Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

Good Morning! Care of The Beatles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjb9AxDkwAQ

[grb]

And good morning to you, sir!

[Frank Drackman]

Helter Skelter, she’s coming down fast

[John F. Carr]

YouTube wants to sell me tickets to a Beatles event. Who is going to tell them?

[Mr. Bumble]

Maybe there will be a revival of "Beatlemania".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatlemania_(musical)

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Maybe it was a spelling error and they meant this.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vw-bugs-brew-annual-car-show-2024-tickets-840515503497

[AmosArch]

Hot Tip: Local elections are often nonpartisan and ignored by many people but a couple minutes google search can help you make a more informed choice by uncovering closet Dems and help prevent you from accidentally voting for them.

I myself managed to uncover and vote down 2 closeted Dems I may have otherwise inadvertently supported in this election. News articles will often clue you in and there are easily accessible voter registration records in some cases. In lieu of that looking at endorsements and answers to specific questions can provide you with an accurate way to determine affiliation. I was able to quickly whittle down a list of ‘nonpartisan’ candidates by seeing which ones blathered nonsense about climate change or criminal justice reform. Also some of the more complicatedly worded propositions I was able to reject out of hand without having to read it once i saw it was supported by organizations like NOW or PP.

For candidates whose affiliations are listed you can save time by voting against any Democrat and be reasonably assured you’ve efficiently minimized the amount of bad candidates you have picked. Voting party line has a bad rap but you’ll probably come to the same conclusions anyway if you waste 10 minutes a pop investigating a Dem candidate you do not know and finding out that surprise surprise they’re as insane as all the others. The minimal amount of extra effort you put in to making a more informed choice on local elections will be more than made up by all the time you will save!

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Remember when you thought Dick Cheney had the best judgment of anyone in government?? That was weird, right??

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2022-02-18.html#05

[John F. Carr]

In the very liberal city where I used to live a Republican was elected thanks to nonpartisan local elections.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I know of a Western Massachusetts town that still had partisan election for town meeting moderator. Everyone in town was pissed at the moderator so they instead voted for the Republican, a kid who was a couple years out of college. That was 20 years ago and I believe he still is moderator because he was/is considered "fair" to all.

[Krayt]

My state votes for SC justices. Abortion is a hot topic, and one candidate says vote for her as she will protect it, unlike her opponent.

Fair enough. The only issue was she was lambasting him for being “political”, while being 180 degrees the opposite. Shall SC justices play the facetious game of claiming non-political, and so not being goal oriented?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

We don't elect court of appeals (the highest court) in my state.

We choose pre-selected slates of judges for various lower court slots.

https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/11/02/very-bad-judgment-new-york-state-is-wrong-to-elect-judges/

[John F. Carr]

In the NYC area a donation of a certain size to a local Democratic organization used to be all it took to become a judge. Local party officials would nominate you and the Democratic candidate always won.

[jb]

When I voted this year there weren't any judicial candidates but the Democrats. So that definitely makes it easy for them to always win.

[Commenter_XY]

I wonder about the aftermath of this election. No matter the result, roughly half the country will be bitterly disappointed. The race is a statistical tie. I don’t think it is just the national race, either. There are bitterly contested races close to home as well.

What and how does the winning side reach out to the losing side, to attempt to heal the worst and bitterest divisions?

Final Election Prediction
Pres Trump wins EC 281-257 (carries PA, loses rest of blue wall)
- He will win the most votes, nationally (48.7%)
Senate: Team R walks away with 53 seats
House: Team R ends with 227 seats.

other: PA will take 7-10 days to count and sort out; unless a blowout

[AmosArch]

A system where half the population feels shit on every 4 years is an inherently flawed system that will probably collapse sooner rather than later. Some of the biggest single culprits are the mainstream media and professional grievance industry (sjws). And the sewers that they thrive in like social media, dei positions, and useless parasitic academic departments. A good first step would be to take steps to curb these especially in areas where they are sponging off the public dime to make trouble. This will be problematic when one major party derives its power from drumming up as much racial, sex, and class based division as possible but it must be done. Also devolving as much power as possible to as low a level as possible.

[AmosArch]

I’d like to explain to some of the more well meaning conservatives that there can be no accommodation with the more radical DEI SJW grievance wing of leftists. In the most optimal world where you can somehow magically acquiesce to every demand and give them everything that they want they will simply keep inventing new categories of oppression ad infinitum. This is not just a theoretical phenomenon this is seen in real life where you see them skulk from class to race to gays to trans inflaming things hardly anyone ever thought about before into massive divisive battles that were suddenly the most important thing in the universe. I’m sure once they get done with crying over bearded dudes in pink tutus not being able to undress in front of little girls there will be yet another even more ridiculous thing they will whine and moan and thrash around about. They don’t really want any lasting solutions because its the grievance itself that they live for.

[Dr. Ed 2]

One solution would be Jim Crow 2.0 -- I'm not saying the best, but one solution...

[Noscitur a sociis]

What

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm getting worried about you.

[Commenter_XY]

I passed that point awhile back. There is hyperbole, and then...

[not guilty]

I remain puzzled by those who use "Social Justice Warrior" as an epithet. I would think that being mentioned in the same company as Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi would be quite an honor.

[Brett Bellmore]

The term is being used sarcastically, in case you didn't understand.

[Mr. Bumble]

You're talking to a guy who thinks Judge Shitcan should be on the USSC.

[not guilty]

Where do you get that, Mr. Bumble? I don’t recall having ever expressed that opinion.

IMO Judge Chutkan would be well qualified for SCOTUS. But at age 62, she is a bit long in the tooth for nomination.

Since World War II the only member of the Court older than that when first nominated was Lewis Powell at age 64.

[not guilty]

I understand that the phrase is intended sarcastically, Brett. I don't understand why those who use the phrase regard that sarcasm as being effective or persuasive.

[Brett Bellmore]

They're not trying to persuade you, they think you're a lost cause. They're talking amongst themselves, referring to you sarcastically.

[Riva]

It comes from the modern democrats' perversion of the concept of social justice. Democrats have turned it into an epithet just like they did for the term liberal.

[Ed Grinberg]

It's hard to come up with a better example than this (hat tip to Bored Lawyer).

[William of Brooklyn]

It was also the term used by Father Coughlin.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I remain puzzled by those who use “Social Justice Warrior” as an epithet. I would think that being mentioned in the same company as Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi would be quite an honor.

I'm guessing you're equally clueless regarding the actual meaning of "virtue signaling". Have someone qualified have a look at your sarcasm detector, as it appears to be completely non-functional.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

For white garbage you sure are good with words!! You are like Vance and his violent drug addicted skank of a mother!!

[Krychek_2]

AmosArch, it's important to distinguish whether your half actually is being shit on, or merely feels that way because of the white grievance industry. And, to the extent you actually are being shit on, it's largely because poor rural whites persist in voting for the party that looks after the interests of billionaires rather than their interests. They are getting what they voted for.

[Michael P]

Nobody is buying your baloney.

[Armchair]

Krychek...

Whether they are "actually" being shit upon, or just "feel like" they are being shit upon, to a first approximation, it doesn't matter.

You get that, right?

[Krychek_2]

It matters in terms of how to fix the problem. The problem has very different solutions if it's based on reality, or merely based on perception.

[Armchair]

This may surprise you, but to a certain extent that doesn't matter.

If you think the problem is they don't have health insurance...so you give them free health insurance...and you think they need more money...so you give them free money...and they still feel shit upon (entirely likely). You'll be confused.

What you need to do is actually listen to them, and why they feel shit upon and fix that perception. Rather than what YOU THINK the problem is.

[Krychek_2]

OK, let’s apply that to Trump. He was born to wealth and privilege, got into great schools despite terrible grades, got lots of money from dad to start businesses, and even got to be president despite having lost the popular vote. Yet to hear him tell it, nobody has ever suffered such injustice and unfairness as he has. The sufferings at Auschwitz are a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of the injustice he has suffered. So, should he be listened to, or simply told to stop being a spoiled brat with a massive sense of entitlement?

And no, I’m not saying impoverished rural whites are spoiled brats with a massive sense of entitlement. Just that the mere fact that someone feels aggrieved does not mean they have an objective basis for feeling aggrieved, or that they are blaming the right person.

So, what do YOU THINK the problem is?

[Life of Brian]

He was born to wealth and privilege, got into great schools despite terrible grades, got lots of money from dad to start businesses, and even got to be president despite having lost the popular vote. Yet to hear him tell it, nobody has ever suffered such injustice and unfairness as he has.

John Venn would like a word.

[Magister]

John Venn would like a word.

In support of women voting.

[Bob from Ohio]

"impoverished rural whites"

Most rural whites are not "impoverished ", many have more money than you.

Its just hillbilly prejudice.

[Krychek_2]

My point is that the ones who are impoverished tend to vote Republican even though doing so is completely contrary to their own interests.

[Armchair]

And what are "their interests"? And why do you think you know their interests better than they do?

[Armchair]

"So, what do YOU THINK the problem is?"

What do I think the problem is? You (and those liberal elites in power) don't listen. That's the problem. You tell. You don't listen.

You tell others what their problem is, you tell them how you fixed (what you said the problem was), they still aren't happy (because you didn't listen in the first place), and then you tell them it's their fault or they don't have a basis to complain.

You don't listen. That's the core problem. In my opinion.

[Krychek_2]

Assume that to be true. What am I supposed to think when they then cut off their own noses to spite their faces? Their feelings are hurt so they're going to vote for the party that will make their own economic situation even worse?

I'm a trial lawyer. One of the things that comes with being a trial attorney is that you get insulted a lot -- by judges, by opposing counsel, sometimes by your own client. Yet I am expected to be an adult, rise above it, and act in my client's best interests, even though it sometimes means kissing up someone who just treated me badly, because getting a good result is more important than my hurt feelings. That's the way it works.

So when I see impoverished Americans voting for the billionaire party because the party that would actually do some good for them hurt their feelings (real or perceived), it's sometimes tempting to say fine, vote GOP and watch your social safety net disappear even further. But then rationality sets in and I find I care about their economic interests more than they do.

[Armchair]

"Assume that to be true. What am I supposed to think when they then cut off their own noses to spite their faces?"

Have you asked them why they voted Republican? Does everything "have" to be directly economic? Perhaps, just perhaps, it's not necessarily about the direct economics. Or perhaps the actual policies put in place by Democrats end up hurting them economically, through indirect means?

Perhaps you should think about these things. Think, why does a rich lesbian couple vote Democrat, if it hurts them economically?

[Brett Bellmore]

Say I think income redistribution is evil, a violation of property rights, and you promise to rob my neighbor and give me some of the proceeds.

Is it irrational of me to vote against my interests, as you see them?

Airmchair is right: The left is continually refusing to accept that other people are entitled to their own preference rankings. People who think they disagree with you about what's good for them are suffering from "false consciousness", if only they knew what was good for them, they'd support you, and you're actually upholding their real preferences when you walk all over them.

[Krychek_2]

How do Democrat policies end up hurting them economically? If your household income is less than 75k a year, you are going to be better off economically with the Democrats in power, period, full stop.

And no, I don't think it's false consciousness. I think I've already said this here; I have a sister with multiple disabilities on SSI who votes GOP because she's a racist who hates immigrants. Then she calls me and cries because her benefits are being cut and she doesn't know how she's going to survive -- at least she did before I very bluntly told her she's getting what she's voting for. She knows full well that she's hurting herself economically by voting Republican and she does not care; sending the wetbacks back to Mexico (and while we're at it, send the blacks back to Africa too) is more important to her.

She's entitled to her priorities, and I'm entitled to think she's stupid. And nothing the Democrats say or do is likely to change her mind, so why bother?

[Magister]

Republican voters say the economy is the most important issue, but then ignore that the economy in general and for them in particular is better under Democratic presidents. They may think they're voting their economic interests because Republicans steadily lie to them.

[Armchair]

Krychek,

As I mentioned, the problem is...you're not listening. You're telling.

There's an incredible paternalistic tone in your phrasing, that goes something along the lines of "They should vote Democrat, because that's what's good for them, and if they don't they are idiots and racists and fuck them".

Maybe...just maybe..with some of them, Democratic policies actually hurt them. Maybe banning fracking or environmental restrictions against mining cause the oil engineers and coal miners to lose their jobs, and those waitresses and line cooks who depends on those miners lose their jobs too.

Perhaps you're all about the "greater good." But your tone doesn't give any leeway, any listening at all. They're idiots if they don't know that Democratic policies are helping them economically 100% and racists if they don't acknowledge that.

And with a paternalistic, condescending tone like that, is it any wonder they feel "shit upon"? You don't listen. You're 100% convinced in your own head, and it brooks no argument otherwise.

[Truthfulness]

@Magister

A recent Politico article has conceded that the Republicans are right. The Biden administration ran a terrible economy.

[bernard11]

why they feel shit upon and fix that perception.

How do you propose to do that? And to start with, what is it they feel shit upon about? Money, job, health care....?

A guy feels shit upon because he has a crappy job and no money. What do you tell him?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

That depends on considerations such as whether he lives in a swing state and his vote is in play. If so, tell him of your plans to give him a better job and more money in exchange for him voting for you.

If he’s not in a swing state or you don’t think he’s going to vote for you no matter what you say, then tell him all his problems are his fault and he should just shut up.

[Krychek_2]

And one of the many arguments against the electoral college is that both parties are able to write off entire states. If you're a Democrat, you do not need to care about reaching out to voters in Alabama or Idaho who might, with the right arguments and approach, be inclined to support you, because their votes don't matter. Ditto if you're a Republican; you don't have to care about trying to get votes in California or New York even though both states have red areas.

I rather like the idea of politicians having to work for my vote no matter where I live.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I think you may have missed the point of my joke.

[bernard11]

Well, it only matters if you want to solve the problem.

[David Nieporent]

It's funny how the same people who mock leftists for their postmodern idea that reality and data don't matter and all that's important are one's lived experiences, and who actually have one of their key figures say "Facts don't care about your feelings" — now all of the sudden all that matters is the feelings of conservative (i.e., white) losers.

[Armchair]

If you're talking about why a group feels shit on, the feelings of the group that is shit on and why they feel that way matters.

Arguing a different set of facts that doesn't actually change how they feel doesn't change their feelings.

[bernard11]

So I should lie to them and tell them their feelings are perfectly justified, whether I think they are or not?

And this will bring peace, somehow?

Shittee: Man, I can't catch a break. Just got fired.
Me: That's too bad. What happened?
Shittee: Well, they made a big deal out of nothing. I showed up late a few times, and then got drunk at lunch and came back and messed up some of the equipment.
Me: (any suggestions, ML?)

[Armchair]

But you see what you did with that conversation? You listened. You asked questions.

Too often, that doesn't happen.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

conservative (i.e., white) losers

You truly have become a real piece of shit.

[Truthfulness]

How does it feel to see your side lose an election so decisively?

[Joe_dallas]

Billionares vote almost exclusively for the democrat party

[Krychek_2]

You're talking about Elon Musk, or the Koch brothers?

[Joe_dallas]

kennedy's, Gates, descendents of the rockerfellers, etc,

[David Nieporent]

1) Kennedy's what?
2) Which Kennedys do you think are billionaires?
3) Not sure which unspecified "descendants of the rockefellers" you are claiming support the Democrat [sic - there's that illiteracy again] party.
4) In addition to Musk, there's Theil, Ackman, Sacks, Adelson, McMahon, Wynn, Uihlein, Schwarzman, Paulson, (Woody) Johnson, Mellon, Ricketts, Mercer… I could go on, but your claim is too stupid to be worth it.

[Joe_dallas]

Your reponse is likewise inane, just shows you have abandoned any rational thought

[Krychek_2]

Dude, David just completely shredded your argument.

[Joe_dallas]

K2 Really shredding my argument -
You are as inane/ partisan and ill informed as DN

zuckerberg
Buffett
Bloomberg
dell
bill gates
melinda gates
james murdoch (not robert murdoch)
Bezos
steve ballmer

[NOVA Lawyer]

lol, so your comeback is to list about the same number of billionaires that vote Democratic? As somehow supporting your argument that billionaires vote "almost exclusively" for the Democratic Party (which you illiterately label the "democrat party")?

That's more embarrassing than just slinking away.

Less embarrassing would be to admit that "almost exclusively" was absolutely, entirely, and in every way, wrong.

[Truthfulness]

@NOVA Lawyer

Joe_dallas literally gave a list. You, David Nieporent and Krychek_2 have not provided a convincing rebuttal. You three are acting very stupid.

[Kazinski]

Actually isn't that the NFL's business model, every week?

I'm feeling shit on right now, after the Seahawks lost in OT to the Rams yesterday. My two sons and I had a conference call during OT doing the play by play, it was not televised in AZ so.I couldn't see it live.

[Frank Drackman]

Same thing happened in 1800, 1824, 1828, 1860, things work themselves out

[Dr. Ed 2]

Team R finds the courage to do what Jefferson did in 1800 and what FDR did in 1937 and tells Team D to go fuck itself. And treats Antafa (et al) exactly the same way the Jan 6th folk were treated -- put them in Guam or Club Gitmo.

[Krychek_2]

FDR told the Democrats to fuck themselves?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes he did -- he purged the Jacksonian Democrats and they became Republicans.

[Magister]

And yet the Democrats retained control of Congress throughout FDR's presidency. Unlike the Trump purge of the Republican party.

[David Nieporent]

Yes he did — he purged the Jacksonian Democrats and they became Republicans.

Is that as true as every other claim you've made about American history? (Yes, yes it is.)

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I think it will be like 1980 with a decisive EC victory even with a lot of close states…Kamala wins!!

[Commenter_XY]

Definition of terms. A decisive EC result to me is >400 EC votes (or ~75%+ of EC). That is atypical, and decisive. It has happened before in US history multiple times.

To me, any EC result <350 EC votes in the election (meaning anything between 271 to 349 EC votes) for either candidate is just a normal election result. We are talking just a few states here or there.

[Krychek_2]

To the long list of reasons why Trump is utterly unfit to be president, add the fact that millions of people now believe our elections are rigged because he's spent four years lying about it for his own personal gain. He's now already claiming that this election is fraudulent even though no polls have closed and no numbers have been announced. He's done everything he can to undermine trust in our basic institutions. Even if he permanently left the scene today, it will take generations to undo the division and bitterness he has sown with his lies.

And here is a word for our evangelical friends who are supporting him: "These six things does the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him . . . he that sows discord among brethren." Proverbs 6:16, 19. (If you read the whole list, Trump does most of the others too.)

[Michael P]

The vote in 2020 was thoroughly rigged -- witness the number of changes to voting procedures that turned out to be illegal. And it was a prime example of the left continuing to sow discord, not that the leftist projectors will ever recognize their own misdeeds.

[Magister]

What changes to voting procedures turned out to be illegal? Trump failed to win any of his 2020 election cases. Many of his lawyers were disgraced or disbarred or convicted.

[Michael P]

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/03/17/court-rules-michigan-secretary-of-state-broke-state-law-on-absentee-ballot-guidelines-before-2020-election/ describes a few (Benson continues to break the law this time around).

https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Supreme/out/J-18A-E-2022mo.pdf was a more egregious case in Pennsylvania.

Wisconsin and Delaware had their own cases, where the state supreme courts ruled that changed procedures in the 2020 elections were illegal and unconstitutional respectively.

[SRG2]

There is a distinction between changes of voting procedures and a rigged election.

As far as voting procedures go, the question is always and only, were people who were constitutionally entitled to vote able to do so, and were people who were not sufficiently prevented from doing so? Whining about steps making it easier to vote because it's claimed they violate state regulations or whatever is not the point.

As no evidence has been brought to show that of votes cast, more than a minuscule number were cast by people who did not have the right to vote, nor that legitimate votes were incorrectly counted as to affect the outcome of the election, the election was not rigged.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, so you're saying that there isn't a problem if people in one area of a state have one set of voting hours, and people in another area have longer hours? Not a problem if voting is made easier in selected areas, rather than globally?

Look, if you want people to accept election outcomes, you need to follow the rules. Not just the rules you like, all the rules. People who lose are always looking for excuses to think they were robbed; Why go out of your way to give them excuses?

[Magister]

Republicans have worked hard to have too few voting locations for Democratic leaning areas. Voters in line when polls close still get to vote.

[bernard11]

you’re saying that there isn’t a problem if people in one area of a state have one set of voting hours, and people in another area have longer hours? Not a problem if voting is made easier in selected areas, rather than globally?

Depends on the reasons, I'd say.

Suppose the power goes out somewhere and some voting locations are unable to operate for a few hours. Why does it not make sense to extend voting hours to make up for the lost time?

[bernard11]

if you want people to accept election outcomes, you need to follow the rules. Not just the rules you like, all the rules.

If you want people to accept election outcomes, you need to stop lying about them and going on for years with dishonest BS.

Why go out of your way to give them excuses?

Isn't it Trump who is handing out excuses? And the reason is obvious. It helps his campaign. Are you, Brett, prepared to offer any criticism of him or his cultists for that behavior?

[David Nieporent]

Oh, so you’re saying that there isn’t a problem if people in one area of a state have one set of voting hours, and people in another area have longer hours?

That happens in every single election, Brett. There's a problem at one precinct — a power failure, they run out of ballots, whatever — and an order is issued to keep that precinct open longer than others. This was not something magic about 2020. It's normal and perfectly legitimate.

Not a problem if voting is made easier in selected areas, rather than globally?

Why would a change in state rules do that? To be sure, there were a few claims I recall from PA in 2020 where Democratic-run election boards allowed absentee voters the opportunity to cure defects in their ballots received before election day. (E.g., failing to sign or date the outside envelope.) And some GOP-run election boards sued, claiming this was unfair, instead of just allowing their own voters to do the same. Courts laughed at that argument, since the "unfairness" was solely of the GOP's own creation.

[Nelson]

“ since the “unfairness” was solely of the GOP’s own creation.”

It usually is.

[Truthfulness]

Not so. They've been focusing on eliminating fraud.

[Michael P]

All of these changes had the effect, and apparently intention, of making it even more difficult to detect fraudulent votes.

[bernard11]

Oh stop. That's utter bullshit for which you have zero evidence.

[SRG2]

Curiously, though, this is consistent with the Trump amicus brief in Texas v Pennsylvania at the SC. There, Trump argued not that fraud took place but it was now more difficult to detect it.

Texas lost, and by implication, therefore, so did he.

[Lennyk78]

Because it should not be easy to vote if you're a low information type that isn't that political. Those people are the worst people to vote, as they are very easily manipulated.

Let's assume you allow same day registration, away ballots, and harvesting. Do you think it's reasonable for Stacy Abrams to show up at Shitavius' apartment, say "Hey, are you registered to vote?"

"No."

"Register right now, I'll get you a ballot, fill it out and vote for Warnock and Ossoff, and they'll give you $2,000! I'll then bring the ballot in for you, you don't have to do anything!"

Do you think that's reasonable?

[Magister]

There is no evidence that the violation of state law altered the outcome of the election in the state

Before the Court now is a question of whether the General Assembly overstepped the bounds of this power and violated our Constitution when it enacted legislation that allows for universal mail-in voting. For the reasons that follow, we find no constitutional violation, and so we reverse the order of the Commonwealth Court.

Not seeing the rigging, let alone much illegality. But yes, the Republican Wisconsin Supreme Court was pretty bad.

[David Nieporent]

LOL. The first one, an unpublished trial court decision, which Turley is expressly forced to admit there's no evidence it affected the election. The second relates to a change which (a) the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled to not be illegal; and (b) involved a change by the GOP-controlled state legislature.

[Lennyk78]

He didn't win any of the election cases because the judges either didn't want to get involved (understandably) or because the irregularities themselves led to a situation where you'd never be able to prove it one way or another.

[ReaderY]

No, in Wisconsin in particular, a Trump-appointed judge decided the case on the merits and said that the election was conducted in complete accord with the constitutional requirements and Trump had no case.

And Trump’s big weakness - what saved this country during his first presidency - is that Trump had so little understanding of honest it just didn’t occur to him that the people around him might be honest. This was a fatal weakness that caused him to make mistakes.

More fundamentally, it’s one thing to claim that allowing ballots with minor irregularities (mispelled addresses and such) is a technical violation of state law. But to claim that it constitutes “fraud” and “tampering”is just bullshit.

Total bullshit. Only thiefs and fraudsters make claims like that. No honest person – indeed no person whose mind has enough awareness of honesty to comprehends what honesty is – would do so.

[SRG2]

IIRC in about a third of the cases the judges decided on the merits or at any rate reviewed them, and rejected them - and Trump judges were amongst those who rejected the Trump suits.

But your position is like Giuliani's, who said something to the effect that they know fraud took place, they just can't find the evidence.

In how many of the cases did Trump's lawyers claim fraud in court?

[Lennyk78]

They weren't decided on the merits. They just said that Trump hadn't proved anything, and obviously not, because it would be impossible to prove.

The irregularities should have given rise to an adverse inference, and every single vote from the offending precincts in Philadelphia and Detroit should have been disqualified.

[not guilty]

"They weren’t decided on the merits."

That is a flat out lie. Some lawsuits were dismissed without a merits determination (based on lack of standing, laches or other non-merits grounds), but courts in other cases did indeed reach the merits.

"The irregularities should have given rise to an adverse inference, and every single vote from the offending precincts in Philadelphia and Detroit should have been disqualified."

It doesn't work that way, Lennyk78. A plaintiff with standing is required to support the allegations of his pleadings with admissible evidence. Team Trump failed to do that.

[Lennyk78]

Not if the defendant intentionally destroyed evidence. That's literally what adverse inference is.

[not guilty]

Uh, any determination that "the defendant intentionally destroyed evidence" must be based on evidence, which it is incumbent upon the plaintiff to produce.

[Lennyk78]

There was evidence that the black Democrat poll workers covered the windows when poll observers were trying to monitor. That's evidence.

[not guilty]

"There was evidence that the black Democrat poll workers covered the windows when poll observers were trying to monitor. That’s evidence."

It's not evidence unless and until it is submitted to a court based on a witness's personal knowledge. (Affidavit, photographs, etc.) And if that were the case, it would only be evidence of what the affiant observed, (such as the act of covering the window,) not of what he did not observe (actual counting of votes). And it is a quantum leap from that observation to concluding that "every single vote from the offending precincts in Philadelphia and Detroit should have been disqualified."

If litigation were easy, more people could do it.

[Lennyk78]

Did you not read my comment? The fact that they covered the windows should give rise to an adverse inference that they were doing something nefarious.

[not guilty]

Yes, I read your comment. Any negative inference there would be weak as water, and would not be at all probative of what kind of unseen activity was occurring.

A federal plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions. Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level. A pleading must contain something more than a statement of facts that merely creates a suspicion of a legally cognizable right of action. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007).

Speculation and conjecture don't feed the bulldog in federal court.

[SRG2]

The fact that they covered the windows should give rise to an adverse inference that they were doing something nefarious.

Unless the windows were covered pursuant to regulations, for example, or risk of direct intimidation, or protection of privacy of officials inside...

E.g., https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/media/detroit-windows-covered-ballots-vote-center/index.html

[David Nieporent]

There was evidence that the black Democrat poll workers covered the windows when poll observers were trying to monitor. That’s evidence.

Once again, there is no such evidence, even ignoring your nazi shit. There were windows covered by cardboard at one point to keep randos from observing/interfering. But there were more than 100 observers from each party in the room already. I don't know if you need me to draw you a diagram, but covering windows does not prevent someone who's in a room from seeing what's happening in that room.

[David Nieporent]

They weren’t decided on the merits. They just said that Trump hadn’t proved anything,

That is literally deciding the case on the merits, Einstein.

[Lennyk78]

You can’t prove a negative when the other party intentionally destroys evidence.

Suppose you go into a hotel room with the Rev. Kirkland or one of the other resident butt pirates here, and then destroy the cameras. You don’t then get to claim that you didn’t have gay sex with them, and scream that there’s no evidence.

[SRG2]

So fraud occurred, but the evidence it occurred was destroyed as well as the evidence that the evidence was destroyed, hence you have no evidence at all of fraud, only your faith-based conviction.

I summon Hitchen's Razor! Come forth and slice away at this buffoon!

[Drewski]

Let's all make a note that Lenny started showing up long after Kirk stopped posting, suggesting he's a sock puppet or ban evasion account. Probably EndoftheLeft/Ilya Snowman.

[Mr. Bumble]

Hopefully this time it will be nipped in the bud.

CHAIRMAN WHATLEY: “Early this morning we learned that Republican poll watchers in Philadelphia, York, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Lehigh, Cambria, Wyoming, and Lackawanna Counties were being turned away.”

RNC Attorneys were deployed. GOP poll watchers are now in the building.

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) November 5, 2024

[Krychek_2]

No it wasn't. Trump is a con man and shame on you for believing him.

[Michael P]

You can try to gaslight us all you want, but still, no one is buying your baloney.

[Krychek_2]

OK, here's another Biblical quotation that applies to Trump supporters: "The simple believe every word."

[Michael P]

The truly simple #believeallwomen.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You come here to lie, without any evidence to support your lies, for the sole purpose of sowing discord.

Physician, fuck thyself.

[grb]

Michael P : “The vote in 2020 was thoroughly rigged — witness the number of changes to voting procedures …..”

This shtick is a favorite of Brett too. It allows the weaseler to say the election was “rigged” or stolen” without relying on more typical rightwing bat shit lunacy. But there are two problems: First, almost no changes to voting procedures were ruled illegal and the SCOUS rejected the argument changes to voting procedures are inherently forbidden outside of the legislature.

But beyond that, Brett or Michael P always fail to describe how the changes “rigged” or “stole” anything. In the middle of a pandemic, courts and election officials made it easier to vote. How did that “rig” anything against Trump? How did it “steal” the election from him?

Obviously, it’s all just empty whining and they have no answer. But it’s telling they don’t even try.

[Krychek_2]

Oh, that's easy. Encouraging high voter turnout helps Democrats win. Ergo, it rigs the system. Anything that favors Democrats rigs the system. QED.

[Brett Bellmore]

If you do it by legitimately enacted statute, that's just regular election law.

If you find a way to do it in the teeth of the statutes, that's "rigging".

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : ” …. that’s “rigging”.”

You’re still pretending you don’t have to close the loop. Maybe that’s because you see Michael P befouling himself below with tin-foil-hat foolishness.

So maybe you want to maintain a bit more personal dignity (which is a good thing). But you still have to close the loop. Let’s do an example : Say the NFL decides to make a change next Sunday. Quarters are now decreed to be sixteen minutes long, not fifteen.

Maybe you can make a case that was designed to aid some teams. But maybe not; it’s hardly the obvious conclusion. I still see two teams playing a contest with the same set of rules. Before you can claim the change “rigged” a game, you must make the case why.

Granted, you then run the risk of looking like a mentally-ill lunatic (see Michael P), but you have to try or it’s all empty talk.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're eliding the critical issue: Who is entitled to change the rules.

So, say the NFL doesn't decide to make a change next Sunday, a couple referees get together and decide that the quarters should be 16 minutes. Still think everything's cool?

[grb]

I've now asked you over a dozen times to explain this:

Why do you, Brett Bellmore, claim election changes to make voting easier in a pandemic "stole" the election from Trump or "rigged" the vote against him.

Well over a dozen times. I've asked over and over. Yet you continue to duck the question. You keep pretending an answer isn't necessary. But your "stolen-rigged" bullshit is 100% meaningless without the answer you seem unable to provide.

Hell, I recognize the bind you're in & have even tried to help, offering two possible outs:

1. Making it easier to vote is inherently unfair to Republicans given they loathe voters with a fiery hot hate and want them harassed as much as possible.

2. Making it easier to vote led to all that large-scale systematic voting fraud you can never ever produce (despite decades of screaming "wolf" with a megaphone).

Of course, your whole "voting procedures" dance is engineered specifically to keep you from having to go down the voting fraud rabbit hole. It allows to link arms with your wack-job brethren & claim the election was "stolen" while still maintaining plausible deniability, insanity-wise.

There's a new word making the rounds, Brett : "sanewashing". That's what your "voting procedures" shtick is.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, do you not understand my point?

If you want people to trust the outcome of an election they lost, you have to deny them excuses to think they were robbed. That means election administration has to be cleaner than Caesar's wife, it is the LAST area where you should be winging it, making ad hoc changes.

Maybe it's all as innocent as it can be. But why would the loser believe that?

[Magister]

You were OK with worse things that were unjustified in 2000, 2004 and 2016, because your guy won. You seem just fine with things like the Virginia voter purge, threats to election workers and people denouncing the integrity of US elections.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "Look, do you not understand my point?"

Which point? You typically say the election was rigged or stolen, not that there's a perception that's the case. Which is it? If you want to admit here the '20 election wasn't stolen, I would welcome that warmly. Instead, I expect you'll continue to weasel & have it both ways : Claiming theft but never making any case to justify your empty rhetoric. Lord knows I've given you enough chances to make your talk into something more, but you always refuse.

Incidentally, most historians think Caesar welcomed any excuse to divorce Pompeia and replace her with a more advantageous match. That whole period fascinates me, particularly analyzing the causes of the Republic's fall.

[Brett Bellmore]

Which point? The point I keep making.

Which is not that fraud happened, not that the election was stolen. Sure, in material aspects the election was not "fair", but when has an election ever been "fair"? Elections are bar brawls, not boxing matches. They're never categorically "fair".

The point is that it's important for the stability of a democracy that the losers BELIEVE that they legitimately lost, whether or not as a factual matter they did. They will act based on their beliefs, not on the basis of objective reality, just like everybody else. (You'd like beliefs to reflect objective reality, but they're still distinct from it.)

To that end, it is ridiculously important that elections not only be honest, but that they be perceived to be honest.

And playing games with the election rules does not further the cause of perceived honesty of elections!

It doesn't matter that you don't believe your ad hoc rules changes didn't rig the election! You were the winners in 2020, your belief in the legitimacy of the outcome was guaranteed by that fact alone!

The losers, by contrast, are pre-disposed to think they were cheated, and you desperately need to deprive them of any excuse to give into that predisposition.

And that means you don't screw around with election rules! You dot every "i", you cross every "t", you don't use excuses to exclude observers, you don't make ad hoc changes and wing it!

We have to stop being so damn casual about election administration in this country! Things are too tense for us to be casual about it!

[grb]

I guess at this point it’s hopeless to ever expect a real argument from Brett. A final summary:

1. Per Brett, he has an excuse to claim the election was “stolen” or “rigged”.

2. Per Brett, that’s all that matters. An excuse. It makes no difference he can’t provide any solid justification behind that excuse. It doesn’t matter he won’t even try. Per Brett, even a hollow meaningless excuse is golden.

3. So Brett repeatedly says the election was “rigged” or “stolen”. There are no qualifications or caveats to this. They are bald statements. But when you press him to backup his words, the tune changes. Then he’s suddenly speaking in the third-person or retreating to talk of fact-free “belief” or “appearances”.

4. Until the next time he wants to do a tribal “election fraud” performance. Then he’ll be back talking “rigged” or “stolen” as if his long comment below never existed.

[Nelson]

“The point is that it’s important for the stability of a democracy that the losers BELIEVE that they legitimately lost, whether or not as a factual matter they did.”

No, it isn’t. No one can control the willing suspension of disbelief that partisans are inevitably going to engage in. The only difference between 2020 and every other election was that once the losers shouted their grief with pointless challenges, they conceded and moved on. Trump not only refused to concede, he intentionally and purposefully lied (and continues to lie) about the integrity of the US election system and the prevalence of voter fraud.

So no, the perception of integrity doesn’t require convincing the delusional of reality. It requires having rational and reasonable people believe in the integrity of the system, which is the case in America.

No one should ever pander to lunatics. No one needs to care what they are convinced of, because it is impossible to convince them of anything they don’t want to believe. It is the definition of a fool’s errand.

If you don’t believe in the integrity of the US election system despite the mountain of evidence that supports it, that’s a you problem. No one can solve it but you.

[Brett Bellmore]

"No, it isn’t."

I just hope like hell you don't get it demonstrated to you why it matters if half the public actually believe elections are being stolen. Personally, I'd rather avoid that ugly scenario.

[bernard11]

You know, Brett, the reason many Republicans think the election was rigged is because Trump and his bootlickers have thrown a 4-year tantrum, which no toddler can ever match, filled with lies, inaccuracies, baseless claims, and denials of reality.

Suppose Trump, even after losing all those spurious lawsuits, had simply conceded that he lost. We would not have all these angry, misinformed, voters.

Yet from you not a peep of criticism of those who pushed his story. It is interesting that there are commenters who push the Trumpist fables. Have you ever told them they should stop, because they are destroying confidence in the election outcome?

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : ” … why it matters if half the public actually believe elections are being stolen”

Half the public believes elections are stolen because half the public enjoys being lied to. That’s all. And some of us, Brett, are getting f**k-tired of this Right-wing shtick where you kill the parents and demand consideration for being orphans.

You’re worried about half the public believing elections are stolen? Then why don’t you – Brett Bellmore – oppose lying about election fraud? Why don’t you – Brett Bellmore – oppose the man who created this election fraud myth out of whole cloth? But instead you grovel to the lies. You pander to the deceit. You promote the crudest propaganda untruths.

Because this “worry” of yours is just another fraud. Insincere pieties aside, you want people twisting themselves in knots believing this bullshit. The more lemming who are conned, the faster your little heart beats.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"To that end, it is ridiculously important that elections not only be honest, but that they be perceived to be honest."

Brett, the Trump-supporting election denier saying this. No one's ever seen chutzpah like this. People are saying that's more chutzpah than any Volokh Conspiracy commenter has ever shown.

FFS, Brett. Read and reread bernard's and grb's final responses and live with what you just learned about yourself.

[Drewski]

Poor Brett. Thinks his mathematical expertise gives him special insight into the 2020 election, but doesn't know the difference between a half and a third. Sad, really.

[bernard11]

You know, there are lots of reasons to feel robbed. Suppose a blizzard hits, and you can't get to the polling place before it closes.

Is it unreasonable to think you were robbed, because the blizzard affected a lot of people, and they could have held the polling places open an extra couple of hours? Seems reasonable to me.

But to you, "They changed the rules!!" "Unfair!!"

[Magister]

Not an analogy to 2020 elections, where governors used the emergency powers granted to them by their legislatures because there was an emergency.

[David Nieporent]

So, say the NFL doesn’t decide to make a change next Sunday, a couple referees get together and decide that the quarters should be 16 minutes. Still think everything’s cool?

Setting aside your continued false belief in how election law works, if that hypothetical football decision is publicly announced in advance, what's the problem? Maybe the NFL decides it makes for a less appealing game and so doesn't want it; maybe the TV networks are unhappy because it screws with their post-game programming. Maybe the NFLPA is upset because it creates more opportunity for injury. So people could have legitimate grounds to not want the change. But it isn't rigging the game. It's not unfair to either team.

[Michael P]

Sure, if you ignore that the voting changes made it easier to cast illegal ballots, and pretend middle-of-the-night dumps of hundreds of thousands of ballots are normal, and set aside that the feds teamed up with corporations to suppress disfavored speech (holy shades of fascism, Batman!), and don’t count media passing along Deep State lies while other parts of the Deep State hid important facts about the Democrat candidate, and disregard a last-minute rule that delayed approval of the Covid vaccine until after the election, and forget all the melodrama over how a career violent criminal dying with a fatal overdose of fentanyl supposedly meant the US was a racist police state, and if you memory-hole how leftist governors hurt the national economy with destructively overbearing lockdowns (leading to them criticizing Trump over the state of the econony) … sure, we never explain how the election was rigged.

[Nelson]

Wow. There isn’t a single true thing in that entire screed. It’s almost impressive how many demonstrably false things you crammed into one post.

[Krychek_2]

I think he also thinks Bigfoot is carrying Elvis's love child.

[Lennyk78]

Don't forget having entire teams of black thugs counting those hundreds of thousands of ballots while covering the windows and getting uppity when any observer tried to challenge them.

[MoreCurious]

Good Lord, Michael, you have a vivid imagination! Maybe you should consider becoming a fantasy comic book writer. Just curious: did all those wacky thoughts come to you in one dream or in several dreams over a period of time?

[myself]

I'll listen to your whining when you either concede that the 2000 election was wrongly decided or argue that the Democrats should have done more to reverse the outcome.

The evidence that Florida chose Gore is more overwhelming than any BS Trump made up about 2020.

[Joe_dallas]

every recount said otherwise

[Michael P]

There's really not, especially when you remember that some media called the state for Gore while Floridians in the heavily conservative Panhandle were still voting.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/30026690

[David Nieporent]

The vote in 2020 was thoroughly rigged — witness the number of changes to voting procedures that turned out to be illegal. And it was a prime example of the left continuing to sow discord, not that the leftist projectors will ever recognize their own misdeeds.

No changes to voting procedures turned out to be illegal, and also: how would that constitute "rigging" anything? The exact same rules applied to all voters in a given jurisdiction.

And what is an "example of the left continuing to sow discord"?

[Bob from Ohio]

"word for our evangelical friends "

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

[Magister]

And also sell bibles as a grift!

[Krychek_2]

Doesn't mean he's not quoting it accurately. What part of "he that sows discord among brethren" would you claim doesn't apply to Trump?

[Bob from Ohio]

So you admit you are the devil.

[Krychek_2]

Way to dodge the question.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : "(carries PA, loses rest of blue wall)"

Are you sure about Pennsylvania? Granted, it's as close to a tossup as any election I've ever seen and offers little grounds for certainty for either side. But Trump has grown increasingly frantic & desperate with his election fraud lying about the state.

It sure looks like he's looking at something we're not yet privy to, Commenter_XY.....

[Commenter_XY]

Commenter_XY is a data guy, at heart. No, I am not sure about PA (can anyone really be sure?), but I do think that PA moved in the month of October, and it definitely moved toward Pres Trump. I listened to Senator Fetterman back in April. Did it move enough? Time will tell, I think it did. Why?

The early voting updates from the states that provide daily updates tell the story. Looks like ~1/2 the electorate already voted, with ~1/3rd of the electorate returning mail ballots.

Philly and the collar counties will figure very prominently in the final result. The Team D ballot return rate is better, they are out-executing their Team R counterparts in this way.

It isn’t rocket science. No special tricks. No insider knowledge.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : “they are out-executing their Team R counterparts in this way”

That should be a consistent story on Election Day. The Dems expended a great deal of time, money & effort on their get-out-the-vote ground operation.

But Trump focused more on hawking the Trump Bible, Trump Sneakers, and Trump NFTs. He ignored ground game organization completely before handing it off at the eleventh hour to Musk. And most accounts I’ve seen have Elon making a disorganized hash of it.

On the other hand, I’ve seen a zillion elections in the past where the “ground game” was predicted to be the deciding factor. I wasn’t convinced then and am skeptical now.

[Commenter_XY]

Let's see what today's data update brings. You know, the one interesting thing about PA, grb. While it is true that Team D is out-executing Team R in terms of return rate, what also changed was Team R embraced the mail ballot with gusto in PA. There are many more Team R mail-in ballots now than the last time.

That overall gap in mail-in ballots narrowed a lot.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : "Team R embraced the mail ballot with gusto in PA"

Team R was all-in on mail ballots pre-Trump. The GOP was known for emphasizing it. It's only the last few elections where they reversed course and that was only to appease Trump's bullshit lies. Two points:

1. See XY, there's a cost to your cult devotion to normalizing Trump's toxic insanity. If I was you, I'd secretly hope he loses so you can be free of his childish nonsense. Then the GOP/Right can re-org as an adult party, appealing to adult voters, with adult positions, made in an adult manner. Admit it: You'd find that liberating. And it's only a Harris win away!

2. The advantage of absentee ballots isn't the manner of voting itself. There's no difference if you're only cannibalizing votes you'd get anyway on Election Day. What the two parties want to do is pocket unlikely votes pre-Election Day.

[Kazinski]

The concerning thing for Dems in PA is not where they are vis a vis the GOP in the early vote in 2024, its comparing where they are compared to Democrats in 2020:

Dems: 997,450 (55.7%) +7,261 from 11.03
GOP: 587,546 (32.8%) +3,755 from 11.03
Indie: 205,323 (11.5%) +2,284 from 11.03

Change from end of 2022:
GOP: +323,896
Dem: +140,170

Change from end of 2020:
GOP: -30,692
Dem: -721,276

https://x.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1853442758268080521

We really don't know what the change will be in GOP mail in ballots, whether they are just moving their vote from election day to mail in.

But its hard to explain the Democrats not matching their 2020 mail in ballot rate other than a lower turnout, because there isn't any change in emphasis.

It certainly doesn't rule out the dems making a big last minute get.out the vote effort, but it is certainly causing them a lot of concern.

[Nelson]

“ But its hard to explain the Democrats not matching their 2020 mail in ballot rate other than a lower turnout”

It’s actually quite easy. There was a pandemic in 2020 and people didn’t want to be around other people. I voted mail-in in 2020 because we were caring for my partner’s father, a cancer survivor, and wanted to minimize our exposure to others. This year I’m back to happily voting in person.

FWIW, my polling place is at the school 5 doors down from my house. In the 24 years we’ve lived here I have never seen so many people. My wait time was easily four times longer than any other election I’ve voted in (and I vote in all of them, even the weirdly-timed referendums). I think turnout will be incredibly high.

[Brett Bellmore]

"and people didn’t want to be around other people."

Especially Democrats. it's a running joke around here that you can tell the Republicans from the Democrats because the Democrats are still wearing masks.

[Commenter_XY]

Very happy to hear that = really high turnout

[Bwaaah]

One thing that is clear: this voting thing sure gets the political class hopping.

OMG! Somebody's probly goin' DOWN tonight!

LOL

p.s. it's the fall here in NYC, the auburn leaves, the sun low in the western sky; the miracle of life continues, and I got to vote today!

[Lennyk78]

That's why I've said for a long time the country needs to separate into two.

[grb]

Nah. If you just leave everything will be fine......

[Nelson]

If they did, the standard of living would plummet in Red America and rise in Blue America. The split in GDP is significantly tilted towards blue states. Red America wouldn’t be able to fund both Social Security and Medicare, never mind Medicaid for the poor (who predominantly live in red states). With only Texas, Florida, and Georgia (plus Walmart) providing strong economic returns, there would be a pretty immediate crisis.

[Brett Bellmore]

A lot of the split in GDP is due to corporate headquarters and financial companies being in 'blue' states. I mean, do you think ADM reports their profits out in corn fields?

[Nelson]

And? What’s your point? You think they’ll all pull up stakes and move to an impoverished new country that doesn’t buy as much of their stuff? What would be the benefit to them for spending the huge amounts such a move would cost? And would those benefits outweigh the costs?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm saying a lot more of the wealth of the country is actually created, as opposed to entered in accounting ledgers, in 'red' territory. So that if you actually did split the country, (As impractical as the aggregate divorcing the cement in a block of concrete...) the distribution of wealth would look somewhat different from what the tax accounts currently show.

[Magister]

But farm output, let alone agriculture directly and indirectly, isn't that big a portion of US GDP.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure. Then you add in the factories, the mines...

I'm saying a lot of recorded GDP isn't recorded where it's generated. That would change if you split the country.

[bernard11]

Actually, most of it is. Your argument has a foundation of straw, or something.

[bernard11]

No.

The Bureau of Economic analysis doesn't use corporate financial reports in the calculation, so what ADM does is irrelevant. Instead they use Census data on wages and output in the state.

If they did it the way you describe Delaware would have a massive GDP, plus state GDP would be meaningless. Do you think the people doing this work are idiots? Can you imagine them saying,

"What about this factory in Alabama? What state does it count for?"

"Georgia."

"But all the workers are in AL, and that's where the products are made."

"Yeah, but HQ is in Atlanta."

You think the way to measure GA GDP is to count the output of every factory in the country whose corporate HQ is in GA?

[Drewski]

Yes, we know you hate America and want to see it broken.

[Kazinski]

My surmise is that Trump wins between 297-302, he takes PA, and either MI or WI, but probably not both.

I also think he wins the popular vote with 49%, mainly because he will get a few more percent of the vote in Blue states.than he did in 2016 or 2020.

I'll will note we might know early, if Trump takes GA, NC, and PA then there's no path to victory for Harris, Trump won't need MI, WI, AZ, or NV (unless you are buying the Iowa delusion). Substitute MI for PA and Trump needs NV or AZ (that's about the only scenario where NV could matter), or WI and AZ would also replace PA for Trump.

[Commenter_XY]

If VP Harris wins NC, it is a very long night. It is quite possible.

[Kazinski]

The word is she pulled her ads from NC airways last week, so that seems very unlikely.

I did see on the news this morning they expect NC results tonight.

[Brett Bellmore]

We haven't seen the internal polling, it's possible she pulled the ads because she was confident of NC, rather than had given up on it.

But we'll know before my bedtime, anyway.

[David Nieporent]

She made multiple appearances in NC this week. You don't do that for a state you're writing off.

[Dr. Ed 2]

WA Guard being activated, seems someone thinks Trump will win.

[Magister]

More likely someone thinks Trump will lose and his cultists will try to overturn that outcome, maybe even trying to kill people with snowplows.

[Dr. Ed 2]

In Seattle?!?

[Magister]

Terrorist attacks on election workers and voters is the next step for MAGA cultists; their leader frequently encourages violence.

[windycityattorney]

Why do you act like there aren't militia types in the eastern part of Washington state? Or in rural areas of Oregon? Or people coming over from Idaho?

Its possible that the anti-fascists in Seattle or Portland would be active in the event of a Trump win...just as possible the anti-government types would be active in the event of a Trump loss.

Both are equally possible, are they not?

[Dr. Ed 2]

The only good social worker is a dead one.

[Moderation4ever]

Spoken like a person who has no idea what a social worker does.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Or perhaps someone who does...

[TwelveInchPianist]

Apparently they systematicly violate the fourth amendment.

[bernard11]

Do you share Ed's psychotic opinion that thia ahould bring the death penalty.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The government would probably kill all the wrong people.

[Dr. Ed 2]

They do way worse than this.

[Dr. Ed 2]

.

[Drewski]

Chronically unemployed Ed likely has a lot of experience with social workers. Probably isn't eligible for benefits and is sour about it.

[Mr. Bumble]

RIP Quincy Jones, dead at age 91.
Also, P'nut and Fred. Gone too soon.

[Frank Drackman]

Bohannon, Bohannon, Bohannon

[Don Nico]

What is happening?
Already in Switzerland we have heard news reports of voting machines malfunctioning to deny recording a vote for Trump and instead recording the vote for Harris.

[Mr. Bumble]

Switzerland????

[Commenter_XY]

There is going to be some 'hanky panky', Don Nico. I don't think there is any doubt about that.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Yes, you're a gullible idiot. We know.

[Don Nico]

.
Why don't you tell my Swiss friends the origin of this claim?
But no, you'd rather be an asshole.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

How about you tell us the source of your bullshit?

I can't provide a source for you, because it isn't true and you're a dumb fuck to believe it for even an instant.

[Drewski]

Your Swiss friends already know where your ass is.

[grb]

Don Nico : " ... voting machines malfunctioning ..."

There was a time Don expended great effort pretending he wasn't just another rightwing loon.

Obviously, he ain't trying no more. DN is letting his freak flag fly.

[ducksalad]

Let's be generous. What Don meant was he is astonished that the election-fraud fake news has made it all the way to Switzerland.

[Don Nico]

Thank you ducksalad

[grb]

ducksalad : “Let’s be generous”

Let’s not. Don Nico could have updated us all on the latest Swiss rumors about UFOs or Bigfoot with equal relevance. Instead he launders Trump’s lying trash thru Switzerland, as if that sleight-of-hand sanewashes it clean.

And go down-thread a bit and you’ll find more of the same. There Nico offers this scenario :

“VP Harris will certify the election of Harris a President regardless of the vote tomorrow”

And which country is at fault for that tin-foil-hat fashion statement? As I note above, he used to be more cautious. He used to try and appear reasonable, though the mask often slipped. But these day? He’s all in on the latest hot take, however nonsensical.

[Don Nico]

As I said to Jason, why don’t you tell my Swiss friends the origin of this claim?

Instead you just give out your usual insulting bullshit. You're just a loser.

[windycityattorney]

The source is Trump's truth social page. There isn't a "source" for the underlying evidence. Just Trump's bluster about 'fraud the likes of which has never been seen...' in typical Trump hyberbolic fashion.

Coincidentally, some political commenters think Trump's campaign internal polling must have took a swing away from him, which his tiny brain cannot fathom, so the only obvious conclusion: MASSIVE FRAUD. Suspend the vote! Suspend the constitution. Arrest everyone. Just another day ending in Y on Trumps truth social.

[Don Nico]

Actually my search just now found this on ABC news
"A preview of that problem played out last week in Kentucky when a voter shared a video online of what officials called a "user error" on an electronic ballot-marking machine that created the false impression the device was switching votes from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris. Election officials said the machine produces a paper ballot, which the user then has multiple opportunities to confirm before their vote is scanned -- and that the voter who posted the video was able to cast their ballot as intended. MORE: Election fact check: It's illegal for county officials to refuse to certify election results
After the machine was taken out of service, Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown shared a video online demonstrating the machine working without issue and said that officials struggled to replicate the error. But the damage was already done, with the original video amassing tens of millions of views on social media, where it was shared by users suggesting that voting machines were being used to rig the election."

[windycityattorney]

That may be the case for the one machine in KY. But there was a claim on Trump's truth social posted by Trump himself couple days ago alleging massive fraud in the early vote and requesting law enforcement intervene and I am fairly positive that was for PA.

Trump will throw in the "We are hearing..." "People are saying..." which is one of his many tells that he is lying. "Hearing reports of massive fraud..." is one such tell as well. Frankly, if he is posting or saying anything, best to just assume he is lying. You are more likely to be right given how often he lies...which has been painstakingly documented.

"People are saying... no one lies more than him. He is the best liar. Lies more often than anybody in the world. Possibly in the history of the universe." Fact check? Likely true.

[Joe_dallas]

FWIW - Jason throws out the F word with nearly every comment. All you need to know about his maturity and the value of his comments.

[David Nieporent]

Obviously, he ain’t trying no more. DN is letting his freak flag fly.

Watch those initials!

[Nelson]

LOL!

[Commenter_XY]

I was just gonna say....Don't go bustin' on the projected 2024 Winner of the best off-hand comment of the year. Which was:

'Trump treats the Seven Deadly Sins as a To Do list"

Nobody should be bustin' on you. Well, maybe me, just a teeny bit. 🙂

[Kazinski]

Well lets be honest, anyone that doesn't worry about any human to computer interface malfunctioning isn't paying attention.

Especially an interface that is updated frequently.

[Moderation4ever]

No, problem I didn't vote in Switzerland I voted in Wisconsin.

[Nelson]

“Already in Switzerland we have heard news reports of voting machines malfunctioning to deny recording a vote for Trump and instead recording the vote for Harris.”

Check the other headlines from your source. There’s probably one about alien abduction and another about the flat earth.

[Commenter_XY]

Don Nico: Hey, enjoy the chocolate, the coffee and the skiing!

[Frank Drackman]

One of the candidates is for male prisoners being prescribed Estrogen and having their sex organs surgically removed, I find that “Disqualifying”

Frank

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I think that’s awesome!! Cut that rapist’s balls off!! Kamala is hard core!!

[Frank Drackman]

She wasn't saying it was for the rapists, or even Domestic Violators, like her husband.

[MoreCurious]

Rapists? Domestic Violators? Why are you switching the topic to Trump?

[Frank Drackman]

I didnt

[MoreCurious]

Sorry, my mistake. Whenever there's a discussion about rapists, an awful lot of us assume the discussion is about Trump.

[Commenter_XY]

Nope, not this time. Frank was talking about the girlfriend abusing, wannabe First Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

[MoreCurious]

I looked at my ballot and didn't see the name Emhoff. But I did see the name of that convicted sexual assaulter, Donald Trump. So I voted against him.

[John F. Carr]

AP: "Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday declined to say how she voted on a key ballot measure in her home state of California that would reverse criminal justice reforms approved in recent years."

In other words, she voted the wrong way.

[Mr. Bumble]

Isn't Estrogen one of the commentors here?

[Bwaaah]

LOL

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I wonder how many STDs JD Vance’s skank of a mother has?? I wish my mom was a violent skanky drug addict…because then I could have got a spot at Yale Law School. The only way a white man can get a spot at an Ivy League school is to cut their balls off or to have some pity party essay!! Smoke crack mom, please!! And skank it up!! ????

[Frank Drackman]

Your tertiary Syphilis is showing, because she was/did.

[Commenter_XY]

Does Congress actually have the power to disqualify a candidate, post election? (cite below from August, but relevant question, considering closeness of election and high passions of electorate)

https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/08/rep-raskin-in-february-its-up-to-congress-to-disqualify-trump-is-he-wins/

Thought experiment: Pres Trump wins the EC. Now it is the Congressional session to count the EC votes. Is that the point where Congress can/could disqualify a candidate who won an election? How would this actually work in practice, disqualifying a candidate. post-election?

Suppose there was a vote, and the House disqualified Pres Trump. What happens then?

My understanding is that in the aftermath of the Civil War, when electees were disqualified, special elections were held (not 100% sure of this) and the seat remained vacant.

Want to emphasize...This is just a thought experiment! However, I am curious how the Constitutional and legal process parts would actually work in that kind of scenario. What's the step-by-step?

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/full-list-safest-countries-go-34025846

[Brett Bellmore]

Congress has the power to disqualify candidates, post election, for Congress. It's the Article 1 power, that they're the sole judge of their own members elections and qualifications. They didn't need the 14th amendment to exercise it, either. Which is why they were disqualifying Confederates BEFORE the 14th amendment was even written, let alone ratified.

But for the Presidency? Congress is given the power to impeach, of course, where conviction is deliberately hard. And Congress can enact enabling legislation for Section 2, subject to the same procedural requirements and restraints as any other legislation.

Which means? If they simply passed a law declaring Trump guilty of insurrection, it would be an unconstitutional bill of attainder.

They might be able to get away with enacting a law saying that Section 2 disqualification could be determined by a majority vote of the House, but it would be subject to the presentiment clause, and it wouldn't just be Trump facing that threat going forward.

[David Nieporent]

Which means? If they simply passed a law declaring Trump guilty of insurrection, it would be an unconstitutional bill of attainder.

A bill of attainder is a bill that imposes criminal punishment w/o trial. Disqualification under the 14th amendment is not criminal punishment. So… no.

[not guilty]

There is a respectable argument that a Congressional enactment which worked disqualification from federal employment as to a particular individual constitutes a bill of attainder. In United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946), SCOTUS ruled that a law cutting off salaries to three named government employees constituted a bill of attainder, opining that the act accomplished the punishment of named individuals without a judicial trial. Id., at 316-317. The Court has since refined and limited what constitutes punishment for the purpose of due process guaranties, ex post facto clauses and double jeopardy prohibitions. See, e.g., Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 168-169 (1963) (divestiture of American citizenship is punishment).

The fact that a Congressional measure applies only to a single person by name does not automatically offend the Bill of Attainder Clause. In Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 472 (1977), former President Nixon was determined to constitute a legitimate class of one, and this provided a basis for Congress' decision to proceed with dispatch with respect to his materials while accepting the status of his predecessors' papers and ordering the further consideration of generalized standards to govern his successors.

Disqualification from holding office as President, without imposition of any other penalty, would amount to a form of occupational debarment, which has not historically been viewed as punishment. Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 104 (1997).

[John F. Carr]

The Supreme Court preemptively said Congress couldn't disqualify Trump. I don't think Democrats have the votes to tell Roberts to go disqualify himself.

[not guilty]

"The Supreme Court preemptively said Congress couldn’t disqualify Trump. I don’t think Democrats have the votes to tell Roberts to go disqualify himself."

I don't read Trump v. Anderson, 601 U.S. 100 (2024), as having reached that question. One could argue that the requirement that Congressional "legislation" under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 5, must "reflect 'congruence and proportionality' between preventing or remedying [the offending] conduct 'and the means adopted to that end'” inferentially indicates that a specific Act of Congress is required, but the Court did not say so expressly.

[Brett Bellmore]

As I read it, Congress is perfectly entitled to, as enabling legislation for Section 2, to set the procedure by which somebody would be disqualified under Section 2. Subject to the presentiment clause, of course.

The current enabling legislation, the Court ruled, is the federal felony insurrection statute.

If they were to try to just vote Trump disqualified, that would probably be viewed by the Court as a bill of attainder. I think the minimum they could get away with is the civil process they had in place prior to 1948, where a federal IG would file a writ of quo warranto, which could be appealed in court as a civil matter.

[John F. Carr]

I understood the decision to signal that the court did not want Congress disqualifying Trump during the electoral vote count. Strictly speaking any such statement is both dicta and beyond the court's jurisdiction. Counting of electoral votes is explicitly assigned to Congress. Unless five members of the court want to set aside separation of powers for a moment to make a case turn out the right way.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, they're assigned the job of counting, but having the job of counting something doesn't imply you have discretion over what the total comes out to.

That is, in fact, the exact abuse Trump was relying on: Exercising discretion in the exercise of a ministerial task.

Would the Court have the nerve to rule that the EC count is ministerial? Probably not. They blink at much more clearcut challenges to congressional abuses.

I think that if Trump wins by more than a trivial margin, Democrats in Congress will let him take office. There will still be substantial rioting, and the bureaucracy will be in open rebellion, but they'll concentrate on outlasting him while continuing lawfare against him.

[Kazinski]

The answer is perhaps, after all section 5 does give Congress the authority to enforce section 3, and the Supreme Court is cautious about treading on Congress' prerogatives, experience when it comes to political questions.

However what would happen is much easier: JD Vance would become President. Section 3 of the 20th Amendment:
"If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a
President shall have qualified;"

And that of course would both remove a lot of incentives to Democrats to disqualify Trump, but at the same time make it less objectionable to Republicans in Congress.

[Commenter_XY]

Who becomes VP, and how in that scenario?

[Kazinski]

Depends, on whether the VP is determined to be acting President, or whether the Presidency becomes vacant making the VP the President, and the Vice Presidency then becomes vacant. If the Vice Presidency becomes vacant the President nominates a VP and both houses of Congress have to confirm the nominee.

The XX amendment says the VP only becomes Acting President, not The President, and there is no vacancy in the VP.

[John F. Carr]

An opportunity to remove Trump to get Vance would show which Democrats hate Trump personally and which would hate any Republican. If it's about Trump they vote to get rid of Trump and face the risk of 8 years of Vance. Like the hardline never Trumpers backed Harris at the risk of having her in office for 8 years.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Good news / bad news in Ohio

Good news: Jill Stein is on the ballot

Bad news: Votes for her will be thrown away, so she'll be recorded as getting zero votes.

https://ballot-access.org/2024/11/02/sixth-circuitwont-order-ohio-to-count-votes-for-jill-stein/

[Commenter_XY]

That decision sent the issue back to OH state courts where it properly belongs. It also puts the onus back on the people who created this mess in the first place; elected state officials (Team R). They can deal with the fallout (part of which likely includes the loss of congressional district line drawing power).

If Jill is on the ballot, count her votes. Seems simple enough to me.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

OK, maybe there's still some recourse left. I had thought it was a bit too late in the day, but one never knows!

[Dan Schiavetta]

If Trump wins, and there is no basis for a recount, Harris will concede gracefully, as every loser has done except Trump in 2020.

If Harris wins, we are in for a long period of denial, baseless litigation and violence, all on the R side — as happened in 2020.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

If Trump wins then DeSantis becomes the front runner…he’s much worse than Trump. He killed more Americans than Osama Bin Laden by attacking public health officials prior to the Delta death surge.

[John F. Carr]

Don't you think we have too many Americans?

[Joe_dallas]

How did Trump kill more americans ? covid deaths during the trump administration were approx 350k and approx 650k during the biden administration.

In fairness, neither had nor could have done much more or much less to affect the trajectory of the covid virus. Mother nature is what had control.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Actually, they were closer to 425k under the Trump administration.

But the point was about DeSantis killing people, not Trump, by attacking health officials.

You should at least get the objective numbers right and also understand what the conversation is about when making comments.

[Commenter_XY]

captcrisis, it is a close election, and passions are high. I have not seen anything like this in my lifetime....my Dad tells me the mid to late sixties was a little worse (i.e. more bombings, riots and outright violence). I can remember elections from 1972 onward.

The interregnum period, 11/6 - 1/4, is the proscribed time to resolve any contested election results. That is what I was taught.

The interregnum period used to be Nov - Mar.

Is there a case to be made to return to that standard?

[Dan Schiavetta]

XY,

I think you mean “prescribed” (for years I made the same mistake).

In 2000 the Supreme Court held that Dec. 12 (not Jan. 4) was the end of the time for contesting results. That was the reason they gave for stopping the Florida recount.

After 1932 Inauguration Day was brought forward from March 4 to January 20. Also the new session of Congress was brought forward from March 20 to January 3. This was to minimize any mischief by a lame duck President or Congress. I think this is an improvement.

[Commenter_XY]

You are right = prescribed.

I would respond to you by saying it is the Congress who counts the EC votes, not SCOTUS. That counting doesn't happen until after the new year.

The potential for mischief = I agree, there would be

[Dan Schiavetta]

It’s actually the Vice President who counts the EC votes, and no matter what President Trump said on Jan. 6., 2021, and no matter what that violent mob tried to do, it’s always been regarded as a ministerial act with no discretion involved.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't recall Gore gracefully conceding after he lost in 2000. I recall him making one attempt after another to "change" the election day outcome of the election, and that he gave up only when the Supreme court finally put a stop to it.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Gore legitimately requested a recount which worked its way through Florida courts (and was stopped by a Republican riot). It was Bush who ran to the federal court which to many people’s surprise accepted jurisdiction. None of what you say is true.

Gore’s concession speech on TV was a high moment in the preservation of our Constitutional system. Bush should have left that night to Gore, and give his acceptance speech the next night, instead of one hour later.

[Michael P]

Al Gore continues to deny the results of the 2000 election: https://x.com/RNCResearch/status/1537500320988798976

[Brett Bellmore]

Gore waited until the end of the challenge period to request a recount in only 4 counties, large counties he'd done especially well in, and had no reason to suppose something was wrong with the vote.

Hand recounts do not typically change the percentages in an election, but they do tend to increase the number of ballots that can be resolved, causing the same percentage to be reflected in a larger number of votes.

So, to explain, Gore was attempting to boost the 'turnout' after the fact in some areas he'd done really well in, in the hope that the extra votes would put him over the top state wide. He did so at the last minute so that Bush would not have time to counter him with recounts in counties HE had done well in.

This was a maneuver designed to get him declared the winner even though he'd actually lost. If he'd just wanted an accurate count, state-wide, he could have asked for a state-wide recount during the challenge period, when he was legally entitled to it. But a state-wide recount would not disturb the percentages, and he'd remain the loser, as actually happened.

Of course, the selective recount was not producing enough new votes for him to pull off what he wanted. And Palm Beach gave up on it after they realized they weren't going to be able to get away with doing the recount unobserved. So the original scheme fell through, and he pursued a very messed up state-wide recount as a last ditch effort.

At this point he wasn't actually legally entitled to the recount, it was at the SoS's discretion, which she did not agree to, and he had to get the state Supreme court to start overriding Florida election laws. And a count using uniform criteria would just have shown Bush the winner, so he got the court to reject requiring uniform criteria. And eventually 7 Justices on the Supreme court agreed that the whole mess was unconstitutional.

But it was NEVER an attempt to find the real winner. It was an attempt to get Gore declared the winner even though he was the loser.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Not what happened.

Gore had the right to demand a recount. He even asked for an entire state recount but that too was objected to by Bush.

[Brett Bellmore]

He had the right to demand a recount during the challenge period. After the challenge period, legally, all he could do was ask for one.

And he didn't ask for a state-wide recount until his partial recount scheme failed.

[NOVA Lawyer]

So you concede Gore just made legal challenges and respected the court decisions rather than concocting an extra-constitutional scheme to attain office? And that he conceded the election after his legal challenges failed?

And, of course, Trump showed none of that statesmanship, but instead systematically went about trying to undermine his supporter’s belief in the integrity of U.S. elections which, in other threads, you have conceded is a very, very bad thing for anyone to do given Caesar’s wife and all.

[Brett Bellmore]

I am conceding that he made legal challenges during the challenge period, and then illegal challenges afterwards, which a rogue state supreme court decided to illegally humor until slapped down by the Supreme court. Repeatedly.

[Commenter_XY]

He got caught up in timing, captcrisis = VP Gore

I remember that election well.

[Frank Drackman]

2000, Voted Absentee for "W" in Escambia County, was stationed in DC at the time, Absentee ballot had to have a "Witness" sign the outside of the Envelope, my Witness said she'd only sign if I'd voted for AlGore, like "Ah-nold" in Commando, I lied.

Frank

[Joe_dallas]

worth noting in the Florida Gore/bush contest
dimpled chad (without stylis marks) are easy to create when punching multiple ballots at the same time. Much more difficult to obtain dimpled chads and hanging chads when punching single ballots.

[SimonP]

This hand-waving is awfully amusing, coming from someone who no doubt has been psyching himself up for Trump’s back-up plan for challenging an election loss. (I.e., disqualifying enough electoral votes to toss the presidential election to the House.)

When the Democrats selectively act within their rights, they’re accused of manipulating the process.

When Trump intentionally tries to usurp the democratic will of the people through conspiracy and fraud, he’s just doing what’s within his rights.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Gore’s concession speech on TV was a high moment in the preservation of our Constitutional system.

Given that Gore had nowhere else to turn, that much is correct. But taken in its entirety, Bush v. Gore has been a fiasco. It is the case that brought partisan politics into the judicial system for keeps.

Ds were slow to catch on. Rs got busy right away, with results which transformed not only politics, but the courts, and the nation.

Gore would have done better in his concession had he been less eager to appear high-minded. Gore should have instead conceded graciously, but added a rebuke to the Court for awarding to Bush a gift of office which the Court had no legitimate power to bestow.

At the time, the jointly sovereign People's gift was still in doubt. There was no emergency to justify bypassing that ultimate source of legitimacy. There was time for a full recount throughout Florida—a fact the Court notably left unmentioned in its decision.

[Dan Schiavetta]

He did say he “strongly disagreed” with the Court’s decision.

And as to having nowhere else to turn, that was true of Trump before Jan. 6 and look what happened anyway.

[Commenter_XY]

I remember VP Gore's speech well. I remember thinking how angry and disappointed he must've felt. You could see it, and hear it. He gets props for respecting the process.

[Frank Drackman]

You're confusing that with his wedding day.

[Brett Bellmore]

Except for the parts he didn't respect, anyway, like recounts being discretionary on the part of the SoS after the challenge period was over.

Just because he had some members of the state supreme court complicit in his scheme doesn't mean he was actually following state law.

[Commenter_XY]

When he was out of options, he capitulated. And I daresay, he generally behaved better in the aftermath of the loss than Pres Trump did. I give him props for that. I know it had to be agonizing.

I remember the clenched jaw, vividly.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not particularly impressed by people who capitulate only after they run out of options. Well, duh, what else are they going to do? Exercise an option they don't have?

[Josh R]

You mean like the call to Raffensberger, or the pressure on the DOJ to declare fraud, or the pressure on Pence to unilaterally reject votes, or doing nothing while the riot raged (except rooting for the rioters)? Do they count as options Trump had? If so, Gore had more options too.

[Brett Bellmore]

How many times so far, since 2020, have I said that Trump should have dropped his election challenge when the EC voted? Do I really have to say that again?

I'm not approving of what Trump did, I'm just pointing out he's not the unique character he's being made out to be.

[Josh R]

Trump was unique. He's the only one who didn't give up after the EC voted (in addition to having a case based in no credible evidence).

[Brett Bellmore]

Trump is unique, he's the only person who did exactly what Trump did!

OK, granted, but was "exactly what Trump did" materially different enough from "exactly "what Gore did" or "exactly what Clinton did", that his supporters should be impressed with the difference?

[Josh R]

Repeating: Trump was the only one who 1) contested the election beyond the EC vote and 2) whose claims were based on zero credible evidence.

That latter point has not convinced his supporters because they have accepted Trump’s zero-evidence claims (i.e., lies) about the election.

But, the former point should have impressed you, since you keep bringing it up.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ah, what evidence was Gore's "Keep recounting until I win, then stop" based on? What evidence was Clinton's "suborn electors" based on?

[Josh R]

Gore did not argue "Keep recounting until I win, then stop."

Subborn electors?

[NOVA Lawyer]

A recount can be requested when the vote is sufficiently close. In Florida, it was sufficiently close. Gore didn't go around spouting fanciful and discredited conspiracy theories about a stolen election. He argued for recounts. And then he conceded when the Supreme Court said the recount had to stop.

It's pathetically amusing to watch you pretend not to understand how that is both perfectly legitimate and categorically different from anything Trump did and continues to do.

[David Nieporent]

Well, duh, what else are they going to do? Exercise an option they don’t have?

Organize an attack on the Capitol.

[Joe_dallas]

Florida election law allowed any candidate to request a recount of only the counties (and even down to the precinct level). Gore took those steps in the 4 counties that he did well in. These were allowed pre certification of the election results.
The secretary of state of florida is the required to officially "certify " the election results approximately 10 days later (i dont recall the exact date in the statute). A candidate is then allowed to protest the election results. That protest requires the plaintiff to present evidence that would put the election in doubt. There was an additional requirement that the criteria would have to be applied across the entire state. At the distric court trial, Gore put into very little evidence that put election in doubt. Lots of arguments, but very little actual evidence. Further, virtually no evidence on a state wide basis and no remedy on a statewide basis.

The district court ruling got it right for the right reasons.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Florida reformed their election laws after 2000…and pursuant the reforms Gore most likely would have won. The big issue would have been any opportunity for discretion by SoS Harris would have been in Bush’s favor. And had a Democrat been in that position then the discretion would have gone to Gore.

[Frank Drackman]

You and your damn long term memory!

[David Nieporent]

I don’t recall Gore gracefully conceding after he lost in 2000. I recall him making one attempt after another to “change” the election day outcome of the election, and that he gave up only when the Supreme court finally put a stop to it.

The only thing Gore ever did was ask for recounts, which are a time-honored way of verifying the winner of an election. Nobody complained about Trump asking for recounts. The complaint was over the failure to accept the outcome, including going so far as to threaten state officials if they didn't "find" votes to change the outcome.

[Don Nico]

OR
On Jan 20 VP Harris will certify the election of Harris a President regardless of the vote tomorrow.
Take your pick.

[Michael P]

The last time a woman Democrat lost to Trump, she did not concede gracefully. After pumping out lies about Trump, she went full bore election denier.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hillary-clinton-maintains-2016-election-160716779.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/clinton-dnc-steele-dossier-fusion-gps/index.html

[Dan Schiavetta]

The links don’t support what you say.

[Michael P]

Blind denialism isn’t actually an argument. Clinton even lied about her lies, as shown by the FEC fines.

[hobie]

So you don't like candidates that lie about elections and deny elections?

[Moderation4ever]

Get your facts correct,

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/clinton-concedes-to-trump-we-owe-him-an-open-mind-231118

[Michael P]

Well, shucks, by that metric, Donald Trump has done no wrong since he conceded the 2020 election.

[Magister]

Never happened before Biden took office, and he mostly walks back any time he says he lost.

[Michael P]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/trump-finally-publicly-concedes/ says you are lying. But then, so does "Magister" at the top of your comments.

[Magister]

The lie is that he conceded the election loss; he conceded that he would leave the White House but continues to insist he won the 2020 election.

[David Nieporent]

He in fact did not, and still has not, conceded the 2020 election; indeed, just yesterday he said that he shouldn't have left the WH in January 2021.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Hillary Clinton:"[Trump] knows he's an illegitimate president."

[David Nieporent]

The last time a woman Democrat lost to Trump, she did not concede gracefully.

"Gracefully" is in the eye of the beholder. But she conceded immediately, and raised no challenges thereafter.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Hillary never conceded in 2016.

[Magister]

Wrong again.
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uk/clinton-concedes-election-urges-open-mind-on-trump-idUSKBN134321/

[Life of Brian]

If Trump wins, and there is no basis for a recount, Harris will concede gracefully

Does your prediction include the rest of Team Blue also standing down and allowing Trump to be inaugurated? Otherwise you're just describing the rather unsurprising opening act in the choreography.

[Josh R]

A few on Team Blue will object. But under the new rules of the Electoral Count Act, there will be no accepted objection on Jan 6 (it now requires 1/5 of the House and 1/5 of the Senate to raise an objection). VP Harris will preside over the cerification of Trump's victory.

But if Harris, wins, Trump will (of course) not concede. But since he isn't the President, he may be able to do less damage this time around.

[Commenter_XY]

That is a low hurdle = 20 Senators or 88 House members.

[Josh R]

It's a high hurdle. In 2000, zero Senators bought into it. In 2024, one did (Boxer).

[Life of Brian]

I hope you're right. But after the past 8 years, cobbling together 88 House members out of the double-impeachment-with-a-half-twist (aka "get 'im") contingent seems like pretty small potatoes.

Let's just say that some pretty big names are hedging their bets.

[Commenter_XY]

It is a low hurdle, only 20%.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"If Trump wins, *and there is no basis for a recount*, Harris will concede gracefully"

That sounds like a hedge.

"as every loser has done except Trump in 2020"

Hayes?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

John C. Breckinridge?

[Michael P]

NBC is now scrambling to cover itself legally after a blatant violation of the FCC's "equal time" rule by giving Kamala Harris free promotional time and endorsement during Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels said just weeks ago that neither candidate would appear on the show precisely to avoid that kind of violation.

[Frank Drackman]

any appearance by Cums-a-lot helps "45/47" She's stiffer than Lurch Kerry/Mitt Romeney Siamese Twins.

[John F. Carr]

Make SNL Great Again!

What can anybody do that would matter? It's too late to order NBC to give Trump a few minutes of free time.

[Frank Drackman]

NBC? couldn't he get time on one of the more serious major networks, like HSN?

[Dr. Ed 2]

They could cancel SNL -- it hasn't been funny in 30+ years....

[MoreCurious]

OMG! For the first time ever Dr. Ed 2 wrote something I agree with.

[grb]

Michael P now says the election is rigged because of ....... SNL

God, these rightwingers are such whiny snowflake clowns!

[ThePublius]

NBC has responded by running Trump ads.

[Commenter_XY]

Is that really a remedy?

[David Nieporent]

I mean, giving Trump equal time is in fact exactly what FCC rules require, so by definition, yes.

[Commenter_XY]

All I will say is I wasn't very impressed with his video statement; he could have been more effective in making a closing case. But that is just me.

[Kazinski]

They need to scrap the equal time rule and the fairness doctrine. In a era where the Joe Rogan podcast gets a larger audience than network TV its obsolete and irrelevant.

Of course that doesn't explain or excuse NBC blatantly trying to evade the rule.

[David Nieporent]

They need to scrap the equal time rule and the fairness doctrine. In a era where the Joe Rogan podcast gets a larger audience than network TV its obsolete and irrelevant.

Of course that doesn’t explain or excuse NBC blatantly trying to evade the rule.

Um, the fairness doctrine was scrapped 40 years ago.

And NBC did not in fact "try to evade the rule." NBC complied completely with the rule.

[Frank Drackman]

His name is Peanut!

[Michael P]

The P'nut memes are great and all, but has Appalachia mostly rebuilt from Helene yet? There are more substantive recent failures by the left than just (a) narcing on a social media squirrel (b) jumping to euthanize it and (c) gloating about the outcome.

[Brett Bellmore]

The rebuilding is proceeding apace, but it's not going to be done this year. There are still plenty of people living in tents because their homes were destroyed, and winter up in the mountains gets vicious even down South.

I-40 from NC to TN is not expected to be open until late next year, and this is severely disrupting local logistics. A lot of towns along it are only accessible from the expressway.

It would not terribly shock me if some of the smaller towns just vanish.

[Frank Drackman]

Country Folks can survive

[Stephen Lathrop]

Smaller towns unwisely situated on valley flood plains are destined to vanish. That has been true since the haphazard decisions to take the flood plains out of agricultural use, and instead subdivide them—mostly at times preceding concerns about climate change.

Given that, utilitarian policy to minimize harm should favor paying off insurance claims from former flood plain residents, but only on condition they not rebuild in that location. Whether to further encourage that wiser kind of management by public subsidy to make up for uninsured damages ought to be a political question. I would vote for doing that nation-wide, right now.

[Brett Bellmore]

In the mountains, flood plains are the only places with flat, arable ground. So, where else would you expect the towns to be? This wasn't any ordinary storm, it's been estimated to have been a 500 year storm, the last time these areas got nailed that bad Columbus was still sailing around.

Your proposal might make sense, if the original insurance had been issued on those terms. You know that it was not.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — If the insurance polices are like mine, and I will bet they are, it takes only a few months notice to terminate the policy on the anniversary date. There is zero obligation, expressed or implied, that any contractual relation continue longer. Most states take care of problem cases with state-mandated high-risk insurance pools, to which insurers who want to do business in the state get assessed for contributions. Insurers fight back by threatening to leave the state altogether. Those high risk pools are creatures of politics, and how they get administered is fair game for policy.

And of course it is nonsense to imply that the flood comes as a surprise. A flood plain is a geologic feature created by flooding. Anyone can learn to recognize one. If you put your home there, you will get flooded. Count on it. But don't make me pay for it.

Throughout the eastern U.S. you will find if you look for them stone building foundations scattered among giant trees on flood plains where no buildings stand now. Those date mostly from the earliest settlements, hence post 1620.

Flood plains flood. They always have flooded. They will continue to flood. Only nitwits demanding insurance subsidies they do not deserve, and the real estate development industry, ignore those lessons.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course flood planes flood, but how deep and often? 500 year risks are not normally risks that people base their behavior on! You don't declare an area uninsurable over a 500 year risk.

[bernard11]

You don’t declare an area uninsurable over a 500 year risk.

First, it’s already been declared uninsurable if the government has to subsidize the insurance.

Second what a “500-year storm” means is not that a storm of that strength comes around about every 500 years. It means that there is a .2% chance it happen in any given year. That it happened this year doesn’t make it less likely to happen next year.

Your comment that “it’s been estimated to have been a 500 year storm, the last time these areas got nailed that bad Columbus was still sailing around,” is plain silly. In fact, there is a 2% chance of it happening again within 10 years, and nearly a 10% chance in the next 50 years.

So from the insurer’s POV the risk is hardly negligible. And bear in mind that we are talking about a compact geographic area, by comparison with the US. There is little geographic diversification here, which insurers hate.

[Stephen Lathrop]

You don’t declare an area uninsurable over a 500 year risk.

1. Floods have a way of being more expensively destructive than typical claims.

2. Insurers, like others, may be skeptical that existing risk estimates are too optimistic.

3. Insurers may be uneasy about estimated climate changes, creating hard-to-quantify increases to customary flood risks.

4. The, "you," in your comment properly refers only to would-be insurers, and they demonstrably do declare floodable properties uninsurable, and have been increasingly likely to do so. So that comment is silly.

[Frank Drackman]

Tell Cairo (the one in Egypt, not Georgia, which besides not being built on a flood plain, isn't full of Egyptians, and is pronounced totally different)

[Michael P]

The Harris-Biden DOD is working to suppress military votes even as they work to promote illegal votes within CONUS: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/11/02/service-members-complain-about-lack-of-absentee-ballots-n2647157

[Frank Drackman]

Well it's common knowledge that the military's full of Hayseeds (HT Hobie-Stank) and Nazis

[grb]

Michael P : "The Harris-Biden DOD is working to suppress military votes"

MP's peddling fever-dream gibberish here, as he well knows. However, the Pennsylvania GOP did sue trying to disenfranchise military voters in that state - and were laughed out of court:

"A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a Republican lawsuit that sought to segregate overseas ballots in Pennsylvania for additional vetting. US District Judge Christopher Conner said that the challengers to Pennsylvania’s policies for overseas ballots filed by GOP members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation and an outside group came too late and that it was too close to the election for a court to intervene. The overseas vote has long been viewed as sacrosanct because of its connection to the military vote, and the Pennsylvania lawsuit – which would have jeopardized the ballots of service people abroad – drew a sharp backlash."

Unlike Mike's pure bullshit, that's a real fact.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/29/politics/pennsylvania-overseas-ballots-ruling/index.html

[apedad]

Ok, I lived (and voted) overseas for 24 years, including 16 on active duty.

Voting is still done through the states for both military and OCONUS civilians (even expat citizens), and the Pentagon has nothing to do with mailing ballots out to authorized voters.

https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Forms/FWABwithOMBFinal.pdf

[Noscitur a sociis]

As you appear to understand given your link, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act allows service members who haven’t received the absentee ballot from their state of residence to submit votes for federal offices on a ballot provided by the feeeral government. Those are the ballots that, per Michael P’s article, DOD hasn’t been supplying appropriately.

[Stephen Lathrop]

If Trump wins, Harris will concede.

If after a close or justifiably contested election, Trump shows any sign of an attempt to do what he did 4 years ago, Judge Chutkan should revoke his bail in the DC case, at least until inauguration day.

Chutakn should justify doing it by reciting the evidence that Trump intends to make himself both a public danger, and a goad to personal danger against his opponents. For instance, when Trump said publicly that Liz Cheney should face a firing squad, that may be defended as political rhetoric. It also undeniably put Cheney in personal peril of attack by deranged members of the MAGA mob.

At this point Trump cannot be unaware that his public personal attacks have done that to many who have spoken against him, and even in cases, such as that of the Georgia election workers, who said nothing against him until after he had attacked them. Trump publicly names and excoriates those he regards as effective opponents—including members of the judiciary—to intimidate them by inducing a reasonable fear of violence against them. It has become a pattern which cannot be ignored.

Evidence that Trump's conduct and utterances have done that in Cheney's case and in others, will prove overwhelmingly persuasive. If he does it again, a further charge of attempted insurrection should be added to those already pending against Trump.

If that did happen, of course the Supreme Court would quickly confront a demand for Trump's release. That would raise a question whether members of the Court who have shown past partisan bias, and who in this case hypothetically ordered Trump's release, should be arrested and charged as fellow insurrectionists.

I hope nothing does happen to create any such schocking scenario. Much should have been done previously to make it less likely, while obvious drift in the direction of such a crisis went unaddressed by the Biden Justice Department, and by the inappropriately partisan Supreme Court.

What cannot happen now, if fate and Trump's malevolence do deliver that crisis, is to ignore it, or to pretend his immunity from legal accountability is in some way heightened by status as a candidate contesting an election. An election process officially and legally defended as a legitimate occasion for intimidation and threats of violence would present a crisis of its own—one which would permanently damage the nation's capacity to govern its public affairs by politics, instead of by violence.

[hobie]

That would be hilarious and ironic if Trump committed insurrection again while out on bond for insurrection

[Brett Bellmore]

Wouldn't that require him to be out for bond for insurrection in the first place? He hasn't been charged with insurrection, to the best of my knowledge, unless it happened last week while I was recuperating from surgery.

[hobie]

Well, I'll rephrase and say 'out on bond for crimes that amount to an insurrection.'

[not guilty]

“Wouldn’t that require him to be out for bond for insurrection in the first place? He hasn’t been charged with insurrection, to the best of my knowledge, unless it happened last week while I was recuperating from surgery.”

Uh, no. As with all federal criminal defendants released on bond pending trial, 18 U.S.C. § 3142(c)(1)(A), the August 3, 2023 order setting conditions of Donald Trump’s release specifies that “The defendant must not violate federal, state or local law while on release.” https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.13.0_7.pdf A defendant who has violated a condition of his release is subject to a revocation of release, an order of detention, and a prosecution for contempt of court. § 3148(a).

After a hearing Trump’s bond could be revoked upon judicial findings that there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a Federal, State, or local crime while on release and that there is no condition or combination of conditions of release that will assure that he will not flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community, or he is unlikely to abide by any condition or combination of conditions of release. § 3148(b).

Per § 3148(b), if there is probable cause to believe that, while on release, the defendant committed a Federal, State, or local felony, a rebuttable presumption arises that no condition or combination of conditions will assure that the person will not pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community.

Donald Trump had better be on his best behavior if he loses the election. Probable cause is not a lofty threshold.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Being out on bond" still doesn't equal "being out on bond for insurrection", so there's no "irony" present.

[not guilty]

I get it that your comment was in response to hobie, who then qualified his comment to clarify that he meant to say ‘out on bond for crimes that amount to an insurrection.’

My point is that it does not matter what offense a federal criminal defendant on bond is originally charged with. A judicial finding of probable cause to believe that such a defendant has committed a felony while on bond, combined with a finding that there is no condition or combination of conditions of release that will assure that he will not flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community, can result in revocation of release on bond. (And the first finding raises a rebuttable presumption that the court should make the second finding as well.)

If Donald Trump plans a reprise of his November 2020 through January 2021 shenanigans, which included conspiring to defraud the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 and conspiring to deprive citizens of the right to vote, and to have one's voted counted in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241, he will be skating on thin ice.

[Dr. Ed 2]

" when Trump said publicly that Liz Cheney should face a firing squad, that may be defended as political rhetoric"

I've never heard of arming the person facing the firing squad.

What Trump said was she having to stand there with a rifle (which she could use to defend herself) and face nine other rifles pointed at her. That's called "going into combat", not "facing a firing squad" and Trump's next sentence about the people who start wars not having to actually fight in them makes his meaning clear.

As to the larger issue of locking up Trump -- that would be incendiary. At the very least, you would probably have a national trucker's strike and a stock market crash, along with a loss of respect for the law that wouldn't return for two generations, if ever.

[not guilty]

Speaking of people unwilling to fight in combat, Donald "bone spurs" Trump has no self-awareness whatsoever.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The claim was that Harris is a hawk who will send people's children to war but couldn't go herself. Trump was claiming that he was less hawkish, not that he was more fit for combat.

[TwelveInchPianist]

*Cheney

[Magister]

This was not about Harris; it was about Liz Cheney.

[TwelveInchPianist]

twelve minutes.

[Magister]

You refresh the Open Thread page every few minutes? Good for you. Maybe you should be more careful with what you post in the first place.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I refresh is before I respond, to make sure I'm responding to the latest comments. You should try it.

[Magister]

You should try posting things that are correct in the first place.

[M L]

This one is funny because "they should go fight in the war themselves" used to be such a big left-wing thing.

Does it seem like the lib media complex used to be a helluva lot more tricky and clever with their intentional lies and dishonesty? Are they getting dumber?

[TwelveInchPianist]

The Democrat Arizona AG says she's investing whether Trump's comments violated AZ law. Seems like pretty obvious lawfare, they're no way Trump's comments can be construed as unprotected.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Fact checked by Dr. Ed.

Oof, Stephen Lathrop. Distinctly oof.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Cheney’s rifle would not have been loaded. So it would have been something to get her killed legally. But at this point Trump’s brain is mashed taters so who knows what he meant??

[David Nieporent]

As to the larger issue of locking up Trump — that would be incendiary. At the very least, you would probably have a national trucker’s strike and a stock market crash, along with a loss of respect for the law that wouldn’t return for two generations, if ever.

You would most definitely have neither a trucker's strike — national or local — nor a stock market crash.

[Lennyk78]

Good, let that stupid simian revoke his bail. Hopefully that causes the civil war we so desperately need

[Bwaaah]

Commenter_XY may be disappointed that your gonorrhea has returned.

[Commenter_XY]

Commenter_XY will be glad when the election is over.

Really hoping nothing untoward happens on the geopolitical front during the interregnum period.

[Bwaaah]

I am somewhat optimistic there will be little violence. When a lot of people fear a particular something will go wrong, it usually doesn't because everybody is on the lookout. We usually get our asses kicked not by what we expect, but what we don't expect.

But this is likely to be a highly contested contest, and passions are running high. So there's probably going to be many weeks of angry unhinged rhetoric with the volume turned up to 12 (since it's been at 11 for eight years now). Whereas a non-starter riot in 2020 was deemed an "insurrection," I'm interested to see what they're going to call the 2024 transfer of power. The losing side gets to pick the ugly, and I think it's going to be a doozy.

Meanwhile, I expect a peaceful transfer of power. In a country of 350 million people, bits of violence shouldn't be seen as indicative of popular sentiments or culture, but as the unavoidable excesses of the few actual extremists among us. But partisans love to emphasize the other guy's bad behavior, relying on the worst exceptions to make their best stories. So it'll be like that.

[Brett Bellmore]

I expect that if Harris wins, there will be a peaceful transfer of power. After January 6th, Republicans who were violently inclined were reminded in no uncertain terms that temper tantrums had consequences.

If Trump wins, I am not nearly so confident, as his election prompted rioting the first time around, so why would we not expect rioting on the second occasion?

[not guilty]

Well, duh. If Harris wins, the transfer of power will be from the Biden Administration to the Harris Administration. That transfer should of course be not only peaceful, but routine.

The potential for mischief will come with sore loser Trump supporters trying to prevent that transfer.

[Brett Bellmore]

And they're the people the lesson of January 6th prosecutions will not be lost upon. I expect that the FBI learned some lessons, too, and won't be looking for Proud Boy analogs to egg on, either.

One can't rule out isolated lone wolves, but, Trump has faced at least two assassination attempts so far; How many has Harris had? Apparently none. I expect that to continue.

[bernard11]

Moved

[bernard11]

I wonder if there's a case that if Harris wins it would be good for Biden to resign and let her take over immediately.

[David Nieporent]

There would then be no vice president for 2½ months, leaving Mike Johnson a heartbeat away from the presidency in that time.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent — A situation which would intolerably increase risk of politically motivated violence against Harris.

[bernard11]

Good point, David.

I overlooked that.

[Bwaaah]

That's an interesting, actually sensible idea. Perhaps it's simpler, informal and more graceful than that: if she become the President elect, she'll ascend into the driver's seat as quickly as he'll defer, and he'll pretty much defer immediately on anything she wants.

She wants the job. If elected, she gets it. It would be undignified of Joe to stand in the way of the President elect (if it's *that* President elect). The voters will have spoken.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Unwise, I think. Biden is not incapacitated. He is not far gone in dementia. If the interval between the election and inauguration day turns violent, much better that orders to quell the violence come from soon-to-retire Biden, instead of from much-at-stake Harris.

[not guilty]

If Donald Trump loses, some of his supporters may engage in acts of domestic terrorism -- hopefully isolated acts. The calls by keyboard warriors for civil war are overblown.

[Bwaaah]

Yes, violence from the right with be called "acts of domestic terrorism." And violence from the left will be called "mainly peaceful protests."

I actually expect better from you. You're smart enough to do better.

[Commenter_XY]

I would expect more military action in eastern europe, ME and asia during the interregnum period , regardless of winner. Especially if the election is contested.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"when Trump said publicly that Liz Cheney should face a firing squad"

Sounds like somebody's been getting their information from left-wing propaganda outlets...

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yeah, I did. They showed me the video of Trump saying it, at length, and in context. Or was it Harris, or both on multiple occasions? Trump can be hard to follow, but the MAGA death threat machine receives his signals perfectly. He counts on that.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Congratulations for your contribution to the "both sides lie their asses off" narrative. That really doesn't help the anti-Trump side.

[Brett Bellmore]

I seriously doubt you saw it in context. Most accounts barely bother with paraphrases.

Trump says Liz Cheney might not be such a ‘war hawk’ if she had rifles shooting at her

"Trump called Cheney “a deranged person” and added, “But the reason she couldn’t stand me is that she always wanted to go to war with people. If it were up to her we’d be in 50 different countries.”

The former president continued: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.

“You know they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, oh gee, well let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy,” Trump said."

He's not talking about a firing squad, he's saying she'd feel differently about being a war hawk if she was going to be the one sent into combat.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Do you think what you recited is an adequate presentation, in context? It recites exactly what I saw Trump saying on the video presented.

[apedad]

United States Files Suit for Unpaid Duties and Penalties for Alleged Failure to Pay Duties on Imported Chinese Bedroom Furniture

The United States’ complaint contends that (Lawrence Bivona, who was the President of LaJobi Inc., a Delaware corporation), caused LaJobi to misrepresent the identity of the manufacturers of the children’s furniture imported from China.

In particular, the United States alleges that Bivona falsely represented that the furniture was manufactured by Chinese entities subject to duty rates of approximately 7% or less, and failed to disclose that the furniture was actually manufactured by entities subject to duty rates of 216%.

The complaint seeks the recovery of over $7 million in import duties and over $15 million in civil penalties.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-files-suit-unpaid-duties-and-penalties-alleged-failure-pay-duties-imported

216% import duty?!?

Is there a way to look up govt suits?

I'd like to see the law that requires a 216% import duty.

[Michael P]

https://www.floordaily.net/flooring-news/us-imposes-duties-on-chinese-furniture says anti-dumping duties go up to almost 200% on about a fifth of wood furniture imported from China.

https://www.furnituretoday.com/business-news/us-department-commerce-assigns-216-duties-seven-chinese-bedroom-producers/ discusses what looks like the original assignment of 216% anti-dumping duties on the manufacturers.

[apedad]

Good background info.

Looks like LaJobi has a history of poor performance and has had to recall cribs in March 2019, June 2010, and June 2009.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Also some of the wood imported from China has non-native (to US) pests such as the Asian Longhorn Beetle and Emerald Ash Borer.

[Moderation4ever]

There have been comments made on the Reason site about voter fraud. What I most often note is that the commentor has little or no knowledge of what actually is happening in the voting process. They think that ballots are given out willy-nilly or that the everyone on the voter registration list actually votes. This editorial piece was in my local newspaper, The Wisconsin State Journal, yesterday. The author is Jim Steineke a former Republican leader of the Wisconsin Assembly. Mr. Steineke does a good job of explain the way ballots are handled and the vote certified.

https://madison.com/eedition/page-b2/page_d19df0b0-8290-5095-bb62-6ee5dce385bd.html

[Michael P]

A paywalled explanation of how things are supposed to be done is much less informative than, say, Ohio needing to be ordered to keep a qualified candidate on the ballot after someone forged a letter to have her removed. Or thousands of fraudulent voter registration being dumped in PA just before the registration deadline, giving the counties very little time to check them. Or thousands of non-citizens being kept on voter rolls in other states. Or dozens of counties in Michigan alive with more registered voters than residents.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You're lying again, sociopath.

https://www.votebeat.org/michigan/2024/10/24/michigan-registered-voters-active-more-than-population/

[Krayt]

Which reminds me. Does anyone do post-election statistical analysis to look for anomalies? That link says they are marked inactive but cannot be removed for several years. If they are from lack of use, presumably some small number spring back to life every election, but if tons do, and do so in specific counties, that could be worth investigation. So could any anomalies anywhere.

We always hear lots of hot air over fears, before of course. Then people take their overblown, hot air footballs and go home. But are statisticians keeping an iron lookout for problems after the fact?

[Brett Bellmore]

Michigan has just been lousy about cleaning the voter rolls, for as long as I can remember.

I lived and voted in Michigan, up to 2008 when I had to move. My brother scooted as soon as he graduated college, and for 25 years I'd glance at the poll book, and point out to the election workers that he didn't live in the state anymore. But he stayed on the rolls in our little rural town. Likewise Dad after he died, and Mom after she moved out.

[Zarniwoop]

Pity that a bunch of GOP-controlled states pulled out of the Election Registration Information Center (ERIC), the cooperative multi-state org designed to fix this exact problem:

Member states securely submit voter registration and motor vehicle department data to ERIC. ERIC is also certified to use official death data from the Social Security Administration and subscribes to change of address data from the United States Postal Service.

Utilizing these four data sources, ERIC provides its members with reports that identify inaccurate or out-of-date voter registration records, deceased voters, individuals who appear to be eligible to vote but who are not yet registered, and possible cases of illegal voting.

But there’s a faction of the current GOP that prioritizes grievances and fellating Trump’s conspiracy claims over actual problem solving. Alas.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I thought that was a stupid move myself, but it wasn't exactly unprovoked. ERIC is supposed to be solely about sharing data for election administration. They decided to expand their mandate.

Red-state elections officials balk at voter registration outreach

“(ERIC) was a way to really identify who was not registered to vote,” Allen said, referring to ERIC’s requirement that member states reach out to eligible but unregistered voters and urge them to get on the rolls. “And then, per the contract, the state would have to contact these voters and encourage them to get registered to vote.”

[David Nieporent]

and point out to the election workers that he didn’t live in the state anymore. But he stayed on the rolls in our little rural town.

Do you think that poll workers have the authority to remove registered voters from the rolls? Let alone on the say so of some random guy that wanders into the precinct?

[Moderation4ever]

You will note that every major TV station will have an analysis person or team. NBC's Steve Kornacki may be the most famous. Well, every campaign will have the equivalent looking at the voting data throughout the day. It is these campaign people that call the locals and tell them that they are behind in getting people out to the polls, these people look for the anomalies and alert the campaign to have votes checked and where to ask for recounts. One of the biggest reasons why Trump 2020 calms of fraud did not hold water is that his campaign analyst knew he lost. He wasn't relying on them to show fraud but rather on the like of Guiliani, Powell, and Lindel.

[Commenter_XY]

Yes = Does anyone do post-election statistical analysis to look for anomalies?

A whole lot of data scientists and election law lawyers.

[Moderation4ever]

With the Presidential race close the candidates are looking for every vote they can get. In the final weeks Trump has been looking to young men, the bros. Now that is fine, but I cannot think of any group less likely to get out and vote on election day. I have a family member that is a big Trump supporter and many in the family will argue with him. I never do because I happen to know the man doesn't even vote. I have to wonder if Trump is wasting time for marginal gains?

[Michael P]

Cool story, brah. Do you even understand that each voter convinced -- whether it's to change their vote or to cast one in the first place -- is a marginal gain?

[Moderation4ever]

The question wasn't on marginal gain it was on the time spent for that marginal gain. Campaigns rely on three things, money, people, and time. The first two you can get more if needed, time is the only thing you get less of as the campaign goes forward. Did Trump waste his time?

[Michael P]

Donald Trump didn't dedicate his time to your (possibly fictional) relative, brah.

[Commenter_XY]

It is a numbers question, and the numbers (e.g. votes) in elections are driven by turnout. It would not surprise me at all to see an electoral result where the final results in the battleground states are decided by margins of less than 10K votes each.

What is the combined pop of those battleground states, maybe 80MM? And the election comes down to 100K-150K votes in the aggregate? That is exceptionally close, actually it is incredibly close.

So yes, chasing down the politically unattached voters makes a difference. It is just turnout now.

Final note. I will be very interested to see updated totals this afternoon for early voting and especially mail ballots (for the states that update daily). Mail ballots in PA will be very important to that state. Particularly in the collar counties of Philadelphia (looks like Team D did very well there). Go to UF Election Lab to see updated, and aggregated results.

[apedad]

"In the final weeks Trump has been looking to young men, the bros."

AH! That's why he fellated the microphone.

[Commenter_XY]

Is that what you call an unscripted 3-hour interview on JRE? Something that VP Harris, notably, chose not to do.

[Moderation4ever]

I call it smart. JRE set ground rules that were not workable. In the last hours to give up 3 hours-time and to do it in Texas was simply silly for Harris. You will note that Harris had no problem doing an interview but would not give up that much time.

[Commenter_XY]

VP Harris was in Houston TX, agreeably close to Austin, TX. The opportunity and time were there, she chose not to.

[bernard11]

The opportunity and time were there, she chose not to.

As M4e points out, this may have been simply a calculation that appearing on JRE would be less productive of votes than some other way of spending the time.

That might be right or wrong, of course, like Trump's refusal to have a second debate with Harris.

Oh, and nothing about "word salad" or anything like that from the Trumpers, please. You are supporting the most incoherent, babbling, fool who ever made a serious run for President, so stuff all that.

[Commenter_XY]

The opportunity was there, bernard11. The empty vessel cannot do it.

[bernard11]

Look XY,

It's not like she went and played golf, or took a three-hour nap instead. She did some other campaign activity.

Why do you ascribe a base motive, a la Brett, when it could easily be that she thought the other activity would be more productive?

Paid attention to Trump's babbling lately?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Even shitball JRE manages to tell a truthful version of these events.

You'll note that it doesn't match up with the lies out of your mouth.

https://x.com/joerogan/status/1851118464447971595

[Frank Drackman]

The Pete Booty-Judges vote too

[hobie]

Awhile back I stated here that the October surprise would Trump's own mouth. And he has not disappointed. But I didn't think he would also use his mouth by grabbing a mic by the pussy and start chortling. This is the abomination you basket of deplorables have hitched your wagon to. Hilarious

[Lennyk78]

And you've hitched your wagon to people who think that killing unborn babies is a fundamental right.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You are evidence that it absolutely should be.

[Michael P]

Leftist concern trolling about election-related violence and riot is, as usual, projection to deflect from what Antifa and BLM protesters are up to.

https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1323967415194017801

[John F. Carr]

Massachusetts' new gun law is in effect now thanks to a gubernatorial declaration of emergency. In 2026 retailers will start to be trained on how to comply with it. Walmart has decided to take its chances now and resume selling ammunition. A federal lawsuit against the law is in progress. Voters are likely to have a chance to repeal the law in 2026. (They won't do it. Massachusetts voters will pick the left side of any culture war issue.)

https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/10/29/walmart-plans-to-put-ammo-back-on-the-shelf-after-pausing-sales-because-of-new-mass-gun-law/

Did anybody dress up as a ghost gun on Halloween?

[apedad]

"Massachusetts has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In an average year, 257 people die by guns in this state."

Seems like common sense laws work.

[ThePublius]

It's not gun laws, it's culture. We have fewer gangs, gang bangers, a smaller drug trade, and so on.

[Frank Drackman]

Just say it, fewer Blacks, it’s the one nice thing about your State, which has about the population of Tennessee, but is way older and whiter, not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Longtobefree]

That, or it gets too cold to go out and shoot somebody - - - - - - - - -

[John F. Carr]

The new law hasn't had time to affect statistics. Also, the new requirement for training does not apply to people who already hold a license to carry.

[apedad]

True but I was commenting on your, "Massachusetts voters will pick the left side of any culture war issue," statement.

[ThePublius]

By the way, NY and Chicago have tougher gun laws - how's that working out for them?

Chicago:
November To Date
Shot & Killed: 2
Shot & Wounded: 19
Total Shot: 21
Total Homicides: 2

https://heyjackass.com/

[Bwaaah]

How's that working for them? It drives them to seek tougher gun laws.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when the only response you have is lawmaking, all you ever do is make more laws.

Never look back. It's not about outcomes. It's about intentions, and looking like people who care.

[Lennyk78]

Yeah, if you make it hard to buy guns, people won't kill themselves with them! They'll instead kill themselves with pills or by hanging.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Massachusetts has NINE level I trauma centers -- ten if you count the one in Rhode Island that nearby MA towns will roll to. (And a whole lot more Level II, and Level III ones.)

All of Maine has ONE, in Portland, there are only three in all of Northern New England.

What's not widely known is that when they had the shooting in Lewiston last year, a lot of the medflight helos came from Boston and took victims directly to Boston so as to save the limited resources in Portland for more urgent cases. Dartmouth/Hitchcock flew victims to New Hampshire for the same reason.

Now Apedad, I don't know what kind of military service you did, but I'm guessing that you can understand that having this level of medical care reduces GSW mortality. For example -- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/transit-officer-wounded-boston-shootout-mit-cop-saved-my-life-flna6C9723752

The officer arrived with no blood pressure and no blood in him -- the hospital replaced over 100% of his blood but he lived because he was in Boston. You have to include this in discussing MA having a lower gun death rate -- we have FOUR medical schools, most states are lucky to have just one.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I lot of people don't understand that: If you have good trauma centers nearby, an awful lot of "murders" get converted into "assault" or "attempted murder" by doctors. "Murder" rates are very strongly driven my local medical resources.

[Stephen Lathrop]

So higher gun prevalence leads to more shootings, but better survival rates. As blessings go, that one seems pretty equivocal.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Steven, take a basic course on statistical methods and you'll understand.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You also have a lower highway death rate too -- and Lord knows that Massachusetts drivers aren't the nation's best.

It's the same thing about the other 49 states can have civilian flaggers at construction jobs, but MA has a lower construction accident death rate. BECAUSE WE HAVE 10 TRAUMA CENTERS, not because half-asleep police officers do a better job flagging....

[Frank Drackman]

Only real difference is a Level 1 has the academic bullshit, like some MD/PhD is gonna crossclamp your Aorta 2am Sunday morning, OK they will have a Cardiac/Neurosurgeon in house, if you need one of them Jay-hey’s trying to send you a message. More worrisome is the lack of basic trauma surgical skills with todays video game trained surgeons

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

Well, I compare it to the "hospital" in Machias, Maine that let a patient wander out into a blizzard and freeze to death, where they only set broken bones one day a week, re-breaking them to do so, etc.

[Commenter_XY]

Wow, what a mess John F Carr. It is all about the Legislature passing a law, without any guidance on how to comply with it...Is that a fair statement of the issue? I don't see a 2A issue with a state registry (like MA now passed into law) on who is buying ammo, is there one?

[Longtobefree]

There is a 2A issue with all infringements.
The only possible use of a registry is later confiscation.

[SRG2]

The only possible use of a registry is later confiscation.

Nope. It can also be so that the governor of a state can summon all gun owners to muster. And if a registry requires serial numbers, it can also be used for later investigation of crimes.

[Michael P]

It would be unconstitutional to only summon gun owners to muster. Not surprise you would be in favor of it.

[ThePublius]

That's nonsense. If summoned to the militia, one is required to present themselves bearing the arm commonly in use by the army. We can't even do that legally! And the serial number requirement is only since 1968, and has been challenged by a federal judge as unconstitutional.

[ThePublius]

"Price argued that the law is unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court's June 24 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc v. Bruen. That ruling held that under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the government cannot restrict the right to possess firearms unless the restriction is consistent with historical tradition."

https://www.reuters.com/legal/ban-guns-with-serial-numbers-removed-is-unconstitutional-us-judge-2022-10-13/

[SRG2]

Nope. Longtobefree made a claim about only possible use of a registry. Whether in practice other uses may be controversial or stopped doesn't alter that there is more than one way to use a registry.

[Commenter_XY]

Would that even be legal? = a state summoning (compelling) all gun owners to assemble

[Frank Drackman]

Probably not, but Governments should be careful about the questions they ask their Subjects, they might not get the answer that they want them to give (Insert Fleetwood Mac "Oh Well" Guitar Riff here)

Frank

[SRG2]

Why not? The governor of a state is head of the militia and the militia has a well-established constitutional definition, no?

[Commenter_XY]

How would that work, though. The Gov goes on TV and asks everyone who has a firearm to go to a certain place at a certain time with their weapon?

[SRG2]

How did it work in the old days? It has to be easier now.

[Brett Bellmore]

The way it worked is that the government ordered EVERYBODY to own guns, (Well, every male adult, anyway.) so whoever they called up would be armed.

Literally, the original militia regulations mandated that people secure firearms and a supply of shot and powder, at their own expense, though there were frequently allowances for those too poor to afford them to be supplied at government expense.

[Frank Drackman]

I used to have my girls go as just plain Ghosts, but the White Sheets get so “Missundaztood” in Atlanta (Did that Album really come out in 2001? Cums-a-lot hadn’t even jailed her first Black Man yet)

Frank

[John F. Carr]

The Boston Globe reported on the return of the Holyoke, Massachusetts school district to local control. Holyoke is the western counterpart of Lawrence, a once thriving city that lost its industry and has nothing left but a large, poor immigrant community. The schools were the worst in the state when the state took over control.

Three takeaways from the article:
1. 30% of students have disabilities. Special ed is big business in Massachusetts.
2. Receivership is being terminated because the governor is very liberal, not because of results. Unless you count workforce diversity as a result.
3. "The results in Holyoke mimic widespread research on state takeovers of school districts, which show they rarely improve educational outcomes but are effective at rooting out corruption and dysfunction."

The article is here and may be paywalled depending on the phase of the moon: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/29/metro/holyoke-school-district-transition-out-state-receivership-2025/

[ducksalad]

Is there a breakdown of those disabilities anywhere in that paywalled article? Wondering how many of that 30% have conditions we would have called a disability back in the last century.

Back then parents would be horrified to have their kid labeled as having a disability. Now it seems like something they lobby for.

[John F. Carr]

The article did not say. In general, disability diagnosis rates are higher in low-income communities.

A 2014 report gives the following statwide percentages, as fractions of total student population.

5.7% specific learning
3.0% communication
1.8% development delay (much higher than national rate)
1.4% emotional (much higher than national rate)
1.3% health
1.1% autism (much higher than national rate)
1.1% intellectual

I omitted values under 1%. The statewide total was around 17%. Traditional disabilities, deaf or blind or nearly so, or missing a body part, add up to under .5%.

If you can get placed into special education you can have extra time on tests or turn in homework late.

In one school in my area, but not in another school, being in special education replaces a regular class with a small study hall type class with a teacher who can help with homework.

[Commenter_XY]

Interesting. In NJ we have a few school districts with an unusually high number of special needs students (which require higher funding from the state); Fairlawn NJ comes to mind.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And you'll notice that most (not all) charter and Catholic parochial schools have very low rates of DIAGNOSED disabilities.

The reason why is that if the child's needs can be met in the regular classroom, no one is going to make a SPED referral. Conversely, if the regular classroom sucks, you're going to have a high false positive SPED rate because SPED (by definition) is failure to make expected progress.

[Dr. Ed 2]

John, my personal favorite is Oppositional Defiant Disorder -- an inability to comply with authority. Why do we let such children have driver's licenses???

[grb]

Author Michael Wolff has hours of taped conversation with Jeffrey Epstein from two years before the latter’s death. Epstein claimed to be Trump’s “closest friend” for a decade and had plenty to say on him. For instance:

“He (Epstein) offers a portrait of Trump womanizing, yelling at staff and living a basically friendless life with only his daughter Ivanka, his secretary and his bodyguard truly loyal to him. Trump, he said, was almost “functionally illiterate” but did read the Page Six gossip column in the New York Post. He was “incapable” of reading a balance sheet, and any “act of kindness” would have been an accident.”

“On the tape Epstein can be heard saying, “He’s a horrible human being. He does nasty things to his best friends, best friends’ wives, anyone who he first tries to gain their trust and uses it to do bad things to them.”

“Epstein also alleged that Trump had an elaborate scheme to procure sex with his friends’ wives. He would call the men into his Trump Tower office to ask them about their sex lives and offer them sex with beauty pageant contestants, the pedophile said. He would do this while the wives were—unknown to their husbands—listening on speakerphone, so that he could then seduce the wives on the basis their husbands had betrayed them, Epstein claimed.”

“And Epstein offers his eyewitness account of Trump Tower and Trump’s office where, he said, Trump had “fake honors” on the wall. Trump, he claimed, would yell at his personal assistant Rhona Graff, “who’s a loyal, perfect, secretary,” as well as Matthew Calamari Snr., his bodyguard, and Michael Cohen, his attorney who is now an enemy. Epstein compared Trump to “an emotionally challenged 9-year-old…”

So what does everyone think? Emotionally challenged 9-year-old? I have Trump figured more in the Terrible Two range, but admit any judgement of stunted emotional growth is subjective.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/listen-to-the-jeffrey-epstein-tapes-i-was-donald-trumps-closest-friend/

[ThePublius]

Wow, you're very desperate.

[grb]

And very accurate.....

[Bored Lawyer]

Ah yes, Jeffrey Epstein. Font of credibility. Perhaps he was miffed that the Donald did not buy a ticket on the Lolita Express the way Bill Clinton did.

[Commenter_XY]

BL...How does that Epstein client list get released from the courts into the public domain? Same with P Diddy's list?

With the different cases over Epstein. how is it the client list was never revealed.

[Life of Brian]

"Mr. Epstein was not immediately available for comment."

[Brett Bellmore]

Epstein knew he was breaking some pretty serious laws, and as a matter of self-defense, he made sure to get a LOT important people on his visitor logs, and to generate a lot of incriminating records about them.

Didn't do him any good in the end, of course; Somebody figured out how to prevent their release, and then he had no defenders.

[Moderation4ever]

I don't think we will have any real idea about the extent of people that worked with Epstein for a long while. Most of the people will have to have died, as will the protectors of those same persons.

[Brett Bellmore]

Even then it will likely be like the Kennedy assassination files, they'll just refuse to release them for no reason they're willing to articulate.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Didn't Trump ban him for hitting on the towel girls?

[Moderation4ever]

Is any of this really surprising or relevant? Trump supporters don't care what he did, they have made that clear.

[Brett Bellmore]

We've made clear that we don't automatically equate "what he's alleged to have done" with "what he did", anyway.

[M L]

Well if you can't believe Jeffrey Epstein - who can you believe?

Never mind that these tales sound suspiciously like the sort of thing Jeffrey Epstein did - like, as a career, with his whole life. Including, eventually, for intelligence agencies, it appears.

And there certainly haven't been any other folks who were friendly with Donald Trump for a long time, who then went totally nuts and hateful and made up wild things after he won the Presidency in 2016.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Who is this Epstein fellow? I suppose he's an upstanding, truth-telling citizen? Why not get in touch with him and see if he confirms his earlier conversations?

/sarc

[ducksalad]

.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Some people here might have watched Wizards of Waverly Place (or had children/grandchildren who did). I notice there is a sequel now.

I enjoyed the subplot in the original involving a vampire family with
Bridgit Mendler playing the daughter. She later had her own Disney show, Good Luck Charlie (her baby sister). The legal connection is she is the niece of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

[Z Crazy]

I sometimes wonder why guns control advocates focus on school shootings.

the thing is, school shootings are rare.

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/how-the-gun-control-debate-ignores-black-lives/80445/

“Any given school can expect to experience a student homicide about once every 6,000 years,” said Dewey Cornell, a University of Virginia professor who studies school safety.

That refers to all schools in the U.S.. But even if the study was limited to schools in the ghetto, I'd be surprised if it was as often as once about every 2,000 years.

Schools in the ghetto, while far more dangerous than Sidwell Friends, are much relatively safer than the surrounding ghetto.

another reason focusing on school shootings is fallacious is that schools are small, geographically isolated areas. Opponents of gun control laws could simply point out we can order Army troops to keep schools secure by any means necessary. There would be no need for society-wide policy changes to suppress street crime.

[ducksalad]

Another thing to consider – there are places (e.g. Somalia, Iraq, cartel controlled towns in Mexico, Colombia) that are awash in guns and people willing to use them. All kinds of violent stuff happens.

But what doesn’t happen in any of those places is pimply faced lone teenagers bringing a gun to school to kill their classmates.

To me that’s solid evidence that school shootings are 100% a US culture issue; it doesn’t have much to do with guns or their availability.

[Brett Bellmore]

School shootings are a media culture issue. A while back the media decided that they could advance the gun control agenda by reporting every local school shooting nation-wide, endlessly.

They succeeded in creating the impression they were aiming for, that school shootings were vastly more common than they actually were.

But they also considerably increased the problem by creating copy-cat school shooters. Because committing a school shooting now means everybody in the country will hear your name, there are substantially more school shootings than there were before the media had a standing offer of instant notoriety if you'd just commit one.

[bernard11]

A while back the media decided that they could advance the gun control agenda by reporting every local school shooting nation-wide, endlessly.

All a conspiracy of course.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett, I blame the school shooting drills.

Before Colombine, we never had them. Now we do.
And we are putting a lot of bad ideas into sick minds.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Democrats in GA got caught cheating.

Four blue counties illegally extended voting in select locations then tried to block observers.

This isn't how you instill faith in elections

[hobie]

You know, Jesus, you should hold a press conference at a landscaping company to present your findings. As you sweat motor oil, you should start naming names. Make sure all your assets are offshore before you do this.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I like how you think if you haven't heard of it it didn't happen

[David Nieporent]

I like how you think if you haven’t heard of it it didn’t happen

It didn't happen because you're lying. Nobody extended voting at all, let alone illegally. It's true that some Republicans made a frivolous claim, but the court quickly rejected it.

[SimonP]

Parroting Russian talking points, are we?

This claim is completely without merit. The counties permitted voters to hand over their absentee ballots, in person, within government offices whose hours were extended in order to permit this. All counties - including red counties - are permitted to do this. And they are permitted to accept those ballots, if handed over in person, up to Election Day.

That might be a work-around for a law that requires closing ballot drop-boxes prior to Election Day, but you'll have to explain who is helped, and how the election is safeguarded, by preventing people from handing over their own ballots, in person, at government offices.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Did you see the email that was leaked about how watchers were not approved?

[SimonP]

No, I don't follow the same right-wing propaganda outlets you obviously do.

[Mr. Bumble]

So you choose to be willfully ignorant?

[SimonP]

If I can't figure out what Jesus is referring to after googling for what he seems to be referring to, it is too deeply buried within the right-wing echo chamber for it to be worth my noting or responding to. It is probably a total fabrication, at root.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

It posted all over the place. An email stating no watchers were allowed at these extended places.

Open up your bubble.

[SimonP]

Jesus, if you think it's "all over the place," but a simple Google search with key terms doesn't even clue me in, you might consider that you are the one in the bubble.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Oh yeah, Google, the international mega corporation known for election interference.

Good one. lmao you f'n' people I swear.

Doesn't matter, the GA Supreme Ct. just shutdown the cheaters for good.

[David Nieporent]

Nothing was "leaked." A policy was announced publicly — that these weren't polling places, and therefore laws permitting observers at polling places didn't apply. Then they immediately said, "Never mind; people are free to watch."

[Brett Bellmore]

The general problem is that somebody locally figures out a work-around for the rules to give their area effectively easier voting than everywhere else, and they get a first mover advantage in that election, because nobody else is doing it.

It does run contrary to the idea of uniform election administration.

[SimonP]

I am in favor of uniform election administration. That's why I supported Democrats' attempt to create uniform rules for all federal elections. It is Republicans who historically have favored a patchwork approach, which allows them to pick and choose their own voters.

As your ilk are fond of saying - if voters in "red" counties aren't able to to get their absentee ballots into the boxes on time, or vote in person on Election Day, then that's on them, isn't it? Why do "blue" counties have to inconvenience their own voters, just because administrators in "red" counties don't view electoral representation as all that important?

[David Nieporent]

and they get a first mover advantage in that election,

…if they keep their policy secret at the TS/SCI level. Otherwise, anyone else is free to do exactly the same thing.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

A friend of mine in AL just had his poll worker training.

They were instructed that if a person presented a foreign ID that they could not be turned away nor told to cast a provisional ballot.

That isn't what elections with integrity look like.

[grb]

JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes : "A friend of mine in AL...."

Forget the bullshit anecdote, who here believes the Nazi Child has friends?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

The doj sued AL over this very thing.

Damn you people are so low information

[grb]

JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes : "The DOJ sued AL over this very thing"

So you didn't hear it from your make-believe friend after all? (I called that one right!) Give us a link, Nazi Child. We want to see how you're lying about this.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Holy moly you don't know shit about anything.

I'm not your personal assistant. The DOJ has been suing every state trying to secure their elections. It's common knowledge.

[Mr. Bumble]

I thought 1/2 the country was Nazis.

[Josh R]

The Reader’s Digest version of the polls.

Either 1) they are again underestimating Trump because his voters are less likely to participate in polls and Trump wins, 2) they have overcorrected with the adjustments they make for missing Trump voters, thus overestimating him and Harris wins, or 3) neither, the polls are accurate and who knows who wins.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nate Silver has legitimately complained that, regardless of whether the polls are accurate, or which way they're wrong this year, they're way too close to each other given the published error bars. Polls with large error bars should be spread out, not all clustered together!

Which means they're putting a thumb on the results so that they don't look too different from everybody else's results, rather than just going with what the methodology tells them is the result.

So, we don't know if they're right or wrong, or which way they're wrong. But we do know that they're not playing it straight.

[Josh R]

Some are playing it straight (Selzer in Iowa?). Some aren’t. It’s also possible recall weighting results in herding but is motivated by correcting for undersampled Trump voters rather than a CYA move.

The other Nate (Cohn) has a good analysis (read the whole thread).

[Commenter_XY]

The complaints are unsurprising. We do not see the private polling results that both campaigns spend beaucoup money for. I actually chuckled at Nate Silver's complaints; it was rich coming from him.

It (polling error) invariably comes down to sampling, and data collection modes.

[Josh R]

Good points. But I will add that herding motivated by CYA hurts the accuracy of the poll avearge (even though it helps each poller who does it - it does cover some ass).

[Josh R]

And (channelling my inner Columbo), one more thing: Harris picked up a tiny bit (0.2-to-0.3%-points) in the battlegrounds in the final week (that's true whether you use RCP, Silver or anyone other aggregator).

[grb]

Brett is right : Silver's objections are well-thought-out and based on solid reasoning. Of course, CYA polling probably isn't new, but the closeness of this election highlights the phenomena. Silver's argument is linked below:

https://www.natesilver.net/p/theres-more-herding-in-swing-state

[Josh R]

This morning a person noted that recall weighting will result in appears to be herding. Silver's dismissive reply was that makes recall weighting bad. But, if recall weighting is needed to account for undersampling Trump voters (a big if), then the herding which results might on balance improve the poll average even though it might miss late movement.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, we'll know one way or the other in another couple of days.

[Josh R]

I have to follwup because the person made a math error. He claimed recall weighting decreases the standard error by a multiplicative factor of 2.3. That would cause recall weighted polls to appear to herd. But, the correct calculation shows recall weighting decreases standard error by a multiplicative factor of 1.15.

So no, recall weighting will not be confused with herding.

[Dr. Ed 2]

XY -- variance that doesn't correspond to expected error percentages is a sign of forged/fabricated data.

[Commenter_XY]

Sometimes we call that movement a 'significant result', when you get a result lying outside expected parameters. Just saying.

[Both Sides]

FWIW, I think that really does sum it up. I would only add (and this may be implicit in your post), that there's no reliable way any of us can know which of those three is most likely.

I would add a co-sign to Commenter_XY's point above about the challenges of dealing with a very closely-divided nation. And no, there's not going to be a civil war, secession, or anything like that, no matter what the fantasies of the far-left or far-right.

[Bob from Ohio]

"The Reader’s Digest version of the polls."

They tell nothing about who is going to win.

Margin of error is your friend.

[Josh R]

"Margin of error" usually refers to finite sample. But over many, many polls, that MOE goes down. That's not the problem. The problem in 2016 and 2020 were systemic errors in missing Trump voters that repeated in poll after poll, and thus the MOE was not reduced by more and more polls.

[Brett Bellmore]

Pollsters usually lean very hard on the sample size error, and report it as though that were the actual anticipated error.

But it's really just the only component of error that's subject to rigorous computation. And that only if you make assumptions which at one time were reasonable, but are now flatly ridiculous, like that 100% of the people you poll answer you. (It's down in the single digits now.

The whole polling industry today reminds me of Wile E Coyote, standing on air after the cliff has broken off under him, but he hasn't yet looked down. And the industry is absolutely determined to never look down.

[Commenter_XY]

We generally call that bias 🙂 = The problem in 2016 and 2020 were systemic errors in missing Trump voters that repeated in poll after poll, and thus the MOE was not reduced by more and more polls.

[Josh R]

It's statistical bias, not political bias. Pollsters make money by being right, not politically biased (but perhaps there is some market for intentionally poltiically-biased, poor-performing polls).

[Commenter_XY]

no shit = statistical bias.

To be fair, it is both biases.

[Longtobefree]

The race will be decided by suitcases, not polls.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ilya thanks you for the obscure reference to foot voting.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

He was talking about ballots full of suitcases.

[Dr. Ed 2]

THAT I'd like to see...

How many suitcases will fit inside a ballot?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Strict Scrutiny Podcast this week started the episode with an extended discussion of this story including noting a cape is involved. Justice Alito wearing it on Halloween was not confirmed.

https://abovethelaw.com/2024/10/sam-alito-got-knighted-just-like-the-founding-fathers-explicitly-made-unconstitutional/

[David Nieporent]

Joe Patrice is, as always, an idiot. The constitution says that U.S. government officerholders cannot (without the consent of Congress) accept a title from any King, Prince, or foreign State. It does not say that they can't accept titles from people cosplaying as princes. (I assure you that the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies does not in fact hold any temporal power.)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The relevant Constitutional provision is: "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Wikipedia says this group is a Catholic military order like the Knights of Malta.

I wonder why a prominent American Catholic would join an organization like that?

Maybe we can ask Dan Brown, and he can explain how they're a conspiratorial group seeking to suppress the truth about Pope Joan. Of course, Dan Brown puts the label "Fiction" on his works.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

another relevent clause is:

"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

I figure Alito is safe though the literal-minded nature of some around here might flag (pun not intended) that "who have temporal power" is not literally there.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The ban on religious tests is literally there.

Next up: getting rid of federal officials because they belong to the Knights of Columbus.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The titles of nobility bit is a minor part of the whole thing but not sure where the line is regarding “cosplaying” when traditionally there were lots of nobility with very little power.

People were pretty concerned about any shred of "nobility" back & some probably would have been concerned fwiw if some very very minor prince with no real power decided to make a Supreme Court justice part of their order.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“The titles of nobility bit is a minor part of the whole thing”

“The titles of nobility bit” was the focus of the article you linked to.

Their Web site speaks of their focus on charitable activities, though I suppose that is simply a front for royalist plots.

If we're going to talk intent of the framers, "[p]eople were pretty concerned about any shred of" imposing religious qualifications for public office.

[Bored Lawyer]

If anyone wants to know why academia is held in contempt, see this article. Apparently, bombing a synagogue and killing four people is not disqualifying from working as a professor. But criticizing affirmative action with uncomfortable truths is.

‘Spitting on the graves of Jewish victims’: Terrorist to teach social justice at Canadian Uni

Dr Hassan Diab was found guilty of the 1980 bombing of a French synagogue and sentenced to life imprisonment.

A man convicted of terrorism and sentenced to life for his involvement in the murder of four Jews in a French synagogue bombing, is an active Professor of Sociology at a Canadian University, and teaches a course on “social justice in action.”
Carleton University in Ottawa stands by Diab, and has worked to prevent his extradition in the past.
Dr Hassan Diab, a Lebanese terrorist, was convicted by a French court over his involvement in a 1980 bombing that killed four people and injured 46 outside the Rue Copernic reform synagogue in Paris.
Diab fled to Canada, and after being arrested in 2008, entered into a six-year legal battle to avoid being extradited to France. However, Diab was extradited in 2014, but after two years in prison, a judge allowed him to be released to house arrest. He escaped to Canada on the same day.

The subsequent trial was held in absentia, and the court unanimously ruled that Diab was guilty and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Despite the international arrest warrant against him, Diab will be teaching a sociology course this year at Carleton University in Ottawa.

[Bored Lawyer]

Link to article here: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-827521

[Commenter_XY]

Do you read The Jewish Press, BL?

[Bored Lawyer]

No.

[Lennyk78]

A common refrain from Nevertrump Republicans is that if Trump loses again, the Republican party can reset and pick someone better next time.

The problem with this philosophy is that Trump has a lot of support from working class people and others who are tired of the Republican establishment selling them out for the past 50 years.

Those people are not just going to blindly vote for the Republican. Meaning that if the party returns to the days of nominating wet rags like McCain or Romney who ultimately sell out conservatism, those people will stay at home.

The Nevertrumpers don't realize that they need those people, or they will never win another election. I'm not saying Trump is a good solution, but the GOP establishment may want to do some examination as to why Trump is so popular among 30-40% of the population.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The Nevertrumpers don’t realize that they need those people, or they will never win another election."

I'm not so sure they don't realize it, and aren't content with being the playing Washington Generals to the Democrats' Globetrotters. Sure, you don't get the same kickbacks, but you do a lot less work.

But I don't see HOW the party establishment recaptures control over the nominating process, now that the Republican voting base know that they can get who they want if they try. Certainly the never-trumpers aren't going to recapture the party, they're outside it looking in at this point, and they've totally burned whatever credibility they had.

[Roger S]

If Trump loses in a landslide, then the never-Trumpers will probably re-capture the Republican Party.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, but he's not going to lose in a landslide, now, is he? That's basically impossible at this point, the polls can't be THAT far off.

[grb]

No, Trump won’t lose in a landslide. But how long will the GOP and Right remain a hollow nihilistic shell, committed to nothing but Reality-TV-style fireworks, make-believe issues, and carnival barkers as politicians? If Trump loses, won’t it finally be enough?

He couldn’t get reelected president, which is a rarity in modern times. He then gave away the Senate in a childish snit and led the way (both in person & via surrogate candidates) when the Republicans underperformed in midterms that couldn’t have been more optimal.

If Trump loses, isn’t it time to grow-up? No more sleazy thrills, performance transgressions, or presidential campaigns run as a frat boy prank. No more lifelong criminals as candidates. No more pathological liars worshiped as a living god. Instead adult politicians addressing adult issues in an adult way. Less fun to be sure, but an entire friggin party of brat children should be getting old by now (even for you).

There are some real human beings in the GOP. I may not agree with them, but they display human traits. If Trump loses and the GOP comes back in ’28 with just more tinhorn hucksters like DeSantis or Vance, they'll have learned nothing.

[Lennyk78]

Right, DeSantis and Vance are hucksters, because unlike Romney and Jorge Bush, are not willing to forfeit every issue to Democrats.

[Lennyk78]

That's a fair point. To address Roger S, I disagree that they'll recapture the party. Sure, Trump won't be on the ballot again.

But the days of forcing through the nomination of the Romneys of the world are over. The party will have to pick someone palatable to the voters, not the party heads.

[grb]

Lennyk78 : "... the GOP establishment may want to do some examination as to why Trump is so popular among 30-40% of the population."

There's no big mystery there. And it has nothing to do with the Republican establishment "selling them out." For that, you'd have to produce some substantive way Trump didn't - and you can't.

Instead, it's because Trump provides good old WWE-style entertainment with brat-child theatrics that have them slapping their knees with glee. In the Right these days, politicians must give their entertainment consumer base a good show, complete with cartoon thrills & chills. That's what they expect from decades of talk radio, pet media, and 24/7 Fox infotainment.

And if your song & dance routine doesn't juice the ratings? You're a RINO by default.

[Lennyk78]

This is stupid and self serving.

[Dan Schiavetta]

grb

Well put.

[SimonP]

If you could design a GOP platform from scratch that is directly aimed at the complaints of working class people - housing and groceries are too expensive, gas prices are high, smaller communities are hollowing out as younger generates search for economic opportunities in larger cities, two-earner households are needed to afford children while childcare remains very expensive, public schools are a mixed bag and private schools are expensive, etc. - what would you include?

I don't mean to imply that only Democratic policies would actually address those concerns. But it seems clear that Trump's tariff-immigration-drill message wouldn't actually fix any of those problems, and would in many ways actually just make them worse. So if you were to abstract away Trump's idiocy and Vance's lies, what would a true-to-the-GOP, working-class economic platform look like?

[Lennyk78]

I don't know. The problems are structural, and not easy to fix, not after 50 years of globalization and mass immigration.

But what I do know is that Trump at least listens to them. The Democrats don't. They instead mock them (see Rev. Kirkland). They just spread idiocy and lies like "Let's give a $25,000 credit to reduce housing costs" or "Obamacare will save money through efficiency and cost-cutting."

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

No, you know it’s mostly BS because Republicans are still complaining about energy prices when we’ve had low prices for almost 2 years and we are producing record amounts of fossil fuel. Btw, Hillary lost in 2016 because of low oil prices—-high energy prices are now good for America within reason thanks to fracking. So in 2017 the big “problem” Trump had to solve was jacking up energy prices.

[Lennyk78]

No, we're not complaining about energy prices. We're complaining about the price of housing, health care, education, child care, and other services.

[Zarniwoop]

Trump keeps promising to "Drill baby drill". It's a part of his standard stump speech. He gets cheers from his low-info adoring fans, because they have been lied to and don't know/won't admit that the US is, right now, producing record amounts of fossil fuels.

He's literally promising to do something the US is already doing, and fanbois think it makes him an economic sooper-genius.

[Commenter_XY]

We have the capacity to produce quite a bit more, particularly in AK where we could open up asian NG markets.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Omg, no. Palin’s pipeline was cancelled because that natural gas isn’t economical to produce.

[bernard11]

But simply producing the maximum amount is unlikely to be the best policy, so not doing it is not necessarily a mistake.

[Commenter_XY]

Opening up an entirely new export market for NG is better than not, c'mon. That could have changed the geopolitical situation.

[bernard11]

Production and revenue are two different things.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Republicans want to export cheap LNG to China…Biden only wants to export it to NATO partners.

[SimonP]

For purposes of this thread, I am not going to debate Trump's bona fides.

That said, your inability to point to any specific policy that a political conservative would endorse, in order to actually appeal to working-class voters, helps to make my underlying point. Which is that it's all about vibes, isn't it?

What the MAGA commenters here don't understand is that the sort of faux-populism being embraced by Vance, et al., is closely modeled after successful right-wing populists in Europe. Their platform tends to be very anti-immigrant - as is Vance's - but often that's paired with shoring up social support for citizen communities. They're not afraid of socialized medicine, good, free (or cheap) schooling, a secure retirement. They just want it to be for true Italians (or Greeks, or Frenchmen, etc. - not those Muslim migrants).

That's why Vance and Trump will sometimes nod in the direction of childcare, tax credits for families, and things like that. But because that's a faux-populism hoisted upon a true policy program of gutting federal spending for everyone while cutting taxes for the richest individuals and corporations, it ends up being a rather thin "working class" platform, conveyed by imperfect conmen like Trump or highly manufactured candidates lacking an ounce of charisma like Vance.

Imagine what it would be like if you got an actually charismatic, human-seeming person out there promising to invest in rural communities, make childcare more affordable, give people a reason to live near their parents and home communities, etc., without constantly repelling people by being stilted or offensive. That would be a powerful Republican messenger! But I just can't think of anyone matching that description, among the GOP. Where is the conservative Bernie or Walz?

[Commenter_XY]

A political conservative (please define, SimonP with a current social conservative so I know what you’re talking about) could be supportive of repealing the tax on SSA benefits. I can see that.

A political conservative could be open to the idea of a consumption tax system, and not an income tax system. That consumption tax could be in the form of tariffs. Or a national sales tax. Or both.

There is a ‘Second Step’ after the successful ‘First Step’ legislation passed in Pres Trump’s first term. I can see social conservatives supportive of such a move, if there is empirical data from First Step that makes the case.

We haven’t touched foreign policy, and to me, that is the true power of the presidency.

As for who, all I would say is that it will be someone from outside DC, and independently wealthy (has FU money).

[SimonP]

Nothing you've said here is responsive.

Lenny initiated this thread by noting that a GOP "reset," if it wanted to keep Trump voters, would need to address the concerns of working-class voters. I asked what a "conservative" platform geared towards such voters could look like.

I don't hear working-class voters clamoring to keep more of their income as take-home pay, just so they can either pay a 25% or more national sales tax on everything they buy, or deal with a dramatic reduction in public services. And I don't see the taxation of SSA benefits or prison reform as being a primary point of concern, either.

Try to pay attention, CXY. What motivates Trump voters to support Trump? It's not tax policy or overcrowded prisons.

[Commenter_XY]

Voters normally vote their pocketbooks. Voters have less to spend because they've lost ground in real terms. It isn't rocket science.

Do you live in a bubble? There was spirited discussion about a test I posted late last week, to help you answer that question = What motivates Trump voters to support Trump?

[bernard11]

Voters normally vote their pocketbooks. Voters have less to spend because they’ve lost ground in real terms. It isn’t rocket science.

This is more complex than it seems, and a lot depends on time frames, etc.

Still, one thing that amazes is that there are plenty of voters who back Trump because of inflation, when his major economic proposals are clearly highly inflationary.

[bernard11]

A political conservative (please define, SimonP with a current social conservative so I know what you’re talking about) could be supportive of repealing the tax on SSA benefits. I can see that.

And how would said conservative replace the SS funds lost?

A political conservative could be open to the idea of a consumption tax system, and not an income tax system. That consumption tax could be in the form of tariffs. Or a national sales tax. Or both.

A consumption tax could work, but it will be highly regressive unless you put in lots of complications. So would a national sales tax. As for tariffs, they are even worse. It is astonishing to me that in 2024 we are seriously discussing big tariff increases, not mention that the big supporters are people who claim to be concerned about inflation. They are a recipe for economic disaster.

As for First Step, if it works as you say, I'm all for expanding it. Of course it's hardly a "conservative" program. It had very strong bipartisan support.

[Lennyk78]

Yes, it is indeed about vibes. The same way that the Democrats claim that their candidates are "civil" and "uniters."

We would have had many of those social programs decades ago if we didn't have a large third world population living in our midst.

Scandinavians don't particularly mind those policies because the people won't tend to abuse it, so the help will go to those who truly need it.

That's not true of Africans or Muslims, which is why it doesn't work once you have large numbers of those people.

[SimonP]

Well, I tried to engage you intelligently, at any rate.

[Lennyk78]

Look at the statistics of black welfare usage in America versus white welfare usage, and look at the statistics of North African Muslim welfare usage in Sweden versus native Swedes usage.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Gas prices haven’t been high in almost 2 years. Elevated CPI degraded lower class wages in Bush’s second term and their solution was buy XOM stock!!

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd guess that the first thing you'd do is exempt everybody below median income from the income tax. Then have it kick in so that there was no point in the curve where earning more meant less takehome.

Without the income tax, single earner families would be much more widely feasible.

I'm not saying that I particularly like this proposal, it's a progressive tax with a vengeance, and progressive taxes have seriously pathological effects on the willingness of voters to support expenditures that are economically net losers.

But it meets the criteria.

[SimonP]

Your proposal, while at least coherent, does not seem very realistic (not unless you heavily slant the CBA to arrive at a preferred conclusion). The math ain't mathin'.

[David Nieporent]

The problem with this philosophy is that Trump has a lot of support from working class people and others who are tired of the Republican there establishment selling them out for the past 50 years.

Those people are not just going to blindly vote for the Republican. Meaning that if the party returns to the days of nominating wet rags like McCain or Romney who ultimately sell out conservatism, those people will stay at home.

Romney got a higher percentage of the electorate to vote for him than Trump did either time Trump ran. Even if your theory actually is accurate, it's a terrible strategy because there are more votes to be found via Romney's approach.

[not guilty]

The in terrorem effect of the "fetal heartbeat" law in Texas has claimed the life of another pregnant woman. https://www.propublica.org/article/nevaeh-crain-death-texas-abortion-ban-emtala (The death occurred in October 2023, but the reporting is recent.)

It seems that Texas's "pro-life" legislators are among those, who as Rep. Barney Frank said, believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth. No love for the deceased brood mares.

[hobie]

These shameless teen hussies get what they deserve

[loki13]

Unfortunately, we have Poe's Law.

How can you tell the difference between sarcasm and Dr. Ed's normal response?

[Frank Drackman]

Just say N-words/Spicks and I don’t agree with you, a fucking Squirrel is literally getting more press than 80 million aborted N-words/Spicks (over 50 years, not all at once)

Frank

[Lennyk78]

More accurately, doctors intentionally killed a woman because they wanted to make a political statement.

Kind of like how Democrats intentionally let Parkland happen.

[Riva]

Saving the lives of the unborn is rather the opposite of something that could be described as “in terrorem.” But revel in aborting innocent life if you like, that’s where Democrats appear most comfortable.

[Noscitur a sociis]

As with the story from Georgia, there is a compelling case that this woman received grossly substandard care, and that she should and would still be alive had her case been handled properly. What neither article does is establish much of a connection between the tragic deaths and the new abortion regulations (which, to be clear, I oppose).

[not guilty]

The doctors were cowed -- no doubt because of the "fetal heartbeat" law -- into withholding proper care for the miscarriage until they could detect no heartbeat in the fetus, by which time it was too late.

That seems to be exactly what the legislators intended.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yea, I realize that’s the conclusion propublica is asking us to draw. But I don’t see how the facts they provide support it.

The victim had three hospital visits over 2 days. According to the article, she was discharged from the first after being diagnosed with strep throat. She was discharged again from the second after being diagnosed with strep throat and a urinary tract infection, even though her “ vital signs pointed to possible sepsis”. And in the third, the doctor “couldn’t find a fetal heart rate, according to records; he told the family he was sorry for their loss.” But even though “[s]tandard protocol when a critically ill patient experiences a miscarriage is to stabilize her and, in most cases, hurry to the operating room for delivery … at Christus St. Elizabeth, the OB-GYN just continued antibiotic care.”

These seems like the points where proper care might have made a difference. But I don’t see any way to attribute the substandard medical treatment received to the Texas law.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I agree -- prosecute these MDs for manslaughter.

[EscherEnigma]

If you seriously think Paxton is going to charge a doctor for not performing an abortion, then you're... honestly, I don't have a sufficiently derogatory insult here. It's very bad, whatever it is.

[Zarniwoop]

Monday update via the Madison, WI city clerk email to poll workers:

The clerk has already received more than 92,000 absentee ballots. This includes a record-breaking 56,000+ in-person absentee voting (IPAV) ballots.

The estimated 2024 population for Madison is ~291K. IPAV is done, but mailed absentee ballots can be dropped off until 5pm today, or handed directly to poll workers for tabulation if the voter goes to their own ward on Tuesday.

I’ll be working the polls from 6am to close tomorrow. I expect it to be a very busy day; my assigned ward is about 2000 voters, and we usually get 90+% turnout in pres elections.

[Moderation4ever]

Good for you. It would be nice if some of the people claiming election fraud would also work and see what really happens. I will be working tomorrow and also expect a busy day.

[Zarniwoop]

It would be nice if some of the people claiming election fraud would also work and see what really happens.

Most of the people yammering about “rigged” and/or “stolen” elections can’t point to evidence of outcome-altering fraud, or even explain how a systemic fraud would actually work at that scale. This is because decently-designed modern election systems are quite robust, and have a lot of eyes on them.

Performative whinging is not evidence of fraud. Even Giuliani ended up admitting he had lots of theories, but no evidence.

[David Nieporent]

or even explain how a systemic fraud would actually work at that scale

This, times one thousand. If you're trying to steal a school board seat or the mayoralty of a one-traffic-light town, then, sure, lots of the schemes people propose could work.

But to steal a presidential election through any of the schemes that the nut jobs think they've detected is just impossible, logistically. It would be readily detectable and easily detected by the other party and objectively obvious.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I see that Election Day is a state holiday in NY.

https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/11/04/what-to-know-election-day-nyc/

I think making ED a holiday is a good idea though I liked seeing children while working the polls at my local school/polling place too.

[Longtobefree]

"in-person absentee voting"

this comment intentionally left blank

[Zarniwoop]

It's the official WI term for "early voting", in part because the ballots are placed in a sealed & witnessed envelope by election workers, like a mailed-in absentee ballot. The envelope is opened for tabulation at the voter's ward, after the voter's registration is confirmed in the poll book (prevents double voting!).

I know it's not popular with low-information conspiracy-mongers, knowing how the system works is beneficial.

[M L]

Kamala’s Opportunity Economy: Foreign Workers Score Over 1 Million Jobs, Nearly 800K Americans Lose Jobs

Foreign workers have gained tremendously in the job market as native-born Americans continue to fall out of the workforce on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s watch, the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows.

The report details an alarming trend, chronicled for years by Breitbart News, where foreign-born workers in the Biden-Harris economy score nearly all job gains and native-born Americans are left behind, out of the labor market.

“Over the last year, native-born Americans have lost almost 800k jobs while foreign-born workers have gained over 1 million jobs; the U.S. labor market is turning into a temp agency for foreign workers and gov’t bureaucrats,” Heritage Foundation Economist E.J. Antoni writes.

At the same time, as Antoni points out, “native-born Americans still have fewer jobs today than before the pandemic (-873,000) while all net job growth has gone to foreign-born workers (+3.7 million).”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/11/01/kamalas-opportunity-economy-foreign-workers-score-over-1-million-jobs-nearly-800k-americans-lose-jobs/

[M L]

Month prior:

Over the last year, the report states, about 1.24 million foreign workers have secured jobs, while during the same period, 1.32 million fewer native-born Americans now hold U.S. jobs.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/09/06/biden-harris-economy-funnels-over-million-foreigners-into-us-jobs-one-year-americans-fall-out-workforce/

[M L]

And month prior to that:

In July, 1.2 million fewer Americans held jobs compared to a year prior. At the same time, 1.3 million more foreign-born workers are holding jobs — suggesting that most job growth in the Biden-Harris economy is going to newly arrived migrants.

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2024/08/05/the-biden-harris-economy-1-2-million-fewer-americans-in-workforce-as-all-job-growth-goes-to-foreign-workers/

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Prime age employment is higher than 2019….so it’s not like 2001-2008 when Latinos were taking good construction jobs from lower class Americans and sending tens of billions back to Mexico.

[David Nieporent]

Sigh. Retarded MAGA people who don't understand statistics. The U.S. born population is much older, so many more of them retire, so the net change in U.S. born employment is depressed..

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Yeah, who do they think is going to wipe their parents’ asses??? Prime age employment is higher than 2019!

[Krayt]

Well, today's the day to see what state(s) the candidates are in.

Apparently this is Pennsylvania. Where does that fall on the purple state RGB color value?

[DaveM]

It's going to be a lot harder to mess with the elections process this time around. Everyone is much more on their guard. I monitor the Election Integrity Community on X, and most of the complaints I'm seeing reported affect only a small number of people. There are a couple of big issues relating to people dumping thousands of last-minute registrations, or letting thousands of noncitizen registrants stay on the polls. But it's nothing compared to the craziness we experienced in 2020.

Also, I believe the tide is turning against mail-in voting, one of my pet peeves as a thoroughly insecure voting method that not only doesn't guarantee one's vote is private, it doesn't even guarantee that the vote will get counted on time. In my locality, we went from roughly half of ballots being mailed last Presidential down to just 1/10th of them. In-person early voting, by contrast, has been a roaring success.

Going through an in-person voting process definitely helps calm voters' fears about election integrity, I feel. They can see first-hand that everyone is treated the same, that there is a regular process, that protocols are followed, etc.

[Zarniwoop]

Also, I believe the tide is turning against mail-in voting, one of my pet peeves as a thoroughly insecure voting method that not only doesn’t guarantee one’s vote is private, it doesn’t even guarantee that the vote will get counted on time. In my locality, we went from roughly half of ballots being mailed last Presidential down to just 1/10th of them. In-person early voting, by contrast, has been a roaring success.

I'm not convinced that the covid-influenced election numbers in 2020 are reasonably representative. Without more, I think that that sort of comparison to 2020 is pretty useless.

Here in WI (at least in Madison), IPAV and mailed-in ballots are processed exactly the same way: they're in an envelope that gets opened in the voters ward and tabulated on election day. Anonymity is preserved by opening 3 at a time (and no one cares what bubbles are filled in, or has time to look).

A voter can track receipt of their mailed/IPAV ballot on myvote.wi.gov - mine was received and accepted the same day I voted early. But again, it's not opened yet and won't be opened until it's about to fed into a tabulator. Systems will be different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but a blanket claim that mailed absentee ballots are insecure/not private/not guaranteed to be counted, in contrast with early/IPAV ballots, is just not factually accurate here in scenic Madisonland.

[DaveM]

Yes, the blanket statement is more than earned. Consider the following:

- The USPS is not a guaranteed delivery service. They have never claimed to be. The error rate for 1st class mail is in the low double-digits. I have never even seen a study of the nondelivery rate for ballots, but it would not surprise me if it was in the low single digits.

- A ballot filled in at home is not private.

- When a ballot is sitting in a consumer mailbox, it is completely unsecured (!).

- The identity of a voter who mails in a ballot is not authenticated by the voter, but by a third party. They could make mistakes.

- The voted ballot is not guaranteed to be actually placed in the counting machine, even if your ballot is received.

- A mailed-in ballot must traverse from the registrar, to the voter, and back again, a round-trip of 25 or more steps involving sorting, transporting, packing and unpacking, postmarking, and delivery. An in-person ballot goes from the hand of the poll worker to the voter to the counting machine.

For all these reasons, and perhaps even more if I put my mind to it, suffice it to say that I would never trust my ballot to the mail. Period. Nor should anyone.

[Zarniwoop]

Oh come the frack on. You are free to vote in person if it makes you feel better, but your reasons are not grounded in a robust understanding of the process I described above.

– The USPS is not a guaranteed delivery service...

Which is why the ability to confirm receipt at the clerk's office is a part of the system I described. If it doesn't show up, then you can address the problem. It's a pretty decent example of "trust but verify", TBH. Side note: it's almost never a problem, in my experience.

– A ballot filled in at home is not private.

Sure ... if you let your spouse look over your shoulder. A ballot filled out at a polling place isn't private either ... if you let your spouse look over your shoulder. I can see why some women with controlling husbands would favor in-person voting, though. That's an issue, but not an issue with the system design.

– The voted ballot is not guaranteed to be actually placed in the counting machine, even if your ballot is received.

Which is exactly the same as Wisconsin's early voting. There is no functional difference between mailed absentee ballots and early (in-person absentee voting) ballots in this regard.

Absentee ballots (both mailed and IPAV) are verified against the poll book, assigned a voter slip, removed from envelopes, and inserted into the tabulator. A discrepancy between voter slip numbers and tabulated ballots would get noticed. Multiple eyes (poll workers and observers!) are tracking this throughout Election Day.

– A mailed-in ballot must traverse from the registrar, to the voter, and back again, a round-trip of 25 or more steps involving sorting, transporting, packing and unpacking, postmarking, and delivery. An in-person ballot goes from the hand of the poll worker to the voter to the counting machine.

You're repeating yourself, this is more whinging about the mail. Same response: voters can track ballot receipt at the clerk's office. I did (and that of my newly minted 18yo voter, who voted her first time with me about a week ago).

This sort of low-information distortion of the voting process, amplified by a con man who sows distrust for political advantage, is why US trust in the process is low.

[Jmaie]

"The error rate for 1st class mail is in the low double-digits."

I'd be interested in a cite for this. In my personal experience (I know, anecdotes =/= data) I can't remember the last time anything I mailed didn't arrive. Same for expected incoming mail. So I'd have guessed an error rate of low single digits...

Thanks.

[grb]

DaveM : “Going through an in-person voting process definitely helps calm voters’ fears about election integrity”

That’s a reasonable statement absent context, but let’s be honest: The reason there are “fears about election integrity” has nothing to do with with election procedures in 2020 or whether someone has gone thru the process.

It’s caused because one party has spent four years lying about election fraud. It’s caused by a systematic propaganda campaign of election denialism that rivals Soviet-era Pravda in crude dishonesty. It’s caused because one man saw personal gain running a huckster scam on “election fraud” and all the little lemmings trail along in his wake.

Absent the lies and toxic agitprop, nothing that happened in 2020 would have put a dent in people’s faith in elections. There is no – repeat NO – objective justification to “voter’s fears”. That describes either the scammers or the scammed. The liars or the fools.

[DaveM]

I challenge you to get out of your bubble and argue exactly the other side. I believe this is something attorneys are specifically trained to be able to do.

[grb]

Well, I’m an architect – so there’s that. I could challenge you to produce one tiny dollop of “election fraud” to justify one-ten millionth of the lying hysteria you pander to, but why bother?

Because you can’t produce ANYTHING. So who’s in a bubble? I could sonorously inveigh about the dangers of sprites, fairies, & leprechauns and perfectly match the tone of your comment above. Because it is equally divorced from fact or reality.

Why do you whore yourself to such obvious lying ?!?

[Mr. Bumble]

All depends on the definition and parameters of "voter fraud".

[grb]

Plus, it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

Don't forget that, Bumble.....

[Mr. Bumble]

How do you define voter fraud?
Being registered to vote and doing so in more than one state?
Filling out a ballot for a demented relative"
Submitting fraudulent voter registrations?

[David Nieporent]

Voter fraud is when votes cast by ineligible voters are counted. (They can be ineligible for any of a number of reasons: they're felons whose voting rights haven't been restored; they're too young; they're not citizens; they're not residents of the jurisdiction; they've already voted; they've been adjudicated mentally incompetent; they're fictitious people; etc.) The flip side of that is when votes cast by eligible voters are not counted.

Those are the only things that can legitimately taint an election. All of the other administrative stuff is just bullshit.

(Fraudulent voter registrations is not voter fraud; it's voter registration fraud.)

[Mr. Bumble]

Hey, it seems like Il Douche was serious about taking the week off.
Maybe he's out fortifying the election.

[ThePublius]

Are you referring to Sarcastr0?

Maybe if we say his name three times he will appear!

[Bwaaah]

Without him, there's much less litter around here. Kinda nice, I think.

[Commenter_XY]

Many of the usual; suspects are MIA. I wonder why.

[Krayt]

We don't know why the good Rev dropped off the face of the Earth, but if he reappears shortly, he may have taken my advice -- pissing off the opposition feels so good, but as the election approaches, just serves to motivate people to vote.

[Bwaaah]

It was revealed a while ago, persuasively, that the Rev was banned (i.e. account disabled) on VC. He declined to return under a pseudonym, as others have done, instead respecting VC's terms of service. But he was, at the time of the report, quite alive and kicking.

If he did come back with a pseudonym, it's hard to imagine how he could obscure his real identity, even in one post. This is a backhanded complement to the Rev.

As for Sarcastr0, I believe he is employed by government and therefore likely has today off as a holiday. So this could be worked like the Thanksgiving weekend getaway opportunity: take Monday off as a vacation day and you've got yourself a four day holiday starting last Saturday. That's my theory.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Who else is putting out McDonald's and a Diet Coke in front of their fireplace in case he visits tonight?

[ThePublius]

That's funny, right there.

I heard that his favorite meal is two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a chocolate shake. Holy cow, that's a lot of food! But, he's a big guy. I like both Big Macs and Filet-O-Fish, but I have to choose one or the other. I like the fries. I like the shake, too, but the chances of the shake machine working are slim....

[apedad]

Glad you enjoy all that illegal immigrant labor.

[ThePublius]

What the heck are you talking about? You guys always have to pivot to some divisive angle on everything?

I thought illegals weren’t allowed to work. Does McDonalds hire illegals?

"While it is possible for an undocumented immigrant to work in the United States, doing so is against federal law. U.S. immigration laws require employers to verify the identity and work eligibility of all employees, which includes completing Form I-9."

McD's should be careful about breaking the law.

[Krayt]

Although his qualifications for president were challenged, being a lawful worker in the US was not one of them. He is far more verified than a mere commoner’s form.

McDonald’s could stand there and challenge a petty official claiming he wasn’t, who transparently would have no leg to stand on, and is therefore clearly motivated by political animus.

Also, I am reliably informed by Slimers roaming these halls, that there is no political animus to get ‘im using the investigative and prosecutorial power of government. Is there a point to wasting the government's time with a pointless prosecution of McDonald's, other than a fantasy of getting a political opponent?

[TwelveInchPianist]

So it turns out that the "female" Olympic boxing champion is a dude, and the left was cheering for a man getting medals for beating up women.

Nice going, guys.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Another conspiracy theory that turns out to be true.

[Frank Drackman]

I think his finishing blow of dick slapping them with his cock sort of gave it away

[M L]

A guy with a micropenis viciously beating up women - is this a fitting emblem for the Democrat party?

[Mr. Bumble]

hobie was in the Olympics?

[TwelveInchPianist]

It's pretty much their base.

[Commenter_XY]

Well, well, well. Strip the medal?

[ThePublius]

Anyone here fans of the TV series House, MD? I got into it after discovering what a talented person Hugh Laurie is, especially his musical talent on piano, guitar, and sax. I first binge watched "Jeeves and Wooster," which I really enjoyed.

In season 3 of House, he gets in trouble with the law. A cop he treated poorly executes a vendetta on him. My initial reaction was that the traffic stop that kicked it off was such that the evidence of House's drug use should have been thrown out, as it was an illegal search unrelated to the stop. I'm interested to hear what you legal eagles think.

[not guilty]

House was a great series. I did an analysis yesterday of the traffic stop/arrest, but it seems not to have posted, so I will reconstruct it.

Here is the video (7 min, 37 sec) of the interactions between Dr. House and Officer Tritter, both at the hospital and during the traffic stop of House's motorcycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkv5y1cFlE8

The cop said that House was going 40 mph in a 25 mph zone. House (insincerely) complains that the stop was because he is Latino. Even if the stop was pretextual, that would not require suppression of the fruits. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996).

The initial patdown was probably lawful under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968):

where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where in the course of investigating this behavior he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him.

The cop, however, exceeded the permissible limits of a Terry stop and frisk when he reached into Dr. House's pocket. Per Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 373 (1993):

Terry further held that, "[w]hen an officer is justified in believing that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close range is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others," the officer may conduct a patdown search "to determine whether the person is in fact carrying a weapon." 392 U.S., at 24. "The purpose of this limited search is not to discover evidence of crime, but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence. . . ." Adams [v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146 (1972).] Rather, a protective search — permitted without a warrant and on the basis of reasonable suspicion less than probable cause — must be strictly "limited to that which is necessary for the discovery of weapons which might be used to harm the officer or others nearby." Terry, supra, at 26; see also Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1049, and 1052, n. 16 (1983); Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 93-94 (1979). If the protective search goes beyond what is necessary to determine if the suspect is armed, it is no longer valid under Terry. and its fruits will be suppressed. Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 65-66 (1968).

The Vicodin found in House's pocket should have been excluded if he had filed a motion to suppress.

The cop may have lacked probable cause for the full custodial arrest. If House had a prescription -- which the officer asked about -- his possession would have been illegal. He was merely playing a hunch as to the absence of a prescription.

Some states -- I don't know if New Jersey is among them -- have a statutory preference for issuance of a citation in lieu of continued custody for a misdemeanor committed in the officer's presence. (I also don't know if simple possession of a controlled substance is a misdemeanor or felony in New Jersey.)

If Dr. House had filed a motion to suppress the Vicodin, it should have been granted. But that would not have advanced the story arc.

[Bwaaah]

I enjoyed this! LOL

I read, because, well, I never watched the show much but loved the character House. And I figured you probably wouldn't maul him. (Why would you maul him?)

You didn't. It's a story, and a legal lesson, about a guy who maybe deserves it, and maybe doesn't. Thanks for it.

[ThePublius]

What the heck is going on with our country? D.C. is erecting fences around the WH and the Naval Observatory, businesses have boarded up, and so on, in anticipation of violence following the election. Who's expected to perpetrate the violence? I bet it's the left, Dems, progressive activists including Antifa, et.al. What say you?

[Michael P]

Democrats are getting an early start on electoral felonies: https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-man-allegedly-beats-up-stranger-wearing-pro-trump-hat-supermarket-police

[NOVA Lawyer]

Aside from it not being clear that assaulting someone in a supermarket constitutes an "electoral felony", if you want to go with anecdotes, there's the Trump supporting teen who punched a Harris supporter.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/trump/2024/11/04/florida-teen-with-trump-shirt-charged-with-punching-harris-supporter/76044135007/

Idiots and their anecdotes.

[Brett Bellmore]

It takes massive planning for the right to get up a decent crowd in DC, we have to import all the people, after all. The left can put together a mob there on short notice, because about 90% of the population there are Democrats.

So, yeah, if DC is expecting some kind of riot tomorrow, they're expecting a left-wing riot.

And, of course, left-wing rioting if Trump wins is quite plausible.

[M L]

.

This is what Democrats always have to do to get elected: pretend to be conservatives.

For example, Kamala Harris is suddenly a gun-wielding border hawk promising to deport illegals on top of cutting taxes and supporting the police. And now Bob Casey, who is on record supporting men competing against girls in sporting events, is claiming that’s not true.

If leftist policies were popular, leftists would run on them.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/11/04/nolte-sen-bob-casey-d-pa-pretends-to-oppose-men-in-womens-sports-on-election-eve/

[Krychek_2]

Kamala Harris is not *suddenly* all of those things; she's always been those things (or at least most of them). As California AG she had sterling pro-police credentials, to the point that progressives were outright hostile to her. The notion that she's practically the second coming of Karl Marx is a GOP fiction.

And even to the extent some of her positions have changed, so have some of mine and so have some of yours. Have you really not changed your mind about anything in the past 30 years? If so, that is not a credit to you. It's called being willing to re-evaluate one's views in light of new evidence, experience or arguments.

[Brett Bellmore]

Why would you expect the 2nd coming of Karl Marx to be hostile to police, if they were executing his own laws? Communists love their police!

[Ed Grinberg]

In England these days real crime goes virtually unpunished. The government pretty much doesn't bother enforcing criminal laws. But the cops are busier than ever -- chasing down every last thought-criminal who said something not-quite-politically-correct on Twitter.

[M L]

In her case, it’s called saying whatever you think might help you get elected. This is broad pattern with Democrats, and even many Republicans, too, historically have pretended to be more conservative only to turn heel in office.

I guess Kamala is pro-police when it comes to locking up parents for truancy that was costing the state federal dollars, a strategy she boasted helped bring in more money. It’s just when it comes to looting, killing and arson that she wants to defund police and bail out criminals.

[Zarniwoop]

Did you see the video of Trump claiming the Bible is his favorite book, then refusing to answer a followup Q about what some favorite verses were? He wouldn't even say if he preferred Old or New Testament.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERUngQUCsyE

Keep those kneepads handy for Trump, Evangelicals. You can trust everything he says!

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Kamala was sworn in by placing her purse on top of the bible then touching it.

Satanists don't touch bibles. Moloch forbids them.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The notion that she’s practically the second coming of Karl Marx is a GOP fiction."

One of the main things she's running on is that she's going to bring down the cost of living, not through greater economic freedom or making it easier to produce things, but by price controls and other forms of regulation.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

We are producing record amounts of oil and gas and gasoline is cheap…but Republicans are pretending it’s expensive. All Republicans have to do is face reality and prices will come down.

[Moderation4ever]

Through most of my life Presidential candidates have played to the party base for the primary and shifted to the middle for the general. Kamala Harris is right in that lane.

[Commenter_XY]

With Election Day tomorrow, there are more states with early voting. What are your feelings about early, in-person voting?

A) We should not have early, in-person voting. One day only.
B) Early voting for one week (Sun-Sun) is Ok. But not more.
C) Early voting for two weeks is Ok. But not more
D) Early voting for a month prior to the election is Ok.

I had never done early in-person before this election. I was a skeptic. No longer. My choice is B. I am good with the week before (Sun - Sun) election. I don't think it should be a paid holiday, or mandatory PTO.

[M L]

B. 1 week max. But don't lose sight of the fact that A is probably perfectly fine and totally workable.

The bigger issue is mail in ballots. We should have in person voting only, basically.

[loki13]

I would love for voting day to be a national holiday. Of course, if it was, it would probably be a retail holiday (come buy a car!) and then that would defeat the purpose, because people would be working. sigh.

Absent that, I love early voting. I voted a week ago.

I had an argument with someone a while ago. The issue in America isn't voting. It's terrible what some people have done to discredit voting here- the people who actually work at the polls (if you've done it, you know) are decent people, and they don't deserve the calumnies and outright death threats of the moron brigade typing away.

The problem isn't about voting, or "election integrity." It's that voting should be celebrated and easy, and if that was true, there wouldn't be an issue or pushback with verification. Unfortunately, most fights over elections are just fights over attempts to make voting as restrictive and difficult as possible.

No one is looking at solutions, because they don't want them. I know that locally we just lost our own head of election because she is tired of putting up with all the nonsense, and that's a real shame.

Can't wait for this to be over.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“...and they don’t deserve the calumnies and outright death threats of the moron brigade typing away.”

This is coming from a guy who spent a couple months pasting random insults into the reply box on people’s comments.

[Michael P]

I lean towards C, but would be okay with B as long as there's some mail-in option (limited to "for cause" would be fine). While I can arrange my work and personal travel to avoid Election Day, not everyone can.

[Moderation4ever]

Most states allow mail in voting and to be safe that would require a month. I think state do have different times for mail in voting and early voting and I would accept two weeks early voting with a month for mail in voting.

[Frank Drackman]

but you're not in charge, are you?

[Zarniwoop]

We do two weeks of early voting here in Madisonland, and that seems about right. The lines were loooooong pretty much the entire time – I checked the spot nearest to me a few times before it was “only” a 20-person line and about 45mins, on a Monday morning after the early voting had been going on for a week or so.

I’m a poll worker at a ~2000 person ward, and trying to do all those people compressed into one day would be a far, far bigger nightmare of long wait times that would literally prevent some/many people from being able to cast their vote.

A safe, secure, reliable, and verifiable combination of mailed, IPAV, and in-person voting is the way to go.

[Michael P]

Why does it take 2+ minutes per voter where you are? At my precinct, it's something like three to five voters per minute, mostly limited by checking people against the rolls. They have enough tables/dividers and chairs for each voter to spend several minutes reading and marking their ballot, then it takes maybe 10 seconds to feed it into one of the optical scanner machines. Lines have gotten shorter and faster since I moved here -- it was much slower when they had electronic voting machines.

[Zarniwoop]

A couple factors:
1) those are my estimates, the number of voters may be low. I know we were in and out in about 40-45 minutes.
2) registration is allowed. It took my kiddo a good couple minutes to register, and that slowed the line down for everyone.
3) there's a line to check in and get a blank ballot and a ballot envelope with the voter's info printed on a label
4) and then a line to use the ballot marking machine. because a voter from any ward can vote at any library, the ballot marking machine is the way to get different ballots for the various super-local elections (city alderpeople, for example)
5) there were 4 long referendums to read. Lots of voters read them at the time, and don't already know their vote when they show up
6) once the ballot is marked by the machine, the user verifies their vote selections - this part is quick, at least 🙂
7) once the voter verifies their ballot, they seal it in an envelope and have yet another poll worker watch them sign it. the poll worker then witnesses the voter's signature and places it in the clerk's office courier bag.

All this easily takes longer than a minute per voter, even for folks who are not 18 years old and registering for the first time.

All that's just to collect the IPAV ballot. It's tabulated on Election Day, in the voter's ward (at least in Madison). Per state law, we're not allowed to actually vote or have early votes tabulated until 7am on Election Day.

It's robust, has multiple eyes on steps throughout the process, is paper-trail verifiable ... and that has trade-offs for speed.

[Brett Bellmore]

"5) there were 4 long referendums to read. Lots of voters read them at the time, and don’t already know their vote when they show up"

We had an election worker walking up and down the line urging people to look up the referenda on their phones while they were on line, so they'd enter the building knowing how they were going to vote. A friendly guy.

Well, everybody was friendly. I've never been in an election line where people were grouchy, even that time in '94 when we stood two hours out in the rain.

[Zarniwoop]

But that's the IPAV process. On Election Day, it is indeed quicker to check individuals against the voter roll, assign them a voter slip, hand them a ballot, etc.

[Zarniwoop]

Update from the mines: with about 4X the poll workers compared to early voting, and during the peak opening rush, with almost all existing voters, we got through the first 100 people in about 35 minutes.

So Michael P’s math isn’t too far off, but early voting =/= Election Day voting due to differences in resources and processes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Either A or B.

I was originally in the A camp, but it does make a bit of sense to have at least a couple days of early voting, so you can spread the load a bit. We don't as a society seem willing to throw the resources at voting necessary for a one day high turnout election.

I don't think there should be too many such days, because the longer the period of early voting, the higher the chance that some information could come out after a lot of people have voted that would have altered their votes.

[Moderation4ever]

As I have noted before I think you know and have known for a long time who you would vote for. Would you honestly change?

[Brett Bellmore]

And, as I have responded before: I can't imagine what would prompt me to have voted for Harris, but I can imagine plenty of things that would have prompted me to cast a protest vote for the LP.

None of them were terribly likely to happen. I'll be quite upset, though, if he actually did shoot someone of Fifth Avenue tonight.

[David Nieporent]

And, as I have responded before: I can’t imagine what would prompt me to have voted for Harris, but I can imagine plenty of things that would have prompted me to cast a protest vote for the LP.

Then you can wait. But why does that mean that other people should have to?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, I suppose that we could open the voting for 2028 tomorrow. It would be technically possible to do that, anyway.

Why not do that? Once you've conceded that it would be a bad idea to start the voting for 2028 tomorrow, we're just arguing over how much to weight various considerations.

[David Nieporent]

Well, I suppose that we could open the voting for 2028 tomorrow. It would be technically possible to do that, anyway.

Why not? The campaign for 2028 is going to start tomorrow.

All joking aside, it is not actually possible to open voting tomorrow because the candidates don't yet exist.

[Mr. Bumble]

We don't need no stinkin' candidates, only a D or an R.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's just to say that you'd need to move up the 2028 primaries by four years, it's just an implementation detail.

As I said, the argument for not starting 2028 voting in 2024 is the same as the argument for not starting it in the middle of October 2028; The only difference is how you weight the considerations, not what they are.

[NOVA Lawyer]

And you’ve conceded at least one day of early voting which, by your logic, is no different than early voting for 2028 tomorrow.

I think early voting is a good idea, for the same reasons you say, I don’t have any strong feelings that it should be more than a week (or against it being more than one week), but probably balk at less than a week. A week allows everyone, no matter their schedule (unless they work every day in which case it is impossible to accommodate anyway) to have one day they don’t work and can vote.

Also, an early voting period makes it easier to allow in-person voting for everyone who might be traveling on or around election day or surgery or whatever. It makes it less likely that people can't vote due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts.

[Brett Bellmore]

If we're going to do that, though, the early voting period should be contiguous with voting day. Here in SC, early voting was M-S last week, so if you learned late Saturday that you wouldn't be available to vote on Tuesday, you were out of luck.

Exactly that happened to me in 2016; I found out late Friday that a close relative had died, too late to vote absentee, and election day was a thousand miles from home for the funeral.

[not guilty]

[duplicate comment deleted]

[Moderation4ever]

I don't think anyone expects Trump to concede. I would not expect him to concede if he lost all 50 states. What I wonder is this, is there a threshold amount where Trump walks away? Where he doesn't try to claim fraud and game the system. He still doesn't concede but he walks away. I am guessing that if Harris sweeps the swing states and wins one state that was expected to go Trump, there will be no contesting of the election. Anyone else have a guess?

[ThePublius]

That's a rather kooky hypothetical. Kamala is not going to sweep the swing states. Quite the opposite is much more likely.

That said, I don't expect her to concede very quickly if Trump prevails.

[Moderation4ever]

I am guessing you are wrong for a number of reasons;

- Trump lost in 2020 because he underperformed other Republicans, that will be true more in 2024.
- The gender gap favors Harris and there are more women.
- Age favors Harrs, Trump is looking old
- Harris is the future and Trump the past, people like the future.
- Everything suggests this is a high participation election. Trump lost the high participation election in 2020, he won in a low participation election in 2016.

So, I will stand by my hypothetical.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Uh, Harris is the past 4 years. Didn't you know that?

[Frank Drackman]

Hypothetical? Like your Balls??, give me an Electrical Vote prediction, I gave everyone Mine, "45/47" in the Drawing Room, with the Candlestick, (ever seen the Brass ones? you can fuck someone up with those) and 303 EV, put your non-existent Testicles, where your big fat mouth is,

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

And it still took all of those things combined just to give her a shot at winning, so awful a candidate she is.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Trump is the most powerful political force since Reagan—he’s taken out the Bush family and Cheneys and Clintons. He’s transformed the GOP into a positive force and developed the Covid vaccine and surrendered to the Taliban…his political obituary is second to none even if he loses.

[David Nieporent]

– Trump lost in 2020 because he underperformed other Republicans, that will be true more in 2024.

In both 2016 and 2020, Trump ran behind other Republicans. But in 2024, he's running ahead of most of them. (In the polls, of course. We shall see.)

[David Nieporent]

What I wonder is this, is there a threshold amount where Trump walks away? Where he doesn’t try to claim fraud and game the system.

No. There is no scenario in which he doesn't declare victory and refuse to concede.

[Brett Bellmore]

OK, that's just the stupid talking. You're committed to declaring Trump to be some kind of embodiment of Platonic awful, so in any scenario, you've committed yourself to asserting he will do the most awful thing, even if doing so makes you look stupid.

It's the same stupid impulse that has you declaring that he's a moron, that he's incapable of forming concepts, making plans, that he's only spared acting totally randomly by his consistent evil, that prevents him from randomly doing good stuff.

And that stupid caricature beat you guys in 2016, and came within a hair of beating you in 2020, and looks like he'll either beat you or come close to it again in 2024. Does it never occur to you what you're saying about your own party when you pretend Trump is that awful?

It's just trash talk, and if there's anything stupider that believing your own trash talk, I'm sure you'll discover it at this rate.

Of course he would concede if he lost 50 states. He's not going to lose 50 states, so saying he wouldn't concede is safe from falsification, but it's still a stupid thing to assert. Now, if he narrowly loses by one state? Sure, he won't concede then, any more than Gore did in 2000.

It is an interesting question how much he'd have to lose by to concede before fighting all the say to the end. I have no idea, except that it would probably be by more than I'd think reasonable, and less than you're committed to claiming.

[Commenter_XY]

Here is hoping that the election is not particularly close. It would be good for the country to have a decisive result.

I remind myself (and some others): Remember, We Are All Americans.

The sun will rise in the East tomorrow, and set in the West.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I'm hoping that we'll have a good idea of the winner fairly early, and that the outcome absolutely will NOT hinge on states that insist on taking days or weeks to count the votes.

[David Nieporent]

1) No state counts all its votes on Election Day. Not now, not ever. It's just that typically elections aren't as close as they've been lately, and usually there's enough data so that we can be confident about who won the states even without having fully counted the ballots.

2) No state "insist on taking days or weeks to count the votes." In some states, the legislatures allow mail-in votes to be processed for validity on a rolling basis as they come in, so that on Election Day all that workers need to do is count those ballots like the in-person ones. (It's called "pre-canvassing;" you can look it up.) In some states, however, the GOP legislatures — for the specific purpose of making Trump look better — have refused to allow that, which means that workers can't even start counting those ballots until late, which means they can't finish that day.

[Life of Brian]

In some states, however, the GOP legislatures — for the specific purpose of making Trump look better — have refused to allow that

Good grief -- the T of TDS has only been in politics for 8ish years.

Maybe you could share which states you're talking about, so we can confirm they allowed precanvassing before 2016 and then suddenly stopped.

[Magister]

What happened in 2016 and earlier is largely irrelevant. Early and mail voting became much bigger in 2020 because of the pandemic; precanvassing was neither necessary nor controversial before then because there weren't as many votes and there wasn't a huge partisan difference in who voted early. Donald Trump tried to claim victory in 2020 on the strength of the "red mirage" and a pretense of ballot dumping, which made this a partisan issue. The obvious examples are the Blue Wall states; they gave Trump the 2016 victory, gave Biden the 2020 victory and would likely decide 2024 if they all vote the same way.

Michigan has fixed things since 2020, allowing early counting. Republicans in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have not allowed early counting for the same reason that Republicans in Congress blocked the bipartisan immigration bill, to preserve the issue for Trump's political benefit.

Wisconsin:

a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Wisconsin Legislature introduced a bill to let some aspects of absentee ballot processing begin the day before the election. The bill died, however, after Republicans who run the state Senate never brought it up for a vote.

Pennsylvania:
https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-voting-mail-ballots-election-2024-638a752af8fc52d1b459aab0c0f6aecd

Political gridlock in Pennsylvania over election laws dates to 2019, when a Republican-controlled legislature greatly expanded voting by mail in a compromise with then-Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

Within months, then-President Donald Trump began, without evidence, demonizing voting by mail as rife with fraud, turning Republican voters against it and leading Republican lawmakers to backtrack on their support. He has taken contradictory stances this year — promoting mail voting while also supporting lawsuits against it.

The attacks on mail voting have created partisan battle lines around attempts to fix it in Pennsylvania.

Among the most important fixes to the state’s mail balloting law is one sought by counties. It would allow local election offices to begin processing mail-in ballots before Election Day, something nearly every other state with mail voting allows. That would help them produce results more quickly on election night.

[Life of Brian]

What happened in 2016 and earlier is largely irrelevant. Early and mail voting became much bigger in 2020 because of the pandemic

2016 and earlier is fundamentally relevant: if you're just talking about a one-off high volume exception in 2020, there are all sorts of reasons for a state not to upend their established procedures going forward.

[Magister]

It's not relevant how votes other than in person were counted before 2020 because there just weren't that many. The pandemic changed that and people are less willing to go back; that's now an existing procedure not to upend.

And recent elections are highly relevant to how willing Republicans are to fix issues. Everyone worked to fix issues with the 2000 election in Florida (punched card voting vanished quickly). Mostly Republicans used tried and true methods of voter suppression, gerrymandering, voter disqualification, etc. Recently they have also weaponized accusations of election improprieties, even to the extent of attempting to overthrow the government through violent insurrection.

[John F. Carr]

Now I'm thinking of David Bowie's "Young Americans": "Took him minutes. Took her nowhere."

[David Nieporent]

And that stupid caricature beat you guys in 2016, and came within a hair of beating you in 2020, and looks like he’ll either beat you or come close to it again in 2024. Does it never occur to you what you’re saying about your own party when you pretend Trump is that awful?

Did it ever occur to you how unlibertarian you expose yourself to be when you can't even comprehend that I oppose Trump because he's the least libertarian candidate in the race (well, other than Jill Stein, maybe), rather than because I'm a Democrat?

Trump is incredibly fucking stupid and incompetent, and if you can't see that it's because your head is so far up your own ass that you actually think you're a libertarian when you're really just a standard issue MAGA Republican who doesn't want to admit that.

Trump would not concede if he lost 50 states. (To be fair, in a practical sense he'd have much more of a legitimate basis to claim fraud if he lost all 50 states than he ever did before.) Despite him being a perennial loser in life (other than picking the right daddy), he has never admitted that anything was his fault or that anything he failed at was fair to him.

And despite your fucking dishonesty, Gore conceded in 2000 immediately after narrowly losing by one state.

[Brett Bellmore]

I am not arguing with you opposing Trump on policy grounds. Knock yourself out!

I'm attacking you describing him as "stupid" "incoherent", "a moron".

You start out by reasonably stating that you oppose him on policy grounds, and then like a moth to the fire, can't help but go back to stupidly declaring that the guy who beat you in 2016 and fought you to a near draw in 2020 is "incredibly fucking stupid and incompetent", as though you simply can't comprehend what that would say about the Democratic party if it were really true.

You're a couch potato declaring that the guy who got the gold medal in 2016, the bronze in 2020, and is going to be up on that podium this year at the Olympics, is clumsy and out of shape. That's what you look like calling him stupid! If he's so stupid, why are you having so much trouble beating him?

Because you're stupider?

[David Nieporent]

1) Since my name isn’t Hillary Clinton, he did not beat “beat me” in 2016. Since my name isn’t Kamala Harris, I am not “having any trouble beating him” now.

2) Elections are not contests of intelligence or competence. It is a weird pathology of Trump fans to treat an election as though it were an accomplishment of the candidate; elections are what voters do, not what candidates do. (That’s one of several reasons why your Olympics analogy is terrible.)

3) Nevertheless, I suppose that if we were alien visitors to a dead earth in the year 3000 and all we had were some fragmentary records of humanity’s history, and so all we knew about Trump was that he was elected in 2016 and almost elected in 2020 and ran a close race in 2024, we might take as a reasonable presumption that he was smart/competent. But we are not forced to rely on such flimsy evidence. We have oodles of data demonstrating his stupidity and incompetence. And every time he opens his mouth he adds to it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Elections are not JUST contests of intelligence or competence (at something other than running for office...) but they are in part contests of intelligence and competence. Really stupid people fail at EVERYTHING.

Again: If Trump were as stupid as you claim he is, nobody would have heard of him. People routinely win the lottery and fritter away millions, so the fact that he got his start on an inheritance doesn't change that.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Exactly—RuPaul 2028!!!!!

[David Nieporent]

Really stupid people fail at EVERYTHING.

They do not. Ever heard the old joke?

Q: How can you come home from Vegas with $1 million?
A: Go to Vegas with $2 million.

Trump has certainly tried, but even he has not managed to squander everything that was handed to him.

[Brett Bellmore]

I see: Your argument is that turning $2M into $1M is success. That will certainly persuade a lot of people.

[David Nieporent]

That is literally the opposite of my argument.

[Magister]

Inheriting hundreds of millions of dollars is success of a sort, but does not reflect on the individual's competence or intelligence. Donald Trump would certainly be richer if he had invested his inherited wealth in a straightforward manner.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I've seen that analysis: If he had invested his inheritance in the stock market, and then left it totally alone, and found some other source of income on which to live a billionaire lifestyle, he'd have done as well as he actually did actively managing his businesses, and living a billionaire lifestyle off the profits.

That's the sort of analysis that only makes sense to people who don't think it through.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “Yeah, I’ve seen that analysis”

But not given it much thought. Trump’s father gave him tens of millions to invest and Trump bungled it all away. Then Trump’s father gave him tens of millions more and Trump eventually blew thru all that as well. This despite the fact daddy kept trying to pump more money into the hopeless case of his loser son. Of course this was while the kid was bankrupting casinos and burning-up oceans of cash on megalomania lunacy like airlines and football teams.

After he had already defaulted on debt from the Taj Mahal casino, Trump was still getting regular bailouts from his doting father :

“The lawyer, Howard Snyder, approached the casino cage and handed over a certified check for $3.35 million, drawn on Fred’s account. Snyder then walked over to a blackjack table, where a dealer paid out the entire amount in 670 gray $5,000 chips. The next day, the bank wired another $150,000 into Fred’s account at the Castle. Once again, Snyder arrived at the casino and collected the full amount in 30 more chips.”

Daddy was keeping his incompetent son afloat even then. New Jersey’s Casino Control Commission investigated the chip purchase the following year and said it was an illegal loan, but that was before …. wait for it …. “lawfare”, so Trump faced an inconsequential fine of $65,000. This was back in the day when father and son regularly broke the law with impunity, but never faced anything more than the gentlest slap on the wrist.

But it still didn’t save Trump. A year later, the casino went into bankruptcy, and he give up half-ownership to creditors. Following that, Fred kept his bunglefest boy on a tight lease and Trump discovered his only true business talent : Scamming gulls & dupes.

So try and “think it through”, Brett. There was plenty of money for Trump to live his “billionaire lifestyle” in the scores upon scores of millions flushed down the toilet by Fred Trump – in his fruitless attempt to find evidence of competence in his son. Meanwhile, the same monies taken to a local Charles Schwab would have brought a real return. Some newly-minted MBA with down on his cheeks would have invested it free of egomaniacal imbecility. Both Donald & long-suffering Fred would have come out way ahead.

An aside : Like his boy, Fred would suffer advanced cognitive decline. Well after the diagnosis of dementia, Trump showed-up at his father’s sickbed and tried to get the addled old man to sign papers giving control of the fortune to Trump. Daddy still had his bungling boy on an allowance then, so this was a bold move. Unfortunately, Trump’s mother heard about the scheme and rushed the family’s lawyers to the scene to stop it. But you already know Donald Trump is a sleazy worthless excuse for a human being, Brett. You’re just trying to pretend he is a competent businessman, all evidence notwithstanding….

[bernard11]

That’s the sort of analysis that only makes sense to people who don’t think it through.

Well, you didn't think it through, or it would make some sense. He would have made more money in the stock market, and the difference between that and what he "made" in business might have funded the lifestyle quite well.

We don't know, because we don't have the numbers. We do know that he bankrupted a lot of businesses, some of them fairly quickly, started a fraudulent university, embezzled from his foundation, stiffed his vendors, etc. Brilliant fucking businessman.

[Krayt]

What I wonder is this, is there a threshold amount where Trump walks away?

Yes, but that moment passed 4 years ago. After his first defeat, I hypothesized he would have walked away. But strategists relaized if they dropped their politically-driven prosecutions, it would give up the game it was about getting a political enemy, so they continued.

As you may recall from around here, one of his Jan. 6 defences, for part of it anyway, was that he truly believed that crap, and hence it was not a fraudulent effort.

Running again would aid that claim as it’s every other sentence out of his mouth.

If a bad thing happens tomorrow, uh, today, people might want to look in the mirror. To quote Adele, “We could have had it allllllllll…”

[grb]

In Georgia today, we saw Trump reduced to rambling, slurring, incoherent, low-energy, gibberish. He was a complete mess. Think the quote below is bad? It pales next to the humiliation of Trump's delivery. There’s no way you can watch the video without thinking his brain is rotted down to worm-ridden mush. I doubt his cult supporters can stomach watching the clip. Trump’s brain is cooked…..

“All of you people wouldn’t have a chance to see before you pull the lever on Tuesday. But a whistleblower released the information on the 18 on the 800,000 cobs plus. The whistleblower said, you know, there were not 800,000 and 18,000…you add them up, that’s— and then you add a hundred, think of it. 112,000 jobs,”

https://okmagazine.com/p/donald-trump-mocked-incoherent-rant-whistleblowers-jobs-brain-cooked/

[Zarniwoop]

Did he try to give the podium microphone a blowjob again?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXS7qrjzBow

Stay classy, old guy.

[Frank Drackman]

More Amurican Servicemen died in one afternoon of Parkinsonian Joe/Cums-a-lot's term than in all 4 years of "45"'s, and Cums-a-lot was the "Last one in the room"
Cums-a-lot just wasted her time in Georgia, she had as much chance as Pete Booty-Judge and Jizz being together in 6 months

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

60 troops died under Trump…20 have died under Biden. Oh, and Trump ordered the assassination of a little American girl and 9 of her little friends and a SEAL died taking her out.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Yeah, that’s why I don’t think he meant firing squad—his brain is mush at the point. Firing squad definitely popped in his mush brain but that’s not what eventually came out.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

https://x.com/MOSSADil/status/1853203439783989464

Welp, Mossad just came out for Trump. Since they rule the USA, we know he's gonna win for sure now.

I wonder how all the marxist Jews who post their anti-American/anti-White garbage here are gonna square this mashuginah.

[grb]

Thus the Nazi Child & his Nazi ways.....

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

tHuS tH3 NaZ1 cHiLD & h1S nAZi w4yS dot dot dot dot

[grb]

For anyone tallying the evidence of Trump’s increasing cognitive decay, today was a busy day. In addition to the “18 on the 800,000 cobs plus” puzzler above, we saw Trump tell a crowd he’ll put Herschel Walker in charge of the country’s missile defense.

He’s already pledged to let RFK JR. handle the danger to our precious bodily fluids posed by fluoridation.

People, the man’s brain is toast.

https://newrepublic.com/post/187873/trump-dumbest-person-missile-defense-herschel-walker

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Hershel Walker is black, which means he's qualified for every position in the name of Equity.

I keep forgetting how you people hate the blacks who leave your plantation.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Why is Ben Domenich-McStain so fat!! WTF??

[Zarniwoop]

But on the bright side, he'll let Elon Musk do to the Gov't what he did to Xitter!

[The Margrave of Azilia]

[speculative comment deleted]

[grb]

Though Trump is the dumbest politician our nation has seen in living memory (even before he started hemorrhaging brain cells), all the little Trumps do their best to compete. Here we have Kari Lake on the science of polling:

We’re ahead of my opponent, and I feel comfortable with our polling,” she insisted. “Our polling is a little different. We take polling, but we also combine it with AI, which reads all of what’s happening on social media and across the Internet.”

[ThePublius]

You are truly deranged. You keep beating this drum and apparently don't see or don't care that Kamala is really the dumbest politician has seen in living memory. I mean, if Kamala and Trump played checkers or poker or even tic-tac-toe, who would you bet on? Trump has run successful businesses, built skyscrapers in Manhattan, owns a luxury resort in Florida, flies around in his own luxury jet, has a super model wife, etc. What has Kamala ever done or built or run?

[David Nieporent]

Trump inherited lots of money and mostly ran businesses into the ground. His most successful venture in decades has been as a game show host. I wouldn't make Ryan Seacrest president, either.

[ThePublius]

O.K., now do Kamala.

[David Nieporent]

Thoroughly mediocre.

[loki13]

Kamala's best two attributes are that she's not Trump, and she's not Biden.

I remember being interested in her as a candidate in 2020 (as a moderate Democrat with policy positions that seemed okay and electable), but ... she wasn't a good candidate. At all.

As a moderate Democrat, she's ... a moderate Democrat.

[David Nieporent]

Except that in 2020 (well, 2019; she didn't make it to 2020) she completely misread the room and ran as a progressive instead of a moderate. That's why Trump's people spent so much time mining her 2019 positions to use against her this year.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's because she was a California moderate, which IS a 'progressive' almost anyplace else in the country.

[Mr. Bumble]

So she was a phony then just like she's a phony now.

[loki13]

Actually, I don't think she was running to the left, really. With Sanders, Warren, and Buttigieg already there.

But that's not what I was saying. It wasn't a policy issue. She wasn't a good candidate- as in, she lacked that certain political skill that you see from good candidates.

[Josh R]

In other words, she is not charasmatic. She also ran towards the left such as decriminalizing illegal border crossings and single payer (Medicare for all).

Buttigieg a lefty like Sanders and Warren?

[loki13]

Fair on both points. She did run to the left from her standard policy positions for the 2020 electorate.

And I think that Pete would still be considered to "the left" of a standard Harris candidacy, but I would not lump him into the Sanders or Warren left.

[David Nieporent]

She also ran towards the left such as decriminalizing illegal border crossings and single payer (Medicare for all).

And, as anyone who watched TV over the past few weeks knows: taxpayer funded sex change operations for illegal immigrants in prison. Or whatever it was.

[Josh R]

I think she has been OK this time around, the rough equivalent of a generic Democrat. If she loses, Biden will take the blame for not dropping out in 2023 to allow for a contested primary that might have picked a better candidate. If she wins, Trump will take the blame for agreeing to debate Biden in June.

The one reason I hope Trump wins: it will end the 13 keys. Even if Harris wins, this is a ludicrous model.

[loki13]

I mean, I just looked at that, and it seems like a lot of those are so subjective it would be easy to fit the data to your conclusions.

Is Trump charismatic or not? Well, you can change the “key” to determine the result. It also hasn’t been successful 100% since the introduction, and it appears that the person doing it has changed his result (electoral college/popular vote) to fit his keys as well.

If you factor in incumbents winning two terms since it started being used to predict, I am not that impressed.

[Voize of Reazon]

Actually Lichtman claims he predicted the EC correctly in 2000 too but the truncated recount elected the wrong candidate.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course, the media coalition that analyzed the ballots afterwards concluded that Gore would have lost yet again if the recount hadn't been stopped, but whatever makes him feel better about his own prediction record, I guess.

[Josh R]

His claim is not based on the recount, but improperly disacarded over votes. It’s after-the-fact bullshit. Moreover at the time he said he got it right because his model predicted the popular vote. He then changed his tune in 2016 (some say after election day) to say his model predicts who wins, and that forced him to trot out the 2000 was stolen claim.

He has gotten 9 out of 10 correct (either 2000 or 2016 is wrong). That’s the same record as the polls. Big whoop.

In addition to the subjectivity in his model, he says it is an all-or-nothing predicition. No probability of winning or margin of victory based on the number of keys. Things can flip from 100% to 0% with one key flipping. That’s a bad model.

And how he fit the model is suspect too, but I won’t bore people with the details over overfitting.

[Magister]

Of course, Brett Bellmore is lying about this. Gore would have won on the basis of overvotes that were incorrectly rejected, and in some of the undervote only scenarios.

[Brett Bellmore]

PBS: Media Recount: Bush Won the 2000 Election

"While the USA Today report focused on what would have happened had the Florida Supreme Court-ordered recount not been halted by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Herald pointed to one scenario under which Gore could have scored a narrow victory — a fresh recount in all counties using the most generous standards."

The only scenarios he 'won' in were ones that involved a recount rather different from the one that was actually occurring. So, are you suggesting that if the Supreme court had not stopped the recount, it would have finished up, Gore would have lost again, and then the Florida supreme court would have ordered yet another recount, on terms even more favorable to Gore?

[Magister]

It's not clear how Florida courts would have interpreted Florida law compared to the Supreme Court, except "correctly". That might have included overvotes, but even without Gore won some scenarios. Of course, a corrupt, partisan Supreme Court couldn't bear to have the legitimacy of Bush's victory questioned when they didn't even know yet if he had won.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "Of course, the media coalition that analyzed the ballots afterwards concluded that Gore would have lost yet again if the recount hadn’t been stopped..."

As a matter of record, I always point out the above statement is only partially true. The media coalition did multiple recounts using different standards. W Bush won some; Gore won some, That said:

1. Bush won the majority of counts and those using the final standards.

2. The most interesting example of a Gore win concerned overvotes. The specific votes in question were ones that had both the mark (or action) for a candidate & the same name written in. Per the final criteria of Florida law - a discernable intention of the voter - these had a strong case for being included. Judge Terry Lewis of Leon County Circuit Court had scheduled a hearing to determine if they should when SCOUS intervened to install their choice in office. If those votes were included, Gore won.

3. And me? I was living in Florida at the time. My polling station was a church across the street where we lived. Our county used paper ballots & optical scanners (the best option IMHO). The person in front of me had her ballot kicked-out for being improperly marked. If all Florida counties had used that option, Gore would have won.

4. And the country would have been much better off. (just say'n)

[Brett Bellmore]

As always, I was only asserting what I actually asserted: That The analysis concluded that Gore would have lost if the recount had been allowed to finish.

I'll gladly admit there was the potential for him to instead win under a recount that never happened, using entirely different criteria. Or, for that matter, for Bush to have done even better under still other hypothetical recount procedures.

The election in Florida was close enough to amount to a coin flip, and Gore wanted to keep flipping the coin until it came up his way.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "As always, I was only asserting what I actually asserted..."

There's little or no substantive difference in our comments on this topic. I only object to your statement above. You very often assert well beyond what you actually assert, the earlier exchange of voting fraud being an example.

[David Nieporent]

If she wins, Trump will take the blame for agreeing to debate Biden in June.

If she wins, neither Trump nor his supporters will admit that she won, so the only "blame" will be placed on Democratic cheating.

[grb]

ThePublius : "You are truly deranged"

1. Coming from you, a complement.

2. I doubt even Trump could lose at tic-tac-toe, though wouldn't put money on it. More to the point, if it was Trump vs Harris at chess, she'd have him checkmated while Donald was still playing with one of the "pretty little horseys"

3. Trump's business acumen? Are you for real ?!? Quick review : Daddy staked Trump with scores of millions and he blew it all. Daddy then re-staked Trump with scores of millions and he had brief success. Then he blew it all with colossal bungling & egomaniacal lunacy. Daddy then kept his loser son on a very tight lease and the Trump we now know was born: A huckster conman selling his name to gulls, chumps, & dupes. Daddy then died, and Trump was finally rich. But suppose he'd taken the monies his father flushed-away down to the corner Charles Schwab - there letting some pimply-faced fresh MBA invest it? Trump would have been much richer still and saved his father a ton of grief.

4. I'm honestly curious : If Kamala had a super model wife, would you vote for for her? Given you're going to vote for a deeply-stupid, pathological-liar huckster buffoon who leaves a slime trail wherever he goes, maybe this super model stuff is important to you. Maybe it fulfills some need....

[Michael P]

This foreshadowing is so heavy and unsubtle I am tempted to call it fiveshadowing. This being an Asian-not-African elephant is also too on the nose.

https://wtop.com/dc/2024/11/kamala-beloved-asian-elephant-at-national-zoo-euthanized-after-failing-health/

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Kamala’s middle name is “Devil”…htf did Republicans miss that????????

[Michael P]

She should have let haram-be.

https://nypost.com/2024/11/04/us-news/harris-botched-interview-with-muslim-influencer-by-celebrating-bacon-as-a-spice/

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Good, Jews and Muslims don’t know what they are missing!! But that means there is more bacon for me!!!

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

But you're cleary a Jew

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Kamala’s middle name is “Devil”!! How did Trump miss that?!?

[F.D. Wolf]

The vote from Dixville Notch, NH is in: 3 for Harris and 3 for Trump.

In 2020, Biden beat Trump 5-0.

[Krayt]

Clearly last election was much less accurate as it wasn't a huge blowout.

[Bored Lawyer]

How many poll watchers does the town have?

[Magister]

The six voters were 4 Republicans and 2 independents, so that looks like a good result for Harris. I'll go out on a limb and say she's going to win New Hampshire.

[Brett Bellmore]

Dixville Notch stopped being predictive as soon as people realized it was predictive. But, yes, I think she's probably going to win New Hampshire, she's substantially ahead in the polls, she only loses that state in a blowout for Trump.

[Life of Brian]

The six voters were 4 Republicans and 2 independents, so that looks like a good result for Harris.

I agree she’s likely to win New Hampshire, but as F.D. mentioned those same voters (5 of 6, anyway — 1 new one this cycle) all voted for Biden in 2020. So if you’re trying to read broader tea leaves from this, I’m not sure why you’d see 3-3 as a good sign.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's less a tea leaf, than a speck of dust off the tea packing floor.

[grb]

Not bad, metaphor-wise....

[Andrew_Martin12]

Interesting legal theory… Ben Shapiro, who is a lawyer, on Bill Maher’s podcast claimed that Florida would have standing against the Census Bureau for undercounting their population and overcounting New York and Delaware. The Census Bureau has admitted to the over/under counting in several states. Upon further research, it seems Arkansas would also have standing assuming that theory. Census data proportions the electoral votes and voting districts. Thoughts?

[apedad]

"The estimated undercount for the Hispanic population in 2020 was larger than in 2010 or 2000. Those for the Black population and for American Indians and Alaska Natives on reservations were larger than in 2000. The overcounts for the White non-Hispanic and Asian populations in 2020 increased since 2010."

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/08/key-facts-about-the-quality-of-the-2020-census/#:~:text=The%20latest%20research%2C%20released%20in%20May%202022%2C%20found,Minnesota%2C%20New%20York%2C%20Ohio%2C%20Rhode%20Island%20and%20Utah.

Are you sure you want those numbers corrected?

Be careful what you ask for.

[Brett Bellmore]

Why not? It's hardly going to effect the outcomes of votes, just because the Census issued inaccurate numbers doesn't mean the real people who were citizens weren't voting already.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

What matters was that Democrat states are illegally and unfairly over-represented in the House.

That's what matters. The Democrats in the Census Bureau unconstitutionally oppressed and disenfranchised millions of 1776 Americans in favor of Democrats.

That should be corrected.

[David Nieporent]

Not only are you a racist liar, but you're a dumb one. Delaware has the minimum one representative in the House; it is by definition not overrepresented.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Wow, you’re pretty dumb to think Delaware is the only Democrat state!

Holy moly, how can you be an adult and believe only Delaware is Blue in America?

Don’t they brief you IDF Internet Reaction Teams on the basics?

[Brett Bellmore]

Census Bureau Today Releases 2020 Census Undercount, Overcount Rates by State

"
According to the PES, which states had undercounts?

Arkansas (-5.04),
Florida (-3.48),
Illinois (-1.97),
Mississippi (-4.11),
Tennessee (-4.78), and
Texas (-1.92).

And overcounts?

Delaware (+5.45),
Hawaii (+6.79),
Massachusetts (+2.24),
Minnesota (+3.84),
New York (+3.44),
Ohio (+1.49),
Rhode Island (+5.05), and
Utah (+2.59) "

Census Bureau Errors Distort Congressional Representation for the States

"As explained below, as a result of these errors, Florida did not receive two additional congressional seats and Texas did not receive one more congressional seat. Meanwhile, two other states, Minnesota and Rhode Island, each retained a congressional seat that they should have lost, and Colorado gained a new seat to which it was rightfully not entitled."

If Harris wins today, there's a good chance that she owes her victory to the Census department...

[David Nieporent]

If Harris wins today, there’s a good chance that she owes her victory to the Census department…

No. To the GOP. The Census Bureau tried to use statistical sampling to adjust the census results, and the GOP sued, saying it violated the Census Act. SCOTUS agreed, and so the Census Bureau isn't allowed to correct its results.

And of course the undercount/overcount data you cite comes from sampling.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Well isn't that neat. Democrats get extra House seats for 10 years!

Justice was served!

[Brett Bellmore]

The Cenus bureau tried to use statistical sampling in the 2000 census, and were stopped. A few years later they described what they were doing in slightly different terms, and the Court had a collective brain fart, and said, "Duh, go ahead."

So they did use statistical sampling in the 2020 census. To adjust a downscaled effort to actually count people.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think you're not wrong. The accuracy of the Census apparently declined a LOT between 2010 and 2020.

In 1999 the Court had ruled that the Census couldn't use statistical estimates in place of counting, but by 2002, (Utah v. Evans) the Court rationalized that adding statistical estimates to a count wasn't the very same thing, and permitted it:

"Finally, Utah provides no satisfactory alternative account of the meaning of the phrase "the statistical method known as 'sampling.'" Its several arguments-that "sampling" occurs whenever information on a portion of the population is used to infer information about the whole population; that the Court found that two methods, allegedly virtually identical to imputation, constituted "sampling" in Department of Commerce v. United States House of Representatives, 525 U. S. 316, 324-326; that the Bureau, if authorized to engage in imputation, might engage in wide-scale substitution of imputation for person-by-person counting; and that two of the Bureau's imputation methods are inaccurate-are not convincing. Utah has failed to overcome the fact that the Bureau has long and consistently interpreted § 195 as permitting imputation, while Congress, aware of this interpretation, has enacted related legislation without changing the statute. Pp. 464-473.

3. The Bureau's use of "hot-deck imputation" does not violate the Census Clause, which requires the "actual Enumeration" of each State's pop-"

So by 2020 the Census apparently severely reduced its efforts to count everybody, and leaned hard into statistical "imputation", to the point where they were getting population numbers that were off by 5-6% either way in some states.

I think the real world has proven that the majority in Evans were flat out wrong about what the Census would do if permitted to engage in statistical 'corrections'; They actually DID "engage in wide-scale substitution of imputation for person-by-person counting;", and it turned out that "the Bureau's imputation methods are inaccurate".

[Magister]

Alas, we don't know who was President in 2020, so no idea who to blame for mishandling the pandemic or the census that it disrupted.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's funny; I do know who was President in 2020. But I'm also aware that the bureaucracy were in all but open rebellion against him, so he had very little control over what they did.

[David Nieporent]

Of course, this is solely in Brett's head also. Funny, but I remember that the bureaucracy illegally included questions about citizenship because Trump wanted them to. He had 100% control over what they did.

[EscherEnigma]

It was widely acknowledged that asking about citizenship would depress response rates.

Republicans --while grinning like schoolboys who just got away with something-- insisted that both wasn't true and wasn't the point anyway.

Anyway, none of that would matter if we had a national popular vote instead of the electoral college.

[David Nieporent]

So by 2020 the Census apparently severely reduced its efforts to count everybody,

There is literally zero basis for this "apparently." It's just Something That Fits Brett's Conspiracy Theories.

[Brett Bellmore]

At seven PM the main hatchway gave in the polls close in Georgia, the first swing state to report in. If the state goes decisively for one side, they'll probably be the winner by the end of the election.

At 7:30, North Carolina reports in, another swing state.

At 8, Pennsylvania reports in. If PA, NC, and GA have all gone the same way, I'd say it's over. If they're mixed, it's going to be a long night.

[David Nieporent]

If PA, NC, and GA have all gone the same way, I’d say it’s over. If they’re mixed, it’s going to be a long night.

A decisive win in Georgia seems less likely than any other outcome; regardless of how the state ultimately turns out, it does not seem likely that we will know the outcome of Georgia that early. And if we don't, it'll be a long night regardless.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

The GA Supreme Court undermined the Democrat cheaters so, GA is going back to being reliably Red & Patriotic.

[David Nieporent]

Troll better.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Uh, it's just the facts. No 3AM all-Democrat vote dumps in GA this year.

Thanks to the GA Supreme Court. They made two election-integrity rulings in favor of the GOP.

[David Nieporent]

Nothing about the case had anything to do with "vote dumps," let alone "3 AM" ones.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

No election office can accept ballots after 12:01am.

No 3AM vote dumps like we saw in 2020.

[Josh R]

Citation?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, INC. et al. v. NAOMI AYOTA et al.
Case Number
S25M0319

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GbkTyKrXcAA-nKL?format=jpg&name=large

[Josh R]

This case isn't about "ballot dumps" or even midnight, and impact only 3000 ballots.

Georgia has a law which says absentee ballots must be received by 7 PM on election day. Cobb county mailed out 3000 ballots later than expected. A lower court held those ballots (but only those, no others in the state) can be counted if they arrive by the Friday after election day. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed, holding the ballots must be receiveed by 7 PM (just like all other ballots). These ballots will be kept in case of litigation.

The post-midnight "ballot dumps" from 2020 were ballots received in time on election day and merely moved from room to another so they could be counted.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

And by "moved from one room to another", you mean moved from the "printing room" to the "counting room".

[David Nieporent]

We saw no "3AM vote dumps" in 2020. This is just delusional on your part.

Also, it's 7 pm, not 12:01 am, that's the deadline. Just like in 2020.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I'm not expecting Georgia to be so one-sided we know the result early. I'm saying that if it IS that one sided, you can probably go to bed early.

[Bwaaah]

It's quite easy to understand you, Brett, if not agree with you. You write clearly, and particularly carve out narrow arguments that don't overreach; that don't say more than they actually say. You choose your words quite carefully.

Despite how clear and narrow your comments are, the responses are typically expansive, patently intentional misinterpretations of what you write that ignore your concision. They so obviously presume things you didn't say, because their arguments only stand if they reach beyond what you actually said and insert convenient assumptions "not entered into evidence."

There are only a few people here on VC, who generally oppose "your position," who genuinely engage your comments. Those few aside, so many of the commenters are smart and capable arguers, and yet, can't see how unserious, how disingenuous, their arguments with you are. So many smart people look so foolish when they argue with you, despite their puffy chests, their self-righteous assuredness, their moral clarity.

I suspect it comes down to a feeling in those people that if *you* win, *they* win. ("They" probably means Republicans, or Trump, or Trump supporters, or some facsimile therein.) And since winning is what matters most, you must never be allowed to win.

But this, VC comments, isn't an election. It isn't a contest. It's a discussion. (No?) So much for legitimate argument. You give it a good go, Brett. But you can't even set forth the most simple, uncontroversial, hypothetical proposition as you did here without The Opposition doing its shtick. Shtick.

People like DN sully themselves when they respond like he did, like so many smart people typically do around here, and all across the U.S., and all around the world. They're serious, but only within the social context of their like-minded bubble.

[Brett Bellmore]

Aw, shucks.

I care a great deal who wins the election, but that's like saying I care a great deal whether a tornado hits my house. I'm actually going into this election genuinely devoid of any expectations as to how it will turn out; The only data I have in that regard are the polls, the polls are both equivocal and unreliable. So, why should I have settled expectations?

I do find it interesting to analyze what we'll be able to deduce from the early returns, though. When it reaches my bedtime, though, I'm turning in regardless of how it's going.

The tornado won't strike until next January anyway, after all.

[Mr. Bumble]

Is this the tornado?
BREAKING: Jamie Raskin said, “Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office.”
https://x.com/LarryDJonesJr/status/1853609325761273976

[Brett Bellmore]

Hard to say if that's the roar of a distant tornado, or just a solitary idiot.

[David Nieporent]

or just a solitary idiot.

Do you mean Raskin or the tweeter? Because the quote is fabricated, as anyone with an ounce of common sense should immediately realize and anyone with more than an ounce of common sense could figure out with an ounce of effort.¹
​
​
¹Google the quote. Literally the only times it has appeared were this tweeter's fabricated tweet and a few people retweeting it. It doesn't even appear in right wing news outlets, let alone actual news outlets. (I mean, the tweet now appears in a few right wing news outlets, but not the actual source of the quote.)

[Brett Bellmore]

Like the election, I'm content to wait and see what he does. I'm moderately certain that there will be SOME effort to contest the outcome, whoever wins, but I'll be shocked if it's a successful effort.

[grb]

David Nieporent : “Because the quote is fabricated, as anyone with an ounce of common sense should immediately realize ….”

“Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) took to X Tuesday to reject a false quote that suggested he would seek to prevent former President Donald Trump from taking office. “This fictional ‘quote’ is 100% fabricated. It’s one more lie in the stream of right-wing lies designed to undermine our election,” Raskin wrote in the post. “Despite this actionable libel and all the disinformation, America is having a free and fair election and Congress will certify the winner.”

The false statement, which was posted to X on Monday and has so far garnered more than 5.8 million views, made it seem that Raskin wouldn’t certify the results of the election if Trump wins. Raskin served as the lead impeachment manager—essentially a prosecutor—during Trump’s impeachment trial in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building.”

Making it an issue of “common sense” isn’t entirely fair to our fellow right-wing commentators. Sure, it was obvious the quote was junk and they would have seen thru it if they tried.

But right-wingers like their lies these days. They worship an addled old coot as demigod because he’s a pathological liar, not in spite of the fact. They see truth as spectators do while watching a pro-wrestling match: As an irksome irritant that shouldn’t get in the way of screaming yourself hoarse as you boo the fake villain or cheer the fake hero. It’s the screaming that matters, not the crudely false construct behind it.

Like CRT in the public schools or the nationwide threat of transexuals, the more phony the issue, the better. The really, really false ones are easier for right-wing consumers to use as entertainment.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-harris-election-day-results-2024/card/raskin-decries-false-quote-on-certifying-possible-trump-win-998sTIT3JF2IGIhOMo7I

[Bwaaah]

Yep. I won’t be disappointed when this election shakes out. I am without expectations. And I am, for better or worse, possessed not just with confidence in our election systems, but probably over-confidence. It feels good to be a little stupid that way.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I saw this on X:

Your grandma died alone in the hospital.
Your husband was fired over a mandate.
Your teenage son has heart problems.
You lost your business.
You weren't allowed to go to church.
Your 2-year-old was forced to mask.

But you wanna forget the whole thing?

NO. I will NEVER forget.

===
Powerful.

[David Nieporent]

That does reflect a series of reasons to vote against Trump, yes.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Who do you think is more in favor of those policies:
Government worshippers like you?
Or freedom lovers like me?

[Michael P]

Trump did not impose those policies. Do you also blame China for contributing to those policies, along with millions of deaths? Shall we stack those deaths up alongside the other hundred-million or so victims of communism?

[David Nieporent]

Trump did not impose those policies.

Well, Harris sure didn't! Half of them were while Trump was president, half of them are made up, and of course vice presidents don't get to impose policies anyway.

[Michael P]

By that logic, we should reject Harris because she doesn't have any relevant track record.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Republican Poll Watchers are being kicked out in Philadelphia, York, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Lehigh, Cambria, Wyoming, and Lackawanna Counties.

Don’t worry though, we can trust Democrat vote counters to have integrity and not cheat. After all, they are civil servants have indicia of integrity! Only selfless, altruistic people go work for the government! It's why government is so efficient and good!

[loki13]

Crossposted from other thread-

CommenterXY said (correctly), “Something I told myself a lot lately: Remember, we are all Americans.”

True. We have very good family friends. So good that we vacation together. The wife is a Harris supporter. But the husband has gone down a dark youtube wormhole- he now thinks that they are shipping guns (?) into America for the undocumented immigrants to use, and plans to vote for Trump.

Anyway, it’s hard to understand this, because this is the same guy that helped me with an issue involving a (legal) kid who had (undocumented) parents here, and who is otherwise a great guy. But we are still friends, and we talk about everything except politics.

Kinda like (some!) of the commenters here. I don’t understand what The Publius is talking about most of the time, but he seems like the kind of person I could get a beer and some BBQ with so long as we don’t talk politics.

I think that when we view people as people, and not as “the enemy” we have a better view of others. I just don’t understand the craziness.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Well, loki13, you're misreading the world.

We're in the early stages of a neo-Marxist revolution. Marxists are evil people who will not leave you alone and, historically, wherever they take control millions of people die.

They are enemies and thinking "it can't happen here" is naive and dangerous.

[apedad]

June's European elections saw a historic number of lawmakers from hard-right and far-right parties elected to the European Parliament.

Asia and Africa are too diverse to put them in a right/left box.

South America and Mexico recent elections have the region’s six largest economies run by leaders elected on leftist platforms.

And the US / Canada are simply swinging back-n-forth.

Hardly a global neo-Marxist revolution.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Because your side is having some setbacks doesn't mean we aren't in the throes of a neo-Marxist revolution.

[apedad]

It must be satisfying to simply dismiss facts and come to a preferred conclusion.

Not mentally healthy of course, but at least temporarily satisfying.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

That makes no sense at all.

Are we only in the midst of revolution, if the revolutionaries are winning on all fronts and experiencing no setbacks?

Is that how you reason about things? No offense, but that’s retarded. Actually, take offense. Because that’s super retarded, and you should be ashamed.

James Lindsay of New Discourses covers this in detail, with receipts. The only reason he isn’t gaining more traction is because he goes into too much detail with too much evidence and proof for the average consumer.

This three hour long video provides a pretty good intro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqD5RF2Kwjs&ab_channel=NewDiscourses

[Bwaaah]

I've seen similar craziness...people who adopt xenophobic meme-like beliefs about immigration, and yet clearly respect and defend immigrants.

I think this speaks to the difference between the conceptual, which is boundless, and the actual, which is not only much more modest, but in my view, what matters most.

This divergence exists not just in politics, but, for example, in sentiments about vitamins and so-called nutritional supplements. I pick this category because I have observed that probably substantially more than half the population holds strong but unproven beliefs about this stuff. But the unsubstantiated beliefs are not uniform or monolithic; each person picks and chooses his/her own unproven assertions. Almost all of them are unsubstantiated, in my opinion, and yet, there is no controversy. Snake oil is openly sold and bought without controversy, by the same people who laugh at people who they describe as wearing "tin foil hats."

Your moderating voice has been a positive feature of late. We're all kind of stupid, I think. It should be OK to widely forgive stupidity, at least where it exists only in voice and conceptualization and not in actual direct action. If not, very few of us are forgivable.

[Brett Bellmore]

I’ve seen similar craziness…people who adopt xenophobic meme-like beliefs about immigration, and yet clearly respect and defend immigrants."

I think this relates to the research into stereotype accuracy. One of the strongest results in sociology, (And the most shocking to sociologists!) is that stereotypes are generally accurate. And as soon as people have individualized information, they stop relying on their stereotypes.

Stereotypes don't actually represent people being irrational, but instead being rational in the presence of incomplete information, in other words.

[Bwaaah]

Stereotypes, statistical generalizations, can approximately and helpfully describe group classifications. They can be valuable for establishing policy preferences too. But they can become downright ugly when they are presumptively applied to an individual, where actual information exists to take the place of the stereotype(s).

When you try to reverse your way back from the actual individual to the stereotyped policies, what justice there may be in policy stereotypes quickly erodes. In an attempt to help people in general, they easily obliterate consideration of the individual and result in what I call “big stupid” policies. That which is described as “one size fits all,” is a size that precisely fits nobody.

Statists turn a blind eye to the dehumanization inherent in such policies, harkening to the amorphous “greater good” as they build institutions that steamroll over humanity with institutionalized disregard for the individuals they purport to help. Such inhumanity is characteristic of state action, as it is of any institutional action.

Humanity, manifested in reality, is best understood as being by one person with another. It’s important to not let politics blind us to that essential nature of what’s going on on the ground, individually, around each of us, where facts are revealed and suppositions can be put aside in favor of what we can more actually observe, and affect.

In theory, the world is going to shit. In reality, it’s a characteristically peaceful, calm [sunny] day around *here* *today*.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

If you didn’t conflate “illegal immigrants” with “legal immigrants”, your anecdote wouldn’t seem so bizarre.

For example:

I’ve seen similar craziness…people who adopt xenophobic meme-like beliefs about illegal immigration, and yet clearly respect and defend legal immigrants.

That is a perfectly rational position to hold.

[Bwaaah]

I meant what I said. I say it aside from the very big difference between illegal and legal immigration. (Note that I see the Biden administration’s step-up-and-sign-in-and-you-are-legal-now asylum policy as subverting the very definition of “borders,” and of “legal immigration.”)

There are millions of people crossing the U.S. border illegally annually, and I want that substantially curtailed. An example of the meme-like craziness is characterizing those coming in as violent cartel mules. That’s not to say that there aren’t violent cartel mules among them. But that characterization, statistically speaking, is *way* more *wrong* than right. (Of course, I’m guessing at this. But I live in New York City, and get to directly observe and know a lot of immigrants.)

I wouldn’t use the term “xenophobic” to describe the belief in border enforcement. I use that term to describe “anti-people-not-like-us” attitudes, which is quite unappealing to me. Still, most of the xenophobic people I’ve known are simultaneously respectful in their treatment of individuals who they reject “collectively.” So I’m speaking to the distinction between the abstract and the actual, the collective and the individual, the stereotype and the particular, and the fact that most people who show hate or anger in their collective pronouncements show much more respectful inclinations in their actual treatment of those people on the ground.

[John F. Carr]

In Middle Eastern news.

Iran has sentenced three people to death for helping kill nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Israel passed a law to get rid of teachers who support Israel's enemies. The Jerusalem post reports:

The law requires that the institutions or individual teachers in question be allowed to present arguments in their defense prior to the actions against them. However, the bills detractors, including Israeli-Arab MKs and other members of the opposition, argued that the bill gives unproportional power to the education ministry to act in ways that could cause a chilling effect on freedom of speech, and serve as a tool to target Arab schools without real justification or judicial oversight.

Haaretz paints a daker picture:

The law authorizes the government to dismiss teachers without notice and defund their schools if they "demonstrate solidarity with terrorist organizations"

Israeli lawmakers passed a law on Tuesday authorizing the education minister to withdraw funding from schools where "expressions of sympathy with terrorist acts are occurring or being permitted."

I could imagine Secretary of Education DeSantis proposing such a rule, effectively banning federal funds at schools that permit SJP to thrive.

[Bored Lawyer]

How horrible! You mean DeSantis would defund teachers who want to kill Jews? Tar and feather the man.

See also my post above about a certain professor.

[Bored Lawyer]

Oh and Brown University, that hotbed of MAGA radicalism, recently suspended SJP. And all without DeSantis!

[Bwaaah]

[John F. Carr]

In other Middle Eastern news, Iranian authorities arrested a woman who stripped to her underwear in public. This caught my attention because the Guardian blurred her face. Other outlets ran the pictures without blurring. I was surprised that the pictures made it out of Iran without her bra and panties being blurred.

[M L]

I somehow managed to listen to the entire Joe Rogan/Trump podcast over several days. It was surprisingly pretty good and interesting/entertaining content, for a 3 hour talk with a "politician."

I actually came away impressed with Trump's mental acuity and focus. Not even just for his age, but in general. I suppose my impressions were buoyed by low expectations set by the steady drumbeat of leftwing propaganda headlines and posts that I just see in passing.

Also, seeing Trump once again doing a campaign rally past 2AM on the eve of the election, concluding an unparalleled campaign schedule - one can't help but be impressed by the energy and stamina, and respect the strenuous effort, even if you disagree with him.

[Brett Bellmore]

I sometimes think one of his greatest assets is just exactly that his foes believe their own trash talk about him, and so consistently underestimate him.

[M L]

A little less than 4 years ago, his opponents started to fret about him potentially winning in 2024. At the time, in the comments of this very blog, I expressed incredulity at the notion.

If he somehow wins this thing after all that's happened, it will be quite an amazing thing.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

What else would Putin like for us to believe, comrade?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Various reports out of Pennsylvania of scanner rejection problems. Hope they are quickly addressed.
Nobody wants to ever see a repeat of what Maricopa County did to their voters in Nov 2022.

https://x.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/1853814756508905919?t=_Pqqel2tHfHVBnzAvQKZhg&s=19

[Bored Lawyer]

I saw a bizarre theory on the internet today: Trump wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College. And then a bunch of red states enact the National Compact to give him their electoral votes.

Chance of that happening is less than the chance of Joe Biden being able to speak a coherent sentence without help.

[Brett Bellmore]

That seems fairly unlikely.

I will say, though, that if Trump wins the popular vote, the NPV compact is dead. All the states that have joined to date are reliable "Blue" states, if they are confronted with the reality that if they'd put the compact into effect this election, it would have handed all their EC votes to a Republican, they'll rethink it.

[Bwaaah]

That would be good if NPV goes away. Regretfully, I endorsed the NPV ballot proposal in New York years ago. My attitude has changed since then. LOL.

Either way, it's 5.9 of one, half a dozen of the other. The electoral college seems to be cutting my way these days. That's not fair. But it's established tradition. So I'll take it for now.

[John F. Carr]

The laws for choosing electors were already fixed as of last midnight. Federal law does not recognize changes to presidential election statutes on or after election day.

In 2020 Trump's team wanted to summon swing state legislatures into session to change the states' electoral votes. Congress decided that should not be allowed.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Besides Gaum flipping Patriot today, there was another amazing occurrence that happened at my polling center today.

There I was at my White, affluent, suburb’s polling station and ahead me was this White father with his young daughter, probably around 4 or 5 y/o. The father turned to his daughter, and said proudly, “I’m voting for her and her future.” Then I overheard him ask the poll worker, expectedly, “Has today been busy?”, and the poll worker exasperatedly said “You wouldn’t believe it, it’s been crazy, people have been voting like mad” (I’m paraphrasing, but it was something to that effect). His young daughter looked up and said, with a smirk, “I hope none of the voters were wearing masks or had blue hair!”

And then silence. It was pregnant. A pregnant silence.

Then I saw a twinkle in the poll worker’s eyes and she said, assuredly, “Not a single one.” You could sense the energy. I couldn’t help myself, I started clapping. And you could just feel it spreading around the entire auditorium. Others started clapping, then someone started chanting “USA, USA, USA” and next thing you know just about everyone there, had to have been over a hundred people were hooting and hollering and chanting “USA, USA, USA”. It was surreal. Almost out of a movie.

As I’m chanting and pumping my fist in the air, I look around then saw her. One, fat, ugly White woman, aghast as if she’s seen a ghost. I saw her clutch her canvas hobo messenger bag and mumble something about not being able to abort her babies, as if that was even on the menu for her, and she waddle out the auditorium as if she were some feminine Oswald Cobb.

What a great moment.

USA! USA! USA!

[grb]

Thus the Nazi Child in fantasy-mode.

[SimonP]

Of all the things that never happened, this never happened most of all!

[M L]

And then a bald eagle flew through the window, circled the crowd and perched on the dominion voting machine.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Besides all the Democrat fuckery in PA going on, they caught some cheaters in Harris County, TX.

https://x.com/JosephLTrahan/status/185350170922789720

Harris County Central Count must have some kind of secret teleportation device they used to remove 2000 to 3000 voters a day from HCC South Loop and moved them to Kashmere every day of early voting after the fact. THIS is merely one of many astounding feats overcoming the limitations of time and space, physics, Rodney Ellis’ team has been able to achieve.

https://x.com/CarolineKaneTX/status/1853486128000536773

n Harris County, there are now huge discrepancies in early voters by polling location between yesterday and what is now showing today. These should NOT CHANGE, yet 60 polling locations have indeed changed.

Here comes the Democrat Cheating Clerk:
https://x.com/HarrisVotes/status/1853541652238909506

“Oopsie, it was a formatting accident!”

What should happen to Democrat Election Cheaters? What justice should they face for tampering with our Sacred Democracy?

[M L]

"Software issue" as voting machines suddenly stop working county-wide in key deep red PA county.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cambria-county-granted-10-pm-extension-at-polls-after-issues-plague-vote-machines/ar-AA1tyDnE

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Record all the election cheating you see here. They took out archive.org and Google isn't caching anything either. They did this so they could gaslight us and say there wasn't any cheating like they did in 2020.

That's what I'm doing.

[grb]

JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes : "That’s what I’m doing"

The Nazi Child is on the case!

(why is everyone laughing?)

[Michael P]

You don't have to be a Nazi, dude. In fact, we would rather you stop.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Too Big to Rig, Bitches!

[Commenter_XY]

🙂

Here, I think some of you need a refresher on what to do.

https://youtu.be/wDYNVH0U3cs

[Michael P]

I love the smell of democracy in the morning for America (great again).

[Bwaaah]

YEAH BABY!!!

[Mr. Bumble]

November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes fails to blow up the English Parliament.
November 5, 2024, Donald Trump successfully blows up the Democrat dictatorship and the supporting lying media.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Besides the hope for the future, my favorite thing is going to be Elon's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

lmao I hope the unemployment lines are long in DC.

[SimonP]

The federal government employs people throughout the country, Jesus. A mass firing would put a lot of people in your community out of work - not just federal employees, but businesses that rely on federal contracts - and result in a hit to the local economy, driving down local wages and tax revenue.

[M L]

I suppose this will be the "temporary hardship" that Elon Musk referred to.

Do you think we should hire people to dig holes and fill them back in? Or break windows and replace them?

[SimonP]

I hadn't realized that Americans thought they were voting for an economic downturn.

[Truthfulness]

That's because that's a myth you claim you realized. You are evil.

[apedad]

The small group that decided to install Harris as the Dem candidate made a garbage (and too late) decision.

That decision should have happened about two years ago and Harris should have had to go through the Primaries.

There's a political rule that you don't shit on your friends - and that's exactly what they did and now we Dems are to pay for it.

As Mike P said above, I too love the smell of democracy and also realize this too shall pass.

Looking forward to a fun ride the next four years and just remember kids: ETTD

[Commenter_XY]

Looking forward to the autophagy of The Left. 😉

[SimonP]

I don't see that happening. Unless there is data showing that the vote for Stein sunk Harris in more than a couple of the swing states, it seems fairly evident that Harris lost because she didn't make a compelling case to voters motivated by the economy.

I don't exactly blame her; it's hard to campaign on, "No, listen, it takes time for things to improve, it is happening right now, you just need to wait another year or two for it to manifest in your own lives." And she isn't given to Trump's fabulism, where you can eliminate income taxes, raise tariffs, lower prices, increase wages, without specifying how exactly that's going to come about.

But, still. One has to respect what the election is telling us. And what it is telling us is that people are fed up with their economic problems, with immigration, and want a change in course. That's what New Yorkers did, in 2021, when we elected Adams. We rejected wishy-washy liberalism and even a competent woman candidate, in favor of an anti-crime former cop. The voters who put Adams over the top had every right to be concerned about crime and wanting to have a more "back the blue" candidate.

Of course, what we actually got was a corrupt, incompetent con man.

[Brett Bellmore]

Her problem was that she was just a lousy candidate. A really lousy one. Explicitly an affirmative action hire as VP, she got handed the nomination without having to campaign for it thanks to Biden's dementia becoming public.

Really, what the Democrats should have done was to be honest about Biden's condition at least a year earlier, and had a competitive primary to determine who'd run in his place. Harris probably would have been slaughtered in that primary, and you'd have run a better candidate against Trump.

[Brett Bellmore]

If I might be so bold, I'd suggest that the Democratic party adopt an internal reform: Henceforth, you should always hold competitive primaries regardless of whether you have an incumbent in the White house. Make even the incumbent work for the nomination.

It might have spared you this defeat.

[David Nieporent]

No party has ever done that.

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe you should, after this.

[SimonP]

The party didn't stop there from being a competitive primary; Biden did, by choosing to run again. Ordinary political calculations from there drove the individual decisions whether to throw their hat in the ring.

You're proposing this because, ratfucker that you are, you're more interested in seeing the Democratic Party implode upon its own divisions than a healthy competition for voters' support.

[Brett Bellmore]

The party stopped there from being a competitive primary, by concealing Biden's decline until late enough that there wasn't time for one.

[Michael P]

In the vein of democracy, I wonder if the lett will reconsider their support for the National Popular Vote Compact in the wake of these results.

I think both the EC and popular votes would have come out differently if Democrats and the media took a different stance on the transgender topic, even if everything else was the same. But it's also hard for me to not see the Dem position on that as seriously overdetermined: that position reflects too many different past decisions and arguments. Still, that and immigration policy are the only two major issues that the party has pretty direct control over; crime and the economy are much more indirect and downstream of the policies they do control.

[apedad]

If the trend (over the past three decades), holds true then keeping the NPVC would be a good idea for Dems.

I really do believe that a lot of Dems were pissed off at the bait-n-switch I mentioned above and this was a one-time thing, not a policy thing.

[Brett Bellmore]

A lot depends on whether the change in Republican turnout sticks. That's what mostly drove this outcome: Republican turnout was up a lot. (Democratic, not so much.) That, and Democrats' grip on minorities seems to be slipping.

The Democrats' popular vote advantage was largely due to Republicans in effective one party states, (Just California, really!) not bothering to turn out. This time they did bother.

If they keep bothering, the EC/Popular discrepancy goes away.

[Michael P]

It’s not improved turnout, I think. Wikipedia says the 2020 popular vote was 81.3M to 74.2M. BBC has the current 2024 count at 71.3M vs 66.2M. So Trump's vote total is down somewhat, but almost a fifth of Biden voters stayed home this time (or in the graveyard or wherever). Maybe Harris was a uniquely bad candidate, or maybe voters are finally getting sick of leftists running the country into the ground.

[Brett Bellmore]

You've got a point: Looking at some late breaking numbers, it looks like it wasn't so much that Republican turnout was way up, as that Democratic turnout was way down.

[David Nieporent]

There are a lot of votes left to count in California; Harris's total will go up. But it will still be far off the 2020 numbers.

[Ridgeway]

When I did the math this morning, it looked like the total votes cast should be very close to 2020 (about 156 mm this election). They just broke far better for Trump. So there is going to be some combination of vote switching, Ds staying home and Rs turning out, and I am very curious to see the #s for each.

[Brett Bellmore]

If all the states leaning Trump's way that haven't been called yet go his way, (At least Michigan should, Harris would have to get basically every last remaining uncounted vote to prevail there.) Trump will be at 312 electoral votes.

If I were a Democrat, the development that would scare me the most would be Trump's gains among minority voters. The Democratic party has long relied on getting almost all of those votes, to make up for not doing all that well with whites. If minorities are in play now, the playbook completely changes for the Democrats. AND the Republicans, who now have a motive to try appealing to them.

I think it might help to make our politics a bit less toxic if the vote weren't so racially polarized, too.

[SimonP]

I imagine it is a bunch of lazy shits who had no problem mailing in ballots during the pandemic, but couldn't be arsed to get themselves to the polls this time around.

[Brett Bellmore]

Generally speaking they could still mail in ballots, even though there's no pandemic. They couldn't be arsed to do it for Harris, though.

They never could be before, why would anyone think that had changed?

[SimonP]

I think this was always going to be a tough election for Democrats to win. Inflation and housing prices have been too high; immigration is up and out of control. Biden was cruising to a loss in a "referendum" election, and Harris worked hard to shift it to a "choice" election, and she did well considering where she started from.

I don't know that an open primary process would necessarily have yielded a candidate who could make a stronger break from Biden. Voters were asking: What are you going to do, that's different from what Biden has done? Harris said, "Not much." What would Whitmer or Shapiro or Newsom have said? I doubt they would have been able to say much different.

Ultimately I think part of the reason the party consolidated so quickly around Harris is that they (1) expected that a competitive process would be distracting and divisive too late in the campaign and (2) they were happy to run in opposition to Trump for the next 2-4 years, saving their talent for a clean run in 2028. So we'll see where that gets us.

Personally - while I am depressed by the result, and believe the country has made a grievous error, I am glad that the victory was sufficiently clear that it hasn't come down to what an electoral official in Atlanta or Detroit has decided to certify or what the Supreme Court thinks about a dispute of electoral ballots in Congress. The mandate is clear enough; the decision is made, we can move on.

I have written elsewhere that I believe, fundamentally, in democracy. As long as we have free and fair elections, the outcome - even if not personally to my liking - ought to control. It looks like people voted for the economy of 2017-2019. Fine, let's see what Trump can deliver. If he can deliver that, if he can deliver (as he has promised) higher wages, lower prices, lower taxes, and more economic stability, then I see no reason why he ought not to be entitled to Americans' support.

And who knows. Maybe he will. I worry that he will do great damage to America's institutions, by inviting open corruption into our government and doing the bidding of Putin, et al. But if he gets into office and realizes that Biden's CHIPS Act and infrastructure bill are basically already paid-for programs that he can use to rebuild jobs and the economy in red states, if he looks at his promises of tariffs and realizes that a dramatic economic transformation of the American economy is harder than it looks, if he looks around at his colleagues in Congress and decides that it's better to just focus on tax cuts - maybe he'll be able to benefit from Biden's economic policy just like he did from Obama's economic policy. Maybe it'll be the same trick, pulled off for a second time.

None of that, of course, is what he has promised. But his big promises will be harder to keep than they will be to break. Certainly he owes no one an explanation if he doesn't follow through.

I fear that Democrats will not really learn their lesson. They will find it easier to run on fear and opposition to Trump than it is to push for policies that actually help the kinds of voters they failed to persuade in this election.

[Brett Bellmore]

“I am glad that the victory was sufficiently clear that it hasn’t come down to what an electoral official in Atlanta or Detroit has decided to certify or what the Supreme Court thinks about a dispute of electoral ballots in Congress. ”

Hallelujah! Preach it! An election decisive enough that the loser couldn’t make excuses IS exactly what we needed.

Just so we don’t think that a decisive election fixed the fundamental problems. Our voting systems are seriously screwed up.

We need to dump the electronic voting machines, they will never be secure. Really, everybody but people getting kickbacks from voting machine companies (OK, hyperbole, but close to true.) agrees that Scantron is the way to go.

Another problem is that election administration in this country, is, stupidly, in partisan hands. I think we need to create a sort of "election corps", where young people can volunteer, get trained, and then be randomly assigned to work the polls around the country, so that whatever party dominates an area will not automatically be in control of election administration.

[David Nieporent]

I don’t know that an open primary process would necessarily have yielded a candidate who could make a stronger break from Biden. Voters were asking: What are you going to do, that’s different from what Biden has done? Harris said, “Not much.” What would Whitmer or Shapiro or Newsom have said? I doubt they would have been able to say much different.

They weren't going to throw Biden under the bus — that's not how it works — but they at least wouldn't be tainted by the silly "Biden-Harris Administration" propaganda that this administration has put out for years. They would've been less automatically blamed for Biden's policies to begin with.

[Brett Bellmore]

"They would’ve been less automatically blamed for Biden’s policies to begin with."

Rightfully so. But the key advantage to Democrats of an open primary process would simply have been that it would have exposed Harris' fundamental weakness as a campaigner.

Normally you don't get to be a Presidential candidate without having to fight for it, and beat off people competing with you for it. The only prior case I can think of, off hand, is Ford. And he lost, didn't he?

[Brett Bellmore]

I think this is going to be a "Go big or go home!" term for Trump. He knows he only has one term left, he's out after 2028 no matter how popular he is. The GOP establishment largely obstructed him for the first couple years of his first term, both in Congress and by foisting on him cabinet members who were working for the establishment, not the President, and then he had to deal with a Democratic Congress.

Here he is with a second chance, likely control of both chambers, and this time the GOP establishment's control is greatly reduced. He's going to want to pursue an aggressive program, a really aggressive program. Getting the bureaucracy under elected control, putting a stop to DEI in government.

I would highly recommend that the Republican Congress call a constitutional convention. Republicans controlled enough states before this election that no amendment Republicans oppose could be ratified, and will probably control even more states after yesterday, so the risk to the GOP of a Convention is pretty low. And the amendments Republicans support for the Constitution are fairly popular.

A balanced budget amendment stands some chance of pulling the country back from the brink of fiscal collapse. I could see an amendment ending birthright citizenship where the parents are here illegally, maybe establishing that apportionment is to be by a count of citizens, not warm bodies.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well hopefully he will clear the decks, sound battle stations and damn the torpedoes this time around and with a loyal crew.

[SimonP]

Brett, before the election: People who are warning that Trump will be a fascist who ushers in the Handmaid's Tale are seriously deluded!

Brett, after the election: Let's call a constitutional convention and fundamentally re-order our entire democracy to favor Republicans!

[Brett Bellmore]

Keep in mind that Constitutional amendments require supermajority support to be ratified: If Republicans give America a convention, America will decide what amendments actually get adopted. The convention just circumvents Congress, not the ratification process.

I think you're just worried that some Republican proposals in this area are actually pretty popular. Polling shows that a balanced budget amendment has something like 80% support. Support for it was pretty massive even 30 years ago, it's only grown since, as the debt has grown.

[Absaroka]

“Go big or go home!”

This is a good time to remember that a 53:47 (or whatever) win is not a mandate to Change! Everything! Now!.

(and I would have said the same thing to Team D if Harris had won 53:47)

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, it does appear that Republicans have decisively captured the Senate, and look good to capture the House, too, in addition to Trump having beat Harris considerably more decisively than Biden had beaten him. But that is generally good advice of the sort I have never known Democrats to follow, so why expect Republicans to follow it?

[Absaroka]

"considerably more decisively"

I'm seeing a popular vote of 51% for Trump. Or to put it another way, 49% of the country didn't vote for him. And ... some of that 51% held their nose and voted for him as the lesser of the evils.

You are on the fringe, Brett. The country isn't on board with 'let's make a hard right turn'.

(and, again, I'd be saying the same thing to the left if Harris had eked out a 51% majority).

"why expect Republicans to follow it?"

Because they want to do what is best for America? I am an American, not a Republican-American, nor a Democrat-American.

[SimonP]

You are on the fringe, Brett. The country isn’t on board with ‘let’s make a hard right turn’.

Right. People voted for Trump expecting him to govern like he did from 2017-2019. He did some astonishingly bad things back then (e.g., pull out of the Iran agreement, the Paris Accords, and undermine support for NATO), bad things whose full consequences he will now be charged with fixing, somehow. But domestically he was mostly hands-off on people's lives.

I expect moods will sour quickly if he actually imposes the tariffs and mass deportation he's promised, or signs or orders a national abortion ban.

[Brett Bellmore]

Why would you even expect him to order a national abortion ban? Have you paid no attention at all to anything he's had to say about abortion?

I expect him to govern like he tried to govern from 2017-2019, only with a great deal more success in putting his program into effect. Do you expect moderation of him? He's not facing the voters again, you know.

[SimonP]

Why would you even expect him to order a national abortion ban? Have you paid no attention at all to anything he’s had to say about abortion?

He's waffled and flip-flopped on the issue, Brett. It's not a major concern for him, just a potential obstacle to winning the WH that he had to navigate in a few news cycles. He will sign an abortion ban if Congress sends him one, and his appointees likely will put an EO in front of him where he orders them to enforce the Comstock Act against abortifacients, to unwind the FDA's approval of mifepristone or make it significantly harder to get, to drop litigation defending that approval in the Fifth Circuit, to exercise spending power authority to try to impose anti-abortion mandates on blue states, etc.

That is their plan. You may wish to deny it here for internet points until they implement it, but you absolutely understand this and will change your tune entirely once it becomes reality. "It should have happened, so I approve of Trump's abandoning his ambivalence on the issue," and so on.

I expect him to govern like he tried to govern from 2017-2019, only with a great deal more success in putting his program into effect. Do you expect moderation of him? He’s not facing the voters again, you know.

I realize you're an extremist, Brett, and so favor Trump's extremism. The point I am making is that voters likely are not interested in the same kind of extremism you are celebrating. I think they voted for the way that Trump governed - but constrained, as you like to put it, by RINOs in Congress. They may favor his clamping down on asylum claims and more forcefully deporting illegal immigrants who have engaged in violent crimes. They may favor his actions in pushing people crossing the border back over the border, to holding facilities in Mexico. But I expect they will respond differently if Trump spends billions of dollars building concentration camps for undocumented immigrants rounded up from around the country, revoking parole for various groups of refugees, throwing Dreamers out, breaking up families that are mixed between citizens and undocumented immigrants, etc. Which is what Stephen Miller has promised to do.

[Brett Bellmore]

I AM an extremist on many issues. (And a centrist on others.) I'm a self-aware extremist, unlike the fools who are extremists and think they're in the mainstream. I know very well that a lot of policies I want have next to no political support. You can't be active in 3rd party politics for 30 years without figuring that sort of thing out, unless you're a real idiot.

Trump is very much less of an extremist than I am, relative to public opinion, (As opposed to DC opinion.) which is why he could get elected. And the overlap of his positions and mine falls far short of 100%. (Fat chance he's going to try to re-legalize drugs, or shut down the BATF.) But, yes, I'll favor his extremism where it agrees with mine, and favor him lawfully pursuing its implementation.

[SimonP]

And all I'm saying is that Trump is likely to lose support if/when he does so, because that's not why people voted for him.

Seems we're agreed.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sort of.

I think it's easy to mistake issues where Trump is squarely in the middle of the voting public's mainstream, but outside the mainstream of office holders, for 'extremist' positions.

There are issues, like illegal immigration, where office holders differ systematically from the general public. Trump will pursue policies that are popular with the public, but which office holders have refused to pursue. That's a large part of his appeal, doing so is not going to hurt him politically.

[SimonP]

I don't know what immigration policies you think Trump will pursue, that will be popular with the American public.

Certainly - "close the border." In his first term, he summarily shut down processing of asylum claims, limited legal immigration, and shut down other means of providing immigrants temporary legal status. I agree that those might be popular.

Vance has waved his hands at focusing on deportation of illegal immigrants who have committed crimes. That's also a longtime bipartisan talking point, so I would expect those to be popular.

(Many of the above policies will likely be counterproductive in the long term, and illegal. But I won't quibble with whether they might be "popular.")

I do not think that the public is on the anti-Dreamer, anti-all-immigrant Trump train, though. I think that Americans understand that there are a lot of undocumented immigrants in this country, who are peacefully providing labor at rates that no American would accept. And I think they understand, too, that deporting those workers all at once is likely to be very disruptive for our agricultural and construction sectors. I also think that Americans would be in favor of an orderly "pathway to citizenship," provided it is integrated with legal immigration generally and fair to those who've followed the rules.

Like I've said - the first term, Trump managed immigration a particular way. Flat bans that were not intended to stick, embarrassing deals struck with Latin American countries, changes that were struck down in court, draconian policies that disincentivized immigrants from surrendering themselves at the border. But we did not see, and I do not think Americans really want, the kind of dramatic displacement that Team MAGA has promised.

[Brett Bellmore]

You'll perhaps remember that Trump was trying to pressure Congress to formalize the Dreamers' status. As part of a compromise bill, not stand alone, but he proposed it.

Trump isn't quite the immigration extremist you paint him as. Not relative to the voters, anyway.

[Life of Brian]

Certainly not Everything!, but I think the fact that what will likely shake out to be a ~58% Electoral College majority backed by a significant popular vote majority collectively reached past the double-impeachment-Jan-6-34-felonies-etc-etc barrage and pulled the lever anyway strongly signals they were ultimately voting for at least the big-ticket issues he ran on (immigration and the economy as Simon mentioned above, to which I'd personally add governmental inefficiency and regulatory capture).

[SimonP]

I don't think that regulatory capture or "governmental inefficiency" were really motivators for Trump voters. (And they have some real regulatory capture coming...)

I would say that Trump voters probably were frustrated (1) by the billions of dollars we're spending on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, with no endgame in sight or clear American stake in the resolution, and (2) by the perception that money is being spent on providing services to asylum seekers exploiting inefficiencies in our asylum system, rather than the communities they landed in or passed through.

There might be some good old-fashioned racist agita in the background, over unionized governmental employees filing their freshly manicured nails while ignoring the long line at "the DMV," but I don't get the sense that's what drives modern MAGA voters. That's a more antiquated trope.

[Life of Brian]

Yes, agree on #1. I'd say #2 is a lot more than a perception to the actual affected communities, but the issue doubtless tweaked a good number of voters outside those communities who didn't want to be next because they said nothing, or simply disagreed as a matter of policy.

[SimonP]

It is hard to make the case for involvement in Ukraine, and I suppose American complicity in the Palestinian genocide will just have to be something we deal with in retrospect.

That said – what genuinely concerns me – and not in an alarmist, “Trump is a fascist” type of way – is the prospect of corruption in American government. Thiel, Musk, Grenell, Kushner, Trump, et al. – they’re playing by the Orban, Erdogan, Modi, and Putin playbook, where official state powers are used to keep the corporate sector in line, through networks of corruption that, once entrenched, are incredibly difficult to uproot. Trump’s plan for tariffs, in particular, opens up the possibility of pay-for-play cronyism, where individual corporations may seek one-off exemptions from Trump, which he will grant only if they make it worth his while. We’re also seeing it already in the way that Bezos yanked back the WaPo (likely with his Blue Origin venture in mind).

That kind of corruption is difficult to uproot because it is self-perpetuating. The companies that grease Trump’s palm are able to out-compete others that don’t, they build factories and provide jobs in the U.S., it looks like Trump is managing the economy well, which earns him support. The media pulls its punches in order to avoid official crackdowns, people lose sight of what’s going on, everything in our papers and on our TVs is fluff or directed anywhere but at the corruption. Dissent becomes harder to comprehend.

Is that not something you’re concerned about? If it’s not, how are you confident that’s not kicking about in the back of their minds?

[Brett Bellmore]

"The companies that grease Trump’s palm are able to out-compete others that don’t,"

This is nothing but projection. Solyndra, anyone?

[SimonP]

“Democrats did it first” (while citing a very different example) doesn’t really establish that my concerns are founded in “projection.”

Musk’s SpaceX is tremendously reliant on the federal government for its profitability. It is using the market advantage it currently has to expand into other areas of federal contracting. And Trump wants to put him in charge of “governmental efficiency.” Do you not see a conflict, there?

Trump wants to use tariffs to extract concessions from foreign parties. The reason that is an attractive tool for him is that it requires little or no additional authority from Congress, industry actors are unlikely to challenge his exercises of tariff authority in court, and even the court challenges that are heard are unlikely to stop him from those exercises of authority. He likely can also exempt anyone he likes from a blanket tariff. Do you not see massive potential for abuse, there?

One ought to be concerned about these structural risks, even if we were talking about a perfectly honest and above-board Democratic or Republican president. In this case, we are talking about Trump, a man who is proud of stiffing his contractors, avoiding creditor claims via bankruptcy, and who sponsored in several different scams over the course of his licensing career (itself a thing of smoke and mirrors).

Give me a good reason why I – and you – shouldn’t be concerned by that. You yourself don’t think Trump’s a great guy. What do you think he would do, if a company subject to his tariffs came to him asking for an exemption? Do you think he’ll just say, “Well, if you can prove that you’re going to benefit American workers and customers if you get an exemption, I’ll grant it”? Or do you think he’ll also say, “So, what’s in it for me?” We are talking about a man who approaches every negotiation as a bilateral zero-sum game. It is no projection at all to think the man who held up military aid to Zelensky, in order to extract the announcement of a corruption investigation, might use tariffs to similar effect.

That is, after all, how it is done. These guys are playing from a book that has already been written, Brett. Look around the world. This is how corruption takes root.

[M L]

This is all true. But there's also the question of right and wrong, and the question of doing what is best for the American people long term.

[David Nieporent]

A balanced budget amendment would cause an immediate fiscal collapse.

And, of course, there was no GOP establishment obstructing Trump in his first term; this is purely in your imagination. The moment he beat Hillary, they bent the knee.

[Brett Bellmore]

That depends entirely on the details of the amendment, such as how fast it kicks in.

And you're just imaging that there was no obstruction. McConnell made the Senate into a killing ground for Republican legislation originating in the House, in order to shield RINOs from exposure if they voted against conservative legislation. And you might notice that the Republican Congress rather adamantly refuse to fun Trump's border enforcement efforts. As well, in Trump's first budget he proposed spending cuts for some departments; Congress responded with spending increases passed by a bypartisan veto proof majority.

[Brett Bellmore]

Also, lack of a balanced budget amendment will also cause fiscal collapse, just eventual, and substantially worse when it comes, because we'll be deeper in debt by then.

[Bwaaah]

How bad are Democrat policies?

So bad that a majority of Americans would prefer Donald Trump.

I know they’ll fall back on “misogyny” as their charge because their go-to charge of “racism” would offend too many of the “black” people, many more of whom appear to be acting like they’re not one retarded hive mind. They can’t call it “gender” bias because that’s problematic language for which they have no definitive meaning. But I remember the billion dollar spending program they called the “Inflation Reduction Act,” and their always deep concerns for border security evidenced by their walk-through “asylum” system.

How could Americans rationally reject Democrat re-election?

[Bwaaah]

(I meant "trillion dollar spending program," not "billion")

[Life of Brian]

Man, and I was just typing a half-joke about making billion the new trillion. That's what I get for refreshing before posting.

[Bwaaah]

I debated not posting a correction, and leaving it for a Democrat to correct me. Jason Cavanagh could say something like, "Liar! It was a TRILLION dollars, not a billion, you fiscal idiot."

But I thought better of it, and preferred not to be humiliated by people like yourself. LOL

[Michael P]

A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.

[Bwaaah]

Still no limits and rising. So I’m not sure where “real” is. (Surely can’t see it from here.)

But, yes, what you say is my theory. That’s another important concept that so many smart people are endlessly able to rationalize away with that “Please. Not today.” sentiment. (They persist in denial of the risks of spending money they don’t have.)

[SimonP]

I am not sure how many people are going to make that claim. But I, for one, will have no patience for it. It is not “misogyny” that gave Harris a fighting chance, after Biden dropped out from a sure-losing race.

I recognize, as Bernie and AOC has, that the fundamental problem with the Democratic party is that it is not attending to the needs and concerns of working-class voters who are struggling with inflation, housing prices, and a rapidly evolving economy. I do not think Trump or the Republicans will attend to those needs or concerns, either, but given the choice between the status quo and “something else,” it is not surprising that “something else” has won.

[M L]

I knew I should have bought TSLA calls. DJT stock still a joke.

[Josh R]

A few thoughts:

1) The polls underestimated Trump by what appears to be about the same amount as they did in 2016, less than they did in 2020 (but more detailed analysis is needed once all the votes are counted). Given the polls did fine in 2018 and underestimated Dems in 2022, it’s likely a Trump thing.

2) Picking Shapiro or any other small thing would not have made a difference. Not sure if Biden dropping out in 2023 would have, but him staying in would have been worse for Dems.

3) Is this a realignment with blue-collar, lesser-educated people going GOP, or is this a Trump thing (and will the GOP adopt the tariffs and isolationist policies going forward).

4) What will Trump do differently and accomplish in his second term?

5) It will forever stun and disappoint me that so many Americans could look past Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 elections. For anyone else besides Trump, the GOP would have abandoned him. But, they cowardly capitualed to the populace who concluded it’s OK for Trump to shoot someone on 5th Avenue.

[Brett Bellmore]

The institutional GOP wanted to abandon Trump. Their problem is that they wanted to abandon him in favor of somebody who'd be a reliable establishment pick, not somebody who had the same appeal as Trump without his baggage.

If the institutional GOP had decided to ditch Trump in favor of, say, DeSantis, they might have been able to pull it off. They didn't want to, and they would have had to have made that call quite early.

[Josh R]

They couldn't abandon Trump in favor of anyone else without suffering Liz Cheney's fate. Is there anyone with Trump's appeal who is anti-establishment? Not DeSantis. Maybe Musk?

[Brett Bellmore]

DeSantis is not exactly anti-establishment, but his appeal to the voters is that he's like Trump on a policy level. Unlike the establishment picks.

[Josh R]

DeSantis supports tarrifs and isolationism? He has no charisma.

[SimonP]

Forget it, Josh - it's Chinatown.

Personally, I don't know how any serious person could look at the prospect of putting Elon Musk, Herschel Walker, and RFK Jr. in important cabinet-level posts and think, "Yes, this is the man I want leading our government." Never mind where Flynn will end up.

I suppose we'll have to start having the military shooting protesters, measles and whooping cough outbreaks in Brooklyn, the localization of disaster response after the collapse of FEMA, and North Korea missile launches landing off the coast of California before people will understand what they've chosen.

[Brett Bellmore]

I can see Walker and RFK Jr, but Musk is a highly successful businessman in multiple industries. What's your objection to him, besides that he doesn't share your politics, which would be an automatic disqualification for any position in the Trump administration.

My first expectation for the Trump administration is that, the next time a Chinese surveillance balloon drifts into American airspace, it will get shot down, ASAP. Not left unmolested as the government hopes like heck nobody notices it.

[SimonP]

I can see Walker and RFK Jr, but Musk is a highly successful businessman in multiple industries.

I haven’t seen any evidence that Musk’s success in business is a result of his business acumen or managerial skill. Like Trump, he started ahead, landed a lucky gig, and has “succeeded” financially since, primarily only insofar as he has outrun his failures.

SpaceX seems to be his most successful venture, where I’ve seen it said he has some expertise at least on the engineering side. But the reporting on his management of Tesla has consistently been that he’s just an empty-headed hype man that has to be kept from the business decisions. And Twitter, where he has had fewer restraints, has been driven into the ground, destroying an enormous amount of value since he took over. But that’s no biggie, for him – setting aside his wealth and ability to take a loss, he never intended to make that a profitable, take-all-comers social media platform. It was always intended to be reformed as a propaganda outlet, available to the highest bidder.

In any event, his temperamental nature and tendency to make big promises that he cannot deliver do not inspire confidence, as someone who might serve in an OMB-type role. The OMB may reflect an administration’s policy goals, but at the end of the day its role is part of the president’s mission, which is to see to it that the laws are faithfully executed. You cannot simply gut the EPA, FDA and DOL. Those agencies have actual jobs to do.

[Bwaaah]

I look forward to the return of Il Douche, and confirmation of my suspicion that he will have learned nothing from this.

As the fantasy of “fascism” dwindles against the backdrop of reality, those allegedly frightened people who call themselves Democrats will stand up defiantly against that fake demon, un-deflated and un-deterred, ready to ride roughshod over the public with new catastrophic visions, like the craven partisans that they are.

Their candidate lost. But their machine is stronger, more monolithic, more dogmatic than ever before.

What have they learned? That the bad guy has bamboozled more people than they imagined...that people are *that* stupid. Now *that’s* a foundation you can build upon!

[Bwaaah]

And for the Democrats who are too uncharitable to call Trump voters "stupid," they can fall back to allegations of malice...of racism, sexism, xenophobia...all the deplorably bigoted ways of humanity.

Anything but to admit the differences that are genuinely rational. No. Don't go there.

Trump was right. They hate "us." (I don't even know how I became one of "them.") But I don't mind. They hate everything...even themselves. It's a dirty world, with dirty people, who have dirty histories. These sins, their sins, they must be repaid. (What the hell does that even mean?)