US Politics - And Now it Begins

[Fragile Bird]

Good grief, Trump just called a press conference, walked out with Pence by his side, congratulated his administration for all the hard work they did because the stock market hit 30,000 for the first time ever, and walked out without acknowledging anyone or taking a question.

Funny, people have been saying the market has been surging because Biden won and sanity will return to the US government. And these past two days the market has been very happy Yellen will be announced as the Treasurer and this last surge to hit 30,000 was that announcement.

eta: oh, and he called 30,000 a “sacred number”. I kid you not, a sacred number.

CNBC interrupted their program to go to the press conference and on returning to the show the host mentioned the sacred number thing and no one said anything else.

[Corvinus85]

16 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Good grief, Trump just called a press conference, walked out with Pence by his side, congratulated his administration for all the hard work they did because the stock market hit 30,000 for the first time ever, and walked out without acknowledging anyone or taking a question.

Funny, people have been saying the market has been surging because Biden won and sanity will return to the US government. And these past two days the market has been very happy Yellen will be announced as the Treasurer and this last surge to hit 30,000 was that announcement.

eta: oh, and he called 30,000 a “sacred number”. I kid you not, a sacred number.

CNBC interrupted their program to go to the press conference and on returning to the show the host mentioned the sacred number thing and no one said anything else.

journalists should start wearing clothing items that say "I survived a presidential press conference that could have been a tweet".

[Week]

14 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

eta: oh, and he called 30,000 a “sacred number”. I kid you not, a sacred number.

It was in Two Corinthians, I think. 

Quote

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing stock prices, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits 30,000.

 

[Tywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

I agree that the danger seems like its passed. But if a legislature did want to go YOLO, I don't think certification would stop anything. They would just say that as the legislature they are deeming the vote irrelevant and are choosing change how the elector slate is elected and to award a slate to Trump, per their authority in the Constitution. And then rely on SCOTUS to say, yes, legislatures can do this.

 

In other news, it sounds like Democrats may actually win the IA-2 seat on recount:

It's not clear yet, but this would be a huge win for Democrats; considering how tight the House margin is. 

Meanwhile, NY22 continues to sound like a total shitshow, and I wouldn't be surprised if the seat remains vacant for months (a la Franklin not getting Coleman's senate until June in 2009).

And people think their votes don't matter.

Also, who is this shady Franklin character you speak of? 

[DanteGabriel]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

In other news, it sounds like Democrats may actually win the IA-2 seat on recount:

That's amazing. Wow, 47 votes! I wonder if a House election has ever been that close, at least in the last few decades.

Back in the mid 90s a family friend ran for a seat on the LAUSD school board. He won by something like 28 votes. I helped as an observer in the recount, literally looking at hanging chads on the ballots along with a government employee and an observer from the other campaign, and at my table we actually got him 2 extra votes.

[Maithanet]

6 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

That's amazing. Wow, 47 votes! I wonder if a House election has ever been that close, at least in the last few decades.

Back in the mid 90s a family friend ran for a seat on the LAUSD school board. He won by something like 28 votes. I helped as an observer in the recount, literally looking at hanging chads on the ballots along with a government employee and an observer from the other campaign, and at my table we actually got him 2 extra votes.

I remember that control of the VA state senate after the 2017 election was decided by literally a tie vote.  So they drew lots from a hat, the Republican won, and the Republicans held control of the VA state senate for two more years. 

As for the US House, I'm not aware of any races that were decided by less than 50 votes in many years.  According to this the Democrat won the Indiana 8th district by just 4 votes in 1984, after trailing in the initial count. 

[Martell Spy]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Good grief, Trump just called a press conference, walked out with Pence by his side, congratulated his administration for all the hard work they did because the stock market hit 30,000 for the first time ever, and walked out without acknowledging anyone or taking a question.

Funny, people have been saying the market has been surging because Biden won and sanity will return to the US government. And these past two days the market has been very happy Yellen will be announced as the Treasurer and this last surge to hit 30,000 was that announcement.

eta: oh, and he called 30,000 a “sacred number”. I kid you not, a sacred number.

CNBC interrupted their program to go to the press conference and on returning to the show the host mentioned the sacred number thing and no one said anything else.

Hard to believe he did not bring the large bible.

[Fez]

17 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

That's amazing. Wow, 47 votes! I wonder if a House election has ever been that close, at least in the last few decades.

Back in the mid 90s a family friend ran for a seat on the LAUSD school board. He won by something like 28 votes. I helped as an observer in the recount, literally looking at hanging chads on the ballots along with a government employee and an observer from the other campaign, and at my table we actually got him 2 extra votes.

In the US, for Federal races, the record remains the New Hampshire senate race in 1974. After multiple recounts, it looked like Louis Wyman won the race by *2* votes: 110,926 to 110,924. But that only the start of the crazy: Wyman was a Republican, and Democrats held the senate at the time. They refused to seat him, citing controversy over a bunch of ballots and the fact that the first recount had Wyman still losing by *10* votes. They tried seating his opponent instead, but Republicans filibustered that. The senate rules committee had New Hampshire ship the various disputed ballots to them and tried to figure out how to allocate them themselves to determine a winner; effectively taking over administration of the election from the state. But they couldn't resolve things either. Eventually, in August 1975, New Hampshire's governor agreed to have a do-over special election and Wyman lost by 27,000 votes as the backlash against Watergate was getting bigger and bigger.

The whole thing was insane, and I can't imagine what the reaction would be if it happened today. I don't think anyone was really following the law at any point.

5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I remember that control of the VA state senate after the 2017 election was decided by literally a tie vote.  So they drew lots from a hat, the Republican won, and the Republicans held control of the VA state senate for two more years. 

Yeah, that was crazy. But it was also a much smaller electorate than a US house or senate seat; the odds of a tie are still insanely low but not by quite as much.

[Ormond]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I remember that control of the VA state senate after the 2017 election was decided by literally a tie vote.  So they drew lots from a hat, the Republican won, and the Republicans held control of the VA state senate for two more years. 

 

That was remarkable, but it was the House of Delegates, not the State Senate:

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/04/573504079/virginia-republican-david-yancey-wins-tie-breaking-drawing

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

That was remarkable, but it was the House of Delegates, not the State Senate:

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/04/573504079/virginia-republican-david-yancey-wins-tie-breaking-drawing

Jeez, they should have at least arm-wrestled for it.

Drawing lots is a stupid method of breaking a tie. They should do randomly selected Kahoots until one of them wins.

Speaking of stupid things. I'm guessing there is going to be a spike in COVID-19 cases 5-7 days after Thanksgiving/Black Friday. Tell me that's a bad guess.

[Tywin et al.]

1 minute ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Jeez, they should have at least arm-wrestled for it.

Drawing lots is a stupid method of breaking a tie. They should do randomly selected Kahoots until one of them wins.

Nah, I vote for a Raiders of the Lost Ark drinking game.

[SFDanny]

9 hours ago, DMC said:

This may work for Sinema and Tester (I also think both may be pliable with carrots instead of sticks), but not Manchin.  Such pressure would lead him to break not bend - he'd simply switch parties.  I think it may be worthwhile to try to sell him on the rationale that eliminating the filibuster in cases of statehood is analogous to eliminating it for confirmation votes, and therefore not eliminating the legislative filibuster, but changing the composition of the court is definitely off the table.

Oh, I agree primary threats won't work with Manchin. He is probably the only Democrat who has a chance of winning in today's West Virginia. It is quite probably the wrong tactic to use with Tester or Sinema. My point is only that they need to be persuaded to change their position if we ever get to the point the Democrats can change the rules. The suggestion of Norm Ornstein for a different form of cloture rules that @Ran suggests might be the answer. The use of reason is always the better method when dealing with allies, and most times with opponents as well.

Let's get two more Democratic Senators from Georgia before we say what is possible and what is not. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Maybe one day, all elections will be decided by 1 vote!  We can only hope!

eta: or maybe the candidates arm wrestle!  holy bejesus the possibilities are overwhelming!

[DMC]

27 minutes ago, SFDanny said:

The suggestion of Norm Ornstein for a different form of cloture rules that @Ran suggests might be the answer. The use of reason is always the better method when dealing with allies, and most times with opponents as well.

Let's get two more Democratic Senators from Georgia before we say what is possible and what is not. 

In addition to Ornstein's suggestion, there are many ways to reform the filibuster without abolishing it - see here.  Those should all be explored, and perhaps you could get Manchin on board with one or more of them.  My point is you're not gonna get him to budge on changing the composition of the court.  So, just based on simple math, I don't think it's premature to say that's off the table for the 117th Congress outside of unforeseen vacancies/replacements.

[A True Kaniggit]

6 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

 

eta: or maybe the candidates arm wrestle!  holy bejesus the possibilities are overwhelming!

Pistols. At dawn.

The results would be in same day for every race!

[Fragile Bird]

I just watched a report on CNN showing that Trump diehards are still fighting the good fight for Trump, trying to overturn the election, and they’re angry at the two senators, saying they’re not doing enough to help Trump.

Sounds like a good chance people will be pissed off and not vote, but people who the reporters spoke to said even though they are angry at the Republican Party in Georgia, they’ll still come out to vote.

Funnily enough nobody seems to expect Trump to show his face, so I guess I was wrong on that front. The narcissist will not care.

[Tywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Funnily enough nobody seems to expect Trump to show his face, so I guess I was wrong on that front. The narcissist will not care.

And his excuses are already built in. If they win he can claim it was a fair election and support for Trump is real and if he loses he can say the elections were rigged and the Senators were not pro-Trump enough.

Which gets to the larger question, is there any way to get the Republican party to return to some semblance of sanity? The answer is probably no, at least in the short term.

[DanteGabriel]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

Which gets to the larger question, is there any way to get the Republican party to return to some semblance of sanity? The answer is probably no, at least in the short term.

A couple of years ago I would have said it'd be possible over a few years or even a decade if Fox News just vanished into the world's memory hole, but I think the right wing arglebarglesphere is too encompassing and self-sustaining. Outrage and grievance and wounded mediocrity and magical thinking is too toxic and potent a blend to wean people off of. Feels like we're trapped in a spaceship with a bunch of people who think the only way to save themselves is to open all the airlocks to the void.

[Fez]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Which gets to the larger question, is there any way to get the Republican party to return to some semblance of sanity? The answer is probably no, at least in the short term.

They'll take their cues from the head of the party, whoever that is. E.g. in 2008, there was certainly some crazy on the fringes, but the GOP was mostly just bad policy since Bush and McCain for the most part weren't supportive of it. Once McCain lost though, the crazies ignored him and went full bore crazy, starting with the Tea Party conspiracy stuff.

If Republicans ever have a successful nominee again who wants to put a damper on the crazy, I think most of the party will follow along; at least for the 4/8 years that person is in the White House. But I think the odds of this is low. Even if a non-true believer wins, they'll probably find it too useful to pander to the crazy, the way Romney circa 2012 mostly did.

[Tywin et al.]

12 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

A couple of years ago I would have said it'd be possible over a few years or even a decade if Fox News just vanished into the world's memory hole, but I think the right wing arglebarglesphere is too encompassing and self-sustaining. Outrage and grievance and wounded mediocrity and magical thinking is too toxic and potent a blend to wean people off of. Feels like we're trapped in a spaceship with a bunch of people who think the only way to save themselves is to open all the airlocks to the void.

Difficult deciding whether to laugh or cry at that analogy.