The Many Faces of US Politics...

[Gmac]

I'll take that as a NO then

You expect these people to condemn white supremacist terrorists? You must be new here.

eamon don't leave your home after 10pm gav will have  the gestapo out looking for you.

[sid waddell]

Trump junior has Covid

Should serve as an interesting test case for how a massive cocaine addiction affects coping with the virus

[Eamonnca1]

Trump junior has Covid

Should serve as an interesting test case for how a massive cocaine addiction affects coping with the virus

[Rossfan]

I'll take that as a NO then

You expect these people to condemn white supremacist terrorists? You must be new here.

No and No.
Just drawing him out

[J70]

Trump junior has Covid

Should serve as an interesting test case for how a massive cocaine addiction affects coping with the virus

How many of these morons have come down with COVID?

And it's not just the White House staff. Chuck Grassley has it. Rick Scott. Ben Carson just announced today that he was very seriously ill.

They're all spreading it to each other, even as they mock the Dems for mask wearing.

And they're supposed to be leading the country.

[Jell 0 Biafra]

On a completely unrelated note, how are sales of Melania's "I really don't care, do u?" tops going?

[Main Street]

Similar to the fund the wall campaign,  isn't this election count capaign mostly a scam to seperate Trump supporters from their money? All donations made to the fund  under US$8,000 are diverted elsewhere,  the Republican Party get a 40% cut,  the rest 60% eventually filters out to Trump corporations. Not only that, but the first $8,000 of every donation is so diverted.

I'd say it's a play to keep him out of prison so it gets to a point where he can make a deal for a pardon!!!

He can't be charged with any crime until Biden takes over and when that happens what cards can Trump possibly hold and  play in order to gain a pardon? and what, a pardon  for everything? rape? fraud? tax evasion? A pardon for all criminal acts yet to be revealed now and  for criminal acts in the future? A lifetime pardon, the pardon of all pardons.

Stuff like rape, for the sake of argument, would be a local or state level charge. I don't even know if there is a federal crime of sexual assault (I could be wrong). Neither Trump nor Biden would have any authority over what a state or city DA prosecuted. Any pardons they could issue would be only for federal crimes. Which is why Trump has potential problems with the invesigations currently taking place in the Manhattan DA's office, and the New York State AG. As far as I'm aware, the Manhattan ones could potentially result in prison sentences, were he to be prosecuted and found guilty.

And I don't see how there could be a pardon for criminal acts that haven't been committed yet!

I don't see where Trump has cards left to negotiatie any type of pardon
Screenexile has a point though, there have been examples of  an acting president negotiating an exit in exchange for a complete pardon. The most recent of course was with Nixon. That pardon disinfected  better than bleach. Nixon resigned from office before impeachment and did it relatively gracefully  and as a reward he got that super pardon from Pres Ford.
Trump could have done a similar deal for a federal pardon when he was impeached.

I see the  fund raising for trump election legal campaign is  also being used to fill the coffers of the South Dakota governor. The governor's fund raising slogan is "help us bring it home for the president," but donations flow into her own reelection account.

[J70]

Just when you thought it was impossible to top Giuliani not knowing the meaning of the word "opacity" and hair dye flowing out of his whatever, today in Rethuglican incompetence:

Republican lawyers confused Michigan with Minnesota in an election lawsuit they eventually lost


A Republican celebrity lawyer allied with President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in Georgia that confused the states of Michigan and Minnesota.

The lawyer, Lin Wood, is a staunch conservative and asked a court to halt the certification of election results in Georgia, alleging that Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, hurt him as a voter by agreeing to a settlement over signature-matching on ballots in March.

Wood's lawsuit included over a dozen affidavits that his lawyers argued proved his case. But one of those affidavits, filed by a Texas resident and cybersecurity expert named Russell Ramsland, centered entirely on election results in Michigan and not Georgia. More than that, as one Georgia lawyer named Andrew Fleischman pointed out, the Ramsland affidavit appeared to confuse Minnesota (MN) for Michigan (MI).

Ramsland highlighted a number of "statistical anomalies and red flags" that he claimed proved "that election results have been manipulated within the Dominion/Premier system in Michigan." Specifically, he said he discovered 19 precincts in Michigan where the number of votes cast in the general election exceeded the number of registered voters in the county.

But Ramsland had confused precincts in Minnesota with those in Michigan. In other words, he "was counting the population of towns in Minnesota, seeing they did not match Michigan towns, and finding fraud," Fleischman wrote.

US District Judge Steven Grimberg, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, dismissed Wood's lawsuit on Thursday, saying, "To halt the certification at literally the eleventh hour would breed confusion and disenfranchisement that I find have no basis in fact and law."

"It is well established that garden-variety election disputes do not rise to the level of a constitutional deprivation," Grimberg ruled. "The fact that his candidate didn't win doesn't rise to the level of harm."

Wood said on Twitter Thursday that he would appeal the decision. On Thursday evening, Georgia completed its risk-limiting audit, in which election officials did a hand recount of the more than five million paper ballots that were cast in the election.

The final tally showed that President-elect Joe Biden received 49.5% of the vote and President Donald Trump received 49.3%, cementing Biden's Georgia's win by more than 12,000 votes and ensuring he will get the state's 16 Electoral College votes. Raffensperger is set to certify the results on Friday.

This is the sort of embarrassing, humiliating shit that happens when you're desperately rummaging around looking for some kind of "evidence" to fit the suit you've already filed in court, instead of the usual method of allowing evidence and facts to lead the way.

It's "Quick, get something on the docket " so we can make it look like there is something suspect going on. Doesn't matter a f**k whether there is or not.

This whole exercise ought to be an utter humiliation for the GOP, leading to a serious examination of  what they stand for i.e. a set of political principles, not just raw power for its own sake. It won't though. They won't be humiliated. The party IS only interested in raw power, and I n their own twisted, misinformed minds, the GOP base will feel bitter and cheated.

[sid waddell]

I think there's too much focus on ridiculing the coup attempt as a clown car

Maybe the apparent clown car stuff is not deliberate, maybe it is just pure incompetence and spoofery

But it shouldn't be assumed so

If I wanted to stage a coup to steal an election, the one strategy I'd use to set the wheels in motion is a blizzard of overt buffoonery to mask more serious stuff going on elsewhere

If you control the narrative with a blizzard of buffoonery, you can work away in the background if you actually have a serious plan

My belief is that it should be assumed Barr has been cooking up a serious plan to steal the election until proven otherwise

If you were serious about stealing the election, that plan would probably not become apparent until quite late - ie. well into December

It should be assumed that these bastards have a bit more up their sleeve yet

And whatever happens, the next 60 days are going to be crazy and dangerous

[imtommygunn]

I think it already is getting very dangerous tbh. The language being used by lawyers etc is not good. Like Johnson trump has a lot more behind him than sheer buffoonery. There are a lot of minds behind this much greater than trump's. It somehow need nipped in the bud.

[sid waddell]

I think it already is getting very dangerous tbh. The language being used by lawyers etc is not good. Like Johnson trump has a lot more behind him than sheer buffoonery. There are a lot of minds behind this much greater than trump's. It somehow need nipped in the bud.

Well I suppose it has been dangerous since at least June 16th, 2015, which was when Trump announced his candidacy

Things have never not been dangerous since then

How do you de-program tens of millions of people? I have no idea but mollycoddling their crazy beliefs is not the answer - that's right wing political correctness, that's censorship

As Fintan O'Toole said, there is no safe dose of fascism - and it's horrific to even see some so called liberal centrist commentators (hello Larry Donnelly) or dirtbag fake leftists (hello Glenn Griftwald) still believing that there is, and believing that the "better angels" of Republicans and Trumpists can be appealed to

There are no better angels, only a desire to install the fantasy world of make believe as the official, unchallenged ruling ideology of the US, to rip apart democracy and install kleptocracy and racist ethnonationalism forever

And that tends to lead to genocide

[Main Street]

Just when you thought it was impossible to top Giuliani not knowing the meaning of the word "opacity" and hair dye flowing out of his whatever, today in Rethuglican incompetence:

Republican lawyers confused Michigan with Minnesota in an election lawsuit they eventually lost


A Republican celebrity lawyer allied with President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in Georgia that confused the states of Michigan and Minnesota.

The lawyer, Lin Wood, is a staunch conservative and asked a court to halt the certification of election results in Georgia, alleging that Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, hurt him as a voter by agreeing to a settlement over signature-matching on ballots in March.

Wood's lawsuit included over a dozen affidavits that his lawyers argued proved his case. But one of those affidavits, filed by a Texas resident and cybersecurity expert named Russell Ramsland, centered entirely on election results in Michigan and not Georgia. More than that, as one Georgia lawyer named Andrew Fleischman pointed out, the Ramsland affidavit appeared to confuse Minnesota (MN) for Michigan (MI).

Ramsland highlighted a number of "statistical anomalies and red flags" that he claimed proved "that election results have been manipulated within the Dominion/Premier system in Michigan." Specifically, he said he discovered 19 precincts in Michigan where the number of votes cast in the general election exceeded the number of registered voters in the county.

But Ramsland had confused precincts in Minnesota with those in Michigan. In other words, he "was counting the population of towns in Minnesota, seeing they did not match Michigan towns, and finding fraud," Fleischman wrote.

US District Judge Steven Grimberg, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, dismissed Wood's lawsuit on Thursday, saying, "To halt the certification at literally the eleventh hour would breed confusion and disenfranchisement that I find have no basis in fact and law."

"It is well established that garden-variety election disputes do not rise to the level of a constitutional deprivation," Grimberg ruled. "The fact that his candidate didn't win doesn't rise to the level of harm."

Wood said on Twitter Thursday that he would appeal the decision. On Thursday evening, Georgia completed its risk-limiting audit, in which election officials did a hand recount of the more than five million paper ballots that were cast in the election.

The final tally showed that President-elect Joe Biden received 49.5% of the vote and President Donald Trump received 49.3%, cementing Biden's Georgia's win by more than 12,000 votes and ensuring he will get the state's 16 Electoral College votes. Raffensperger is set to certify the results on Friday.

This is the sort of embarrassing, humiliating shit that happens when you're desperately rummaging around looking for some kind of "evidence" to fit the suit you've already filed in court, instead of the usual method of allowing evidence and facts to lead the way.

It's "Quick, get something on the docket " so we can make it look like there is something suspect going on. Doesn't matter a f**k whether there is or not.

This whole exercise ought to be an utter humiliation for the GOP, leading to a serious examination of  what they stand for i.e. a set of political principles, not just raw power for its own sake. It won't though. They won't be humiliated. The party IS only interested in raw power, and I n their own twisted, misinformed minds, the GOP base will feel bitter and cheated.

The judge's dismissal of the case was a  rapier like total humiliation  "The fact that his candidate didn't win doesn't rise to the level of harm."

[Gmac]

I think most conservatives are more concerned about the run off for senate in Georgia and talk of an attempted coup will go down as silly and completely out of touch none sense .

[J70]

I think most conservatives are more concerned about the run off for senate in Georgia and talk of an attempted coup will go down as silly and completely out of touch none sense .

Silly and out of touch on whose part?

[Gmac]

I think most conservatives are more concerned about the run off for senate in Georgia and talk of an attempted coup will go down as silly and completely out of touch none sense .

Silly and out of touch on whose part?

mr Trump is entitled to file these lawsuits however frivolous they are ,  but the reality is Biden is the president elect and will take over on set date and talk of a coup are none sense to me .