2020 Election Commentary

[Abraxus]

I have to say Oggsmash it's even worse in that as long as the candidate that they wanted to win won who cares about the voter fraud. Trump is out and that is all that matters. I talked to two people recently about the voter fraud and the BS  line of reasoning is "as long as Trump is out who cares about electoral fraud". One of them a close family member who took a minor in Political Science should now better than to spout that kind of rhetoric.

So what's the point then of having elections if all that is important is removing the person in power. Who needs votes or even Democracy if all that matters is "reasons and feels" and not the actual process of legitimate and fair elections. In any case the Leftist Biden supports are hypocritical and continue to be so because of Trump won they would be screaming "ELECTORAL FRAUD" to the heavens and accusing everyone else of being complicit in such fraud. Their side won so who cares if their was fraud Trump is out and all the matters. Screw your and my right to vote and the whole process.

The funny thing is the Left is supposed to be the better of the two ideological movements they are imo 100 times worse. Push comes to shove they would take away anyone and everyone ability to vote as long as Approved Candidate # 20 is the one on the ballot and wins. Some extreme elements on the Right would do the same except I expect that from the Right not from the Left. 

At the very least Trump being elected showed that neither side is better than the other to me at least.

[Ratman_tf]

What I love about the repeated claim that "there is no voter fraud", is that if the people claiming this really believed it, then they wouldn't be insisting on it so loudly. They would just wait for the investigations to prove them right and then laugh at Trump voters. Case closed.

Instead, they are like a scene out of the Wizard of Oz continually and shrilly telling us to pay no attention to the Man Behind The Curtain.

What I love about the repeated claim that "there is widespread, significant voter fraud", is that if the people claiming this really believed it, then they wouldn't be insisting on it so loudly. They would just wait for the investigations to prove them right and then laugh at Biden voters. Case closed.

Instead, they are like a scene out of the Wizard of Oz continually and shrilly telling us to pay no attention to the facts.

I have to laugh at that one, since it seems to ignore a very  loud, very shrill press that proclaimed no evidence of voter fraud whatsoever, and keeps sliding the goalposts on that one.  But thanks for the laugh.  But I would agree both sides of that discussion are way too emotionally invested to want facts at this point.  Both just want results, and that gets a little dangerous.

Exactly. We have celebrities and the press proclaiming Biden as the new President before the electoral college even votes. If the results weren't so tight, they might have a point, but it's not. It's razor thin, and Trump doesn't have to concede. Meanwhile Biden has set up some crazy "Office of the President Elect" which has all the legal authority as "The Ministry of Silly Walks".

Trump is President until January, no matter what, and he has every right to challenge the results in court to make sure the voting was fair and impartial.
Maybe nothing will come of it, and we get 4 years of Biden bombing the middle east and taking our due process rights away, but if any of Trump's lawsuits bear fruit, people crowing about how Trump lost are gonna look mighty foolish come December.

[jeff37923]

  I have to laugh at that one, since it seems to ignore a very  loud, very shrill press that proclaimed no evidence of voter fraud whatsoever, and keeps sliding the goalposts on that one.  But thanks for the laugh.  But I would agree both sides of that discussion are way too emotionally invested to want facts at this point.  Both just want results, and that gets a little dangerous.

We can laugh about this all (I am enjoying the shit-talking), but I am really concerned that the confidence of Americans in our media and electoral system has been permanently damaged by these events.

[Spike]

Who needs votes or even Democracy if all that matters is "reasons and feels" and not the actual process of legitimate and fair elections.

Allow me to break it down for you.

Way back in the seventeenth century the Enlightenment thinkers, perhaps most fundamentally Locke, determined that Reason alone could determine objective truth.  Needless to say this caught on like wildfire and saw such developments as Twitter and TikTok.

Kant, who largely agreed with the enlightenment thinkers, however, had a problem in that he was a pretty religious guy and Religious thinkers all the way back to the eleventh century and probably earlier, had recognized that too much reason eventually led to a loss of Faith.  Faith, of course, holds that Objective Truth is only available through God*.  So, Kant wrote his Critique of Pure Reason, which holds that the mind (the seat of Reason) cannot know objective reality because it doesn't directly interact with reality... it only knows what our deeply flawed and imperfect senses tell us.

Now, to speed this up: This eventually spawned a 'Counter-Enlightenment' which is fundamentally defined by its opposition to Reason. Kirkegaard (spelling. I know.), among other post-Kant philosophers of the Counter-Enlightenment, enshrined Emotion as the arbiter of Truth, to put it exceedingly crudely.  This, btw, is also where you find Nietzche (Spelling, again. Fuckign moon languages, man...) and his 'Will to Power', which is fundamentally what I used to consider Telelogical thought, but can now see as more clearly Counter-Enlightenment.

Socialists were all quite happily on the Counter-Enlightenment side, as are most modern Progressives, which is bizzare when you realize their political philosophy is attached at the hip to the idea of science and smart guys leading us all to a perfectly ordered techno-utopia.

In conclusion (or TL;DR if you like): While most modern Leftists are probably not remotely cognizent of all this (though to be sure the Post-Modernist philosophers such as Foucalt and Derrida absolutely were), the have been immersed in a milieu informed entirely of this means of looking at the world for most of their lives.  For them rejecting Objective Truth and Reason in favor of Feels is not a bug, its a feature.   Whether they know it or not, they simply don't respect Reason.











*Yes, I know. There are OTHER religions out there.  Don't be a pedant.

[rawma]

Say what you will about the evils of Nepotism because on the other hand we have peace in the Middle East.

Billy Carter arranged the Camp David Accords? Or Roger Clinton gets credit for the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty?

Oh, you mean normalization of relations between Israel and countries that never fought wars with Israel. 

Yes, that is what peace means "normalisation"

LOL.

Call me when relations are normalized between countries that have actually ever been at war.

[shuddemell]

Is he still calling himself "Doctor"?

While it is a bit pretentious, Gorka does have a doctorate in Political Science. Strictly speaking, he isn't wrong.

[rawma]

Also, what would a Biden cabinet look like?

Non-criminal. Non-nepotistic. Competent.

Obviously you haven't heard about Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden......

I can't imagine appointing Hunter Biden to any cabinet position, in any administration. But especially not going to happen in the administration run by his father that respects laws, including the anti-nepotism statutes.

It's amusing that Trump claimed we'd never hear about the coronavirus after election day, and yet it's even more in the news than ever. The election season topics that really drop off after election day (only to be brought out, as you do, for partisan attacks) are all the ones that Republicans flog in election season - ebola in 2014, Hillary's emails in 2016, those dangerous immigrant caravans in 2018 and, for 2020, Hunter Biden's laptops conveniently dropped off with multiple conservatives. 

[Ratman_tf]

Pennsylvania court: Secretary of state lacked authority to change deadline 2 days before Election Day
Judge ruled ballots that were previously set aside should not be counted

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pennsylvania-court-secretary-of-state-changed-deadline

[rawma]

There was and IS Voter Fraud.

It was very widespread.

It is also Very Difficult to prove.
One side is just better at being corrupt and criminal than the other side.
Just look at the Chicago political machine of the 1960s....

Poor Richard Nixon, cheated of his 1960 presidential victory by Daley's machine. Luckily he retained the moral high ground for all time by never engaging in any election related criminal activity!

(And about the 1960 election... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/08/heres-a-voter-fraud-myth-richard-daley-stole-illinois-for-john-kennedy-in-the-1960-election/ )

Single cases of voter fraud? No reason to believe only one side does it - Trump supporter arrested in Forty Fort PA trying to get an absentee ballot for his dead mother. Other cases exist in past elections where conservatives voted more than once because they believed they had to balance out the evil opposition that was already doing it. Every reason to believe it's rare enough that it isn't going to swing elections that aren't as close as Florida in 2000. Finding all those cases would be nice, but it's not going to swing the election when state totals are 10,000 plus; delaying the transition work endlessly to find the cheating for each candidate just makes our country less safe. (If 9/11 had been 2/11, there might be an argument that the lengthy dispute in 2000 was to blame for slowing down Bush administration preparation.)

But you ignore that the Republicans are the masters of election fraud, which operates on a scale that can swing elections: voter suppression, poll closings, gerrymandering*, robocalls to intimidate and misinform voters, poll taxes, court cases, and so on. (Where in the past some of these were tools of Democrats, it was mostly by the racist Democrats who moved to the Republican party that embraced them after the Civil Rights era.) I'm open to improving election security (the thing that Senate Republicans blocked funding for), but the Republican proposals are always rigged to prevent voting to give them an advantage.

(* no effect on the presidential election, except if the House chooses the winner with one vote per state or when Republicans continue to hold state legislatures where majorities have voted for Democrats, and the Trump campaign is calling on them to appoint electors opposite to the voters' choice...)

[GameDaddy]

  I have to laugh at that one, since it seems to ignore a very  loud, very shrill press that proclaimed no evidence of voter fraud whatsoever, and keeps sliding the goalposts on that one.  But thanks for the laugh.  But I would agree both sides of that discussion are way too emotionally invested to want facts at this point.  Both just want results, and that gets a little dangerous.

We can laugh about this all (I am enjoying the shit-talking), but I am really concerned that the confidence of Americans in our media and electoral system has been permanently damaged by these events.

Well, the Media has been shit for at least two decades now, since they totally obey everything that comes from the slimeballs in D.C., as well as in business, and fail to challenge the status quo, or even question authority. Evidence of a corrupt media, the newspapers have been losing money (and influence) to online media since the late 80's, and have had to find new revenue sources through two primary methods. One, offering new digital services which is lackluster at best, they have only been able to step up their game by taking a stand for or against some political faction. Another words, they abandoned their impartiality to earn $$$. Pay for play.

The other way is by being bought out. All the players at the newspaper then get to retire with fat wallets. an example, the Washington Post, a national newspaper that for decades served as a beacon of truth, honesty, and impartiality. Who owns it now? Jeff Bezos of Amazon. Will the post be critical or closely examine liberals, the media, or Amazon? Not on your life. Will they report truthfully about the right, or about anyone critical of high tech. Very unlikely. Their credentials were tarnished though before Bezos bought them, back when they neglected to report the CIA was running guns to the Nicaraguan government and Contra drugs from Nicaragua to the U.S. so they could buy more guns and ammoas part of a private raising operation being conducted in the late 80's and early 90's with that loser Oliver North. Who, by the way, was a total disgrace to the uniform he served with. American Drug addiction problems were caused by American "Patriots" and the newspapers including the Washington Post were complicit and helped the drug runners and dictators supported by the CIA in not reporting accurately on all of that.

I won't even go into what a joke the "embedding" process was, when the who reporters should have been reporting accurately on Saddam Hussein and Iraq, as well as later, during the 2nd Invasion of Iraq in 2003 failed to leave the American military units they were embedded with, to find the true stories, and instead accepted the spoon fed pablum the military industrial complex was feeding them. Poor Jonesy the Reporter, afraid to do real reporting becuase maybe an Arab bullet would find him. What a bunch of pussies. I went to Arabia and didn't stay with American military, or government people, and learned many truths about the place where I was living. Was I in danger of being kidnapped? Yes. Did it happen? No. I talked privately with Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Saudis, Yemeni's Shia, Sunni, Folks who later joined Isis and Al-Quada. Hell, the American military guys in Saudi Arabia were actively working with the Taliban when I was there in the 80's  (Before the first Gulf Wwar). This was back when the Taliban was f*^king up the Russians in Afghanistan, by the way, and prior to our major military commitments into the Middle East.

So no. The news and media people with the exception of a few outstanding individuals like Christiane Amanpour are lazy, ignorant, ill-informed, and propogate their ignorance in place of the truth. They have lost their own credibility over the last few decades through their incompetence and pandering to power-brokers, instead of remaining committed to Truth, Liberty, and Justice, for all.

Our Electoral system has always had problems, but the extreme polarization of the political parties are putting additional stress on the Electoral system. It is worth putting additional resources into strengthening the electoral process, and this should be accomplished by non-affiliated people who are not earning a living as either part of the government or private industry/Corporations. Plus what Rawma says above. Too  many shitnags trying to unduly influence the elections for personal gain.


 

[Mistwell]

There's only 8-9 days left. After certification in enough states, it's a done deal. Trump's already lost lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan. Lawyers from the Ohio-based law firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur abruptly withdrew from a federal lawsuit they had filed only days earlier on his behalf in Pennsylvania. The lawyer for the Trump campaign dropped its so-called Sharpiegate lawsuit in Arizona. The lawyer, Kory Langhofer, acknowledged that not enough presidential votes were at stake in the case to affect the outcome of the race.

The president's Department of Homeland Security contradicted the President by declaring that the election "was the most secure in American history" and that "there is no evidence" any voting systems malfunctioned.

On Friday, 16 federal prosecutors who had been assigned to monitor the election also directly debunked claims of widespread fraud, saying in a letter to Attorney General William P. Barr that there was no evidence of substantial irregularities.

So yes, let's wait the 8-9 days to see if any lawsuits or investigations find something meaningful enough to overturn the apparent election results. But...it sure looks like in 9 days the election will be certified and Biden will have won.

[consolcwby]

Some more info:
https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/2020/11/09/claire-woodall-vogg/
https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/2020/11/10/green-bay-election-tainted-clerk/
https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1500-100r2.pdf

[Hawkwing7423]

The president's Department of Homeland Security contradicted the President by declaring that the election "was the most secure in American history" and that "there is no evidence" any voting systems malfunctioned.

Yeah the bureaucrats always listened to him the last 4 years too...  They can't easily be fired, they were there before him and they will be there after him.

I'll just vote Libertarian now on for President since they can fraud the blue cities to overturn any candidate I vote for. Perhaps the down ballot stuff will be genuine, most of the time.

Then again, we may not have a country in 4 years of President Harris.

[Mistwell]

The president's Department of Homeland Security contradicted the President by declaring that the election "was the most secure in American history" and that "there is no evidence" any voting systems malfunctioned.

Yeah the bureaucrats always listened to him the last 4 years too...  They can't easily be fired, they were there before him and they will be there after him.

I'll just vote Libertarian now on for President since they can fraud the blue cities to overturn any candidate I vote for. Perhaps the down ballot stuff will be genuine, most of the time.

Then again, we may not have a country in 4 years of President Harris.

This is quite the massive conspiracy the Democrats are able to pull off if you think they control that many state elections and the Federal Government and the judges. With competency like that, why are you bothered by them?

[Hawkwing7423]

This is quite the massive conspiracy the Democrats are able to pull off if you think they control that many state elections and the Federal Government and the judges. With competency like that, why are you bothered by them?

Are you really trying to pretend that the Federal Bureaucracy is not overwhelmingly left, as the left grows and sustains the bureaucracy?

https://freebeacon.com/politics/federal-government-workers-donating-overwhelmingly-democrats/
https://www.fedsmith.com/2020/01/27/federal-employees-unions-political-donations/

And competency to do what? To fuck over the middle class? To shred the rights of those with "wrongthink", to try to take all the guns? Fuck your "competency."
It took 2 states to steal the election in 1960 for Kennedy. This time, it took 3 to 5. It's not unbelievable in any way, shape or form.

Edited to remove ad hominem.