News of the Day III

[pete]

My hope with DeSantis is that his following the Trump blueprint will result in even more lawsuits and investigations (than the ones he’s already earned) and reasonable people will decide they don’t want that in their lives. Like, think about how much less stress there was on both sides once Trump left the White House. That could be us, Florida. But there are so many Republicans here now. They’re outpacing Dems in registrations for the first time in a while, I think. And they all seem to love, like or at least condone this lil wannabe tyrant DeSantis. Sighhhhhh

I've written Florida off. Georgia and North Carolina are the real hopes for a breakthrough in the South, where decades of Republican hegemony have created a cesspool of corruption.

[RSchmitz]

What? How can you say he's not relevant? I believe the challenges to all that is proper and lawful that is tied to Trump and/or his cronies are one of the most important developments in US history. The term has been overused lately but, this is an inflection point, if we allow for all this shit to go unpunished then the country slips further into autocracy and western democracy fails. If the activities are punished, the laws and procedures better defined, and the behavior officially deemed unacceptable, then western democracy is strengthened.

Politically, he's no longer relevant, and his brand is too toxic to absorb him into any campaign. If he were still president, I would agree, but to think this is some kind of inflection point is weird to me. Even if he somehow ends up in jail, which I doubt, it's not going to send any messages that the Watergate scandal didn't send.

[RSchmitz]

Couldn’t agree more. The world, including the German populace, largely ignored what Hitler was doing in the 1930’s, and look what transpired as a result. Voters have a chance to either stall or extinguish this crap at the ballot box this November, but just going along our merry way isn’t going to cut it.

Whoa......you're giving Trump way too much credit and our Constitution way too little credit. The Trump era should be remembered for one thing, incompetence. The residual effects of that....racism, bigotry, and demagougery, was just the byproduct of being part of the Republican party and surrounding himself with ideologues and sycophants who wouldn't/couldn't provide him measured responses. Comparing Trump, who couldn't rub two brain cells together to form an articulate sentence, to Hitler, one of the best orators in history, is hilarious to me. At his peek popularity historians believe that Hitler had over 90% of the support in Germany, if the Trump administration were anything like Nazi Germany I am pretty sure they wouldn't have lost to Biden.

[jdhebner]

The deal with the classified info with Trump is far far worse than anyone in the media is saying. If this doesn’t change things we are even more doomed.
No president has the authority to declassify based solely on his word. It’s fucking just impossible. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed or lying.

I’m being too optimistic by the way. Oh cilantro.

[jdhebner]

Whoa......you're giving Trump way too much credit and our Constitution way too little credit. The Trump era should be remembered for one thing, incompetence. The residual effects of that....racism, bigotry, and demagougery, was just the byproduct of being part of the Republican party and surrounding himself with ideologues and sycophants who wouldn't/couldn't provide him measured responses. Comparing Trump, who couldn't rub two brain cells together to form an articulate sentence, to Hitler, one of the best orators in history, is hilarious to me. At his peek popularity historians believe that Hitler had over 90% of the support in Germany, if the Trump administration were anything like Nazi Germany I am pretty sure they wouldn't have lost to Biden.

citation please on the 90%. What percentage of the 90% did so under threat of death? Plus a lot of Germans who opposed hitler were murdered.

[pete]

Politically, he's no longer relevant, and his brand is too toxic to absorb him into any campaign. If he were still president, I would agree, but to think this is some kind of inflection point is weird to me. Even if he somehow ends up in jail, which I doubt, it's not going to send any messages that the Watergate scandal didn't send.

He's probably going to run again in 2024 and as of right now he's leading all the Republican primary polls nationwide. He's not politically irrelevant, and anybody who claims to know for sure what could/will happen in a primary against DeSantis with 100% certitude is fooling themselves. Some folks think rank and file Republicans will abandon Trump the second they see a viable alternative, but some think the second Trump turns his guns on DeSantis he'll waste him just as quickly as he did Cruz, Rubio, et al in 2016. He's a fucking cult leader, so what's rational isn't what's necessarily going to govern the outcome and as a non-crazy person I won't dare predict what these uber-crazy MAGA folks are going to do under different stimuli.

[Puckhead]

Whoa......you're giving Trump way too much credit and our Constitution way too little credit. The Trump era should be remembered for one thing, incompetence. The residual effects of that....racism, bigotry, and demagougery, was just the byproduct of being part of the Republican party and surrounding himself with ideologues and sycophants who wouldn't/couldn't provide him measured responses. Comparing Trump, who couldn't rub two brain cells together to form an articulate sentence, to Hitler, one of the best orators in history, is hilarious to me. At his peek popularity historians believe that Hitler had over 90% of the support in Germany, if the Trump administration were anything like Nazi Germany I am pretty sure they wouldn't have lost to Biden.

The constitution is only as good as the people behind it. If Raffensberger, Barr, Donoghue, Pence, and a few others don't stand up and do the right thing, the 2020 election is in deep trouble. Trump and his 35% don't NEED 90%, or 80% or whatever.. This thing gets kicked back to state (R) legislatures and its game, set, match.

I'm not saying trump's a genius. Far from it. But he doesn't have to be in order to burn our constitutional republic to the groun

And, this just in, only NINE R's vote to strengthen the Electoral College so that some miscreant or set thereof can't turn an election sideways. These gerrymandered House seats make it alot easier for trump's 35% to totally throw the system into the crapper.

[RSchmitz]

citation please on the 90%. What percentage of the 90% did so under threat of death? Plus a lot of Germans who opposed hitler were murdered.

Look up 1934 German referendum or google famous historian Sebastian Haffner and Hitler.

Obviously murder and intimidation was part of it, you don't get 90% voter support by just being idolized, that is my point. Trump is no Hitler and America isn't 1930's Nazi Germany.

[RSchmitz]

He's probably going to run again in 2024 and as of right now he's leading all the Republican primary polls nationwide. He's not politically irrelevant, and anybody who claims to know for sure what could/will happen in a primary against DeSantis with 100% certitude is fooling themselves. Some folks think rank and file Republicans will abandon Trump the second they see a viable alternative, but some think the second Trump turns his guns on DeSantis he'll waste him just as quickly as he did Cruz, Rubio, et al in 2016. He's a fucking cult leader, so what's rational isn't what's necessarily going to govern the outcome and as a non-crazy person I won't dare predict what these uber-crazy MAGA folks are going to do under different stimuli.

I hope he does run and by some miracle wins the primary, the internal strife he'd create within the Republican party would be the best thing to happen for the DNC in quite some time. He already lost a fair election to a senile Biden, and that's before all of the anarchist shit happened and he lost everybody left of being a full MAGA cultist.

[RSchmitz]

The constitution is only as good as the people behind it. If Raffensberger, Barr, Donoghue, Pence, and a few others don't stand up and do the right thing, the 2020 election is in deep trouble. Trump and his 35% don't NEED 90%, or 80% or whatever.. This thing gets kicked back to state (R) legislatures and its game, set, match.

I'm not saying trump's a genius. Far from it. But he doesn't have to be in order to burn our constitutional republic to the groun

And, this just in, only NINE R's vote to strengthen the Electoral College so that some miscreant or set thereof can't turn an election sideways. These gerrymandered House seats make it alot easier for trump's 35% to totally throw the system into the crapper.

The courts do have to uphold and interpret the constitution, which there are plenty of precedents already in place for, but none of the individuals you mentioned could have done anything to stop Biden from winning except circle jerk with procedure delays.

I don't understand your state legislation comment. The enumerated rights of the federal government don't make it easy for the states to do as they please when it comes to national elections. The number of mail in ballots cast last election should blunt any outcry that the red states are making it difficult for voting democrats.

[Puckhead]

The courts do have to uphold and interpret the constitution, which there are plenty of precedents already in place for, but none of the individuals you mentioned could have done anything to stop Biden from winning except circle jerk with procedure delays.

I don't understand your state legislation comment. The enumerated rights of the federal government don't make it easy for the states to do as they please when it comes to national elections. The number of mail in ballots cast last election should blunt any outcry that the red states are making it difficult for voting democrats.

Apparently, you don’t see any real peril for this country, given trump and his deniers on multiple ballots across the country. I do, and am working hard to elect D candidates here in Nevada. A lot of people WAY smarter than you and I see this election as an inflection point.

[pete]

I hope he does run and by some miracle wins the primary, the internal strife he'd create within the Republican party would be the best thing to happen for the DNC in quite some time. He already lost a fair election to a senile Biden, and that's before all of the anarchist shit happened and he lost everybody left of being a full MAGA cultist.

If Biden's senile, we need more senile presidents, because he's passed the most ambitious legislative agenda since LBJ, if not FDR.

[pete]

The courts do have to uphold and interpret the constitution, which there are plenty of precedents already in place for, but none of the individuals you mentioned could have done anything to stop Biden from winning except circle jerk with procedure delays.

I don't understand your state legislation comment. The enumerated rights of the federal government don't make it easy for the states to do as they please when it comes to national elections. The number of mail in ballots cast last election should blunt any outcry that the red states are making it difficult for voting democrats.

The Electoral Count Act fix today attempts to close up an ambiguity in the existing federal law. The Constitution says the right to administer their elections is reserved to the states. Conceivably, a state could decide that the provision of electoral college votes for POTUS could be decided entirely by their state legislature rather than by popular vote (albeit it would be wildly unpopular for them to do so), just as Maine and Nebraska have chosen to apportion their electoral votes differently than other states. What passed today simply stated that a state legislature could not after-the-fact decide to ignore election results in their state and take the power to send electors to DC into their own hands. Seems pretty straightforward right? Only nine Republicans in the House, all of which aren't returning in the next Congress and therefore have been given back their spines, voted for it.

Also, I'm old enough to remember when in 2000 a Supreme Court threw an election to George W Bush in an argument that completely ignored precedent and the majority justice's previous stances about rights reserved to the states. And that was a Supreme Court that was light years less political than the shit show in robes we have now. So, I would not assume that this Supreme Court would rule the rational way on even the most obvious Constitutional issues if the stakes were high enough like in a presidential election.

[RSchmitz]

Even with that bit of clarity, the states could never mess with the results of an election after it’s been held without clearly violating the fourteenth amendment. The courts? Sure, we are all fucked right now with the current lineup of justices if it went to a decision there, and no amount of legislation could fix that unless we dissolve the constitution entirely.

We do need clearer laws to safeguard voting rights of citizens in the 21st century when it comes to how states administer elections, such as mail in ballots and electronic voting

[RSchmitz]

If Biden's senile, we need more senile presidents, because he's passed the most ambitious legislative agenda since LBJ, if not FDR.

A strawman argument. He is clearly senile and unlikely to run for re-election. My point is that despite that, he beat the orange imbecile. The Trump brand is very weak if it can’t beat someone who is about to fall off the wrong end of the bell curve.