# The Election Day Thread



## Eric

We could be in for an early night or a late night. I fully expect Fla to let us down, they're just too consistent so let's hope some of the other states fall for Trump.


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## Alli

Nothing is for certain this year. Nothing. Anything could happen.


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## Edd

ericgtr12 said:


> We could be in for an early night or a late night. I fully expect Fla to let us down, they're just too consistent so let's hope some of the other states fall for Trump.



FLA is consistently the worst, like it’s their job.


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## Eric

First results are in, Biden won Dixville Notch 5 to 0. (out of a population of 12)


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## Arkitect

To all US voters from us here in the rest of the world…


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## Arkitect

ericgtr12 said:


> First results are in, Biden won Dixville Notch 5 to 0. (out of a population of 12)



I'm breaking open the champagne!


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## Arkitect

In related news, Walmart Pulls Guns Off Shelves as Precaution Ahead of Election…

Link


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## JayMysteri0

So it begins

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323297755817742336/
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323314458542940165/


> Ballot processing begins in Detroit; 2 poll challengers removed
> 
> 
> Poll challengers, both Republican and Democrat, were allowed at TCF Center in Detroit Monday. Though counting had not begun, processing was underway.
> 
> 
> 
> www.freep.com




This also happened, according to the same person
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323538269532000256/

Which sort of reinforces the need for this guy gone.  If not, pretty much shows the rest of the world what kind of supporters there are.


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## Edd

ericgtr12 said:


> First results are in, Biden won Dixville Notch 5 to 0. (out of a population of 12)



Fuck, that’s nice to hear. Woke up 30 minutes ago and already a nervous wreck.


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## JayMysteri0

Maybe this will help


> Anxious On Election Night? Join Mo Willems For A 'Democracy Doodle'
> 
> 
> "Any time we express ourselves, that's a form of patriotism," says writer and artist Mo Willems. He'll lead three drawing exercises, each accompanied by a National Symphony Orchestra musician.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.npr.org





> Don't underestimate the power of doodling. In a democracy, Mo Willems says, "voting is a lot like doodling. It's a form of self-expression, and you discover sort of who you really are as you do it." On Election Day (7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT) on the Kennedy Center's website, Willems will encourage self-expression for anyone who tunes in to _Democracy Doodle 2020_, regardless of age or political persuasion.
> 
> Willems says they'll do three drawing exercises, each accompanied by a different musician from the National Symphony Orchestra. As the Kennedy Center's education artist-in-residence, Willems has been encouraging kids to take regular doodle breaks since the early days of the pandemic.


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## User.45

JayMysteri0 said:


> Maybe this will help



My vote is on an assortment of ciders, rum and coke, and an short work day (i.e. actual 8 hours)


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## Eric

Edd70 said:


> Fuck, that’s nice to hear. Woke up 30 minutes ago and already a nervous wreck.



Strap in, it's going to be a long day/night.


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## JayMysteri0

F' that ish.  I'm just monitoring Twitter for stupidity & laughs.  I logged out of MR and I'm going with either chill or laughs.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323603592843087873/

I'll seriously pay attention to crap afterwards.


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## lizkat

As for Republicans (not the never-Trump ones) who have responded to Trump's latest rounds of threats and lies about how elections work in this country....     not a peep.   It's the usual:   they didn't see "the tweet" or haven't heard the quote -- reporter shouts "there are dozens of them !! " -- or sorry their plane is boarding now (that was Karl Rove)  or the full-Trump-enabler maneuver which was not to respond at all.









						Republicans publicly silent, privately disgusted by Trump’s election threats
					

Their response is shocking but unsurprising.




					www.politico.com


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## lizkat

Arkitect said:


> In related news, Walmart Pulls Guns Off Shelves as Precaution Ahead of Election…
> 
> Link




Well they changed their minds about that and started putting them back on display, having decided to say only that their initial move had been due to isolated incidents.    Heh.   Yet another problem with the 2A is that some of its fans are shareholders?









						Walmart reverses decision to remove guns and ammo from store shelves
					

“As the current incidents have remained geographically isolated, we have made the decision to begin returning these products to the sales floor today,” a company spokesperson said.




					www.nbcnews.com


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## User.45

JayMysteri0 said:


> F' that ish.  I'm just monitoring Twitter for stupidity & laughs.  I logged out of MR and I'm going with either chill or laughs.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323603592843087873/
> 
> I'll seriously pay attention to crap afterwards.



My wife caught snippets from the audio from the end of the room, her first question: Fox News?


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## Eric

So far the lines in Michigan have not been long at all. I'm guessing that's not good news for Trump.


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## Edd

PearsonX said:


> My wife caught snippets from the audio from the end of the room, her first question: Fox News?



F&F is the dumbest show on TV.


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## User.45

Edd70 said:


> F&F is the dumbest show on TV.



The guy obviously has no dignity, but is also really bad at generating convincing outrage.


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## Scepticalscribe

ericgtr12 said:


> Strap in, it's going to be a long day/night.




Very long, I fear.  

One can hope for a veritable tsunami that will clear the loathsome Mr Trump and his foul minions from office.


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## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> Strap in, it's going to be a long day/night.




Week, or weeks for a final count...  even if the winner is long since pretty much a given.  *No state's totals are official until the state certifies the results.* Each state, not the federal government, sets rules for elections and may delegate some to the county or board of election level... with the by now well known caveat that rules may be challenged in the courts.

The New York Times has a very useful list of timing-related  and vote-counting issues, state by state.









						How Long Will Vote Counting Take? Estimates and Deadlines in All 50 States
					

We asked officials about their election results processes and what share of votes they expect to be counted by Nov. 4.



					www.nytimes.com
				




Bottom line on how much can still be up in the air by midnight (pick a time zone!):



> Even once the early and in-person ballots are counted, a significant number of votes could still be outstanding. Only nine states expect to have at least 98 percent of unofficial results reported by noon the day after the election. *Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia allow postmarked ballots to arrive after Election Day*, so the timing will depend on when voters return them.


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## Scepticalscribe

At the risk of repeating myself: Take a look at the OSCE/ODIHR site; by tomorrow afternoon - it would be at around or about 3 pm or 4pm (15.00 or 16.00) Washington time - the Limited Election Observation Mission in the US should publish their preliminary report on the election (Statement of Preliminary Findings) and will hold a press conference at which they will explain and publish their findings - and will take questions; this will have a significant say, or influence, on how the international community will regard the election.


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## lizkat

Scepticalscribe said:


> At the risk of repeating myself: Take a look at the OSCE/ODIHR site; by tomorrow afternoon - it would be at around or about 3 pm or 4pm (15.00 or 16.00) Washington time - the Limited Election Observation Mission in the US should publish their preliminary report on the election (Statement of Preliminary Findings) and will hold a press conference at which they will explain and publish their findings - and will take questions; this will have a significant say, or influence, in how the international community will regard the election.




Their final report may end up more eye-opening...     here again is the link to their observations on the US election









						General Elections, 3 November 2020
					

Press conference  Following an invitation to observe the general elections scheduled for 3 November 2020 in the United States of America, based on the findings and conclusions of the Needs Assessment Mission deployed from 29 May to 5 June 2020, and in accordance with its mandate, ODIHR is...




					www.osce.org


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## Scepticalscribe

lizkat said:


> Their final report may end up more eye-opening...     here again is the link to their observations on the US election
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> General Elections, 3 November 2020
> 
> 
> Press conference  Following an invitation to observe the general elections scheduled for 3 November 2020 in the United States of America, based on the findings and conclusions of the Needs Assessment Mission deployed from 29 May to 5 June 2020, and in accordance with its mandate, ODIHR is...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.osce.org




The trouble is that the final report won't be published for a further four to six weeks, by which time, matters may have moved on and the focus will have shifted elsewhere.

However, I would recommend the final report - as it will for the basis for recommendations (the stick & sign-post with which one can motivate some regimes and administrations to begin to think of changing some of the less attractive elements of their electoral systems, carrots often take the form of aid packages) - and the facts cited will have been meticulously verified and confirmed.

But, for immediate reaction - including for a analysis of just how flawed and far from ideal the electoral system may be in practice - I do recommend reading the preliminary report, as it will have the benefit of immediacy, credibility, and a wide public distribution.


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## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323654429258747904/

Now some want to act like they give an ish about the health of others.  Wonder what's in it for them?
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323656891927584768/


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## JayMysteri0

Meanwhile...
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323657059871690753/
WOW!!


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## User.45

Apparently, they ended up building the wall!


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## User.45

Scepticalscribe said:


> Very long, I fear.
> 
> One can hope for a veritable tsunami that will clear the loathsome Mr Trump and his foul minions from office.



At this point it's either going to be confirmation of my bias regarding our species, which will make me feel smarter; or a a breath of relief, which will make me feel happier. At the end of the day, I'll deserve my drinks.


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## Eric

PearsonX said:


> At this point it's either going to be confirmation of my bias regarding our species, which will make me feel smarter; or a a breath of relief, which will make me feel happier. At the end of the day, I'll deserve my drinks.



I have all but lost faith in the American people, anyone looking at the last 4 years who says "I want more of that" is simply not capable of making rational decisions.


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## Eric

They're reporting that only about 60% of the mail-in ballots will not make it in time because the post office can't keep up with the demand after DeJoy crippled them.

Want to see how well Trump's unscalable fence works? Tell millions of people their votes won't count.


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## lizkat

PearsonX said:


> At this point it's either going to be confirmation of my bias regarding our species, which will make me feel smarter; or a a breath of relief, which will make me feel happier. At the end of the day, I'll deserve my drinks.




I've donned my rose colored glasses for Election Day even if some antics after that may cause me to have to find a stronger pair.  Maybe it's the sunny weather here today.  Still it's damn cold outside and I'm really really glad that my mailed-in absentee ballot sits  safe inside my local Board of Elections awaiting its state-appointed moment for actual counting.

In NYS the absentee ballots are not counted before polls close on Election Day,  their outer security envelopes are are only validated for having been expected back in the board of elections that sent them out to the registered voters who requested them.  What happens in NYS in the meantime during early voting and on Election Day is that a voter may vote in person if the polling place books show him eligible,  but if that does occur, then that person's absentee ballot if any is cast aside when those are finally counted. The signed polling place registry books are returned after in-person votes are counted on Election Night, hence the delay in considering and counting any absentee ballots.


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## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> They're reporting that only about 60% of the mail-in ballots will not make it in time because the post office can't keep up with the demand after DeJoy crippled them.
> 
> Want to see how well Trump's unscalable fence works? Tell millions of people their votes won't count.




Hey.  It's not only Republican lawyers who show up in court with lawsuits related to elections, ya know.   Bank on that in 2020.

In the  meantime the best counsel is to vote and then show some patience.  It ain't over until a state certifies its results and the last lawsuit has been ruled on or thrown out of court.

More people still believe in the rule of law than don't in the USA.  The 2020 elections can help keep it that way if we don't overreact to every little tweet and breaking-news chyron on cable television.    Information travels at near the speed of light.  Election results take weeks.   Rebuilding a country torn by violence could take forever.

My lean is this:  vote, chill out and let the lawyers handle it.

If the electors certify in NovemberDecember *] that Biden won but Trump tells the Army to surround the White House and they ACTUALLY DO THAT,  wake me up.  I want to see Special Forces drag Donny Boy out of that bunker.

[   * edit:  sorry for the slip of the calendar wishlist there...  Electoral College meets in December]


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## Joe

It's gonna be a mess. If Biden wins Trump isn't going to go down easy. 

I'm just hoping if Biden wins that its by a big enough margin that Trump can't challenge it much.


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## rdrr

lizkat said:


> I've donned my rose colored glasses for Election Day even if some antics after that may cause me to have to find a stronger pair.  Maybe it's the sunny weather here today.  ...



I wish I had a pair of those rose colored glasses.  My outlook is like my weekly COVID tests, negative.

I think I am reading too many blurbs on twitter, about how there is a huge turnout for Trump.  My stomach is all in knots and I am wondering what I will do, because I cannot live here under Trump for another 4 years.


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## User.45

rdrr said:


> I wish I had a pair of those rose colored glasses.  My outlook is like my weekly COVID tests, negative.
> 
> I think I am reading too many blurbs on twitter, about how there is a huge turnout for Trump.  My stomach is all in knots and I am wondering what I will do, because I cannot live here under Trump for another 4 years.



The thing is if you look at the ballot affiliations, it's predominantly Dem, and if you look at the no affiliation folks, that's nearly as much as Reps, and those have a pro Biden Margin too. So Trumpists coming out the woodwork is expected but means nothing on its own.


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## Arkitect

Well, that's it for me for tonight.

No more news sites or TV channels until first thing tomorrow.

See you all in the morning…


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## lizkat

PearsonX said:


> The thing is if you look at the ballot affiliations, it's predominantly Dem, and if you look at the no affiliation folks, that's nearly as much as Reps, and those have a pro Biden Margin too. So Trumpists coming out the woodwork is expected but means nothing on its own.




Also, Republicans may have been more likely to take Trump up on his disparagement of voting by mail, maybe especially because not all of DeJoy's tinkering with mail processing speed landed in urban areas.

Some of that USPS slowdown affected rural roadside mailbox owners whose prescriptions were delayed.  DeJoy had no lock on managing to affect only rural Democrats with those slowdowns, which took place in  the more centralized major mail sorting centers.   Like around here that would be up in Syracuse or in Albany.  We locally saw our mail on-time-delivery rate sink from 98% to 88% and it's not like the local contract carrier sorted his route out by what kinda lawn signs we have out there.  We have all had somewhat slower mail delivery.​
Still, more motivated Democrats likely voted early or by mail as early as possible... so the turnout on Election Day now may be disproportionately high for conservative voters, even in states that tend always to vote blue in Presidential elections.


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## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323705667195199488/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323673994990657537/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323597546149863425/


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## JayMysteri0

Um, wha?  In retrospect though, if he is NOT the president of your country, "Why the F' not?"

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323685387819245568/

Do they NOT realize what kind of ****hole country the man thinks they have?

Then again, if there is no extradition, ...it is a strong option.


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## Joe

It's just crazy to me how many people support this guy. On my way to work this morning I saw a car plastered with MAGA and Latinos4Trump written all over the window.


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## User.45

JayMysteri0 said:


> Um, wha?  In retrospect though, if he is NOT the president of your country, "Why the F' not?"
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323685387819245568/
> 
> Do they NOT realize what kind of ****hole country the man thinks they have?
> 
> Then again, if there is no extradition, ...it is a strong option.



I have a nigerian nurse on my facebook who's super anti-Trump and he's  in a fight 24/7 with other nigerians. The shit some of those people post are mind boggling (christianity is regularly dragged into these). I decided to unfollow because it looked like a bottomless pit. The only reason I have FB still, is because my friends overseas aren't willing to migrate to another platform..


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## User.45

JagRunner said:


> It's just crazy to me how many people support this guy. On my way to work this morning I saw a car plastered with MAGA and Latinos4Trump written all over the window.



Logical as lambs4slaughter, bombs4love and fucking4virginity.


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## User.45

lizkat said:


> Also, Republicans may have been more likely to take Trump up on his disparagement of voting by mail, maybe especially because not all of DeJoy's tinkering with mail processing speed landed in urban areas.
> 
> Some of that USPS slowdown affected rural roadside mailbox owners whose prescriptions were delayed.  DeJoy had no lock on managing to affect only rural Democrats with those slowdowns, which took place in  the more centralized major mail sorting centers.   Like around here that would be up in Syracuse or in Albany.  We locally saw our mail on-time-delivery rate sink from 98% to 88% and it's not like the local contract carrier sorted his route out by what kinda lawn signs we have out there.  We have all had somewhat slower mail delivery.​
> Still, more motivated Democrats likely voted early or by mail as early as possible... so the turnout on Election Day now may be disproportionately high for conservative voters, even in states that tend always to vote blue in Presidential elections.



When DeJoy got ahold of USPS our mail started getting delayed by 3-5 days. It had caught on recently, so some days we get the mail twice. You can easily tell it's an urban area in a Blue state...


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## Thomas Veil

A few thoughts:

Tonight I'm doing what I've been doing for the last two days: taking a double-dose of anti-depressants in the morning and a dose of Benadryl at night so my mind doesn't race when I'm trying to fall asleep.
I think we can forget about a blue tsunami. It's going to be a lot closer than that.
With that in mind, I'm not going to torture myself or set my nerves on edge by watching wall-to-wall coverage. I'll check in occasionally to see what Steve Kornacki is saying, but I really don't expect to learn anything tonight except _maybe_ whether the Dems take the Senate.
On the other hand, videos of Trumpian poll watchers getting thrown out of voting locations...that's something you can watch all day.
I see Amy Coney Barrett formally started her new job today. Just in time. Oh for joy.
Trump wants to claim victory tonight. I don't care. He can crap in his hat and wear it backward for all the attention he'll get from me.
I'm really hoping SCOTUS continues its trend of turning down ballot appeals and letting lower court rulings stand.
and finally...

The reason we're always being told we lost last time is because Hillary was the absolute worst candidate in the world. Untrustworthy, unlikable, and on and on and on. So this time we ran a guy who's well liked, who doesn't carry too much baggage, and is pretty much everything not-Hillary. If we can't win with _Biden..._then I just give up. The country has fallen and we're being ruled by the Taliban.


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## lizkat

JagRunner said:


> It's just crazy to me how many people support this guy. On my way to work this morning I saw a car plastered with MAGA and Latinos4Trump written all over the window.




Yeah It's beyond comprehension for me to see that so many people may be still supporting him* at this point*.

See 2016 was one thing, and I do understand voting against a candidate for real or perceived unsuitability,   and I do understand disillusionment, and there was plenty of that on both sides of the major party fences in 2016.  There was a very unusual confluence of a lot of different currents and circumstances in 2016.  I still believe we'll never untangle for sure the "why" of Trump having become our president in 2016, and I've never thought political strategists should extrapolate anything at all from his victory.

What I don't understand right now though?  Any American who votes for Trump after really looking at Trump's performance and behavior in 2017-2020, and at the behavior of assorted high profile Republican House members and Senators..... and at Trump's revolving door cabinet and his manner of replacing (or, not replacing) the ones he fired or who resigned in the wake of a string of ethics investigations..   and at his non-leadership in this country's efforts to cope with the still dangerous coronavirus pandemic... and at his nonstop, pathological level of lying. 

We did not used to be a nation of people unable even to agree on what is a fact, never mind what it may mean or suggest...   and Trump is the first president in my awareness who has focused 100% of the time on using the White House as a hyperpartisan bully pulpit and campaign platform.   There is no instance of which I'm aware when a GWBush or Barack Obama deliberately poured the gasoline of hatred on an American fire. None.  Sure they both made gaffes and had unpopular policies.   But Donald Trump has grudge lists, brain farts, fantasies of omnipotence and he routinely airs any and all of them at will from his Twitter account.   Whoever mistakes that stuff for jokes or reality TV is doing this nation a disservice.

And then there is the huge disparity of what Trump says he has done in the way of MAGA! for his rally base,  versus what the Federal Register says he has done TO them and to other ordinary Americans.  Any reading of some of those rule changes makes it clear that the full and negative impact is still down the road apiece.   Not all of them are easily reversible.

Sometimes one has to put on a critical thinking hat and step back and look at the real forest and the actual trees.  It's not all just about gotcha politics and supporting a completely unqualified candidate "because I can, so fuck you!"​​Sometimes it's about thinking that there is after all something by original design that is exceptional about the USA...  and that it belongs to all Americans, not just the ones who look like, behave like, act like the person we see in the mirror every morning.​​Our entire Constitution was designed to prevent tyranny...  especially one created by a power-abusing autocrat with a minority following and a bunch of court lackeys in tow.​
So this is one of those times that the citizens of the USA get to exercise a Constitutional right to say "enough already, pack up, get out" at the polling place, when an incumbent has demonstrably failed in his sworn duties and disappointed too manyAmericans. Exercising a thoughtful vote helps preserve a Constitution that was never meant to be some kind of rubber stamp for an autocratic incumbency.  It was meant to preserve our right to try to throw bad apples out peacefully.

I hope we can manage to remember in days ahead that freedom and anarchy are not the same thing.  We are a nation that has chosen to live under rule of law and a people who make their choice of lawmakers known with ballots, not bullets.


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## Eric

I just did a count of all the direct emails I received from the Biden campaign (info@joebiden.com), every one of them asking for more money and the total is 672. I've opted to stay subscribed because I didn't want to jinx anything. Come on Biden, let's see this pay off!


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## Thomas Veil

Oh, I'm already getting some emails asking for donations to fight the likely court battles.

And you know what? At the first hint of Trump taking this to court, Biden's getting my money.


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## Eric

Thomas Veil said:


> Oh, I'm already getting some emails asking for donations to fight the likely court battles.
> 
> And you know what? At the first hint of Trump taking this to court, Biden's getting my money.



Same here, I mean what are they going to do with my money on election day? I've given all I'm going to give already.


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## lizkat

Thomas Veil said:


> Oh, I'm already getting some emails asking for donations to fight the likely court battles.
> 
> And you know what? At the first hint of Trump taking this to court, Biden's getting my money.




Act Blue is still raking it in at the rate of about five thousand dollars a minute or better...   which, you know, since political junkies have all night tonight and all day tomorrow to do nothing but wait and watch means we can also click-and-kick-in more than 7 million bucks without breaking a sweat just in the next 24 hours.

 The GOP admits to being astounded at the persistence of small dollar donors to Dem causes via the Act Blue operation.  I'm astounded at my willingness to keep carving the beans out of my rice and beans budget lol.


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## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> Same here, I mean what are they going to do with my money on election day? I've given all I'm going to give already.




All kidding aside, I'm also done.  My last donation was to my own congresscritter, although Five Thirty Eight has him a 94% shoo-in for re-election.  I figure he might need gas money to get home after the last round of get out the vote operations in the district today.


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## SuperMatt

I don’t think it will be close. I think the massive turnout is almost all for Biden. Trump never expanded beyond his hard-core base. Texas will go for Biden!


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## lizkat

SuperMatt said:


> I don’t think it will be close. I think the massive turnout is almost all for Biden. Trump never expanded beyond his hard-core base. Texas will go for Biden!




From your lips to the pen hands of the last remaining Texan women married to Trump fans who are in line now and are about to prove there are in fact a bunch of shy Biden voters.


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## Apple fanboy

Good luck everyone. Hope the result is the right one and there is no room for disputes!


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## Eric

Some of these CNN early exit polls are concerning, people seem more concerned about the economy than the virus. Good news for Trump it would seem.


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## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323764935730565121/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323766671832567809/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323765596362698752/


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## JayMysteri0

Most importantly, when this crap is over & if Duh nald loses, none of this 'poor Melania' crap either.

She's a birther, and she rode that train for her own self gains.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323717661478539270/

She was as complicit & enabling as the rest.


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## SuperMatt

Some info from Kentucky:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323769612446638081/


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## Mark

@Scepticalscribe @Alli @Thomas Veil @iMi @Arkitect @ericgtr12 @Huntn @Chew Toy McCoy @SuperMatt @Apple fanboy @JagRunner @Renzatic @PearsonX @DT @Clix Pix @Yoused @Edd70 @Gutwrench @hulugu @JayMysteri0

@lizkat
YR*
"...There is no instance of which I'm aware when a GWBush or Barack Obama deliberately poured the gasoline of hatred on an American fire..."
you are absolutely right.
i would imagine that we all are not alone in thinking that W was a good, kind, well-intentioned person. he proved it time and again.
even though we disagreed vehemently with his policies that put us in jeapordy. and even though it is also true he and his Co-President Cheny might even have liable for crimes against humanity. both of these feelings are maddeningly true.
his admin had their vision. we disagree with it.

these Trumpublicans are thugs looking to subvert democracy and american political and government service traditions.

*to all of us on this great Forum TalkedAbout this election 2020: have a safe and enjoyable 2020 election night and election month. don't stress out. 
We will overcome, someday, my friends. Maybe tonight. *

*YR abrreviation for your royalness.


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## JayMysteri0

Meanwhile in the land of law & order  Pt 2
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323673195011051520/

While the USPS under 45 appointee
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323752444866777090/

Judges ain't havin' it


> *Federal judge orders USPS to sweep facilities for undelivered mail-in ballots and immediately deliver them*
> The US Postal Service failed to meet a deadline set on Tuesday by US District Judge Emmet Sullivan to sweep facilities in several states for undelivered ballots and immediately send them to election officials, according to reporters. “There are only one or two Inspectors in any one facility, and thus they do not have the ability to personally scour the entire facility,” USPS said.




So what's to do?  Not cooperate of course.
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323741998529105920/

There needs to be some jail time for some MFers, cause DeJoy didn't get all this done on his own.  Some complied.


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## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> Some of these CNN early exit polls are concerning, people seem more concerned about the economy than the virus. Good news for Trump it would seem.




So let voters have their exit opinions to fill the media's empty hours...    it's Biden who will see to an economic recovery.    There are a lot of reasons exit polls are thought not to deserve the weight in 2020 that they've had in prior years.  Much of that actually relates to the same coronavirus that some of these exiting Election Day voters are dismissing as not their primary focus.  

And on the economy:  when did Trump ever distinguish between the stock market and an American economy anyway?    Surely not with an advisor like Kudlow, after Gary Cohn left his position as chief economic advisor, and that was in April of 2018.

Cohn himself was and is a markets kinda guy, you can't be more of one than to have come from Goldman Sachs, right?​​But Gary Cohn is also so much more than that (see just his Wiki bio).  When he saw he was not making any inroads on Trump's ignorant trade war fetish, he resigned.  He had meanwhile publicly repudiated Trump's "very fine people on both sides" stance regarding the Charlottesville incidents.  Cohn  is representative of the kind of talent and character that Donald Trump had on hand initially...   people willing to serve at some sacrifice to their erstwhile private sector arrangements...  and that Trump promptly squandered or dismissed out of hand.​
Ordinary Americans who think the economy matters more than covid-19 management AND who are voting for Trump in 2020 on that basis have their heads up their behinds.

Maybe they liked their unfunded tax cut.   That's a one-off.  Can't get blood out of a stone that the GOP has been wringing out for decades (in between telling Dems to quit spending money we don't have, whenever the GOP is out of power).    Maybe these Trump voters of 2020 think Biden will raise their taxes.   Well yeah, maybe he will.   Trump would have had to do it too...  or just keep on doing the equivalent of printing money.   There are always choices.  Sometimes it's absolutely the right thing to do for a government to print money.    Doing it for a tax cut ain't it though.

For a voter in 2020 to be putting "the economy" before public health is insane.  We have a consumerist economy that now more than ever is based on smoke and mirrors and plastic credit and a thoroughly trashed underclass aka American wage earners.

There will be no America as we ever knew it inside of six months if we don't get some sane management of both the course of this pandemic in the USA and the underpinnings of economic survival for Americans by the millions --  the ones now facing homelessness, joblessness, debt overhangs from temporary moratoriums issued during the early stimulus program.

Here's to an administration that will treat us all as Americans who may have different priorities, but that will acknowledge and even remind us that we're all in the same boat called the United States of America.   I expect that of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with a high degree of confidence they'll bring it.   I never thought Trump-Pence would bring us a shred of that.. and they didn't.


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323764935730565121/




Gotta love this Sara Beattie tweet about "wanting to watch the light fade from their eyes" on Fox...


----------



## rdrr

Anyone else sick to their stomach with nerves?


----------



## SuperMatt

rdrr said:


> Anyone else sick to their stomach with nerves?



I am feeling upbeat but the memory of 2016 makes me a bit uneasy. I remember in my neighborhood in 2008, people spontaneously took to the streets to celebrate when Obama won... if Biden wins, I feel it will be a bit more muted - a sigh of relief.


----------



## Renzatic

From what I saw on the news, it looks like Trump has a healthy lead on Biden.


----------



## lizkat

rdrr said:


> Anyone else sick to their stomach with nerve?




Hell no.  I'm consuming special treats today like the pig I figured I'd be emulating.

Right now though I'm trying to recall if I've ever heard any other American president talk like this.  Think I can say with high confidence that the answer to that is a resounding "No"









						Trump: Presidency has been ‘mean’ and filled with ‘horrible people’
					

He also said he found the U.S. to be the “most difficult country to deal with” in the world.




					www.politico.com
				




Not even Richard Nixon in the depths of a pending impeachment was this harsh about the country that had elected him.  And if we look at approval polls,  at least 40% of the USA apparently still now or recently thinks Trump has been doing a pretty good job.  To hear Trump talk on the eve of probably losing re-election though, you'd think his approval rating was in single digits and that Democrats had written all the legislation and appointed all his advisors and constrained his SCOTUS pick list...  poor Donny.


----------



## User.45

SuperMatt said:


> I don’t think it will be close. I think the massive turnout is almost all for Biden. Trump never expanded beyond his hard-core base. Texas will go for Biden!



I think you guys know by now how much I love to look under the hood let it be stats or those white pointy ones. 

The only pollster that gave this election to Trump is Trafalgar. I think they systematically have young voters underrepresented in their sampling. So all it takes is more youngsters to to vote to invalidate their data. 

I also think that this became a matter of life or death for pollsters, and they are likely to have overcorrected their data.


----------



## User.45

Renzatic said:


> From what I saw on the news, it looks like Trump has a healthy lead on Biden.



AFAIK, mail in ballots are not counted until polling places close. So this is expected.

I'd also say Biden is up in SC and Ohio. So these early numbers are meaningless.


----------



## JayMysteri0

I don't know if you want to start seeing it, but...

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323781292954144768/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323785117597343744/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323791774322745345/


----------



## User.45

Bring it!


----------



## Alli

No. We don’t want to see it.


----------



## JayMysteri0

A followup to the USPS


> *Federal judge allows additional time after USPS turns down court order deadline to sweep facilities for undelivered mail-in ballots*
> The US Postal Service failed to meet a deadline set on Tuesday by US District Judge Emmet Sullivan to sweep facilities in several states for undelivered ballots and immediately send them to election officials, according to reporters. “There are only one or two Inspectors in any one facility, and thus they do not have the ability to personally scour the entire facility,” USPS said. Judge Sullivan later ordered USPS to “be prepared to discuss the apparent lack of compliance with the court’s order” at a noon hearing on Wednesday. However, Sullivan allowed the US Postal Service more time to sweep for possible missing ballots in mail processing centers in states including Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan and others.


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323793091229351938/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323793690490478592/


----------



## Thomas Veil

rdrr said:


> Anyone else sick to their stomach with nerves?



That's why I'm spending most of the evening on PornHub.


----------



## JayMysteri0

This makes me physically ill.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323795371609509888/

WTF Kentucky?!!!  McConnell & 45. 

I have a good idea where blame as far the country goes!



> Mitch McConnell gets 6 more years
> 
> 
> Mitch McConnell just defeated Amy McGrath to win his Senate race.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com



Seriously What The Bloody F- ?!!!


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323800328475758592/

I hope the drinks are strong.


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> This makes me physically ill.
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323795371609509888/
> WTF Kentucky?!!!  McConnell & 45.
> 
> I have a good idea where blame as far the country goes!




Well I hope Mitch will end up having to ask his caucus if he can be their minority leader...

It's all that bourbon.  Kentucky should export it instead of drinking the stuff.


----------



## JayMysteri0

lizkat said:


> Well I hope Mitch will end up having to ask his caucus if he can be their minority leader...









> Still, McConnell could lose in another way: With other Senate races across the country, it’s possible — even likely, based on the FiveThirtyEight forecast — that Democrats could win control of the Senate. That would effectively demote McConnell from majority leader to minority leader. That’s not a role McConnell is unfamiliar with, given that he was minority leader from 2007 to 2015, but it’s a role that gives McConnell much less power.
> 
> McConnell did a lot with the power of the minority during President Barack Obama’s time in office, leveraging the filibuster — which effectively requires a supermajority of 60 out of 100 senators to get major legislation done — to block much of Obama’s and Democrats’ agenda. This time, it might be different: Democrats have talked about repealing the filibuster if they take the Senate. That would greatly diminish any hold that McConnell and his caucus have over the body as the minority.


----------



## lizkat

PearsonX said:


> AFAIK, mail in ballots are not counted until polling places close. So this is expected.
> 
> I'd also say Biden is up in SC and Ohio. So these early numbers are meaningless.




Reminder:  each state has different rules on when absentee / mail ballots can be counted. For instance, Florida opens them upon receipt and has been counting them for weeks already. New York opens them to check they were expected (versus records of having sent them out) but the inner envelope with the ballots are not opened until after in person voting finishes and registry books are sent back to the boards of elections.


----------



## JayMysteri0

What it's feeling like about now


----------



## DT

JayMysteri0 said:


> This makes me physically ill.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323795371609509888/
> 
> WTF Kentucky?!!!  McConnell & 45.
> 
> I have a good idea where blame as far the country goes!
> 
> 
> Seriously What The Bloody F- ?!!!




He’s rotting away, he won’t be alive in a few months ...


----------



## User.45

DT said:


> He’s rotting away, he won’t be alive in a few months ...



I honestly think McConnell will not pull through his next term.


----------



## Alli

Hickenlooper in CO. That’s 1 of the 3 needed. I can’t believe Collins is still even showing.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Bust out your Bugs Bunny / Florida gifs


----------



## SuperMatt

Sad to see how many millions still voted for Trump after his handling of coronavirus and race relations. Win or lose, I’m sad about that.


----------



## Alli

Not surprised about FL at least.


----------



## SuperMatt

JayMysteri0 said:


> Bust out your Bugs Bunny / Florida gifs



Foreigners from oppressive communist countries (Cuba and Vietnam) bought the “Biden is a communist” baloney hook, line, and sinker... sadly. I think it sounds like that’s what happened in Florida.


----------



## lizkat

DT said:


> He’s rotting away, he won’t be alive in a few months ...




I dunno, there could be some truth to the idea that only the good drop away too soon...  but if McConnell does have to leave his new term as Senator early,  the current governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshar, happens to be...  yeah, a Democrat who won office in 2018 and so is not up for re-election until 2022.

So for at least awhile, if Beshar had to make a special appointment, the next junior senator from the great state of bourbon drinkers would not be of Mitch's party and so a Democrat would serve in Mitch's old seat until the state's next general election.  Maybe even Amy McGrath. Yeah.  Stranger things have happened in the filling of many a US Senate vacancy than to see a defeated opponent then take the seat of a Senator who passes away.

That very thought might even be enough to keep McConnell this side of the grave for awhile, ya think?  Or anyway give him no peace in the grave.

It would be some form of justice to see Mitch McConnell as healthy enough candidate for minority leader and if he is chosen, then listen to him whining about uppity Democrats taking lawmaking and even Senate rules into their own unruly hands for nefarious purposes.


----------



## SuperMatt

Texas is less than 1% margin with close to 10 million votes counted....


----------



## SuperMatt

People at my condo building set up a screen and projector on the shared courtyard to watch CNN results outside....


----------



## JayMysteri0

Win or lose, the damage is done
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323818529523716096/

And...
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323810992711753730/
Because...


----------



## lizkat

North Carolina is quite close with not that many votes outstanding... so far Biden ahead but not by much of a margin.


----------



## JayMysteri0

The 'it should be comedy, but isn't" break...
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323820771098189824/


----------



## JayMysteri0

Well, here's one relief
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323821521014525953/


----------



## lizkat

Nate Silver commenting on a Chris Christie prediction in Ohio that only slightly favors Trump (which polls did forecast...  and Silver then suggesting that if their forecasts of key states continue to hold up pretty well, Biden will probably take Pennsylvania.


----------



## SuperMatt

Why do some states count their votes quickly and some take forever?


----------



## SuperMatt

It is past the bedtime for Pennsylvania vote counters I guess:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323820689598615553/


----------



## lizkat

SuperMatt said:


> Why do some states count their votes quickly and some take forever?





Because

their rules differ on when they can release counts publicly,

because they have different vote-casting machinery,

because they have different requirements and manner of reconciling registry and actual votes cast (and provisional ballots are sometime treated differently especially if they replace previously requested absentee ballots),

because they have different rules for when absentee ballots can be opened, counted, validated.

[ and because the fill-in-your-choice-of-party vote thieves take awhile to get their cheat on? ]

That last one is largely a satirical remark with respect to what goes on on Election Day because it's actually pretty hard to mess with vote counts in any precinct.

What goes on with respect to voter suppression, on the other hand, is a whole other game.  And it's not Democrats who hope for low turnout, and not Democrats arguing against leniency on dates of return of mailed ballots due to covid-19 plus Louis DeJoy's shenanigans.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

I have belatedly arrived at the realisation that I really and truly have come to hate the South.

Politically, culturally, historically.


----------



## JayMysteri0

JayMysteri0 said:


> Bust out your Bugs Bunny / Florida gifs





SuperMatt said:


> Foreigners from oppressive communist countries (Cuba and Vietnam) bought the “Biden is a communist” baloney hook, line, and sinker... sadly. I think it sounds like that’s what happened in Florida.





> How Latinos in Miami-Dade County helped Trump win Florida
> 
> 
> Biden needed to win big in Miami-Dade County. But Trump ate into his margins among Latinos.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com





> Vice President Joe Biden performed significantly worse in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, falling short of the big margins he almost certainly needed to win Florida — President Donald Trump’s adopted home and a historical bellwether of who has won presidential contests.
> 
> Hillary Clinton won the county by a 30-point margin in 2016. But Trump sought to make inroads this year among Latino voters in the area, in particular among Cuban Americans who have historically leaned more Republican than Latinos from other countries of origin, embittered by John F. Kennedy’s withdrawal of support for an operation against dictator Fidel Castro at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs decades ago.
> 
> Preliminary data suggests that Trump’s efforts paid off: With 86 percent of precincts reporting, Biden’s lead had shrunk to just 9 percentage points in Miami-Dade County, and Trump had improved his margins among precincts in the county, where Cubans make up more than a quarter of the electorate by nearly 14 points, according to the New York Times. Those gains — and Biden’s failure to make up for those losses in other parts of the state — were significant enough to tip Florida in the president’s favor in a tight contest.





> The Trump campaign had spent months investing heavily in eroding Biden’s margins in Florida, casting him as a socialist and capitalizing on the fears of Latinos from failed socialist regimes. (Biden has run as a center-left moderate, and even Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s brand of democratic socialism has little relationship to the regimes in Cuba and Venezuela.)
> 
> Trump ran Spanish-language ads, which began airing in Florida as early as June, likening Biden to ruthless Latin American caudillos like Castro or Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
> 
> 
> One 30-second ad, narrated by a Cuban actress, paints Biden and the Democrats as extremists, playing images of Cuban refugee flights, a 2015 photo of Biden with Maduro in Brazil, and a red flag emblazoned with an image of Che Guevara, the communist Cuban revolutionary.
> 
> What’s more, disinformation campaigns have permeated Florida Latinos’ WhatsApp chats, Facebook feeds, and radio programs, falsely claiming, for example, that Biden has a pedophilia problem.
> 
> Trump’s performance with Latinos in Florida isn’t necessarily predictive of how he will fare with Latinos nationwide. In Florida, Latinos’ political leanings are particularly diverse, with populations hailing from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Mexico, and from other parts of Latin America. In other states with large Latino populations, including Texas and Arizona, Mexicans make up the vast majority of Latino voters and trend more Democratic.
> 
> In September, there were warning signs that the Biden campaign had “work to do” with Latinos, as his senior adviser Symone Sanders admitted. Democrats sounded the alarm in the media, again and again.
> 
> “It seems like the Latino vote is not being taken seriously,” Chuck Rocha, a former senior campaign adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders, told Vox at the time. “Latino organizations are still not being funded to get out the vote and to maximize our input. Why are we spending 99 cents of every dollar on white suburban voters and not on Black or brown voters?”


----------



## Alli

SuperMatt said:


> People at my condo building set up a screen and projector on the shared courtyard to watch CNN results outside....



Hrmm...my brother and sister-in-law were visiting friends earlier where they were doing that. But they got tired and depressed and went home.

Frankly, I don’t know how any of us are still watching. It’s all so depressing. I don’t know what I’m going to do.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Physically ill part 2


> Lindsey Graham has defeated Jaime Harrison, keeping his South Carolina Senate seat
> 
> 
> The Republican won a tight race over Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com


----------



## Joe

America is doomed.


----------



## Alli

JagRunner said:


> America is doomed.



But what can we do? Where can we go?


----------



## Joe

I just can’t believe this many people think Trump is doing a good job enough to vote for him. We have so many problems in this country.


----------



## Edd

Little soon for doom talk, although Graham winning is disappointing.

I hear Portugal is nice.


----------



## SuperMatt

Democrats blew it in Florida. Somehow calling Mexicans rapists made them vote for Trump? Or maybe Dems overestimated how much latinos would hate Trump with his anti-immigrant rhetoric. It seems like many recent immigrants have quickly become anti-immigration... for any new immigrants.


----------



## Alli




----------



## SuperMatt

Edd70 said:


> Little soon for doom talk, although Graham winning is disappointing.
> 
> I hear Portugal is nice.



Dems in SC probably never had a chance... I think that was all wishful thinking.


----------



## SuperMatt

If Trump wins re-election, I think I’m done with politics forever.


----------



## SuperMatt

Some voters are dumb. In some areas, a majority of them are.









						Georgia Republican who supports QAnon wins US House seat
					

A Republican congressional candidate who expressed racist views and support for QAnon conspiracy theories has won a U.S. House seat representing northwest Georgia




					abcnews.go.com


----------



## lizkat

Scepticalscribe said:


> I have come to the realisation that I really and truly have come to hate the South.
> 
> Politically, culturally, historically.




Well I'm not at all fond of the fact that we in the USA have never acknowledged we need a truth and reconciliation process to wind up our first godblasted Civil War.

It's one thing to have a revolution and quite another to attempt to dissolve a federated republic....  and then both sides go on for over a hundred years glossing over the damage with different sets of ideas on who the injured parties really were, who they still are and how to bind up our wounds? 

We are living proof these days that this approach does not work.

But leaving that aside and staying in the now,  even while acknowledging our difficulties in not having resolved some of that stuff,  then we throw in a Donald Trump to bring the racists out of the woodwork?  Great.  Like he was ever going to help us _move forward as a nation_, in any sense of that phrase.

So if we want to get down to brass tacks on modern culprits,  it goes back to this horrible, corrupted remnant of the GOP and their craven bargain with the devil: accepting a Donald Trump as their standard bearer in order to eke out another few years of power before either changing demograpics or an unsustainable economic model just wipes the Republican Party out and possibly takes the nation with it.  These guys in this version of the GOP don't care.  They care about right here, right now,  this gotcha, this scrabble to stay in power for its own sake and for the conviction that greed, hey it still works for some of us.

The question is why does this GOP with all its atrocious behavior on shameless display still have so many followers?   Tax cuts and dereg are enough for some of us and hang the example Trump sets for future generations of Americans?  Or... people just don't get it because all the ugly chickens the Trump admin's eggs have hatched out simply haven't come home to roost?

 I mean Trump is not on the side of ordinary people. Yet tonight we see plenty right-leaning voters apparently voting for Trump again.  I will be interested to see the demographic breakout by gender, race, education, religion when this election is over.

Still there are lots of mail ballots outstanding in states that don't count them ahead of Election Day, or that allow them to be accepted in for counting quite awhile after today.

Wish I could see how individual GOP Congressmen themselves have voted in this presidential election.  I wonder if some loathe him enough to vote for Joe Biden,  even as they refused to distance themselves publicly from Trump's remarks this week that seemed to give the green light to Trump fans as some of their road rallies turned into violence against political opponents.


----------



## Edd

I drank a lot today, but couldn’t catch a proper buzz because it’s all too serious. Caught a two hour nap this evening. I may have to pour some wine and ride this out. Bottle of Ambien on standby if I have to bail.


----------



## SuperMatt

lizkat said:


> Well I'm not at all fond of the fact that we in the USA have never acknowledged we need a truth and reconciliation process to wind up our first godblasted Civil War.
> 
> It's one thing to have a revolution and quite another to attempt to dissolve a federated republic....  and then both sides go on for over a hundred years glossing over the damage with different sets of ideas on who the injured parties really were, who they still are and how to bind up our wounds?
> 
> We are living proof these days that this approach does not work.
> 
> But leaving that aside and staying in the now,  even while acknowledging our difficulties in not having resolved some of that stuff,  then we throw in a Donald Trump to bring the racists out of the woodwork?  Great.  Like he was ever going to help us _move forward as a nation_, in any sense of that phrase.
> 
> So if we want to get down to brass tacks on modern culprits,  it goes back to this horrible, corrupted remnant of the GOP and their craven bargain with the devil: accepting a Donald Trump as their standard bearer in order to eke out another few years of power before either changing demograpics or an unsustainable economic model just wipes the Republican Party out and possibly takes the nation with it.  These guys in this version of the GOP don't care.  They care about right here, right now,  this gotcha, this scrabble to stay in power for its own sake and for the conviction that greed, hey it still works for some of us.
> 
> The question is why does this GOP with all its atrocious behavior on shameless display still have so many followers?   Tax cuts and dereg are enough for some of us and hang the example Trump sets for future generations of Americans?  Or... people just don't get it because all the ugly chickens the Trump admin's eggs have hatched out simply haven't come home to roost?
> 
> I mean Trump is not on the side of ordinary people. Yet tonight we see plenty right-leaning voters apparently voting for Trump again.  I will be interested to see the demographic breakout by gender, race, education, religion when this election is over.
> 
> Still there are lots of mail ballots outstanding in states that don't count them ahead of Election Day, or that allow them to be accepted in for counting quite awhile after today.
> 
> Wish I could see how individual GOP Congressmen themselves have voted in this presidential election.  I wonder if some loathe him enough to vote for Joe Biden,  even as they refused to distance themselves publicly from Trump's remarks this week that seemed to give the green light to Trump fans as some of their road rallies turned into violence against political opponents.



Hitler was very popular. That kind of leader can, sadly, be quite appealing to people unhappy with their lot in life. Trump didn’t lose many GOP faithful because of abortions and the courts... but he gained disaffected blue-collar workers by appealing to their base instincts.


----------



## Alli

I have overindulged completely. I will probably have trouble falling asleep and will wake up angry. Unless things turn around before I go to bed.


----------



## SuperMatt

Alli said:


> I have overindulged completely. I will probably have trouble falling asleep and will wake up angry. Unless things turn around before I go to bed.



I don’t think there will be definitive results tonight. Pennsylvania vote-counters went to bed and start again tomorrow morning.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

SuperMatt said:


> Democrats blew it in Florida. Somehow calling Mexicans rapists made them vote for Trump? Or maybe Dems overestimated how much latinos would hate Trump with his anti-immigrant rhetoric. It seems like many recent immigrants have quickly become anti-immigration... for any new immigrants.






SuperMatt said:


> Dems in SC probably never had a chance... I think that was all wishful thinking.




My own personal view is that such places were never going to vote for anything remotely progressive.

But, how 40 plus million people (and counting as of now) can consider supporting that corrupt, cruel, and monstrously incompetent, malignant narcissist leaves me lost for words.


----------



## Alli

SuperMatt said:


> I don’t think there will be definitive results tonight. Pennsylvania vote-counters went to bed and start again tomorrow morning.



Oh, they’re not going to bed. They’ll be up all night counting and recounting. Dotting every i and crossing every t.


----------



## lizkat

Edd70 said:


> I drank a lot today, but couldn’t catch a proper buzz because it’s all too serious. Caught a two hour nap this evening. I may have to pour some wine and ride this out. Bottle of Ambien on standby if I have to bail.




There are a shed load of votes that will not be totalled up for weeks, and some key states including Pennsylvania are among them...   not saying we can't see a winner sometime in the wee hours ahead, but my take on even compelling election nights is that when it's time to go to bed, it's time to go to bed and I'll take my chances that the absence of my attention won't derail the nation and send it over a cliff.  

So far I'm still buzzed on coffee I drank at the unusual hour (for me) of 6pm, so I'm good for awhile yet.  I do feel though somewhat like I used to feel when peering down past the end of a subway station into the tunnel and waiting for train lights to appear.  Not that I really believed I could make the train show up any faster, just that it might not be totally out of the realm of possibility.    OK you can laugh now, I'm taking a snack break.


----------



## lizkat

Alli said:


> I have overindulged completely. I will probably have trouble falling asleep and will wake up angry. Unless things turn around before I go to bed.




We were warned to be patient.  A lot of states have a lot of mail ballots out and lenient time frames for return.  Biden will rack up a huge popular vote margin even if his electoral margin is pretty skinny.  We just don't know yet...


----------



## SuperMatt

It’s pretty sad that everybody knows Biden will win the most votes, but we have to go through all these f-ing shenanigans to see who our president will be. If we get ANOTHER 4 years of a minority president, it’s going to be big trouble for America. We need to kill the electoral college.


----------



## Edd

For my own slice of the world I’m pleased NH went for Biden. World still makes a little sense. 

C’mon Maine, give Collins the boot.


----------



## JayMysteri0

I stopped looking at Twitter finally.  Checked Vox one more time.



> Live results for the 2020 presidential election
> 
> 
> Follow live results for the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com




I've already had my European friends tell me to get this right, as if I had a say.  I voted a month ago, there isn't more I can do.

And so we cracked the Plum wine open.  Which means it's time to chill with some music and lights, and deal with a new world tomorrow.


----------



## JayMysteri0

My bad, I did take one more look at Twitter

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323826506540503041/

YOU GO!!!

+

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323818876564463616/


----------



## lizkat

SuperMatt said:


> It’s pretty sad that everybody knows Biden will win the most votes, but we have to go through all these f-ing shenanigans to see who our president will be. If we get ANOTHER 4 years of a minority president, it’s going to be big trouble for America. We need to kill the electoral college.




Well I think we should at least kill the winner-takes-all approach to allocation of a state's electoral votes.    It's obvious by now that even in a concession to the idea of "rural" and "urban" regional differences,  there's no such thing now as a quantifiable set of state or regional voting interests in some of the flyovers in the heartlands, where urban voters are not of the same politics as those in the agricultural areas. 

Same even in other states, like New York, where it's commonly said that upstate is conservative and downstate is liberal:  it's much more finely tuned than that, and an array of congresscritters along the political spectrum upstate and down does prove that.  Even as I write this post,  one borough of Trump's oft-reviled New York City is predictably voting to elect that same Donald Trump to a second term...

So before kicking out the electoral college entirely, maybe we should first look at a more proportional allocation of a state's electoral votes according to popular votes, either as a whole,  by congressional district or some combination thereof.  It's the way some states do that right now.

 Sure, it may be a way of nudging ourselves towards more of a parliamentary construction of government in the long run, because it may well jack up the possibility of third parties ending up with congressional seats, and so complicate other federal government assumptions that are now made about "majority" versus "minority" powers...  but I'm not sure that's a bad idea either. It still keeps the focus on the people of the USA consenting actively and more effectively to representation in our self-governance.

In the era of Donald Trump,  we found out that the winner of the 2016 electoral college votes ended up believing there was no need to take into account the wishes of "the other side" at all.  It's *half the country*'s voting population that he's been dissing for four years and unlike his assertions, that half of the country's folks are not all located in blue states. So WTF is that about? That is not how the American presidency was envisioned, no matter the fact that the framers of our Constitution meant to give that executive office extensive and flexible powers.


----------



## lizkat

JagRunner said:


> America is doomed.




Not quite.  Maybe a good night's sleep or a week on a beach would be a good idea about now.

At least Hickenlooper has won Cory Gardner's seat in the US Senate for Colorado.

Helping make the Senate margin skinnier for McConnell may be a half-loaf but it's something and the rest of the Senate races deemed competitive are not all over yet either.


----------



## lizkat

Watching MSNBC at the moment, apparently Biden is going to speak in a little while at drive-in rally in Wilmington,,,, doubtless to encourage his supporters to remain patient while the vote counts continue in days ahead.

Meanwhile assorted outlets are suggesting Minnesota wil indeed go to Biden.


----------



## Edd

Picked up the AZ Senate seat. Little wins.


----------



## lizkat

Georgia still looks like a lean-to-Biden.  The count has quit for the night but before that happened, enough of a look at Atlanta came in to make Georgia stay viable for Biden with a shedload of Atlanta votes still to go, and predictably blue at that.  The NYT moved their needle on the forecast for Georgia into blue territory from tossup...


----------



## lizkat

And so, Biden having concluded his remarks and Trump apparently feeling compelled to say something as well, we move on.  And of course he's not mincing words, he's.. uh... winning?


----------



## Edd

Dang, Collins has a solid lead. Fuckin Maine is killing me.


----------



## Huntn

Going to bed at 12:30 Central and...
This appears grim to me. 

​


----------



## lizkat

^^ Nah...  here are some bright spots per Five Thirty Eight:


----------



## lizkat

There's still a lot of Michigan on tap...   and Georgia's even still looking to be in play.





It's no landslide scenario but Biden's going to carry the day in the end.  If he does take Pennslvania, which could take quite awhile to determine, that's pretty much game over if the rust belt margins hold up ok.

I can't wait to see the breakouts though.   There may have been some shy Biden voters but it also looks like there were truckloads of shy Trump voters in 2020.   The latter doesn't surprise me because actually saying you're a Trump fan in some circles would raise eyebrows for sure, so it's easier to sigh and say something deflective like "they're all the same"...  which we know is BS.

What does surprise me though is the indicated actual margins in some states that were forecast for (and have been called for) Trump.  I expected some of those margins to be smaller wins for Trump in 2020 and I think so did some of the polling in advance of the election.

Still, Biden's pop vote margin will exceed that of Clinton's and I do still believe he'll win the electoral vote.


----------



## lizkat

Honestly you can't even make this sh^t up, best to let Trump try telling the truth for a change?


----------



## lizkat

The Squad is forecast to retain their House seats.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323870575383748608/


and further:

Democratic Senator Tina Smith has won re-election in Minnesota -- call by ABC News, which also calls the state for Biden...  which in turn has good implications for Michigan and Wisconsin.

ABC also calls Nebraska 2nd district for Biden, which is huge..  means if Biden also takes Arizona he's pretty much assured of winning the presidency without Pennsylvania as long as the rust belt holds for him -- meaning Wisconsin and Michigan now, since he has Minnesota.    

And on that note I'm calling it a good start to Wednesday, the coffee from 6pm has finally worn off and I've got just enough wakefulness to find the stairwell if I look for it inside of about 2 minutes.  'Night all.

*Nope... wait up...  the AP just called Arizona for Joe Biden.    WOW.   First time since 19fucking48 that a Dem candidate for president has won that state.   YOWZA !!*


----------



## lizkat

Analytical tweet of a very young day:   the "drift" is hard to decipher so far.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323876679568162823/


----------



## Arkitect

Good morning!

Had a quick look at he latest results.

Well, it's going to be close. Still my hope springs eternal for Biden.

BTW, did Trump really claim victory? That is insane.


----------



## lizkat

Trump has done the predictable stand-up-and-lie spiel in the wee hours of Nov 4:





__





						With millions of votes still to be counted, Trump falsely asserts fraud and makes a claim of victory
					





					www.msn.com
				





He said he wants to go to the supreme court because "we want all voting to stop"...  mind you all voting stopped when the last polls closed in Alaska yesterday...

... and other garbage.   Anchors and pundits and others are calling Trump out on it, reminding that voting and counting votes are two different things, etc.

  Chris Wallace called it throwing a match on a flammable situation...  even Chris Christie who coached Trump for debates said that Trump's speech was bad political strategy.

Well now I'm going to bed because I've heard it all lol.


----------



## User.45

GA will be ridiculously close:
As of 4AM today, there are ~231K votes to be counted, with a 102K Trump lead. BUT, the vast majority of the votes to be counted are coming from Atlanta, and Augusta, all with strong Biden leads. 
DeKalb has 63K more votes to count, and it's with a 67% Biden edge (projected 42K vote differential)
Fulton has 110K more votes, 45% Biden edge (projected vote differential 50K)
Clayton has 19K outstanding votes, 71% Biden edge (projected vote differential 13K)
Augusta has 15K outstanding votes, 37% Biden edge (projected vote differential 5K)

Very very close.


----------



## User.45

Penn is gone... Philly has onlly a potential to pick up ~200K, Biden. is behind by 600.


----------



## User.45

NC with 95% processed has 283K outstanding votes, a 77K Trump edge and no deep wells for Biden votes. I consider NC gone.


----------



## User.45

Biden took over in Wi!


----------



## Arkitect

I do wish elections' results would be announced all at once.

This drip drip drip is akin to death by a thousand cuts.

All round the world our democratic systems are in need of reform.


----------



## User.45

Mi is weird; they have 1.23M outstanding votes, 487K in Wayne county (Detroit). 
Biden is down by ~217K votes, looking at Oakland, Kalamazoo, Ingham, there is no Michigan county with a deep enough reserve for Biden to individually flip stuff. That said it can still flip diffusely with counting of mail-in ballots.


----------



## User.45

Arkitect said:


> I do wish elections' results would be announced all at once.
> 
> This drip drip drip is akin to death by a thousand cuts.
> 
> All round the world our democratic systems are in need of reform.



Biden can win if he wins GA or MI. What's absurd is that right now GA looks more promising. Also, to date the senate looks worrisome. 46 Dem vs 47 Rep..


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323850479034634240/


----------



## User.45

JayMysteri0 said:


> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323850479034634240/






fixed your emoji


----------



## JayMysteri0

PearsonX said:


> View attachment 1126
> fixed your emoji



I was still looking for a gif 

Also, there's always fine print
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323853634409517059/


----------



## JayMysteri0

Let's start with some good news
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323870972039016454/


https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323896436623364098/


----------



## JayMysteri0

Iowa still voted that fake @$$ 45 loving Ernst.  Iowa & Kentucky we need to talk.

On the other hand
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323930956961468416/

Still there's a way to go
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323861979212193792/

I feel a midday liquor run on the way...


----------



## Scepticalscribe

Arkitect said:


> I do wish elections' results would be announced all at once.
> 
> This drip drip drip is akin to death by a thousand cuts.
> 
> All round the world our democratic systems are in need of reform.




Better to have accuracy (which takes time) - and which would be more credible - than a rushed job of the counting that will be face subsequent legal challenges.

What stuns me, staggers me - no, stupefies me - is that so many people, voters, electors - knowing everything that they now know - still chose to vote for this moral monster.


----------



## Arkitect

Scepticalscribe said:


> What stuns me, staggers me - no, stupefies me - is that so many people, voters, electors - knowing everything that they now know - still chose to vote for this moral monster.



Yes. I look at the numbers and frankly I am aghast. I am stunned that so many are voting for, as you say, "this moral monster".

My faith in basic human intelligence is reaching rock bottom.


----------



## User.45

Good news, Biden is closing in on Trump in Mi.
Now only down 64K and 951.3K votes are still left to count. Of these 342 are coming in from the Motorcity, where Biden has a 36% edge... So if Biden keeps that, Detroit will give him a 123K vote edge over Trump and take the lead! Ingham, and Oakland have enough reserves to offset additional Trump votes...

There is hope on this godforsaken planet!


----------



## Scepticalscribe

Aghast barely begins to describe my appalled horror, @Arkitect.

You know, if Mr Biden wins, I think that we may have Covid to thank - even more than the increased turnouts of motivated women and people of colour.

Had Covid not happened - going on these numbers - I suspect that Mr Trump would have been on track for a comfortable return to office and would - I believe - have been re-elected relatively easily.


----------



## User.45

Scepticalscribe said:


> Aghast barely begins to describe my appalled horror, @Arkitect.
> 
> You know, if Mr Biden wins, I think that we may have Covid to thank - even more than the increased turnouts of motivated women and people of colour.
> 
> Had Covid not happened - going on these numbers - I suspect that Mr Trump would have been on track for a comfortable return to office and would - I believe - have been re-elected relatively easily.



Agree. I suspect it will be Detroit that brings the monster down.
(Mi now within 25K margin)


----------



## Thomas Veil

I  can’t believe this is even close. Dictator vs. democracy. It’s not hard, people.



lizkat said:


> Well I'm not at all fond of the fact that we in the USA have never acknowledged we need a truth and reconciliation process to wind up our first godblasted Civil War.
> 
> It's one thing to have a revolution and quite another to attempt to dissolve a federated republic....  and then both sides go on for over a hundred years glossing over the damage with different sets of ideas on who the injured parties really were, who they still are and how to bind up our wounds?
> 
> We are living proof these days that this approach does not work.



Well, this feeds into my belief that perhaps it’s time for the red and blue states to go their separate ways.

There’s a saying that we should let each man go to hell in his own way. That applies to states, too. I think our time would be better spent shoring up all the good parts of this country than continually squabbling with the bad.

I’d even say let the blue states have an immigration program for people from red states who want to relocate.


----------



## DT

Ugh.  I'm not sure I went to bed, the last 24 feels like one continuous shit show ...



Scepticalscribe said:


> What stuns me, staggers me - no, stupefies me - is that so many people, voters, electors - knowing everything that they now know - still chose to vote for this moral monster.




It's mind boggling.  2016, OK, "something new", Clinton baggage, <whatever>, voting for trump at least was an unknown - but now?  With the last 4 years as a reference?  And about 1/2 the country still votes for his deplorable POS?

I just can't even ...









						How to move to Canada and become a Canadian citizen
					

Many Americans joke that they want to move to Canada to escape the political circus. Here's how you actually do it.




					www.businessinsider.com


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Republican Politician Who Died of Covid-19 Wins Election in North Dakota
					

David Andahl, a Republican candidate for the North Dakota state legislature, won election on Tuesday, but the 55 year old won’t be taking office. Unfortunately, Andahl died of the coronavirus last month.




					gizmodo.com


----------



## JayMysteri0

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Republican Politician Who Died of Covid-19 Wins Election in North Dakota
> 
> 
> David Andahl, a Republican candidate for the North Dakota state legislature, won election on Tuesday, but the 55 year old won’t be taking office. Unfortunately, Andahl died of the coronavirus last month.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> gizmodo.com



Well, that explains ND.


----------



## Arkitect

DT said:


> *With the last 4 years as a reference?  And about 1/2 the country still votes for his deplorable POS?*



This. _Exactly_ this.

WTF is wrong with people?

50% of Americans really think he's doing a great job?

FFS!


----------



## Alli

PearsonX said:


> Biden can win if he wins GA or MI. What's absurd is that right now GA looks more promising. Also, to date the senate looks worrisome. 46 Dem vs 47 Rep..



Even if Biden eeks out a win and we retain the House, without the Senate, we can’t do anything.


Scepticalscribe said:


> What stuns me, staggers me - no, stupefies me - is that so many people, voters, electors - knowing everything that they now know - still chose to vote for this moral monster.



I am absolutely embarrassed to be counted in the same group as these people.


----------



## Joe

I think what we didn’t take into account is how many people are tired of covid and want to get back to a normal life and open everything up even it it kills people. A lot of people just don’t care about anyone but themselves.  I think they felt they would get that with Trump.

I never expected this many people to vote Trump after 4 years of his crap.


----------



## Eric

I'll just say that the fact that it's even this close is flat out disgusting, I've never been more ashamed of the country I live in.


----------



## rdrr

It really sickens me that over 65 millions Americans voted for this guy.  I can understand last go around, because there was no clear evidence of what Trump would be like as a President, (trying to give some credit here to some of the 2016 Trump voters).   However the past 4 years really showed his true colors.  

I really don't understand...   Why would people vote against their own interests?   I mean are there over 65 Million wealthy people out there?


----------



## Huntn

Huntn said:


> Going to bed at 12:30 Central and...
> This appears grim to me.
> 
> View attachment 1119​






lizkat said:


> ^^ Nah...  here are some bright spots per Five Thirty Eight:
> 
> View attachment 1120
> 
> 
> View attachment 1121




Woke up this morning to this, feeling like 2016 Deja vu:





...and this from the Head Shit Head:

Trump Prematurely Declares Victory As Millions Of Votes Are Still Being Counted​








						Trump Falsely Declares Victory As Millions Of Votes Are Still Being Counted
					

The president said he would go to the Supreme Court to declare him the winner, even though many battleground states have yet to release full results.




					www.yahoo.com
				




...and claims he will go to SCOTUS and ask that counting votes be stopped, which has zero precedence. And if for some reason that happens with the new balance in the Supreme Court, let the revolution begin.  

One more thing, the Electoral College has got to go. With Biden ahead by 2 million votes and Trump takes this, you can blame the EC for fucking us 3 times in a row, ensuring the degradation of the Nation. And one more thing, winner takes all does not serve a split country.

And finally what kind of Country are we? Basically half of us are choosing idiocy and corruption to lead us. I have never been more discouraged about the prospects for the USA than I am today. How can we possibly win when half the team are sheep, shysters, and morons?


----------



## JayMysteri0

Arkitect said:


> This. _Exactly_ this.
> 
> WTF is wrong with people?
> 
> 50% of Americans really think he's doing a great job?
> 
> FFS!



I've said it before.  After this election no matter who wins, it will be a time of serious reflection for the people of this country.

It will be a long while before anyone forgets that some wanted more of this administration and all the chaos & death it has wrought.

All the division, hate, and racism it has happily enabled, and many happily embraced.


----------



## Renzatic

rdrr said:


> I really don't understand...   Why would people vote against their own interests?   I mean are there over 65 Million wealthy people out there?




Beyond they very core of his constituency, that small concentration of voters who love Trump unconditionally, and honestly believe him to be the greatest president who ever lived, most people are voting less for him, and more for the letter behind his name.

There are people who insist on voting Republican, even if they otherwise hate the candidate. It's the reason why McConnell keeps winning in Kentucky, despite the fact that he's not exactly well loved by anyone.


----------



## rdrr

Renzatic said:


> Beyond they very core of his constituency, that small concentration of voters who love Trump unconditionally, and honestly believe him to be the greatest president who ever lived, most people are voting less for him, and more for the letter behind his name.
> 
> There are people who insist on voting Republican, even if they otherwise hate the candidate. It's the reason why McConnell keeps winning in Kentucky, despite the fact that he's not exactly well loved by anyone.



I think there is a bigger pool of Trump voters.  The "quiet" Trump supporter that doesn't want family, neighbors, friends knowing that they voted for Trump, because of the stigma that comes with him.   I feel sorry for those people, because you should be proud of your vote.


----------



## User.45

rdrr said:


> I think there is a bigger pool of Trump voters.  The "quiet" Trump supporter that doesn't want family, neighbors, friends knowing that they voted for Trump, because of the stigma that comes with him.   I feel sorry for those people, because you should be proud of your vote.



Not sure how I feel about them coming out.

BTW, Team. Everyone should chill. We'll get Trump removed and although it's somewhat disappointing, it is the first step to cure the psychosis. If we don't get the senate this time around, we'll get it at the midterms. 

I know it's hard to get stuff done without the senate, but removing Trump is the key for detoxication.


----------



## iMi

I think Biden will win by a hair. It’s definitely not a resounding victory. Senate looks very disappointing. House is safe. It’s alarming how many people have voted for a racist, lying impeached criminal. There is a serious problem in America. We’re facing a moral crisis.


----------



## User.45

iMi said:


> I think Biden will win by a hair. It’s definitely not a resounding victory. Senate looks very disappointing. House is safe. It’s alarming how many people have voted for a racist, lying impeached criminal. There is a serious problem in America. We’re facing a moral crisis.



Consider this an abusive relationship. The first step is always to get rid of the abuser and we are on track for that.


----------



## chagla

JayMysteri0 said:


> I've said it before.  After this election no matter who wins, it will be a time of serious reflection for the people of this country.
> 
> It will be a long while before anyone forgets that some wanted more of this administration and all the chaos & death it has wrought.
> 
> All the division, hate, and racism it has happily enabled, and many happily embraced.



No, after this election, I'm pretty convinced that things will be more polarized. Us vs them. If not with us, must be against us. Trumps win in 2016 kind of mobilized all hate groups, now they are empowered and invincible. That qanon fangirl won by a pretty large margin. So that says a lot. Lindsay and evil McConnell was also elected again. People needs someone or something to hate on. it draws attention away from real issues. This is what they like and trump provides that.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

ericgtr12 said:


> I'll just say that the fact that it's even this close is flat out disgusting, I've never been more ashamed of the country I live in.



With how close it is we've already lost as a country no matter who is sitting in the oval office in January.


----------



## Clix Pix

I can't believe how much of a nail-biter this has turned into!  I really thought that Biden | Harris would win by a huge margin,  and never expected this.....  Where did all of those people come from who voted for the Orange Man?   I suspect that yes, there is a group of people who very quietly went to the polls and voted for him but didn't make a big thing of it and didn't tell many people, especially friends and neighbors.....  ?? Others, of course, made no bones about which side they were on and those are the ones we've seen and heard, over and over, the ones proudly sporting MAGA hats and the like.      Sigh.....


----------



## DT

Huge number of ballots in South Florida not delivered.


----------



## lizkat

Renzatic said:


> Beyond they very core of his constituency, that small concentration of voters who love Trump unconditionally, and honestly believe him to be the greatest president who ever lived, most people are voting less for him, and more for the letter behind his name.
> 
> There are people who insist on voting Republican, even if they otherwise hate the candidate. It's the reason why McConnell keeps winning in Kentucky, despite the fact that he's not exactly well loved by anyone.




I might not have picked McConnell because he's a special case.  Any Senator has a lot of clout....   but a multi-term Senator who's a majority leader has more,  and one who managed to help the wealthy thread a needle to paradise for four years (with Trump erratically blocking the way once in awhile because he's so incompetent) and managed to pack the federal bench, prevent removal of an impeached head of state and shepherd three of that guy's picks onto the highest court?   Well such a one could practically annex a state next door for a shrine to accommodate the overflow wishing to worshipaccess his lordship...  yeah, and even if the worshippers are Russian oligarchs. 

I shipped a few bucks to McGrath but the only way she was going to get McConnell's seat is the only way she'll still get it any time soon, which is if McConnell's seat becomes vacant due to his declining health and the Kentucky governor Andy Beshar (a Democrat) is still in office and decides to appoint her.

But I completely agree w/ your assessment otherwise.   And the confusion that analysts have this morning when looking at outcome drift by party so far (either way) signals agreement also.  There are people who

just want to revive a Republican Party without Trump atop it, and​​people who just want the Senate to stay red because they prefer divided government and hoped Trump would get the boot but weren't sure of course and so sighed and went full on red in 2020,  and​​people who will almost always vote a particular party line because the other major party is the devil incarnate.​
The Trump fanatics --the road show rally groupies and the intimidating caravan artists, who may be somewhat disparate--  are clearly not in the first two categories and it's not entirely clear to me they're in the third one either.   They're *authoritarian followers*, to borrow the term from that book by Bob Altemeyer and John Dean, "Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers".... which is a pretty good read btw.

Past that, who the hell knows.  Whoever shows up at the polls to vote is motivated by something and it's not necessarily rational, or in self-interest, or in a perceived national interest either.  And a vote for Trump AGAIN that's not based in much more than a bird flung at "the establishment" -- which is now in fact Donald Trump's establishment--  amounts to  _"it's a free country, right?"_

Well, yeah.  Freedom to express political dissent is in fact one of the cornerstones of our brand of democracy, regardless of more particular provenance or any claim to rationality.

The problem with the authoritarian followers of a would be king of 'murica is that their idea of freedom is peculiar and doesn't leave room for dissent or disruption not created by themselves.  And Trump himself doesn't talk much about freedom in anything but a pro forma way in speeches he gives from a teleprompter.    He mostly talks about how he's persecuted and how his followers are persecuted and how mean everyone is to him and how he's gonna fix that, you watch.

I'll be happy at this point just to see Trump gone from the White House in January.  It means that administration including white supremacist policy advisor Stephen Miller gets swept outta there too.    There are a lot of concerns about a transition but at least it looks this morning like there will BE one.


----------



## User.45

DT said:


> Huge number of ballots in South Florida not delivered.



Filled out ballots?


----------



## lizkat

chagla said:


> No, after this election, I'm pretty convinced that things will be more polarized. Us vs them. If not with us, must be against us. Trumps win in 2016 kind of mobilized all hate groups, now they are empowered and invincible. That qanon fangirl won by a pretty large margin. So that says a lot. Lindsay and evil McConnell was also elected again. People needs someone or something to hate on. it draws attention away from real issues. This is what they like and trump provides that.






Chew Toy McCoy said:


> With how close it is we've already lost as a country no matter who is sitting in the oval office in January.




Y'all need to give the apparent President Elect a chance to try to shift gears here, no?

We've been gaslighted and tweeted at for four straight years by an amoral narcissist whose only waking thought past the need to update his enemies list is "what's in it for me?"

So it's been awhile since anyone patted us on the head and gave us a treat, yes?   Most of us are good dogs, not creatures too abused to do anything more than snarl in fear and rage

It will be time to hold the media's feet to the fire if they don't cover Biden-Harris more than they cover whatever antics Trump is up to after January 20.    Do they want to keep driving the wedges Trump planted amongst us or do they want to report news we can use.  We can use a fucking break from Trump Trump Trump on page one and top of all news oriented search engine results.


----------



## DT

PearsonX said:


> Filled out ballots?




Yep.  Mailed, and not delivered to the ballot processing location, just sitting in USPS storage somewhere.


----------



## User.45

lizkat said:


> We can use a fucking break from Trump Trump Trump on page one and top of all news oriented search engine results.



All for detoxication!

So now I see a chance that all my predictions coming true on the electoral race:
MI, WI, AZ, GA, and even PA as they have mail-ins left.

Senate is friggin confusing though. So Democrats have 48 seats I expect.
Collins could lose, if the remaining votes are predominantly mail ins. But that's very narrow.

Georgia will have a January run-off.

What happens if both parties get 50 seats?


----------



## User.45

DT said:


> Yep.  Mailed, and not delivered to the ballot processing location, just sitting in USPS storage somewhere.



I honestly think this election looks tighter because of the asymmetrical processing of mail-ins. The thing is, it has just been the right thing to push those rather than squeezing people into tight spaces during COVID. And this tells you a lot about who cares about what...


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

PearsonX said:


> What happens if both parties get 50 seats?




The Ark of the Covenant is brought into Congress where VP Pence will remove the lid, run his hands through the sand inside, and a long-overdue divine retribution is triggered to applause from around the world.


----------



## lizkat

PearsonX said:


> All for detoxication!
> 
> So now I see a chance that all my predictions coming true on the electoral race:
> MI, WI, AZ, GA, and even PA as they have mail-ins left.
> 
> Senate is friggin confusing though. So Democrats have 48 seats I expect.
> Collins could lose, if the remaining votes are predominantly mail ins. But that's very narrow.
> 
> Georgia will have a January run-off.
> 
> What happens if both parties get 50 seats?




That's where Kamala Harris gets to break ties.


----------



## User.45

lizkat said:


> That's where Kamala Harris gets to break ties.



Thoughts and prayers to Susan Collins' challenger then....


----------



## rdrr

DT said:


> Yep.  Mailed, and not delivered to the ballot processing location, just sitting in USPS storage somewhere.




Where are you seeing that?  I'd like to follow this story not asking for "proof".


----------



## Alli

PearsonX said:


> Senate is friggin confusing though. So Democrats have 48 seats I expect.
> Collins could lose, if the remaining votes are predominantly mail ins. But that's very narrow.
> 
> Georgia will have a January run-off.
> 
> What happens if both parties get 50 seats?



How Collins was not soundly defeated immediately defies rational thought.

If both parties get 50 seats we’d better pray Joe and Kamala have won so that Kamala breaks any ties.

Personally, I’m hoping for ill health for Mitch so that the Democrat governor can replace him.


----------



## Alli

A federal judge yesterday demanded that the USPS sweep 2 dozen district offices looking for misplaced ballots, which the postal service refused to do. The USPS has conceded that it was not processing mail at the normal rate. A judge is holding a hearing in Georgia as I type.


----------



## lizkat

Alli said:


> A federal judge yesterday demanded that the USPS sweep 2 dozen district offices looking for misplaced ballots, which the postal service refused to do. The USPS has conceded that it was not processing mail at the normal rate. A judge is holding a hearing in Georgia as I type.




Yeah they claimed they didn't have enough inspectors to get it done in the timeframe...  so hey the way to solve that is extend the timeframe for legit delivery of absentee votes.   That demand can be taken to court by the Dems.    It's hardball time for the guys wearing blue pinstripes too, not just for the actors with GOP lawyers.

As for the rest of us, now consigned to vote-counting-watch as a spectator sport, well honestly everyone was told up front and given details in god knows how many links that counting mailed-in ballots could take *weeks* in some cases.  It took weeks in NYS during the June primaries this year...

So we should take the advice that was handed out in advance by boards of election all over the country:  *be patient, please...  *and expect lawyers to get a lot of exercise while we wait.

I mean there are ballots that by longstanding election laws in some states that can still be accepted for counting if they arrive in almost mid-November.  And lots of states including NY have laws saying absentee ballots are counted AFTER in person voting ends and can't even be opened ahead of that time.

Sure, those may not enough to tip a presidency, but they all count towards the victory of one or another elective office, and someone went to the trouble to fill out the ballot and send it back in, and the various states acknowledge that in their election laws --and some states will take affadavits and ballots from in person voters and check the poll registry later to make sure an absentee ballot was in fact not received and counted.  All this gets bipartisan scrutiny from the election inspectors...   So there's a certain level of street theatre going on with some of the challenges being mounted now by the GOP regarding "late" absentee/mailed ballots.

Some states did recently change their election laws to accommodate concerns over covid-19.  For the GOP to be in court now challenging not just "late" ballots but the rule changes that made them timely -- the changes meant to keep people safe from covid-19 exposure while exercising their right to vote and acknowledging a potential disruption of usual ability to process far smaller numbers of mailed votes--    is certainly evidence to me that we need to revisit the Voting Rights Act.

Weird that SCOTUS recently chopped out of the VRA the requirement to have certain mostly southern states be federally overseen w/ respect to any changes in voting laws.  In my opinion the Roberts court was wrong about how we no longer need that oversight.  Anyone who delves into the details of Georgia vote suppression could see that without difficulty.  Whole studies have been done on vote suppression in that state alone.  *Here's info on one*.​
Anyway now it looks like it's not just in the South that the GOP is interested in voter suppression... they are still trying to swat legit absentee votes into foul ball territory by taking exception to local election rule changes specifically designed for this election's unusual and health-related circumstances.


----------



## iMi

We need to get rid of the electoral collage. It’s ridiculous that the election is this close with Biden leading in popular vote by nearly three million votes. 

We abolished slavery. It’s time to abolish an institution largely based on it.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Trump’s decisive winning vote is on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Why does nobody care about that laptop?!?!? The key to EVERYTHING IS ON THAT LAPTOP!! Hillary Clinton admitted to as much in an email sent from her toddler.fondler@gmail.com account she mostly just used for ordering pizza!!!!!


----------



## Arkitect

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Trump’s decisive winning vote is on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Why does nobody care about that laptop?!?!? The key to EVERYTHING IS ON THAT LAPTOP!! Hillary Clinton admitted to as much in an email sent from her toddler.fondler@gmail.com account she mostly just used for ordering pizza!!!!!



Now, you know I suspect that many Trump supporters might not think you're joking!
(Just realised I used "Trump Supporter" and "Think" in one sentence…) 
 
That Trump is this close to another 4 years speaks to that.


----------



## User.45

There goes the senate...








						Republican Senator Collins re-elected in Maine in setback for Democratic hopes
					

Republican Senator Susan Collins, an independent-minded moderate, won a surprise re-election victory in Maine on Wednesday, strengthening her party's chances of retaining control of the U.S. Senate.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## DT

rdrr said:


> Where are you seeing that?  I'd like to follow this story not asking for "proof".




Oh yeah, it's like Alli said, there's like ~7% of ballots that were postmarked, and are sitting in postal storage (some of them being in south Florida, don't recall what the actual counts were). I don't see how those can't be considered valid votes.

Some of the original Tweets have vanished, I was going to link those up.  Postal Ninja got to those users!


----------



## DT

PearsonX said:


> There goes the senate...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Republican Senator Collins re-elected in Maine in setback for Democratic hopes
> 
> 
> Republican Senator Susan Collins, an independent-minded moderate, won a surprise re-election victory in Maine on Wednesday, strengthening her party's chances of retaining control of the U.S. Senate.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.reuters.com




Yep, swell, even if Biden does get in, it'll be 4 years of inert government, honestly, fuck it at this point, let trump win and just burn it down, and we'll try to reset in 2024 ...


----------



## SuperMatt

I love to hate Susan Collins too, but she is somebody who might actually cross the aisle to pass legislation... not sure that will be possible with Mitch in charge though.

I read that there are only 300 votes left to count in Wisconsin... and yet nobody is "calling" the race yet? Even Trump knows he lost since he's asking for a recount. Pollsters weren't shy about predicting Biden, but news networks are very shy about calling any state that's not clearly decided.


----------



## User.45

DT said:


> Yep, swell, even if Biden does get in, it'll be 4 years of inert government, honestly, fuck it at this point, let trump win and just burn it down, and we'll try to reset in 2024 ...



Don't be so fatalistic. Having the WH is still better than having the senate but Trump wreaking havoc. 
Objective #1 will be completed: removal of Trump

Believe me, Trump's mojo is winning, so if he loses he'll fade out. He'll not be in good enough shape to even retry running in 2024. So consider 1 of the 2 venom teeth removed.
Also, 2022 there's gonna be 20 GOP and 12 Dem senate seats up for re-election, so we'll be in a good position to allow Biden to have Congressional AND Senate control.

Too bad that it will take longer to rebuild thanks to Mitch...but I'm not sure how long Mitch is gonna stick around either.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

DT said:


> Yep, swell, even if Biden does get in, it'll be 4 years of inert government, honestly, fuck it at this point, let trump win and just burn it down, and we'll try to reset in 2024 ...



You mean when the Republicans run Trump Jr and the Democrats run another establishment paperweight?

Here’s my prediction. Biden is so not a Socialist, but the DNC will blamestorm with “but they thought he was.” Then they’ll roll out another establishment Mr. Potato Head whose main platform revolves around not being named Trump. They’d probably have a better chance running Trumps’ disgruntled niece. They’ll claim that the country still really just wants a moderate despite the fact that the Trump administration successfully passed a southern border human hunting season and permits to extract combustible fuel from the bodies of non-white poor people. Keep fighting for mediocrity!


----------



## Eric

PearsonX said:


> There goes the senate...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Republican Senator Collins re-elected in Maine in setback for Democratic hopes
> 
> 
> Republican Senator Susan Collins, an independent-minded moderate, won a surprise re-election victory in Maine on Wednesday, strengthening her party's chances of retaining control of the U.S. Senate.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.reuters.com



I know Susan Collins has made some bad calls but I feel like she's someone who will work with you in a more balanced Senate.


----------



## Edd

Dumping Trump = priority #1. That gets rid of his administration. That gets heads of federal departments replaced. Eyes on the prize.


----------



## Eric

CNN just called Wisconsin for Biden.


----------



## DT

PearsonX said:


> Don't be so fatalistic. Having the WH is still better than having the senate but Trump wreaking havoc.
> Objective #1 will be completed: removal of Trump
> 
> Believe me, Trump's mojo is winning, so if he loses he'll fade out. He'll not be in good enough shape to even retry running in 2024. So consider 1 of the 2 venom teeth removed.
> Also, 2022 there's gonna be 20 GOP and 12 Dem senate seats up for re-election, so we'll be in a good position to allow Biden to have Congressional AND Senate control.
> 
> Too bad that it will take longer to rebuild thanks to Mitch...but I'm not sure how long Mitch is gonna stick around either.





Oh I agree, hahaha, I'm insanely positive, to a fault 

We need trump gone, FULL STOP.

We need this reset, a reasonable Administration, some rational discourse between semi-coherent, empathetic, human beings vs. this divisive shit show.


----------



## lizkat

SuperMatt said:


> I love to hate Susan Collins too, but she is somebody who might actually cross the aisle to pass legislation... not sure that will be possible with Mitch in charge though.
> 
> I read that there are only 300 votes left to count in Wisconsin... and yet nobody is "calling" the race yet? Even Trump knows he lost since he's asking for a recount. Pollsters weren't shy about predicting Biden, but news networks are very shy about calling any state that's not clearly decided.




There are other GOP Senators who may once again prove somewhat independent of their party's leadership on assorted legislative endeavors originating with Dems when it's not Trump looming over their perceived "screw-up" votes...   Sasse, Romney...
.
And look, Mitch McConnell is on record as having said he could work with Hillary Clinton in the White House.  He said that even knowing she would likely make some SCOTUS picks.  So he can certainly work with Biden.   And Wall Street will be happy to quit having to bake into every day's futures the possibility of a nuke-like Trump tweet in the wee hours when it's hard to wake up enough to make a buck off arbitrage in the ensuing chaos.

Part of McConnell's wariness of Trump aside from personal distaste for his ways was always about whether Trump would cross the aisle and cut randomly self-serving deals with the Democrats.   McConnell's not averse to doing that himself from within the Senate,  but with a rational political opponent in the White House, not a dubiously allied party comrade.

Sure I was hoping for more...  I still am...  there are lots of votes out there and a couple runoffs in January in Georgia.    But rose colored glasses aside,  yeah I'm shocked at how dismal it is that these elections are so close, the polls still missing some critically needed insight, and what a narrow miss it's turning out to be in the top slots regarding the disaster of a second term awarded to Trump.    I honestly don't think he'd last long in the office but I'm relieved to see it's almost certainly not going to be in the cards.

The big concern is keeping Trump on rails until January.  I could hope that McConnell will cooperate with Biden-Harris team as a kind of stand-in for the outgoing president during the transition.   There are probably a lot of officials who'd love to pull the plug early on Trump's official Twitter account... because that's the one thing no one seems able to constrain with any certainty, and he's able to work a lot of mischief from that account.

As for the rest of Trump's administration,  most but not all will probably cooperate with the Biden-Harris transition teams.   Their required allegiance is not to Trump but to the constitution in the end and they do have to try to round up another job in January.


----------



## DT

ericgtr12 said:


> CNN just called Wisconsin for Biden.




I'm eating cheese!


----------



## JayMysteri0

> What’s really going on with the mail-in ballots the US Postal Service can’t trace
> 
> 
> The case of the supposed 300,000 missing mail-in ballots isn’t what it seems.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com





> Several news outlets reported on Election Day that the United States Postal Service did not have records of delivery scans for 300,000 mail-in ballots across a dozen states, stoking fears that changes to the Postal Service implemented earlier this year by new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a top Trump donor, had potentially disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters.
> 
> But the president of the largest postal worker union corroborated in an interview with Recode on Wednesday morning what the Postal Service has repeatedly said about the data in court filings in recent days: There are numerous reasons why ballots in the days leading up to the election would not receive a delivery scan and that it’s highly unlikely that the number of undelivered ballots totaled anywhere near 300,000.
> 
> “Just because something didn’t have [a delivery scan] does not translate at all into ‘it was not delivered,’” Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, told Recode on Wednesday. (The APWU has previously been critical of operational changes DeJoy implemented earlier this year — and then put on pause — that its leaders say led to delivery delays.) “What we had in place … is the ballots were given such priority treatment, even beyond first-class treatment, that ballots were being purposely pulled out” of normal mail-processing procedures and given expedited delivery in the days leading up to Election Day.


----------



## Edd

DT said:


> I'm eating cheese!



The power of avatars. It’s a comment like this that truly sounds like it’s coming out of Bender’s mouth.


----------



## Eric

Edd70 said:


> The power of avatars. It’s a comment like this that truly sounds like it’s coming out of Bender’s mouth.



Indeed it does.


----------



## lizkat

C'mon Michigan...  it's lookin' good.  What's still out is absentee, and the ones of those that have come in are better than 2 to 1 for Biden.









						Michigan Presidential Election Results (Published 2020)
					

See full results and maps for the 2020 presidential election in Michigan.



					www.nytimes.com
				




What's weird to me in the age breakout so far is that it's the 30-44 age group went for Trump in Michigan.  So millennnials and the younger members of Gen X cohort.  Not the seniors, and not the young nor the 45-64 group either.   Maybe that's not weird but it speaks to deluded expectations of Donald Trump in a second term if the reason was actually economic.


----------



## Edd

ericgtr12 said:


> Indeed it does.



Unnecessary bro.


----------



## Edd

lizkat said:


> C'mon Michigan...  it's lookin' good.  What's still out is absentee, and the ones of those that have come in are better than 2 to 1 for Biden.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Michigan Presidential Election Results (Published 2020)
> 
> 
> See full results and maps for the 2020 presidential election in Michigan.
> 
> 
> 
> www.nytimes.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What's weird to me in the age breakout so far is that it's the 30-44 age group went for Trump in Michigan.  So millennnials and the younger members of Gen X cohort.  Not the seniors, and not the young nor the 45-64 group either.   Maybe that's not weird but it speaks to deluded expectations of Donald Trump in a second term if the reason was actually economic.



When it comes to that demographic I start thinking about militia groups and perhaps militia-lite types...like, you know, they’re not shooting anyone but they sure are a fan of being white males in “America”, as these douchebags would never call it the “U.S.”.


----------



## Yoused

The headline you never thought you would see:

*United States Risks Sanctions from Zimbabwe If Elections are not Free and Fair*​


----------



## User.45

DT said:


> Oh I agree, hahaha, I'm insanely positive, to a fault
> 
> We need trump gone, FULL STOP.
> 
> We need this reset, a reasonable Administration, some rational discourse between semi-coherent, empathetic, human beings vs. this divisive shit show.



We are actually winning here. I know we hoped for obliteration (I sure did), but hey, just think about the time when we can ignore Trump's tweets because they'll stop carrying any weight or relevance. Hell, just imagine the moment Twitter's EUA will start applying to him again and he finally gets banned.

Or when his family's shady dealings will be uncovered and that dynasty he's so hopeful to build will crumble.

Guys, life is good. We'll fix this national psychosis one day at a time.


----------



## rdrr

Yoused said:


> The headline you never thought you would see:
> 
> *United States Risks Sanctions from Zimbabwe If Elections are not Free and Fair*​



Actually we have become the Sh*thole country.


----------



## SuperMatt

If Biden wins Michigan (looks like he already has other than officially) along with Nevada and Arizona, it looks like 270 electoral votes exactly? So then even if he loses NC, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, he still wins....??? Is that real?


----------



## Edd

SuperMatt said:


> If Biden wins Michigan (looks like he already has other than officially) along with Nevada and Arizona, it looks like 270 electoral votes exactly? So then even if he loses NC, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, he still wins....??? Is that real?



Sounds close to right. Maybe add Maine on but maybe not.


----------



## JayMysteri0

SuperMatt said:


> If Biden wins Michigan (looks like he already has other than officially) along with Nevada and Arizona, it looks like 270 electoral votes exactly? So then even if he loses NC, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, he still wins....??? Is that real?



That's the belief.



> The election is close, but Biden’s prospects look better than Trump’s
> 
> 
> Trump still could win, but Biden appears to have the edge.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com





> Votes in the presidential election are still being counted, and it’s still possible for the race to go either way. However, there are encouraging signs for former Vice President Joe Biden in the states that have not yet been called.
> 
> It’s pretty simple: Biden has already taken the lead in *Michigan*, and he is expected to take the lead in *Pennsylvania* as well, as more mail ballots are counted. (He’s already been called the winner in *Wisconsin*, though there
> 
> 
> 
> may be a recount.) Those three states would be enough for Biden to top the 270 electoral votes needed to win, even if he loses every other state that has not yet been called.
> 
> Apart from the trio of key swing states, there are four other important states that have not yet been called — *Georgia *and *North Carolina* in the Southeast, and *Nevada *and *Arizona* in the West. Some combination of those states could become a backup plan of sorts for Biden if he doesn’t end up winning Pennsylvania.


----------



## Yoused

Interesting that the area where the campaign bus was besieged shows 3 counties voting blue on cnn's map


----------



## lizkat

SuperMatt said:


> If Biden wins Michigan (looks like he already has other than officially) along with Nevada and Arizona, it looks like 270 electoral votes exactly? So then even if he loses NC, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, he still wins....??? Is that real?




Yeah.   Try this, the NYT has some data up on what's thought to be left to count plus an interactives with paths left for the key states still out.

 Biden has more pathways...   it's almost over for Trump even regardless of his recount request for Wisconsin...  and possibly even if Trump takes PA,  which still has a couple MILLION votes out from Philly and near suburbs and was forecast to go late to Biden on mail-ins.









						Live: Where Presidential Votes Remain to Be Counted (Published 2020)
					

See the outstanding estimated vote to be counted in the 2020 presidential election.



					www.nytimes.com
				




for instance if Biden just takes Nevada now, w/ MI and AZ in bag,  Trump is done.


----------



## Renzatic

If Biden wins Nevada and Michigan, and keeps Arizona, all of which he's so VERY SLIGHTLY ahead in at the moment, then the election is his. He breaks 270.

Though if there's an upset, and 500,000 of the currently uncounted for votes end up swinging overwhelmingly in Biden's favor in Pennsylvania, then hey, more icing on the cake. Though I doubt that'll happen. It's slightly more likely Biden ends up taking Georgia and losing Penn, since he's only 80,000 votes behind here, and the remaining votes are from heavily Democrat districts. 

Either way, this election is down the razor's edge this year.


----------



## SuperMatt

From FiveThirtyEight.....

DAN HOPKINS
NOV. 4, 3:33 PM
With the latest updated votes in Pennsylvania, Trump’s raw lead drops below 400,000 votes. If the Secretary of State’s website accurately reflects outstanding mail ballots, there are roughly 1 million mail ballots still out, which excludes those that arrived most recently.

Sounds good for Biden...


----------



## SuperMatt

lizkat said:


> Yeah.   Try this, the NYT has some data up on what's thought to be left to count plus an interactives with paths left for the key states still out.
> 
> Biden has more pathways...   it's almost over for Trump even regardless of his recount request for Wisconsin...  and possibly even if Trump takes PA,  which still has a couple MILLION votes out from Philly and near suburbs and was forecast to go late to Biden on mail-ins.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Live: Where Presidential Votes Remain to Be Counted (Published 2020)
> 
> 
> See the outstanding estimated vote to be counted in the 2020 presidential election.
> 
> 
> 
> www.nytimes.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> for instance if Biden just takes Nevada now, w/ MI and AZ in bag,  Trump is done.
> 
> View attachment 1142



I like this tool - there are ways it can still be a tie, which would mean the House of Representatives would pick a president?


----------



## lizkat

SuperMatt said:


> From FiveThirtyEight.....
> 
> DAN HOPKINS
> NOV. 4, 3:33 PM
> With the latest updated votes in Pennsylvania, Trump’s raw lead drops below 400,000 votes. If the Secretary of State’s website accurately reflects outstanding mail ballots, there are roughly 1 million mail ballots still out, which excludes those that arrived most recently.
> 
> Sounds good for Biden...




It does indeed.

But of course a cornered rat is more dangerous than ones with a few open paths in a maze. and Trump is pretty much down to getting Pennsylvania or packing his bags and scaling the wall he built around the WH on Inauguration Day to get to the helo waiting on the lawn.... unless the transition team is nice and takes a wall down for him on January 20.

I bet the Dems AND the Republicans have election lawyers from one end of Pennslvania to the other but mostly in Philadelphia counting houses.

And I'm back to playing Springsteen's *Streets of *_*Philadelphia*_ on a repeat loop.


----------



## lizkat

SuperMatt said:


> I like this tool - there are ways it can still be a tie, which would mean the House of Representatives would pick a president?




Hah, yeah.  Wouldn't that be an extra kick for the latest chapters in our history books.

But those chances are pretty slim.  The votes out in PA now will tilt strongly to Biden and he's down by fewer than half a million now with a couple million to go.  We might not know the results until Friday.   But Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin counters are not sitting on their hands in the meantime and so Pennsylvania's starting to look like a one-stop-but-door-closed shop for The Don.


----------



## lizkat

Would someone please post a GIF of Bugs Bunny sawing Florida off the US map?  I feel that this thread and apparently most US prez election threads in recent times would be incomplete without one of those.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> You mean when the Republicans run Trump Jr and the Democrats run another establishment paperweight?
> 
> Here’s my prediction. Biden is so not a Socialist, but the DNC will blamestorm with “but they thought he was.” Then they’ll roll out another establishment Mr. Potato Head whose main platform revolves around not being named Trump. They’d probably have a better chance running Trumps’ disgruntled niece. They’ll claim that the country still really just wants a moderate despite the fact that the Trump administration successfully passed a southern border human hunting season and permits to extract combustible fuel from the bodies of non-white poor people. Keep fighting for mediocrity!



Not that I'm saying you're wrong and we don't need a more radical candidate, but I'm not convinced of it either. You could very well lose more Democrats and Independents than you pick up.

The problem is not so much that Democrats aren't radical enough (though I'd like to see them edge that way). It's that four decades of right wing propaganda has convinced Republicans and many independents that Democrats are socialists, baby-eaters, etc. You have to search far and wide to find a Republican that has a proper sense of proportion anymore. They're almost all on the radical side.



lizkat said:


> ...And look, Mitch McConnell is on record as having said he could work with Hillary Clinton in the White House.  He said that even knowing she would likely make some SCOTUS picks.  So he can certainly work with Biden.   And Wall Street will be happy to quit having to bake into every day's futures the possibility of a nuke-like Trump tweet in the wee hours when it's hard to wake up enough to make a buck off arbitrage in the ensuing chaos.



Pardon me if I say that sounds hopelessly naive.* I think the Republican party has moved radically to the right, McConnell included. He may or may not have meant what he said about Hillary, but never forget he's the guy who held hundreds of court seats open in the eight years Obama was president. Then there's someone (I think it was Eric Cantor) saying that they would make sure that no legislation, _nothing_, that Obama wanted to do would get passed.

* I'm not trying to be insulting here or to minimize your opinion, it's just that when I said that to one of our right wing trolls in The Old Country, I got dinged by a moderator, and it feels _so_ refreshing to actually be able to say it without fear or reprisal. 



Edd70 said:


> When it comes to that demographic I start thinking about militia groups and perhaps militia-lite types...like, you know, they’re not shooting anyone but they sure are a fan of being white males in “America”, as these douchebags would never call it the “U.S.”.



This, along with these asinine razor-thin margins, is one of the reasons I advocate for a clean divorce from Trumpland. When you are surrounded by so many neighbors with Trump flags on their homes, on their cars, everywhere but sticking out of their asses, well...this is not the America I know anymore. It feels, seriously, like I'm living among neo-Nazis.



Yoused said:


> The headline you never thought you would see:
> 
> *United States Risks Sanctions from Zimbabwe If Elections are not Free and Fair*​



Believe it or not, I welcome headlines like that. I've been of the opinion for a while now that if we put sanctions on other non-democratic countries, they should be put on us when we behave in a non-democratic way. I'm not against my country, but I do want to see Republicans get rattled when their authoritarian tendencies get out of control.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

The OSCE ODIHR Preliminary Report (Statement of Preliminary Findings) has just been issued. 

United States of America, General Elections, 3 November 2020: Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions http://www.osce.org/node/469437


----------



## Eric

lizkat said:


> Would someone please post a GIF of Bugs Bunny sawing Florida off the US map?  I feel that this thread and apparently most US prez election threads in recent times would be incomplete without one of those.



For you (and the rest of America).


----------



## Thomas Veil

lizkat said:


> Would someone please post a GIF of Bugs Bunny sawing Florida off the US map?  I feel that this thread and apparently most US prez election threads in recent times would be incomplete without one of those.





​Edit: Great timing.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Scepticalscribe said:


> The OSCE ODIHR Preliminary Report (Statement of Preliminary Findings) has just been issued.
> 
> United States of America, General Elections, 3 November 2020: Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions http://www.osce.org/node/469437



Haven't read it all yet, but these two parts particularly stand out to me:



> At the federal level, there have been no election-related legislative changes since the last elections, despite previous recommendations. Several bills relating to electoral security, voter registration and online advertisements were submitted to Congress, but none were adopted.8 The COVID-19 pandemic led to a plethora of state level amendments which would allow the elections to be held while protecting the health of voters and election administration officials. A significant proportion of these measures were challenged in courts, mostly by the Republican Party, resulting in protracted litigation seeking to maintain previous arrangements. This in turn produced a great deal of legal uncertainty even in the days leading up to the elections. Notwithstanding the imperatives of securing the election during a pandemic, the litigation of election processes so close to the election day and the attending legal uncertainty is contrary to international good practice, presents an additional burden on election administration and may ultimately result in some voters not being able to cast their ballots.9 (See also Complaints and Appeals).



and


> An estimated 5.2 million citizens are disenfranchised due to a criminal conviction, with many of them having already served their sentences.24 These restrictions disproportionately affect racial minorities and it is estimated that 1.3 million African Americans are unable to vote as a result of these policies. Convicted felons and those on parole are deprived of their voting rights in 48 States, while those convicted of a crime in Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia do not have their voting rights revoked.25 In Florida, following a referendum in 2018, an amendment was passed to the state’s constitution automatically restoring voting rights for an estimated 1.4 million former criminal offenders who had completed their sentence. However, the Florida state legislature enacted a law requiring citizens with past convictions to pay all court costs, fees and fines in full, as a condition to register to vote. Restrictions on voting rights of felons and ex-felons contravene principles of universal suffrage, and the principle of proportionality in the restriction of rights, as provided for by the OSCE commitments and other international standards.26


----------



## Scepticalscribe

I'm reading my way though it at the moment.


----------



## rdrr

CNN called Michigan, for Biden.


----------



## Joe

Trump has already filed lawsuits for PA, Michigan, and demanding recounts in WI


----------



## Eric

rdrr said:


> CNN called Michigan, for Biden.



If AZ and NV hold it's over.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

lizkat said:


> Their final report may end up more eye-opening...     here again is the link to their observations on the US election
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> General Elections, 3 November 2020
> 
> 
> Press conference  Following an invitation to observe the general elections scheduled for 3 November 2020 in the United States of America, based on the findings and conclusions of the Needs Assessment Mission deployed from 29 May to 5 June 2020, and in accordance with its mandate, ODIHR is...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.osce.org




Well worth a look.


----------



## rdrr

WTF????  Where are the police?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324096855735734279/


----------



## Eric

rdrr said:


> WTF????  Where are the police?
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324096855735734279/



Seriously, they need law enforcement there. Trump supporters are literally unhinged right now, they'll bust down the doors.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Thomas Veil said:


> Not that I'm saying you're wrong and we don't need a more radical candidate, but I'm not convinced of it either. You could very well lose more Democrats and Independents than you pick up.
> 
> The problem is not so much that Democrats aren't radical enough (though I'd like to see them edge that way). It's that four decades of right wing propaganda has convinced Republicans and many independents that Democrats are socialists, baby-eaters, etc. You have to search far and wide to find a Republican that has a proper sense of proportion anymore. They're almost all on the radical side.
> 
> 
> Pardon me if I say that sounds hopelessly naive.* I think the Republican party has moved radically to the right, McConnell included. He may or may not have meant what he said about Hillary, but never forget he's the guy who held hundreds of court seats open in the eight years Obama was president. Then there's someone (I think it was Eric Cantor) saying that they would make sure that no legislation, _nothing_, that Obama wanted to do would get passed.
> 
> * I'm not trying to be insulting here or to minimize your opinion, it's just that when I said that to one of our right wing trolls in The Old Country, I got dinged by a moderator, and it feels _so_ refreshing to actually be able to say it without fear or reprisal.
> 
> 
> This, along with these asinine razor-thin margins, is one of the reasons I advocate for a clean divorce from Trumpland. When you are surrounded by so many neighbors with Trump flags on their homes, on their cars, everywhere but sticking out of their asses, well...this is not the America I know anymore. It feels, seriously, like I'm living among neo-Nazis.
> 
> 
> Believe it or not, I welcome headlines like that. I've been of the opinion for a while now that if we put sanctions on other non-democratic countries, they should be put on us when we behave in a non-democratic way. I'm not against my country, but I do want to see Republicans get rattled when their authoritarian tendencies get out of control.




I did suggest in another thread (or maybe this one) that maybe we should just let the Republicans dig their own grave. Let them plow through all their scapegoat lies until it solves nothing and only the truth remains.

At this point I don’t see how the Republican party can remove itself from Trump. The close vote proves that. They are now merged and I fully expect them to embrace it. I’m tired of the Democrats devolving to the party of “winnable” candidates who don’t win and glacial pace incremental change. People’s lives aren’t going to improve. The steady decline of the middle class has been going on for decades and both parties are running out of excuses built on lies. I’d much rather have a far left (but not extreme left) party that runs on principles and maybe loses than a toothless moderate party that is nothing more than a speed bump to Trumpism.

I’d really like to know what the Democrats next big winning strategy is because this election, and not just on Trump, shows that they really have no clue what they are doing or working with. They’re bringing a knife to a tank battle. Seems the right has no problem supporting their radical candidates and 9 times out of 10 they don't have to whine about the left obstructing them because they just plow over the left.


----------



## lizkat

Thomas Veil said:


> Pardon me if I say that sounds hopelessly naive.* I think the Republican party has moved radically to the right, McConnell included. He may or may not have meant what he said about Hillary, but never forget he's the guy who held hundreds of court seats open in the eight years Obama was president. Then there's someone (I think it was Eric Cantor) saying that they would make sure that no legislation, _nothing_, that Obama wanted to do would get passed.




No offense taken...  Here's why I think what I think now. 

Biden is not Obama...  nor the right's perception of Obama either, which also matters.

McConnell has more than made good on his desired legacy from standpoint of his base.   He was ferocious about getting that third nomination to the high court secured and sworn in before the election.

Now I firmly believe he'd like to try to reclaim some rights to wear the senior statesman hat he used to be able to wear at least sometimes while Boehner was his counterpart in the House...  in short before the main aim of the then still ascending House Freedom Caucus became not only to win in legislative duels across the main aisle but to paste label of Republican in Name Only on all the old guard.

That old guard in the Senate, the one that included guys like Lugar and McCain, was the one that used to reach across party lines and into the lower chamber and remind the GOP's anti-tax and budget fanatics in the House that we had a duty to meet financial obligations that were already appropriated...  and so to avoid either default or shutting down the government and such antics.  McConnell several times cooperated in preventing a no-win shutdown or default. 

Boehner gave up and stood down;  he could not control his caucuses.  Ryan wasn't much better and even made a few enemies in his own house and over in the Senate just trying.

But see in the other house  McConnell didn't have to give up,   he was in the allegedly more deliberative chamber anyway,  and at the very least it was the one that still had a pack of rules always meant for shoving into the wheels of an unruly House.  What he did do was start playing more hardball across the aisle though.   It's not quite the image he had preferred to maintain although it didn't hurt him during Obama's time in office, and most people realized Trump was clueless on legislative details...  plus it's true it was always a GOP nightmare that Trump wasn't above just cutting a deal with Pelosi to look good if push came to shove on his approval ratings nationally.  McConnell never wanted to get in the middle of one of those gigs and went to some lengths to work around Trump to avoid it.

But McConnell has an opportunity now to shift gears and see what he can get done with Biden "for America" that is more bipartisan but not "an Obama thing"...   and he'll probably try to do exactly that.

Mitch McConnell is a world class cynic and pragmatist the likes of which some guy like Donald Trump could only hope to have the wit to emulate.    He's actually able to come off like an American patriot while sticking it to his opposition...  or at least carving some points off their take in a negotiation.  He's been doing it for decades now and he's definitely part of why the whole spectrum of Democratic Party politics has been shoved rightward even as it has become a thing to call any Dem initiative "socialist". 

But the thing is, see,  Joe Biden is neither Barack Obama with all the partisan baggage that that name and McConnell's party together summon up,   nor is Joe Biden an incompetent, selfish, ignorant thug like Donald Trump.   McConnell sized Biden up a long time ago.  Joe Biden is a former colleague and a peer, only now with a ton of respect from career service officials due to his having been Obama's veep,  and he has way more of a following in the general electorate than McConnell can ever hope for.  So I don't think we're gonna see gridlock in the 117th Congress at all.   It won't be a progressive dream though, that's for sure.


----------



## rdrr

ericgtr12 said:


> Seriously, they need law enforcement there. Trump supporters are literally unhinged right now, they'll bust down the doors.



And to prove your point...  Watch this knucklehead.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324096011753689089/


----------



## Scepticalscribe

I have just watched Mr Biden's remarks - intelligent, temperate, thoughtful, moderate, measured, mature, dignified and conciliatory.  And articulate.  And responsible.

And almost half of the population - knowing who he is, what he is, what he does and what he thinks - still voted for - still *chose* to cast a vote for - that other lunatic, that moral monster, that malignant narcissist?


----------



## lizkat

rdrr said:


> And to prove your point...  Watch this knucklehead.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324096011753689089/




And this is a sample of who voted for Trump?  Great.

_ Nice people to hang out with, I'm sure. /S_​
Joe Biden's a better person than I am if he manages to think inclusively about that guy...


----------



## SuperMatt

rdrr said:


> And to prove your point...  Watch this knucklehead.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324096011753689089/



That guy times 67 million = America 2020.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

lizkat said:


> And this is a sample of who voted for Trump?  Great.
> 
> _ Nice people to hang out with, I'm sure. /S_​
> Joe Biden's a better person than I am if he manages to think inclusively about that guy...




Yes, agreed.

He is setting an impressive ethical and moral standard - and example of political leadership - that I am not entirely sure I can meet, though I respect him hugely for wanting to do so.


----------



## SuperMatt

Trump trying to sound smart by using the word "hereby" - Twitter flagging is on the ball.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324108200141082624/


----------



## lizkat

Scepticalscribe said:


> I have just watched Mr Biden's remarks - intelligent, temperate, thoughtful, moderate, measured, mature, dignified and conciliatory.  And articulate.  And responsible.
> 
> And almost half of the population - knowing who he is, what he is, what he does and what he thinks - still voted for - still *chose* to cast a vote for - that other lunatic, that moral monster, that malignant narcissist?




Well it's clear we need not hold breath for the incumbent president of the United States to encourage his followers to be patient and await results of official counts of the 2020 vote.




SuperMatt said:


> That guy times 67 million = America 2020.




Yeah... well half the electorate less maybe 5 or 7 million by end of counting, probably.

It's pretty disappointing that so many voters still could stomach the idea of another term, even the start of another term, for Donald Trump.

So there's more than a little and volatile mix of anger and sadness for the USA in me today...   no matter how thrilled I'll be to see the moving vans hauling away whatever Trump should perhaps not really be taking with him from the WH to Florida.

But as long as Trump exits on January 20 and his staffers are ushered off the stage at that time,  I'll call it a safe reboot. We can all try to debug some of those Trump fan extensions later.

It will be important for Biden to acknowledge progressives' effort to really get behind the Democratic Party's nominee this year.   Many are really young and this was the first time they pitched in and saw results of their efforts and votes actually land a Dem in the White House.  If we want to keep that group in the big tent then the big tent makers better show intent to build a bigger tent platform going forward than they were willing to focus on --understandably enough, I think--  this time around.   By 2022 there better be some concrete lean in the DNC and in the incoming administration towards better accommodation of a progressive wing in the Democratic Party.   Folks like The Squad were not re-elected by the likes of some elderly pals of mine who may have voted straight Democratic tickets for the first time in their lives in 2020.   The Squad were re-elected handily by progressive Democrats.  Listen up, you old fogies in the DNC.  Joe's a nice guy and probably the man for this hour.   But time flies.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> ...At this point I don’t see how the Republican party can remove itself from Trump. The close vote proves that. They are now merged and I fully expect them to embrace it...



I do have to agree on this part. They will run Trump or Trump Jr. or some other lunatic in 2024.

The best thing that can happen is that a third party emerges. It'd be good for the Republicans _and_ the Democrats.



lizkat said:


> No offense taken...  Here's why I think what I think now.
> 
> Biden is not Obama...  nor the right's perception of Obama either, which also matters....



You could be right in everything you said. I guess the weeks and months ahead will tell.



rdrr said:


> And to prove your point...  Watch this knucklehead.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324096011753689089/



Christ on a cross... 



SuperMatt said:


> Trump trying to sound smart by using the word "hereby" - Twitter flagging is on the ball.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324108200141082624/



He "claims" states? Someone needs to tell him this isn't the NFL and these states are not on waivers.


----------



## hulugu

I remember when elections used to be fun. 

[Rant warning] 

This shit is ridiculous. I spent almost the entire day masked so my beard's all fucked up, I had multiple Republicans attempt to threaten me—lol, don't write checks you can't cash dipshits—and there wasn't any pizza in the newsroom, nor beers with the political types on Wednesday morning. 

[Harebrained analysis warning] 

So far, Arizona looks like a blue state, with major losses for the Republican party all over at the county and state-level. Also, really interesting shift in that two Latinas will earn a state-wide office, and an Indigenous woman just won a county office. Both firsts in state. (Yeah, I'm blown away by this too.) 

Meanwhile, Republican shit-weasels are spreading the dumbass theory that because some people used a sharpie their vote didn't count, so there's a movement to hand-count the ballots, and the state AG is going to "investigate" the issue. Note: election officials will duplicate any ballot that won't scan, or is otherwise damaged and will fix the issue, even if there's a double-vote or some other weirdness, rendering the whole thing moot. But, apparently Scott Baio thinks this is an issue, so we'll have to deal with this stupidity for days, weeks or months. 

Baio doesn't seem to give a shit that USPS got yelled at by a federal judge for not getting some ballots in, so this will extend the election out for months. 

Also, while AOC kicked ass in New York, North Carolina elected Madison Cawthorn—just by name, you know this guy's probably an asshole—a paraplegic knob who made sure to visit Hitler's Eagle's Nest on vacation. And, of course, QAnon jackass Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't get hit by a meteor, or some other act of god, so she too is heading to Congress. 

Basically, 2020's motto should "man plans—god laughs."


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

rdrr said:


> And to prove your point...  Watch this knucklehead.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324096011753689089/



That guy pretty much peaked at being the cool crazy guy everybody wanted to hang out with.  Then Trump got elected. Now he’s this.  Sad.


----------



## Thomas Veil

At least there's this little nicety:

Joe Biden makes history with total votes received, beating Barack Obama's record​


> With votes still being counted, former Vice President Joe Biden has broken the record for most votes received by a presidential candidate and now has amassed more than 70 million.
> 
> The record was held by Barack Obama, who in the 2008 election received 69,498,516 votes when he beat John McCain, the late Republican senator.


----------



## Apple fanboy

Remind you of anyone?


----------



## Apple fanboy

Thomas Veil said:


> At least there's this little nicety:
> 
> Joe Biden makes history with total votes received, beating Barack Obama's record​



Fake news?
Can someone please confirm if a President loses an election can they stand at the next  one?


----------



## Thomas Veil

There is still a chance for the Senate...albeit not this year.

In 2022, 12 Democratic Senate seats and 22 Republican ones will be up for grabs. 

History says that usually the party that is not in the White House gains seats in the mid-terms. But with ten more GOP seats open than Democratic ones, it gives the Democratic party room to maneuver.

On the other hand, there's also the chance of losing the House.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Apple fanboy said:


> Fake news?
> Can someone please confirm if a President loses an election can they stand at the next  one?



A president can serve up to two terms. They don't have to be consecutive.


----------



## Yoused

Thomas Veil said:


> The best thing that can happen is that a third party emerges. It'd be good for the Republicans _and_ the Democrats.



It _sounds_ appealing, on the face of it, but, what is the strongest 3rd party right now? Not the Greens. Not the SWP or CPUSA. The strongest 3rd party is the Glibertarians. Which is nothing at all like a left-wing party. They are approximately equivalent to Koch fiends.

The biggest problem here is that the Glibertarians can talk a really good game. They can sell really well, because, like the Rs, they are Monsters from the Id. Their rhetoric reaches to the things that people really want, but eschews any notion of responsibility. Dig out that gold and take it to the assay office, it is fine is you just leave a big hole in the ground or dump toxic tailings where ever you please. They say that this is not their position, that my freedoms do not supersede yours, but the math just does not work out.

And they _claim_ to be "socially liberal", but that math does not work out either. The Glibertarian economic agenda simply does not support a socially liberal society. They can pay lip service to letting people be, but externalities of "fiscal conservatism" negate the social liberal claims.

So, the replacement party for the Republicans is worse, because they are less wrapped up in the R-stupid game, so they can slide what is effectively the RW agenda under the door without people noticing as much. If we ever do get effective left-wing organization in this country, it will not be until well after everything is already broken, burning and/or in an advanced state of decay.


----------



## Apple fanboy

Thomas Veil said:


> A president can serve up to two terms. They don't have to be consecutive.



Ever happened? I’m guessing not. But it might take the next term of four years to evict  this one!


----------



## hulugu

Apple fanboy said:


> Fake news?
> Can someone please confirm if a President loses an election can they stand at the next  one?




Trump is eligible to run in 2024 if he loses to Biden this year because the 22nd Amendment limits people to two terms. 

Notably, a person could be limited to only 7 years in office if they began their first term more than two years in, but a person could also theoretically serve 10 terms if they finish the president's first term, and then win two subsequent elections. 

Theoretically, Harris could serve 10 years if Biden leaves office in 2022, and she wins in 2024 and 2028. If however, Biden leaves in 2021, she would be limited to one term after 2024. 

Text: 
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Thomas Veil said:


> Haven't read it all yet, but these two parts particularly stand out to me:
> 
> 
> and



I covered the second part in the other place.  That action was so targeted it was laughable.  What made the Florida legislature more mad, was when Bloomberg came in and offered to pay a portion of those fines.  This resulted in calls for Bloomberg to be investigated.  After all, you mess with a plan laid out, there has to be consequences.



> Florida attorney general asks for investigation of Bloomberg's efforts to reinstate felon voting rights | CNN Politics
> 
> 
> Florida's attorney general has requested that the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigate Michael Bloomberg's efforts to reinstate the voting rights of felons by paying their fees, according to a letter to the agencies provided to CNN by the attorney general's office.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.cnn.com





> (CNN)Florida's attorney general has requested that the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigate Michael Bloomberg's efforts to reinstate the voting rights of felons by paying their fees, according to a letter to the agencies provided to CNN by the attorney general's office.
> 
> Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody said she requested that the agencies investigate "potential violations of election laws."
> Bloomberg, a former New York mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, and his political operation have raised more than $16 million from supporters and foundations over the last week to pay the court fines and fees for more than 30,000 Black and Latino voters in Florida with felonies, allowing them to vote in the upcoming election.
> The fundraising effort, according to multiple Bloomberg aides, will benefit the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, an organization run by formerly incarcerated people who are working to make it easier for ex-felons to vote.






> FDLE: No Formal Investigation Underway Into Bloomberg's Donation Paying Florida Felons' Debts
> 
> 
> A spokesperson for FDLE says a “review,” which can include gathering evidence, is underway.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu





> A spokesperson for FDLE says a “review,” which can include gathering evidence, is underway.​The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has not launched a formal investigation into Mike Bloomberg’s effort to pay fines and fees for Florida felons, the agency told WFSU Monday. A spokesperson for FDLE says a “review,” which can include gathering evidence, is underway.
> The FBI declined to comment Monday on whether it has opened an investigation at all.
> 
> A spokesperson for FDLE described how a review by the agency works: “It's not an investigation at this point; it's a review by FDLE agents. Once we receive a complaint, we review it to determine whether or not the allegations are criminal in nature. A review can include investigative steps, like preliminary interviews and the gathering of documents.”
> 
> Nearly two weeks ago, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody sent a letter to the FDLE and FBI asking for an investigation into former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s effort to pay fines and fees for Florida felons.
> 
> In her letter dated September 23, Moody said Gov. Ron DeSantis requested her office look into the matter. The letter cites state statute making it illegal to “directly or indirectly give or promise anything of value to another in casting his or her vote.”




Also as an extra bonus:


> Voters of Color in 2 Key Swing States Are Seeing Their Mail Ballots Returned at Higher Rates Than White Voters
> 
> 
> Florida and Georgia—two crucial battleground states in the 2020 election—are rejecting mailed-in ballots from voters of color at substantially higher rates than those from white voters, according to a recent analysis by NBC News and the Democratic political data firm TargetSmart.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theroot.com





> Florida and Georgia—two crucial battleground states in the 2020 election—are rejecting mailed-in ballots from voters of color at substantially higher rates than those from white voters, according to a recent analysis by NBC News and the Democratic political data firm TargetSmart.
> 
> According to NBC News, the data looks at mailed-in ballots across 11 different states. But what makes Georgia and Florida significant—apart from their status as swing states—is that they’ve already released numbers for ballots flagged for errors or rejection according to race and ethnicity. The two major presidential candidates are also expected to run a tight race in both states.
> 
> In both states, more than 7,900 ballots cast by Asian, Black and Latinx voters have been marked for voter errors at higher rates than their white counterparts, writes NBC News. Nonwhite Floridians have had their mail-in ballots rejected at twice the rate of white voters in the state, though there is still a chance for these voters to have their ballot counted. Election officials are supposed to contact voters who have issues with their ballots and give them until Thursday to correct their ballots. Early data shows that the reason most ballots have been rejected in the Sunshine State have been because voters didn’t sign their ballot envelopes.
> 
> In Georgia, there were more differences among nonwhite voters when it came to rejection rates. The mail ballots for Asian voters were flagged the most, at nearly three times the rate of white Georgians’ ballots. For Black voters, rejection rates were a little more than twice the rate of white voters, while Latinx voters saw their mail ballots rejected twice as much as their white peers.




And the newly created "Sad *Fucking* Trombone" Award goes to...
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323914087340781569/



> Here's how many people voted for Kanye West
> 
> 
> Curious how Kanye West's presidential run panned out? Have a look.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> news.avclub.com





> As you grapple with the reality of _at least_ four more years of exhausting Kanye news cycles, feel free to interpret the rapper’s state-by-state results however you like. Want to have a chuckle at the hip-hop mogul nabbing only 7,800 votes out of the millions that were cast in Minnesota? Go for it. Want to nod approvingly at the 10,000 votes he scored in Tennessee, affirmed by a political outsider making such a dent? That’s fine, too.
> 
> These aren’t the final counts, but this is how things looked as of Wednesday afternoon:
> 
> Arkansas: 4,040
> 
> Colorado: 6,254
> 
> Idaho: 3,631
> 
> Iowa: 3,202
> 
> Kentucky: 6,259
> 
> Louisiana: 4,894
> 
> Minnesota: 7,789
> 
> Mississippi: 3,277
> 
> Oklahoma: 5,590
> 
> Tennessee: 10,216
> 
> Utah: 4,344
> 
> Vermont: 1,265



https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1323727338387902465/

GTFO!!!

Go back to fake church revivals to promote albums.


----------



## hulugu

Apple fanboy said:


> Ever happened? I’m guessing not. But it might take the next term of four years to evict  this one!




The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, after it passed through Congress in 1947. Specially, it was designed to keep another president from serving four terms like FDR, who served from 1933 to 1945.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Yoused said:


> It _sounds_ appealing, on the face of it, but, what is the strongest 3rd party right now? Not the Greens. Not the SWP or CPUSA. The strongest 3rd party is the Glibertarians. Which is nothing at all like a left-wing party. They are approximately equivalent to Koch fiends.



I'm thinking of a new coalition made up of people who left the GOP, people who are still in it but disgusted with Trump and McConnell, and independents.



hulugu said:


> ...Notably, a person could be limited to only 7 years in office if they began their first term more than two years in, but a person could also theoretically serve *10 terms* if they finish the president's first term, and then win two subsequent elections.



I think you meant ten _years_.


----------



## Huntn

Just watched a clip of Eric Trump having a meltdown in Philadelphia before unleashing his attack dog Guiliani, who sounded more like a dottering old fool.

At 17:12 US Central Time, things are looking much better, my mood has changed greatly from this morning:


----------



## rdrr

Apple fanboy said:


> Ever happened? I’m guessing not. But it might take the next term of four years to evict  this one!



I am a little lost at this part of the thread.  If you are asking if a president ever has served non consecutive terms then yes it has happened with Cleveland.  However if you are asking if Trump can come back in 2024, no he will be way too old and in jail.


----------



## Huntn

I heard a interesting comment today about why Texas did not turn blue and it was blamed on Hispanics. Before you scream, it is Hispanics in Texas who mostly rely on the service industry for their livelihoods, weekly paychecks and the sooner everything is reopened, regardless if anyone shows up, their perception that getting their jobs back was a better situation than possibly getting sick with COVID.  Hence the perception, a vote for Trump along with all his assanary was the best route for this election, for them.

I can’t claim just how accurate that is, but it sounds very possible when looking at a demographic that lives paycheck to paycheck.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Exactly.
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324114936851800065/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324050932993298438/


----------



## Yoused

Huntn said:


> things are looking much better



bear in mind that in 1876, Samuel J. Tilden got 50.9% of the popular vote


----------



## lizkat

rdrr said:


> I am a little lost at this part of the thread. If you are asking if a president ever has served non consecutive terms then yes it has happened with Cleveland. However if you are asking if Trump can come back in 2024, no he will be way too old and in jail.




In theory Trump could come back in 2024.   But do we think even this version of the GOP and associated Republican National Committee would renominate him...  no flippin' way. 

 I am pretty sure despite what some of the Trump progeny may think,  the Republicans are done with the Trump dynasty right about now.   Time will tell.  I've been way wrong before on anything related to Donald Trump and politics...  but this guy will have ended up costing the Republicans way more than he ever brought to the table for them.    They have shown themselves to be thoroughly despicable, corrupt, cruel and almost as inept as Trump is in terms of legislating in the actual interests of the USA.   And his claim to fame?  That he expanded their base by every white supremacist group in the FBI's books.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Huntn said:


> I heard a interesting comment today about why Texas did not turn blue and it was blamed on Hispanics. Before you scream, it is Hispanics in Texas who mostly rely on the service industry for their livelihoods, weekly paychecks and the sooner everything is reopened, regardless if anyone shows up, their perception that getting their jobs back was a better situation than possibly getting sick with COVID.  Hence the perception, a vote for Trump along with all his assanary was the best route for this election, for them.
> 
> I can’t claim just how accurate that is, but it sounds very possible when looking at a demographic that lives paycheck to paycheck.



My response to that, is that despite Florida, despite Texas, that sentiment isn't just with Hispanics.

If you remember the endless back & forth over in the other place about Stay @ home orders, there' be the likes 'Life cereal eaters' who wanted to call it a 'Lockdown'.  They'd cry endlessly because they lived in areas where the pandemic hadn't run rampant, why should they be punished?  Sound familiar?  Because it wasn't affecting them badly in their part of NY, why should they have to be cautious like the ravaged NYC?  They should be able to go back to work, make their living, and too bad for NYC.  They cheered along with 'said lesses' when conservative outlets mistook beginning of the month moving as fleeing the city for suburbs, from the dystopian riot leveled virus hellhole that Manhattan had surely become.

For such individuals, they see only their previous lives uninterrupted as being what's important, not what is causing the interruption.  In desperation they will grasp for the person who promises hope is around the corner, even though that person has made the slight d@mn effort to take any steps towards solving the pandemic.  It isn't just Hispanics, it's anyone who thinks this will just go away and OTHERS should make the sacrifices so they can get back to what they knew.

As far as Hispanics go, I think you need to look this way.  For the longest time, many of the hardest working Hispanic people have also been very religious.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324134752270639104/


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324114224998608896/


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324135244442853376/


----------



## hulugu

Thomas Veil said:


> I'm thinking of a new coalition made up of people who left the GOP, people who are still in it but disgusted with Trump and McConnell, and independents.
> 
> 
> I think you meant ten _years_.




Argh. My skull is just a bowl of tapioca pudding at this point.


----------



## JayMysteri0

For the first time, anyone from the 45 family talking sounds like music to me...

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324112536803880962/

Also, I think there's some sarcasm in the next tweet
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324059733553106944/


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> As far as Hispanics go, I think you need to look this way. For the longest time, many of the hardest working Hispanic people have also been very religious.





Yah, there are a lot of reasons why Hispanics --not a monolithic cultural bloc anyway--  may tend to vote Republican tickets.  Here are some of them:

1.  Small biz owners often lean right on tax policies.

2.  Some Spanish speaking immigrants or their descendants hail from places with regimes run by left wing totalitarians,  or from say Cuba or Chile where leftists had displaced a right wing government and opposition followers departed from property and lost possessions that they could not later recover.  Stuff like that is not easily forgotten,  no matter who discounts perceived similarities to Democratic Party platforms in the USA.

3.  Religious conservatives:  anti-choice, sometimes anti LGBTQ.

4. Don't laugh:  some who just got here may figure that's enough, so let's shut the door already.  I've heard a few Somalis say that about the idea of admitting Syrian refugees...  it's not really all that unusual to want to pull the sea ladder up into the boat after climbing aboard.  Just because you land in America doesn't mean you leave tribalism behind.  We still have St. Patrick's Day parades...

5. Some legal immigrants strongly dissapprove of even fellow former countrymen "jumping the line" and entering without papers...  when they themselves had previously queued up and hassled their way through all the hoops to get proper paperwork themselves.


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> For the first time, anyone from the 45 family talking sounds like music to me...
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324112536803880962/
> 
> Also, I think there's some sarcasm in the next tweet
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324059733553106944/




As someone who has been an election worker I'm really insulted by these R idiots carrying on about the highly supervised vote counting effort as somehow inherently fraudulent.   Fuck them.  It's hard work, it's a thankless job, it takes a long time and is generally a pain in the ass because every detail matters and it's important to follow the rules and try to retain and count votes on ballots that could have errors on the choice for one office but not for others etc.   These tweets with videos of Trump fans harassing the election workers just drive me up the wall.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

Apple fanboy said:


> Ever happened? I’m guessing not. But it might take the next term of four years to evict  this one!








rdrr said:


> I am a little lost at this part of the thread.  If you are asking if a president ever has served non consecutive terms then yes it has happened with Cleveland.  However if you are asking if Trump can come back in 2024, no he will be way too old and in jail.




Yes, it happened with Grover Cleveland but you are going back to the late 1880s and early 1890s for that; it could well have happened also Theodore Roosevelt, but didn't.


----------



## lizkat

Bright side info:   My first-term Dem congress critter was re-elected in a conservative district that is otherwise going for Trump roughly 2-1 again.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Ted Bundy was on death row for a decade.  He loved doing interviews, talking to the police and psychologists about his murders and other serial killers and their possible MO.  He was quite conformable in that.  As time was approaching for him to pay the piper he started getting a little freaked out and exclaiming he had more victims than they knew about and he wanted to help them out on those cases for the families.  Legal system: "Sorry bro."

I feel like that's what Trump is doing here with his "Stop counting the votes!".  Out of office he's looking at paying the piper for decades of his corruption, lying, and tax avoidance.  And maybe (hopefully) realizing a good part of his support group are either in jail because of him, have been in jail because of him, or will swiftly abandon ship when he has no power and is little more than a loudmouthed shelf-entitled lump of failure.  Legal system: "Sorry bro."


----------



## Eric

Biden has asked all of his staff not to mock or hit Trump right now. THIS is what I expect from a president, we know that's not how Trump operates but we can expect better from ourselves. Joe is showing some class here.


----------



## Huntn

Thomas Veil said:


> I do have to agree on this part. They will run Trump or Trump Jr. or some other lunatic in 2024.
> 
> The best thing that can happen is that a third party emerges. It'd be good for the Republicans _and_ the Democrats.
> 
> 
> You could be right in everything you said. I guess the weeks and months ahead will tell.
> 
> 
> Christ on a cross...
> 
> 
> He "claims" states? Someone needs to tell him this isn't the NFL and these states are not on waivers.



I agree to the third party if we move away from winner take all. Don’t ask me how or what.


----------



## Huntn

JayMysteri0 said:


> My response to that, is that despite Florida, despite Texas, that sentiment isn't just with Hispanics.
> 
> If you remember the endless back & forth over in the other place about Stay @ home orders, there' be the likes 'Life cereal eaters' who wanted to call it a 'Lockdown'.  They'd cry endlessly because they lived in areas where the pandemic hadn't run rampant, why should they be punished?  Sound familiar?  Because it wasn't affecting them badly in their part of NY, why should they have to be cautious like the ravaged NYC?  They should be able to go back to work, make their living, and too bad for NYC.  They cheered along with 'said lesses' when conservative outlets mistook beginning of the month moving as fleeing the city for suburbs, from the dystopian riot leveled virus hellhole that Manhattan had surely become.
> 
> For such individuals, they see only their previous lives uninterrupted as being what's important, not what is causing the interruption.  In desperation they will grasp for the person who promises hope is around the corner, even though that person has made the slight d@mn effort to take any steps towards solving the pandemic.  It isn't just Hispanics, it's anyone who thinks this will just go away and OTHERS should make the sacrifices so they can get back to what they knew.
> 
> As far as Hispanics go, I think you need to look this way.  For the longest time, many of the hardest working Hispanic people have also been very religious.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324134752270639104/



So religion can cloud the mind of all ethnic groups... I knew that. 
Thanks for the perspective. I had actually heard this argumrnt before but just not applied to Hispanics specifically In Texas. I was just having a hard time imagining Hispanics in Texas choosing the Republican Party. It’s like hens wanting to live in the Fox House.


----------



## lizkat

I like this tweet a  lot, even if the silverware's getting loaded into the truck.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324146966234714113/


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

ericgtr12 said:


> Biden has asked all of his staff not to mock or hit Trump right now. THIS is what I expect from a president, we know that's not how Trump operates but we can expect better from ourselves. Joe is showing some class here.



Did Biden mention anything about the MR forums?


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Huntn said:


> I agree to the third party if we move away from winner take all. Don’t ask me how or what.




I'd like to see a grass roots movement (actually regardless of who wins) that aims to have a reoccurring dialogue from all sides including the far right and far left (probably not the extremes) where everybody is allowed to articulate their concerns and values and see how that can be respected and integrated but with a willingness to compromise.  I'd also like to hear how those viewpoints were formed.  Was if personal experience?  Was it family?  Was it media?  Geographical differences and related concerns would also be a good topic.  Also not in a debate atmosphere but where counter views can be discussed.  Basically, the establishment's worse nightmare.


----------



## JayMysteri0

lizkat said:


> I like this tweet a  lot, even if the silverware's getting loaded into the truck.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324146966234714113/



I wouldn't be surprised to find out that truck is just for tax records.


----------



## Alli

Thomas Veil said:


> I'm thinking of a new coalition made up of people who left the GOP, people who are still in it but disgusted with Trump and McConnell, and independents.



I wonder if it’s possible to get back the original GOP, and if not can the folks behind all those anti-Trump Republican groups create a viable third party?


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

How the fuck is Alaska not decided yet?  Not enough sea planes to check on the homesteaders?  Too many liberals move there to try to prove they aren't pussies to nobody who cares if they are?  Is it baby fur seal clubbing season that pauses for nothing?


----------



## JayMysteri0




----------



## Thomas Veil




----------



## Yoused

A crowd in Detroit was pounding on the glass at the convention center demanding "_Stop the Count!!!_"

Ok.

Biden is leading by enough of a margin that cnn has called Michigan for him.

What do these spraying morons hope to accomplish?


----------



## Eric

Yoused said:


> A crowd in Detroit was pounding on the glass at the convention center demanding "_Stop the Count!!!_"
> 
> Ok.
> 
> Biden is leading by enough of a margin that cnn has called Michigan for him.
> 
> What do these spraying morons hope to accomplish?



They're unhinged. Republicans expect police to be there when black people are looting a Target but not when Trump supporters are storming an election center, apparently.


----------



## SuperMatt

Yoused said:


> A crowd in Detroit was pounding on the glass at the convention center demanding "_Stop the Count!!!_"
> 
> Ok.
> 
> Biden is leading by enough of a margin that cnn has called Michigan for him.
> 
> What do these spraying morons hope to accomplish?



False claims on Facebook are going viral, and many people have Facebook as their main or even sole source of information. Imagine all the disinformation you see debunked every day, then double that at least, and realize most people seeing it on their feed actually believe it. Such people might actually believe a Biden win could result in Antifa coming to their town, turning all their kids gay or trans, burning all statues of Jesus, etc. I bet there was some story on Facebook claiming that this vote counting was actually some plot to steal the election.


----------



## SuperMatt

The vote in NC tightened considerably... it’s still possible Joe gets NC and GA....? I hope so.


----------



## Eric

SuperMatt said:


> False claims on Facebook are going viral, and many people have Facebook as their main or even sole source of information. Imagine all the disinformation you see debunked every day, then double that at least, and realize most people seeing it on their feed actually believe it. Such people might actually believe a Biden win could result in Antifa coming to their town, turning all their kids gay or trans, burning all statues of Jesus, etc. I bet there was some story on Facebook claiming that this vote counting was actually some plot to steal the election.



I keep hearing about those too. To them, any vote counted is "stolen" it's just ridiculous.


----------



## SuperMatt

Looks like Trump needs to win every remaining state to win. This race is already decided... we are just waiting for them to count the votes.


----------



## Thomas Veil

I’m digging the freakout Fox viewers are having when their favorite channel calls states for Biden


----------



## SuperMatt

ericgtr12 said:


> I keep hearing about those too. To them, any vote counted is "stolen" it's just ridiculous.



How does somebody show up to a pizza place with a gun trying to save the supposedly enslaved children in their basement? That is the level of propaganda that 50% of America is consuming daily. Seriously, if we shut down Facebook tomorrow, this country might have a chance to regain its sanity.


----------



## lizkat

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> I'd like to see a grass roots movement (actually regardless of who wins) that aims to have a reoccurring dialogue from all sides including the far right and far left (probably not the extremes) where everybody is allowed to articulate their concerns and values and see how that can be respected and integrated but with a willingness to compromise.  I'd also like to hear how those viewpoints were formed.  Was if personal experience?  Was it family?  Was it media?  Geographical differences and related concerns would also be a good topic.  Also not in a debate atmosphere but where counter views can be discussed.  Basically, the establishment's worse nightmare.




It can be done but takes some ground rules about distinct "seasons" of the process:   first the brainstorming where all ideas can go on the table and no one gets to shut something down because some "third rail" / "sacred cow" item looks to be getting a turn in the barrel...    and only later on comes the winnowing out, with talk of economic feasibility and how political will and potlical capital figure into the picture.

Right now first thing happens is someone says "let's do XYZ because yada yada"  and someone slams a newspaper on the table and says are u f'g crazy the insurance companies / gun lobby / right wing / Democrats / seniors / White House / oil patch / tree huggers will never go for that, fuhgeddaboudit.

Or taking it to the town council level, someone says "Nah, Jack won't like that" and that's the end of it bc Jack owns the vacant lot across from the local Dollar Store and someone else has proposed a village garden or a motorbike repair shop or something and Jack always figured that could be turned into a parking lot.

We have to get to where no one is "cancelled" because they uttered a sentence with a hot button word in it from the wrong side of all these damn fences we've allowed to be put up.

The only way progressives, conservatives, moderates, establishment types are going to get a real seat at one table together is for no one to have the right to cancel someone else's idea at  brainstorming session.

To agree not to winnow out any ideas as unsuitable in the first ten seconds... ok, it's hard.  

Everyone at this point has certain almost reflexive "cancellation" impulses when they hear partisan trigger words related to US policy.  But we can retrain ourselves if we really care to re-establish effectively democratic negotiations on policy and on appropriations related to policy decisions.

This stuff is starting to happen at local government levels in the past few years as progressives have won some elections and tried to get councils and town halls to be more inclusive even against their own inclinations, i.e. not really wanting to listen to conservative old fogies after managing to win a couple seats on the council, but doing it anyway.   It's not easy but change is still possible.  I'll never vote for another Republican as long as I live after experiences of the past 12 years especially...  but I'm willing to listen to current conservative officials' ideas about improving a town's functionality or appearance etc.


----------



## lizkat

OK this is what I've been waiting for.   The GOP is starting to sober up insofar as that bunch is capable of that.   They won their own re-elections, the Senate looks safe or narrowly maneuverable and so they're signalling that they're getting ready to kiss Trump off.    There will likely be no more RNC money thrown in his direction for unwarranted recounts or whatever.   He's done.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

lizkat said:


> It can be done but takes some ground rules about distinct "seasons" of the process:   first the brainstorming where all ideas can go on the table and no one gets to shut something down because some "third rail" / "sacred cow" item looks to be getting a turn in the barrel...    and only later on comes the winnowing out, with talk of economic feasibility and how political will and potlical capital figure into the picture.
> 
> Right now first thing happens is someone says "let's do XYZ because yada yada"  and someone slams a newspaper on the table and says are u f'g crazy the insurance companies / gun lobby / right wing / Democrats / seniors / White House / oil patch / tree huggers will never go for that, fuhgeddaboudit.
> 
> Or taking it to the town council level, someone says "Nah, Jack won't like that" and that's the end of it bc Jack owns the vacant lot across from the local Dollar Store and someone else has proposed a village garden or a motorbike repair shop or something and Jack always figured that could be turned into a parking lot.
> 
> We have to get to where no one is "cancelled" because they uttered a sentence with a hot button word in it from the wrong side of all these damn fences we've allowed to be put up.
> 
> The only way progressives, conservatives, moderates, establishment types are going to get a real seat at one table together is for no one to have the right to cancel someone else's idea at  brainstorming session.
> 
> To agree not to winnow out any ideas as unsuitable in the first ten seconds... ok, it's hard.
> 
> Everyone at this point has certain almost reflexive "cancellation" impulses when they hear partisan trigger words related to US policy.  But we can retrain ourselves if we really care to re-establish effectively democratic negotiations on policy and on appropriations related to policy decisions.
> 
> This stuff is starting to happen at local government levels in the past few years as progressives have won some elections and tried to get councils and town halls to be more inclusive even against their own inclinations, i.e. not really wanting to listen to conservative old fogies after managing to win a couple seats on the council, but doing it anyway.   It's not easy but change is still possible.  I'll never vote for another Republican as long as I live after experiences of the past 12 years especially...  but I'm willing to listen to current conservative officials' ideas about improving a town's functionality or appearance etc.



Agreed.  A major first step would be learning how to listen and communicate with each other, like "when you say this, I translate it as meaning this."  And again, if what they are saying is exactly what is triggering you, where is that coming from?  Both their conclusion and your trigger?


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

SuperMatt said:


> Looks like Trump needs to win every remaining state to win. This race is already decided... we are just waiting for them to count the votes.



Do we have the official picture of a bag of dicks to post on MR yet?


----------



## iMi

At this point, I am thinking Biden will ultimately carry PA and possibly GA. This may be a repeat of 2018 and not 2016. 

You all know how I feel about Trump and his supporters, but it's undeniable that they have spoken up. I don't believe they are all racists, hateful bigots. Something else is going on. It's time for Democrats to listen. Just listen. What is driving them? It doesn't mean we concede on social justice, racial equality or women's health issues. It just means, listen... listen to what is going on with that population. Find common ground. We have to somehow heal this nation. Biden is the ideal person to do this, so I am hopeful.


----------



## iMi

Yoused said:


> A crowd in Detroit was pounding on the glass at the convention center demanding "_Stop the Count!!!_"
> 
> Ok.
> 
> Biden is leading by enough of a margin that cnn has called Michigan for him.
> 
> What do these spraying morons hope to accomplish?




Trump: Stop the count in Pennsylvania!

Also Trump: Keep counting in Nevada!

Mr. President, you don't get to choose your electorate. The electorate gets to choose you.


----------



## Yoused

DailyKos headline:
*Whatever happens next, Americans are pretty sure they want to be stoned when it does*

(several cannabis legalization measures passed)


----------



## iLunar

Yoused said:


> DailyKos headline:
> *Whatever happens next, Americans are pretty sure they want to be stoned when it does*
> 
> (several cannabis legalization measures passed)




Legal cannabis is one of the best grass-roots movements to happen to the US in a century. I've worked with a few great folks in the industry, and they are beyond committed to local progress. I think the Democratic party could learn a lot from them in reaching out to entrenched red states.


----------



## rdrr

Just watched another scary video of Trump supporters shouting and demand access to the AZ polling place.  How the heck do these folks know where the votes are being counted?


----------



## Joe

iMi said:


> At this point, I am thinking Biden will ultimately carry PA and possibly GA. This may be a repeat of 2018 and not 2016.
> 
> You all know how I feel about Trump and his supporters, but it's undeniable that they have spoken up. I don't believe they are all racists, hateful bigots. Something else is going on. It's time for Democrats to listen. Just listen. What is driving them? It doesn't mean we concede on social justice, racial equality or women's health issues. It just means, listen... listen to what is going on with that population. Find common ground. We have to somehow heal this nation. Biden is the ideal person to do this, so I am hopeful.




Fox News has spent so much time scaring these people and lying. They are legit scared that Biden is coming for them. My mom was talking to her neighbor this morning. Her neighbor is an older Hispanic lady that lives off social security and she told my mom she hopes Trump wins because Biden is going to take away her SS 

Republicans lie to win. They’ll do anything to win. Dems need to stay on guard no matter what. Because Republicans aren’t going away this easy.


----------



## lizkat

iMi said:


> At this point, I am thinking Biden will ultimately carry PA and possibly GA. This may be a repeat of 2018 and not 2016.
> 
> You all know how I feel about Trump and his supporters, but it's undeniable that they have spoken up. I g don't believe they are all racists, hateful bigots. Something else is going on. It's time for Democrats to listen. Just listen. What is driving them? It doesn't mean we concede on social justice, racial equality or women's health issues. It just means, listen... listen to what is going on with that population. Find common ground. We have to somehow heal this nation. Biden is the ideal person to do this, so I am hopeful.




2020 will end up as another election where the details on polling errors will prove hard to sort out.  Covid-19 has thrown a lot of random disruptions into people's lives and their reactions will sometimes have been enough to flip originally intended or predictable votes. 

We're never going to know all the reasons for votes that ended up tipping this CD or keeping that one red or blue, most likely.   The map of drift is multicolored and to me inexplicable ths time around (another suggestion that covid spikes and lockdown variances etc have had a lot to do with it).  So to that extent another anomalous election like that of 2016 but over different factors.

Hard for pollsters to extrapolate anything useful from it with a high degree of confidence.  They'll try for it one more time next time and may mess up yet again but even if they don't, who's going to take them seriously up front next time??   We do need to have better insight into how we all think and feel and we're not going to get that from hanging out in our siloes and echo chambers.   Public opinion polls matter but by god these turned out way off outside margins of error again.


----------



## lizkat

rdrr said:


> Just watched another scary video of Trump supporters shouting and demand access to the AZ polling place.  How the heck do these folks know where the votes are being counted?




Location of Boards of Election are not secret...   and neither are relocations or rented extensions arranged for to allow for processing ununusal numbers of mailed ballots.  

What's of more interest to me is how much these things seem like the staged disruptions of House members on the GOP side during the Trump impeachment -- over routinely acceptable stuff like the House Judiciary Committee holding depositions behind closed doors.  But the fricken GOP members were making a scene about it for media consumption, as if the procedures were out of order or meant to intimidate witnesses.

So sick of Republican gotchas and the projections of their own behavior onto Dems.

It's true that there are some peaceful but noisy and annoying leftie demos taking place now here and there in Minnesota and NYC...  even though Biden asked people to remain patient and let the counts be completed...    but I never want to hear a Republican whining about such demos with all these videos in the can of Rs actually harassing vote-counting clerks in local boards of election.


----------



## ronntaylor

I don't care if Mango voters are racist or not. They voted for an open racist. I don't need to listen to their BS or anxiety. All this talk about "white working class" when African Americans and Latino Americans are more likely to be working poor. Hell, there are large segments of Asian American populations that are in poverty/working poor. We would never excuse their racism. We would never tolerate their justified anxiety in the face of the hard path they have to navigate.

Not a one of those supporters cares about the other side. We need to take care of those that voted for Biden-Harris and move this country forward after so many steps backwards.


----------



## rdrr

lizkat said:


> Location of Boards of Election are not secret...   and neither are relocations or rented extensions arranged for to allow for processing ununusal numbers of mailed ballots.




Good to know... Thank you for the education.  I guess it never occured to me to go down to the place the votes are counted and create a major ruckus if my candidate wasn't winning.   Took my lumps and drank my sorrows away in 2000, 2004, and 2016.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Do we have the official picture of a bag of dicks to post on MR yet?



Any of the 'usual suspects' that brayed loudly for 45 & owning libs NOW...





"Who is this 45th president you speak of?"

"EVERYBODY knows I didn't vote for THAT GUY."

Optional: "I'm from Canada."

"Why would you show me this picture of a parcel of penises?"


----------



## lizkat

ronntaylor said:


> I don't care if Mango voters are racist or not. They voted for an open racist. I don't need to listen to their BS or anxiety. All this talk about "white working class" when African Americans and Latino Americans are more likely to be working poor. Hell, there are large segments of Asian American populations that are in poverty/working poor. We would never excuse their racism. We would never tolerate their justified anxiety in the face of the hard path they have to navigate.
> 
> Not a one of those supporters cares about the other side. We need to take care of those that voted for Biden-Harris and move this country forward after so many steps backwards.





The MAGAts are noisy way beyond proportion in population, that's for sure.  I don't know what to make of them really short of what's in that Altemeyer and Dean book about authoritarian followers.  

The other Trump voters are the ones I don't excuse. The cynics and compartmentalizers.  I mean like the traders who live out in Nassau or Suffolk County where the vote for Trump can run 2-1...   they're not the working poor of America out there, they are mostly white, male, pretty well off and they're all about _I've got my tax cut and dereg Jack so don't tread on me.  _

How do they justify voting to elevate a guy with the character of a Donald Trump to our highest elective office and now not once but twice?   They have GFs or wives, daughters or grandkids, may have diverse extended families and yet tacitly approve the Trump way with women and racial or religious minorities as legitimate be_havior. _

I don't get it.  You can vote for a Republican Congress and still say no to an unsuitable Republican executive. And this guy Trump?  He would have been fired *inside of a week* on the job if he were CEO of a publicly held company of some size in the USA.  Yet we have corporate officers of American companies likely choosing to vote for him because the siren call of tax cuts and deregulation is too strong, so character and principle don't matter any more?  Maybe especially after four years of watching Trump and Trump's GOP prove it.

Joe Biden is gonna have his work cut out for him turning this country's attitudes and general belief systems around w/ respect to what we should expect from government and probably from media as well.   We've been gaslighted half to death by Trump and the party that allowed him to hijack them, and the media outlets have played along, too...   because the surreality of a Trump reality show based in the White House has made for some pretty compelling TV, no? Some of those media folks have been phoning it in for a long time and are going to have to sober up behind Joe Biden in the White House.


----------



## lizkat

rdrr said:


> Good to know... Thank you for the education.  I guess it never occured to me to go down to the place the votes are counted and create a major ruckus if my candidate wasn't winning.   Took my lumps and drank my sorrows away in 2000, 2004, and 2016.




Post of the day...  maybe the week.  i don't get that abuse of the vote counters either.


----------



## ronntaylor

lizkat said:


> Joe Biden is gonna have his work cut out for him turning this country's attitudes




I almost wish Joe loss. He's going to inherit a horrible situation. And with 75+ days left in his term, Mango will probably add to the S pile. And don't let me start on what happens if/when McConnell remains Senate Majority Leader. Biden-Harris have their work cut for themselves. Before they realize it, it's time to the 2024 run.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Jesus, fuck.  Still no call on Alaska.  Let me guess.  Biden!  Fuck off. 

 Is there a Palin mother/daughter porno on the ballot we're not aware of in the lower 48?  Then I could understand the delay.


----------



## Huntn

The Day After:
Any see the Trump idiots demanding to swarm the Maricopa, Arizona vote counting facility, so they can make sure the election is not being stolen? So far the police are keeping them out. Some of them brought long guns.  I blame the Head Shit Head for this. _Go to your local polling place, just barge in and demand to monitor. _Plus, _If I lose, the election was stolen!! _  

1AM US Central Time, is this accurate? One more state for the win? 

​


----------



## Edd

I just woke at 1am and things seem a bit better than when I passed out. Just took an Ambien and hoping for more good news when I wake. Should have just voted absentee and slept this whole week.


----------



## Arkitect

Apologies, but I'm asking as a very naive European:

_Is this man a policeman?_

What goes on inside that man's head? What is he really, _really_ thinking as he stands there…

Why bring a gun in to an emotional, fraught atmosphere?

Why bring a gun?

Edit: I don't think even the most level headed of US Americans realise what a disturbing image that is to people outside the US.


----------



## Edd

Arkitect said:


> Apologies, but I'm asking as a very naive European:
> 
> _Is this man a policeman?_
> 
> What goes on inside that man's head? What is he really, _really_ thinking as he stands there…
> 
> Why bring a gun in to an emotional, fraught atmosphere?
> 
> Why bring a gun?
> 
> Edit: I don't think even the most level headed of US Americans realise what a disturbing image that is.
> 
> 
> View attachment 1157



He brought it to be intimidating. If he could find his way towards being involved in a justified shooting well, it’ll be like Christmas came early this year.


----------



## Edd

Two differnt articles I’ve just read put Biden at 264 electoral votes. I’m assuming they’re including Arizona in that but only the AP has called that race at all, and they called it for Joe.

Dont see how Trump hits 270 at this point. There’d have to be multiple recounts.


----------



## Edd

It’s hard to find info on Nevada right now. It looks like Joe hits 270 if he takes the state. That’s without PA and GA. Today could be it, regardless of Trump tantrums.


----------



## User.45

lizkat said:


> Bright side info:   My first-term Dem congress critter was re-elected in a conservative district that is otherwise going for Trump roughly 2-1 again.
> 
> View attachment 1146



YEAH!

Have you heard his wife's story? Pretty interesting (https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/little-white-lie/). It maybe awkward/uncomfortable for some, but I enjoyed it a lot because some aspects reminded me of my childhood.


----------



## User.45

Edd70 said:


> It’s hard to find info on Nevada right now. It looks like Joe hits 270 if he takes the state. That’s without PA and GA. Today could be it, regardless of Trump tantrums.



I think we have a new term:
*Trumper tantrum!*


----------



## User.45

Arkitect said:


> Apologies, but I'm asking as a very naive European:
> 
> _Is this man a policeman?_
> 
> What goes on inside that man's head? What is he really, _really_ thinking as he stands there…
> 
> Why bring a gun in to an emotional, fraught atmosphere?
> 
> Why bring a gun?
> 
> Edit:* I don't think even the most level headed of US Americans realise what a disturbing image that is.*
> 
> 
> View attachment 1157



I think we do. Fuck this guy and his little penis.


----------



## User.45

Ladies, Gentlemen, and Non-binary folks! Trends in Georgia:






(I pulled all the county-wise stats from NYT, and calculated the net votes based on current standings. Since it's mainly mail-ins, if anything, it errs on the side of underestimating Biden's votes)


----------



## JayMysteri0

So, I hadn't seen this before, so forgive me if already posted


> https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/look-on-the-bright-side.2265522/post-29165402





> Puerto Ricans have again voted in favor of making their island home a US state and they’re hoping that, this time around, their decision will carry actual weight.
> 
> Puerto Rico, which has been a US territory for 122 years and is the world’s oldest colony, has held five previous non-binding referendums on the issue. In 2012 and 2017, the island’s 3 million citizens overwhelmingly backed statehood, but Congress never took further action to admit Puerto Rico into the union.
> 
> This year, they were asked: “Should Puerto Rico be immediately admitted into the Union as a state?” A majority of voters answered “yes,” according to the AP, New York Times, and the island election commission, as of Wednesday afternoon. With 95 percent of precincts reporting, the margin stood at 52 percent for, and 48 percent against.
> 
> As the Times noted, the turnout figures are complicated. But Puerto Ricans are hoping that sends a clear message to Congress regarding their desire to attain the rights and privileges associated with statehood. Though Puerto Ricans are American citizens and pay into federal programs like Social Security and Medicare, they do not hold seats in Congress and cannot cast votes for president. They do vote for a resident commissioner who can introduce legislation and vote on committees in the House of Representatives, but that’s a far cry from full voting privileges.


----------



## Thomas Veil

I’m puzzled by this:

*National Guard called into Portland amid ‘widespread violence’ after election*



> The Oregon National Guard was called into the city of Portland after protests in the city turned violent Wednesday night, police said.
> 
> Local authorities declared a riot after groups of demonstrators destroyed property in the downtown section of the city, which the Multnomah County Sheriff’s office described as “widespread violence.”
> 
> “In the interest of public safety, Governor Kate Brown, under the advice of the Unified Command, has activated the use of the Oregon National Guard to assist local law enforcement,” the agency said in a tweet.
> 
> “Guard members are trained in crowd control and will be riding with local response teams. They are dressed in military-style garb, which is their uniform,” they added.
> 
> The outburst of destructive protests comes a day after the contentious presidential election was held Tuesday night, but no clear winner emerged by Wednesday in the contest between Joe Biden and President Trump.



_Who_ is protesting? If it’s liberals, _what_ are they protesting? Or are they MAGAts angry about losing the election?

Some great reporting there.  Didn’t anybody, like, _talk_ to these people?


----------



## Edd

Thomas Veil said:


> I’m puzzled by this:
> 
> *National Guard called into Portland amid ‘widespread violence’ after election*
> 
> 
> _Who_ is protesting? If it’s liberals, _what_ are they protesting? Or are they MAGAts angry about losing the election?
> 
> Some great reporting there.  Didn’t anybody, like, _talk_ to these people?



I’d bet $ it’s whiny Trump bitches angry about Oregon’s electoral votes going to Biden.


----------



## User.45

PA isn't rosy if I don't count in the changing trends favoring Biden:


----------



## JayMysteri0

Thomas Veil said:


> I’m puzzled by this:
> 
> *National Guard called into Portland amid ‘widespread violence’ after election*
> 
> 
> _Who_ is protesting? If it’s liberals, _what_ are they protesting? Or are they MAGAts angry about losing the election?
> 
> Some great reporting there.  Didn’t anybody, like, _talk_ to these people?






> 12 arrested in Portland riot, National Guard deployed
> 
> 
> PORTLAND, Ore. – The unified police command declared a protest in downtown Portland a riot Wednesday night and the Oregon National Guard was activated, as election results continued to roll in across the country. Authorities said the National Guard was deployed because there was
> 
> 
> 
> 
> katu.com





> PORTLAND, Ore. – The unified police command declared a protest in downtown Portland a riot Wednesday night and the Oregon National Guard was activated, as election results continued to roll in across the country.
> 
> Authorities said the National Guard was deployed because there was "widespread violence" happening in downtown Portland, especially in the area of Southwest 10th and Harvey.
> 
> Guard members were dressed in their military uniforms, authorities said.
> 
> Police said they rescinded the riot declaration shortly after 9 p.m., but they said a group of people later gathered at Lownsdale and Chapman parks across the street from the Justice Center and then started an unpermitted march through the streets. Police said they declared the gathering an unlawful assembly after marchers threw objects at them.



 


> At least 11 people were arrested. Police said one of the persons arrested had a rifle with a full magazine of ammunition attached to it. He also had several more magazines, an improvised explosive device, a knife and spray-paint cans. Officials said he was wearing a tactical vest with ballistic plates. Police said the man was believed to have thrown a firework at Portland police officers. Police initially said it was a Molotov cocktail but later issued a correction.



It was a molotov cocktail, it wasn't.



> Protesters started gathering Wednesday evening at Revolution Hall in Southeast Portland for a "Defend Democracy" rally before marching across the Morrison Bridge to Waterfront Park.
> 
> The group met up with a second protest group on Naito Parkway.
> 
> The other demonstration started in Portland’s North Park Blocks earlier that afternoon. That group started marching east by 5 p.m. to meet up with the "Defend Democracy" group at the waterfront. The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said members of the second group were seen smashing windows and vandalizing property. A KATU reporter on the ground also observed shattered windows at businesses.
> 
> Authorities said objects, including a firework and glass bottles, were thrown at them.
> 
> From Chopper 2, police could be seen working to disperse crowds from downtown streets. Crowds of people were seen fleeing from police.
> 
> Police said they seized several items, including fireworks, from people who were arrested.



That's a remarkable bit of restraint being shown by the media in not labelling.

Meanwhile this happened
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1322341181213298690/


https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324211918320635904/
I'm curious, if these congregations continue, with intent of NOT counting the legal votes of American citizens...  Do I get to start whining about when these protests are going to stop?


----------



## Edd

This’ll be an interesting day. Biden will almost certainly hit 270 one way or another.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

lizkat said:


> As someone who has been an election worker I'm really insulted by these R idiots carrying on about the highly supervised vote counting effort as somehow inherently fraudulent.   Fuck them.  It's hard work, it's a thankless job, it takes a long time and is generally a pain in the ass because every detail matters and it's important to follow the rules and try to retain and count votes on ballots that could have errors on the choice for one office but not for others etc.   These tweets with videos of Trump fans harassing the election workers just drive me up the wall.






rdrr said:


> Good to know... Thank you for the education.  I guess it never occured to me to go down to the place the votes are counted and create a major ruckus if my candidate wasn't winning.   Took my lumps and drank my sorrows away in 2000, 2004, and 2016.






lizkat said:


> Post of the day...  maybe the week.  i don't get that abuse of the vote counters either.




As many of you know, I've been an international election observer (for either the OSCE or the EU) for almost a quarter of a century, and, in that time, I have observed, reported on, supervised, monitored (the exact verb depended on my mandate) over 25 elections across three continents.

Prior to that, as a teacher (of politics and history), and earlier, as a student, I was a poll watcher, (on quite a number of elections in my home constituency) and have the greatest respect for those who count the ballot (a job Decent Brother has done, in his day, as have several of my friends).

With the possible exception of Afghanistan, where - when I was serving as political adviser (political counsellor) to one of the two EU missions in the country at the time, and where much of my job involved political analysis on everything to do with the 2014 presidential election (in that capacity, I was in the country for more than a year ahead of those elections), - I reported to the EU on the 2014 presidential elections, and was closely involved with the (controversial) count, and where poll counting & election staff (Afghan and international) knew that their lives were under threat - I have never worked in a country where poll counting staff have been threatened.

This is outrageous.


Arkitect said:


> Apologies, but I'm asking as a very naive European:
> 
> _Is this man a policeman?_
> 
> What goes on inside that man's head? What is he really, _really_ thinking as he stands there…
> 
> Why bring a gun in to an emotional, fraught atmosphere?
> 
> Why bring a gun?
> 
> Edit: I don't think even the most level headed of US Americans realise what a disturbing image that is to people outside the US.
> 
> 
> View attachment 1157




As someone who comes from a country where even the police do not bear, or carry, arms, - let alone the wider population - I agree completely with you.

A deeply disturbing image.


PearsonX said:


> I think we do. Fuck this guy and his little penis.




Okay; great answer.


----------



## Eric

Edd70 said:


> This’ll be an interesting day. Biden will almost certainly hit 270 one way or another.



I turned on CNN and they were asking a Democrat why they didn't win as big as they thought they would and they had zero election updates since yesterday so I just turned them off. So tired of cable news right now.


----------



## Eric

Here's an updated from Michael Cohen over at FiveThirtyEight for what to expect today. This should save you from wading through all the bullshit on cable news.



> Some quick live-blog housekeeping, dear readers. Today we’re watching (like everyone else in the world): Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Here’s what we _think_ will happen in terms of timing:
> 
> 
> Philadelphia City Commissioners will give an update on the mail-in ballot count at around 9 a.m., we’ll be here to cover that.
> Georgia is still counting votes, and Trump’s lead there has narrowed to less that 20,000. We’re hopeful to get more votes there throughout the morning, but …
> Nevada is expected to announce more results beginning at 12 p.m. ET.
> Finally, Arizona, too, is still counting votes and Trump is cutting into Biden’s lead there. We expect Maricopa County to report more votes at 9 p.m. ET, and some more Pima County results this evening.
> The upshot of all this is that we expect things to be busy today, with some possible lulls (between 10-12, for example). But honestly, we’re not totally sure and will be standing by in case counts start updating at any time. Stay tuned!












						Biden Is Projected To Be The President-Elect. Here’s How It All Went Down.
					

Live election results and coverage of the 2020 presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and the race for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.




					fivethirtyeight.com


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324324890653138944/
You know, when you strip it down to it's basic core, it really is a remarkable thing to hear & read.

In America where the right to vote is one of the most cherished rights.  There are Americans who are demanding that votes of their fellow Americans NOT be counted, for fear of a result they don't care for.

Mission Accomplished Duh nahld!  A country divided.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324355608217153536/


----------



## rdrr

What is going on in NV?  I mean no update at all for over a day?   Something smells fishy there,


----------



## Scepticalscribe

JayMysteri0 said:


> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324324890653138944/
> You know, when you strip it down to it's basic core, it really is a remarkable thing to hear & read.
> 
> In America where the right to vote is one of the most cherished rights.  There are Americans who are demanding that votes of their fellow Americans NOT be counted, for fear of a result they don't care for.
> 
> Mission Accomplished Duh nahld!  A country divided.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324355608217153536/




Reading this, and watching the awful video of the Trump scion (I almost wrote "sprog" but am trying - hard, and not entirely successfully, to maintain some degree of dignity and decorum when referring, online, (or in person) to people I despise), I am gobsmacked at how many talking points, prompts, pointers, and other forms of stage whispers, these people are effortlessly giving to authoritarian, autocratic and dictatorial regimes for use, or to call on, during elections that will be held in the future.

I mean, I can absolutely imagine being in a - let us imagine, a regional capital - in their main counting and tabulating centre in a "developing" (or "regressing") country some months or years from now, where they proceed to tell me that they would prefer not to bother counting the opponent's votes, because they may influence the electoral outcome, citing the illustrious example of the US as a model worth emulating.


----------



## Huntn

Arkitect said:


> Apologies, but I'm asking as a very naive European:
> 
> _Is this man a policeman?_
> 
> What goes on inside that man's head? What is he really, _really_ thinking as he stands there…
> 
> Why bring a gun in to an emotional, fraught atmosphere?
> 
> Why bring a gun?
> 
> Edit: I don't think even the most level headed of US Americans realise what a disturbing image that is to people outside the US.
> 
> 
> View attachment 1157



Intimidation, an implied threat. Now you can read into this a spectrum of motivations from _I’m here to make sure there is no cheating_, (no clue how that is achieved), to being there to forcibly stop vote counting or take violent action at some trigger point based on personal perspective of what is right and just.

My guess this person views himself as a patriot, a person willing to start shooting to get their way based on the trigger, whatever that is. 

At this point TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) must be mentioned. It is real, it effects the MAGA Red Hats. And of real interest I think it was first brought up in PRSI at MacRumors by a Trump supporter to describe those against Trump, just one of the many projections that are Trump, about Trump projected onto his opponents, and blind devotion to this corrupt, anarchy inducing POS who has not one redeeming quality that is respected among human beings.


----------



## JayMysteri0

rdrr said:


> What is going on in NV?  I mean no update at all for over a day?   Something smells fishy there,



Not fishy.  Most places still counting said they wouldn't be giving updates until 9AM their time.


----------



## Arkitect

Huntn said:


> Intimidation, an implied threat. Now you can read into this a spectrum of motivations from _I’m here to make sure there is no cheating_, (no clue how that is achieved), to being there to forcibly stop vote counting or take violent action at some trigger point based on personal perspective of what is right and just.
> 
> My guess this person views himself as a patriot, a person willing to start shooting to get their way based on the trigger, whatever that is.
> 
> At this point TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) must be mentioned. It is real, it effects the MAGA Red Hats. And of real interest I think it was first brought up in PRSI at MacRumors by a Trump supporter to describe those against Trump, just one of the many projections that are Trump, about Trump projected onto his opponents, and blind devotion to this corrupt, anarchy inducing POS who has not one redeeming quality that is respected among human beings.



Thanks.
I think that does sum it up very well.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

rdrr said:


> What is going on in NV?  I mean no update at all for over a day?   Something smells fishy there,



The winning ballot is still in play in a high rollers suite in Vegas.  Mr. Dicaprio has requested the game not be disturbed for any reason.  Any. You hear me?


----------



## User.45

I project NC to Trump, as his lead still holds even if I adjust for mail-in ballots favoring Biden by 10% in the state.


----------



## Edd

PA will deliver. Trump knows it which is why he’s suing.
The disagreement between news outlets over AZ is interesting. Fox and the WSJ called it hours ago and MSNBC won’t budge.


----------



## Eric

Edd70 said:


> PA will deliver. Trump knows it which is why he’s suing.
> The disagreement between news outlets over AZ is interesting. Fox and the WSJ called it hours ago and MSNBC won’t budge.



Same with CNN, although the AP did call it. I get the apprehension, those that called it did so with 200,000 still to count in a traditionally red state, that takes a set of balls IMO.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Just a reminder, this stupidity was intentional.
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324349677660184585/


----------



## lizkat

Down-ballot great news from Georgia for Dems:   two Black sheriff candidates won their elections in high-population counties,  and will likely then halt cooperation w/ ICE as promised during campaigns.  

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324115650177048577/


----------



## Alli

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Do we have the official picture of a bag of dicks to post on MR yet?











						Official Bag of Dicks Pranks And Gag Gifts from BagOfDicks.com
					

BagOfDicks.com™ is the official home of the original Bag Of Dicks pranks and gag gifts. Featuring the Basic Bag Of Dicks, the Singing Bag Of Dicks, the Evil Bag of Dicks, the Mini-Bag-Of-Dicks and so much more. There's only one BagOfDicks.com™, the only place to get official Bag Of Dicks prank gift.




					bagofdicks.com


----------



## User.45

Edd70 said:


> PA will deliver. Trump knows it which is why he’s suing.
> The disagreement between news outlets over AZ is interesting. Fox and the WSJ called it hours ago and MSNBC won’t budge.



Not that straight forward... Even though the reported proportion of mail-ins is about 80% Biden 20% Trump, these data are from a limited number of counties and may not be representative to PA. That said, if I count with a net 20% favor for Biden in the remaining votes, that would mean a 4-digit lead/win for Biden. 

So it's not lost, but you have to make heavy adjustments based on data that isn't great.


----------



## Alli

ronntaylor said:


> Not a one of those supporters cares about the other side. We need to take care of those that voted for Biden-Harris and move this country forward after so many steps backwards.








Arkitect said:


> Edit: I don't think even the most level headed of US Americans realise what a disturbing image that is to people outside the US.



It is a disturbing image to those of us in the US.


----------



## User.45

Even without the mail-in factor, whatever Trump could rake in from Mohave is offset by Maricopa. I consider Biden the winner of AZ.


----------



## User.45

It's frustrating that Nevada hasn't been processed for a while. Here Biden is projected to increase his edge, and I didn't even have to consider the mail-in factor.

I'll call NV for Biden.


----------



## User.45

Guys, I think we can call it:

*Bye-Don!*

Also, I share the disappointment about the Senate but the more I think about it the less sad I am. As I said before, America is in an abusive relationship with Trump. The first thing is to move away from him, and things will become clearer for many. Some stated the senate is even more important than the presidency, but it's not true. If Dems had the Congress and the Senate, Trump would play the victim 24/7 and would still try to bypass all the checks and balances. So while it is a set back not to have the Senate, next midterms will have 20 Republican and 12 Democrat seats up. It will be much easier to flip that 1 or 2 godforsaken seats when people realize 2 years into a BIden presidency, that nobody became a Communist, and no republican have the platform of the presidency to misinform the people.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Arkitect said:


> Apologies, but I'm asking as a very naive European:
> 
> _Is this man a policeman?_
> 
> What goes on inside that man's head? What is he really, _really_ thinking as he stands there…
> 
> Why bring a gun in to an emotional, fraught atmosphere?
> 
> Why bring a gun?
> 
> Edit: I don't think even the most level headed of US Americans realise what a disturbing image that is to people outside the US.
> 
> 
> View attachment 1157




I don’t have as much of a problem with the diehard Trump supporters as I do with the rest of Class A moral delinquents that voted for him, which is a disturbingly high percentage of the population.

Let’s say the shoe was on the other foot and Qanon was actually a thing instead of pedophile fan fiction and a sitting Democrat President inspired pedophiles to come marching out of the darkness. Sure they like to congregate right at the 100 yard from an elementary school mark with their hands down their pants, but that’s not really why they are there. They are there to protest the lack of job opportunities for pedophiles. You really think the right would give some kind of “But that’s not really who we are” statement a pass as a reason to keep that President in office?

Trump attracts and emboldens racists, white supremacists, anarchist militias, grifters, criminals, bullies, liars, and hypocrite Christians who think the Bible is little more than The Little Fetus Who Could. “But that’s not really who we are”. Fuck off.


----------



## Arkitect

ericgtr12 said:


> Same with CNN, although the AP did call it. I get the apprehension, those that called it did so with 200,000 still to count in a traditionally red state, that takes a set of balls IMO.



BBC still hedging bets at 243
Lef(ish) Press Guardian, Mirror is with 264
Right Wing Press, Telegraph, Sun, Daily Mail etc not showing any tracker on their sites. Just Covid Denialism and underlying reporting of "Trump FTW!"

Edit: Clarity


----------



## User.45

Arkitect said:


> BBC still hedging bets at 243
> Lef(ish) Press Guardian, Mirror is with 264
> Right Wing Press, Telegraph, Sun, Daily Mail etc not showing anything on their sites. Just Covid Denialism and underlying reporting of "Trump FTW!"



Good for them. In reality, this is where we are:





The only place that will have a legit recount is Georgia.


----------



## iMi

lizkat said:


> 2020 will end up as another election where the details on polling errors will prove hard to sort out.  Covid-19 has thrown a lot of random disruptions into people's lives and their reactions will sometimes have been enough to flip originally intended or predictable votes.
> 
> We're never going to know all the reasons for votes that ended up tipping this CD or keeping that one red or blue, most likely.   The map of drift is multicolored and to me inexplicable ths time around (another suggestion that covid spikes and lockdown variances etc have had a lot to do with it).  So to that extent another anomalous election like that of 2016 but over different factors.
> 
> Hard for pollsters to extrapolate anything useful from it with a high degree of confidence.  They'll try for it one more time next time and may mess up yet again but even if they don't, who's going to take them seriously up front next time??   We do need to have better insight into how we all think and feel and we're not going to get that from hanging out in our siloes and echo chambers.   Public opinion polls matter but by god these turned out way off outside margins of error again.




The “shy Trump voter” phenomena is likely the best explanation. There are a lot of people who recognize just how awful of a person he is and don’t want to openly support him, but behind the scenes they do because of some issue that matters to them — racist views, abortion, religion, etc.


----------



## User.45

Scepticalscribe said:


> PearsonX said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think we do. Fuck this guy and his little penis.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Okay; great answer.
Click to expand...



I apologize...I usually prefer to express things in a more considerate way. This guy is just an epitome of fragile masculinity. He notices that he is finally taken seriously once he poses with his weapon and since a form of perceived respect comes instantaneously with this pose, you can just tell that this guy is not someone who will work hard to actually earn respect. I really dislike posers in general, but when the posing happens with a device designed to murder fellow humans, then it elicits an extra level of contempt from me.


----------



## JayMysteri0

For Frik Sake
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324331937385848835/

The desperation is starting to pick up


----------



## User.45

iMi said:


> The “shy Trump voter” phenomena is likely the best explanation. There are a lot of people who recognize just how awful of a person he is and don’t want to openly support him, but behind the scenes they do because of some issue that matters to them — racist views, abortion, religion, etc.



I have to agree. If you think about it, the best quality surveys are the ones that are done through the phone. If these people want to keep this on the down low, they will be more likely to give no or false info when they can be overheard. So moral of the story is that this phenomenon exists overall. However, pollsters compensated the shit out of their data to adjust for this and after all, it worked. 

I have to add that I've met two kinds of bad person in my life. One that is unaware that they are malignant, and the other type is well aware but it matches their self-perception. I'd say that the "shy" trump voter belongs in the latter category.


----------



## Thomas Veil

rdrr said:


> What is going on in NV?  I mean no update at all for over a day?   Something smells fishy there,



I don’t think so.

https://www.vox.com/21551079/live-results-nevada-inches-closer-to-finishing-its-vote-count


----------



## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> I turned on CNN and they were asking a Democrat why they didn't win as big as they thought they would and they had zero election updates since yesterday so I just turned them off. So tired of cable news right now.




I swear cable news channels have some song in a loop in the production control room...

_*"... and to fill these empty hours...  longing for something new...."*_​​Came to the realization in the past couple days that perhaps it wasn't the commericals on TV after all which had landed my 13" model in the e-cycle bins a long time ago.  It was the cable news shows struggling to fill an infinite news hole with events of even an extraordinary day.


----------



## JayMysteri0

For some, the 'fun' continues



> Republican Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Raphael Warnock advance to Georgia Senate runoff
> 
> 
> After a close matchup, neither candidate garnered more than 50 percent of the vote.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com





> Georgia’s special Senate election is headed to a runoff, after Reverend Raphael Warnock did not clear Georgia’s 50 percent threshold for victory in his bid to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
> 
> Loeffler has not had an easy time the past few months thanks to the state’s “jungle primary” system, where candidates from all parties compete in an initial round, and if no candidate wins a majority, the top two head to a runoff. Rather than focusing on her main Democratic opponent, she had to fend off a conservative challenge from Rep. Doug Collins, a staunch Trump ally who kept the incumbent from moderating her message.
> 
> An October 20 New York Times/Siena College poll showed Warnock leading both Republicans at 32 percent, with Loeffler getting 23 percent of Republican support compared to 17 percent for Collins.
> 
> “[Warnock] is opening a lead over either of the Republicans,” University of Georgia political science professor George Bullock previously told Vox, largely because Loeffler and Collins were splitting the Republican vote: “If you add the vote for those two together, it comes close to equalling the vote for Perdue and the vote for Trump.”



This woman needs to go



> For their part, Democrats tried to persuade Matt Lieberman (the son of Joe Lieberman) to drop out of the race. But even as he’s polled in the low single-digits, Lieberman refused.
> 
> Loeffler’s gamble that running to the right would fend off Collins’s challenge without letting Democrats clear the threshold for outright victory has paid off. Now that Loeffler has beaten Collins, she’s free to face Warnock on potentially more favorable turf. A January runoff could make it difficult for Democrats to replicate the historically high turnout of a presidential election.
> 
> 
> But Loeffler may not be able to pivot as cleanly as she might like to. Appointed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, Loeffler was chosen to help Republicans turn the tide of suburban women running away from the GOP. This year, desperately trying to hold on to her seat, she abandoned that moderate mantel, seeking the endorsement of presumptive conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is best known for espousing QAnon conspiracy theories.
> 
> Two and a half weeks before the election, Greene endorsed Loeffler, highlighting the senator’s criticism of Black Lives Matter which the incumbent has called a “Marxist effort” and praising her as “the most conservative Republican in the race.”
> 
> Warnock’s candidacy, meanwhile*,* struck a national chord this summer as Black Lives Matter protests brought his work as the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church to the forefront. This is the same church where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor in the 1960s.
> 
> Issues of racial justice are not just “theoretical” to him, Warnock told Vox. One of his early ads was about his experience at age 12 of being dragged out of a store and accused of shoplifting, simply for having his hands in his pockets.




Side note:  Really dems?    By now you haven't realized dealing in ANY way with a Lieberman gets you shanked in the back?!  C'mon!  History.  Learn it.  Don't repeat it.  Doom!


----------



## lizkat

If the Trump administration actually paid attention to this department, they'd probably halt its twitter account because it's so factual, educational and entertaining at the same time.   On the other hand if they read this particular tweet they'd probably accuse the damn grosbeaks of stealing votes and distributing them to Biden in key states Trump needed to win.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324366836280995841/


----------



## Arkitect

lizkat said:


> I swear cable news channels have some song in a loop in the production control room...
> 
> _*"... and to fill these empty hours...  longing for something new...."*_​​*Came to the realization in the past couple days that perhaps it wasn't the commericals on TV after all which had landed my 13" model in the e-cycle bins a long time ago.  It was the cable news shows struggling to fill an infinite news hole with events of even an extraordinary day.*



Absolutely!    
The endless repeats, the desperate squeezing of sensationalism out of the smallest nugget of news. The banal interviews with whomever they could rustle up on their list of "experts".

The hugely over-paid, Botoxed, painted faces, the sheer loudness. The godawful graphics.

The emptiness of the commentary.


We gave up on a television set a long time ago.

Everything we watch is streamed on to the Mac.

If I need news I read it. And yet some people need that endless chattering in the background.


----------



## SuperMatt

ericgtr12 said:


> Same with CNN, although the AP did call it. I get the apprehension, those that called it did so with 200,000 still to count in a traditionally red state, that takes a set of balls IMO.



Would you still be watching CNN and MSNBC if they already called the race for Joe? They won’t “call” any race if they can keep getting viewers. Meanwhile, voting in person probably was a super spreader event. Over 100,000 cases of covid yesterday.


----------



## Arkitect

SuperMatt said:


> Would you still be watching CNN and MSNBC if they already called the race for Joe? They won’t “call” any race if they can keep getting viewers. Meanwhile, voting in person probably was a super spreader event. Over 100,000 cases of covid yesterday.



Exactly.

And which is why for all their protestations, the Orange Menace is good for their business.


----------



## User.45

Arkitect said:


> Absolutely!
> The endless repeats, the desperate squeezing of sensationalism out of the smallest nugget of news. The banal interviews with whomever they could rustle up on their list of "experts".
> 
> The Botoxed, overly painted faces, the sheer loudness.
> 
> The emptiness of the commentary.
> 
> 
> We gave up on a television set a long time ago.
> 
> Everything we watch is streamed on to the Mac.
> 
> If I need news I read it. And yet some people need that endless chattering in the background.



There's a reason I decided to just do my own projections.They are incentivized to make this look a lot closer than what it is. If they did a decent job showing the data, people wouldn't watch.


----------



## SuperMatt

I hope Georgia releases final results very soon. If Biden wins there, then it’s over. I think PA will take longer to count, but Joe is only 100K votes behind, with 8% of the votes left to count... looks like he will win there too.


----------



## SuperMatt

PearsonX said:


> There's a reason I decided to just do my own projections.They are incentivized to make this look a lot closer than what it is. If they did a decent job showing the data, people wouldn't watch.



I really appreciated those... great data, well presented.


----------



## Eric

Trump's lead in Georgia just shrunk again and it's now almost neck and neck. Can you you imagine a megalomaniac like Trump who thought he breezed through on election night now watching those huge leads being slowly stripped away from him? He must be fuming like never before, if he loses it will be poetic justice.


----------



## Eric

Allegheny county (in PA) has stopped counting because of a legal challenge to 29,000 ballots.


----------



## ronntaylor

I'm not so down on the Senate for Dems. They have a net gain of one as of today -- meaning 48-48 with AK sure to be a GOP next week. They have at least one runoff in Georgia, with the possibility of a 2nd there. And if Cunningham's dumb ass can get a bit more votes, there may be another runoff in NC.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Read an article that said Trumpism isn’t specifically about Trump but more about people who, like Trump, believe they are better, smarter, and more deserving than they actually are and the only thing holding them back is liberal elites. Lying is completely on the table if they feel it serves to support their entitlement or respect of their peers.  

So unfortunately Trumpism is going to outlast his Presidency and the Republicans will continue to support it because they already pushed that narrative before Trump.  Trump just became its namesake and amplified it.


----------



## User.45

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Read an article that said Trumpism isn’t specifically about Trump but more about people who, like Trump, believe they are better, smarter, and more deserving than they actually are and the only thing holding them back is liberal elites. Lying is completely on the table if they feel it serves to support their entitlement or respect of their peers.
> 
> So unfortunately Trumpism is going to outlast his Presidency and the Republicans will continue to support it because they already pushed that narrative before Trump.  Trump just became its namesake and amplified it.



It's a mixture of Dunning-Kruger effect and narcissism (though DK on its own is about narcissistic tendencies IMHO). What's gonna change is that people will lose the platform that legitimized them. They'll lose their loudspeaker.


----------



## ronntaylor

Expected a big update from NV. They just reported another 1011 votes in Clark County (includes Las Vegas). Biden lead statewide increases slightly to 11,454 votes representing a 1% lead with 87% of the vote counted. Most ballots to be counted are those received on Election Day, those received after Election Day but postmarked by that day, and provisional ballots. Many (most?) of those are from Democratic strongholds.

Nevada officials will give their next update about 9 p.m. EST.


----------



## User.45

ericgtr12 said:


> Trump's lead in Georgia just shrunk again and it's now almost neck and neck. Can you you imagine a megalomaniac like Trump who thought he breezed through on election night now watching those huge leads being slowly stripped away from him? He must be fuming like never before, if he loses it will be poetic justice.



Not good






(I hid counties with <500 net expected.)


----------



## lizkat

More upside news from Georgia

per NYT's Reid Epstein, in Madison, Wis.   13m ago

David Perdue has fallen under the 50 percent threshold to avoid a runoff in Georgia’s Senate race. He’s at 49.9997 percent — 141 votes short of winning outright with more votes still to be counted from Democratic area.  

_[ Reid Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining the New York Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. ]_


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy




----------



## User.45

PearsonX said:


> Not good
> 
> View attachment 1174
> 
> 
> (I hid counties with <500 net expected.)





lizkat said:


> More upside news from Georgia
> 
> per NYT's Reid Epstein, in Madison, Wis.   13m ago
> 
> David Perdue has fallen under the 50 percent threshold to avoid a runoff in Georgia’s Senate race. He’s at 49.9997 percent — 141 votes short of winning outright with more votes still to be counted from Democratic area.
> 
> _[ Reid Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining the New York Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. ]_





If there is a chance to go for a runoff then yeah, it likely will go for that between Perdue and Ossoff.

GA also has ~100K votes to count, Biden has to snatch them 58:42 to win. So not impossible but there remained some Trump strongholds there. SO all we can hope for is a very heavy mail-in effect.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

PearsonX said:


> It's a mixture of Dunning-Kruger effect and narcissism (though DK on its own is about narcissistic tendencies IMHO). What's gonna change is that people will lose the platform that legitimized them. They'll lose their loudspeaker.



Well, unfortunately for them their loudspeaker was either given to or taken up by their most repugnant ranks. If they were hoping to use it to gain sympathetic recognition then they certainly failed.


----------



## lizkat

PearsonX said:


> It's a mixture of Dunning-Kruger effect and narcissism (though DK on its own is about narcissistic tendencies IMHO). What's gonna change is that people will lose the platform that legitimized them. They'll lose their loudspeaker.




Authoritarian followers, Walter Mitty types and even average armchair quarterbacks are unfortunately always ripe for some other loudspeaker when their original icon fails.  How else maintain a sense that all would be well with the world if their guy just had a little more running room plus the luck to have world class supporters like them?

I used to dismiss talk about Tucker Carlson making a run in conservative politics.  Now I bother to wonder sometimes.  I realize my assessment of the low appeal of jackasses is frequently off the mark in today's America. 

But yeah,  no one in recent times has so far learned to milk celebrity the way Trump has done in terms of being a Pied Piper to so many "instant followers" who ended up including enough fairly conventional movers and shakers to land him in an array of Presidential candidates... and help him win. 

To think that in November 2016 post-election, I thought ok well this was certainly a fluke.  A terrible fluke, yeah disaster even, but we can dig our way out by midterms.   Got that latter part only about 25% right by my current reckoning.   Even Biden's likely win now is only a huge cause for joy because of all the gaslighting and federal agency-destructive damage committed over the past four years by Trump and his slimy party.    In the next four we're as likely to be damaged by our own impatience as by intransigence on the other side of the aisle.

But time will tell.   None of those misgivings will keep me from joy when Biden finally gets to acknowledge his victory.   If anyone ever thought their vote didn't matter, here's another lesson that it does, it does.. and matters not only that it gets cast but that it gets counted.  I really like the attitude and plain speech and patience of Pennsylvania's Attorney General:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324401698379649027/


----------



## Apple fanboy

rdrr said:


> I am a little lost at this part of the thread.  If you are asking if a president ever has served non consecutive terms then yes it has happened with Cleveland.  However if you are asking if Trump can come back in 2024, no he will be way too old and in jail.



We can only hope!


----------



## ronntaylor

I just want this to be over with already!​


----------



## SuperMatt

PearsonX said:


> Not good
> 
> View attachment 1174
> 
> 
> (I hid counties with <500 net expected.)



It sounds like the Biden voters in the red counties overwhelmingly voted by mail, according to this from 538....

NATE SILVER
NOV. 5, 1:21 PM
This sort of data is a big problem for Trump in Georgia. Even in a place like Bryan County, where Trump won by 43 points in 2016, Biden is actually winning by 15 in mail votes that were processed today. Those mail votes are just coming in very blue, sometimes even in red counties.

He was referring to this tweet:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324413829351170048/

I note specifically a county like Putnam - heavily red, but its mail-in votes went only 51% to Trump.


----------



## Eric

SuperMatt said:


> It sounds like the Biden voters in the red counties overwhelmingly voted by mail, according to this from 538....
> 
> NATE SILVER
> NOV. 5, 1:21 PM
> This sort of data is a big problem for Trump in Georgia. Even in a place like Bryan County, where Trump won by 43 points in 2016, Biden is actually winning by 15 in mail votes that were processed today. Those mail votes are just coming in very blue, sometimes even in red counties.
> 
> He was referring to this tweet:
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324413829351170048/
> 
> I note specifically a county like Putnam - heavily red, but its mail-in votes went only 51% to Trump.



Yeah, this is a new bombshell dropped today and they have for more ballots than they originally thought. This isn't looking good for Trump.


----------



## SuperMatt

As of today, Trump has 5.2% of the vote in the District of Columbia. In 2016 he only got 4%. His neighbors never wanted him in the neighborhood to begin with, and after 4 years living with him, they haven't changed their feelings much......


----------



## rdrr

More crazy...  NV voter states her ballot was stolen, Investigators validated her signature then gave her the opportunity to make an official challenge of her claim, she declined.   Trump campaign is trying to make a case out of the false claim.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324419281577271300/


----------



## SuperMatt

rdrr said:


> More crazy...  NV voter states her ballot was stolen, Investigators validated her signature then gave her the opportunity to make an official challenge of her claim, she declined.   Trump campaign is trying to make a case out of the false claim.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324419281577271300/



Please can some billionaire buy Facebook and just unplug it permanently? These stories spread to millions on Facebook, and end up not standing up to even the slightest scrutiny.


----------



## User.45

SuperMatt said:


> It sounds like the Biden voters in the red counties overwhelmingly voted by mail, according to this from 538....
> 
> NATE SILVER
> NOV. 5, 1:21 PM
> This sort of data is a big problem for Trump in Georgia. Even in a place like Bryan County, where Trump won by 43 points in 2016, Biden is actually winning by 15 in mail votes that were processed today. Those mail votes are just coming in very blue, sometimes even in red counties.
> 
> He was referring to this tweet:
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324413829351170048/
> 
> I note specifically a county like Putnam - heavily red, but its mail-in votes went only 51% to Trump.



Yeah I looked at my spreadsheet. We'll have to rely heavily on the mail-in effect though, that's why  it's less clear than it was earlier in the AM. 

If I pad all Trump strongholds and say there's a 20% margin these places and add a 10% margin to Biden in the Blue counties, it can work (not a crazy adjustment, but still a significant adjustment). This will be triple digit-low four digit scale close).


----------



## Alli

PearsonX said:


> If I pad all Trump strongholds and say there's a 20% margin these places and add a 10% margin to Biden in the Blue counties, it can work (not a crazy adjustment, but still a significant adjustment). This will be triple digit-low four digit scale close).



I was so happy when my quan classes were over. And then the election. After this week I never want to see another statistic as long as I live!


----------



## Edd

Just popped into a Breitbart comments section to smugly gauge the mood. The comments pretty much amount to fraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraud!!

Its impossible for me to distinguish between bot and human over there. Every post appears authored by a lunatic.


----------



## lizkat

Edd70 said:


> Just popped into a Breitbart comments section to smugly gauge the mood. The comments pretty much amount to fraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraudfraud!!
> 
> Its impossible for me to distinguish between bot and human over there. Every post appears authored by a lunatic.




I'll stick to the takes on front pages of more mainstream papers, including certain tabloids from across the pond.


----------



## Edd

lizkat said:


> I'll stick to the takes on front pages of more mainstream papers, including certain tabloids from across the pond.
> 
> View attachment 1178



Hoping Trump sees that headline


----------



## lizkat

Alli said:


> I was so happy when my quan classes were over. And then the election. After this week I never want to see another statistic as long as I live!




Yeah but ya don't want to miss out on little gems like this.  Ms. Lily Adams is the senior spokesperson for the Democrats' official War Room, keepin' it real this afternoon for fans of eventually killing the electoral college...  

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324428879688159232/


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

rdrr said:


> More crazy...  NV voter states her ballot was stolen, Investigators validated her signature then gave her the opportunity to make an official challenge of her claim, she declined.   Trump campaign is trying to make a case out of the false claim.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324419281577271300/




Do we have her name?  We need to have that in order to submit her for the 2020 Jussie Smollett Award.  I expect a lot of nominees to come out of the next couple weeks.  Might even have to make it a group award.


----------



## chagla

rdrr said:


> More crazy...  NV voter states her ballot was stolen, Investigators validated her signature then gave her the opportunity to make an official challenge of her claim, she declined.   Trump campaign is trying to make a case out of the false claim.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324419281577271300/



Stolen? Delayed? not found? DeJoys' being loyal to his master. Can she prove it was stolen? Did she request a second one? Did she report immediately?


----------



## rdrr

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Do we have her name?  We need to have that in order to submit her for the 2020 Jussie Smollett Award.  I expect a lot of nominees to come out of the next couple weeks.  Might even have to make it a group award.



Ugh...  I betcha Jessie Smollett is really regretting that whole thing.  I am glad there isn't a stupidity award named after me, but of course I have done a lot of stupid things in my day.   However nothing rising to that level.


----------



## Arkitect

Well, there is a bit of hope that the Trump false gold is wearing off. 

According to News and Guts, "GOP Congressman Tells Trump To “Stop” And “Accept” Outcome “Win Or Lose”

Link



> And here’s what Kinzinger said today on CNN:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _“It’s one thing for a president to kind of declare that he thinks he’s going to win or even declare victory. that’s a bit much, shouldn’t do it. Where I have a real problem with what’s going on is when a president starts alleging voter fraud without evidence of that…”
> “The problem with throwing out unsubstantiated charges is it undermines faith in democracy and then when he loses or maybe even when you win, people aren’t going to believe it. I will tell you what, I looked at Facebook last night before I went to bed, which was a mistake, just to look at it, and I just — every one of the stories on my wall were somebody that believed that either 100,000 votes were dumped with only Biden’s votes or that Wisconsin had more voters than people registered to vote. None of it is true, but people believe this. this is how this stuff gets spread.” _
Click to expand...


----------



## Edd

Pretty sure I’d already read about this today but Twitter is choking off Trump’s bullshit.


----------



## rdrr

Do you think these states are slow rolling the count because they don't want to be the ones to put Biden over 270 and cause the ire of all the MAGA voters?

Edit:  My own personal tinfoil hat thought.


----------



## Alli

rdrr said:


> Do you think these states are slow rolling the count because they don't want to be the ones to put Biden over 270 and cause the ire of all the MAGA voters?



Nah.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

rdrr said:


> Do you think these states are slow rolling the count because they don't want to be the ones to put Biden over 270 and cause the ire of all the MAGA voters?
> 
> Edit:  My own personal tinfoil hat thought.




Perhaps the results should be announced through inserting them late in the lyrics of a live cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird. That should have at least some calming buffer effect.


----------



## rdrr

I didn't realize how bad the postal service debacle really was.  My mom is a snowbird (Summers NH, Winters FL).   She is a registered Dem in Polk County Florida.  Requested her absentee ballot in late June and never got it.  So she had to quickly register and vote in NH.  Guess what showed up in the mail today?


----------



## lizkat

Nevada, Nevada w/ its little haul of 6 electoral votes. Who knew...  and Clark County is heavily Democratic.  So Nevada inches towards a big footnote in the history books tonight?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324459947493519361/


----------



## Eric

Can't tell you how refreshing it is to see Biden come out asking for calm, all without saying a word about Trump. He's staying above all of that and showing himself to be exactly what we should be expecting from a president.


----------



## Zoidberg

Not surprising, when you have camo-clad nutjobs playing Call of Duty and intimidating voters.


SuperMatt said:


> It sounds like the Biden voters in the red counties overwhelmingly voted by mail, according to this from 538....
> 
> NATE SILVER
> NOV. 5, 1:21 PM
> This sort of data is a big problem for Trump in Georgia. Even in a place like Bryan County, where Trump won by 43 points in 2016, Biden is actually winning by 15 in mail votes that were processed today. Those mail votes are just coming in very blue, sometimes even in red counties.
> 
> He was referring to this tweet:
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324413829351170048/
> 
> I note specifically a county like Putnam - heavily red, but its mail-in votes went only 51% to Trump.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

SuperMatt said:


> *Please can some billionaire buy Facebook and just unplug it permanently?* These stories spread to millions on Facebook, and end up not standing up to even the slightest scrutiny.




Apparently - I suspect, sniffing (probably accurately) the direction of a future regulatory wind - FB have flagged some of Mr Trump's more intemperate tweets today.  

However, I agree with you.  Completely.  

Someone needs to put manners on FB, and, if they fail to do it themselves, they may end up having it done to them by regulatory fiat, initially, in the EU, and then, further afield.


----------



## iMi

Yoused said:


> DailyKos headline:
> *Whatever happens next, Americans are pretty sure they want to be stoned when it does*
> 
> (several cannabis legalization measures passed)




Oregon decriminalized all drugs. This is big. Especially that drug related incarcerations disproportionately impact black people. In Oregon, you’ll go to treatment, not prison. Big deal.


----------



## lizkat

Scepticalscribe said:


> Apparently - I suspect, sniffing (probably accurately) the direction of a future regulatory wind - FB have flagged some of Mr Trump's more intemperate tweets today.
> 
> However, I agree with you.  Completely.
> 
> Someone needs to put manners on FB, and, if they fail to do it themselves, they may end up having it done to them by regulatory fiat, initially, in the EU, and then, further afield.




Facebook finally took down a pro-Trump group that was organizing in-person protests and at least one car caravan against vote counting operations in a number of states.   Apparently the social media site dropped the ban hammer on the "STOP THE STEAL" group only after some of its members went off on a more dangerous tangent and began suggesting that armed conflict was an option. 



			https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/05/facebook-trump-protests/
		




> A.J. Bauer, a visiting assistant professor in New York University’s department of media, culture and communication, said some of the protest activity on Facebook does not reflect an organic groundswell of support but the work of a “tightly networked set of Trump-orbit” influencers, including on the photo-sharing app Instagram, which Facebook also owns.
> 
> “They need something to queue up their relevance in the event Trump loses,” Bauer said, “and they’re leaning into grievances about the election being stolen.”


----------



## User.45

I love this photo. All Lives Matter: Gun Owners.  I doubt they aware of the paradox here.


----------



## User.45

iMi said:


> Oregon decriminalized all drugs. This is big. Especially that drug related incarcerations disproportionately impact black people. In Oregon, you’ll go to treatment, not prison. Big dealI call .



I'd call this The War on War on Drugs.


----------



## User.45

As GA and PA getting close to the end of the count, I no longer can use the county-wise data as all counties stop at >98%. There are counties so big that even 1% of their votes are in the 5K range. If these add up these can now disproportionately affect my estimates. I suspect they aren't entirely sure how many absentee ballots are and they just add whatever is left. So I'll say I expect a double Biden advantage here:
1. Higher vote proportion
2. Extra votes that we didn't anticipate in the anticipated total of votes.  (Trumpsters will lose their shit on this...but again this is by design. They fucked with USPS for a reason).


----------



## User.45

Also, if I want to be facetious, I'd say that at this point AZ and NV are trying to wait out each other's report on updated counts so they won't be the ones receiving the first trumpist shitstorm.

Thank goodness, for their maturity.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

PearsonX said:


> I love this photo. All Lives Matter: Gun Owners.  I doubt they aware of the paradox here.
> 
> View attachment 1182




I think the best counter protest to these clowns would just be to drive by and drop off boxes of diapers out the window.


----------



## Yoused

Here is a sobering thought:
In 15 states, 16.3M voters chose Individual-ONE when it was pretty well established, by history and by polls, that their vote would be effective worthless.
In 19 states, 15.7M votes chose Joe where they could be confident that their state's voters were going the other way.

That is 32 Million voters who were just casually registering their opinion, knowing that they would not prevail. More than 20% of Americans, on "both sides", live somewhere where their neighbors are significantly different from them. If you look at it on a county level, every county in the country has other types in it. Sometimes a lot of them.


Meanwhile, Jim Wright posted this tweet image:


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

PearsonX said:


> Also, if I want to be facetious, I'd say that at this point AZ and NV are trying to wait out each other's report on updated counts so they won't be the ones receiving the first trumpist shitstorm.
> 
> Thank goodness, for their maturity.
> 
> View attachment 1183



That image made me envision Family Guy’s Peter in a wheelchair going “And you can’t say anything because I’m in a wheelchair.  Heh heh. This is great!”


----------



## lizkat

I'm reduced to prowling through old playlists for wisdom.

_This one's for you, Donny Boy.  _Wolf Parade's _*Shine A Light.*_

lyrics:





​


----------



## Eric

That presser by Trump was just sad. I know he's going to spout all of his conspiracies but he looks defeated. Look for him to completely scorch the earth on his way out.


----------



## SuperMatt

Less than 4,000 votes difference in Georgia now!


----------



## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> That presser by Trump was just sad. I know he's going to spout all of his conspiracies but he looks defeated. Look for him to completely scorch the earth on his way out.




I'm wondering how they're going to keep a lid on this guy during the transition.


----------



## DT

ericgtr12 said:


> That presser by Trump was just sad. I know he's going to spout all of his conspiracies but he looks defeated. Look for him to completely scorch the earth on his way out.



CBS cut him off, and I’ll repost what I posted on the other place:

***

This orange mother****er is on the TV saying he won with “legal votes”, and that uncounted, votes by citizens of my United States are “illegal”.

Traitor. Liar. He should be in prison for the statements he’s currently making.

People that voted for trump should be embarrassed.


----------



## SuperMatt

Arizona is really taking their time counting. Bankers hours?


----------



## Thomas Veil

I really can't tell from OAN's election map who's winning.


----------



## iLunar

lizkat said:


> I'm reduced to prowling through old playlists for wisdom.
> 
> _This one's for you, Donny Boy. _Wolf Parade's _*Shine A Light.*_
> 
> lyrics:
> 
> View attachment 1185
> 
> ​




Love this song AND the connection you made with it!


----------



## Eric

SuperMatt said:


> Arizona is really taking their time counting. Bankers hours?



One report per day, there must be a reason for that.


----------



## JayMysteri0

My favorite phrase as I watch people lose their mind making up conspiracies and rushing where votes are counted.


----------



## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> One report per day, there must be a reason for that.




Whatever, I'm fine with however they work it.  Each state has its rules and the phases of their vote processing fit together accordingly.  Some count early ballots and mail-ins early.   Others prefer to count them after in person voting concludes: they'd rather reconcile provisional ballots and affadavits from the actual polling places to any records of absentee ballots back in the counting house.

What gets me is all these Republicans in Washington DC who are so hot for states' rights when they don't like (or fear passage of) some federal law...  until it turns out what some state is doing is inconvenient for them politically speaking,  and then they start whining about people cheating... possibly meaning they're upset about how hard it actually is to cheat with everything so decentralized and watched over by so many observers of both parties.


----------



## JayMysteri0

And it begins...
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324451633300951042/

I see you, trying to act like you can get out of there with some kind of dignity.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Hmmmmmmm




The warm & fuzzies from the 45 crowd.  Provided I'm not an illegal?  Or...


----------



## Alli

ericgtr12 said:


> That presser by Trump was just sad. I know he's going to spout all of his conspiracies but he looks defeated. Look for him to completely scorch the earth on his way out.



MSNBC also cut away the instant he started talking about illegal votes. They stated they could not allow the lying.


----------



## Alli

JayMysteri0 said:


> And it begins...
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324451633300951042/
> 
> I see you, trying to act like you can get out of there with some kind of dignity.



I started a thread on this hours ago.


----------



## fooferdoggie

Finally trump admits he's corrupt. He said that people that vote by make makes them corrupt.


----------



## Yoused

ericgtr12 said:


> One report per day, there must be a reason for that.



Well, they armed camo-cowards laying siege to the place where the count is taking place, so that could be slowing them down.


----------



## Alli

It is now 49.4 and 49.4 in Georgia. 99% counted. Still some votes to be counted.


----------



## Alli

Sorry. I’m excited about that. I need to repeat it.

Biden and Trump are even at 49.4. In fucking Georgia!


----------



## lizkat

Georgia might be the one... but i might need some java to make it to midnight.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324537102566973440/


----------



## JayMysteri0

I want this picture framed and hung in the WH from now on.




That's NOT the look of a guy who's got it together.



> Trump’s desperate White House rant was everything people feared about his presidency in a nutshell
> 
> 
> There’s no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump is lying.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com





> If anyone was hoping that President Donald Trump would gracefully acknowledge the increasingly likely chance that he will lose the presidency to Joe Biden, the dishonest press event he held Thursday evening at the White House indicated he still has little respect for democracy.
> 
> With Biden now in striking distance of the 270 electoral votes he needs to become president-elect — as this is written, he is narrowly trailing Trump in 20-electoral vote Pennsylvania, with a large number of votes in heavily Democratic areas still to be counted — the president stood behind the White House podium and tossed out baseless accusations that he was the victim of election fraud.
> 
> Trump began with a whopper, saying, “If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.” In fact, even the Trump campaign has failed to provide evidence that fraud played any role in Trump seemingly coming up short in key states like Arizona and Nevada.
> 
> Trump then tried another argument, claiming that the media conspired to interfere in the election against him, “getting it knowingly wrong” by inflating Biden’s popularity in an attempt to demoralize Trump supporters. He contradicted himself by framing efforts to count all the votes in places like Michigan and Wisconsin as part of a plot to steal the election from him, while in the next breath insisting that all the votes in Arizona must be counted so he can continue closing the gap in a state that Fox News has already called for Biden (though Vox’s partner Decision Desk has not yet).


----------



## User.45

Alli said:


> Sorry. I’m excited about that. I need to repeat it.
> 
> Biden and Trump are even at 49.4. In fucking Georgia!



YEAH!


----------



## User.45

JayMysteri0 said:


> Hmmmmmmm
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The warm & fuzzies from the 45 crowd.  Provided I'm not an illegal?  Or...



"Trump will work for other candidates around the country"


----------



## Yoused

JayMysteri0 said:


> I want this picture framed and hung in the WH from now on.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's NOT the look of a guy who's got it together.



I really like the framing of that shot, such that it looks like he is wearing a blue and white dunce cap.


----------



## Joe

One of my co workers might be one of those “shy” Trump supporters that people are talking about. The last several months he has come into my office and he would make comments about Trump being stupid and making stupid decisions. In a way that sounded like he was annoyed with him. I don’t talk politics at work so I just laugh it off and change the subject. But he made it seem like he wasn’t happy with Trump and wouldn’t vote for him even though I never asked who he was voting for.

But today his tone is totally different. He made several comments about Biden cheating and not letting poll watchers in.  And some other Facebook conspiracies. It’s like he did a total 180 which makes me believe that even after all that trash talking about Trump he still voted for him.


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324543015407521792/

This is on point, and what everyone has been saying
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324412997570363400/


----------



## JayMysteri0

Yoused said:


> I really like the framing of that shot, such that it looks like he is wearing a blue and white dunce cap.



That was my first thought when I saw the thumbnail


----------



## lizkat

Newt Gingrich leaves not much room for an actual "genuine, deep crisis of our survival",  ya think?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324546432683094016/


----------



## Eric

FTW


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324534833494827008/


----------



## Alli

Yoused said:


> I really like the framing of that shot, such that it looks like he is wearing a blue and white dunce cap.






JayMysteri0 said:


> That was my first thought when I saw the thumbnail



Same! I had to look at it closely before I realized it wasn’t a dunce cap.


----------



## Eric

Anderson Cooper: "Trump is an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun"  Damn dude that was cold


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324467035112308736/

Someone doesn't know Philly.


----------



## ronntaylor

Holy Spit! Mango's lead is 1797 with Clayton County having 5700 ballots that still to be counted. Gwinett County, Cobb County and DeKalb County (all Democratic strongholds) have 1000s of ballots to count as well. Biden will be declared the projected winner no later than midnight.

Of course, still have provisional ballots and postmarked ballots can arrive as late at November 12 (think military and overseas voters). And we know that the Republicans will be crying for a recount.

CNN says if Biden wins Georgia, it's over. Mango would need to win every remaining state to force a 269-269 tie and send it to the House. Ain't happening!


----------



## Eric

ronntaylor said:


> Holy Spit! Mango's lead is 1797 with Clayton County having 5700 ballots that still to be counted. Gwinett County, Cobb County and DeKalb County (all Democratic strongholds) have 1000s of ballots to count as well. Biden will be declared the projected winner no later than midnight.
> 
> Of course, still have provisional ballots and postmarked ballots can arrive as late at November 12 (think military and overseas voters). And we know that the Republicans will be crying for a recount.
> 
> CNN says if Biden wins Georgia, it's over. Mango would need to win every remaining state to force a 269-269 tie and send it to the House. Ain't happening!



And it sounds like we'll know Georgia's final count by midnight (Eastern). I'm west coast so staying up until 9:00 isn't a thing for me.


----------



## lizkat

I'm too lazy to put this over in the TFG thread but DeJoy is a piece of work:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324532671947550720/


----------



## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> And it sounds like we'll know Georgia's final count by midnight (Eastern). I'm west coast so staying up until 9:00 isn't a thing for me.




I just made a pour-over coffee.  I'm in.

How sweet it is if Georgia becomes the state to put Biden over the top.  Voter suppression capital of the country for how many long decades...    man oh man.


----------



## Eric

lizkat said:


> I just made a pour-over coffee.  I'm in.



Cheers


----------



## JayMysteri0

I'm just here to supply jokes until Twitter runs out
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324252583196684289/


----------



## iLunar

lizkat said:


> I'm too lazy to put this over in the TFG thread but DeJoy is a piece of work:
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324532671947550720/




I think this accounts for a lot of the "polling" errors we're seeing. 

DeJoy needs to be tried in a public hearing in front of Congress. The machinations by him and Trump to sabotage votes is criminal.


----------



## SuperMatt

iLunar said:


> I think this accounts for a lot of the "polling" errors we're seeing.
> 
> DeJoy needs to be tried in a public hearing in front of Congress. The machinations by him and Trump to sabotage votes is criminal.



So, the polls weren’t wrong... they just didn’t account for DeJoy refusing to deliver ballots by the deadline? Funny how he is doing that at the exact same time the GOP pushed SCOTUS cases to stop states from extending received-by deadlines due to the pandemic. These people literally don’t care about democracy. They just want to stay in power through amy means necessary. Lock ‘em all up.


----------



## SuperMatt

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324371304636686336/


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324526302909603845/


----------



## Eric

It's looking pretty good for Trump in AZ right now, it will be interesting to see if those who called it have to eat that. CNN was careful.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Ooh
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324555195083378688/


----------



## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> It's looking pretty good for Trump in AZ right now, it will be interesting to see if those who called it have to eat that. CNN was careful.




Fox had called AZ early for Biden, right?

 Well if it goes for Trump in the end,  Fox was gonna get fired anyway... if not by Trump then finally by its viewers for getting the whole four years wrong.

On the other hand I remember once when Fox messed up the country labels on a map of the Middle East, their spokesman for a local station later popped off some remark about how their broadcast license didn't stipulate anything about having to stick to facts.


----------



## ronntaylor

lizkat said:


> I'm too lazy to put this over in the TFG thread but DeJoy is a piece of work:
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324532671947550720/




This is why the fucker told his voters to not use mail-in voting. They planned this. With so many Dem voters using early voting and ensuring their mail-in ballots went out super early (and most importantly, tracking those ballots!), it backfired on him. Imagine if all those lost/stolen ballots were counted. The margin would be even larger and I wonder if any close loses for Biden-Harris would have been close wins. Infuriating!


----------



## iLunar

ronntaylor said:


> This is why the fucker told his voters to not use mail-in voting. They planned this. With so many Dem voters using early voting and ensuring their mail-in ballots went out super early (and most importantly, tracking those ballots!), it backfired on him. Imagine if all those lost/stolen ballots were counted. The margin would be even larger and I wonder if any close loses for Biden-Harris would have been close wins. Infuriating!




What is also very frustrating about this that it effects a lot of down-ballot races, local rulings, etc. It's not just the presidency on the ballot, so people's votes in local issues won't get an accurate read, either.

DeJoy really needs to be tried and made public for these failures. His back-room dealings also need to be exposed. This is massive corruption, and literally the very definition of treason and sedition.


----------



## User.45

Rumor has it, Putin has Parkinson's. What a year!


----------



## Eric

PearsonX said:


> Rumor has it, Putin has Parkinson's. What a year!



It will take something like that to remove him from office, for better or worse. They made a go of free elections over there but Putin wasn't having it.


----------



## Eric

PearsonX said:


> Rumor has it, Putin has Parkinson's. What a year!



BTW This is worthy of a new thread (here or in News) if you're up for it. I hate always being the only one to start them.


----------



## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> BTW This is worthy of a new thread (here or in News) if you're up for it. I hate always being the only one to start them.




When some outlet past a link supplied by the NY Post reports it...


----------



## Eric

Steve Bannon's Twitter account is now suspended. If he would've just though to post this at MR he would've been fine.



> Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon's Twitter account was suspended Thursday after allegedly calling for the nation's leading infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci's head "on pikes" on his podcast.


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324574406727925761/

The guy supposedly lives 6 miles from the studio.  He's probably running.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Wait.  WTF?!!!



> Armed men arrested near Pennsylvania Convention Center identified
> 
> 
> Two armed men have been charged after being found near the Philadelphia convention center where an ongoing vote count could decide the presidential election, officials said.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 6abc.com





> PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Philadelphia police are investigating an alleged plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia on Thursday night.
> 
> Action News has learned that police got a tip about a group, possibly a family, driving up from Virginia in a Hummer to unleash an attack at the Convention Center where votes are being counted in Philadelphia.
> 
> Action News was there as a man was taken into custody. It's unclear how or if the man is connected with the investigation.
> 
> Police say they recovered a weapon and believe they recovered the Hummer they received a tip about.
> 
> No injuries have been reported.


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324574406727925761/
> 
> The guy supposedly lives 6 miles from the studio.  He's probably running.




Someone else said  that even though PA is still counting new batches of votes,  the guy who updates the website may have gone home for the night.  Hmm.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324577383328997376/

Only reason I'm still up is that having had that unusual-for-me night time pour-over coffee awhile back,  my brain thinks it must be around 7am by now so of course I'm up.

[ So I set about some chores and discovered by opening a box I meant just to unpack and put contents away in the back pantry that Amazon sent me the wrong kind of noodle bowls.. a rare goof on their part in my dealings with them...  but I filed for a returnless refund and will do a re-order tomorrow...   glad I don't have to bother returning the original delivery; that is a nice goodwill gesture on their part.]


----------



## JayMysteri0

...And
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324560122581045248/


----------



## lizkat

This piece discusses the disparities in popular votes vs electoral college outcomes in assorted elections, and similar unrepresentative issues in the way Senate seats are distributed.   It's not depressing news to me.  It's an infuriating reminder that it's past time to reconsider a set of archaic modes of delegating governance to representatives we do get to choose but without sufficient respect to our equality before the law.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/1...ctoral-college-is-close-the-popular-vote-isnt



> It looks likely that Mr. Biden will eke out an Electoral College win. But the narrowness of the result, in contrast to the fairly decisive preference of the American public, has intensified some Americans’ anger at a system in which a minority of people can often claim a majority of power.






> Mr. Biden’s current vote margin is, in fact, larger than the populations of more than 20 states, and more than the population of Los Angeles.
> 
> A similar disparity exists in the Senate, where the current Democratic minority was elected with more votes than the Republican majority and where by 2040, based on population projections, about 70 percent of Americans will be represented by 30 percent of senators.


----------



## lizkat

Ah, so Fox is back to its old deflections from impending bad news for Trump.  Well they weren't actually quite discussing whether a horse is a zebra, but were chatting about crime and police reform...    which for left-leaning voters per exit polls actually turned up about second from last as a national priority vs stuff like coronavirus and health care.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324591247584075777/


----------



## JayMysteri0

Seems there are lovely parting gifts as well
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324490673777713153/


----------



## lizkat

Gettin' closer....  this is typical move by Secret Service near the end of a contest for the presidency,  beefing up the protective detail around the presumptive winner.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324591406334300160/


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> ...And
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324560122581045248/




Wow.  

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324569721010900992/


----------



## lizkat

MSNBC is still live-covering the ongoing count in Philly overnight...  Trump's lead down to around 18k now, with about 54k votes left just in Philly where Biden has consistently been getting about 90% of the votes in batches from there.   So no surprise the Secret Service is said to be bumping up their protection of Biden,  who'll probably be claiming victory in a speech tomorrow.  Think the total outstanding votes is around 175k.  Statewide Biden's getting about 75% of the mail-ins but as noted before he gets 90% or so in Phila.

Meanwhile:  here it comes,  the GOP's way around annoyance of PA going blue:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324582917016817664/

You can tell Graham hasn't lost his ability to generate legalese, a set of wordsmithing skills gained in service to the Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps (as both a defense lawyer and later a prosecutor) as he signs off these days on sleazy or downright unconstitutional solutions to large or small problems the GOP lackeys need to solve for Trump. He's better at using weasel words than just about any pol I ever heard talk.  But what he was talking about there? It stinks.


----------



## lizkat

Colbert weighed in on Trump's presser.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324571460673949702/


----------



## Arkitect

Good morning!

Just checked the results and it seems nothing much has moved. 

I'm running low on CBD oil and the shops are closed. Argh!

Edit: Arizona's result to be overturned? Bloody hell.


----------



## Arkitect

lizkat said:


> MSNBC is still live-covering the ongoing count in Philly overnight...  Trump's lead down to around 18k now, with about 54k votes left just in Philly where Biden has consistently been getting about 90% of the votes in batches from there.   So no surprise the Secret Service is said to be bumping up their protection of Biden,  who'll probably be claiming victory in a speech tomorrow.  Think the total outstanding votes is around 175k.  Statewide Biden's getting about 75% of the mail-ins but as noted before he gets 90% or so in Phila.
> 
> Meanwhile:  here it comes,  the GOP's way around annoyance of PA going blue:
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324582917016817664/
> 
> You can tell Graham hasn't lost his ability to generate legalese, a set of wordsmithing skills gained in service to the Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps (as both a defense lawyer and later a prosecutor) as he signs off these days on sleazy or downright unconstitutional solutions to large or small problems the GOP lackeys need to solve for Trump. He's better at using weasel words than just about any pol I ever heard talk.  But what he was talking about there? It stinks.



I mean why have voting at all? Just a show of hands outside in the streets? And then the party with the most guns can pick the electors.

Oh screw the electors. The guys with the guns can just go and pick the President.

Wouldn't be the first time… eh Argentina, Chile, Zaire, Tajikistan, Uganda… what great company.


----------



## Arkitect

I am literally on the edge of my seat, though do I dare to hope?

*Joe Biden is inching closer to victory in Georgia. The latest votes tally has both candidates tightly matched, but with Biden 1,097 ahead.*
Link





In other news…

*'Fox News sucks!'*

_"“Fox, you can’t even trust them,” said Rob Phail, 51, from South Lyon, Michigan, who had been leading the “stop the count” chants. “They’re the worst chameleons of all. So you’re like, OK, who do you trust?”

Asked whom he would trust to confirm the actual results of the election, he said: “Trump.”

On Facebook, on a now-deleted group for Trump supporters that claimed Democrats were trying to steal the election, dozens of commenters described how “totally betrayed” they felt while watching Fox News on election night."

_


----------



## User.45

ericgtr12 said:


> It will take something like that to remove him from office, for better or worse. They made a go of free elections over there but Putin wasn't having it.



lets wait it out, so more reputable outlets corroborate this


----------



## Thomas Veil

lizkat said:


> Colbert weighed in on Trump's presser.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324571460673949702/



I saw that and it was amazing to see Colbert get so upset that at one point he actually stops talking because he needs to compose himself.

There’s an extended version that’s great because he calms down and goes into his monologue where he shows us Trump’s spiritual advisor, Paula White...and ho ho, is she a piece of work, vacillating between sounding like Max Headroom stuck in a groove and—I kid you not—speaking in tongues.

The woman is a nutcase, and just one more reason for me to ask, what is this thing Trump has for blondes? He’s got the same fixation that Alfred Hitchcock had, except that Hitch’s blondes weren’t all mental cases.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Arkitect said:


> ..._"“Fox, you can’t even trust them,” said Rob *Phail*, 51, from South Lyon, Michigan, who had been leading the “stop the count” chants. “They’re the worst chameleons of all. So you’re like, OK, who do you trust?”_




Okay. First of all...*great* name! Perfect. The Onion couldn’t have done better. 

And second: if you have to ask, “Is it everyone else, or is it me?”...it’s you.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

PearsonX said:


> lets wait it out, so more reputable outlets corroborate this




@PearsonX two things: Could you please start a thread on this so that we can discus it elsewhere?

And, I'm curious as to your source, as I've seen no reference to it anywhere.

For, this is fascinating, and, as Mr Putin (a notorious hypochondriac, from what I can gather) has stayed almost all of the time - more or less isolated - in a (palatial) dacha outside Moscow since the Covid crisis struck, these days, he rarely appears in public, - and those visiting him there have been obliged to take extraordinary precautions, hence, there could well be some truth to this.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

Thomas Veil said:


> I saw that and it was amazing to see Colbert get so upset that at one point he actually stops talking because he needs to compose himself.
> 
> There’s an extended version that’s great because he calms down and goes into his monologue where he shows us Trump’s spiritual advisor, Paula White...and ho ho, is she a piece of work, vacillating between sounding like Max Headroom stuck in a groove and—I kid you not—speaking in tongues.
> 
> The woman is a nutcase, and just one more reason for me to ask, what is this thing Trump has for blondes? He’s got the same fixation that Alfred Hitchcock had, except that Hitch’s blondes weren’t all mental cases.




Ah, the old (Beauty & the Beast stuff, old cautionary tales brought to startling life) where we have a world of ugly men (mentally, morally and physically) and cool blondes.  Yes, it's almost a trite cliché, isn't it?

Nevertheless, Mr Hitchcock's blondes weren't mental cases until he met them and mistreated them, unfortunately.


----------



## User.45

for comic relief


----------



## rdrr

lizkat said:


> I'm too lazy to put this over in the TFG thread but DeJoy is a piece of work:
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324532671947550720/




I think it was very surgical.  I posted this before, but my mom a registered Dem in Florida requested an absentee ballot in late June and didn't receive until yesterday Nov 5th.  After repeated contacts with her county commissioner.   

She has reported this to the Democratic party in Florida.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

I'm currently attending an online talk - a sort of seminar - and they just passed on a news flash which places Mr Biden ahead in Pennsylvania.


----------



## Eric

Biden just took the lead in PA, it's all but over now.


----------



## lizkat

Scepticalscribe said:


> I'm currently attending an online talk - a sort of seminar - and they just passed on a news flash which places Mr Biden ahead in Pennsylvania.




Yes multiple outlets report Biden ahead now by more than 5k votes in Pennsylvania -- Washington Post,  AP,  Reuters, NYT   -- but they're not calling the race yet.  

snapshot of how WaPo summarizes key states where Biden leads.   If just Pennsylvania stays in his column as now expected,  he will have won.


----------



## lizkat

Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Toomey has apparently decided to go with the flow in the Pennsylvania count and commented negatively on Trump's allegations of fraud.    Toomey's careful language seems like a predictable attempt to get on the right side of now probable history --in case his state does put Biden over the top--  but at least he did join the handful of Republicans who didn't just mumble about how all "legal" votes should be counted...



> Senator Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, said there was no evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims of widespread fraud as his state continues to count ballots three days after the election.
> 
> “I saw the president’s speech last night and it was very hard to watch,” Toomey said on NBC’s “Today” show. “The president’s allegations of large-scale fraud and theft of the election are just not substantiated. I’m not aware of any significant wrongdoing here.”




Above quote appeared in a Bloomberg roundup of where the counts stand this morning:









						Biden Expands Lead in Pennsylvania: Election Update
					

Democratic nominee Joe Biden overtook President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, a state that offers all the Electoral College votes Biden would need to win. But the race remained in doubt as Trump and his supporters lodged unsupported charges of voter fraud there and in other states.




					www.bloomberg.com


----------



## iMi

PearsonX said:


> I'd call this The War on War on Drugs.




Wait... wha...ooooooh, got it. Sorry. I had to read that a few times. Way too high right now.


----------



## iMi

SuperMatt said:


> Arizona is really taking their time counting. Bankers hours?




Look at it this way... if this was a quick election, it would be like a shot to the head for Trump. What's happening now is like a death by thousand cuts. I'm kind of loving it. Watching this orange baboon losing it has been deliciously wonderful.


----------



## lizkat

NV is still slogging along too... with what seems like an interminable count of its remaining votes.    Memes have actually popped up that comically depict a sloth doing the count in Nevada, although I'm sure the election workers would not be amused to see them.

Anyway below a quote from the NYT.  



> Mr. Biden led by just over 11,000 votes in Nevada, but local officials in Las Vegas announced Thursday that 51,000 ballots from Clark County there were being tallied and would be announced Friday. Mr. Biden was winning the county by about eight percentage points. If he wins the bulk of the new votes, it would make it almost impossible for Mr. Trump to take the state, because about 70 percent of Nevada’s voters live in Clark County.




I dislike how the papers run these election updates and commentary in a way that can make it hard to reference a particular subsection  --they don't always put permalinks for each new snippet of info--   but here's the source for that quote.









						Biden Pulls Ahead in Key States as Anxious Nation Awaits Winner
					

Joe Biden picked up votes in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia and urged patience with the slow-moving vote count. President Trump appeared in the evening to break his silence, lying about “illegal” votes.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## Arkitect

Champagne is on ice!

Link


----------



## Huntn

*3 Days After:*
An important change are the undecided States that are shaded light blue.

​
*From the  Forces Of Evil Thump Dept* they are scrambling and spewing their manufactured filth, about vote counting irregularity, just because they can, because they have mouths in their faces, and twist brains that make those nashing teeth move.

The Thump Koolaid Forge is in full force, where he is ahead stop counting, and where he is behind keep counting, and _if I’m behind its BECAUSE OF CHEATING. _What kind of upside down BULLSHIT are the minions willing to swallow? We see Trump groups trying to swamp vote counting facilities. PLEASE, grow up, get smart, cast that cup of orange bug juice on the floor, stop being volunteer victims and get real for once in your lives.

This is the greatest attempted Con of Donny’s life and it appears that he’s losing it.


----------



## Huntn

iMi said:


> Oregon decriminalized all drugs. This is big. Especially that drug related incarcerations disproportionately impact black people. In Oregon, you’ll go to treatment, not prison. Big deal.



About damn time! We need this across the country.


----------



## Huntn

lizkat said:


> I'm wondering how they're going to keep a lid on this guy during the transition.



Straight jacket and a Hannibal Lector mask, but that would be too noisy, so:

​


----------



## User.45

West Philly's response!
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324725533595312129/


----------



## Arkitect

Excellent response! 

"Asked about the possibility that Donald Trump won’t concede, Joe Biden’s campaign pointed to a statement they made earlier this summer, indicating this is a scenario they’ve long anticipated.

“As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election,” said spokesman Andrew Bates. “And _the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”_

_Link_


_


_
Seen on MR


----------



## lizkat

Arkitect said:


> Excellent response!
> 
> "Asked about the possibility that Donald Trump won’t concede, Joe Biden’s campaign pointed to a statement they made earlier this summer, indicating this is a scenario they’ve long anticipated.
> 
> “As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election,” said spokesman Andrew Bates. “And _the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”_
> 
> _Link_
> 
> 
> _View attachment 1199_
> 
> Seen on MR




Yep...  whoever said the Dems could have done better with someone besides Biden (and I have been there myself)  can stow that until sometime down the road when they don't like some tweak he persuades someone to stick into a bill to get it across the line in Mitch's senate...

Meanwhile Joe Biden's pitch-perfect public approach to a lingering vote tally make him the perfect candidate for man of the hour.


----------



## rdrr

What I bet is Trump strategy now is to negotiate for a non prosecution deal.  

I will concede and stop all stirring up shit, if you don't charge me with a crime.


----------



## JayMysteri0

As posted on MR
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324737371628326912/






https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/833403856566513666/

It's a Twittah Partay!!!


----------



## Eric

While I do get all the pointing and laughing, I'll just be glad to see him out of office and leave it at that. Personally, I'm not a fan of kicking anyone while they're down and IMO it was the worst trait of Donald Trump.

Looking forward to a more inclusive president who see's his job as working for the people and the best interests of the country.


----------



## User.45

lizkat said:


> Yep...  whoever said the Dems could have done better with someone besides Biden (and I have been there myself)  can stow that until sometime down the road when they don't like some tweak he persuades someone to stick into a bill to get it across the line in Mitch's senate...
> 
> Meanwhile Joe Biden's pitch-perfect public approach to a lingering vote tally make him the perfect candidate for man of the hour.



It appears that pollsters did an incredibly good job. I wouldn't even be surprised if NC flipped over the next week.


----------



## lizkat

PearsonX said:


> It appears that pollsters did an incredibly good job. I wouldn't even be surprised if NC flipped over the next week.




Yeah and it's funny because despite the pounding they've taken as the counts continues,   they all said to remember that a) lots of states count mail-in and other absentee ballots last not first,  and b) Trump himself urged Republicans to vote in person.


----------



## JayMysteri0

This will be one of the greatest days for Twitter

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324736644348522505/


----------



## rdrr

ericgtr12 said:


> While I do get all the pointing and laughing, I'll just be glad to see him out of office and leave it at that. Personally, I'm not a fan of kicking anyone while they're down and IMO it was the worst trait of Donald Trump.
> 
> Looking forward to a more inclusive president who see's his job as working for the people and the best interests of the country.




While I agree with you overall, I am going to take a few victory laps.  I think calling a few of them buttercup will help cure my TDS.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

I remember watching John McCain's concession speech in 2008, and having been deeply impressed at the time by the dignity, integrity and sincerity - and the tone and content - of his delivery.


----------



## User.45

lizkat said:


> Yeah and it's funny because despite the pounding they've taken as the counts continues,   they all said to remember that a) lots of states count mail-in and other absentee ballots last not first,  and b) Trump himself urged Republicans to vote in person.



Even if Biden lost, remote voting was simply the* right thing *to recommend even if the risks were there for Trump to sabotage it. Again just an indicator where the priorities of the two candidates are. What separates men from boys (and women from girls) is the willingness to aim for longer term goals with keeping the greater good in mind.


----------



## Arkitect

ericgtr12 said:


> While I do get all the pointing and laughing, I'll just be glad to see him out of office and leave it at that. Personally, I'm not a fan of kicking anyone while they're down and IMO it was the worst trait of Donald Trump.
> 
> Looking forward to a more inclusive president who see's his job as working for the people and the best interests of the country.



Oh goodness. You are a better person than me.

I will revel and delight in every bit of Schadenfreude.

He and his partners in crime have done massive damage. Globally.

Nah. I want him in his orange boiler suit.

I will point and laugh. Every. Single. Time.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Arkitect said:


> Oh goodness. You are a better person than me.
> 
> I will revel and delight in every bit of Schadenfreude.
> 
> He and his partners in crime have done massive damage. Globally.
> 
> Nah. I want him in his orange boiler suit.
> 
> I will point and laugh. Every. Single. Time.



I am 1000% with you.

All the while offering these to MR & 45 crowd


----------



## lizkat

rdrr said:


> What I bet is Trump strategy now is to negotiate for a non prosecution deal.
> 
> I will concede and stop all stirring up shit, if you don't charge me with a crime.






Scepticalscribe said:


> I remember watching John McCain's concession speech in 2008, and having been deeply impressed at the time by the dignity, integrity and sincerity - and the tone and content - of his delivery.




Good job you remember it since that's not likely what one from Trump will sound like, assuming someone can even get him to sign off on any proposed drafts.  

Maybe (and needing a pardon herself) Ivanka could get him to go for a "patriotic statesman" pose and promise him that his concession and early resignation from office while first "magnamimously pardoning any who may have erred in managing a tumultous administration yada yada yada"  will result in a golden-hued legacy for all time as the most patriotic American since George Washington.  That should do it.  He always thought he had topped all those guys anyway.

Whatever they promise him has to look good enough to endure one more instance of 90 seconds' worth of reading something off a teleprompter that someone had practically frog-marched him out there to do, during campaigns and a presidency perpetually marred by impulsive or poor decisions and scripted walkbacks.

Meanwhile that infernal lackey Graham is talking about a half million dollar donation for Trump's fight to stay in office via court fights.

One wonders really how knotty a set of problems the GOP is about to face.

Trump will not want to concede.

Trump will not want to resign early just to get a pardon himself from Mike Pence.  

But Trump will likely want to pardon his crime-fam in the West Wing and campaign staff plus his entire administration (including past employees) assuming he even admits anyone in his court full of lackeys ever did anything wrong. 

Of course Trump could solve a lot of these hassles himself by just completely melting down and netting himself a full-throated GOP cabinet exercise of the 25th Amendment...  and let Pence figure out who he feels like pardoning before attending (as outgoing acting President) the inauguration of Biden.  But as enticing as that might sound, it would not sit well with Trump's constituency, which has cast more votes for him in 2020 than they did in 2016.

So I'm sure glad I'm not wearing a hat in the RNC at the moment, never mind be one of the inner circle who will have to help a decompensating narcissist thread the needle to a grand and glorious finale to his presidency... one that always seemed to me to be one godforsaken wee hours tweet away from catastrophic.

They should start by shutting down Trump's tweetbox with a statesman-like remark that in the interests of a smooth transition,  his further communications during the transition will be via the White House Press Office.    And then they should fire Kayleigh McEnany and let someone reasonable in there put out press releases that Mike Pence authorizes.... not Pence's office (where Stephen Miller's wife works), but Pence himself.   The head of the RNC is a Trump lackey, so she's not a reliable ghost-writer of White House statements during the transition.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

rdrr said:


> I think it was very surgical.  I posted this before, but my mom a registered Dem in Florida requested an absentee ballot in late June and didn't receive until yesterday Nov 5th.  After repeated contacts with her county commissioner.
> 
> She has reported this to the Democratic party in Florida.




I was just thinking about a good comparison late last night. You know the joke (or reality) that those who scream the loudest anti gay rhetoric are probably closest gays themself? Well, whose screaming the most and loudest about election fraud and rigging?

In related news President Stop the Counting is now telling his supporters to mail in absentee ballots now.

The secret service needs to seriously bust out their tranq gun.  If one person dies because of Trumps rhetoric he needs to be prosecuted for treason and RICO charges.  He’s like a mob boss who doesn’t need to be tapped because he freely blurts out his coded orders to his goons.  Throw Jr in there with his all out war statement.


----------



## lizkat

I don't ever want to hear again any Republican bringing up Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark as their justification of their view or vote that she was unfit to become President of the USA.   Not ever.


----------



## Arkitect

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> I was just thinking about a good comparison late last night. You know the joke (or reality) that those who scream the loudest anti gay rhetoric are probably closest gays themself? Well, whose screaming the most and loudest about election fraud and rigging?
> 
> In related news President Stop the Counting is now telling his supporters to mail in absentee ballots now.
> 
> The secret service needs to seriously bust out their tranq gun.  If one person dies because of Trumps rhetoric he needs to be prosecuted for treason and RICO charges.  He’s like a mob boss who doesn’t need to be tapped because he freely blurts out his coded orders to his goons.  Throw Jr in there with his all out war statement.



This is getting truly scary.

He is out of control and no one is telling him to back off.

I think what's happening in the Oval Office right now makes Hitler's meltdown in Downfall look like a toddler's tantrum.

Trump:
_"Es bleiben im Raum!!! Pence, Pompeo, Kushner und Melania!“_

Melania:
_"Ich bin weg! Tschüss! Barron, komm mit schnell"_


----------



## Scepticalscribe

Arkitect said:


> This is getting truly scary.
> 
> He is out of control and no one is telling him to back off.
> 
> I think what's happening in the Oval Office right now makes Hitler's meltdown in Downfall look like a toddler's tantrum.
> 
> Trump:
> _"Es bleiben im Raum!!! Pence, Pompeo, Kushner und Melania!“_
> 
> Melania:
> _"Ich bin weg! Tschüss! Barron, komm mit schnell"_




Well, now, that sounds like an excellent meme: The latest take on Adolf's Downfall meltdown, this time featuring Mr Trump (rather than Boris Johnson - you may recall the hilarious Brexit version?)


----------



## Arkitect

Scepticalscribe said:


> Well, now, that sounds like an excellent meme: The latest take on Adolf's Downfall meltdown, this time featuring Mr Trump (rather than Boris Johnson - *you may recall the hilarious Brexit version?*)



It was the only thing that brightened my mood that awful day…

The Trump version I am quite sure is already out.

Carpets are being chewed!  

Edit to add:

Joe Biden’s campaign says he will give a speech during prime time Friday.

Wonder what he will say.


----------



## dogslobber

Desperation in them tweets.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324768077939118083/


----------



## lizkat

dogslobber said:


> Desperation in them tweets.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324768077939118083/




Dear Donnie:   remember when you called those who serve in our military suckers and losers? 

And asked what was in it "for them"??

What's in it for them is the right to fucking vote as US citizens.


----------



## dogslobber

GA is the surprise from this election as they vote for Joe. The two senate seats appear to be going for Jan 5th runoffs so this state will see a massive influx of money and ads in the next couple of months. One of those two senators did insider trading based off of COVID-19 non-public knowledge. The other got into deep controversy recently too although the reason for that escapes me.

OK it was for Perdue's racist comments mocking Senator Harris's christian name.


----------



## dogslobber

So the poll counting locations in PA have cameras for every angle imaginable. Where is the fraud?


----------



## dogslobber

Another point, there are international election monitors in these poll counting stations too. The USA used to send monitors to some dodgy countries to do the like but now they do it to us. If nothing else, this Trump episode has brought US election integrity down to a very low place when viewed by the rest of the world. Very sad.


----------



## Joe

I never donated to political campaigns until this year. I wanted Trump out that bad. Even though I am in Texas I will be donating again to the runoffs in GA.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

dogslobber said:


> Another point, there are international election monitors in these poll counting stations too. The USA used to send monitors to some dodgy countries to do the like but now they do it to us. If nothing else, this Trump episode has brought US election integrity down to a very low place when viewed by the rest of the world. Very sad.




I have posted about this both here and In The Other Country.

The OSCE ODIHR (a respected, reputable, recognised international election observation body - I've worked with them over the past 25 years across three continents) has an election observation mission in the US and they issued their report of preliminary findings on Wednesday.  

I linked it elsewhere in this site on e-day threads and have also linked it - twice - in MR in that ludicrous thread alleging voter fraud.

The gist was while they have concerns (about voter suppression, and oversight of campaign finance) they found no evidence of fraud.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

dogslobber said:


> So the poll counting locations in PA have cameras for every angle imaginable. Where is the fraud?






dogslobber said:


> Another point, there are international election monitors in these poll counting stations too. The USA used to send monitors to some dodgy countries to do the like but now they do it to us. If nothing else, this Trump episode has brought US election integrity down to a very low place when viewed by the rest of the world. Very sad.



United States of America, General Elections, 3 November 2020: Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions http://www.osce.org/node/469437


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

This is old from when Biden was VP, but I look forward to this kind of political mocking returning.

https://politics.theonion.com/shirtless-biden-washes-trans-am-in-white-house-driveway-1819570732


----------



## Alli

JagRunner said:


> I never donated to political campaigns until this year. I wanted Trump out that bad. Even though I am in Texas I will be donating again to the runoffs in GA.




I donated to Osoff a few times. Apparently I will do it again.


----------



## User.45

Apparently I was right about most, except for AZ and NC. Though NC may still flip.


----------



## DT

PearsonX said:


> Apparently I was right about most, except for AZ and NC. Though NC may still flip.
> 
> View attachment 1210





I was right about Florida.












We suck.


----------



## Alli

DT said:


> I was right about Florida.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We suck.



Yea, but at least Duval County went blue!


----------



## JayMysteri0

dogslobber said:


> Desperation in them tweets.
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324768077939118083/



Wait!    

Mr. "Stop the count!" is NOW looking for more ballots?!


----------



## Alli

Especially humorous considering how he shit on the military. He may not want those ballots as much as he thinks he does.


----------



## Zoidberg

I might have grown cynical lately, but I believe you're wasting your time feeding reputable studies to people on MR's PRSI who live on a steady diet of memes.



Scepticalscribe said:


> I have posted about this both here and In The Other Country.
> 
> The OSCE ODIHR (a respected, reputable, recognised international election observation body - I've worked with them over the past 25 years across three continents) has an election observation mission in the US and they issued their report of preliminary findings on Wednesday.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

despondentdiver said:


> I might have grown cynical lately, but I believe you're wasting your time feeding reputable studies to people on MR's PRSI who live on a steady diet of memes.



One can but try.

There is a lot (well, okay, a bit) I will let go in debate, but rubicund cherry red lines for me include sexism, racism and democracy.  

This is not just political - and I am passionate about politics, or professional (I have studied, taught and worked in the field of political analysis), but, it is also deeply personal.  

I can't do the doctor stuff in developing countries, not by temperament or training, but I can - and do - work in the field of democratisation, and, whatever about the merits (or not) of individual candidates (and yes, on this election, I am not remotely impartial), the rules of the electoral game - the rule of law, primacy of the ballot, integrity of the count, and adherence to the rules of the electoral game - matter to me at an existential, fundamental, visceral and deeply personal level.

To seek to deny these rules, to destroy them, shred them, threaten them, undermine them - especially in a country, flawed though it is, that remains one of our oldest democracies - *offends* me at a deeply personal level I find difficult to describe or express.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Also...



> Steve Kornacki is back on the map
> 
> 
> America’s boyfriend is back to rekindle the nation’s crush on him (and explain the final 2020 Senate races).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com





> As the hours dragged on, viewers began pointing out how Kornacki’s nerdishly disheveled energy was oddly soothing. He was always present even during breaks, on the corner of the screen dubbed the “Kornacki Cam.” His resilience was so astounding that people began to develop an unforeseen crush on the 41-year-old, as he engaged in the most unsexy activity of all time: explaining electoral math for hours on end.


----------



## DT

Alli said:


> Yea, but at least Duval County went blue!




I know, that's shocking!


----------



## Zoidberg

I respect that of course. It's laudable, but it requires a level of patience I'm afraid I don't have anymore.

These guys would happily waive their right to vote if it meant taking it away as well from someone they hate.


Scepticalscribe said:


> One can but try.
> 
> There is a lot (well, okay, a bit) I will let go in debate, but rubicund cherry red lines for me include sexism, racism and democracy.
> 
> This is not just political - and I am passionate about politics, or professional (I have studied, taught and worked in the field of political analysis), but, it is also deeply personal.
> 
> I can't do the doctor stuff in developing countries, not by temperament or training, but I can - and do - work in the field of democratisation, and, whatever about the merits (or not) of individual candidates (and yes, on this election, I am not remotely impartial), the rules of the electoral game - the rule of law, primacy of the ballot, integrity of the count, and adherence to the rules of the electoral game - matter to me at an existential, fundamental, visceral and deeply personal level.
> 
> To seek to deny these rules, to destroy them, shred them, threaten them, undermine them - especially in a country, flawed though it is, that remains one of our oldest democracies - *offends* me at a deeply personal level I find difficult to describe or express.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

So I guess Alaska is the Hunter Biden’s laptop of this race.  Still hasn’t  announced a winner and nobody gives a shit.


----------



## DT

Come on *306* to *232* ... !

Joe crossing that 300 threshold feels __so__ much better


----------



## lizkat

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> So I guess Alaska is the Hunter Biden’s laptop of this race.  Still hasn’t  announced a winner and nobody gives a shit.




Well we care about a Senate contest up there.  Anything is possible....


----------



## User.45

*DURHAM REPORT!!!!!!!!!!*


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

DT said:


> Come on *306* to *232* ... !
> 
> Joe crossing that 300 threshold feels __so__ much better



Whatever you’re smoking is now legal in Oregon.  

I have no idea what you are reporting on. All the news sites haven’t budged.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

lizkat said:


> Well we care about a Senate contest up there.  Anything is possible....




I'll admit as a stupid lib, when you have 2 assault rifles running for office I really I don't know what the difference is and I really don't plan on educating myself on that.  We are all free to choose our willful ignorance.


----------



## JayMysteri0

If I had to make ONE final post here, this would be it...
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324836796014866434/


----------



## JayMysteri0

Courtesy of MR


----------



## DT

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Whatever you’re smoking is now legal in Oregon.
> 
> I have no idea what you are reporting on. All the news sites haven’t budged.










JayMysteri0 said:


> If I had to make ONE final post here, this would be it...
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324836796014866434/




Goddammit, that's ridiculously fantastic.


----------



## thekev

Edd70 said:


> The power of avatars. It’s a comment like this that truly sounds like it’s coming out of Bender’s mouth.



Billy West actually revived Zap Brannigan's character a few years ago with Trump quotes.


----------



## DT

Well, if there's any more applicable use of his go to insult, I can't imagine it ...

TRUMP CAN BITE MY SHINY METAL ASS !


----------



## Scepticalscribe

JayMysteri0 said:


> If I had to make ONE final post here, this would be it...
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324836796014866434/




Brilliant. 

And quite surprisingly and inexplicably up-lifting.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Scepticalscribe said:


> Brilliant.
> 
> And quite surprisingly and inexplicably up-lifting.



EXACTLY!  For a 'fanboy' it certainly hits in the feels.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

JayMysteri0 said:


> EXACTLY!  For a 'fanboy' it certainly hits in the feels.




Yes, it does hit "in the feels"; I wanted to feel ecstatic emotion rather than a sort of teary emotion, but, both are good.

I like this post; that is clever, all too true, absolutely apt and very, very funny.


----------



## JayMysteri0

I would also like to get this in a nice frame
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324714764665266179/


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

JayMysteri0 said:


> EXACTLY!  For a 'fanboy' it certainly hits in the feels.



You can combine them too.  It’s been reported that the areas with the biggest recent COVID surges are also home to the most Trump voters.  I used the words biggest and most in that sentence so it must be winning. Keep it positive.


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> If I had to make ONE final post here, this would be it...
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324836796014866434/




When the GOP looks back sometime, if they ever do that with eyes wide open in Georgia, they're going to see their shameful steamroll maneuverings in the 2018 governor's race claimed by Brian Kemp with a whole new level of misgiving for how well it worked to lay in "so much winning."

Did they think Stacey Abrams' founding of Fair Fight Action to address voter suppression in a way never done before in states like Georgia and Texas (and now 20 other states as well) was some kinda joke?

The real joke was eventually and always going to be trying to keep voter suppression on a roll forever in the USA.

Anyway Stacey Abrams is owed thanks by more than half a nation's voters right about now.   She should be able to write her own ticket in a Biden administration or however else she will like to extend her sturdy brand of dedicated public service.  She built the platform that supports so much of Georgia's expanded blue vote that showed up in the outcomes of this week.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

DT said:


> View attachment 1218
> 
> 
> 
> Goddammit, that's ridiculously fantastic.



Math of what though?


----------



## JayMysteri0

lizkat said:


> When the GOP looks back sometime, if they ever do that with eyes wide open in Georgia, they're going to see their shameful steamroll maneuverings in the 2018 governor's race claimed by Brian Kemp with a whole new level of misgiving for how well it worked so lay in "so much winning."
> 
> Did they think Stacey Abrams' founding of Fair Fight Action to address voter suppression in a way never done before in states like Georgia and Texas (and now 20 other states as well) was some kinda joke?
> 
> The real joke was eventually and always going to be trying to keep voter suppression on a roll forever in the USA.
> 
> Anyway Stacey Abrams is owed thanks by more than half a nation's voters right about now.   She should be able to write her own ticket in a Biden administration or however else she will like to extend her sturdy brand of dedicated public service.  She built the platform that supports so much of Georgia's expanded blue vote that showed up in the outcomes of this week.



In retrospect, I wonder if Stacey Abrams NOT winning, motivating her to do her outreach is what helped defeat 45?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324817258334572547/

If so, nice work Kemp.  You will be next.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324827613341376512/


----------



## lizkat

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Math of what though?




The math of approaches to a marginal utility of damn near zero.

Trump's just about there and got there all by himself.


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> In retrospect, I wonder if Stacey Abrams NOT winning, motivating her to do her outreach is what helped defeat 45?




Phoenix rising from the ashes, man.  It's a myth that keeps on morphing, and in fact Abrams has still not dropped her lawsuit relative to that 2018 election,  but it's a ancient story that endures for its emphasis on dramatic rebirth from death or failure.


----------



## DT

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Math of what though?




Oh it was purely hypothetical, outstanding EC votes distributed to the two candidates based on possible (probable?) wins from this:







So Joe:

16 + 6 + 20 = 42
264 + 42 306

vs. Dummy:

15 + 3 = 18
214 + 18 = 232

AK's 3 not shown on chart but at ~50% reporting, it's about 66/33 trump.

306 + 232 = 538 total


----------



## Eric

DT said:


> Oh it was purely hypothetical, outstanding EC votes distributed to the two candidates based on possible (probable?) wins from this:
> 
> 
> View attachment 1219
> 
> 
> So Joe:
> 
> 16 + 6 + 20 = 42
> 264 + 42 306
> 
> vs. Dummy:
> 
> 15 + 3 = 18
> 214 + 18 = 232
> 
> AK's 3 not shown on chart but at ~50% reporting, it's about 66/33 trump.
> 
> 306 + 232 = 538 total



This seems likely, unless something major changes.


----------



## JayMysteri0

I am suddenly looking VERY forward to watching 'The 11th Hour with Brian Williams', as he begins every show with what day of the 45 presidency it is.  Suddenly that number won't seem so painful.


----------



## Yoused

@ericgtr12 do you think you could change the title of this thread? "Day" seems to have been naïvely optimistic.


----------



## DT

Hahaha, might as well skip __week__ too


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> I am suddenly looking VERY forward to watching 'The 11th Hour with Brian Williams', as he begins every show with what day of the 45 presidency it is.  Suddenly that number won't seem so painful.




Looking forward to news outlets once again not feeling it's necessary to track exactly how many lies a president rolls out to the public with complete equanimity 24/7/365. 

Biden will be more like pre-Trump presidents.  We have always known they do lie to us,  but at least I never expected to find one like Trump who lies about stuff the average seven year old can look up in a search engine and refute inside of a minute, complete with videotape links.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

lizkat said:


> Looking forward to news outlets once again not feeling it's necessary to track exactly how many lies a president rolls out to the public with complete equanimity 24/7/365.
> 
> Biden will be more like pre-Trump presidents.  We have always known they do lie to us,  but at least I never expected to find one like Trump who lies about stuff the average seven year old can look up in a search engine and refute inside of a minute, complete with videotape links.



If Mr Biden lies, it will be because of some (perhaps misbegotten understanding, or misunderstanding,) sense of the public good, because he thinks the public good may require it, rather than because he is motivated by private interest and personal profit.

Yes, that may be a depressingly low bar to start with, but, nevertheless, it is a good, useful, and worthwhile standard to have restored to the office of president.


----------



## Yoused

DT said:


> Hahaha, might as well skip __week__ too



I am leaning toward "The Election Clusterfuck Thread"





__





						2 men arrested near Philadelphia vote center had QAnon paraphernalia, AR-15 in car
					





					www.msn.com
				




(They were from Norfolk VA)


----------



## JayMysteri0

NOW the endgame begins...
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324852450109624322/


----------



## Edd

JayMysteri0 said:


> NOW the endgame begins...
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324852450109624322/



Haha! Not happening. This man will not risk a physical confrontation.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Alli said:


> Especially humorous considering how he shit on the military. He may not want those ballots as much as he thinks he does.



It seems some intend on returning the favor
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324877252367052800/



> Joe Biden Wins 4 Out Of 5 Military Ballots In Allegheny County, PA
> 
> 
> Trump calling the troops suckers and losers has come back to haunt him as Joe Biden won 4 out of 5 military ballots in Allegheny County, PA.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.politicususa.com


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Now I'm starting to feel like they are buying time so important government officials and leaders of industry with their families are confirmed safely in their bunkers.

The respected Associated Press map has budged in like over 48 hours.  And again, fuck you Alaska.


----------



## Yoused

Now we have evidence of literal voter fraud:
_ President (ShitGibbon)'s campaign in Wisconsin has desperately sought volunteers to call Pennsylvanians and urge them to mail in absentee ballots by Friday, which is after the Keystone State's deadline – even as the president himself rails against late votes and the ongoing vote count. …

n email obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel sent at 5:19 p.m. Thursday by Kenosha for (ShitGibbon) is headlined "Volunteers Urgently Needed." It reads: "(Kumquat) Victory urgently needs volunteers to make phone calls to Pennsylvania (Kumquat) supporters to return their absentee ballots. These phone calls will help (the Cheeto-Faced ShitGibbon) win the election!"_​

_To win, it takes courage, mettle, strength and guile; to lose, it takes *everything you've got*._

The Rs look a lot like they are fighting a losing battle.


----------



## JayMysteri0

On the flip side of all of this, the bat shittery is going to get goooooooooooooooooooood! 

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324887827868508162/


----------



## Eric

JayMysteri0 said:


> On the flip side of all of this, the bat shittery is going to get goooooooooooooooooooood!
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324887827868508162/



Starbucks every day? The only thing that could top this off is if they made the rich pay for it.


----------



## rdrr

JayMysteri0 said:


> On the flip side of all of this, the bat shittery is going to get goooooooooooooooooooood!
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324887827868508162/




Ok, so I cannot listen to the subhuman for a second.  Can you explain to me the deep state connection with Starbucks?  Then again, maybe I don't want a popsicle headache...


----------



## Clix Pix

Can I just say that, even though of course I'll be excited when Joe Biden officially wins, I'll be even MORE excited because his running mate, Kamala Harris, will be winning, also, and she'll be making history in such a huge way!!!


----------



## rdrr

Has anyone calculated the risk of these provisional ballots in PA?  What Trump percentage would he need to surpass Biden?


----------



## JayMysteri0

When Fox News doesn't even want to peddle Fox News bullshit
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324910948205912064/


----------



## Alli

rdrr said:


> Has anyone calculated the risk of these provisional ballots in PA?  What Trump percentage would he need to surpass Biden?



I think Kornacki just said he would need 100% of the provisionals. Ain’t gonna happen.


----------



## JayMysteri0

On MSNBC just now explaining how advisors are trying to deal with 45

"They are trying to get the president to a place" to accept he may have lost.

"Get the president to a place"?  Is that what we are dealing?


----------



## lizkat

JayMysteri0 said:


> NOW the endgame begins...
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324852450109624322/



Yeah I dunno, Condé Nast must have come up short on ad pages last quarter, they're running a lot of clickbait lately.  I glanced at that piece but felt like I was back in a supermarket checkout line without a smartphone and so stealing a quick riff through the National Enquirer while I waited. 

Trump is not going to be hauled kicking and screaming out of the White House.  He'll just leave.  He'll do all the kicking and screaming from now until someone gets the brass to tell him it's over and how about figuring out if he wants to pardon himself and risk being unable to make it stick, or just let Mike Pence do it and if the latter then "here's a way to resign without having to say it on television...  sign this letter, sir and we'll take care of the rest and then we're ready to roll on out and have some good times for a change sir, there ya go."

But It's what Trump tries to do between now and then that could be a matter of concern. 

And what he does with his big mouth to try to run some kind of shadow government after he leaves if he's really stupid.

Still,  I suspect he'll just end up trying to stay outta prison and otherwise play golf and kvetch to his friends if there are many left...  and try pathetically to get airtime to maintain a following.

Twitter will drop a ban hammer on Trump at the speed of light if he tries to run shadow governance from his private-citizen account on their site, that's for sure.

I won't mind if I never hear Trump's name again really.


----------



## Alli

JayMysteri0 said:


> On MSNBC just now explaining how advisors are trying to deal with 45
> 
> "They are trying to get the president to a place" to accept he may have lost.
> 
> "Get the president to a place"?  Is that what we are dealing?



And he won’t give a concession speech. Period.


lizkat said:


> But It's what Trump tries to do between now and then that could be a matter of concern.



That has always been my fear.


----------



## lizkat

Alli said:


> And he won’t give a concession speech. Period.




Yeah he won't concede.  They're gonna finesse that part because of the risk of the post-script ramble, geez.


----------



## JayMysteri0

Sometimes, the simplest explanations are the best ones
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324912788226015232/



lizkat said:


> Yeah I dunno, Condé Nast must have come up short on ad pages last quarter, they're running a lot of clickbait lately.  I glanced at that piece but felt like I was back in a supermarket checkout line without a smartphone and so stealing a quick riff through the National Enquirer while I waited.
> 
> Trump is not going to be hauled kicking and screaming out of the White House.  He'll just leave.  He'll do all the kicking and screaming from now until someone gets the brass to tell him it's over and how about figuring out if he wants to pardon himself and risk being unable to make it stick, or just let Mike Pence do it and if the latter then "here's a way to resign without having to say it on television...  sign this letter, sir and we'll take care of the rest and then we're ready to roll on out and have some good times for a change sir, there ya go."
> 
> But It's what Trump tries to do between now and then that could be a matter of concern.
> 
> And what he does with his big mouth to try to run some kind of shadow government after he leaves if he's really stupid.
> 
> Still,  I suspect he'll just end up trying to stay outta prison and otherwise play golf and kvetch to his friends if there are many left...  and try pathetically to get airtime to maintain a following.
> 
> Twitter will drop a ban hammer on Trump at the speed of light if he tries to run shadow governance from his private-citizen account on their site, that's for sure.
> 
> I won't mind if I never hear Trump's name again really.



Yeah, I am seeing a lot of emphasis on the fact that concessions are courtesy not law.

The concern though is with this guy he still will only worry about himself.  He won't help with a transition, probably for fear of the real depth of the problems he avoided.  He'll continue to denigrate the guy who did win, meaning his followers will still NOT want to wear masks or do their part to fix things.  

Basically 45 will do his best to muck up things for Biden before he gets in, in the hopes of saying "See I told you so".


----------



## lizkat

Heads up  from the NYT

Thomas Kaplan, in Wilmington, Del.  2m ago

Biden’s motorcade is en route to the Chase Center in Wilmington, where he is expected to speak shortly.


----------



## Alli

lizkat said:


> Biden’s motorcade is en route to the Chase Center in Wilmington, where he is expected to speak shortly.



Just came to say that. I can’t believe they’re doing it this late, but it’s so exciting!


----------



## Joe

JayMysteri0 said:


> On MSNBC just now explaining how advisors are trying to deal with 45
> 
> "They are trying to get the president to a place" to accept he may have lost.
> 
> "Get the president to a place"?  Is that what we are dealing?




That’s what happens to someone who has never been told No in his life.


----------



## dogslobber

Damn, that was some speech. We've missed that for the last 4 years.


----------



## Yoused

ericgtr12 said:


> Starbucks every day? The only thing that could top this off is if they made the rich pay for it.




Starbucks? Utter crap. Emergency coffee. The only one that is worse is any place that serves that Seattle's Best bile.

No, I want my taco trucks on every corner. Bring those back.



Alli said:


> And he won’t give a concession speech. Period.



Heh. When I first saw your post (I guess I need better glasses) I thought it said "concession screech".


----------



## Clix Pix

Seriously, Donald Trump needs to be quietly transported to a private psychiatric facility (he can afford that) and be thoroughly evaluated and given some "time out" to recover from this major loss he is experiencing.....  

Get him well and truly out of everyone's way and let this country move forward with a real president, a real leader, in the way we've needed to do for so long!


----------



## Yoused

Clix Pix said:


> Seriously, Donald Trump needs to be quietly transported to a private psychiatric facility (he can afford that) ...



Are you sure? With DeutscheBank running the other way and the ridiculous debt load he has from freaking everything, does he even have any money?


----------



## lizkat

Clix Pix said:


> Seriously, Donald Trump needs to be quietly transported to a private psychiatric facility (he can afford that) and be thoroughly evaluated and given some "time out" to recover from this major loss he is experiencing.....
> 
> Get him well and truly out of everyone's way and let this country move forward with a real president, a real leader, in the way we've needed to do for so long!




Yeah Trump is heading for full on decompensation and it won't be pretty.  We could briefly end up with a President Pence in the time frame of this transition to the 2021 inauguration.

As unrelated side note, WaPo just popped a notification on to my phone that chief of staff Mark Meadows has tested positive for covid.   Way to start a weekend that already promises to be pretty stressful.


----------



## lizkat

Yoused said:


> Are you sure? With DeutscheBank running the other way and the ridiculous debt load he has from freaking everything, does he even have any money?




Well if Lindsey Graham has $500k to throw into the pot for Trump's erstwhile attempt to get some court to live up to Trump's expectations of "stopping the voting"...   maybe Graham can throw a few crumbs Trump's way for old times' sake.


----------



## lizkat

rdrr said:


> Has anyone calculated the risk of these provisional ballots in PA?  What Trump percentage would he need to surpass Biden?




Provisional ballots are not likely anywhere enough to get where Trump would need to get...


----------



## lizkat

File under "Election supervisors gettin' tired of the BS"...   a Republican clerk in Rochester Hills MN calls out the head of the RNC for lying about voter fraud there.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324868768342962183/


----------



## JayMysteri0

People are certainly enjoying themselves making memes

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324875624150863872/

With this nugget thrown in
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324936217465597952/


> People intentionally spreading coronavirus could be charged with terrorism, DOJ says | CNN Politics
> 
> 
> Individuals who intentionally spread the novel coronavirus could be charged with terrorism for the "purposeful exposure and infection of others," a Justice Department memo says.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.cnn.com



https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324944102287405056/


----------



## hulugu

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> So I guess Alaska is the Hunter Biden’s laptop of this race.  Still hasn’t  announced a winner and nobody gives a shit.




We were having problem with an election database matching the graphics, and then we realized that it's because Alaska wasn't in.


----------



## MarkusL

rdrr said:


> Ok, so I cannot listen to the subhuman for a second.  Can you explain to me the deep state connection with Starbucks?  Then again, maybe I don't want a popsicle headache...



I also refuse to watch it so I will just guess it revolves around that time Starbucks banned Christmas by printing "happy holidays" on their cups.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Scepticalscribe said:


> @PearsonX two things: Could you please start a thread on this so that we can discus it elsewhere?



New thread about Putin started here.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Check this out...

*Report: Armed men arrested in Philadelphia were trying to deliver fake ballots*



> ...Both men were carrying loaded handguns, and police found an AR-type rifle in the Hummer, authorities said at a news conference Friday. About 160 rounds of ammunition were found in the weapons and the vehicle, authorities said.





> Stickers and a hat with logos of the QAnon conspiracy movement were found in the vehicle, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said.




I love that these two geniuses were right wingers. Trump’s Antifa boogeyman fearmongering looks dumber every day.

I also like that the one guy is involved in _security_. Looks like he’s pretty much blown his career.


----------



## Joe

Thomas Veil said:


> Check this out...
> 
> *Report: Armed men arrested in Philadelphia were trying to deliver fake ballots*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I love that these two geniuses were right wingers. Trump’s Antifa boogeyman fearmongering looks dumber every day.
> 
> I also like that the one guy is involved in _security_. Looks like he’s pretty much blown his career.




The CEO at his company was like “I think he’s a good guy” lol


----------



## lizkat

Thomas Veil said:


> Check this out...
> 
> *Report: Armed men arrested in Philadelphia were trying to deliver fake ballots*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I love that these two geniuses were right wingers. Trump’s Antifa boogeyman fearmongering looks dumber every day.
> 
> I also like that the one guy is involved in _security_. Looks like he’s pretty much blown his career.




Hilarious in a grim sort of way.  Looks like a funhouse-style inverted remake of Republican operatives' botched burglary of the DNC headquarters at the Watergate Complex during the Nixon campaign for re-election in 1972.


----------



## lizkat

Here we go... 

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325091770712133637/


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

JagRunner said:


> The CEO at his company was like “I think he’s a good guy” lol



Reminds me of an old Onion article that was something like "Neighbors of man who killed family totally saw it coming" with one neighbor saying he couldn‘t confirm that and thought he was more of a rapist.  

On the general situation I wonder how many of these types are veterans so warped by their experience that they gravitate towards these inside US "operations".  It gives them a sense of continuing their service. With 2 decades of continuous war in the Middle East there’s a good chance they saw combat and for many that’s not something you can easily put behind you. Plus the nature of enemies hiding among the general population in those wars can create a paranoia that there are enmities everywhere even when you are back home. It’s a really sad and volatile situation.

The perception is that military is packed with people from the right but I heard recently that it’s more of an even split, or at least there plenty of right learners that don’t agree with Republican politicians or a Republican President. I wonder if there have been any studies on ability to adapt back to civilian life and political leanings.  Is one group more susceptible to certain types of PTSD than the other?


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Alaska still only at 50% counted.  In Alaska is every citizen a polling station?


----------



## lizkat

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Alaska still only at 50% counted.  In Alaska is every citizen a polling station?





Are you from the east coast? 

I have to note that when I was occasionally shipped in a westerly direction from my NYC employer's offices out to Chicago for some project,  I found myself practically walking up the backs of people's legs in the lunch hour:   the pace of _*everything*_ was noticeably slower there than on the streets of The Big Apple. And inside those office towers as well.

So in Alaska...


----------



## rdrr

Did I hear MSNBC right?  If the PA Biden lead gets over 35k they are going to call it for Biden?

Also spending too much time watching goofy videos on this ridiculous situation we are in.  This one is genius if you saw the Avengers movies.


----------



## Arkitect

lizkat said:


> Here we go...
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325091770712133637/



So an actual press conference… so not just a foam-speckled-diatribe spun as a speech?

Interesting. I wonder if he will actually be able to take questions before he blows his top off… I mean now that even the scummy Murdoch is prepping his lifeboat, they are all the enemy now.

Still, the thought of what he might come up with is… worriesome.


----------



## lizkat

Arkitect said:


> Still, the thought of what he might come up with is… worriesome.




Yes. I was having such a nice morning today too.  Bright sunshine, crisp dry air outside...  poor idea to turn on the WiFi of my laptop after I ran a backup.  I'm thinking of skipping a live stream of whatever his upcoming event has on tap in the way of "news we can use".   Use for what,  trashing an otherwise nice weekend?


----------



## rdrr

They called it!!!!!!!!


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

lizkat said:


> Yes. I was having such a nice morning today too.  Bright sunshine, crisp dry air outside...  poor idea to turn on the WiFi of my laptop after I ran a backup.  I'm thinking of skipping a live stream of whatever his upcoming event has on tap in the way of "news we can use".   Use for what,  trashing an otherwise nice weekend?



The man has declared a war on counting votes, the very definition of stealing an election and a hallmark of a dictator.  He should be in jail, not given a podium and microphone.

And screw anybody who has supported him but now feels he has gone too far.  No returns and no refunds.  You broke it. You buy it.


----------



## Arkitect

Gets even more bizarre!


----------



## Eric

CNN Just called it.


----------



## JayMysteri0

ANOTHER Banger!
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325068772877557761/


----------



## rdrr




----------



## lizkat

ericgtr12 said:


> CNN Just called it.




NBC also.


----------



## Huntn

4 Days Later:
*There’s Dancing In The Street! *  

​


----------



## JayMysteri0




----------



## rdrr

Now what happens with Steve Kornacki?  Does MSNBC wrap him up, strap him to a dolly, and store him for two years?


----------



## Scepticalscribe

ericgtr12 said:


> CNN Just called it.






lizkat said:


> NBC also.




As did AP (and the Guardian).


----------



## JayMysteri0

rdrr said:


> Now what happens with Steve Kornacki?  Does MSNBC wrap him up, strap him to a dolly, and store him for two years?



Nope.

Steve's always been a mainstay.  They find reasons to bring him out, and he is a regular fill in for Hayes & Maddow. 

With Rachel out for two weeks because of a covid contact, I'm sure you'll see him on next week filling in.


----------



## lizkat

lookin' for that tweet from somebody last night about how Nevada manage to serve up drinks and chips open handedly and trays full at a time to drunk-ass gamblers 24/7  but can only count votes one at a time 9 to 5 at the pace of a snail coming for your lettuce on a cold morning.

#^%$ NV for now  they'll bring it in for Biden by January 20.


----------



## Eric

Thank God it's over.


----------



## Clix Pix

Washington Post is calling it!!!

BIDEN DEFEATS TRUMP


----------



## JayMysteri0

Let me help with that vibe today...


----------



## JayMysteri0

Karma
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325112989633171459/


----------



## SuperMatt

People honking horns and hugging each other in the street in my neighborhood.


----------



## JayMysteri0

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325114492674519041/


----------



## Zoidberg

Congratulations. The_ sine qua non_ part is over. Now comes the _sine qanon_ part, which will be much, much harder: governing in a country where 20% of the population is in a death cult.


----------



## lizkat

I know we should just forget we ever heard his name but I can't resist pegging this one out


----------



## SuperMatt

Some news channels (CBS News I'm talking to you) are still in the vote-counting room? I think they should be focusing on interviewing people about their responses to the results.


----------



## lizkat

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325124799341850624/


----------



## rdrr

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325113381305552901/


----------



## Clix Pix

Still grinning all over, just overjoyed and also relieved that finally this thing is coming to a conclusion!!!


----------



## Alli

rdrr said:


> Now what happens with Steve Kornacki?  Does MSNBC wrap him up, strap him to a dolly, and store him for two years?



My daughter asked pretty much the same question. LOL Fortunately, they can't store him cause he's great to sit in when one of the regular hosts is out sick or on vacation.

Speaking of such things, I'll bet Rachael Maddow is making herself crazy right now. Stuck in quarantine instead of on the air for the most important event in modern US history!


----------



## lizkat

A comforting side note taken from running commentary in the New York Times on the vote count as it continues in PA:

From the NYT's Nick Corasaniti in Philadelphia (at about noon):   the vote totals in Pennsylvania give Biden a lead of 34,414 votes, *outside of the automatic recount threshold.*​​Means if Trump wants a recount, gotta spring for it.


----------



## Eric

Alli said:


> My daughter asked pretty much the same question. LOL Fortunately, they can't store him cause he's great to sit in when one of the regular hosts is out sick or on vacation.
> 
> Speaking of such things, I'll bet Rachael Maddow is making herself crazy right now. Stuck in quarantine instead of on the air for the most important event in modern US history!



Rachel is in quarantine? I didn't know, hope all is okay.


----------



## rdrr

ericgtr12 said:


> Rachel is in quarantine? I didn't know, hope all is okay.



She is doing it over an abundance of caution.  I too hope here exposure was minimal.


----------



## Arkitect




----------



## thekev

rdrr said:


> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325113381305552901/




That would have been a much funnier tweet if the results were released 6 days after the election.










						Genesis creation narrative - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## lizkat

thekev said:


> That would have been a much funnier tweet if the results were released 6 days after the election.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Genesis creation narrative - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.wikipedia.org




He got tired early this time around and good thing too.


----------



## fooferdoggie

well trump was doign what he does best playing golf when he found out. I wonder if it messed his game up?


----------



## Eric

fooferdoggie said:


> well trump was doign what he does best playing golf when he found out. I wonder if it messed his game up?



Would you want to be the one to beat him out there today?


----------



## SuperMatt

I saw this in the Washington Post and couldn’t help myself from laughing at it:



> Jodi Lavoie-Carnes, 48, a dental hygienist who lives in Dover, New Hampshire, supported President Trump for re-election. On Saturday, she was shocked and disturbed by the boisterous celebrations of Biden supporters, who had gathered in her town waving profane anti-Trump signs.
> 
> The tone was so negative that she wondered what lies ahead for the country.
> 
> “I’m like, are you serious?” she said. “The language doesn’t need to be there. My children need to drive by that.”
> 
> She said it was President-elect Biden’s responsibility to keep the tone of celebrations civil.
> “Now you’re an elect, so calm them down,” she said.



This from the people who buy “F*!& Your Feelings” shirts at Trump rallies. Sorry, not sorry.


----------



## Apple fanboy

Glad common sense won in the end. Has a defeated President ever refused to leave office before or failed to deliver a speech acknowledging his defeat?


----------



## JayMysteri0

I wish I had actually seen this
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325160045978509313/


----------



## Eric

JayMysteri0 said:


> I wish I had actually seen this
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325160045978509313/



Wow, that dude was not playing.


----------



## Huntn

JayMysteri0 said:


>



He may take permanent residence at  the Presidential Palace Marre'd Lago to manage Koolaid distribution from there, that or they'll be dragging him out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave by his orange combover.


----------



## Eric

Huntn said:


> He may take permanent residence at  the Presidential Palace Marre'd Lago to manage Koolaid distribution from there, that or they'll be dragging him out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave by his orange combover.



He never liked the accommodations of the WH anyway, he acted like they were beneath him. I'll never get how millions of blue collar people can relate with such a man.


----------



## Huntn

ericgtr12 said:


> He never like the accommodations of the WH anyway, he acted like they were beneath him. I'll never get how millions of blue collar people can relate with such a man.



I call Trump STUPID, because he is, but then I look at his followers, and I'm like MY GOD, dumb as a post, or racist, Christian zealot, or whatever aberration crosses my mind because it just does not add up that these people could hate Washington so much, but then latch onto a freaking crook and parasite like Donny who would not even give them the time of day if he was not trolling for their votes. Then I find myself back to Dumb as a Post.


----------



## Clix Pix

Apple fanboy said:


> Glad common sense won in the end. Has a defeated President ever refused to leave office before or failed to deliver a speech acknowledging his defeat?




While I'm sure some defeated Presidents were unhappy that they did not get a second term or some people who were running for their first chance at being the President didn't make it to the finish line and were upset about that, I do not recall anyone ever being as publicly ungracious and childishly foot-stomping a loser as the Orange Man.....    Since Day One I have never put the word "President" together with that man's name and I never will.   The day he is gone will be such a huge relief......!!!!  I would like to think that in the end he'll just leave quietly and that will be that, but he's not exactly predictable so who knows what'll happen...?!  It would certainly be yet another embarrassment to the US if he has to be dragged out of the White House kicking and screaming.....   I would hope that if this occurs that he would promptly be carefully cornered and captured and then immediately whisked away to a nice psych unit for a thorough evaluation and stay.....


----------



## Scepticalscribe

And do - to bring a smile on your face - take a look at the clip of Joan Baez (posted under her own name on Twitter) dancing with pure, uninhibited joy, in a store while shopping for her groceries when word of the confirmation of Mr Biden's victory came through.


----------



## lizkat

Wow I just glanced at the front page of the Wall Street Journal online and those guys sure did a fast pivot to the equivalent of _*"Donald who?"*_

A couple days ago the WSJ's notoriously farther-right-of-newsdesk editorial board had some twisty piece up there trying to defend a vote for Trump but wrapping w/ more or less _well if he loses he did it to himself._

Then today on the website it's strictly all about Biden and Harris and prospects for moving forward.  As if news about a pending transition from one prez to another is not so different from flipping any front page's headlines  from Friday to Saturday.

The markets had already baked this in while orange dude was trying to raise money to sue states for stuff like counting military absentee ballots.

How all this must enrage his petulant royal orangeness...    The media so soon forgetting who is still the one, the only 'murican prez for life?


----------



## Edd

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325249747213570048/


----------



## JayMysteri0

Another revisit for me


----------



## Eric

Excellent speech, particularly the part where he thanked and acknowledged all of the little people. You would've never heard that from Trump.


----------



## Thomas Veil

Holy shit, they’re putting on an amazing light show!


----------



## Eric

Thomas Veil said:


> Holy shit, they’re putting on an amazing light show!



Intel drones, they practice out here in Folsom (near Sacramento) all the time, what they can do with them is quite amazing. I just wish YTTV could keep up with the bandwidth of all the people watching, it keeps buffering.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

ericgtr12 said:


> Excellent speech, particularly the part where he thanked and acknowledged all of the little people. You would've never heard that from Trump.




Excellent speech, agreed, and absolutely note perfect in tone and content.  

Bravo, Mr Biden and Ms Harris.


----------



## JBaby

I’ve neglected this forum. I’ve been too nervous. So I’ve done nothing but read practically the whole time. I voted early so I downloaded this watch face. I think of it as my “I Voted!” sticker. I was gonna switch to a different one the next day but I got paranoid about it. Like what if I switched it and Biden lost. So I kept it. I’m so relieved. I realize how ridiculous I sound. Especially after telling y’all my family and I aren’t really into the flag.


----------



## Clix Pix

Tonight's speeches by both Biden and Harris were refreshing, they were healing, they were reminders of what we had almost lost during the past four years and now can reclaim again.....   A joyful day capped by a joyful and inspiring evening, with so much to which to look forward in the days and weeks ahead as well as the next four years!


----------



## Thomas Veil

ericgtr12 said:


> Intel drones, they practice out here in Folsom (near Sacramento) all the time, what they can do with them is quite amazing.



Yeah. First time I ever saw what amazing thing drones can do was in the Super Bowl a few years ago. Very impressive—especially the computer control needed to do all those tricks. If you think about the planning and complexity needed to keep dozens of instruments perfectly aligned on an X-Y-Z axis...


----------



## Eric

JBaby said:


> I’ve neglected this forum. I’ve been too nervous. So I’ve done nothing but read practically the whole time. I voted early so I downloaded this watch face. I think of it as my “I Voted!” sticker. I was gonna switch to a different one the next day but I got paranoid about it. Like what if I switched it and Biden lost. So
> I kept it. I’m so relieved. I realize how ridiculous I sound. Especially after telling y’all my family and I aren’t really into the flag.



Welcome back (to the posting fray) I totally get it. I didn't unsubscribe from the Biden email list after making a few donations even though they literally sent me hundreds of texts and emails because I didn't want to jinx it, either. I think we can all now take a collective sigh of relief, all we have to worry about now is how they're going to drag Trump out of the WH lol.


----------



## Eric

Thomas Veil said:


> Yeah. First time I ever saw what amazing thing drones can do was in the Super Bowl a few years ago. Very impressive—especially the computer control needed to do all those tricks. If you think about the planning and complexity needed to keep dozens of instruments perfectly aligned on an X-Y-Z axis...



I drove over and took some pics one night, I can also see them from the end of my street some nights.


----------



## JBaby

ericgtr12 said:


> Welcome back (to the posting fray) I totally get it. I didn't unsubscribe from the Biden email list after making a few donations even though they literally sent me hundreds of texts and emails because I didn't want to jinx it, either. I think we can all now take a collective sigh of relief, all we have to worry about now is how they're going to drag Trump out of the WH lol.




I’m glad I’m not the only one superstitious! He’s gonna be a hot mess. The whining and crying is about to get so good!


----------



## Thomas Veil

At least Giuliani remained statesmanlike...


https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325128506523652096/​


----------



## Alli

So other than Mitt Romney, have any elected Republicans congratulated President-elect Biden?


----------



## lizkat

JBaby said:


> Like what if I switched it and Biden lost.




Hah!  Caught myself last Monday deciding not to put _*Dancin' in the Streets *_into some playlist du jour because suddenly I had the oh noes like what if that would jinx the whole election are you crazy just don't go there. 

And somewhere in that other place I think I have posts about how I'm not a superstitious person.    

But never mind, today I had that thing blasting out of my rack system cranked to an 8, I could hear it from the back yard when I went out to the shed to put the rakes away and fetch a snow shovel.


----------



## lizkat

And speaking of dancin' in the streets:   USPS appreciation day

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325157048410050562/


----------



## ronntaylor




----------



## lizkat

Election result seems pretty popular around the world...  great thread of replies to this tweet.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325330150712504320/


----------



## lizkat

Well this was always gonna happen too... no matter how many books Kushner read.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325311399757819906/

But then so was this gonna happen next...    because Bibi is Bibi.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325306327476867078/


----------



## Arkitect

Facebook is often an insight into other minds…

This comment appeared as a reply to a friend's post celebrating Biden's win.

Let's just say, some people are not on board with this… and they have some very deep seated beliefs.

Biden = Devil ?


----------



## Arkitect

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324604137426849794/

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1324126229100978176/


----------



## User.45

Folie à deux​
*shared psychosis. A term in psychiatry when one's psychosis induces another person's. The good news is that it usually resolves on separation. 

2021, I already like you <3


----------



## Huntn

ah a


PearsonX said:


> Folie à deux​
> *shared psychosis. A term in psychiatry when one's psychosis induces another person's. The good news is that it usually resolves on separation.
> 
> 2021, I already like you <3



Ah, an established term for TDS.


----------



## Huntn

ericgtr12 said:


> Intel drones, they practice out here in Folsom (near Sacramento) all the time, what they can do with them is quite amazing. I just wish YTTV could keep up with the bandwidth of all the people watching, it keeps buffering.



Computer controlled flight control? How many of them, 1 per light?


----------



## Huntn

Alli said:


> So other than Mitt Romney, have any elected Republicans congratulated President-elect Biden?



It would not surprise me in the least if they did not in any official capacity. Maybe some of them in back channels where their base won’t notice.


----------



## Thomas Veil

I absolutely love the celebratory crowd going nuts over the USPS truck.

You know what all the dancing and partying in the streets makes me think? That November 7th should be declared V-T Day.


----------



## appleisking

Let’s hope this is the first of many good news to come. Lord knows the world needs some.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

The Sound of a Landslide Not Happening https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/11/08/the-sound-of-a-landslide-not-happening/ via @blogwhatever 

Interesting piece by John Scalzi; one well worth a read.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

@lizkat: Your post - in The Other Place, The Other Country (MR) - about what might have happened had the GOP voted to impeach Mr Trump is worth repeating here, as I think you make a very valid point.


----------



## SuperMatt

Scepticalscribe said:


> The Sound of a Landslide Not Happening https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/11/08/the-sound-of-a-landslide-not-happening/ via @blogwhatever
> 
> Interesting piece by John Scalzi; one well worth a read.



I agree with him. George Wallace, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump... there is a theme here. How idiotic it seems to think that the SCOTUS declared racism to be “over” in America with their atrocious voting rights decision a few years ago.


----------



## lizkat

Scepticalscribe said:


> @lizkat: Your post - in The Other Place, The Other Country (MR) - about what might have happened had the GOP voted to impeach Mr Trump is worth repeating here, as I think you make a very valid point.




I'll fish it out tomorrow then 'cuz I got about two minutes left on my consciousness clock today if I'm reading it correctly lol.   Or I don't care if someone else cut and paste it into appropriate thread here.  

My last contribution for today is this wonderful photo taken by the NYT in Atlanta..,  flashed me back to 2008 when Obama was elected, made me cry.   So many black women helped make this Biden election happen, hope they can help the Senate races tip Georgia's seats blue in January runoffs.


----------



## lizkat

Scepticalscribe said:


> @lizkat: Your post - in The Other Place, The Other Country (MR) - about what might have happened had the GOP voted to impeach Mr Trump is worth repeating here, as I think you make a very valid point.




OK here is that post I had put up in the other place about what may have been a major GOP miscalculation.

--

Heck if the GOP had had the decency to try Trump properly in the Senate on the impeachment charges and then had voted to remove him on weight of the evidence, they'd probably be celebrating Pence's victory tonight, since an incumbent does have some usual advantage, as long as he is not incompetent or crazy... even in a year when covid-19 stalks the globe.

GOP leadership was still too invested in having nailed down "so much winning" back in 2016 to get it in the year 2020 that their inattentive, impulsive, boorish clod of an incumbent Donald Trump was gonna be a seriously problematic candidate --with his checkered and sometimes nervewracking track record for impulsivity and inexplicable lapses in judgment-- no matter which Democrat he would eventually face.

At this point this profoundly narcissistic guy Donald Trump is a walking full-decompensation hazard who doubtless requires a lot of handholding. Not sure that will be enough to preclude a spectacularly inglorious conclusion to his presidency. Wonder if the shreds of this Republican Party will learn anything from the experience. All the chatter about putting up Tucker Carlson in 2024 can certainly make one wonder.


----------



## rdrr

lizkat said:


> I'll fish it out tomorrow then 'cuz I got about two minutes left on my consciousness clock today if I'm reading it correctly lol.   Or I don't care if someone else cut and paste it into appropriate thread here.
> 
> My last contribution for today is this wonderful photo taken by the NYT in Atlanta..,  flashed me back to 2008 when Obama was elected, made me cry.   So many black women helped make this Biden election happen, hope they can help the Senate races tip Georgia's seats blue in January runoffs.
> 
> View attachment 1284​




Let's hope that America pays back those who are disenfranchised and voted en masse for a chance to prosper and live without fear for their lives and their love ones.


----------



## User.45

Looking at NC processed at 98%, my estimate is ~110K outstanding votes and with Trump's current lead, it would take nearly 90% of these going to Biden for him to flip. Now, I suspect the reality is they have no good idea how many outstanding ballots they have. There's a chance that Trump doing outstandingly well in this state with absentee ballots (i.e. within 5% of Biden's margin) is an indicator of a batch of Biden ballots not counted yet. I doubt it though.

On the other hand AZ seemed to be counting mainly Trump ballots for a while. Dove into county-wise data and even the remaining ballots maintain the present trends for the Trump counties, it would still be insufficient to reverse Biden's lead.

So my projection is:
GA, AZ: Biden
NC, AK: Trump


----------



## Yoused

PearsonX said:


> … shared psychosis...



Funny you should mention that. What do you call this?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325523448811180037/


----------



## User.45

Yoused said:


> Funny you should mention that. What do you call this?
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325523448811180037/



idiocy HAHAHAHAHA


----------



## Huntn

Scepticalscribe said:


> @lizkat: Your post - in The Other Place, The Other Country (MR) - about what might have happened had the GOP voted to impeach Mr Trump is worth repeating here, as I think you make a very valid point.



This is why the the GOP has blood on it’s hands and needs to be eradicated as a political force in the US. Don’t hold your breath.


----------



## Edd

Yoused said:


> Funny you should mention that. What do you call this?
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325523448811180037/



Wow. And no masks as a bonus.


----------



## Huntn

Edd70 said:


> Wow. And no masks as a bonus.



Epitome of Koolaid Drinkers and scary as hell. Compound this by 70m votes and we could in deep shit as a nation If calls for a revolution appear and have any traction.


----------



## iMi

I realized last night why Republicans continue to support him. It's because he says out loud what they are all thinking inside. They recognize the absurdity of it. They recognize it's unacceptable and goes against everything this country is _supposed_ to embrace. They have been quietly and behind the scenes trying to change the course and avoid the inevitable change in American demographics. Then Trump took it to another level. It's perfect. They can _act_ like they don't approve, while enabling him by hiding behind the fact that he is the President. If he succeeds, smiles all around. If he fails, they can distance from him quickly. 

Republicans have become the Nazi party of America. Biden won, but trust me, this is not over...


----------



## User.45

iMi said:


> I realized last night why Republicans continue to support him. It's because he says out loud what they are all thinking inside. They recognize the absurdity of it. They recognize it's unacceptable and goes against everything this country is _supposed_ to embrace. They have been quietly and behind the scenes trying to change the course and avoid the inevitable change in American demographics. Then Trump took it to another level. It's perfect. They can _act_ like they don't approve, while enabling him by hiding behind the fact that he is the President. If he succeeds, smiles all around. If he fails, they can distance from him quickly.
> 
> Republicans have become the Nazi party of America. Biden won, but trust me, this is not over...



I think people like McConnell *are* just saying shit to stay on the good side of trumpists. Since they are realizing that there's a chance for trump to remain an organizing force in the GOP, he feels throwing trump under the bus now is just unnecessary risk for him, when trump may walk under the bus on his own in a week. He'll drop the act next week when he'll be forced to take a stand that will stick. It still tells you about the moral consistency of McConnell.


----------



## ronntaylor

PearsonX said:


> I think people like McConnell is just saying shit so to stay on the good side of trumpists. Since they are realizing that there's a chance for trump to remain an organizing force in the GOP, he feels throwing trump under the bus now is just unnecessary risk for him, when trump may walk under the bus on his own in a week. He'll drop the act next week when he'll be forced to take a stand that will stick. It still tells you about the moral consistency of McConnell.




I think McConnell will maintain support for Mango till the Georgia runoffs. He needs to remain majority leader. If it becomes apparent that Mango will sorta-kinda concede, McConnell will drop him like rock unless Loefler and Purdue get him involved in the runoffs. Which I can't see Mango doing if he knows his 2nd term push is toast.


----------



## Eric

ronntaylor said:


> I think McConnell will maintain support for Mango till the Georgia runoffs. He needs to remain majority leader. If it becomes apparent that Mango will sorta-kinda concede, McConnell will drop him like rock unless Loefler and Purdue get him involved in the runoffs. Which I can't see Mango doing if he knows his 2nd term push is toast.



As time goes on I think it will hurt Republicans in general, Biden's win is clear and continues to grow daily. It's over, they just need to realize it.


----------



## User.45

ronntaylor said:


> I think McConnell will maintain support for Mango till the Georgia runoffs. He needs to remain majority leader. If it becomes apparent that Mango will sorta-kinda concede, McConnell will drop him like rock unless Loefler and Purdue get him involved in the runoffs. Which I can't see Mango doing if he knows his 2nd term push is toast.




Good point. In reality it all depends on NC which may still flip in the senate....I really suspect a big Biden ballot drop there, which won't flip it for Biden, but may flip it for the senatorial candidate. Trump lost or got squeezed due to people voting third party, in this case those 1-1.5% going to Libertarian. If those candidates are not on the ballot, that 1-1.5% of vote will be more likely reinforcing the Republicans than the Democrats, so even winning a single one of the runoffs would be a significant achievement, winning both is very close to impossible. 



ericgtr12 said:


> As time goes on I think it will hurt Republicans in general, Biden's win is clear and continues to grow daily. It's over, they just need to realize it.



What I and probably nobody can predict is what's gonna happen to Trumpism once Trump is dethroned. It's one thing that trump doesn't wanna give up and another whether his mojo would remain unaffected by a loss. I think it will be a gradual decline and there's still enough momentum for Trumpists to carry the GA runoffs into the finish line.


----------



## User.168

.


----------



## User.45

theSeb said:


> Is this the same Scalzi that's written some of my favourite sci-fi books? Let me check.



photo checks out


----------



## Alli

PearsonX said:


> I think people like McConnell *are* just saying shit to stay on the good side of trumpists. Since they are realizing that there's a chance for trump to remain an organizing force in the GOP, he feels throwing trump under the bus now is just unnecessary risk for him, when trump may walk under the bus on his own in a week. He'll drop the act next week when he'll be forced to take a stand that will stick. It still tells you about the moral consistency of McConnell.



It’s a crap reason to act as egregiously as he is.


----------



## ronntaylor

Alli said:


> It’s a crap reason to act as egregiously as he is.



So true. Hope the Dems use it against him and the GOP. I'm hopeful given the general election results. Stacey Abrams has raised $7.2M in a short period of time. From what I know about grassroots orgs in the state (not just the Metro Atlanta area), there is a great deal of work already devoted to the runoffs. There is no worry about the recount, just getting the Dems to 50-50 to make VP Kamala Harris Queen of the Senate


----------



## User.168

.


----------



## User.45

Alli said:


> It’s a crap reason to act as egregiously as he is.



Yep, but that's an expectation at this point.


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Fucking Alaska finally stopped hitting the snooze button.  To the shock of literally nobody Republicans big win including Trump.  Despite taking forever and having record setting mail-in ballots Trump has graciously decided there shouldn't be a recount.  Puzzling.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

theSeb said:


> Is this the same Scalzi that's written some of my favourite sci-fi books? Let me check.




Yes, it is.


----------



## iMi

Yoused said:


> Funny you should mention that. What do you call this?
> 
> https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1325523448811180037/



I'm sorry but it's time to go after organized religion. Think about it for a minute. What is he saying? What is he undermining?


----------



## lizkat

iMi said:


> I'm sorry but it's time to go after organized religion. Think about it for a minute. What is he saying? What is he undermining?




Ah he's just freaking out under pressure of realizing that the Biden administration might actually have the IRS enforce the Johnson Amendment and this idiot (Kenneth Copeland) might lose all his swell perks from being able to write everything off while grifting off his followers.  

Whole lotta freakin' out going on when a bunch of grifters realize the music may not be about to stop but the jukebox is getting reloaded with some different tunes.    Anyway fuck Copeland, he could get plastic surgery til he's 200 years old and never collect the mass audience of a David Bowie and Queen's Freddie singing _*Under Pressure*_


----------



## iMi

lizkat said:


> Ah he's just freaking out under pressure of realizing that the Biden administration might actually have the IRS enforce the Johnson Amendment and this idiot (Kenneth Copeland) might lose all his swell perks from being able to write everything off while grifting off his followers.
> 
> Whole lotta freakin' out going on when a bunch of grifters realize the music may not be about to stop but the jukebox is getting reloaded with some different tunes.    Anyway fuck Copeland, he could get plastic surgery til he's 200 years old and never collect the mass audience of a David Bowie and Queen's Freddie singing _*Under Pressure*_




Of topic, but I love Queen. I vividly remember hearing We Are The Champions for the first time as a kid. I wore out the cassette tape. I am finishing a book about Freddie right now called "Somebody to Love" after his favorite song. It's a fantastic read. Highly recommend it.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

iMi said:


> Of topic, but I love Queen. I vividly remember hearing We Are The Champions for the first time as a kid. I wore out the cassette tape. I am finishing a book about Freddie right now called "Somebody to Love" after his favorite song. It's a fantastic read. Highly recommend it.




Love both David Bowie and Queen, as well.

Some superb songs.

And, don't get @Apple fanboy started on Queen....


----------



## lizkat

iMi said:


> Of topic, but I love Queen. I vividly remember hearing We Are The Champions for the first time as a kid. I wore out the cassette tape. I am finishing a book about Freddie right now called "Somebody to Love" after his favorite song. It's a fantastic read. Highly recommend it.




I do want to read that...  and don't mean to drag the thread off topic either.

But my mind grows tired of the already seeming interminable "Election Day" that probably has a ways to go yet.

 Each time some Republican throws another log on the fire of this stall-job, just as the embers seem to be dying down,  what comes to my mind is some of the almost ludicrous endings of certain Haydn compositions...  where it feels like he's trying out one ending after another for three minutes.

_"and now it's almost over"_​​_"but we could try again"_​​_"to reach a sound conclusion"_​​_"or modulate and start again"_​
Anyway my reaction to these Republicans is the same as to those drawn out approaches to full cadence:  _* C'mon already!*_


----------



## User.168

.


----------



## Scepticalscribe

On a separate note, at an online meeting I attended earlier today - addressed by the German federal health minister, - the words "president-elect" were used, quite naturally, in the course of his remarks.

Whatever about the capacity for cognitive (and democratic, and electoral) awareness in the current tainted administration, most of the rest of the civilised world knows who has been validly elected to office.

And, while the OSCE/ODIHR Preliminary Findings & Remarks - invariably issued the day after an election that they have observed, is what generally tends to grab the world's headlines - whereas the Final Report, published around six to ten weeks later, is usually a sober, serious, analytical assessment coupled with thoughtful recommendations (usually dusted off by the host government with an appalled shriek around the time preparations for the next election are about to commence, with a belated realisation that they haven't carried out any of these recommendations, whereupon the easiest, least inconvenient, one or or two of these, are then hastily implemented so that they can show "willing" to the International Community), this year, I think I am able to predict, without having to have recourse to animal entrails, helpful herbs, or astrology, that the Final Report on the US elections will make for very interesting reading.


----------



## lizkat

Sad to think that once upon a time in the USA most of us who cut teeth on computer programming back in the 60s and 70s, and then saw the advent of  personal computing, the web and graphical interfaces for end users, once had different ideas for how voting might end up being "computerized".     We may have figured that eventually all those arcane arcane processes and materials --voter registration ledgers,  ballot design and distribution,  voting and tallying and auditing, etc-- would have been simplified into some sort of streamlined process like clicking on a menu at a fast food kiosk and having the _hamberders _pop out onto a tray... but that now the idea of a paper ballot and maybe a purple-inked finger becomes appealing in our weary dreams.


----------



## lizkat

theSeb said:


> Republicans aren't conceding – and Democrats are bringing a knife to a gun fight​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Republicans aren't conceding – and Democrats are bringing a knife to a gun fight | David Sirota
> 
> 
> The Republicans’ bid to overturn the election is a full-scale emergency – and yet the Democratic strategy seems to be to pretend it isn’t happening
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theguardian.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think this man speaks some sense, as alarmist as it is.




It is hard to know what to do when the Attorney General has joined the fray with that carefully wordsmithed piece of unparalleled ass covering he issued the other day about authorizing DoJ investigations of the vote.


----------



## User.168

.


----------



## lizkat

theSeb said:


> Posting this from the other place (by pshufd)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dominion Voting Systems Retains Obama 'Vote Protection Director' As Lobbyist
> 
> 
> Dominion Voting Systems – whose machines flipped ballots cast for President Trump to Joe Biden – currently retains Brian McKeon, a Vote Protection Director for Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, as a lobbyist. This unearthed connection follows Dominion Voting Systems counting ballots to create a...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> thenationalpulse.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am sure I don't need to link who owns the national pulse on this forum and detail their "journalistic integrity". The trouble is that many people read this. These stories, and other garabge from this site, is all over parler.




Sure because at parler there's no need to maintain a backup account for fear of Twitter dropping a hammer on one's original trolling setup. Popular enough site w/ Trump cult members now that it keeps crashing.   Ironies abound.


----------



## lizkat

ronntaylor said:


> *I think McConnell will maintain support for Mango till the Georgia runoffs*. He needs to remain majority leader. If it becomes apparent that Mango will sorta-kinda concede, McConnell will drop him like rock unless Loefler and Purdue get him involved in the runoffs. Which I can't see Mango doing if he knows his 2nd term push is toast.




But that's January 5th....   so a scant two weeks for a "formal transition" if the GSA lady cannot be compelled to help launch the full monty transition process sooner.   Not enough time.  It's irresponsible to an extreme for the GOP to allow that.

 I can see some pushback from other GOP senate members on holding the presidency in limbo that long. The way Trump has stirred pots all over the planet and withheld some info on that from the public must have the intel committees in Congress a little concerned that Biden's not getting the full read-in that he should be getting right now.

We are not talking about a retake on the Gore election here.  I keep consoling myself that only 3% of Americans now believe that Trump won the election.  80% think Biden did. 









						Nearly 80% of Americans say Biden won White House, ignoring Trump's refusal to concede: Reuters/Ipsos poll
					

Nearly 80% of Americans, including more than half of Republicans, recognize President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the Nov. 3 election after most media organizations called the race for the Democrat based on his leads in critical battleground states, according to a Reuters...




					www.reuters.com
				




Surely somewhere in there are a handful of Republican Senators who not only think but are getting ready to say ENOUGH ALREADY.   *A vast majority of their constituents think the game is over:* *That poll by Reuters was not of voters, it was of the general population...*

Some of the other options like Rs meaning to try to string Trump followers along as Republican policy adherents until at least the 2022 elections are past sound pretty farfetched to me.  There's no telling how Trump will behave after he leaves office and so no way to tell what his die hard followers will do either.     It's possible that Trump's legal and financial difficulties will prevent him from trying to set up some sort of televised perma-kibitz of Biden's administration (my guess on what he thinks right now he'd love to do).   All I'm pretty sure of is that Twitter will soon enough ban his private account if he runs it under his real name...


----------



## Arkitect

lizkat said:


> *trying to set up some sort of televised perma-kibitz of Biden's administration *(my guess on what he thinks right now he'd love to do).   All I'm pretty sure of is that Twitter will soon enough ban his private account if he runs it under his real name...



Funny you should say that… 

*Trump eyes digital media empire to take on Fox News*

_"Donald Trump doesn’t believe Fox News was supportive enough, so now he plans to start his own digital news channel to “wreck” the right-wing network"_

A while back I wondered about it and thought, Trump TV would be to Politics what History Channel is to History.


----------



## ronntaylor

I want the spit-show to end. I know Mango will continue as he has no control and will never concede. Just hopeful that inquiries and possibly warrants wait for him after January 20th. Not even looking forward to that as I'm sure it'll push some of his cult members well overboard.

Just wondering when his truly diehards are successful and hurt or even kill "enemies" due to his rants. So far targets have been lucky that those caught are dotards and/or were surveilled before causing mayhem. Luck may run out soon though.


----------



## Apple fanboy

Scepticalscribe said:


> Love both David Bowie and Queen, as well.
> 
> Some superb songs.
> 
> And, don't get @Apple fanboy started on Queen....



Nothing wrong with a bit of Queen!


----------



## Chew Toy McCoy

Trump won one lawsuit in PA that ballots post marked late won’t count.   

However, those ballots were already segregated and weren’t counted yet.  So what do you have next, chief?


----------



## SuperMatt

Arkitect said:


> Funny you should say that…
> 
> *Trump eyes digital media empire to take on Fox News*
> 
> _"Donald Trump doesn’t believe Fox News was supportive enough, so now he plans to start his own digital news channel to “wreck” the right-wing network"_
> 
> A while back I wondered about it and thought, Trump TV would be to Politics what History Channel is to History.
> 
> View attachment 1354



The best we can hope for is mutually assured destruction!


----------



## lizkat

SuperMatt said:


> The best we can hope for is mutually assured destruction!




Nah,  the best would be that some new reality TV show pops out of the bellybutton of Amazon or Netflix and so enthralls the Trump rally crowd that they forget about _*The Apprentice Presidunce*_.


----------



## Clix Pix

If anyone hasn't seen this video or heard Freddie Mercury singing with classical opera star Montserrat Caballe, you are in for an amazing experience!  Yes, it's more than a little OTT, but that is part of the charm....


----------



## Thomas Veil

lizkat said:


> Trump is not going to be hauled kicking and screaming out of the White House.



Perhaps. But just in case...





__





						Usa News Post
					





					usa-newsposts.com
				





> President Donald Trump still refuses to concede the election, and he told some of his advisors he wouldn’t leave the White House on Inauguration Day, according to CNN. This all has triggered speculation about how Trump might be physically removed from the building when the new president is sworn in on January 20.






> It’s even been a hot topic in a private group chat involving former Secret Service officials and Department of Homeland Security alumni from both Republican and Democratic administrations, according to a former Obama administration DHS official.



Isn’t that pathetic?


----------



## SuperMatt

Thomas Veil said:


> Perhaps. But just in case...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Usa News Post
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> usa-newsposts.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Isn’t that pathetic?



Maybe that’s why he signed the coronavirus relief bill: it has a federal eviction moratorium... should make it impossible for them to kick him out ;-)


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## Yoused

I am still pissed off. There was no catharsis on the 4th. There was still uncertainty on the 10th. After Dec 14th, it seemed settled, but the assholes continue to try to squat all over the process. In six days, we hope to have a resolution, but will we? No result will be satisfactory. The shitheads will continue to try to stir up the shit. I feel like it will never be settled, and we will be fighting Qs and LoudBoys and MAGAts for-freaking-ever.

argh


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## SuperMatt

Yoused said:


> I am still pissed off. There was no catharsis on the 4th. There was still uncertainty on the 10th. After Dec 14th, it seemed settled, but the assholes continue to try to squat all over the process. In six days, we hope to have a resolution, but will we? No result will be satisfactory. The shitheads will continue to try to stir up the shit. I feel like it will never be settled, and we will be fighting Qs and LoudBoys and MAGAts for-freaking-ever.
> 
> argh



The proud boys are planning on visiting DC on Jan 6. I truly hope the weather is terrible. Idiots need to get some nice sub-40-degree rain pouring on them.


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## Huntn

Thomas Veil said:


> Perhaps. But just in case...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Usa News Post
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> usa-newsposts.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Isn’t that pathetic?



Scary as hell...


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## SuperMatt

Huntn said:


> Scary as hell...





			https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/washington-dc-protests/2021/01/01/da743c20-4a68-11eb-839a-cf4ba7b7c48c_story.html
		


Yeah it’s a problem for sure. Bunch of fat drunk racists sneaking guns into DC and starting fights with random residents in a place that voted 93% for Biden... what could go wrong?


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## Thomas Veil

Huntn said:


> Scary as hell...



Yes, that too. I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

The right has spent forty years cultivating an alternate universe in which the Democrats don't disagree with them on philosophical grounds, but are actively involved in a long term evil conspiracy to...something something something. I never did understand what it was that we're supposed to be doing.

But that didn't stop guys like Rush Limbaugh, from the early days of this moral rot, from spinning tales in which not-conservative = not-American. In which programs like the ACA and the climate accord have nefarious and destructive ulterior motives attached to them. The number of people believing this nonsense has been uncomfortably high for a long time...at least since Bush the Lesser.

It's now clear that all this was waiting for was some crazy demagogue to come along and light the fuse. Scientology ain't got nothin' on the enormous cult that worships Trump as a god (or at least heaven sent) and will continue to do so, long after he should rightly be relegated to the dustbin of history.


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## Eraserhead

Yoused said:


> I am still pissed off. There was no catharsis on the 4th. There was still uncertainty on the 10th. After Dec 14th, it seemed settled, but the assholes continue to try to squat all over the process. In six days, we hope to have a resolution, but will we? No result will be satisfactory. The shitheads will continue to try to stir up the shit. I feel like it will never be settled, and we will be fighting Qs and LoudBoys and MAGAts for-freaking-ever.
> 
> argh



If there was uncertainty Putin and Erdogan and other actually smart leaders wouldn’t have congratulated Biden already. Putin only waited until mid December because he’s completely fucked if Trump doesn’t get a second term - I expect he will quit.

Dont also forget that while Putin has tied himself to Trump if Russia wants to earn money in a post-oil world its best bet is to maintain good relations with Europe so it gets used as a transit country between Europe and China. The Chinese have just built https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/china-launches-prototype-gauge-changing-train-inte/ which will let them link Moscow with China, but starting with Moscow to Kazan (https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/china-devel1oping-400kmh-bu5llet-tra4in-can-run/) which is pretty much on the great circle from warsaw to urumqi, Xinjiang.


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## Thomas Veil

It occurs to me that it's a good thing for AppleOC that he ditched out while he could. Watching all the crazy shit that has transpired since the election, all the claims of conspiracies and rigged voting machines and all the bogus "certainty" that Trump actually won, it's now clear that TDS has fully taken on the meaning which we always intended for it. It's the Trump people going insane.


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## JBaby

SuperMatt said:


> The proud boys are planning on visiting DC on Jan 6. I truly hope the weather is terrible. Idiots need to get some nice sub-40-degree rain pouring on them.




We didn’t get lucky.


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## SuperMatt

JBaby said:


> We didn’t get lucky.



No, we didn’t - sadly.


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