I believe that the worst case scenario, with no cheating by the Republicans, is that Biden will get 290 electoral votes. (270 wins it).
That is with Biden losing Florida, Ohio, both Carolinas, and Iowa.
If he also wins Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida (all possible), he gets 358. This is a bit extreme but possible. If he gets Georgia (which is on the table) Biden gets 373. For the record, Texas would put Biden at 412. Not likely but we always need to visualize a blue Texas. Someday….
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle
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or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
I dearly hope that you are right, Greg. Nature, biodiversity and the climate are all on the brink and cannot withstand another four years of Trump and his fervently anti-environmental agenda. The problem is that the Republicans will cheat, intimidate, distort, delay and do whatever to retain power. There is no doubt that the majority of Americans loathe Trump and his regime, but to fascists, democracy is merely an inconvenient impediment to power.
Case in point.
Trump Keeps Wrecking Science on the Way Out
And with the new appointment of science denier Amy Coney Barrett the ground is being prepared.
So that was Sarah Palin in the NYT picture. I hadn’t seen that caption before, and was guessing it might be Judith Curry (who was mentioned in the text.)
(My other — sarcastic — guesses were Donna LaFramboise and Jennifer Marohasy.)
What Trump is doing to NOAA looks a lot like what happened to both NOAA & NASA under GW Bush, as detailed in Censoring Science by Mark Bowen.
http://www.chris-winter.com/Erudition/Reviews/Sciences/Bowen_M/Censoring_Science.html
NASA and Bush – rewriting the Mission Statement. I think it was James Hansen who pointed that out in his book ‘Storms of my Grandchildren’.
Trump.
Only by fell deeds, some of which we have already seen. Punting for Trump indicates poor moral judgement.
Well Lionel – you are entitled to your opinion. I disagree with it, as is my right.
Nope, despite your months of saying otherwise.
As is usually the case, you are wrong.
Of course RickA says Trump because he supports the fascist cult. It is odd that the lawyer often opines about the need to convert to nuclear energy to deal wth climate change, which the almost magnanimous sounding fool attributes around 50% being down to human activity, while supporting an ignoramus President who intends to burn as much oil and coal as possible to slavishly support the industries that own him.
Hypocrite.
Again, there is not a chance in hell of Trump winning the popular vote, which is hardly surprising since a majority of Americans loathe him. RickA only recently said that he thought Trump would win a resounding victory. Now he just hopes the liar-in-chief will scrape through via the undemocratic Electoral Colleage. I dearly hope he is wrong because democracy is at stake here. I am in no way exaggerating.
rickA is simply continuing his tradition of being a troll.
Winning means getting 270 or more electoral votes. That is what winning the USA presidency has always meant. Winning is defined in the constitution.
The total number of votes cast (“the popular vote”) has never defined who wins the presidency.
And yes – I support nuclear power. I would grow nuclear to 80% power generation in the USA, with the remaining 20% being renewable, if I were in charge (news flash – I am not). I would gradually replace all coal with nuclear, then all natural gas with nuclear, and then maybe even get rid of some hydro and let the rivers flow naturally again, and replace some hydro with nuclear. If we ever invent workable fusion I would then gradually replace fission with fusion. That is my plan to solve whatever portion of global warming is human caused (I guess about 50% human and 50% nature).
But yes – I think Trump will win the election by getting 270 or more electoral votes, when all the counting of legally cast ballots is done (probably about 10 days after Nov. 3rd). That is my prediction.
In typical fashion Rick A’s predictions are wrong.
RickA, you don’t think – ever. You hope. That is it. You cling to hope that the orange stain wins. You know it is going to be a massive struggle and that in your right wing-loaded system that democracy is a farce and that votes are a distraction. It is absurd that a politician can win a state by a single vote and then be allocated every seat in the Electoral College. The reason the founding fathers did that – along with giving equal senatorial representation to states like California and Wyoming – is that they wanted the system to be rigged towards the elite. The heartland is always much less progressive than the coastal states. It is a farce and you know it. The UK and countries with first past the post systems are just as bad. But over here in mainland Europe we shake our heads at the stupidity of the Electoral College system. Worse is the Supreme Court, which is rigged in favor of whatever party controls the presidency and the senate and could be hijacked to subvert democracy, as happened in 2000 when Gore almost certainly won.
As for climate change, we have been through this before. You have not got a clue what you are talking about. Your 50/50 estimation of attribution is worthless garbage. It is 99% ideology and 1% science. As others have said, if Trump wins, which is thankfully unlikely at this moment, then it is game over for climate change mitigation. The planet does not have another 4 years in which Trump and his corporate goons further eviscerate public constraints in the pursuit of private profit. By 2024 the situation will be so dire that it is beyond repair. Your hero mocked Biden for ‘listening to scientists’. Incredible. And yet you vote for fascism.
Lastly, if Trump does win, it will be in no small part because of support from uneducated white males who are politically illiterate but who find Trump’s basal, vulgar, insulting, rude, borderline racist, misogynistic, sexist behavior appeals to their darker instincts. Democracy means that their ignorance is equal to other people’s intelligence. It does not mean being informed. Trump’s cult are largely clueless. If even a basic amount of political knowledge was a pre-requisite on being allowed to vote, then Trump would be annihilated.
The USA system stands despite your disapproval of it, so your opinion on how absurd it is is irrelevant. To change it would require a constitutional amendment. In my opinion, the national popular vote compact project would be struck down as unconstitutional, even if passed, because allocating a states electoral votes against the wishes of the majority of voters in the state would never be considered permissible – so the attempt to “fix” the electoral college system without a constitutional amendment is doomed to failure.
So the election will proceed, as it always has, using the electoral college system – because that is the system we have put constitutionally in place.
As for Bush v. Gore – counting all the votes shows Bush still would have won:
https://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/04/florida.recount.01/
Finally, if Trump wins – it will be from counting the votes of the educated and uneducated, of all races.
But feel free to continue to think what you like, as you watch our election from abroad.
I am glad that you live in Minnesota RickA – your fascist vote will come to nothing.
And no, if Trump wins, it will be because politically illiterate primarily white male simpletons who are actually being shafted by his Party put him there. The more educated and politically literate people are, the less they are likely to vote for the liar-in-chief.
Still, Trump and his enablers loathe democracy and will do anything to get the whining baby back into the White House. Seth Myers as always takes apart Trump and the Republican plans to steal the election here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suuRvvkV7PE
Bush only ‘won’ because a recount was voted down by the SCOTUS which was marginally Republican. The truth is that Gore probably won by 10,000 or more votes, if the recount had been made. The Republicans did everything to prevent it, just like Kavanaugh is now trying to block mail-in ballots counting after November 3rd. He knows that Biden will get more mail-in ballots than Trump.
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/10/democrats-should-remember-al-gore-won-florida-in-2000-but-lost-the-presidency-with-a-preemptive-surrender/
The Republicans stink. No two ways about it.
At least I get to vote – because I live in the USA and am a citizen, and not watching from abroad.
My vote counts even when Minnesota votes democrat (that is how voting works). But there is a chance Trump could win in Minnesota this year. Wouldn’t that be something! Quite historic (if it happens).
A consortium of media companies spent a lot of money to count every vote in Florida after the election. Their conclusion was George W Bush won. Not the result they wanted when they started the project.
It will be historic for sure.
Historically unprecedented pollution of the environment will continue.
Historically unprecedented loss of species as the sixth mass extinction ratchets up a notch or two.
Historically unprecedented persecution of the vulnerable and disenfranchised will continue to increase.
Historically unprecedented increasing rate of the gulf between the wealthy and the rest will also ratchet up.
Historically unprecedented further reduction of US respect abroad will continue.
If that is a tally that you can be proud of and wish for then shame on you.
Trump hasn’t got a chance in Minnesota. Clinton still won there is 2016 despite her risible campaign. Biden is doing better pretty much across the board at the polls. He will take Michigan and Wisconsin too. At the time Trump had no record to defend either; now he does. And what an abominable record it has been.
Watching him whining at his rallies about coronavirus is beyond parody. CORONA! CORONA! CORONA! he whinges endlessly. Thanks to the incompetence of Trump and his corporate administration, over 230,000 are dead there and this winter the toll will rise to over half a million. Trump’s response? An apology? Some humility? Never! Just more self-congratulatory bullshit. Pats himself on the back for how well he has handled the carnage. Unbelieveable. But he is right on one thing. No matter how bad he behaves, or no matter how incompetent and crude and vulgar he is, he can count on the illiterati among his white, racist base to support him.
You are in fine company RickA. But it hardly surprises me; you aren’t the brightest bulb on the tree, either.
Perhaps you should let Joe Biden know that Trump has no chance in Minnesota.
After resting up in his basement, he is spending one of his precious few remaining campaign stops in that state, when it might be put to better use in Texas, according to Beto.
MikeN, wishful thinking. If Gore had been rightfully declared the winner, then the Republicans would have thrown a hissy fit of epic proportions, just as they will if Trump loses in anything but a landslide. Instead, the loser was dumped into office where he served 8 years, most of it as an unindicted neoconservative war criminal, responsible for the deaths of over a million Iraqis and the complete destruction of the country. Some victory.
When are fools like you and RickA going to wake up anyway and finally realize exactly what the damned current incarnation of the Republican Party represents? Four more years of mass environmental destruction, four more years of dismantling of agencies tasked with protecting human health and the environment, four more years of rigging the system so that what is left of your farcical democracy is dismantled to serve the interests of the ruling elite, four more years of redistribution of wealth upwards, four more years of attacks on science, education and health care. Sure, the uneducated white bigots who support Trump are too dumb to understand exactly what is happening, but hopefully there are enough enlightened people over there to realise what is at stake here.
Hell, I am a Canadian living in Europe and I know more about your political and economic system as well as foreign policy than both you and RickA, and certainly a lot more than 99.999999999% who vote for Trump. What does that tell you about the state of your democracy?!? I debated a a Trump supporter on social media and the guy had no clue whatsoever that Trump had filled virtually every federal agency with a corporate lobbyist or executive. It was like teaching a mediocre elementary school student. As the truth dawned on him, he actually admitted he didn’t know anything about the Trump administration or its elite right wing agenda. He actually appreciated my posts.
It gets worse. Yesterday I saw an online article about fisherman living on an island in Chesapeake Bay. Virtually all of them support Trump because under his administration a sea wall was built to keep out rising sea levels as a result of course of climate change. Most of the fisherman acknowledged that climate was changing, but like many Republicans they downplayed the human role (because their cult leader does, of course). But here comes the punchline. The waters of Chesapeake Bay once contained some of the best fishing areas along with mussel and scallop beds along the eastern seaboard. However, due to increasing industrial, urban and agricultural pollution, the waters of the bay had become increasing polluted (eutrophication) over many decades. The mussels initially were able to filter the pollutants from the water, but in time this ecosystem service (water purification) was also lost when pollution levels went too high. Fisheries were on the verge of collapse by the 1990s.
Then, under Clinton the EPA launched a program to repurify the waters of the bay by properly capturing and treating the pollution before it entered the bay. The program was initiated in the late 1990s and cost 73 million dollars a year. It was working; within 10 years fish were returning and the bivalve beds were recovering. Despite that, in 2017, Trump scrapped the program completely, as he has subsequently done with over a hundred programs aimed at restoring habitats, protecting endangered species and conserving ecosystems. These fishermen clearly knew nothing about any of this. Trump built the sea wall, a temporary measure that deals with symptoms and not the disease, and they swoon at this meaningless gesture.
Trump does not serve the vast majority of the American people. This is clear in his approach to the coronavirus. He does not give a damn about the victims. He serves a narrow sector of the wealthy elite. The gullible masses who show up at his infectathon rallies are clueless when it comes to the real agendas.
It’s probably not a surprise that rickA’s and mikeN’s takes on the Florida fiasco are only marginally true — probably due to their usual mixtures of ignorance and dishonesty.
Gore essentially screwed up by not pressing for a statewide recount .
But
That is, however, a weak result. The only way the answer would be really known would have been a complete recount — but too late. This does, however, point out that mikeN’s comment about the consortium’s result is wrong. No surprise there — he’s batting 1.000 in the ‘being wrong on history’ comments. It also points out that rickA’s link is to a story that was factually incorrect. Coincidence? No, a pattern.
Georgia and Ohio are looking interesting.
More pandering to the gun and hunting lobbies by the liar-in-chief through the gutting of laws protecting the gray wolf. Wolves have been strongly protected since 1973 under Nixon. No more. Despite being extirpated from most of the lower 48 states, Trump and his pseudofascist regime see it as expendable, just as they do with many endangered species and populations. Red Wolves and Red Cockaded Woodpeckers are already under fire via Andrew Wheeler’s changes to EPA rules in what constitutes a habitat.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gray-wolf-removed-endangered-species-act/
How anyone can vote for this scum is beyond me but, as we see on here, many do. They simply do not give a damn about nature or biodiversity or the environment. Watch how the usual suspects on here simply avoid this latest evidence of Trump’s reckless disregard for nature.
They realy have no idea of what happens when you remove a kestone species disrupting trophic cascades.
Although largely based upon a British experience George Monbiot has something to say about this in his book: ‘Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding’, later reissued with a different subtitle.
Monbiot also mentions one of the problems that any rewilding hits head on, land ownership where a over a half of the land is owned by one percent of the population [1] which has moved forward as small farms are bought out by large combines.
Monbiot explians that the moors and mountains of e.g. Scotland and Wales are not natural at all, with the former being mismanaged for deer hunting with its associated persecution of endangered raptor species, and the latter the sheepfarming that has done so much to reduce tree cover that could save the pain of flooding downstream of the Severn and Wye.
[1] The great property swindle: why do so few people in Britain own so much of our land?
Here is a rundown on Trump’s multifaceted assault on environmental protection:
https://theintercept.com/2020/09/19/wildfires-trump-election-epa-environment/
What else do you expect from a right wing wing crony who thinks a golf course is wild nature and who has never heard of Yosemite National Park? The problem is that many of those who vote for the morbid orange creep have no idea whatsoever what he or his Party are doing politically or economically. Underneath all of the bombast and rhetoric is a regime that caters only to the ruling classes. The poor are often forced to live in the most polluted places that are being allowed to become even worse as Trump and his corporate team systematically dismantle laws protecting air and water quality. Despite this, by simply bellowing out stiff at his rallies that they want to hear, his cult base support him while literally being shafted by his polcies.
Voter supression is a real strategy of GOP operatives.
Why this election calls into question whether America is a democracy
Be man enough to accept the facts RickA.
Texas expanded its voting opportunities by providing the drop boxes in the first place. Abbott’s order left Texas with more voting opportunities than 2019.
Jeeezus mikeN, you are the mouth of disinformation that keeps on vomiting.
And there is more:
Critical mail delays hit swing states ahead of US election
Which of course disproportionately affects the democrat vote – the intention.
Now MikeN, your statement is deceptive, sliding around the point by avoiding context, but then that is what you do. The issue is also wider than Texas.
‘To me, it’s voter suppression’: the Republican fight to limit ballot boxes
How can anyone with a fraction of a functioning brain support the despicable scum that represent the current Republican Party?!?!?!? Reading the nausea-inducing bilge MikeN and RickA vomit up on here is hard to take. This is beyond defending the indefensible. This is pure and utter brainwashing. I am sure they both read most of the links we put up here, but the truth bounces off the rocks that represent their brains. They not only defend pseudo-fascism, vote-rigging, biological warfare on their own population, mass destruction of the environment etc. THEY EMBRACE IT. As do millions of Americans.
I was watching Jason Klepper once again humiliating the Trump faithful at one of his recent infectathons. One lady, who could barely put five words together, bellowed that she did not want ‘socialism’. Notwithstanding the fact that she clearly had no idea what socialism is, the fact was that she was a working class, blue collar individual with a limited education who would clearly benefit from socialized medicine, healthcare, education and government spending. Her hatred of socialism was not based on knowledge but on profound ignorance and Republican indoctrination.
Then there is a new video on BBC in which young men and women whose parents were Latin American immigrants were asked for their views on the election. This was almost as cringe-inducing as listening to the morons at a Trump rally. None of the young people mentioned the environment or climate change among their reasons to vote, although by far this will be THE defining issue of their lives. At least the young Biden voters emphasized unity and compassion among their reasons to vote for him. The two Trump voters, as expected, were ignoramuses. One said that he loved guns and hunting, and feared that he would lose this right under Biden. Seriously. While my jaw was slack listening to this drivel, it got worse. The second Trump voter, a young woman proudly wearing her MAGA hat, said that she resented her tax money being spent on health care for illegal immigrants. This for her was the main reason to vote for Trump. By this point my jaw was on the ground. This is the depths of stupidity to which democracy has sunk.
Lionel’s links paint a clear picture of a country descending into a fascist abyss. For sure, the United States is in terminal decline. Many of us watch in horror at the deeply ingrained ignorance that Isaac Asimov warned about several decades ago. Science is under attack from the right, along with integrity, honesty and other factors that lie at the heart of democracy. If Trump wins on Tuesday, the future is very bleak.
That reminds me of an image I saw recently at Desmog of a grey haired woman holding a placard which declared:
“SORRY did my CIVIL RIGHTS Get in the way of Your VIRUS?”
As Pandemic Toll Rises, Science Deniers in Louisiana Shun Masks, Comparing Health Measures to Nazi Germany
One huge logic fail there. Once again this adage of Peter Medawar springs to mind on people who have been, “…educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.”
I think that should be Jordan Flepper but thanks for the mention, I found this where he is talking to the deluded, WARNING, have a barf bag ready:
Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse – Trump Rally-Goers in PA
Look at the sheer size of some of the delusional. That ol’ white beard under the white hat ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN’ is a star. Later he brags that he is doing four times better than under Obama before revealing how he managed that. It appears that he works as a “debt (inaudible) collector”, clearly not realising the irony.
“None of the young people mentioned the environment or climate change among their reasons to vote, although by far this will be THE defining issue of their lives. ”
Then perhaps in the name of stopping climate change Democrats should consider nominating candidates who will not take away 2nd amendment rights, or give health care to illegal immigrants.
The vermin in chief is now claiming the number of covid deaths is far less than the official number because “doctors are inflating the numbers to get paid more”.
There seems to be no lower bound on the dishonesty the right will spew.
Done it to myself, blast!
“I think that should be Jordan Flepper” should be; I think that should be Jordan Klepper.
The outrageous misrepresentations of the Liar in Chief are becoming to much to stomach for health care professionals.
AMA: The assault on physicians and science must end
This has encouraged some to speak out:
‘His lies are killing my neighbors’: swing-state health workers organize in bid to defeat Trump
No reasonable, sane and decent person would support Trump like the pair of clownshoes we see here. If you don’t like being called a clownshoe then don’t act like one. Respect ha to be earned.
Republican work to undermine the voting process continues.
I’m sure rickA, he who is concerned about voting fairness, will soon issue a furious attack on the scummy texan right wingers.
(Not really: we know rickA’s opinions on voting are that well-off white men should have easy access to voting, but nobody else should.)
Indeed dean, good find.
Leave no dirty trick unused is the Republican strategy to cheat another four years for the orange menace to life on Earth.
This from Slate will amplify and shed a strong light on the diabolic moves afoot.
Texas Republicans Ask Federal Judge to Throw Out 117,000 Legally Cast Ballots
For such measures to even be considered is indicative of how degraded US politics has become.
Trump says the quiet part out loud to his crowd of deplorables in Pensylvania.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/30/929239481/internal-documents-reveal-covid-19-hospitalization-data-the-government-keeps-hid
MikeN, thanks as always for your asinine comment. I expect nothing less from you. Not remotely funny. If these young Republicans supported public flogging or lynch mobs then you would advise the Democrats to incorporate those into their program to get support to deal with climate change.
MikeN, you would vote for Mussolini if he was on the Republican ticket. Your comment underlines how utterly stupid many Americans are. You are one of them. As I said the other day, isn’t it utterly ridiculous that mllions of non Americans like me know more about American politics and economics than 99% or more of those that vote for Trump. On social media it is easy taking apart the arguments of Trump supporters on just about anything.
Trump 2016: “I will work to unite the country.”
Trump 2020, in response to videos showing his cult supporters in their SUVs surrounding a Biden/Harris bus on Texas freeway in an attempt at intimidation: “Ya gotta love Texas.”
At one of his coronavirus infectathons over the weekend, Trump was talking about Kamala Harris taking over 3 weeks into a Biden presidency after ‘he has been shot’. Yes, he actually said this. Then he started babbling on about Harris being a socialist extremist who makes Bernie Sanders look like a conservative. Utterly hilarious. Harris is at most a centrist. Over here in Europe she and Biden would be in center-right parties, while Trump would be wearing jack boots. He is so far right he is off the scale.
Seriously, Trump is a deranged lunatic. The man has no shame or dignity. His re-election bid is going south and he is left blubbering all kinds of gibberish.
Our local ads for Republican state and federal candidates have one theme: the democratic opponent if each is a socialist who supported rioters, will raise taxes, allow criminals to move “next to your house”, and push to expand health care to everyone.
The fact that the democratic party is currently at or just right of where the republicans were when Reagan was around is beyond the ability for modern republicans to realize.
Video and commentary.
VIDEO: Vehicles flying Trump flags surround Biden campaign bus on Texas freeway
Repbublinuts prove that they are deranged. Trump has caused so much damage, very sad day when he was elected. Only dumbf’s vote for this clown.
Fearmongering, lies, voter suppression, Republican-biased electoral college system…
God bless America.
And good luck on Tuesday.
Sorry not been around for a while but my wife got ill with suspected Covid which might, possibly, have been influenza (she tested negative for CV but the test isn’t hugely reliable). She was very unwell indeed for a week and it’s taken another three weeks for her to get back to something like normal, albeit a bit below on energy levels.
Get your flu vaccinations, those of you who can.
Sorry to hear that BBD, good luck for you both and yours.
BBC still citing government sourced infection figures and deaths rather than those from the ONS. Snag is my wife cannot see this, the effect of those daily briefings.
Have a look at:
‘Blinded by Corona: How the Pandemic Ruined Britain’s Health and Wealth and What to Do about It’ by Professor John Ashton
and look out his videos and Question Time appearance in March.
Thanks Lionel. And I’ll add the book to the stack to be read during our imminently commencing second lockdown.
Delayed six weeks by vicious Tory clowns who ignore the science while lying with every breath that they are ‘following it’.
Perhaps my wife will get properly ill with definite CV before the vermin in charge grudgingly accept that schools being open is fucking lunacy.
Take care, BBD, and I hope your wife is doing well now. The Dutch response to CV is on par with that of the UK. Despite the fact that herd immunity is a fringe approach that has been repudiated repeatedly, the government here is attempting to ‘manage’ the infection by letting it spread gradually through the population while trying to keep the health care system from collapsing. It won’t work. Containment or isolation has been proven to work via lockdowns in South Korea, Singapore, China, Viet Nam and New Zealand, yet the myth persists here that there is a trade-off between protecting the economy and human health. The economies of these countries suffered no more than the countries that had only light lockdowns and their death tolls were significantly lower. Their economies are also recovering much more quickly. The fact is that they are connected: if millions become sick at the same time people will not be able to work and the healthcare systems will disintegrate. Too many western governments are listening to right wing think tanks and not to medical experts.
For me the only glimmer of hope in this abominable year is that the worst President by far in US history is booted out next week. If the vote was not being manipulated by Republican strategists and was entirely fair, Trump would lose by over 10%. He is deeply loathed by the majority of the US population, yet Republican vote-rigging and coercion may foist this deeply repulsive man back into the White House. The Republican Party clearly loathes democracy. The world is watching.
And there is the rub. dean’s post above (cumberlink.com) hints at an attempt to disappear collected ballots. We understand that GOP operatives and Trumpian wingnuts are trying to skew the election result in favour of Trump, despite what RickA and MikeN try to make out. For example:
Voter fraud is ‘Loch Ness monster’ for Republicans in Trump era, party lawyer says
If this isn’t voter suppression I don’t know what is.
Intent to mess with ballot security by the right doesn’t get any more blatant than this.
https://cumberlink.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/security-info-request-from-trump-campaign-perturbs-cumberland-county-officials-ahead-of-election/article_b4a9dd3a-fa15-5236-aed9-485161e84175.html
You’re correct, Dean; that’s really blatant.
“Give us the address of the site where you will count the ballots, and the date & time you’ll be taking them there.”
“Also, please describe the vehicle that will be used.”
They must think the Cumberland folks were born yesterday.
“They must think the Cumberland folks were born yesterday.”
Yup — but scarier is the fact that they wanted this stuff sent to an anonymous Florida-based trump operative.
dean
that last link resulted in a
however I did find this:
“Security info request from Trump campaign perturbs Cumberland County officials ahead…”
Sorry — yup, the link you found is it. The first two paragraphs are very concerning.
<blockquoteCumberland County officials received an email this week from the Trump campaign requesting highly specific details about the county’s ballot security.
The email, obtained by The Sentinel, went so far as to ask for the address and room numbers of ballot storage locations, and requested that the information be sent to the Gmail account of a Florida-based Trump operative.
So far officials haven’t responded to this bullshit and say they don’t plan to.
Just to remind those who fail to grasp the importance of keeping Trump away from another four years I present this article:
75 ways Trump made America dirtier and the planet warmer
DOJ is sending election monitors to fewer locations than they did in 2016, and all of them are going to strongly Democratic areas.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1323296029798785029
Scumbags gonna’ be scumbags.
More items pointing out rickA’s wet dream of “herd immunity” is just another libertarian spawned ignorant myth.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4
But one they will never let go of.
It distresses me to say it, but the last few years have convinced me that the right is now so dangerous to the rest of us – all humanity – that it cannot any longer be tolerated within the democratic framework. After all, as soon as it gets into power, it sets about destroying that very same democratic framework.
When a political movement crosses a threshold of toxic and destructive behaviour, it has to be proscribed.
Not that I really expect this to happen, but it needs to.
BBD:
A lot of talk like this online lately. In addition to your elimination of the republican party, I read – Round up and jail Trump supporters. Or put them into camps to reeducate them. Cancel culture run amok.
I have also seen mainstream publications calling for the elimination of the US Constitution, court packing, getting rid of the electoral college and other things which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
If Trump wins today, it will be in large part because many democrats voted for him in revulsion at the craziness of the left.
A lot of business are being boarded up for the election today – and it isn’t because they fear right wing militias – but the crazy rioting and looting of the left.
Some of the rule changes the left imposed are just crazy. The law in most states was that mail in ballots had to be received by election night. The change in Pennsylvania that ballots received after election, even without a postmark, and they have to be counted is just an invitation to fraud.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/524113-after-election-day-a-battle-over-pennsylvanias-ballots
Naturally conservatives recoil from such lunacy. It should be interesting to see what happens with this rule. If a state passes a law which allows ballots postmarked by election day to be counted for a period of time after election, I don’t have a problem with that – but to not have a mechanism to verify it was actually cast on or before election day is just stupid.
In Minnesota, they changed the law by court settlement – which was also stupid. Why didn’t they just pass a new law if they wanted ballots to be able to be counted after election day? Plenty of time to do it – but they didn’t. In the end, I am sure that any ballots received after election day will not be counted. The courts will go with the law and not just allow the executive branch to change the law via court settlement. What were they thinking?
Oh well. I doubt many people mailed their ballot in yesterday or today – so it probably isn’t much of an issue. But I feel sorry for anybody who relied on that settlement, which violated the law, and mailed in their ballot to late to be received by 8:00 tonight.
Good luck today and the with the rest of this week, as the counting continues. Stay away from the rioting and looting and keep your head down.
You lot dug your own hole.
The rest of us don’t want to be dragged down into it with you.
Completely baseless bullshit, as ever, Ricky.
I agree, BBD completely. Watching Trump wallowing in his sea of lies and fear-mongering and bile is more proof than ever how much the right is a threat not only to democracy but to our longer term survival. I have never in my 62 years witnessed such an abhorrent spectacle as Trump and the Republican Party have staged in the months leading up to the election. Whatever the outcome, the Republican Party is destroying itself by throwing their support behind Trump and his cult. Several senior Republican strategists are appalled at their Party for abandoning all pretenses of integrity and legitimacy by supporting this repugnant cancer cell of a human being. Listening to the speeches he gives at his rallies is painfully nauseating. It is beyond parody – the US is in terminal collapse and Trump is pushing the ship under as fast as he can, while taking his Party and the country down with him. He is the most divisive political figure I have ever seen and I do not say that lightly. His base are despicable – the word deplorable does not nearly go far enough in describing most of these miscreants. Trump knows they are gullible, but useful idiots, and he exorts them on with his incendiary rhetoric. I fear what the aftermath of this election has in store. Watching Trump’s goons harassing a Biden/Harris bus or trying to intimidate voters at polling locations, I see that fascism is looming. If Trump somehow steals this election, when it is clear that if all votes are counted he would lose resoundingly, then watch the US slide towards authoritarian rule.
It has to stop.
Monsters like Trump have to be kept away from the levers of power or humanity will suffer for it.
“Several senior Republican strategists are appalled at their Party for abandoning all pretenses of integrity and legitimacy…”
To be fair, the first big steps in that direction were done by reagan. The current situation is the culmination of three decades of rot from inside out in the Republican party. The trigger for these extremists was the country allowing a black man to use the front door of the White House back in 08. Folks like rickA, mikeN, and the other fervent racists on the right went ballistic, ramped up the lies about what Obama and the Democratic party were doing, and haven’t stopped.
More grist (sorry) to the mill on why the Trump canker should be booted out.
The Koch Operatives Behind the Trump Energy Department’s Renewables Research Censorship
Dirty election tricks to sustain a dirty administration and its support for dirty industries.
Writes RickA ignoring the four years of Trumpian legislation gutting environmental regulation whilst making the poor poorer, especially those where health has been affected by toxic products of industries taking advantage of regulation roll backs.
You need a replacement moral compass RickA.
Yes, expanding the ability to vote and have it matter is the most anti-democratic thing ever — at least, it is if you’re not a fan of people voting. It certainly hasn’t led to fraud — as we’ve demonstrated to our right-wing extremist multiple times.
Which had as one easily notable effect of disenfranchising soldiers and other Americans who work overseas.
The myth that he and the crapstain in chief are trying to spread is that presidential elections have routinely been decided the night of election day and that extending that is evidence if fraud. Our local extremist might not remember that in 2016 it took 2 weeks for MI to declare that the orange crapstain had won – but I’m sure he wouldn’t complain about that delay. His dishonesty and hypocrisy are on wide display here.
rickA does need a new moral compass but it’s been so long since he had one it’s likely he wouldn’t be able to operate it.
RickA has me on the floor with his ‘craziness of the left’ remark. I might just as well say that if Trump loses today, and he certainly will lose the popular vote no matter what happens at the Electoral College, it is because of the revulsion of many Republicans who voted for him the last time and have switched to Biden.
As I have also said several times, the US has lurched so far to the right since Reagan that the ‘left’ is hardly recognizable any more. Biden and Harris would be in center-right parties in most of Europe. Trump and the Republicans would be in Mussolini territory. When Trump blathers on about socialism and communism and other similar shit, he is being more ridiculous than usual (which is saying a lot, given how morally and personally repugnant he is). His followers are like brain-dead zombie lemmings who would follow him over a cliff. This great new ad by Don Winslow sums up the average Trump voter:
https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1323404202442280961
Finally, under Trump, there is socialism in the US – for the rich. The rest are stuck with capitalism. Trump’s massive tax cuts and de-regulation are of course meant to further enrich the already rich, but when it comes to everyone else, then they are stuck with a polluted environment, limited or prohibitively expensive health care, stagnating wages and a horrible virus. As the ad explains, the gullible white males are useful idiots, too stupid to see how they are being played.
(Love DW. Great writer. Didn’t know he did this as well)
trump’s people are still doing their best to screw up the election using the postal service as their tool — all due to meddling by order of the president.
“BREAKING: USPS fails to meet deadline set by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to sweep facilities and immediately deliver remaining mail ballots. As of this week, USPS said there were some 300,000 ballots that lacked a delivery scan”
trump calls for Michigan to stop counting votes (because making sure votes are counted is a bad thing, as rickA and the other scum supporting trump will tell you).
On the ground in Detroit gop goons are trying to take the stoppage of votes into their own hands.
https://twitter.com/raywert/status/1324084469226180610
That Ray Wert piece is no longer available to me here in the UK, it was late last night. However there are other sources e.g. from The Nation:
Election Day 2: Live Updates About the 2020 Ballot Count
As expected Trump goons are going ape shit trying to change the result in their favour, we expected more crimes and misdemeanour’s from them and they have not disappointed.
No President in US history has thrown tantrums and refused to accept that he might lose the election like the current maniac-in-chief. The world is watching as he runs around hysterically, screaming at anyone who will listen, at his cult, demanding to be re-installed as authoritarian ruler. He is embarrassing many Republicans if that is even possible with his antics. The US made a grave error when it put this lunatic into power four years ago and now the chickens are coming home to roost. This is exactly what Mary Trump warned of in her recent book – that her uncle is deranged and will not go quietly or with dignity because of his malignant narcissism that borders on insanity. Bernie Sanders predicted over a month ago how this would play out if the vote was close. Before the solidly-Democratic mail-in ballots were counted, Trump would declare a resounding victory. Then, as his leads melted away in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, he would throw hissy fits, bellowing about fraud and the election being stolen from him. This is utterly embarrassing to watch. What is more embarrassing is that 32% of eligible voters picked this train-wreck of a human being. As Michael Mann said on Twitter, ‘the US has lost its moral compass’. That is, if it ever had one. Hidden in all of this hoopla is the fact that the US had the highest rate yet of new coronavirus infections yesterday. How ironic.
A few final thoughts. RickA predicted a few months ago that Donald Trump would have a resounding victory. That prediction didn’t age well. Irrespective of what happens, if by some wretched legal loophole Trump is somehow able to be foisted back into the White House, he will be very damaged goods. This is not 2016 and the untested candidate who squeaks in by a few hundred thousand votes over three states. This is 2020, a bigger differential in votes, projected losses in states being somehow reversed, and the man-child dumped back in despite massive opposition. To give Hillary Clinton credit, she was well within her rights to demand recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania four years ago, but she didn’t. Al Gore, in the words of New York Times writer, ‘took a bullet for the country’ in graciously conceding defeat to George W. Bush. Friedman went on to say that Trump intends to ‘put a bullet in the country’ in his desperate attempts to cling to the Presidency. The man has no humility. He doesn’t give a damn about the country, the constitution or the people. He only cares about himself and his own image. His antics are sealing his place in US history as not only the worst POTUS ever, but as a despicable human being.
” but as a despicable human being.”
It was clear from the 1970s on that he was a despicable human being.
The objections that trump and his goons are raising about issues in various states seem to be incredibly stupid even for the trump camp.
The ruckus at the Detroit ballot counting location was due to a group of rabble rousers claiming that trump’s team of ‘ballot objectors’ didn’t have the same access to counting that biden did. The fact that each of the 6 tables had 1 from the biden camp, 1 independent obvserver, and 1 trump observer apparently escaped them, as did the fact that none of the people demanding they be given access had received the training and certification needed to do the job. They were simply recruited thugs and trouble makers recruited by trump’s folks to cause issues.
In Georgia the lawsuit about counts is based on this (per the details of the suit): a trump poll watcher saw a pile of ballots placed on a table in preparation to be counted. The poll watcher left the room for some reason (not specified). When he returned the pile of ballots was gone so clearly there was illegality. (Given the stupidity of trump people don’t be surprised if one of the resident right-wing trolls tries to make something of that.)
Add to that trump’s lies about horrible things in Philadelphia and ballots magically appearing in different places, and you get a picture of a man who is cognitively unhinged with a following of truly terrible people unable to distinguish between fact and lie.
Lastly, I have no idea what the orange shit stain meant when he said this:
The Lt governor of Pennsylvania said it best: ‘Trump is no different than any other random internet troll.’
Except for the fact that his IQ is probably lower, much lower. Or if IQ stood for ignorance quotient (let us call that iQ) then it is higher, much higher.
I find it curious that the BBC (now known as the BBBC – British Bullshit Broadcasting Company given its misleading presentations of things Covid) is not mentioning the stupid in Detroit. Cannot upset Trump and by extension Number 10 can we now.
I was immensely dissapointed yesterday to hear the head of Trafalgar polling, a discredited right-wing company best known for rigging its polls and producing misleading info, interviewed about the reasons this year’s polls went so rapidly and so massively to the crapper with their predictions.
The common line that the 2016 polls were abysmal is demonstrably false. This year it’s difficult to say strongly enough how bad they were, so there is an issue, but asking a con man for reasons, which is what the BBC did, is inexcusable.
And it continues: right now they’re interviewing a trump clown who claims the counters in MI did not allow republican poll watchers in the room where votes were being counted when video and interviews from the room specifically identified them. Astounding.
The American ‘Taliban’ shows its face in Arizona too.
Trump supporters protest at Arizona vote counting centre
Coney Barret into the Supreme Court is a marker for a US return to the dark ages should Trump win.
“Coney Barret …”
When I listen to her talk it’s like a flashback to watching the movie “Stepford Wives” when one of the “wives” speaks” no emotion in the voice, no expression in the face, lots of words but not a bit of substance. You listen and have a deep feeling that something is very, very, wrong with the person.
Coney Barrett (sorry with two ‘t’s.
An empty shell (producing seven children could do that to a person) who going by her portrait e.g. on Wiki, looks like mad-eyed Amy. Certainly chimes with Trump.
A Constitution originalist thus likely to be unyielding on interpretation to match present day mores and conditions. Not a good omen.
Amy Coney Barrett’s resume is a little light too.
According to Mother Jones quoted in the video linked:
2 years in private practice
Never tried a case
Never argued an appeal
Never argued before Supreme Court
Most private work involved civil cases, not criminal cases.
15 years teaching experience
Never served as a judge until 2017
I wonder if she has ever been involved in patent law. If she has there is hope for RickA yet.
Amy Coney Barrett’s Resume is a Joke
Worth checking out more stuff on Mother Jones right now, have a piece on the Detroit Dossers.
Notice today how Trump is DEMANDING that vote counting is stopped immediately in swing states that he leads marginally but not in states where he is behind (Arizona, Nevada). Note also how he and his goon lawyers are screaming fraud! in states he lost marginally and are demanding recount in Wisconsin but if and when they win Georgia by a few thousand votes of course that will be deemed fair.
This behavior is a disgrace but his cult condones it and it is typical of a right wing authoritarian party to believe that democracy works only when they win.
I am amazed at the sympathy being expressed for the orange shit bag over here in the Netherlands, but then again this country is right wing and promotes unregulated corporate capitalism every bit as much as Trump and the Republicans.
The strange case of disparate election result broadcasting:
Guardian has Joe Biden 264 college votes Donald Trump 214
” 72,293,017 votes ” 68796646 votes
https://www.theguardian.com/uk
BBC has Joe Biden 243 college votes Donald Trump 214
votes no information
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
This at 17:00 GMT
I’m not sure but I think the difference depends on whether the call of a state for Biden was made by the state or by a news agency.
If you want a real look into just how immensely stupid, and dishonest, trump folks are: check out the latest tweets from convicted felon d’souza, from don jr, from kevin mccarthy, and mark levin. God-smackingly stupid and dishonest — but worse: a whole lot of people think those guys are making valid points.
A very clear snapshot of how the country got to be so screwed.
Time to bring this book to the fore again, I am about two thirds through. Now have a rather dimmer view of the Founding Fathers.
American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People
and also this one now in its second edition, maybe there will be a third soon:
The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies
That second provides the reasons why the mid-west in particular is in such poor shape WRT reliable knowledge. Betsy Devos has tried to make it worse.
Dean: “And it continues: right now they’re interviewing a trump clown who claims the counters in MI did not allow republican poll watchers in the room where votes were being counted when video and interviews from the room specifically identified them. Astounding.”
Much like the House Republicans during the impeachment inquiry, claiming their voices hadn’t been heard when they were a part of the process right down the line.
BTW, here’s a good headline:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmAqxNzWkAAs1mh?format=jpg&name=large
“I’m Eric” Trump tweeted a video he claimed showed a campaign official in florida burning 80 ballots cast for his daddy. It isn’t hard to guess what happened
Virginia Beach staff also pointed out the absence of a bar code when the man picks up one of the ballot’s in the video, noting that all official ballots have bar codes.
The down of trump are just as stupid and dishonest as their daddy.
#dawn means spawn.
Phone fingers
Some lighter relief, spiritual adviser Paula White (I guess she couldn’t find a real job) is hilarious:
As America anxiously waits, voters find a bit of laughter in memes
I needed a good laugh. Thanks.
I see Biden has now taken the lead in both Georgia and Pennsylvania. This is great news and it vindicates earlier evidence that 70% or more of postal or drop-off ballots are for Biden. Trump and his base of course loathe democracy when it doesn’t go their way. Ultimately the polls were out but not by as much as the critics claimed two days ago. Biden will arguably win by 3-5% and about 4-5 million votes. Even many Republicans are breaking ranks with the orange stain, as they respect the US voting system and know full-well that any votes posted and date-stamped by election day are valid and must be counted. Interesting is how Trump didn’t raise a whimper four years ago when he eked in by less than 1% in three swing states. Only when he loses does he cry foul. How the Republicans ever saddled themselves with such a repugnant human being is one of the great mysteries of our time. My take is that they ditched morality and integrity decades ago and were content to lie, cheat and steal in an attempt to stay in power. Trump in that regard suited their purposes perfectly. He is the epitome of lying and cheating. The next few days will be nerve-wracking as Trump and his base use every tactic in the book to push their coup, because that is what they are doing. This is a naked power grab, a coup, and the US needs to wake up to it.
Lionel, Dean, BBD, you ought to go to Jared Yates Sexton’s Twitter page from yesterday morning and listen to him explain the rise of Trumpism in his coffee podcast. It is illuminating.
Jeffh
I am currently reading Jared Yates Sexton’s recent book.
The history of US democracy makes it not what it is cracked up to be. Then then is that of any so called democracy.
Will do that, thanks.
We need to remember that in the unlikely event trump’s groundless lawsuits get bumped to the Supreme Court his lackeys there could well override the popular vote AND the electoral vote by tossing out “illegal” ballots.
It ain’t over ’til the fat criminal is out of the White House.
So even with a Biden win, greed still tops the environment and peoples welfare.
‘The risks are now off the table’: Wall Street looks forward to Biden presidency
Moscow Mitch will keep his toys, the toys that are sending a once great nation, briefly post WW2 until Truman started the next rot, down the toilet. I don’t think Moscow Mitch has got long to continue to enjoy his power.
On voter suppression,
Voter suppression: how Trump is undermining the US election – video explainer
Trump’s shouting about election fraud are clearly projection.
I guess that because this is aiding RickA’s man this is OK by him.
It looks like Trump will lose. I was wrong about Trump winning – so congratulations!
The polls were wrong. Trump did pickup minority voters. But it wasn’t enough to win 270.
Trump is being a very sore loser, which is to bad. Not a good way to go out. Very embarrassing for Republicans. But the counting will finish, the litigation will proceed, but Trump will lose (in my opinion) and the election results will be certified and Trump will lose.
If he were smart, he would be start being a good loser and graciously concede. But I doubt he will take my advice.
Anyway – to all the people who thought Biden would win – congratulations! You were right and I was wrong.
Trump is the reason Trump lost. I feel if he had avoided some of his dumbest tweets, he would have gotten enough votes to win. But he cannot help himself – and so he lost.
You taunted me once too often in the run-up to this election. I warned you you were sticking your neck out.
You won’t find me magnanimous in victory because your past behaviour merits nothing but the boot. Which you will be getting.
You mean, over the past four years, not just the past four months? That may have helped.
You may start by listing his smartest tweets. That will make it easy to point the ones he should have not done.
It’s nice of you to say “Trump is the reason Trump lost”, but you are too late by four years.
Oh, you mean, his campaign was dumb, not his politics.
I retract my sympathy.
Don’t think we Europeans will forget or forgive these four years.
Yeah, there’s no reason to give rickA a break here.
We should be very concerned that, as the number of votes for the orange shit stain and his paler sidekick showed, there are tens of millions of US citizens who are just as racist and bigoted as rickA.
Guess what, Rick A…? We’re right about climate change too….
RckA, no hard feelings. Nobody should be gloating. Your country is amazing in so many respects. I did a post doc in Wisconsin, a sabbatical in Colorado and traveled coast to coast in 2001 by car birding. I love the country. I just hope that your country can emerge from this bitter, divisive election and rebuild trust and unity. As you said, Trump would have been on much firmer ground if he had remained calm, stood behind the constitution and waited until the dust had settled before calmly requesting recounts for confirmation. But that is not who he is. His childish rants and tweets embarrassed not only himself but many in his Party. He comes across as a petulant loser, and in this way he has done neither himself or the country any favors.
I totally agree with you. A nice change of pace (grin).
Trump will lose ( if the count goes against him and the supreme court doesn’t step in) because he is a bike racist and white supremacist as are his supporters. It want because of his tweets. it’s because of who he is and what he represents. His supporters are as much to blame for the decay of the country as he is.
No optimism here.
~70m votes for fucking Trump. A ‘base’ expanded from 2016. Angry, delusional and armed. Not going away anytime soon.
No way the Republicans can win next time without the Trumpist base in their camp – so they will have to feed and care for it. GOP will *remain* the Trump Party.
By Jan 2021 the Covid situation in the US will likely be so bad that nothing much can be done to save the situation. Trump merely has to do nothing for the next ten weeks, just as he has done all year.
From Jan 21 the Republicans will blame Biden for the catastrophe. They will also blame Biden for the economic and social carnage created by the mishandled pandemic which will really bite next year and for the rest of the Biden presidency.
The Republicans will pass the blame for everything they have done and all the awful consequences onto Biden.
Because they are scum and that’s what they do.
And they will recruit from the angry and the desperate, because they do that too.
And they will re-elect Trump or someone worse in 2024.
We already have right wing scum blearing concerns about how Biden will “Blow up the deficit and debt”.
Looks like Biden won. The BBC’s going with that right now.
God knows I wish him and America all the best, but it is going to be a long and bitter march.
Yes, news just in. The nightmare is over and let the rebuilding begin. For me this is not just about getting rid of Trump but rid of the scum in his administration – De Vos, Pompeo, Wheeler, Skipworth, Bernhardt, Atlas etc. Science will once again be nurtured and respected and not ridiculed. Ignorance will not be considered a virtue.
But BBD is right – Trump’s deplorables are not going away anytime soon, and if the Republican Party wants to get back into power in four years then it might decide to nurture them with more QAnon-type bullshit. The silver lining is that cults tend to dissolve very quickly once they fail, and that might be the case with this bunch of miscreants. For now, let’s just breathe….
Apologies for the rather negative take above. I stand by it, but you’re right – now is the time to celebrate, at least briefly, the impeding departure of the monster.
Just breathe. Without that stink, every single fucking day.
Poor ickle Donald does not want to give up his rattle:
van Jones tells it:
CNN’s Van Jones brought to tears as Joe Biden wins US election – video
That is why Trump has been so bad for the US, and the world.
Prediction: trump’s team will work hard to pressure state electors to ignore state decisions and vote for him.
If he wants a civil war, that should do the trick.
Wow. Trump sleaze to the end. He’s asking for money to find his lawsuits fighting “fraud”. The fine print on the donation form says 60% of the money donated to find lawsuits will be used to pay his campaign debts.
Maybe anyone stupid enough to believe there was fraud serves to be fleeced.
Once a grifter…
Seeing as you mention that BBD.
Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L Trump review – a scathing takedown of Uncle Donald
And this is the creature that RickA was rooting for and who he labels as being a sore looser.
Well Trump has time to cause all manner of harm to the US and the world yet as he throws his toys around and out of the pram.
Wrecking ball: the damage Trump could do while still president until January
A spoilt child is a liability, a thwarted spoilt child, especially one with threats of litigation for a lifetime of malfeasance, is dangerous.
Trump’s long history of dodgy dealing is why he will be a very sore loser.
The real reason Trump is terrified of losing the presidency: fear of prosecution
Not really the sort of person one should root for and still try to claim respect using a grovelling admission of being wrong.
I have not asked for a break. I have not groveled. I simply continue to share my thoughts and opinions, as usual.
Continue to share your thoughts and opinions, as usual.
I am ready. Bring it on.
I think the far left will now fight against the left, and use cancel culture on each other.
I think the Senate will be majority republican after the special elections in Jan. 2021.
I think the house will switch to republican in 2022.
What do you think will happen?
What you did is switch to being ingratiating again to keep your feet under the table so you can continue to troll this site.
Whatever does will be worse because of the last four years of Trump. And because of Trumpist vermin like you who will keep on carrying the flag even after the monster has been removed.
“I think the far left ”
Nobody in power is “the far left” — we have a president elect and a Democratic party with positions in line with the ones Reagan had in the 90s. The fact that you and the republican party in general have moved to fascist/nazi levels on the right makes it seem as though there is a far left.
Low lifes like you and the people you support will continue spreading lies and disinformation, no doubt about that.
90s? Crap. 80s.
To RickA, George H.W. Bush was probably from the ‘left’. Dean said it correctly. Biden and Harris are in line with policies of the 1980-1990 Republican Party. Hillary Clinton supported Barry Goldwater. Under neoliberalism, both parties lurched to the right. The neocons in the George W. Bush administration and populists like Trump in the current administration are dabbling in authoritarian proto-fascism. The Democrats are center-right neoliberals. Nothing close to ideal but still miles better than the scum in the Republican Party.
The range of response to the election result in the real world by Trump & his craven Republican enablers seem to range from “the election results are not yet final” to “the election was stolen was Democrats using millions of illegal ballots.” Apparently, they see no reason to acknowledge reality now after 4+ years of denial.
Unfortunately, until and unless we see the Congress under Democrat control, the Biden-Harris administration will likely be mostly as stymied as the Obama-Biden administration was. I think the problem is down to the American education system which no longer manages to teach Americans that a President is not a king under another name and the Congress often determines what if anything a President can do to fulfill campaign promises. Just as we’ve seen in the past, a Senate with a Republican majority headed by Mitch McConnell will simply table any and all bills tending to help anyone but the already-rich who already own the majority of the wealth of the U. S.
At least, though, voters have managed to stave off the second term economic recession which has been a feature of Republican second term administrations since Eisenhower. It is am evidence-free myth that Republicans handle the economy better than Democrats. The game they talk and the actual results are two opposite things. Look at Trump as just the latest example; he’s had to steal money constantly from his own family and the N. Y. and U. S. governments to offset his lack of business acumen.
Lighter note: wouldn’t it have been great to see pence’s face when he realized that his replacement was a liberal woman of color who is the daughter of immigrants?
This clown might be stupid enough to believe there was fraud, but we know lots of low iq trump supporters will agree with him.
https://www.al.com/news/2020/11/alabama-congressman-mo-brooks-says-he-wont-vote-to-ratify-biden-victory.html
dean
WRT Mo Brooks, Huntsville again (Spencer & Christy), must be something in the water in that area.
Trump’s next moves. Considering the charges across a number of fronts which could be brought against him he could try escape. Maybe the smoke of repeat visits to his golf course and the mirrors of ‘legal’ contests are clues.
Maybe Donald is going to do a vanishing act. Whilst eyes are on his legalistic trickery, the mirrors, during one of his golf sessions with frequent visits to his golf course becoming the ‘new normal’, the smoke screen, having had a bunker (underground not sand trap) prepared with underground tunnel access to a pick up point, maybe via a hospital and the heliport on its roof. A chopper is waiting on the roof to take him to a small airfield where a Gulfstream awaits to whisk him away to a hideout in a country with no US extradition legislation, somewhere in South or Central America perhaps.
Too much ‘James Bond’? We shall see.
The worst thing about guys like RickA and MikeN is their utter blindness when it comes to the malignancy of the Republican Party and the political right in general. I tried to be magnanimous and RickA comes back spewing sore loser shit. Watching Trump and his enablers now refusing to concede an election they clearly lost is not only embarrassing, it is frigging pathetic. What is worse is reading the semi-literate ramblings of his cult army on Twitter. It is clear that the right wing loathes democracy. There was no fraud and they know it, but they have to conjure up some excuse to explain why they lost by over 4 million votes. In their warped minds, democracy works like this: votes for Trump count but votes for Biden do not. Trump cheats at business, he cheats in his marriages, he cheats at golf, and now he complains that he lost because he was cheated. What a klutz. The terrifying thing is watching his brain-dead troll army screaming for justice. Many are bots, but still…
Given that the Republicans have received fewer votes in seven of the past eight presidential elections, but still George W. Bush and Trump were vomited into power, the real challenge in the US should be to reform the wholly undemocratic Electoral College. It is a joke that Trump had (I think) a 306 Electoral College seats to the Democrats 233 in 2016 while receiving three million less votes and 2.1% less than Clinton. What a farce, rigged in favour of the Republicans.
More move toward authoritarianism :
When you lie and claim massive fraud in the election I guess you really need to go all in.
I’m sure voices on the right will speak up about these moves. (Not really, those scum are eating it up.)
Good discussion of the evil trump and supporters like rickA have supported and why they are a continuing cause of concern.
https://www.politicususa.com/2020/11/09/opinion-why-the-election-results-should-terrify-decent-americans.html
Well, given my outpouring of optimism and positivity a few days back, I can only say… yup. That’s pretty much how I see it too. Vileness endorsed itself to the tune of ~70 million votes. There’s massive trouble ahead. Perhaps the great social political project that attempted to unite America is failing definitively.
Scum of the earth Barr has jumped into the “rigged election” fray and stated how he wants his dishonest pressure and investigation to end.
Gotta home that’s just one of his fascist masturbatory dreams.
a) That was Pompeo, not Barr — my bad
b) “Gotta home”? My shaky fingers. “Gotta hope”
Reported over here. Pompeo is a dangerous thug but also – I hope too – delusional at this point.
I think the real problem is that America – like post-Brexit vote Britain – has simply bifurcated into two implacably antagonistic sub-nations.
Such is the poisoned fruit of populism.
“Me and Giuliani Down by the Dildo Store”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JERK46C9f7c&feature=emb_logo
“Me and Giuliani Down by the Dildo Store”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JERK46C9f7c&feature=emb_logo
Trump’s dark shadow:
Local Arkansas police chief quits after calling for violence against Democrats
RickA you rooted for this.
Trump & co throwing turds around like the incontinent children that they are, need more potty training.
Trump poised to leave legacy of chaos with last-minute foreign policy moves
RickA should be waking up by now as to why Trump & Co are so dangerous to the US and the wider world. I hope somebody is keeping their hands of that red button.
But of course Republicans cannot stand the truth, facts are anathema to them.
70% of Republicans say election wasn’t ‘free and fair’ despite no evidence of fraud – study
This is what happens when an unhinged individual becomes CinC, Child in Chief. Poison percolates addling brains. A WW3 will encourage the religious nuts and their end of times rapture malarkey, or maybe another civil war. No wonder Vladimir smirks as he walks the long carpet.
Dangerous times.
Straightforward comments about the trump supporters addresses the behaviors of the two resident trump trolls perfectly — and gives them more respect than they deserve.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1326252204999708673
CBS News tonight reported that Trump last attended a national security briefing on 1 October.
I couldn’t find confirmation of this online, but I did find this from HuffPost.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-intel-briefings-gone_n_5f32f2b9c5b6fc009a5e72e3
Subsequent to firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper via Twitter, Trump has installed three loyalists at the Pentagon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/defense-department-election-transition/2020/11/10/5a173e60-2371-11eb-8599-406466ad1b8e_story.html
He should have done this a long time ago. Trump ordered them to draw up plans to get troops out of the Middle East, but they decided they didn’t like that idea, and kept delaying or making up reasons.
MikeN comes out from his hole with a throwaway comment. The mad narcissist did not fire Pentagon staff and rehire loyalists to get US troops out of the Middle East, but to bolster his coup attempt. What other reason could the malignant orange liar have for waiting until his term only has 70 days until it officially expires?
As always, Trump cultists never get anything right. They are oblivious to reality.
Bruce Springsteen on Trump:
Bruce Springsteen Gives SCATHING Review Of Trump’s Presidency
Hard to disagree.
The “not at all white supremacist” (defended by white supremacist mikeN) terrorist group Proud Boys have some internal turmoil because their current white supremacist stance isn’t white supremacist enough for some.
https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-based-stickman-enrique-tarrio-goys-1546597
Pretending is so hard. They must feel better now.
George Monbiot
Interesting article, but the one oddity that sticks out is the “break up big tech” bit.
It isn’t clear how that could be done, and more importantly it isn’t clear why it should be done.
There are a bunch of problems with those companies, but IMO much of it revolves around our abysmal laws about how our data is collected, protected, and used. Greater control over what is collected is needed, and these companies are offering limited choices on that front. There really isn’t any difference between Google’s habits, Amazon’s habits, and Apple’s habits, and the behaviors of app developers is even worse. Don’t even start about the vacuuming of data by IPs and what they do with it.
But breaking the companies apart? To what benefit — I’m not seeing it. If you listened to the recent hearings with the heads of these companies the clowns on the right (including some of the dumbest people in existence, gym jordan, gaitz, cruz) were screaming about the fake “censoring of the right” on social media platform issue, and the technologically challenged folks on the left seemed to be saying “they’re just too darned big”. In the end the hearings were simply grandstanding by everyone. Maybe that’s the only good thing to come from the current divide: neither side will be able to muster a coalition to pass bad legislation (like removing or gutting section 230, which might be the most asinine of all the things those clowns suggested.)
How would be difficult, as to why, GM was speaking of helping small companies, so possibly referring to the stifling effect of vast tech monopolies and maybe also their excessive outward power too. FB et al. basically refusing to police their own networks and keep the vileness in check, enabling Trump and perhaps worse in future.
Zuckerberg didn’t even bother to turn up when requested to answer questions about FB interference in the Brexit vote by Parliamentary committee. Maybe that pissed GM off a bit. It pissed a lot of us off a bit tbh.
Are Trump, Moscow Mitch, Rudy and Pompeo pushing for a coup?
Could one succeed, not likely but with Trump and the Repug’s anything is possible I guess.
Can Trump actually stage a coup and stay in office for a second term?
Still difficult and dangerous times ahead, keep that red button out of his reach.
Trump is sure trying to make himself more ridiculous with every passing day.
“FB et al. basically refusing to police their own networks ”
Some of that is the data issue — they aren’t concerned with who purchases ads or who gets targeted with data gleaned from their services.
A small part has to be given a pass: monitoring items that are posted is immensely difficult. Case in point: they took immense heat for not getting the video of the shootings in New Zealand down in an appropriate amount of time, but:
– they took the original footage down as soon as it was identified
– any little change to the video required a new detection (image ID is still incredibly unreliable, video identification more so), and postings of screen recordings required completely new detection principles.
I won’t give FB a complete pass on this though. Their systems allowed Cambridge Analytica to have access to far more data than they should have — although CA was, form the get go, operating in gross violation of FB’s policies, so they deserve blame as well. That’s a major issue of data protection.
The way FB allowed themselves to be used as a tool for horrific violence in Myanmar is despicable. Clearly there are things that need to be fixed, but I’m not sure how breaking these companies apart addresses that.
One more point on breaking things up (at least in the US): our laws based on ideas over 100 years old, and don’t have any relevance to this situation. Even if they’re applied it isn’t clear they should be.
I hope your government folks are better versed in te
Dang.
“I hope your government folks are better versed in technology than ours.”
Again, while I don’t know what was in GM’s mind – but touching on the points you raise – it might boil down to this:
Carole Cadwalladr
Something needs done about the overmighty titans of ‘social’ media.
Does not look as if they are, given the fiascos of test and trace.
England test-and-trace system hit by ‘huge’ IT problems last month
Imagine giving the task of overseeing a task such as data based test and trace to a person who had failed (upwards becoming a Baroness) overseeing another tech’ company Carphone Warehouse. Thus Dido (holding myself back from the obvious insertion [Hah!] there) Harding has form.
Typhoid Dido proves fluent in management bollocks and contradiction
And now No10 are fighting within themselves as the tragicomedy continues.
Putin once again looking on with glee at the crap shoot that he has helped enable, this as Kent becomes the ‘toilet of England’. Karma for voting 60/40 for Brexit.
Kent being micturated and shat on.
Trump and Brexit illustrate the lesson that Putin learned decades ago – one does not need to use the military to bring down a nation, one simply needs to exploit its social divisions and sow discord. The internet provided Putin (and Western fascist and corporate interests) with the perfect vehicle to overthrow democracy in favour of plutocracy and kleptocracy.
We need to call this what it is now: a fully-fledged coup, a naked power grab by a desperate, clinically insane, President. Retired general Barry Macaffery today uttered the word ‘coup’ today. He said that we should all be very alarmed. Trump is firing staff all around him and filling the Pentagon with subservient crazies. Macaffery said that if one looked at elections in third world countries and saw the defeated candidate doing what Trump is now, then their agenda would be as clear as night and day. This was predicted by many months ago. Trump would gripe before the election of voter fraud, and in the event that he lost he would not accept the result and would throw a massive tantrum and then set in motion via desperation any means to stay in power. He will not concede and he is pushing the country towards a civil war. He lost fair and square, and the bloated orange monster knows it, but his ego is so massive and his character so malignant that he will not accept it.
Notice how silent our two resident right wing Trumpites are at the moment. They along with 72 million other cultists voted to give this horrible human being four more years to trash the constitution, destroy federal agencies, enrich the elites and wreck the environment. Trump is a very despicable human being, and his election defeat is allowing us to see him as he really is.
I had to look up who Jim Sciutto is:
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1327242401967181825
I don’t know how reliable is Defense One. Ambassadors aren’t in charge of troop deployments. However, if there were DOD people in on it, we basically have a conspiracy to disobey the President’s orders.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/
Since when does Trump care at all about how many US troops are deployed in Syria? After all, under his Presidency more bombs have been dropped on Middle Eastern nations than under Obama in his final term. Now that is saying a lot. By now, anybody with a marginally functioning brain should realize that the orange stain only cares about himself. Whatever orders he does or does not make are only aimed at projecting his own ego. The guy is a monumental ignoramus and probably can’t even find Syria on a map. Heck, he’s never heard of Yosemite and cannot properly pronounce Minneapolis. Why would he really care about the welfare of other countries? His constant threats against Iran suggest he might just go out in a monstrous tantrum and start bombing the country. He has also directly aided and abetted the destruction of Yemen by Saudi Arabia. It boggles my mind when Trumpites claim that Trump has had a less belligerent foreign policy than his predecessors. It has just been more covert. Why else have a neocon nut like Mike Pompeo on board?
“It boggles my mind when Trumpites claim that Trump has had a less belligerent foreign policy than his predecessors.”
Yup — either they don’t care or are simply ignorant (ignorance in general is always the safest bet with them) about trump’s massive expansion of drone attacks. I though Obama went overboard with the expansion of this crap — as with most things, his actions in the “war on terror” make him a piker compared to the shitstain running things now. Nor has the outcome of the current actions been any different than the things predecessors did.
“Since when does Trump care at all about how many US troops are deployed in Syria?”
A better question, given what we’ve found out about his views of the military in general, is when has he cared about troops?
I didn’t bother reading mikeN’s comments — I’ve had enough intentional dishonesty and mispresentation of facts from him and rickA to last a lifetime. I will guess that he posted an off-topic diversionary bit of bullcrap and completely avoided the fact that the people trump is slotting into these positions are completely unqualified for those positions, but were chosen simply because they will do whatever he tells them to without any questioning. Typical modern republican move: don’t like people with knowledge questioning your ideas? Get rid of people with knowledge and replace them with people even less intelligent than you.
More a cover up than a coup.
Republicans are playing with fire. And we all risk getting burned
Whatever if they, and their cheerleaders, expect respect when the dust, from all that disturbed drying dung, has settled then they will be disappointed. Beyond parody.
Bernard J nails it, as ever.
Jared Yates Sexton in his book ‘American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People’ lays it out on page 285 beginning with the para’ that starts, “Russian intelligence services recognised the potential of using social media to undermine and infiltrate the political affairs of its rivals”.
Note 67 takes us to this document:
Exposing Russia’s Effort to Sow Discord Online: The Internet Research Agency and Advertisements
Note 68 within Sextons text takes us to this article:
How Russia used social media to divide Americans
And don’t I know about this propaganda campaign having fielded many a perverse post from supposedly intelligent people on FB. Many ex servicemen seem to fall to the simplistic, half baked but persuasive (if one is of narrow education and has a restricted information stream) messaging on Brexit and anthropogenic global warming, with which latter many are still in denial despite the increasing evidence that something is up.
True patriots would recognise the real enemy to society here, Putin’s puppets. Of course acknowledging that is much to painful, cognitive dissonance of a high order. Our pair of ‘tunnel visioned’ protagonists here really are a threat to America’s future.
It appears that Long Covid is very real presenting a hazard to a wider spectrum of the populace than some would acknowledge.
From The Guardian today: