Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[Sporting]

I suppose - very much playing devil's advocate - that he hasn't wasted money on a stupid wall, nor started a whole bunch of wars abroad.

[ursus arctos]

He's diverted hundreds of millions of dollars to "the wall" and increased the military budget by over ten billion

[Uncle Ethan]

Yeah I'm struggling with both of those examples, which even if accurate would be bad things he hasn't done rather than good things.

[Sporting]

I was being frivolous.

[Hot Pepsi]

Mostly in the US certainly, but elsewhere too. This week I've heard, or read, several people right here come up with variations on "I can't stand Trump as a person, but I think he's done some good things." I want to scream "LIKE WHAT???? Logging national parks, mining the Arctic, limitless fracking, ripping children from the arms of their parents? Yeah really, really excellent stuff.

Yeah, a perusal of any hockey message board shows Canada has some remarkable dumbasses. Fortunately, the seem to keep their dumbassery to trivial topics like Don Cherry.

I don’t know how I’m going to make it the next week let alone the next four years. I’m really scared.

[WOM]

Okay, so the Washington Post has been using this video placeholder graphic for a couple of months now. It clearly, in words and pictures, contrasts the old GOP of Hogan (left) with the new GOP of Carlson (right). Hogan, of course, was a southern ex-KKK member, in this picture from 1959, when Buddy Holly glass were 'in' and 40 looked more like 60, and most of 'em were dead of a heart attack by 63.


Except....no....that's Maryland Governor Hogan today. (Might be a great guy....but who knows.)

[ursus arctos]

That's weird

That is what Larry Hogan looks like and has looked like for some time

Do you struggle with black and white photos of living individuals?

[WOM]

I think it's just that the entire composition is so 1960-retro that I was sure it had to be an old photo. That's a 'desegregated schools court case' photo if I've ever seen one.

Carlson's face, of course, is equally contemporary and punchable in both colour and b&w.

[ursus arctos]

Hogan's tie is the wrong width and pattern for that era

[WOM]

Sure....it's glaringly obvious now.

[anton pulisov]

Drive through voting in Houston being challenged in Texas courts. The arguement being that it's "not fair that some counties in Texas have more voting opportunities than others." LOL

[ursus arctos]

That is the argument that was upheld to limit dropbox locations to one per county.

Though they have an additional hurdle in this case, as the drive throughs were approved by the legislature, while the dropboxes were a county by county initiative

[Incandenza]

I thought the challenge failed yesterday. Or is this an appeal, or a different county?

[Hot Pepsi]

Trump is already trying to discredit PA. Not sure if he can succeed, but I fear. I also fear he'll just win.

[ursus arctos]

I thought the challenge failed yesterday. Or is this an appeal, or a different county?

State court failed. Still pending in federal court.

[Incandenza]

https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1323308568863526916

[anton pulisov]

Maybe the Republican lawyers should be given a dodgy literacy test before being allowed to argue their case.

[San Bernardhinault]

I thought the challenge failed yesterday. Or is this an appeal, or a different county?

The appeal failed in the Texas supreme court (and the process was permitted by the state legislature). But the Republicans don't think that states should have the right to legislate their own elections so this is going to one of the Trumpiest of judges on the federal bench.

[Incandenza]

https://twitter.com/VinceMancini/status/1323313263413653504

[San Bernardhinault]

I was in the post office buying some stamps earlier (I'd normally use the machine in the foyer, but it wasn't taking cards) and in front of me was a woman in a Trump 2020 facemask having a friendly chat with the post office staff about how the illegal immigrants are costing us $350m a day, and how Kamala (pronounced Camilla) is going to end Biden's presidency after a few months - the other person at a booth promptly and happily joined in by saying they'd use the 25th amendment - because "I have nothing against Biden, but we need to have rich people and a middle class". And then she said that she didn't understand why people didn't like Trump - they might not like his personality, but he's doing good stuff.

I couldn't tell if I was being pranked. But I think they actually believe their nonsense.

[Hot Pepsi]

Humanity is hopeless. Especially in this country. We are just so fucking stupid.

[San Bernardhinault]

Nah. Just the loudmouthed element of humanity, who are arrogant and stupid enough to believe that they are the ones who feel that they should be heard. They are a minority, but sound like a majority because they are loudmouthed arseholes.

I need to use this as another datapoint that "shy trumpers" aren't really a thing.

[anton pulisov]

The appeal failed in the Texas supreme court (and the process was permitted by the state legislature). But the Republicans don't think that states should have the right to legislate their own elections so this is going to one of the Trumpiest of judges on the federal bench.

So if it goes to the Supreme Court, they should cite their own precedent for abolishing the Voting Rights Act?

Although the current shower will find some unique argument.

[anton pulisov]

the illegal immigrants are costing us $350m a day

$350m. That can't be a coincidence. Maybe Trump can paint it on a bus.

Is that like the the "42" of the right wing populists?

[San Bernardhinault]

So if it goes to the Supreme Court, they should cite their own precedent for abolishing the Voting Rights Act?

Although the current shower will find some unique argument.

Yeah. That is the problem. Roberts (and Scalia when he was alive) seem to feel there's a need for an overarching logic, that their positions have to be internally coherent and understood and replicable by judges on lower courts and able to be used as precedent in the future. The evidence increasingly suggests that the other five extremists in the court have no such compunctions or cares. Gorsuch was the one who I thought might. The good news is that it might delegitimise the court. The bad news is that we're fucked with this shower for a couple of generations.