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Author Topic: 2020 Election Commentary  (Read 185080 times)

Ghostmaker

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1485 on: December 01, 2020, 02:38:44 PM »
There’s nothing to be cranky about Misty.  We’ll just have to see what happens.  Your type of republican is reviled more with every passing day, as shown by cratering ratings at Paul Ryan’s Fox News, now only supported by the boomerist of boomers. 

As I said upthread, the decision point is SCOTUS, or possibly whether Trump is willing to upset tradition entirely.  I wouldn’t bet on his willingness to do that.  But most importantly, the real need is to get all the RINOs out of the Republican Party or leave it behind.

And every day a greater number of red voters sees our two groups are not on the same side, dispelling an illusion that persisted for decades. 

This development is much more important long-term than a trump presidency, if his ceiling for change is what the rest of the establishment is willing to do on his behalf but he is not willing to do himself.

And if he is willing to do it himself then the party purge happens anyway

Nothing to get cranky about.
I really want to see Bill Kristol out of a job.

Mistwell

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1486 on: December 01, 2020, 02:57:45 PM »
There’s nothing to be cranky about Misty.  We’ll just have to see what happens.  Your type of republican is reviled more with every passing day, as shown by cratering ratings at Paul Ryan’s Fox News, now only supported by the boomerist of boomers. 

I don't watch Fox News and have not for probably a decade now. But if by boomerist of boomers you mean "maybe not deficit spend the nation into bankruptcy" then sure. For what it is worth, I am Gen-X, not a Boomer.

Quote
As I said upthread, the decision point is SCOTUS, or possibly whether Trump is willing to upset tradition entirely.  I wouldn’t bet on his willingness to do that.  But most importantly, the real need is to get all the RINOs out of the Republican Party or leave it behind.

And every day a greater number of red voters sees our two groups are not on the same side, dispelling an illusion that persisted for decades. 

This development is much more important long-term than a trump presidency, if his ceiling for change is what the rest of the establishment is willing to do on his behalf but he is not willing to do himself.

And if he is willing to do it himself then the party purge happens anyway

Nothing to get cranky about.

Trump is a cult of personality. His own followers don't even believe in plenty of his policy decisions, because it's about an attitude and not policies. Once he's out of office and peddling his bullshit on his own network, we'll see what's left of his movement. A movement centered on a single individual only lasts as long as that individual, unless you're Mao. And Trump is no Mao.

As for your dreams of a purge, that's the opposite of what's about to happen. In an era where you have a President from one party and a Senate from the other and a House which is nearly evenly split, compromise becomes the dominant trait. There will be no purge of the moderates. The moderates are about to gain power, and the extremists will be cast as standing in the way of any progress on issues Republican voters care about.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2020, 03:00:00 PM by Mistwell »

Shasarak

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1487 on: December 01, 2020, 02:58:41 PM »
Here's an example of an easy correction.

Presidential Transition Act: https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/Presidential_Act_of_1963.pdf
(definition of President-elect and Vice-President-elect in section 3, paragraph c.)

Letter of ascertainment from the head of the GSA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/gop-senator-business-leaders-urge-prompt-biden-transition/2020/11/23/1ab6cbae-2dc7-11eb-9dd6-2d0179981719_story.html

When did I become the fucking US Electoral fact checker:

Quote
(c) The terms “President-elect” and “Vice-President-elect” as used in this Act shall mean such persons as are the apparent successful candidates for the office of the President and Vice President, respectively, as ascertained by the Administrator following the general elections held to determine the electors of the President and Vice-President in accordance with title 3, United States code, sections 1 and 2.

So again, how can QED?
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EOTB

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1488 on: December 01, 2020, 03:32:05 PM »
I really want to see Bill Kristol out of a job.

A lot of people do.  Misty’s Neville-strategy is deeply disliked.  Compromise requires willing parties.  I have no doubt of the RINO willingness to compromise - but compromisers are swept aside when the people are no longer in the mood.

The next couple of years should be interesting.  One thing is for sure, it will take a grass-roots .org, which is a 180 away from conventional GOP large donor-reliance strategies.  But then, if the people are only willing to provide clicks and likes instead of time, sweat, and funds - a representative government isn’t going to work for them anyway.  The only two options in bread and circuses world is an authoritarian oligarchy or a benevolent dictatorship.  It will never be a virtuous republic funded by multinationals and billionaires.  Ostriches have vestigial wings
For appearances but can’t fly.
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Trond

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1489 on: December 01, 2020, 03:40:04 PM »

I don't watch Fox News and have not for probably a decade now.


That’s just the issue. I also didn’t normally watch it. I was always told that FOX news was pretty much the least reliable of the major news channels. That simply isn’t the case anymore. After NYT and CNN had lied to my face a number of times I dropped them, and realized that FOX is actually more reliable on pure facts, and I checked this in areas that I know something about first hand. Fox news can be biased for sure. But many people are still stuck in the belief that left-leaning media are “more accurate and scientific”. No. Seriously, they are not.

Mistwell

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1490 on: December 01, 2020, 04:14:40 PM »

I don't watch Fox News and have not for probably a decade now.


That’s just the issue. I also didn’t normally watch it. I was always told that FOX news was pretty much the least reliable of the major news channels. That simply isn’t the case anymore. After NYT and CNN had lied to my face a number of times I dropped them, and realized that FOX is actually more reliable on pure facts, and I checked this in areas that I know something about first hand. Fox news can be biased for sure. But many people are still stuck in the belief that left-leaning media are “more accurate and scientific”. No. Seriously, they are not.

I am certainly not trying to imply that a network like CNN is more reliable than Fox News. I don't watch any of them. There are better places to get accurate news than any 24 hour news network.

Mistwell

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1491 on: December 01, 2020, 04:20:03 PM »
LINK

Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

...Barr said U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but they’ve uncovered no evidence that would change the outcome of the election. Barr was headed to the White House later for a previously scheduled meeting.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the AP.

The comments are especially direct coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voter fraud could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2020, 04:22:11 PM by Mistwell »

jhkim

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1492 on: December 01, 2020, 04:54:54 PM »
I watched the BlazeTV and the Steve Turley video, which were at least short. I didn't watch the B Tatum video which was an hour and half. The Steve Turley video at least showed testimony being given in court.  But what was being presented in court in their clip was the contents of an anonymous email!!!  Turley acted shocked and outraged over the contents of the email -- I was shocked that a fucking anonymous email was being presented as evidence in court.

Furthermore, yeah, some people can be nuts, just grinding an axe, indulging fantasies, whatever. The seriousness of the events in question though--and the integrity of our election system--warrants thorough and comprehensive investigations.

Instead, what we get is told to sit down, shut up, there's nothing to see here. There's no fraud! There's no widespread fraud! There's no substantial fraud! and on and on--but little or no investigation. It's like a knee-jerk response, all of the talking heads repeating it all like a mantra. Meanwhile a whole bunch of people are screaming bullshit. Politicians, witnesses, mathematicians, cyber expert people, professional bookies, IT people, and so on.

Here you're equating *not* finding fraud with *not* investigating -- when there is a huge difference. I think claims should be investigated, but it is a definite possibility that after investigating a given claim, the conclusion is that the claim is false. The thing is, it seems to me that there is far more investigation happening by those who are looking critically at the claims -- rather than those who are screaming fraud. For example, much has been made of the claims of cybersecurity Dr. Navid Keshavarz-Nia, whose expert witness declaration is here:

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mied.350905/gov.uscourts.mied.350905.1.19.pdf

That has been cited earlier in this thread, but most people haven't even read it, let alone investigated. Notably, it contains the claim "In another case for Edison County, MI, Vice President Biden received more than 100% of the votes at 5:59 PM EST on November 4, 2020 and again he received 99.61% of the votes at 2:23 PM EST on November 5, 2020. These distributions are cause for concern and indicate fraud."

To the people who are screaming, this is proof right there. The guy is a cyber-security expert, and he says what they want to hear. But the problem is, this claim is blatantly false. There is no such place as Edison County, MI. Look it up for yourself.

This is a very simple check - and yet those crying out fraud haven't even bothered to do this simple check. I'm seeing a lot of such checks on the claims from fact-checkers and reporters - but never from the people who are screaming fraud. For example, in the BlazeTV video, they even made a point of going to Snopes to check out the claim of the Frankfurt raid. They dismissed the Snopes finding, but they didn't do any sort of investigation of their own. Instead, they just swapped opinions between themselves about how outraged they were, and how could this be happening.


Again, all's I hear from the MSM and Democrat talking heads and morons like Politifact--is the Reeing that it never happened, nothing to see here. Like Politifact can be trusted? *laughing* Like the MSM such as CNN and MSNBC can be trusted? No, they have never lied, distorted, or ignored the facts. They have never bent over to get plough fucked by their Democrat candidate or favourite ever, showering them with praise and glory and cock-sucking, while hiding or ignoring uncomfortable truths?

So, no, I don't feel such sources are trustworthy at all, in the slightest. I would trust my coffee girl at the restaurant more. She might not always be right or accurate--but she is not intentionally seeking to lie to me. The MSM outlets lie on a constant basis.

It sounds like you're prioritizing *intent* over *truth* here. i.e. It doesn't matter if what I hear is the truth, as long as it isn't an *intentional* lie. But even if they aren't intentionally lying, listening to people's Twitter feeds and Youtube videos are passing on the lies of other downstream sources. Worse, they're passing on the most outrageous lies, because outrage gets the most "likes".

I feel that believing the local gossip and the social media of friends is promoting ever greater falsehoods. For my local restaurants and my social media feeds, it's usually liberal-leaning falsehoods. I have to call people out on fact-checks regularly.

I also have concerns about the mainstream media, and I try to balance by also reading conservative sources like Fox News and Breitbart. What I care about is the truth, not intent.

Shasarak

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1493 on: December 01, 2020, 05:30:07 PM »
The most simple and easy way to investigate fraud would be a signature check on mail in votes.
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Mistwell

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1494 on: December 01, 2020, 07:53:47 PM »
The most simple and easy way to investigate fraud would be a signature check on mail in votes.

That's done out here in California. I know someone who was notified of a failed check and they had 3 days to verify it.

Trond

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1495 on: December 01, 2020, 07:59:06 PM »

I don't watch Fox News and have not for probably a decade now.


That’s just the issue. I also didn’t normally watch it. I was always told that FOX news was pretty much the least reliable of the major news channels. That simply isn’t the case anymore. After NYT and CNN had lied to my face a number of times I dropped them, and realized that FOX is actually more reliable on pure facts, and I checked this in areas that I know something about first hand. Fox news can be biased for sure. But many people are still stuck in the belief that left-leaning media are “more accurate and scientific”. No. Seriously, they are not.

I am certainly not trying to imply that a network like CNN is more reliable than Fox News. I don't watch any of them. There are better places to get accurate news than any 24 hour news network.

Are there? I’m curious as out what you mean.  I get my news from “everywhere” (news, science publications, certain YouTube channels  etc) and for the things that I am interested in I have to compare stories. I wouldn’t say that any one source is reliable.

Elfdart

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1496 on: December 01, 2020, 08:08:10 PM »
The most simple and easy way to investigate fraud would be a signature check on mail in votes.

How would that work when ballots don't have signatures and they don't keep the envelopes?
Jesus Fucking Christ, is this guy honestly that goddamned stupid? He can't understand the plot of a Star Wars film? We're not talking about "Rashomon" here, for fuck's sake. The plot is as linear as they come. If anything, the film tries too hard to fill in all the gaps. This guy must be a flaming retard.  --Mike Wong on Red Letter Moron's review of The Phantom Menace

Shasarak

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1497 on: December 01, 2020, 08:17:54 PM »
The most simple and easy way to investigate fraud would be a signature check on mail in votes.

How would that work when ballots don't have signatures and they don't keep the envelopes?

Yes, how can you check the evidence when you throw it away?

That is a real head scratcher.
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rawma

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1498 on: December 01, 2020, 09:09:36 PM »
I am not being disingenuous. The terms "President elect" and "Vice President elect" are defined in federal law, and we know that the conditions for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to claim those titles have been met. QED.

Has the Electoral College voted already?

No, then how can QED?

Here's an example of an easy correction.

Presidential Transition Act: https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/Presidential_Act_of_1963.pdf
(definition of President-elect and Vice-President-elect in section 3, paragraph c.)


This tracks with Bush v Gore, where the transition was delayed until December because the election was contested.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-administration-denies-biden-access-to-transition-funds-echoing-2000-bush-gore-standoff-11604950154
(And now I linked to an article behind a paywall. Fuckin internet.)

This is nothing like 2000, which was driven by actual uncertainty of the outcome; this is entirely driven by Trump's ego and narcissism. (Delay until 11/7/2020 was caused by the pandemic and the large amount of voting by mail, although Republican legislatures blocked early counting in the "Blue Wall" states that Trump flipped in 2016, so we knew that was coming. But there was a lot more reluctance to call additional states until Pennsylvania than there was with Florida in 2000.)

In 2000, Bush leading in Florida by 537 votes (out of nearly 6 million) had 271 electoral votes. (Gore did not contest New Hampshire, which Bush led by only 7,211 votes, closer than any Biden win in this election - flipping that would also have given Gore the win.) Recounts in the current election have certainly been able to shift totals by more than 537 votes (but not 7000+), and Trump would be well justified in lengthily contesting states that were as close as Florida was in 2000. Subsequent recounts by media groups showed that Gore might have won Florida under some consistent standards of counting; the Supreme Court blocked the recount in process and ran out the clock, remanding just before the safe harbor deadline provided for in federal law. That was a reasonable delay in transition activities, if not ideal; the outcome was truly uncertain before the Supreme Court ruling.

However, Bush and key staff did receive full intelligence briefings during the delayed transition; but access to most agencies (for example, to get background checks by the FBI on proposed appointees) was generally impeded. (The 9/11 commission put some blame on the delay, but it was almost 8 months after Bush was inaugurated and I would hope you could catch up by then. Bush reportedly blew off a warning in the Presidential Daily Briefing well before 9/11.) I won't provide a link to the Andy Card and John Podesta (White House chiefs of staff for Bush and Clinton, respectively) op-ed that discusses this because it's at the Washington Post website so same paywall; published on November 10th, they called for an immediate recognition of the then obvious outcome, to avoid harmful delay. By contrast with 2000, we are now deep in the third surge of a pandemic that's killed 250,000 and trashed the economy; until Biden was recognized as President-elect, he and his transition team pandemic response experts were blocked from talking to administration experts (like Dr. Fauci) and there may be many preventable deaths just from that delay.

Quote
Quote
Letter of ascertainment from the head of the GSA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/gop-senator-business-leaders-urge-prompt-biden-transition/2020/11/23/1ab6cbae-2dc7-11eb-9dd6-2d0179981719_story.html

Paywall.

Sorry; this one seems OK. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/23/politics/gsa-transition-letter/index.html

You can get past the paywall for some sites by using another browser with all history cleared, if they allow one free article; or by googling for the article and reading the google cache if there is one; both ways are kind of a pain and hit-or-miss. I've also been able to read some paywall articles at libraries, back when libraries were a place you could go.

rawma

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Re: 2020 Election Commentary
« Reply #1499 on: December 01, 2020, 10:34:00 PM »
Here's an example of an easy correction.

Presidential Transition Act: https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/Presidential_Act_of_1963.pdf
(definition of President-elect and Vice-President-elect in section 3, paragraph c.)

Letter of ascertainment from the head of the GSA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/gop-senator-business-leaders-urge-prompt-biden-transition/2020/11/23/1ab6cbae-2dc7-11eb-9dd6-2d0179981719_story.html

When did I become the fucking US Electoral fact checker:

Quote
(c) The terms “President-elect” and “Vice-President-elect” as used in this Act shall mean such persons as are the apparent successful candidates for the office of the President and Vice President, respectively, as ascertained by the Administrator following the general elections held to determine the electors of the President and Vice-President in accordance with title 3, United States code, sections 1 and 2.

So again, how can QED?

Wow, I thought you were trolling but you're actually confused, something trolls don't generally feign. It's simple logic.

Only the President-elect, as ascertained by the head of the GSA, can receive funding, access, etc as provided for in the Presidential Transition Act.
Joe Biden is receiving those things because the head of the GSA rather belatedly said he could.
Therefore, he must be the President-elect.

In propositional logic, the premises are: if A then P; if not A then not F; F.
The second is equivalent to if F then A, the contrapositive.
Apply modus ponens ("the rule of logic stating that if a conditional statement (“if p then q ”) is accepted, and the antecedent ( p ) holds, then the consequent ( q ) may be inferred") twice:
From F and if F then A one can deduce A.
From A and if A then P one can deduce P.
A is "The head of the GSA has ascertained that Biden is the apparently successful candidate for president".
P is "Biden is the President-elect".
F is "Biden is receiving funding, access, etc under the Presidential Transition Act".

QED.

(Another possibility would be that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy is violating the law; Trump appointees do that fairly often. But she wrote the letter, and that's ascertainment, no matter how peevish the letter, And it's not really in Donald Trump's interest that she violate the law in this way (because it bruises his ego, not because he cares about the law), so you'd think he would do something about it between golf outings.)