Politics... US election edition

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Hurlshot said:

The whole spoiler argument is silly fun, because it only becomes a reality when you have an uninspired candidate. Did Ralph Nader spoil Al Gore's run? Did Ross Perot spoil George Bush's run? Probably, but you can only blame the candidates for that. 

Have you read Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman?

[Hurlshort]

7 minutes ago, Achilles said:

Have you read Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman?

No. I will add it to my list.

[Gromnir]

@Hurlshot may be relieved to hear that 'ccording to a recent reuters poll, only 68% o' republicans believe the election were rigged. as such, can assume something better than 45 million trump voters saw rampant fraud in spite o' lack o' evidence. unfortunate, given the large number o' americans who didn't vote, that likely means many million additional people believe the vote were rigged with the vast majority o' those believing trump were screwed. has us back in the 70 million range?

oh, and yang were math challenged. tax amazon and create a universal transaction tax (unconstitutional) were never gonna work and woulda' needed implausible bipartisan Congressional support... and amazon woulda' needed become much, Much bigger. ubi were not executive order fodder. francis townsend, back in the 1930s, had promoted a similar scheme o' national taxation and his efforts actual helped many people in the real world.

yang never did adequate explain how ubi were gonna affect those current receiving benefits such as disability, ssi and obamacare as those is income sensitive. 

would never have seen ubi under yang. is a shame too 'cause while ubi in the US were not a new idea, it deserved serious reflection as 'posed to the yang treatment it received. most western nations where ubi experiments has been attempted has seen those experiments fail or discontinued. finland, canada and multiple us cities has tried ubi and the results has been educational but wins is hard to identify. (stockton, ca is worth monitoring) however, considering the economic trends only exacerbated by covid, ubi should be getting more attention. automation is only gonna increase and ai is gonna eventual cut into white collar jobs requiring advanced degrees.

ubi were/is a worthy idea. deserved better than yang with his misleading "math" pin. serious, nobody who went the ba route for their economics degree should be able to claim they love math w/o being mocked.

HA! Good Fun! 

ps another rudy article

https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/when-applying-normal-scrutiny-rudy-giulianis-court-appearance-was-a-total-flop/

When pressed by the judge on what standard of scrutiny should be applied to Pennsylvania government’s action, Giuliani replied: “The normal one.”

The response inspired widespread derision from the legal community, where attorneys and others knew the answer exposed the Trump lawyer as unfamiliar with rational basis review, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny.

Giuliani even acknowledged, later in the hearing, that he did not know what strict scrutiny meant.

...

is tough to explain how comical bad were rudy

Edited November 18, 2020 by Gromnir

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

OK, for those of you who think we "wasted our vote" on Jo Jorgensen (particularly a certain half-orc bhaalspawn lawyer from west of the Rockies) the numbers are in:

• In Georgia Jorgensen won 62059 votes. Trump lost by 14163
• In Pennsylvania Jorgensen received 78431. Trump lost by 60233.
• In Arizona the LP ticket got 50636. Trump lost by 12813
• In Wisconsin they had 38393, Trump lost by 20557 

Now, as I have stated many, many times Libertarians are not Republicans. But they are anti-Democrats on most issues. The Democrats are the party of big tax, big regulation, gun control, eminent domain, suppression of speech, suppression of property rights, collectivism, etc. Libertarians find some common ground with the Dems in social issues but in any sort of "lesser evil" calculation we tend well towards Republicans.

If just 46.9% of these 229000+ libertarian voters took the advice, so often given unbidden, about not "wasting" our votes Donald Trump would be starting a second term in 63 days rather than catching a one way ticket home. 

And to the Republicans who are bitching incessantly about us being "spoilers", if you want Libertarian votes try being more libertarian. You used to be. I'd give the same advice to Democrats but that would be a waste of time.  

If nothing else, it doesn't hurt to be strategic about when you vote third party. If Trump was 90% your guy, while whomever the Libertarian (or other) Party is putting up is 95% your guy or gal, you're probably going to vote for Trump because he has a great chance at winning and you're good with 90% of him and that's a pretty great percentage all things considered for a politician who has a very real shot at winning. If, on the other hand, Trump is like maybe 50% at best your guy and you utterly detest him personally and you're really actually kind of hoping that he eventually ends up in prison, while his main opposition is not sitting that far below him for you but you *don't* utterly detest them (but still can't possibly support their platform/policies), then yeah, voting third party starts to feel like it makes a lot of sense even if you know nothing much will come of it. Especially if you feel as though it's an important civic duty to vote to begin with, which some people do - even when it's very difficult to do so (...whether because a certain party has literally made it difficult to do so or because the candidates are all terrible).

Meanwhile, Alaska approved ranked choice voting via a ballot measure while Massachusetts rejected it via the same. Huh? Makes no sense to me, especially with neighbor state Maine having implemented it for these past two elections very successfully. Apparently, Massachusetts voters thought it would be "too complicated". What a bunch of dummies.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Apparently, Massachusetts voters thought it would be "too complicated". What a bunch of dummies.

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Achilles

[BruceVC]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/18/trump-fires-cyber-chief-krebs-who-said-us-election-secure

Trump is really in a foul mood and is lashing out like a petulant child, now he has fired his head of Cybersecurity

I am not sure why he is so  angry, its not like he lost the election.....oh wait 

[InsaneCommander]

2 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

I am not sure why he is so  angry, its not like he lost the election.....oh wait 

It's not decided yet! Obviously this image is totally correct.

Edited November 18, 2020 by InsaneCommander

[Gromnir]

we mentioned earlier how a republican in north dakota who were running on an anti-covid restriction platform died o' covid-19 and nevertheless got elected over a fellow republican and a democrat. 

senator elect from alabama, tommy tuberville thinks the US fought ww2 to end socialism and identified the three branches o' US fed government as the senate, house and executive. 

oh, and before we laugh too hard at tommy's error and the stoopidity o' the folks in alabama for voting him into office, consider the following:

link

"During a livestream earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats should "work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three chambers of Congress — rather, all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate and the House.""

no pass for a few ca voters neither

we get the government we deserve.

oh, and am gonna once again observe how important is education. an ignorant electorate is the single greatest threat to a democratic republic. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Malcador]

Giuliani's making out pretty well - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/giuliani-trump-election-pay.html

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Giuliani's making out pretty well - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/giuliani-trump-election-pay.html

I'd probably sell my integrity for that kind of money

[Zoraptor]

5 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

Why would it be an indictment? You basically said if people didn't vote for a candidate, that candidate would not have won. That sounds like the system working perfectly.

The whole spoiler argument is silly fun, because it only becomes a reality when you have an uninspired candidate. Did Ralph Nader spoil Al Gore's run? Did Ross Perot spoil George Bush's run? Probably, but you can only blame the candidates for that. 

You can blame the electoral system too. You'd have to suspect that most Nader voters would prefer Gore over Bush at least and a decent proportion would change their votes if they could go back in time.

While a lot of people advocate for Preferential/ Ranked as a system I personally will always shill proper, multi member electorate Single Trnasferable Vote. Gives proportional results, can't be gerrymandered, goes a long way to breaking the entrenched power of political parties. And as a result, not at all popular with politicians.

[Gromnir]

the stockton mayor who were championing ubi in his city just lost his reelection bid. 10 points.

disappointing, particular as ubi appears to be what led to michael tubbs defeat.

 

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

the stockton mayor who were championing ubi in his city just lost his reelection bid. 10 points.

disappointing, particular as ubi appears to be what led to michael tubbs defeat.

 

That is a shame. The HBO documentary made it pretty clear he was extremely well intentioned.

[Chairchucker]

17 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

Why would it be an indictment? You basically said if people didn't vote for a candidate, that candidate would not have won. That sounds like the system working perfectly.

It is an indictment that voting for anyone other than the two candidates that have been preordained as the only two candidates that are allowed to win is directly equivalent to literally not voting at all.

10 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

While a lot of people advocate for Preferential/ Ranked as a system I personally will always shill proper, multi member electorate Single Trnasferable Vote. Gives proportional results, can't be gerrymandered, goes a long way to breaking the entrenched power of political parties. And as a result, not at all popular with politicians.

Honestly hate the idea of this kind of voting almost as much as what the USA currently has. I want the kind of nuance that preferential voting affords me. I want my vote to go to the big party that I hate least ONLY after we've established that the party I actually like can't possibly get a majority, not for my votes for those two parties to be exactly the same. (We have preferential voting here in Australia, it rules.)

[HoonDing]

"tommy tuberville"

 

this is his real name lmfao

[IndiraLightfoot]

20 hours ago, Gromnir said:

@Hurlshot may be relieved to hear that 'ccording to a recent reuters poll, only 68% o' republicans believe the election were rigged.

HA! Good Fun! 

 

Well, that's reassurring... Not! That is one humongous group of people. I wish it wasn't so large, but propaganda and misinformation are powerful tools, as history has shown us again and again.

[Amentep]

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