Donny osmond wrote:
You will be sorely, acutely, embarrassingly disappointed if you move to Scotland thinking politics is any better here.
Imagine the incompetence of successive Tory govts, but with the Brucie Bonus of openly not minuting meetings, or using official govt emails, to stop paper trails from incriminating you. That's our politicians that is.
This is the country where the First Minister can demand that the country judge her on her record on education, immediately remove the country (famously, a former gold standard of educational practice) from international comparison tables, take the unions to the brink of the biggest teacher strike since the darkest days of Thatcherism, pursue admission policies that simultaneously remove chances from poor pupils while bankrupting the country's universities .... and none of the opposition politicians are capable of scoring even from that most open of goals, and none of the voters can concentrate for long enough to take her at her word and judge her on her record in education.
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I would still take her over Boris. There's a pretty short list of people I wouldn't take over Boris. Trump is top.
Puja
It’s unfortunately longer than you may think...
Trump
Bolsonaro
Putin
Winnie the Pooh
Kim jong un
Orbán
Duda
Duterte
Lukashenko
Berdimuhamedow
...
Is there anyone else?
There's an "at least Putin makes the trains run on time" quip in there somewhere.
Just baffling to watch. It's been noted so many times before, but he really has made any sort of political satire absolutely pointless. Seating them on such incredibly tiny chairs just seems cruel.
Where was that statistic in this thread about cases confirmed per number of tests? That surely would have been relevant here.
Puja wrote:I'm hoping this is him laying the groundwork for retiring butthurt and able to exclaim, "I didn't really lose," rather than laying the groundwork for actually squatting in the White House.
On the bright side, he might be playing to his base, but these antics are going to be getting the Democratic vote out better than any amount of activists. If he shut up and let people hear Biden calling for additional funding for police and for "anarchists" to be arrested simply for being anarchists, a good chunk of Democratic voters would remember that they actively dislike their candidate and the enthusiasm for voting for him would drop. This constant stream of terrible means just about every Democrat will crawl across broken glass to get out and vote, no matter who the candidate is.
Puja
Oh, its definitely about getting his excuses in early. The down side, which he either doesn't realise or doesn't care about, is that the half wit militia types will take that as fact and may decide to 'support the President against the commies'. The idea of Trump being escorted out of the White House by Federal Marshals would be prime viewing, but I'm worried by how many insurrections it will cause.
1. Biden wins the popular vote, and carries the key swing states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by decent but not overwhelming margins.
2. Trump immediately declares that the voting was rigged, that there was mail-in ballot fraud and that the Chinese were behind a plan to provide fraudulent mail-in ballots and other "election hacking" throughout the four key swing states that gave Biden his victory.
3. Having railed against the Chinese throughout the campaign, calling Biden "soft on China," Trump delivers his narrative claiming the Chinese have interfered in the U.S. election.
4. Trump indicates this is a major national security issue, and he invokes emergency powers, directing the Justice Department to investigate the alleged activity in the swing states. The legal justification for the presidential powers he invokes has already been developed and issued by Barr.
5. The investigation is intended to tick down the clock toward December 14, the deadline when each state's Electoral College electors must be appointed. This is the very issue that the Supreme Court harped on in Bush v. Gore in ruling that the election process had to be brought to a close, thus forbidding the further counting of Florida ballots.
6. All four swing states have Republican control of both their upper and lower houses of their state legislatures. Those state legislatures refuse to allow any Electoral College slate to be certified until the "national security" investigation is complete.
7. The Democrats will have begun a legal action to certify the results in those four states, and the appointment of the Biden slate of electors, arguing that Trump has manufactured a national security emergency in order to create the ensuing chaos.
8. The issue goes up to the Supreme Court, which unlike the 2000 election does not decide the election in favor of the Republicans. However, it indicates again that the December 14 Electoral College deadline must be met; that the president's national security powers legally authorize him to investigate potential foreign country intrusion into the national election; and if no Electoral College slate can be certified by any state by December 14, the Electoral College must meet anyway and cast its votes.
9. The Electoral College meets, and without the electors from those four states being represented, neither Biden nor Trump has sufficient votes to get an Electoral College majority.
10. The election is thrown into the House of Representatives, pursuant to the Constitution. Under the relevant constitutional process, the vote in the House is by state delegation, where each delegation casts one vote, which is determined by the majority of the representatives in that state.
11. Currently, there are 26 states that have a majority Republican House delegation. 23 states have a majority Democratic delegation. There is one state, Pennsylvania, that has an evenly split delegation. Even if the Democrats were to pick up seats in Pennsylvania and hold all their 2018 House gains, the Republicans would have a 26 to 24 delegation majority.
12. This vote would enable Trump to retain the presidency.
Puja
I really wish people wouldn't do the heavy lifting for Trump and the cretins he surrounds himself with. There's no way the bunch of people who failed to successfully end by executive order a program started by executive order would have managed to come up with this themselves.
I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
He doesn't understand a single statement in that hypothetical timeline. He couldn't tell you what the electoral college is. Maybe it's a liberal arts university in Southern California. Just look at his wee face trying to grasp marry the principles of proportion and percentage whilst waving around some excel charts printed out for him to do just that. I don't think I've ever seen such a feckless waste of space as this guy.
Eugene Wrayburn wrote:I really wish people wouldn't do the heavy lifting for Trump and the cretins he surrounds himself with. There's no way the bunch of people who failed to successfully end by executive order a program started by executive order would have managed to come up with this themselves.
Trump may be a fucking moron and may surround himself with a lot of fucking morons, but they're not all uniformly idiots and they're certainly not above hiring clever people to do their thinking for them. They like power and will be cunning and dirty about keeping it.
Normally those at the top are willing to at least listen to the very clever people and not assume they're the subject matter expert on every subject, Trump could very easily be so much worse (or better depending on your view) but is held back by Trump
Digby wrote:Normally those at the top are willing to at least listen to the very clever people and not assume they're the subject matter expert on every subject, Trump could very easily be so much worse (or better depending on your view) but is held back by Trump
This kind of nefarious plan wouldn't actually involve Trump though, more the people behind him, and he wouldn't need to do much except complain vociferously about how terribly he'd been treated and buy into a conspiracy theory where he didn't lose, neither of which seem off-brand for him.
morepork wrote:He doesn't understand a single statement in that hypothetical timeline. He couldn't tell you what the electoral college is. Maybe it's a liberal arts university in Southern California. Just look at his wee face trying to marry the principles of proportion and percentage whilst waving around some excel charts printed out for him to do just that. I don't think I've ever seen such a feckless waste of space as this guy.
Puja wrote:I would still take her over Boris. There's a pretty short list of people I wouldn't take over Boris. Trump is top.
Mind, she's basically running in a one-party state right now, isn't she? No-one likes any of the other options, so she could bum a dog on live television and still probably return a handy majority. If Scotland achieved independence and the other parties had to find a policy that wasn't, "Please don't go!" and/or "Please forgive what our national party is doing!" things might perk up with more competition? I certainly have more faith in your electorate than ours rn.
Puja
The incompetence of the other parties is jaw dropping, but just think about what you're saying...
A group set up specifically to achieve separation from a larger union does enough damage, thru the sheer incompetence of all the other politicians, to gain that separation and then leaves everyone else to clean up the mess afterwards. Remind you of any other situations? Any other electorates around here allowed that to happen recently? You may imagine that having see it happen once, good and honest and canny folk wouldn't be minded to let it happen again?
Heh, fair enough.
Donny osmond wrote:Sorry, meant to add it has just, this afternoon, been confirmed (everyone knew it had happened anyway) that Sturgeon lied to parliament about what she knew and when wrt Salmond's sexual abuse allegations.
Nothing will be done about this, because no one cares enough to do anything about it.
You really think this is better?
I would still say she's better. It says horrifying things about our lot to say that, but yes, still better. Might be incompetent, mendacious, and appalling, but I'd prefer that with a side of mildly progressive politics than the cronyism, austerity, and extreme supply-side economics that we get with our lot.
I think, based solely around sane leadership, we'd all like to emigrate to New Zealand right about now, but they (understandably) aren't particularly keen on dectupling their population by accepting in refugees from fucktard politicians.
Puja
Last thing I'll say on this as it's obv the wrong place to talk Scottish politics. This piece has just been published by an ardent passionate independence supporter. Everyone up here knows this stuff is happening... and no one cares enough to do anything about it. It is a desperate desperate situation.
It was so much easier to blame Them. It was bleakly depressing to think They were Us. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
When the going gets tough, the tough go golfing. While the tough are golfing, corporate welfare gets pushed at the expense of basic social safety nets in a time of acute need. What a criminally negligent course of action to take. Meanwhile, massive social gatherings go unchecked in the absence of rational, centralized strategy , all but guaranteeing this hopeless cycle of incompetence will be replayed over and over for years to come. What a time to be alive.
If anyone hasn't read the latest Senate Intelligence Committee report, and if not why not it's only a little over 1,000 pages long, you might need to sit down. The report led by Republicans says Donny did speak to Roger Stone about Wikileaks as it pertains to Russia/Hillary, this despite Donny telling Mueller he had no recollection of such talks. Basically we have GOP Senators saying Donny is a liar, this will no doubt shock many people revealing as it does hitherto unsuspected character traits in Don
Digby wrote:If anyone hasn't read the latest Senate Intelligence Committee report, and if not why not it's only a little over 1,000 pages long, you might need to sit down. The report led by Republicans says Donny did speak to Roger Stone about Wikileaks as it pertains to Russia/Hillary, this despite Donny telling Mueller he had no recollection of such talks. Basically we have GOP Senators saying Donny is a liar, this will no doubt shock many people revealing as it does hitherto unsuspected character traits in Don
Sandydragon wrote:
Oh, its definitely about getting his excuses in early. The down side, which he either doesn't realise or doesn't care about, is that the half wit militia types will take that as fact and may decide to 'support the President against the commies'. The idea of Trump being escorted out of the White House by Federal Marshals would be prime viewing, but I'm worried by how many insurrections it will cause.
1. Biden wins the popular vote, and carries the key swing states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by decent but not overwhelming margins.
2. Trump immediately declares that the voting was rigged, that there was mail-in ballot fraud and that the Chinese were behind a plan to provide fraudulent mail-in ballots and other "election hacking" throughout the four key swing states that gave Biden his victory.
3. Having railed against the Chinese throughout the campaign, calling Biden "soft on China," Trump delivers his narrative claiming the Chinese have interfered in the U.S. election.
4. Trump indicates this is a major national security issue, and he invokes emergency powers, directing the Justice Department to investigate the alleged activity in the swing states. The legal justification for the presidential powers he invokes has already been developed and issued by Barr.
5. The investigation is intended to tick down the clock toward December 14, the deadline when each state's Electoral College electors must be appointed. This is the very issue that the Supreme Court harped on in Bush v. Gore in ruling that the election process had to be brought to a close, thus forbidding the further counting of Florida ballots.
6. All four swing states have Republican control of both their upper and lower houses of their state legislatures. Those state legislatures refuse to allow any Electoral College slate to be certified until the "national security" investigation is complete.
7. The Democrats will have begun a legal action to certify the results in those four states, and the appointment of the Biden slate of electors, arguing that Trump has manufactured a national security emergency in order to create the ensuing chaos.
8. The issue goes up to the Supreme Court, which unlike the 2000 election does not decide the election in favor of the Republicans. However, it indicates again that the December 14 Electoral College deadline must be met; that the president's national security powers legally authorize him to investigate potential foreign country intrusion into the national election; and if no Electoral College slate can be certified by any state by December 14, the Electoral College must meet anyway and cast its votes.
9. The Electoral College meets, and without the electors from those four states being represented, neither Biden nor Trump has sufficient votes to get an Electoral College majority.
10. The election is thrown into the House of Representatives, pursuant to the Constitution. Under the relevant constitutional process, the vote in the House is by state delegation, where each delegation casts one vote, which is determined by the majority of the representatives in that state.
11. Currently, there are 26 states that have a majority Republican House delegation. 23 states have a majority Democratic delegation. There is one state, Pennsylvania, that has an evenly split delegation. Even if the Democrats were to pick up seats in Pennsylvania and hold all their 2018 House gains, the Republicans would have a 26 to 24 delegation majority.
12. This vote would enable Trump to retain the presidency.
Puja
I really wish people wouldn't do the heavy lifting for Trump and the cretins he surrounds himself with. There's no way the bunch of people who failed to successfully end by executive order a program started by executive order would have managed to come up with this themselves.
An unpleasant scenario. And a very messy one as the investigation probably wouldn't find any evidence of large scale voting fraud, meaning the original vote was perfectly legitimate and tying up the US in legal battles for a long, long time.
Mexico still hasn’t paid for the wall. That is why someone decide to pay in advance for it. Patriots, you know.
Soon Trump will put a toll on the border and only Mexicans will pay: and that is how Mexico will pay for the wall.
Unfortunately the people arrested were not very good with finance and did not separate the wall funds (I think they can be considered charity or political donations) from their own finances. Errors happen. For example, they accidentally bought a boat because they did not know accountancy rules well enough and thought it was all their money.
We all did something similar one time or another.
We know Bannon was arrested, and the only words he said was “pardon me”. Although others report he said “commute me”.
From the fragments I see here and there, it looks like an ongoing investigation, so this may not be the end of it. Waiting for Bannon arraignment.
