U.S. Politics megathread (merged)

[Justin Z]

2 minutes ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Meanwhile, in the real world, have all the counters chucked it for the day, or does the F5 smash-a-thon continue?

 

 

[Eldar Hadzimehmedovic]

8 minutes ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Meanwhile, in the real world, have all the counters chucked it for the day, or does the F5 smash-a-thon continue?

Georgia saying now they want to be done tonight, or by midnight anyway. 

 

Edit - it was the elections head of Fulton County that said that. No idea if that means the state would be called. So confusing sometimes! 😄

Edited November 5, 2020 by Eldar Hadzimehmedovic

[A Boy Named Crow]

2 minutes ago, Eldar Hadzimehmedovic said:

Georgia saying now they want to be done tonight, or by midnight anyway. 

Another for and a half hours then? Sees me through most of the working day, magic!

[JFK-1]

24 minutes ago, redjambo said:

 

86% on here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/us2020/states/nv

 

Confusing. They're both showing exactly the same number of votes counted but a different percentage counted. And it's disturbingly close.

[Ulysses]

12 hours ago, I P Knightley said:

I best start learning to speak Chinese.

 

Why?  The Chinese imperium won't require you to speak.  It'll just require you to do.

 

[Cade]

IF Biden takes it, the overwhelming feeling will be one of cautious, cynical relief rather than any kind of excited optimism.

 

With the Senate and Supreme Court still in the hands of the nutters, and with various armed militia groups on a hair trigger, and with far-right conspiracy theorists actually winning seats in congress, the USA has a long, long way to go and it's going to take longer than 4 years of Biden to fix any of that shit.

 

 

[redjambo]

5 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Confusing. They're both showing exactly the same number of votes counted but a different percentage counted. And it's disturbingly close.

 

This has 86% as well - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-nevada.html

 

It also gives a per-county breakdown of the results so far. I guess that folk are reckoning that the remaining Democratic votes in Clark and Washoe counties should be sufficient to see Biden through.

 

[A Boy Named Crow]

16 minutes ago, Cade said:

IF Biden takes it, the overwhelming feeling will be one of cautious, cynical relief rather than any kind of excited optimism.

 

With the Senate and Supreme Court still in the hands of the nutters, and with various armed militia groups on a hair trigger, and with far-right conspiracy theorists actually winning seats in congress, the USA has a long, long way to go and it's going to take longer than 4 years of Biden to fix any of that shit.

 

 

For me,  I see the US as a lost cause. Four years of Biden v the senate would do nothing to change that. 

 

The significance for me would be outside America, the impact on Brexit etc. 

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

Trump loses Kent County (basically Grand Rapids and some of its suburbs) in Michigan to Biden by over 5%. Kent County has been reliably Republican in the past and was where Trump held his final superspreader event of the election. That one’s gotta hurt.

[Ulysses]

11 hours ago, Justin Z said:

 

Bernie Sanders would have crushed Trump under his shoe in this election. Every poll showed it, and he was the only one to consistently call him exactly what he is: A racist, fascist piece of human garbage.

 

 

In early April, just before the pollsters stopped asking about Sanders v Trump, Biden showed a bigger lead over Trump than Sanders did.  That was the case through the period from Christmas to early April.  In late 2019, their poll leads over Trump were as near as makes no difference the same.  Have a look at the RCP aggregator information for the numbers.  The notion that Sanders would have done much better than Biden is a fantasy.  He would have brought more energy and charisma to the General Election campaign, and that might have changed the campaign dynamic, and that's a factor that polls from a year ago can't measure.

 

And in any case, what value are the polls?

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

22 minutes ago, redjambo said:

 

This has 86% as well - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-nevada.html

 

It also gives a per-county breakdown of the results so far. I guess that folk are reckoning that the remaining Democratic votes in Clark and Washoe counties should be sufficient to see Biden through.

 

I’m still nervous about Nevada, just due to level of uncertainty. Really hope Pennsylvania clinches it.

[redjambo]

Just now, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

I’m still nervous about Nevada, just due to level of uncertainty. Really hope Pennsylvania clinches it.

 

Yup. Results still coming in for Pennsylvania (now just over 200,000 behind). I have both Pennsylvania and Georgia tabs open on my browser - if one of those can be won then victory will be clinched.

[Justin Z]

5 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

And in any case, what value are the polls?

 

This is a valid point. It's the subjective stuff that matters, and there would have been nothing left of Trump once Sanders wiped the floor with him every day for months. Progressive voters energised by the millions, there would have been no way Trump would have pulled a greater share of minority votes than any president in 60 years, and the down ballot effect would have been Democratic gains in the House, a flipping of the Senate. And 350+ EC votes.

 

Edit: As well, it ultimately probably would've been less about Sanders himself, and more about running an actual campaign with actual issues and people having things to vote for. Not just Orange Man Bad etc. Hell, half of the above would've happened if Biden had picked one out of half a dozen progressive issues to campaign on. He and the Dems didn't, and here we are.

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by Justin Z

[J.T.F.Robertson]

8 minutes ago, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

Trump loses Kent County (basically Grand Rapids and some of its suburbs) in Michigan to Biden by over 5%. Kent County has been reliably Republican in the past and was where Trump held his final superspreader event of the election. That one’s gotta hurt.

 

I take it by "hurt" you're referring to his gargantuan ego and not his "beloved" Republican Party, 'tho I realise it will do that too.

[JFK-1]

One ameliorating factor regarding the complete breakdown of rationality in this nation may still be Trump. The bulk of his party know he's a total mental case and dislike him.

They know this divisive, dystopian style of government can't go on. There may be a move towards being more co-operative in an effort to completely divorce themselves from the insanity of Trump.

I truly believe we have so far seen only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the incompetence and outright criminality of Trump. There's a torrent of still unknown information waiting to come.

The Republicans post Trump may strive to be as little like him as possible. The majority may attempt to present themselves as having always been opposed to him.

 

Which is the sensible path when he's exposed as not just incompetent but actually criminally corrupt. Someone who treated the presidency as part of his personal business. Devising domestic and foreign policy to make money for that business.

 

Which may result in some rational co-operation. And especially so as the pandemic rages on.

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

Just now, J.T.F.Robertson said:

 

I take it by "hurt" you're referring to his gargantuan ego and not his "beloved" Republican Party, 'tho I realise it will do that too.

His ego 🙂

[redjambo]

From the Guardian:

 

More on the Trump’s campaign’s effort to stop counting votes in Georgia:

The campaign is filing a lawsuit to allege that “a Republican poll observer in Georgia witnessed 53 late absentee ballots illegally added to a stack of on-time absentee ballots in Chatham County.”

The Trump campaign is asking officials for an accounting of those 53 ballots.

[JFK-1]

9 minutes ago, redjambo said:

From the Guardian:

 

More on the Trump’s campaign’s effort to stop counting votes in Georgia:

The campaign is filing a lawsuit to allege that “a Republican poll observer in Georgia witnessed 53 late absentee ballots illegally added to a stack of on-time absentee ballots in Chatham County.”

The Trump campaign is asking officials for an accounting of those 53 ballots.

 

Yeah that will make a huge difference. And who was this "poll observer"? Was he feckin rain man? Glanced at a pile of ballots and knew it was exactly 53?

[Ulysses]

3 hours ago, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

Bringing this back up for no reason.

 

 

 

[redjambo]

7 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Yeah that will make a huge difference. And who was this "poll observer"? Was he feckin rain man? Glanced at a pile of ballots and knew it was exactly 53?

 

 

It's probably not really about those particular ballots anyway, if that event did actually happen. It's the insinuation that the vote in general, at least in Georgia, is fraudulent. "If one of our observers managed to catch sight of that incident, god knows what other shenanigans were going on to cheat during the count!" Rather than make general accusations, they come up with a "believable" exact number of mishandled votes in a single incident and let folk's imaginations extrapolate that out into widescale fraud. Quite clever.

Edited November 5, 2020 by redjambo

[redjambo]

DP.

Edited November 5, 2020 by redjambo

[Ulysses]

1 hour ago, JamesM48 said:

 

[J.T.F.Robertson]

22 minutes ago, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

His ego 🙂

 

Kent as much.

 

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

1 minute ago, J.T.F.Robertson said:

 

Kent as much.

 

You went there.

[redjambo]

Georgia now down to a 37,684 margin with 99,000 votes to count. It's going to be close. Will there be only 53 votes in it?

[JFK-1]

1 hour ago, JamesM48 said:

 

You mean the Poles manager?


 

[Ulysses]

30 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

This is a valid point. It's the subjective stuff that matters, and there would have been nothing left of Trump once Sanders wiped the floor with him every day for months. Progressive voters energised by the millions, there would have been no way Trump would have pulled a greater share of minority votes than any president in 60 years, and the down ballot effect would have been Democratic gains in the House, a flipping of the Senate. And 350+ EC votes.

 

Edit: As well, it ultimately probably would've been less about Sanders himself, and more about running an actual campaign with actual issues and people having things to vote for. Not just Orange Man Bad etc. Hell, half of the above would've happened if Biden had picked one out of half a dozen progressive issues to campaign on. He and the Dems didn't, and here we are.

 

 

No-one - and I mean, abso****inglutely no-one - has laid a glove on Trump since he first announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination.  He would have whupped Sanders harder than a red-headed stepchild.

[J.T.F.Robertson]

12 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Yeah that will make a huge difference. And who was this "poll observer"? Was he feckin rain man? Glanced at a pile of ballots and knew it was exactly 53?

 

I think Giuliani did something similar when he asked one of their poll observers to approach the mic and estimate the number of ballots he'd spotted being moved. 

This shortly after going on a rant as to how these self-same observers' jobs had been rendered impossible due to being moved too far back.

 

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

10 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

 

 

 

 

[Justin Z]

2 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

 

No-one - and I mean, abso****inglutely no-one - has laid a glove on Trump since he first announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination.  He would have whupped Sanders harder than a red-headed stepchild.

 

I am comfortable disagreeing with that in no uncertain terms whatsoever. Dems haven't even managed to get the Senate back in a pandemic, the deaths of which Trump worsened by tens of thousands, minimum. "Res ipsa loquitur."

[J.T.F.Robertson]

8 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

You mean the Poles manager?


 

 

He's gaunnie close Poland doon? 

 

[gjcc]

10 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

You mean the Poles manager?


 

That surely can’t be official. He didn’t say “Bigly”

[Ulysses]

6 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

I am comfortable disagreeing with that in no uncertain terms whatsoever. Dems haven't even managed to get the Senate back in a pandemic, the deaths of which Trump worsened by tens of thousands, minimum. "Res ipsa loquitur."

 

He didn't have to shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue to prove he wouldn't lose voters.  He screwed up on Covid-19, and he hasn't lost yet.  Sanders wouldn't have got near him.  Not near him.

[Justin Z]

Just now, Ulysses said:

 

He didn't have to shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue to prove he wouldn't lose voters.  He screwed up on Covid-19, and he hasn't lost yet.  Sanders wouldn't have got near him.  Not near him.

 

350+, winning Texas by at least 2%.

[Ulysses]

1 minute ago, Justin Z said:

 

350+, winning Texas by at least 2%.

 

He'd have lost Michigan, for a start.  Away and don't be kidding yourself.

 

By the way, even if Biden wins, I get to be the smug ******* who predicted the possibility of a Trump win or a race going down to the wire before anyone else did.  I have form in this regard.

 

 

 

[Justin Z]

2 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

 

He'd have lost Michigan, for a start.  Away and don't be kidding yourself.

 

Ah yes, just like he . . . won the primary there in 2016.

 

Michigan by 175,000, easy, with the strongest contingent voters disaffected by Obama's water drinking farce in Flint.

 

3 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

By the way, even if Biden wins, I get to be the smug ******* who predicted the possibility of a Trump win or a race going down to the wire before anyone else did.  I have form in this regard.

 

Yeah, you certainly nailed the uncertainty of this in the lead-up. Then again, I've been ranting about the trash campaign Biden has been running for months, and the Democrats' greater interest in ensuring the left are unrepresented than removing Trump from office and getting Congress back, so I'm right there with you.

[John Gentleman]

6 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

 

He'd have lost Michigan, for a start.  Away and don't be kidding yourself.

 

By the way, even if Biden wins, I get to be the smug ******* who predicted the possibility of a Trump win or a race going down to the wire before anyone else did.  I have form in this regard.

 

 

 

So, great soothsayer, who's gonnae win Nevada (it being the clincher to get Biden to 270)?

[Justin Z]

 

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

Just now, Justin Z said:

 

Who on earth said that?

[Justin Z]

4 minutes ago, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

Who on earth said that?

 

A lot of people. Several such tweets went viral, I saw one of them last night. You can use Twitter's search function for "flint clean water" or the like.

 

Edit: Or this trash –

 

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by Justin Z

[Ulysses]

3 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

A lot of people. Several such tweets went viral, I saw one of them last night. You can use Twitter's search function for "flint clean water" or the like.

 

 

What exactly is your point?  That Twitter is a cesspit?

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

3 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

A lot of people. Several such tweets went viral, I saw one of them last night. You can use Twitter's search function for "flint clean water" or the like.

I believe you. What a crappy thing to say.

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

New Maricopa results favouring Trump and reducing Biden’s Arizona lead.

[Ulysses]

9 minutes ago, John Gentleman said:

So, great soothsayer, who's gonnae win Nevada (it being the clincher to get Biden to 270)?

 

Jaysus, if I only knew the answer to that. 

 

It completely depends on what votes are left to be counted in Clark County.  If it's absentee ballots, then Biden should hold a lead.

[Ulysses]

4 minutes ago, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

New Maricopa results favouring Trump and reducing Biden’s Arizona lead.

 

Have the US networks actually called Arizona?

[Ulysses]

 

Who does he think he is?  Celtic?

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

6 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

 

Have the US networks actually called Arizona?

Fox did and AP also called it. I’m not yet 100% confident.

[Ulysses]

8 minutes ago, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

Fox did and AP also called it. I’m not yet 100% confident.

 

Not called by ABC, CBS or NBC.  Any idea what's still to be counted?

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

9 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

 

Not called by ABC, CBS or NBC.  Any idea what's still to be counted?

Something in the region of 515,000 (not official numbers, just what I’m seeing). Call seems a bit premature.

[Ulysses]

6 minutes ago, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

Something in the region of 515,000 (not official numbers, just what I’m seeing). Call seems a bit premature.

 

I calculated 464K, and I saw 400K in a report on ABC News a couple of minutes ago.  Any idea where they're from or if they're on the day or absentee ballots?

 

Also, in PA, it's being reported that the biggest blocks of votes to be counted are from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and are likely to break heavily for the Democrats, but I have no idea how accurate that is.