The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Joe Bauer]

Hope Trump doesn't go full-on all out vengeance against his percieved enemies in his remaining 2 and 1/2 months in office.

God help us until Jan. 20th, 2021.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Kirk Gallaway]

Yeah W.,  you should hear these people on Fox. We'll see how crazy these Trumpistas try to get.

******

On a lighter note,as I mentioned there is still hope of the Democrats getting a tie in the Senate that would be broken by VP Kamala Harris, from 2 runoff special elections in Georgia in January, where none of the candidates could get a 50% majority. 

Both the Republican incumbent Senator candidates have scandals of insider trading, Kelly Loeffler, who is the richest person in Congress is currently losing to Dem candidate Raphael Warnock leading to the runoff.

The other race  is this 33 year old film maker, Dem candidate Jon Osoff against incumbent Republican David Purdue, who  if you remember  was the politician who on the campaign stump just kept mispronouncing Kamala Harris's name, Kamala balla, etc.on purpose.

Anyway, it appears that Purdue has slipped just under 50%, and if it holds we have a runoff. The parties are going to be pouring money into these campaigns like crazy! It's the Dems only chance to partially unseat Mitch Mac Connell.

It was pretty hot and heavy in this debate (below)where Purdue is the guy who looks like a Halloween " Death Warmed Over" Figurine.

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Kirk Gallaway

[Steve Thomas]

You can complain all you want about Donald Trump Jr. soliciting recruits for an army and calling for total war; or Steve Bannon calling for FBI Director Christopher Wray and Dr. Anthony Fauci to be beheaded and their heads mounted on pikes outside the White House; but for me, this takes the cake:

- Fox News The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld -

“I don’t expect somebody in the middle of the night to come in and open up and screw the turkey, which is what happened last night. They screwed the turkey. It’s all this stuff goes on—you wake up and something is going on. I thought that was really strange.”

 

If you get an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at that guy's house, I'd decline it if I were you.

Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

Far-Right Activist Laura Loomer Loses House Bid

by Will Sommer Updated Nov. 03, 2020

https://www.thedailybeast.com/far-right-activist-laura-loomer-loses-house-bid

“Far-right activist Laura Loomer has lost her long-shot House bid in Florida, despite support from Donald Trump and other leading Republicans. Loomer, who has been banned from most social networks and Uber and Lyft for her attacks on Muslims, emerged from the Republican primary in Florida as the rare MAGA internet candidate who was able to actually secure a party nomination. But she failed to oust Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) in the heavily Democratic district, with AP calling the race in favor of Frankel at 8:00 Eastern.”

This is Donald Trump's Congressional District down in Florida.

Steve Thomas

[Joe Bauer]

CBS election news center reported 20 minutes ago that Joe Biden has just passed Trump in the Georgia vote count by over 1,000 votes.

[Robert Burrows]

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president, an event that participated the Civil War. If Joe Biden is declared the winner of the 2020 presidential contest later today, November 6, 2020, will history repeat itself?

[Joe Bauer]

3 hours ago, Robert Burrows said:

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president, an event that precipitated the Civil War. If Joe Biden is declared the winner of the 2020 presidential contest later today, November 6, 2020, will history repeat itself?

Robert, anything is possible with the unpredictable, desperate and delusions of grandeur Trump.

By this later morning tens of millions of Americans are going to wake up to Biden winning Georgia AND Pennsylvania!

Could this trigger Trump's most fervent, cultish vigilante fringe to act out violently?

I am sure it could.

Edited November 6, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Kirk Gallaway]

Biden now leads in Georgia and Pennsylvania!

 

Now we're talking like, with so many "yes" men around him, whose going to break it to the little baby?

 

But even 10 years ago, the networks were making projections with far less evidence than this, and all of us just took it to the bank.

The political analysts around Trump know it.

The political analysts around Biden know it.

 

Biden's scoring in the 70's  or greater in all of these Pennsylvania and Georgia vote releases, because now they're all write in ballots.  The media hasn't chose  to call the races because they don't want to appear to inflame Trump to cry bloody victim and polarize his base. But it's coming soon.

 

The first to scoop a projection of  a Biden win in Arizona was Fox, and it's brought the wrath of both Trump and the Fox personalities against themselves. Fox was emboldened to make projections because they were more on target than the other MSM in 2016.

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Kirk Gallaway

[Joe Bauer]

3 hours ago, Robert Burrows said:

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president, an event that precipitated the Civil War. If Joe Biden is declared the winner of the 2020 presidential contest later today, November 6, 2020, will history repeat itself?

Robert, anything is possible with this unhinged, uncontrollable, unpredictable and ego maniac, delusions of grandeur person.

But this later morning tens of millions of Americans are going to wake up to Biden winning Georgia.

Could this trigger Trump's most fervent, cultish vigilante fringe to act out violently?

I am sure it could.

[Joe Bauer]

Will Trump mob mouthpieces Roger Stone, Alex Jones, Gorka, Bannon, Miller, Conway etc. do the right thing and tell Trump's scary base like Bikers For Trump, Proud Boys etc. to stand down? 

Can't believe it is all coming to this in this country.

[Steve Thomas]

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e70e52c7c72720ed714313f/t/5f625c790cef066e940ea42d/1600281722253/State_Legislature_Paper.pdf

 

WHEN A STATE HAS HELD AN ELECTION, THE LEGISLATURE MAY NOT SUBSTITUTE ITS JUDGMENT FOR THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

A State Legislature Usurping the Popular Vote Would Violate Federal Law

The United States’ long history of selecting presidential electors through a popular vote has established an important and fundamental democratic norm of citizens participating in choosing the president.9 Once a state has held an election, a state legislature’s post-Election Day appointment of its own preferred slate of electors not only would contravene this fundamental democratic norm; it would also violate federal law requiring that all states must appoint their electors on Election Day, i.e., the “Tuesday after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President.” 3 U.S.C. § 1. A state legislature’s attempt to substitute its preferred electors for those chosen through a popular election held pursuant to state law would also deprive the state of protections in federal law that require Congress to honor the state’s chosen electors. The Electoral Count Act (“ECA”) includes a “safe harbor” provision that treats as “conclusive” a state’s chosen slate of electors if two criteria are satisfied: (1) the electors must be chosen under laws enacted prior to Election Day,and (2) the selection process, including final resolution of any disputes, must be completed at least six days prior to the meetings of the electors. 3 U.S.C. § 5. This year, the ECA “safe harbor” deadline is December 8, 2020.

 

Dec. 14: Members of the Electoral College cast their ballots for president.

 

A post-Election Day appointment of a state legislature’s preferred slate of electors would almost always deviate from the legal process for appointing electors established by the state prior to Election Day.10 Although the ECA safe harbor criteria are not mandatory, the consequences of failing to adhere to them are significant. Losing the safe harbor protection leaves Congress to decide which electors to count from a state, without mandatory deference to the preferences of either the state’s voters or legislature.11

 

A State Legislature Substituting Its Preferences for the Will of the Voters Raises Constitutional Concerns

Finally, a state legislature’s post-Election Day substitution of its own preferences for those of voters raises constitutional concerns.12 The Supreme Court has explained that “[w]hen the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental,” and is subject to constitutional due process and equal protection guarantees. Bush, 531 U.S. at 104-05. The due process clause, in particular, protects citizens’ reasonable reliance on the expectation under state law that they will be able to meaningfully exercise their fundamental right to vote.13 Even though this due process interest has most commonly been recognized in the context of protecting economic interests or preventing retroactive application of punitive laws, “the principle is broad enough to encompass changes in voting rules that inappropriately unsettle reasonable expectations concerning the operation of the voting process,” as a post-Election Day legislative usurpation of the popular vote would surely do.14

 

CONCLUSION

A state legislature’s post-Election Day substitution of its own preferences for those of voters would violate federal law. Even if circumstances delay the final determination of the results of a state’s election beyond Election Day, a state legislature may not usurp the electoral process under the pretext of declaring a failed election. Absent a true election failure—something the country has not experienced in modern history—federal law requires states to appoint electors on Election Day. A state legislature’s attempt to override the will of voters would also violate fundamental democratic norms, jeopardize the state’s entitlement to ensure that Congress defers to its chosen slate of electors, and raise significant constitutional concerns.

Steve Thomas

[Andrew Prutsok]

Most of the commentary has been about what a blow this has been to the polling industry. I'm not so sure they were that wrong. It's my guess they likely don't figure in vote suppression efforts to their forecasts,  like limiting voting machines from urban locations, forcing people to stand in line for hours, urging armed thugs to go to polling locations to intimidate people, spreading disinformation in general -- Hell, wasn't it reported that some 27 percent of mail in ballots in Florida didn't get delivered due to DeJoy's machinations?

 

[Joe Bauer]

7 minutes ago, Andrew Prutsok said:

Most of the commentary has been about what a blow this has been to the polling industry. I'm not so sure they were that wrong. 

Hell, wasn't it reported that some 27 percent of mail in ballots in Florida didn't get delivered due to DeJoy's machinations? 

 

If true...Wow!

Good point Andrew.

[Andrew Prutsok]

10 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

If true...Wow!

Good point Andrew.

I just checked. Tampa Bay Times says it's not true on the mail in ballots. Sorry. Been a busy week and haven't had time to follow everything.

 

The 27 percent figure was derived based on a tweet from Hill reporter (and former PolitiFact reporter) John Kruzel. The tweet showed USPS data, and for the South Florida delivery area, the processing score for ballots was 74.43 percent.

A few people took that and, with a bit of sloppy math, came up with 27 percent undelivered.

But anyone reading the thread in the tweet would see that in order to speed up the delivery of ballots to election offices, the postal service had said that it didn’t bother to scan ballots on their way out from the mail processing center.

“Many facilities have arranged for local turnaround,” lawyers for the postal service affirmed wrote in a Nov. 3 filing.

“It’s not that they weren’t delivered,” said National Association of Letter Carriers chief of staff Jim Sauber. “They were pulled out directly from the rest of the mail and delivered the same day.”

Edited November 6, 2020 by Andrew Prutsok

[Joe Bauer]

1 minute ago, Andrew Prutsok said:

I just checked. Tampa Tribune says it's not true on the mail in ballots. Sorry. Been a busy week and haven't had time to follow everything.

Still. Over 300,000 mail-in ballots were invalidated because DeJoy's U.S. Postal Service didn't finish processing them in time. They simply ignored Federal Judge Emmitt Sullivan's court order to get this done.