456 replies to this topic

[Lysistrata]

Bill Barr has directed the DOJ to "probe" election irregularities. I guess that's the same as an "investigation". This can get ugly.

[onbekende]

Like a month late, but worth it.
 

They will be fine... what is coming will be that investigation into who infected them. It's a frightening thought what could happen when the FBI gets that stink in their nose about collusion during an election year. It won't stop ACB, and none of it matters to either of you guys on the other side of the planet... we'll take care of things here. Thank you for thinking about us.

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Well, it seems it could have been ACB's children who infected him, or any other of the 200-ish people he entertained with no actual precautions...
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The polling people learned nothing from 2016. Entire polling industries will be forever shuttered. Nate Silver will now be Nate Bronze for the rest of his life. I can't believe they allowed themselves to be so utterly wrong... again.

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538 is a polling aggregate site, they do no (or hardly) any polling themselfes. Like blaming the exam proctor for the students failing the exam...
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Feeling like Trump loses this. He did better than I thought and the showed the polls once again can't be trusted. But see him losing Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan.

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Major issue with polling this last decade is the problem in weighing the populist / anti-establishment vote. People of those strides (both left and right) tend to be underweighted to straight up lying to poll-takers which makes it difficult to properly adjust your results from a sample population towards the actual population. It shows in the popular vote where Biden gets his ~51% while Trump out-performs his ~45% with basically all the "non-responders" breaking for him.

It is less about "shy-Trump" voters but more about "fuck-you-poller" voters.
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When I went to sleep, Trump was ahead with a comfortable lead in Michigan. I wake up a few hours later, and it's flipped. I investigate into what the hell happened, and it's the same old song and dance... over 138,000 Biden votes magically appear, and are added to the totals, with not a single Trump vote within the ballot dump... and then Twitter starts their bullshit over people saying something about it.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/11/04/the-update-in-michigan-that-looks-awfully-suspicious-n2579437

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If some states block the counting of mail-in and pre-election day ballots, well offcourse wild jumps can happen, even more as 1 candidate massivly endorsed said voting methods in light of the ongoing pandemic. Heck it was mentioned in this thread that for states were early-voting was counted first it had Biden ahead (Texas, Florida) and then election day ballots came in and that reversed. You are just seeing the swing from a different angle.

For the Biden dump the reason was made apparent by the election official later, they dumped a stack of Biden votes onto their counting site and a bit later dumped Trump votes on it. Basically instead of reporting per precinct they reported per person. Not that near full support for a Democrat is weird when you are counting votes in Detroit... A couple of cities in the Great Lakes States are pretty much 95% Democrat voting.
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It's the incredibly convoluted voting system coupled with the fact - which always boggles my mind - that the US has no standardized national citizen ID system.

- Some people have Passports, some do not.
- Some people have Driver's Licenses, some do not
- Some people have a Social Security numbers, some do not, etc, etc.

I mean damn, just issue a number to your citizens at birth, and that's it. People who have an ID number are citizens and can identify themselves as such, and those that do not have one, are not citizens!

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Carefull there, you are going into stazi practices there by giving everyone a number!

American: "oo wait, my social security number, I got that somewhere..."
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I thought Arizona would stay with Trump for the singular issue of protecting the Second Amendment. I know how much they don't like him. When Trump was elected, Arizona had 2 solid Republican Senators. They just happened to both be in the Never Trump camp, therefore they both screwed Trump over every chance they got. This antagonized Trump so bad he went to war with them. Now we don't have any Republican Senators in Arizona. I think they should have just agreed to disagree... like Romney and Sasse. It would have been a smarter move in the long run.

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Ignoring McCain's ghost, McSally just handed 2 senate seats to Democrats there. People are already emploring her to move to another Republican state...
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It's time to allow the votes to come in, and accept the loss. Just admit we came up short this time, and move on. We can't call Democrats a bunch of snowflakes that can't accept a loss, and then not accept a loss. I'm kind of looking forward to normal again. Watch how fast the pandemic scare tactics are wiped from the media when suddenly it's on them from now on.

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Tell that to your POTUS will ya.

Aso, pandemic is still there, it just so happens that a cry-baby is more entertaining to put on national TV (hot tip, they did this the entire 4 years!)
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Associate Justice Samuel Alito just issued an order for Pennsylvania to segregate votes received after election day in accordance with the law. Which tells me they didn't do this yet. So, now it begins.

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Actually they already did that, was just yet another "rumour" floating around from the bunch of fellows who can't decide if the should shout "stop the count" or "count all votes" in which state...
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If Joe Biden becomes President, it will be the first time in my life that we have a President that was elected totally on who he is not. He won the Democrat nomination because he is not Bernie Sanders, and he would be elected President because he is not Donald Trump.

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This coming from a nation that voted "not-Hillary 2016"
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The United States is not a Democracy... it is a Republic. No offence my brother, but it's been that way since we had to kick the British out, not once... but twice. The English Monarchy kind of left a really bad taste in our mouths, and it was decided that the U.S. Government would remain in the control of the will of it's people. Thomas Jefferson famously quoted that Democracy is 51% of the people stomping on the rights the other 49... this still remains to this day.

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For the umptienth time, those 2 words don't exclude eachother. Your election process is a democracy while your governing body is Republican styled.

Democracy speaks about the method of voting, or rather of who gets to vote, in a democracy this means a 1-person, 1-vote style election (ignoring other restrictions are levied equally, like age)
Republic speaks about having 1 elected "ruler" (doesn't need to be direct, can be elected via reprensentation in a chamber) who holds most of the executive power of the state.

USA is a "Federal presidential constitutional republic", which elects both its President as its Congress in a democratic election.

Heck, Belgium is a "Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy" which elects its parliament democraticly. We are one of those nations where the lesser ruler isn't even voted directly into power, thou offcourse usually (s)he is from the biggest party. We still have the "monarchy" there cause techically the King is still "head of state", just with no actual power besides internation grandeur of being able to receive foreign dignitaries by a King .

And as for Jefferson's quote, last couple Republican Presidents were minorities stomping over the majority...
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This is why Donald Trump could not just send the National Guard into Portland to crush the riots. He didn't have the power to do that without the expressed consent of the Governor of Oregon. It would be an unconstitutional abuse of power. Anyone who does not like this system can offer up a Constitutional Amendment to change it. Instead of doing this... we just get a bunch of complaining.

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He sure as hell made a hissy about not getting that done.
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Bill Barr has directed the DOJ to "probe" election irregularities. I guess that's the same as an "investigation". This can get ugly.

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With as much evidence as there was a week ago, much ado about nothing...

[Blade 619]

 

Seems oddly undemocratic that a Texan, Floridian, or Californian vote is worth approximately 1/4th of a Wyoming vote?

The United States is not a Democracy... it is a Republic. No offence my brother, but it's been that way since we had to kick the British out, not once... but twice. The English Monarchy kind of left a really bad taste in our mouths, and it was decided that the U.S. Government would remain in the control of the will of it's people. Thomas Jefferson famously quoted that Democracy is 51% of the people stomping on the rights the other 49... this still remains to this day.

 

This is why we have an Electoral College, where each state has a maximum capped amount of influence on a Presidential election. It's also why each state, regardless of population, carries an equal 2 Senators. Our Constitution limits the power of our Federal Government, and all power not granted to them in the Constitution, is left to the individual states... of which there are currently 50.

 

This is why Donald Trump could not just send the National Guard into Portland to crush the riots. He didn't have the power to do that without the expressed consent of the Governor of Oregon. It would be an unconstitutional abuse of power. Anyone who does not like this system can offer up a Constitutional Amendment to change it. Instead of doing this... we just get a bunch of complaining.

 

 

Interesting... a fair point!

[Lysistrata]

I don't believe I was clear enough on how the Electoral College works.

 

I said that a state has a capped maximum of influence, regardless of population.

That's was a quick way to say it... and be very wrong with it's interpretation.

 

Each state has electors, and it's calculated as one elector for each Representative, plus one elector for each Senator.

 

California has 53 Representatives, and 2 Senators. That is why California receives a bone crushing 55 Electoral votes.

Wyoming has 1 Representative, and 2 Senators. That is why Wyoming receives a wimpy 3 Electoral votes.

 

So actually, population has everything to do with it. California is a major advantage, and it takes many Reds to counter that one Blue.

[Chaplain of death]

The electoral college in its current form also assists in shitting on the will of the people. There are more republicans in California than most other states, but they are outnumbered by democrats so their votes end up not mattering. If we were using the popular vote, or if we at least amended the electoral system so that a percentage of the electoral votes of each state was awarded to each candidate based on the percentage they won in that state, it would go a long way in making sure everyone's votes mattered.

[Lysistrata]

Good point. Many people in these large states are under represented. Then we get into these arguments that these large states should be broken up into several small states to remedy this. Then we get into arguments about keeping it even. Then it would change into more arguments over Socialism vs. Capitalism... which always breaks down into sub categories of arguments with different names. Then we realize that we just went through all that, and spent another zillion dollars, to get to the same place.

 

The U.S.A. needs a divorce...

[Chaplain of death]

The U.S.A. needs an intervention. lol

[onbekende]

I don't believe I was clear enough on how the Electoral College works.

 

I said that a state has a capped maximum of influence, regardless of population.

That's was a quick way to say it... and be very wrong with it's interpretation.

 

Each state has electors, and it's calculated as one elector for each Representative, plus one elector for each Senator.

 

California has 53 Representatives, and 2 Senators. That is why California receives a bone crushing 55 Electoral votes.

Wyoming has 1 Representative, and 2 Senators. That is why Wyoming receives a wimpy 3 Electoral votes.

 

So actually, population has everything to do with it. California is a major advantage, and it takes many Reds to counter that one Blue.

 

As noted, the electoral collage is partially a popular vote but it gets hindered by 2 factors: 2 "free" electors per state (thus dispropotionate towards smaller states) and a FPTP mentality (winner takes all). Maine and Nebraska are odd-ones in that they use congressional districts for their "House" votes and the state as a whole for their "Senate" votes. Note that both states had a split in their electors.

 

It is the whole notion of "wasted" votes, aka all the votes more then your opponent in each state. For example for 2016 this meant that the Democrats had roughly 2.8M "wasted" votes in relation to Republicans. Dems had 11M wasted votes, Reps had 7,2M (this thus being the popular margin). Dems biggest "wasters" were CA with 4,3M and NY with 1,7M while Reps had TX with 800k and AL with 590k. Putting the "wasted" votes in % of populace shows the Dems overachieving with DC with 87% and HI with 32% while Reps had NE-3 with 54% and WY with 46%

 

Now there obvious is some wonkyness when you get a 306-232 electoral split that can be won by losing the popular vote by 3M or winning it by 5M.

 

The electoral college in its current form also assists in shitting on the will of the people. There are more republicans in California than most other states, but they are outnumbered by democrats so their votes end up not mattering. If we were using the popular vote, or if we at least amended the electoral system so that a percentage of the electoral votes of each state was awarded to each candidate based on the percentage they won in that state, it would go a long way in making sure everyone's votes mattered.

So a popular vote...

 

I got news for you, quite a few past presidential elections would have gotten a different result if you did that...

[Chaplain of death]

 

I don't believe I was clear enough on how the Electoral College works.

 

I said that a state has a capped maximum of influence, regardless of population.

That's was a quick way to say it... and be very wrong with it's interpretation.

 

Each state has electors, and it's calculated as one elector for each Representative, plus one elector for each Senator.

 

California has 53 Representatives, and 2 Senators. That is why California receives a bone crushing 55 Electoral votes.

Wyoming has 1 Representative, and 2 Senators. That is why Wyoming receives a wimpy 3 Electoral votes.

 

So actually, population has everything to do with it. California is a major advantage, and it takes many Reds to counter that one Blue.

 

As noted, the electoral collage is partially a popular vote but it gets hindered by 2 factors: 2 "free" electors per state (thus dispropotionate towards smaller states) and a FPTP mentality (winner takes all). Maine and Nebraska are odd-ones in that they use congressional districts for their "House" votes and the state as a whole for their "Senate" votes. Note that both states had a split in their electors.

 

It is the whole notion of "wasted" votes, aka all the votes more then your opponent in each state. For example for 2016 this meant that the Democrats had roughly 2.8M "wasted" votes in relation to Republicans. Dems had 11M wasted votes, Reps had 7,2M (this thus being the popular margin). Dems biggest "wasters" were CA with 4,3M and NY with 1,7M while Reps had TX with 800k and AL with 590k. Putting the "wasted" votes in % of populace shows the Dems overachieving with DC with 87% and HI with 32% while Reps had NE-3 with 54% and WY with 46%

 

Now there obvious is some wonkyness when you get a 306-232 electoral split that can be won by losing the popular vote by 3M or winning it by 5M.

 

The electoral college in its current form also assists in shitting on the will of the people. There are more republicans in California than most other states, but they are outnumbered by democrats so their votes end up not mattering. If we were using the popular vote, or if we at least amended the electoral system so that a percentage of the electoral votes of each state was awarded to each candidate based on the percentage they won in that state, it would go a long way in making sure everyone's votes mattered.

So a popular vote...

 

I got news for you, quite a few past presidential elections would have gotten a different result if you did that...

 

 

 

Oh I'm quite aware. I don't have a problem with that though. I don't have a problem with a popular vote, but was offering up something that could work as a compromise with people who don't agree with swapping to a popular vote. I don't know why people don't think a popular vote is a good idea but so be it. There's a lot of things I don't understand about the way people in this country think and feel when it comes to politics. 

[Lysistrata]

The states decided long ago how their electors would cast their votes. Every state can change it anytime they wish. To this day we have electors that go rogue, and they go against the state mandate. I'm still waiting for the day that it makes a difference.

 

Currently our national elections come down to the outcome of 11-13 states. This makes the candidates cover a lot of ground, and negotiate a very diverse population, if they are to be successful. Converting to a popular vote would change this dynamic substantially. The campaigns would concentrate their efforts on California, Texas, Florida, and New York... almost exclusively. The entire remaining states would quickly become irrelevant. This cannot happen in a Republic... and it will never happen in the USA.

 

If the states let go of their "winner take all" platforms, like Maine and Nebraska have already done, it would be much more interesting, and much less aggravating to most of us. What makes this difficult is whatever party is in control of the state, never wants to let go of their power... so it's not likely to ever happen as well. So, we have what we have, until our politicians can see past their own vanity. 

[Chaplain of death]

The states decided long ago how their electors would cast their votes. Every state can change it anytime they wish. To this day we have electors that go rogue, and they go against the state mandate. I'm still waiting for the day that it makes a difference.

 

Currently our national elections come down to the outcome of 11-13 states. This makes the candidates cover a lot of ground, and negotiate a very diverse population, if they are to be successful. Converting to a popular vote would change this dynamic substantially. The campaigns would concentrate their efforts on California, Texas, Florida, and New York... almost exclusively. The entire remaining states would quickly become irrelevant. This cannot happen in a Republic... and it will never happen in the USA.

 

If the states let go of their "winner take all" platforms, like Maine and Nebraska have already done, it would be much more interesting, and much less aggravating to most of us. What makes this difficult is whatever party is in control of the state, never wants to let go of their power... so it's not likely to ever happen as well. So, we have what we have, until our politicians can see past their own vanity. 

 

 

I definitely agree with your last sentiment there. The gerrymandering by both sides makes any attempt to improve on our current system a difficult prospect.

 

I think in a popular vote system its possible that it could be like you say, where candidates focus their time and effort in higher population density states. Some of those states currently get ignored for the most part because they aren't swing states, but just changing which minority of states get attention during a campaign is not an improvement. My hope in such a system would be that it would force candidates to travel to more of the country to campaign, and therefore engage with more of the people they are meant to represent and appeal to them, rather than just going to a select few states.

[Lysistrata]

I do believe that if we abandon the winner take all system in favor of the Maine and Nebraska system of dividing the electors into a complete system of representative election... it's the best way to go. Now all we have to do is get all the states to just do it. Other than that, all we will get is... "You First".

[Lysistrata]

It's already started and the guy hasn't even been elected yet.

 

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/majority-voters-say-special-counsel-should-be-convened-investigate-bidens

 

This includes 30% of Democrats. They're gonna throw Joe to the jackals.

I believe Harris will be President before the end of 2021, and Trump will annihilate her in 2024.

 

Place your bets early for maximum odds.

[Chaplain of death]

I find it interesting that for all the rhetoric about democrats not giving Trump a chance to govern and going after him through his whole presidency that this is how we're going to start the next administration. Reminds me of the "don't allow supreme court nominees in an election year" shit that they pulled 4 years ago only to flop on it this year. I don't know whether there is any shady shit that went down there, I certainly won't write off the possibility, and I don't have any real problems with them investigating it, but honestly there should be some form of oversight that investigates that kind of shit before they get elected in my opinion. 

[Lysistrata]

What did you expect? They spied on Trump's campaign, built a fake case to force his people out, muscled in a Special Council, tried to frame him for Russian collusion, attempted to bring him down for obstruction of a fake crime. Then they impeach him for a phone call.

 

Sure they'll take Biden out for making millions for favors when he was Vice-President... and he actually did it.

 

Also, Marrick Garland is not a Supreme Court Justice because Republicans had the Senate, and they didn't want him. If Clinton won the election, there would have been a different outcome. She didn't win. Amy Barrett is a Supreme Court Justice because Republicans still have the Senate, and they wanted her. Now if another seat opens up, Biden will have his nomination, and they will fight over it as long as Republicans have the Senate.

 

This argument about election year crap is an excuse for doing it, or not doing it. It means as much as an argument over popular vote... and that is nothing.

[onbekende]

Meanwhile, Trump continues to try and throw Dem votes out. Judicary he is 30-2 on loses last I checked. He won the 12-foot one (btw this got overturned in PA Supreme Court) and a couple hundred mail-in ballots got tossed due to not having a date on them (as in, the person signing didn't date them).

Meanwhile, Georgia keeps being a Biden victory (yes I heared about the votes found, yay for audits!) and thus further cements a Biden victory. Trump thou keeps pressuring his Republican political lapdogs to overturn an election by throwing out the votes and just declaring Trump god-king of all.

 

It's already started and the guy hasn't even been elected yet.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/majority-voters-say-special-counsel-should-be-convened-investigate-bidens

This includes 30% of Democrats. They're gonna throw Joe to the jackals.
I believe Harris will be President before the end of 2021, and Trump will annihilate her in 2024.

Place your bets early for maximum odds.

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Has Tucker found his USB-drive yet with all them evidence? No? Pity... Atleast he asked to stop going over Hunter soon afterwards, some people might wonder why...

I keep hearing that "horror scenario" echo'd some time now from Republicans (and up) about Harris being airlifted into the Presidency during Biden's term. You guys really got rattled with the black dude hé...

 

lol Rasmussen, and it isn't even the polling company itself...
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I find it interesting that for all the rhetoric about democrats not giving Trump a chance to govern and going after him through his whole presidency that this is how we're going to start the next administration. Reminds me of the "don't allow supreme court nominees in an election year" shit that they pulled 4 years ago only to flop on it this year. I don't know whether there is any shady shit that went down there, I certainly won't write off the possibility, and I don't have any real problems with them investigating it, but honestly there should be some form of oversight that investigates that kind of shit before they get elected in my opinion.

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Republicans already suddenly found issues with deficit spending, think it will once again be bi-partisanship vs partisanship.
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What did you expect? They spied on Trump's campaign, built a fake case to force his people out, muscled in a Special Council, tried to frame him for Russian collusion, attempted to bring him down for obstruction of a fake crime. Then they impeach him for a phone call.

Sure they'll take Biden out for making millions for favors when he was Vice-President... and he actually did it.

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You still haven't even tried skimming the actual Mueller report I see, you know, not the redacted and redirected cliff-notes Barr published. The actually one that was also collaborated by a bi-partisan Senate committee invesigation and report finding extensive Russian involvement and mis-information coupled with various inroads into the Trump campaign and Presidency.

You know, those investigations that were stonewalled on every level, including from Republicans themselfes. Wasn't Trump going to declassify the report btw, what happended to that, again...

You'd sooner see an actual investigation into Trump & co with an actual independent DOJ. That and NY state investigators will have a party on Jan 20.
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Also, Marrick Garland is not a Supreme Court Justice because Republicans had the Senate, and they didn't want him. If Clinton won the election, there would have been a different outcome. She didn't win. Amy Barrett is a Supreme Court Justice because Republicans still have the Senate, and they wanted her. Now if another seat opens up, Biden will have his nomination, and they will fight over it as long as Republicans have the Senate.

This argument about election year crap is an excuse for doing it, or not doing it. It means as much as an argument over popular vote... and that is nothing.

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Garland wasn't even invited for a Q&A, just straight stonewall with a "it is an election year".

2010, Reps take House, start of hissy fit, McConnell publicly states he wants to make Obama a 1-term president.
2012, Obama re-elected, oops.
2014, Reps take Senate, nothing happens anymore.
2016, Trump elected with trifecta, ACA survives due to McCain
2018, Dems take House, nothing happens anymore.
2020, Biden elected with GA senate run-offs, plausible 50-50 with VP tie-breaker but likely Rep Senate with turtle doing nothing.

And don't for a second think that a Republican Senate won't completly stonewall any judicary nomination, heck they just yesterday trashed a more then century old practice of not voting on judges in a lame-duck session!

[Lysistrata]

"Damn Trump people... I'm takin' his flag"

[Chaplain of death]

What did you expect? They spied on Trump's campaign, built a fake case to force his people out, muscled in a Special Council, tried to frame him for Russian collusion, attempted to bring him down for obstruction of a fake crime. Then they impeach him for a phone call.

 

Sure they'll take Biden out for making millions for favors when he was Vice-President... and he actually did it.

 

Also, Marrick Garland is not a Supreme Court Justice because Republicans had the Senate, and they didn't want him. If Clinton won the election, there would have been a different outcome. She didn't win. Amy Barrett is a Supreme Court Justice because Republicans still have the Senate, and they wanted her. Now if another seat opens up, Biden will have his nomination, and they will fight over it as long as Republicans have the Senate.

 

This argument about election year crap is an excuse for doing it, or not doing it. It means as much as an argument over popular vote... and that is nothing.

 

 

I understand they had control of the senate and the ability to do it, but its supposed to be a non-political appointment so deciding based on the party of the president making the appointment rather than the qualifications of the candidate is wrong. Senate republicans are cowards for trying to cover up that partisan action with their election year claims. They still had control and the ability to do what they did.

[Lysistrata]

its supposed to be a non-political appointment

Give me a minute... I have to stop laughing.

 

Are you saying... with a straight face... that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a "non-political" appointment from Bill Clinton? How about Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor from Barack Obama? These people were not placed on the Supreme Court because they are brilliant masters at applying the US Constitution... they were placed on the Supreme Court to alter the original meaning of the Constitution.

 

That's the entire battle. The last hundred years, the Supreme Court has been used by Progressives to create complete new laws, out of thin air. Laws not included in the Constitution, and legislation that Congress or the President have no power to execute. Whatever is not included in the US Constitution, is relegated to the States. It's been an awful practice as a go around from the much more difficult path of Amendments... but laws were never intended to be easy to pass in the USA. We need very badly to get back to that.

 

Like I said... "election year" was an excuse to do what they were going to do anyway. Get over it.

[Chaplain of death]

I said SUPPOSED to be. All I said was that they are cowards for making excuses. Seems to me you agree since you are agreeing it was an excuse.