US Politics- Roger Stoned to Death

[Maithanet]

37 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Georgia ya'll-

University of Georgia to allow football -- but not in-person voting -- this fall

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/16/politics/uga-georgia-voting-football/index.html

Just perfect, no hypocrisy here, move along!

Looks like Georgia caved to reason political pressure. 

[Mindwalker]

Trump has begun to mention lawyers wrt the election, I don't remember if it was at the town hall meeting or  a rally.

[DireWolfSpirit]

It's going to be the most fucked up American election in our lives.

Again, team Biden needs to be on the offensive if he stands any chance against the Republicans thieving this.

[Week]

27 minutes ago, argonak said:

I got called crazy because I said Trump can do anything he really really wants to because there's no one who can actually counter him at this point.  Here's another data point in my favor.

If congress doesn't start doing something about this disrespect, then they're just going to get ignored and marginalized further, until they might as well not exist at all.   All of this doesn't go away just because Democrats win the Presidency.  And if they don't, then its just going to get worse.

This is essentially the impetus for my thinking along these lines. Some backbone needs to be established.

[Zorral]

15 hours ago, DMC said:

Will off-duty officers seize ballots by gunpoint?  No.  Will off-duty officers seize ballots at all?  Not likely, particularly in states and districts run by Democrats, which constitutes the vast majority of places you'd be worried about.  So, yes, this is fantastical.

Are police going to violently attack voters at precincts?  No, they aren't that stupid.  It will be caught on camera.  Will police and non-police do everything to intimate voters without looking like the aggressors, or try to provoke protesters into looking like the aggressors?  You bet.  So, yes, your idea is fantastical, or at least unrefined.

Who gives a shit what the state legislature does?  We've already had this conversation.  This only matters if the election is very close.  In which case, for the thousandth time, I agree with you Trump will probably prevail.

The cops / police departments of the USA, across the board, are all in with him.  The mayor of NYC hasn't got any power over the cops at all.  They laugh in his face, when they aren't threatening to kill him -- to his face.  They've stopped working entirely at enforcing any law that he doesn't like, including mass gatherings and wearing masks, etc.

From the beginning you keep saying such and such can't happen because blahblahblah, and then it happens.  Then you don't say, Oooops.  You say the next thing now they are pushing to do can't happen, and then it does.  You've been doing this for years.  And you have never been right.  When will you learn?

When will the Dems ever learn that bringing lawyers to a knife fight -- a knife fight moreover, in which the other side is shooting real live ammunition -- is of no use whatsoever.

 

[argonak]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The cops / police departments of the USA, across the board, are all in with him.  The mayor of NYC hasn't got any power over the cops at all.  They laugh in his face, when they aren't threatening to kill him -- to his face.  They've stopped working entirely at enforcing any law that he doesn't like, including mass gatherings and wearing masks, etc.

From the beginning you keep saying such and such can't happen because blahblahblah, and then it happens.  Then you don't say, Oooops.  You say the next thing now they are pushing to do can't happen, and then it does.  You've been doing this for years.  And you have never been right.  When will you learn?

When will the Dems ever learn that bringing lawyers to a knife fight -- a knife fight moreover, in which the other side is shooting real live ammunition -- is of no use whatsoever.

 

There's a lot of places in this country where the police departments seem to resemble well organized gangs than actual police forces.  What's a small town mayor supposed to do when the Police Chief refuses to follow orders, and suddenly police cars are constantly following the mayor's family around town.   We've seen this happen in other countries where law and order starts to break down.  If the Feds and FBI aren't on the side of Law, everything starts to fall apart.

[Fez]

I'm not too worried about Trump legal shennanigans. It seems like the Biden campaign is well prepared for that kind of thing; far more than Gore was in 2000. And based on all the court cases so far, it doesn't seem like most judges have any patience for the kinds of nonsense the Trump campaign might get up to. I also don't believe that Roberts, or Gorsuch (or possibly Kavanaugh) would sanction anything outrageous.

I am more worried about Trump going extra-legal. There is no counter to the kinds of hard power the President can command, unless they refuse to act. And while I don't believe the military would actively support anything, I can very easily see them sitting by and not doing anything while others act. Unless there's a clear result that Trump is trying to overturn. That's why its so important that Biden gets 270+ EV called for him on election night. It doesn't solve everything, but it would help a lot.

[Zorral]

You need more than a lawyer in these times.  You need to have a blunt force at disposal too.

And we call him shoggoth, shoggoth, shoggoth, we call him shoggoth:

Quote

'It felt like tentacles': the women who accuse Trump of sexual misconduct

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/17/amy-dorris-donald-trump-women-who-accuse-sexual-misconduct

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

I'm not too worried about Trump legal shennanigans. It seems like the Biden campaign is well prepared for that kind of thing; far more than Gore was in 2000. And based on all the court cases so far, it doesn't seem like most judges have any patience for the kinds of nonsense the Trump campaign might get up to. I also don't believe that Roberts, or Gorsuch (or possibly Kavanaugh) would sanction anything outrageous.

I am more worried about Trump going extra-legal. There is no counter to the kinds of hard power the President can command, unless they refuse to act. And while I don't believe the military would actively support anything, I can very easily see them sitting by and not doing anything while others act. Unless there's a clear result that Trump is trying to overturn. That's why its so important that Biden gets 270+ EV called for him on election night. It doesn't solve everything, but it would help a lot.

I don't think 270 on election night will be reliably called for either side though. Hence the fighting and inevitable chaos breaks out.

[Maithanet]

18 minutes ago, Fez said:

I am more worried about Trump going extra-legal. There is no counter to the kinds of hard power the President can command, unless they refuse to act. And while I don't believe the military would actively support anything, I can very easily see them sitting by and not doing anything while others act. Unless there's a clear result that Trump is trying to overturn. That's why its so important that Biden gets 270+ EV called for him on election night. It doesn't solve everything, but it would help a lot.

AZ, PA, MI, WI and IA all will not be called on election night.  NC, GA, MN, OH, maybe, although all those states could have some ballots still waiting to arrive/uncounted.  FL and TX should.

If Biden wins FL and loses TX, then he's going to win the election, but he still probably won't get over 270.  The only way it happens is if NC and MN (or GA) are both called for Biden that night too, which seems fairly unlikely.

[Kalbear]

All of those states are going to be called by Fox News unless they're overwhelmingly for Biden.

[Fez]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You need more than a lawyer in these times.  You need to have a blunt force at disposal too.

It's true. Warren Zevon called out the power of Lawyers, Guns, and Money over 40 years ago now. Gotta have all three.

9 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I don't think 270 on election night will be reliably called for either side though. Hence the fighting and inevitable chaos breaks out.

I'm not confident in it happening, but if the current polls are right, I could see it. 

 

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

AZ, PA, MI, WI and IA all will not be called on election night.  NC, GA, MN, OH, maybe, although all those states could have some ballots still waiting to arrive/uncounted.  FL and TX should.

If Biden wins FL and loses TX, then he's going to win the election, but he still probably won't get over 270.  The only way it happens is if NC and MN (or GA) are both called for Biden that night too, which seems fairly unlikely.

I disagree. If the margins for Biden, or Trump, are large enough, a lot of those states could be called election night even if some ballots haven't been tallied yet. I believe it's only PA, MI, and WI that don't count ballots until election night, so they're the most likely to have delays. Some states, like AZ, can be really slow, but again it comes back to margin. Sinema was down by 1% on election night and ended up winning by 2.4%. If Biden is really up by +5 or so, there's a good chance he'll be up election night. Maybe the state still doesn't get called, but it'll depend on how many raw votes are outstanding.

Delaware just had by far the highest turnout primary in its history this week, mostly by mail, and everything was quickly counted Tuesday night. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

7 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

All of those states are going to be called by Fox News unless they're overwhelmingly for Biden.

Yep and the lies will get repeated ad nauseum till all the legions believe those "alternative Fox facts!"

[Week]

9 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

All of those states are going to be called by Fox News unless they're overwhelmingly for Biden.

Ugh, I'm concerned in advance for what my level of intoxicants will be during this shit show of a night.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, argonak said:

Whatever they want to.  All it has to do is muddy the waters enough until it gets to a court full of Trump Judges.  We've already seen pretty much this exact scenario play out in Bush v Gore.  Biden seems more prepared for it however.

Bush v Gore stopped a recount, and confirmed Harris' certification of Florida's election results.  That's quite different than stopping the first actual count and, other than in Florida, no SoS of a swing state is going to certify bullshit results.  As for finding a court full of Trump judges, all cases will eventually go to SCOTUS.  As I've said numerous times, if the election is very close, I expect Roberts to find some pretext to give the election to Trump.  But, as has been his consistent behavior throughout the Trump administration, Roberts is not going to blatantly allow Trump to steal the election and risk the legitimacy of the court.  That's his primary interest.  Trump is certainly gonna sue any chance he gets, that's his MO.  But stopping a count because mail-in ballots "rig" elections is a thoroughly dumb legal strategy.

56 minutes ago, Zorral said:

From the beginning you keep saying such and such can't happen because blahblahblah, and then it happens.  Then you don't say, Oooops.  You say the next thing now they are pushing to do can't happen, and then it does.  You've been doing this for years.  And you have never been right.  When will you learn?

Examples?  Hm, let's see.  During the Mueller investigation many here insisted Trump would fire him - and he clearly wanted to.  I said he wouldn't because certain GOP Senators clearly signaled they were against it, and he didn't.  Many here insisted he would abolish the filibuster, I said McConnell wouldn't let him.  And he didn't.  I said the Dems had a good chance of retaking the House in 2018 while many here insisted it would be impossible due to gerrymandering and vote suppression, and he did.  During the shutdown many insisted Trump would keep it shutdown until he extracted concessions, I said he'd get nothing out of it and would end it when his polling started to substantially drop, and that's what happened.

When did I ever say the protests wouldn't result in violence and Trump would signal support for corrupt/violent police and armed militias?  When did I ever say he wouldn't lock children up in cages?  Hell, when did I ever say he wouldn't try extra-legal means to steal the election and the GOP would employ massive efforts at vote suppression?  Cuz I've consistently been concerned about at least the latter.  I apologize if I don't base my analysis on coming up with sophomoric nicknames and rambling barely-coherent invective generated from pathos and outrage but rather empiricism.

[Mindwalker]

Oh, I see the legal shenanigans have already begun: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/516801-trump-campaign-seeks-to-stop-nj-early-vote-count-pending-lawsuit

[Padraig]

5 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

You are a better person than I, Pod. Thank you for trying to have a reasoned conversation with this person. I wish you luck and patience. I don't think you'll ever be able to really dismantle the racism that is clearly driving this person's thought-processes (I mean, nobody but the person holding the racist beliefs can do that, but you know what I'm getting at there), but hopefully you can at least make some headway on Green New Deal.

Well.  After exploring this a little more.  I was very likely naive.

I have engaged but people rarely change their minds from that sort of position.   We all know that at a general level.  I just thought I was "special" enough to show one person the light.

There probably were warning signs in the past that I missed.

It's depressing.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Padraig said:

Well.  After exploring this a little more.  I was very likely naive.

I have engaged but people rarely change their minds from that sort of position.   We all know that at a general level.  I just thought I was "special" enough to show one person the light.

There probably were warning signs in the past that I missed.

It's depressing.

It really is. It's incredibly depressing to me to see exactly how easy it is for just regular people to fall into these kinds of things, and how pervasive it is in our world now.