It’s interesting that the trumpherroids are demanding “stop the counting” in some venues and demanding “count the votes” in others depending on the political advantages of their dear leader Trump (R -impeached).
If Biden survives the GOP’s legal and extra-legal efforts to rob him of votes in the determinative battleground states and is sworn in as president, let’s skip the sanctimony about how “the system worked.”
The system is teetering. Trump — in what may be his signal accomplishment — has exposed every weakness in its structure.
It turns out that a president can even monkey around with the Postal Service to manipulate election results.
He can lie, steal, self-deal, corrupt the legal system, coddle dictators, alienate allies, violate all the internal safeguards intended to prevent executive malfeasance, mismanage a public-health catastrophe that kills his own voters, and get away with it for four long years.
The good news that comes with the potential Biden presidency is that there will be an honest and decent man in the White House, buttressed by a professional and at least nominally bipartisan triage team, who will try to undo the damage.
There are a lot of rocks to overturn in every Cabinet department, for they are all stocked with grifters, hacks, and lobbyists who did the bidding of their Dear Leader, his kleptocratic family, their cronies, and their donors.
Scientists, as opposed to the quack faux epidemiologist and Russian-propaganda stooge Scott Atlas, will be back in charge of fighting the coronavirus at the federal level.
If the Democrats end up with 50 seats in the Senate — a big if — some constructive legislation may be possible, though the Democratic losses in the House would downsize any big ambitions.
Most of all, the nation will have dodged a bullet. What would have happened during an unchecked second Trump term is too horrific to contemplate.
But let’s not kid ourselves.
If there’s a honeymoon in Washington, it is bound to be short-lived.
To be clear, I never expected a Biden landslide in a country as polarized as the United States.
I was a wet blanket even among my Never Trump comrades, holding out only the modest hope that Biden would recapture the states Clinton lost in 2016, and possibly flip Arizona.
But I expected the margins in all of those states—and especially in Biden’s birth state of Pennsylvania—to be higher.
I suspected that Biden had no real chance in places such as Texas or Georgia or even North Carolina, all states in the Trumpist grip.
Nor was I among the progressives who believed America would repudiate Trump’s policies.
For one thing, I am a conservative—and I know my former tribe.
Trump voters don’t care about policy. They didn’t care about it in 2016, and they don’t care about it now.
The party of national security, fiscal austerity, and personal responsibility supports a president who is in the pocket of the Russians, has exploded the national deficit, and refuses to take responsibility for anything.
I had hoped, at the least, that people who once insisted on the importance of presidential character would vote for basic decency after living under the most indecent president in American history.
It’s clear now that far too many of Trump’s voters don’t care about policy, decency, or saving our democracy. They care about power.
Although Trump appears to have received a small uptick in votes from Black men and Latinos, the overwhelming share of his supporters are white.
The politics of cultural resentment, the obsessions of white anxiety, are so intense that his voters are determined not only to preserve minority rule but to leave a dangerous sociopath in the Oval Office.
Even the candidacy of a man who was both a political centrist and a decent human being could not overcome this sullen commitment to authoritarianism.
Humm… The GOP encouraging fraud, to ‘prove’ the voting is fraudulent…
~
While legal experts said it was clear that any pool of ballots mailed Thursday or Friday would not meet the legal requirements, they differed in their theories about why the Trump campaign was encouraging it.
Some considered it a recognition from the president’s campaign that Pennsylvania’s vote count, which remains too close to call, would tilt in favor of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Others speculated that the campaign was encouraging these votes in hopes that one would be accepted, at which point they could petition courts to invalidate the entire pool of absentee ballots—including those properly postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by the Friday deadline—by claiming the whole batch was tainted by fraud.
Pennsylvania election law currently holds that ballots received after Election Day without a clear postmark would be presumed valid though subject to rebuttal.
Currently, the running tally of votes as reported by the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s Office on Thursday did not include legitimate absentees arriving after Election Day, which have been segregated in anticipation of future litigation.
“I wonder if they’re doing this in hopes of slipping one through and then waving it around as an example of the flawed process,” said Ben Geffen, an attorney at the Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia.
“The real story is, it sounds like the Trump campaign is promoting cheating.”
The email sent on Thursday included a signature that matched the address of the offices of the Kenosha Victory Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
A second email issued weeks earlier from the same email address, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, promoted a “Trump campaign volunteer training.”
1120 MST – looks like all “uncalled” states are now “leaning” Biden.
Still don’t trust “leaning,” but it does look like Trump may be unemployed in the near future.
Two thoughts:
One, we may well have elected a new president, but we sent him to Washington with a “midterm” Congress. There were no coattails – it looks like Democrats lost ground in both houses of Congress.
Hey, you third party advocates, you may have gotten what, if not who, you wanted: A president with no support in Congress!
What’s the Worst a Vengeful Lame-Duck Administration Can Do?
In short, it’s the story of the Cleveland-Harrison-Cleveland debacle, where Republicans torpedoed Cleveland to get him out of office and, when the public realized how bad Harrison was, returning Cleveland to office, the revenge that Harrison extracted once again from his foe, Cleveland…
Will Trump go down such a similar path? One can argue his entire four years in office has been one of revenge. Once no longer constrained by politics – as if he ever was constrained by anything – what will this man do?
Cheapskate0 about 4 years ago
Well, as Stephen Colbert said, you don’t have to be a prophet. Trump is just too doggone predictable!
This strip could be “phoned in” – and still be accurate!
kaffekup about 4 years ago
It seems Carmen is bruised and battered.
But aren’t the people with the signs on her side?
Sanspareil about 4 years ago
It’s interesting that the trumpherroids are demanding “stop the counting” in some venues and demanding “count the votes” in others depending on the political advantages of their dear leader Trump (R -impeached).
William Robbins Premium Member about 4 years ago
On the plus side, my inbox is back under 100 a day, and Russian women are back in the spam folder…
Silly Season about 4 years ago
If Biden survives the GOP’s legal and extra-legal efforts to rob him of votes in the determinative battleground states and is sworn in as president, let’s skip the sanctimony about how “the system worked.”
The system is teetering. Trump — in what may be his signal accomplishment — has exposed every weakness in its structure.
It turns out that a president can even monkey around with the Postal Service to manipulate election results.
He can lie, steal, self-deal, corrupt the legal system, coddle dictators, alienate allies, violate all the internal safeguards intended to prevent executive malfeasance, mismanage a public-health catastrophe that kills his own voters, and get away with it for four long years.
The good news that comes with the potential Biden presidency is that there will be an honest and decent man in the White House, buttressed by a professional and at least nominally bipartisan triage team, who will try to undo the damage.
There are a lot of rocks to overturn in every Cabinet department, for they are all stocked with grifters, hacks, and lobbyists who did the bidding of their Dear Leader, his kleptocratic family, their cronies, and their donors.
Scientists, as opposed to the quack faux epidemiologist and Russian-propaganda stooge Scott Atlas, will be back in charge of fighting the coronavirus at the federal level.
If the Democrats end up with 50 seats in the Senate — a big if — some constructive legislation may be possible, though the Democratic losses in the House would downsize any big ambitions.
Most of all, the nation will have dodged a bullet. What would have happened during an unchecked second Trump term is too horrific to contemplate.
But let’s not kid ourselves.
If there’s a honeymoon in Washington, it is bound to be short-lived.
~
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/frank-rich-the-gop-will-learn-nothing-from-a-trump-defeat.html#comments
Silly Season about 4 years ago
To be clear, I never expected a Biden landslide in a country as polarized as the United States.
I was a wet blanket even among my Never Trump comrades, holding out only the modest hope that Biden would recapture the states Clinton lost in 2016, and possibly flip Arizona.
But I expected the margins in all of those states—and especially in Biden’s birth state of Pennsylvania—to be higher.
I suspected that Biden had no real chance in places such as Texas or Georgia or even North Carolina, all states in the Trumpist grip.
Nor was I among the progressives who believed America would repudiate Trump’s policies.
For one thing, I am a conservative—and I know my former tribe.
Trump voters don’t care about policy. They didn’t care about it in 2016, and they don’t care about it now.
The party of national security, fiscal austerity, and personal responsibility supports a president who is in the pocket of the Russians, has exploded the national deficit, and refuses to take responsibility for anything.
I had hoped, at the least, that people who once insisted on the importance of presidential character would vote for basic decency after living under the most indecent president in American history.
It’s clear now that far too many of Trump’s voters don’t care about policy, decency, or saving our democracy. They care about power.
Although Trump appears to have received a small uptick in votes from Black men and Latinos, the overwhelming share of his supporters are white.
The politics of cultural resentment, the obsessions of white anxiety, are so intense that his voters are determined not only to preserve minority rule but to leave a dangerous sociopath in the Oval Office.
Even the candidacy of a man who was both a political centrist and a decent human being could not overcome this sullen commitment to authoritarianism.
~
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/large-portion-electorate-chose-sociopath/616994/
rossevrymn about 4 years ago
Yep, Stantisfernuthin’ team is not taking this whole thing very well.
Silly Season about 4 years ago
Humm… The GOP encouraging fraud, to ‘prove’ the voting is fraudulent…
~
While legal experts said it was clear that any pool of ballots mailed Thursday or Friday would not meet the legal requirements, they differed in their theories about why the Trump campaign was encouraging it.
Some considered it a recognition from the president’s campaign that Pennsylvania’s vote count, which remains too close to call, would tilt in favor of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Others speculated that the campaign was encouraging these votes in hopes that one would be accepted, at which point they could petition courts to invalidate the entire pool of absentee ballots—including those properly postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by the Friday deadline—by claiming the whole batch was tainted by fraud.
Pennsylvania election law currently holds that ballots received after Election Day without a clear postmark would be presumed valid though subject to rebuttal.
Currently, the running tally of votes as reported by the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s Office on Thursday did not include legitimate absentees arriving after Election Day, which have been segregated in anticipation of future litigation.
“I wonder if they’re doing this in hopes of slipping one through and then waving it around as an example of the flawed process,” said Ben Geffen, an attorney at the Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia.
“The real story is, it sounds like the Trump campaign is promoting cheating.”
The email sent on Thursday included a signature that matched the address of the offices of the Kenosha Victory Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
A second email issued weeks earlier from the same email address, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, promoted a “Trump campaign volunteer training.”
~
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-warns-of-corrupt-post-election-day-votes-as-his-supporters-push-for-them-in-pa
fuzzbucket Premium Member about 4 years ago
Gore started those recount lawsuits way back then. Trump must still be a liberal if he’s using their tactics.
Cheapskate0 about 4 years ago
By now, not telling anybody anything new.
1120 MST – looks like all “uncalled” states are now “leaning” Biden.
Still don’t trust “leaning,” but it does look like Trump may be unemployed in the near future.
Two thoughts:
One, we may well have elected a new president, but we sent him to Washington with a “midterm” Congress. There were no coattails – it looks like Democrats lost ground in both houses of Congress.
Hey, you third party advocates, you may have gotten what, if not who, you wanted: A president with no support in Congress!
Two, the following link:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/whats-the-worst-a-vengeful-lame-duck-administration-can-do/ar-BB1aDi0p
What’s the Worst a Vengeful Lame-Duck Administration Can Do?
In short, it’s the story of the Cleveland-Harrison-Cleveland debacle, where Republicans torpedoed Cleveland to get him out of office and, when the public realized how bad Harrison was, returning Cleveland to office, the revenge that Harrison extracted once again from his foe, Cleveland…
Will Trump go down such a similar path? One can argue his entire four years in office has been one of revenge. Once no longer constrained by politics – as if he ever was constrained by anything – what will this man do?
Night-Gaunt49[Bozo is Boffo] about 4 years ago
Ignore those who follow the Emperor of Lies.