, there's an aphorism.  Good, fast, cheap...pick 2.  You can't have all 3.

 

 

I didn't know you were a software guy

[unclevlad]

Y'know, most people limit their mountain building by starting with a mole hill.

 

These Trump campaign lawsuits try to make a mountain out of a grain of sand....

[Hermit]

"the people have voted" Trump in a panic

"And?"

"The votes are being COUNTED? how can we have a democracy if ALL the votes are counted?!"

"Is the adderall wearing off?"

 

 

*****

5 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

I'm pretty sure it's going to be GA, NV, and PA going to Biden, with NC and AK going to Trump.  Which means Biden would have 306 electoral votes, vs. Trump's 232, or a 74-vote margin.  Pretty much a flip of the 2016 election (hopefully without the faithless electors of that election).  Expect recounts in WI and GA at the very least, and possibly PA.

 

Not that this high margin for a Biden victory would stop the Trumpkins (from Twitler himself on down) from crying foul, throwing tantrums, and otherwise disputing the results.  

 

 

Well, military votes have to be counted and while it may have changed a lot , in my experience the bulk of the Armed Forces tend to vote conservative. Then again, if they think on how Trump did zero about Russia putting a bounty on their heads and the fact he trashed some honored alum... maybe not.

[BoloOfEarth]

1 hour ago, Hermit said:

Well, military votes have to be counted and while it may have changed a lot , in my experience the bulk of the Armed Forces tend to vote conservative. Then again, if they think on how Trump did zero about Russia putting a bounty on their heads and the fact he trashed some honored alum... maybe not.

 

I sincerely hope they keep those last two points in mind.  The (fairly well confirmed) allegations of Trump calling American war dead "suckers and losers" is particularly troubling to me. 

 

My fear is that military members' knee-jerk reactions may be to vote conservative anyway.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

In software, there's an aphorism.  Good, fast, cheap...pick 2.  You can't have all 3.

 

I've heard that aphorism all my life, long before there was much in the way of software. It applies to almost everything.

 

Perhaps contemporary Western society has grown accustomed to instant gratification, so in general we expect answers and results right away. Or the complaints might be fueled by anxiety over this election. Or both.

[unclevlad]

37 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

I sincerely hope they keep those last two points in mind.  The (fairly well confirmed) allegations of Trump calling American war dead "suckers and losers" is particularly troubling to me. 

 

My fear is that military members' knee-jerk reactions may be to vote conservative anyway.

 

Military Times had some stories on this.  IIRC, more of the enlisted still intended to vote for Trump, but the numbers were MUCH lower.  Like 60-40 Trump instead of 80-20.  And officers were more likely to vote Biden, particularly in the higher ranks.  Thought it was telling that a very substantial number of *senior* officers publicly repudiated Trump because he's an incompetent commander in chief.

 

[archer]

Relevant excerpt from Trump's "The Art of the Deal"

 

 

[TrickstaPriest]

In case you see these tweets - https://twitter.com/@stillgray lives in (edit) Malaysia  Singapore and is known to promote false information.  That doesn't mean anything for or against what he's tweeting about in this case, but he's very much identified as a disinformation source and possibly trying to incite unrest and violence.

[Lord Liaden]

  

22 minutes ago, archer said:

Relevant excerpt from Trump's "The Art of the Deal"

 

 

 

Since The Art of the Deal was ghost-written for Trump, I wonder how much of that came from him, and how much from his writer. In either case, it's highly unlikely he could express himself that clearly.

 

But Trump has shown repeatedly that from his perspective, while everyone else in the world  may suffer that fallibility, it never applies to him.

[archer]

House Democrats had a three hour long conference call which was essentially live-tweeted as one of the members or their staff let press listen in to the call and tweet out large portions of the content as it was happening.

 

It started out with them ripping into Pelosi liberally but turned to the election in general. About half-way through, members of the press who weren't listening in live started contacting members of congress asking to be allowed to listen in as well and everyone on the call was made aware that their words were being made public. The juicy content apparently dropped off after that.

 

Some interesting quotes from congressmen and congresswomen in their own words:

 

Pelosi: “This has been a life or death fight for the very fate of our democracy. We did not win every battle, but we did win the war. We held the House. Joe Biden is on a clear path to be the next president of the United States.”

 

Democrats need to win both Georgia Senate seats in the January run-off elections in order to have a bare majority when you include the VP's vote. In that specific context, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn: “[if] we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we're not going to win."

 

Pelosi responded by saying House members should focus on an "agenda of lowering health care, better paychecks, building infrastructure.”

 

Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Florida, who lost her race, started crying while urging Democrats to remain unified and not “tweet” attacks at one another.

 

Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, whose race is still undecided: "We need to be pretty clear. It was a failure. It was not a success. We lost incredible members of Congress." As she continued and got more worked up, she yelled, “No one should say ‘defund the police’ ever again. Nobody should be talking about socialism." She went on to warn that Democrats continued in that vein in 2022: "We will get f------ torn apart."

 

Note the House Democrats who lost their races were moderates in swing states so a lot of the content of the call was blaming the more radical talk, and members like The Squad (Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley), for costing the party those seats.

 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington responded that they needed to keep talking up things like socialism and defund the police in order to engage their base, “Our base is turning out to help save this country. If we don't keep these folks engaged … we will lose again in 2024, and we may lose again in the next midterm."

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8919195/House-Dems-cry-feud-wild-conference-call-leaks-live-Twitter.html

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/05/house-democrats-warn-caucus-left-434428

[Ragitsu]

Can you imagine...Donald Trump being the first United States President to not give a concession speech?

[TrickstaPriest]

4 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

Can you imagine...Donald Trump being the first United States President to not give a concession speech?

 

At this point I'm just concerned about whether there is going to be a violent uprising over some of the tally issues and rumor mongering going on in MI.

[Greywind]

3 hours ago, Hermit said:

Well, military votes have to be counted and while it may have changed a lot , in my experience the bulk of the Armed Forces tend to vote conservative. Then again, if they think on how Trump did zero about Russia putting a bounty on their heads and the fact he trashed some honored alum... maybe not.

 

From what I've read that has been said by our intelligence community is that the "rumors" weren't credible, so Trump wasn't briefed on the bounty situation. As for the "losers and suckers", that is a "he said, she said" situation since all the sources were anonymous.
 

 

[TrickstaPriest]

1 minute ago, Greywind said:

 

 

 

 

I do want them to have a correct tally.  But I did literally just post that this story is being spread by a known disinformation agent.  So we'll see.

[Lord Liaden]

The Dems really don't get it. They put up the most moderate, nay right-of-center, candidate they could. They still lost, compared to what they expected to win. Being Republicans with a paint job isn't going to cut it. They need a vision, and they need to sell it to get the public excited. It doesn't matter whether or not they talk about more leftist policies, because the Republicans will accuse them of being socialists without any evidence anyway. But all polls show that the majority of Americans want a government health care option. They want more support for the middle class and small business. They want stricter vetting for gun owners. They want more federal oversight and coordination in the face of crises. They want environmental action. Those policies are winners.

 

I remember a remark made on camera by one delegate to the Democratic primaries: "When we play it safe, like Hillary Clinton, we lose. When we take a chance, like Barack Obama, we win."

[Lord Liaden]

6 minutes ago, Greywind said:

 

From what I've read that has been said by our intelligence community is that the "rumors" weren't credible, so Trump wasn't briefed on the bounty situation. As for the "losers and suckers", that is a "he said, she said" situation since all the sources were anonymous

 

 

Regarding the bounties, according to the Military Times, the intelligence community was confident that said rumors were credible, and Trump was almost certainly briefed on them. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/06/29/white-house-aware-in-2019-of-russian-bounties-on-american-troops-in-afghanistan-officials-say/

[TrickstaPriest]

11 minutes ago, Greywind said:

From what I've read that has been said by our intelligence community is that the "rumors" weren't credible, so Trump wasn't briefed on the bounty situation

 

1 minute ago, Lord Liaden said:

Regarding the bounties, according to the Military Times, the intelligence community was confident that said rumors were credible, and Trump was almost certainly briefed on them. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/06/29/white-house-aware-in-2019-of-russian-bounties-on-american-troops-in-afghanistan-officials-say/

 

I mean, sources are pretty valuable for this kind of question...

[archer]

You know that story about Steve Bannon calling for the beheading of Fauci and the director of the FBI. And that he's already been arrested by the FBI and is out on bail at the moment.

 

Apparently his lawyers didn't like him inciting violence against public figures.

https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/steve-bannons-lawyers-are-running-for-the-hills-after-clients-insane-call-for-dr-faucis-head/

 

The prosecution will probably ask that his bail be revoked as well (but that request wouldn't be granted).

 

But I find the response of his law team highly humorous:

 

 

 

 

 

[TrickstaPriest]

11 minutes ago, archer said:

You know that story about Steve Bannon calling for the beheading of Fauci and the director of the FBI. And that he's already been arrested by the FBI and is out on bail at the moment.

Well.  I didn't know he had been arrested.

[Lord Liaden]

Over a dozen years ago, we had a poster here (who shall remain nameless) who used to argue for the "inherent superiority of Western culture." Among the rebuttal points I remember making was that it's easy for a particular society to behave magnanimously when it believes itself to be secure and dominant. When they see themselves as threatened, is when people's true character will emerge.

[TrickstaPriest]

4 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Over a dozen years ago, we had a poster here (who shall remain nameless) who used to argue for the "inherent superiority of Western culture." Among the rebuttal points I remember making was that it's easy for a particular society to behave magnanimously when it believes itself to be secure and dominant. When they see themselves as threatened, is when people's true character will emerge.

 

Good times.  😕  And I'm not surprised so many people are trying to incite even more violence.  We (democrats) always look the other way on it, even when they call people like us literal demons.  So of course threats of violence become more and more appealing... because they are certain they'll win, and then everything will be better.

 

Anyway, just my headspace today.  The 'revolutionaries' seem more interested in killing other upset voters, or officials, than trying to put in the work to actually fix the country.  While people like me are putting in the work to talk to people and trying to fix the country, as we get death threats from the revolutionaries.

 

So I guess we are supposed to accept death threats against judges from more of Trump's (ex)staff?  (edit:  I haven't exactly forgotten Stone, hence the picture)

 

[BoloOfEarth]

57 minutes ago, Greywind said:

 As for the "losers and suckers", that is a "he said, she said" situation since all the sources were anonymous.

 

When a reporter at Trump's own cheerleader press pals confirmed the reports (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/05/trump-fox-news-journalist-jennifer-griffin-soldiers-losers), that seems fairly solid to me.

[TrickstaPriest]

Another thread that could be looked into, no idea if it's accurate.  Just something for someone with more time to dig down in: