What to make of the election?

[Grandpa's Spells]

I feel like Trump could have spilled the beans on aliens and his approval would have bumped enough to eek out an EC win.

[Fat Cat]

I feel like the legal challenges to the election results are gathering momentum, but I don't have a good sense of where it all leads. It will be interesting to see how things play out.

[nafod]

I feel like the legal challenges to the election results are gathering momentum, but I don't have a good sense of where it all leads. It will be interesting to see how things play out.

It's all light and noise. And frankly I am getting worried about it, because light and noise is all it seems to take.

Biden is up by 46,000 votes in PA (for example). There is absolutely zero chance this gets overturned or even with 45,000 votes of getting overturned, but a 100% chance that the MAGA cult will believe it is corrupt. That is all that this is about. Trump likes to announce investigations, not see them through.

Trump won last time with an excess of 80K votes in the midwest states. Biden is up by 150K in Michigan alone.

Trump was crushed, in fact. Looking at losing 5,000,000 of the popular vote. Those people live in swing states too.

It's the Obama Birther lie all over again. I am so fucking pissed at my former Repub brethren.

[Fat Cat]

It's all light and noise. And frankly I am getting worried about it

Why are you worried about it if it's all light and noise?

[nafod]

It's all light and noise. And frankly I am getting worried about it

Why are you worried about it if it's all light and noise?

Because the MAGA cult doesn't see it as such. They think it is real, like QAnon

Remember Pizzagate, when the guy showed up with the AR?

[Fat Cat]

It's all light and noise. And frankly I am getting worried about it

Why are you worried about it if it's all light and noise?

Because the MAGA cult doesn't see it as such. They think it is real, like QAnon

Remember Pizzagate, when the guy showed up with the AR?

I sort of get what you're saying, but it seems to me that only an authoritative investigation would assuage those concerns. A rush to judgment would certainly fuel them, and I am old enough to remember how long the 2000 election dragged on with legal challenges.

[nafod]

It's all light and noise. And frankly I am getting worried about it

Why are you worried about it if it's all light and noise?

Because the MAGA cult doesn't see it as such. They think it is real, like QAnon

Remember Pizzagate, when the guy showed up with the AR?

I sort of get what you're saying, but it seems to me that only an authoritative investigation would assuage those concerns. A rush to judgment would certainly fuel them, and I am old enough to remember how long the 2000 election dragged on with legal challenges.

Sure, do the counts and recounts. Do you remember there was a Commission after the 2016 election? Do that too (they didn't find anything in 2016).

But drink from the well of realism and get on with the transition. Concede to reality. Biden is the next Prez, full stop. Give them the access they need now so we don't have a cluster-f*** on 21 January. Unless that is what they want. Don't put it past them.

The 2000 election was decided on 500 or so votes in a single state. Biden is winning by tens of thousands in every single state in question.

[Fat Cat]

Well here the past kind of haunts you guys, because the Obama-Biden administration set the standard for January 21st clusterfucks, didn't they?

[Gav]

You lot do realise you’re going to be paying for the recounts.

[Fat Cat]

You lot do realise you’re going to be paying for the recounts.

It's cheaper than another foreign war.

[DrDonkeyLove...]

You lot do realise you’re going to be paying for the recounts.

It's cheaper than another foreign war.

A leading candidate for Secretary of Defense, Michele Flournoy, is already making interesting noises re: Syria & Iran in the Jerusalem Post.

There is a vibe across the interview that makes me uncomfortable and leads me to recall what a debacle the middle east was under Barack & Joe (and W of course).

[nafod]

Well here the past kind of haunts you guys, because the Obama-Biden administration set the standard for January 21st clusterfucks, didn't they?

The election in 2016 was on the 8th. The GSA "ascertained" the election on the 9th. Trump and Obama met face-to-face on the 10th, 2 days after the election.

Biden's 2020 numbers are crushing Trump's 2016 numbers, yet Trump won't let the GSA work with the incoming administration. He's a rancid POS.

[Fat Cat]

The GSA hasn't ascertained a fucking thing yet, so I can only assume you are on board with no meeting until then.

[nafod]

The GSA should ascertain "the apparent winner", which is the threshold. Not the guaranteed winner, the apparent one. See the difference?

That is how Trump was able to get going the morning after the election, after winning with a smaller margin than Biden holds, and before a bunch of mandatory recounts were even launched.

Oh, and of course this.

A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities admitted to U.S. Postal Service investigators that he fabricated the allegations, according to three officials briefed on the investigation and a statement from a House congressional committee.

I wonder about the order of these events...

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe on Saturday hailed Hopkins as “an American hero” on Twitter. A GoFundMe page created under Hopkins’s name had raised more than $136,000 by Tuesday evening, with donors praising him as a patriot and whistleblower.

Trump's play is all a steaming load of manure, and the people going along are either stupid or cynical. It makes me sad.

[Sangoma]

You lot do realise you’re going to be paying for the recounts.

It's cheaper than another foreign war.

A leading candidate for Secretary of Defense, Michele Flournoy, is already making interesting noises re: Syria & Iran in the Jerusalem Post.

There is a vibe across the interview that makes me uncomfortable and leads me to recall what a debacle the middle east was under Barack & Joe (and W of course).

Not starting a war is one big point for Trump's presidency. Likely to change very soon. Creating an external enemy unites the population and makes leaders popular. Works every time.

[Fat Cat]

the people going along are either stupid or cynical.

Fortunately you're neither, never one to parrot the party line. Right?

[nafod]

the people going along are either stupid or cynical.

Fortunately you're neither, never one to parrot the party line. Right?

Right

I voted Republican for 40-some years, until they went to a place I couldn't follow.

[Fat Cat]

the people going along are either stupid or cynical.

Fortunately you're neither, never one to parrot the party line. Right?

Right

I voted Republican for 40-some years, until they went to a place I couldn't follow.

The only person you need to convince is your self. I never vote for Republicans, I think Trump is the only one I ever have, and that was only this year, not in 2016. I'm not clear how you can look at the Democratic Party today, even their stated goals and methods, and consider that a place you can follow though. Burning down cities and looting small businesses seems like a pretty strange platform to stand on.

[Grandpa's Spells]

Anybody have opinions on why Trump replaced the senior civilian leadership at DoD in the last 24 hours?

[nafod]

Burning down cities and looting small businesses seems like a pretty strange platform to stand on.

First, Biden's not for that. Second, our elections are sacrosanct. An attack on them is a direct attack on what makes us "us". I'll never look the other way on that.

Anybody have opinions on why Trump replaced the senior civilian leadership at DoD in the last 24 hours?

I bet the guys that were replaced have ideas. Would love to hear from them.

There's some weird stuff going on with Trump right now. I think he's gone off the deep end. Nothing is off limits.

A lot of how we work is based on tradition and honor. Trump respects none of that.

[Fat Cat]

Anybody have opinions on why Trump replaced the senior civilian leadership at DoD in the last 24 hours?

All I heard is that Mark Esper was standing in the way of a total withdrawal from Afghanistan. Beyond that, nothing.

[Fat Cat]

A lot of how we work is based on tradition and honor.

Absolutely not. American policy, foreign and domestic, has been without tradition and honor for quite some time.

[Turdacious]

Anybody have opinions on why Trump replaced the senior civilian leadership at DoD in the last 24 hours?

My guess is that the only reason he lasted so long was because of the upcoming election. This really is a best case scenario for Esper's future employment prospect, which is possibly one of the reasons for teh public firing. His senior staff should resign (a qualified replacement should choose his/her own staff and generally has them already picked out). In the time they have left, the WH is going to have a hard time changing policy in a meaningful way when dealing with the process minded DOD.

[nafod]

This is the sort of bullshit we're putting up from Trump MAGA-sters. From the Ambassador to Denmark...
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She's from Pennsylvania, my state. A quick check of wikipedia to get her birthday, and looking it up myself (where I checked my own status)
https://www.pavoterservices.pa.gov/page ... cking.aspx
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[Shafpocalypse Now]

As long as a vote is done in a legal and timely fashion, they should count.

If there is suspect activity, this should be investigated. Why does the DNC have a reputation for vote fraud? Because it's happened in the past. Just like why the RNC is often accused of voter suppression...that shit has happened too. Did either happen in this election? We shall see. Given the record turn out for voting, doesn't look like much suppression happened despite cries to the contrary. In Texas,Dems were crying about all sorts of shit that turned out to be nonsense, as record numbers of votes were made and the DNC made significant strides in specific areas.

From what I had heard, Trump's lawsuits focus more on procedure and process. For example, there is a path to change your vote if you are a mail in voter in some states, whereas this path is closed to anyone who votes in person on election day.

In general, I feel that even if fraud was committed it couldn't be enough to push the win over to Biden, but then again I have a massive problem believing Biden got 8 million more votes than Obama (or whatever it was)