[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Wonder if there will be a court case before the election arguing that armed militias open-carrying at polling places is voter intimidation, even where it's currently legal under state law. If it goes to the Supreme Court, where the addition of Barrett is expected to drastically expand gun 'rights' (the natural right to have guns, just like in the garden of Eden?...), could they rule that the Second Amendment not only allows it, but prohibits states from outlawing it?...

'Barrett's confirmation could lead to the Supreme Court taking rare action on gun rights

[...] "We saw earlier this year that, even though four of the current justices are ready to take up a number of Second Amendment cases, they weren't sure if they had a fifth vote on the merits -- because they weren't sure about the chief justice," [...]

"It seems likely that the confirmation of Judge Barrett would remove that uncertainty and open the pipeline to a flurry of cases, perhaps ranging from the constitutionality of criminal felon-in-possession statutes to large-capacity magazine bans"'

https://www.cnn.com/...ourt/index.html

However, if she applies her legal philosophy consistently, she may at least allow states to prohibit guns at polling places:

'On Gun Laws, Barrett’s Philosophy Leaves Little Room for Public Safety

As a Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett is likely to push a “history and tradition” standard for gun cases

[...] We don’t allow guns on airplanes, but there couldn’t have been an airplane gun-ban in the 18th century because there were no airplanes.

There are two reasons the history and tradition test might not be the carte blanche that gun rights supporters are hoping for. First, Ruben says, “Gun rights and gun regulations have coexisted for centuries. Advocates tend to overlook just how many gun laws we have historically had as a country.” For instance, laws restricting weapons in public have their roots in medieval English statutes. In the 1850s, some cities and states required gun owners to register their firearms. One Delaware law from the late 18th century even banned firearms at elections.'

Tiny late 18th century Delaware to the rescue! Or not:

'the history and tradition test is a judicial tool used by human beings who will bring their discretion to bear on the result. Even the name of the test raises more questions than it answers: “What history and what tradition [do] you look to?”'

https://www.thetrace...endment-ruling/

[Cause]

I don’t think the idea of faithless electors can really work. People will riot in the street. People will attack senators. Try and assassinate the president. I think they have to realize it’s a move too far.

[HoosierDaddy]

Malankazooie, on 09 October 2020 - 07:46 PM, said:

Any signs of the Trump poll Gestapo doing their observing for voting irregularities... i.e. intimidation?

Sorry, never responded. Not that I saw. This isn't the place they'd be though. They'd be in Indianapolis proper, not the suburbs/metro area.

[Aptorian]

Today I've been seeing a bunch of articles and videos touting the enormous lead Biden has, how big of a percentage of the electoral college Biden is going to win, how the senate and congress are likely to turn blue, etc.

I can't help wondering how many of these polls and analyses take into account just how much voter manipulation and outright rigging is going on. It's cool that people want to vote but what happens when there's only one voting place in a hundred miles, there's only one person manning the station and ooops, we accidentally missplaced all the blue ballots. Not to mention the "unofficial ballot boxes" in California, which are gonna get double checked for suspicious looking clearly illegal democratic votes, not to mention all the mail ballots that will never get counted, etc.

I keep seeing people saying "Doesn't matter how big the lead is, VOTE!". Well, does it matter that everybody is voting if Republicans are using every trick out of a banana republic election?

I'd probably plan a vacation out of country around election day if I was an American.

[Garak]

Whatever the outcome (which will probably be a Trump victory bleah) it's going to be a shit show.

[Malankazooie]

I know this is a petty complaint/observation, but ACB's voice annoys the fuck out of me. It's terrible of me I know, but I could never take her serious with that voice.

[amphibian]

Briar King, on 13 October 2020 - 02:49 PM, said:

Leahy has always bored the ever fuck out of me with maybe 2 exceptions. This corona tv screen shit has me yawning.

I’m gonna hold the remote today if I move.

What is Leahy being boring about?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Some terrible news for democracy:

'The Supreme Court Lets Trump Sabotage the Census in the Eleventh Hour

In a perfunctory, unsigned order, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to suspend the census count on Tuesday, bringing the 2020 census to a premature and likely permanent halt. [...] The court's decision all but ensures that, for the next ten years, immigrants and racial minorities will receive diminished representation in Congress and state legislatures, giving Republicans an unearned electoral advantage through 2030.

For several years, Donald Trump has sought to sabotage the census by any means necessary. He seeks to lock in an "undercount" of Black, Latino, and Native Americans, as well as immigrant communities—all traditionally Democratic voters. Initially, Trump sought to add a citizenship question to the census, which would dramatically reduce response rates from immigrants and Hispanics. When the Supreme Court blocked that scheme, his administration changed tacks: It chose instead to rush the census, producing an undercount that will disproportionately leave out minorities. The Census Bureau adopted a compressed timeline that would undercut its accuracy. It also operated with less than half the workforce of the 2010 census.

Even after the pandemic forced the bureau to suspend its operations, and natural disasters in the West and South stymied data collection, the administration refused to extend the count. To the contrary, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who oversees the census, actually moved the deadline back, from Oct. 31 to Sept. 30. [...]

In September, a federal judge reinstated the Oct. 31 deadline, and a federal appeals court refused to lift that order. So the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to jump in. SCOTUS accepted the DOJ's invitation on Tuesday afternoon, staying the judge's injunction while the appeals court considers the case, and until SCOTUS either takes it up or turns it away. This decision effectively allows Ross to end the census immediately.'

https://slate.com/ne...the-census.html

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 13 October 2020 - 11:03 PM

[Malankazooie]

Malankazooie, on 13 October 2020 - 02:40 PM, said:

I know this is a petty complaint/observation, but ACB's voice annoys the fuck out of me. It's terrible of me I know, but I could never take her serious with that voice.

I was thinking on this more because that voice seemed to be so familiar. I then put it together. If you were to close your eyes and ask ACB to say "don't have a cow man" or "eat my shorts", you'd swear you were hearing Bart Simpson. Like legit her voice is almost the exact doppelganger of Bart Simpson.

[Cause]

Good thing kids are immune and not carriers. Otherwise Barron trump might have got it.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'In an effort to find out whether Barrett would consider "scientific evidence" in her role as a justice, Harris asked her a series of uncontroversial questions including, "Do you accept that COVID-19 is infectious?" and "Do you accept that smoking causes cancer?" After Barrett answered affirmatively to both, Harris asked her, "Do you believe that climate change is happening and that it's threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink?"

"I was wondering where you were going with that," Barrett said before refusing to offer her opinion on what she called a "very contentious matter of public debate." While there may be debate within the political realm, like the fact that COVID-19 is contagious and smoking causes cancer, there is no serious debate within the scientific community about the existence of climate change.'

https://www.thedaily...sensus?ref=home

'[...] Trump on Wednesday declined to answer whether he would keep William Barr on as attorney general for a potential second term, saying only that he is "not happy." [...] "[...] I'm not happy, with all of the evidence I had, I can tell you that. I am not happy." The day before, reports emerged of the Justice Department concluding a probe commissioned by Barr into the Obama-era "unmasking" of individuals named in national security documents, a practice Trump and other conservatives painted as a malignant political conspiracy. However, the Justice Department found no evidence of wrongdoing and declined to release its report publicly or file any charges.

https://www.thedaily...eneral?ref=home

'Trump team makes a suspicious effort to swing the election with purported Hunter Biden emails
Rudy Giuliani is again trying to drum up a scandal about the Bidens and Ukraine.

It's not clear whether the supposed emails, which involve Hunter and the Ukrainian gas company he worked for, Burisma, are authentic.'

They appear to be amateurish forgeries:

https://eddiekrassen...ed-2d55b08140cc

'It all started, according to the Post, in April 2019, when an unidentified man went to a Delaware computer repair shop to drop off a water-damaged laptop with a "Beau Biden Foundation" sticker [...]

The shop owner [...] claims the man never returned to reclaim the laptop. But he says he recovered data from it [...]

The shop owner claims he told the federal government about it, and they seized the laptop and hard drive in December 2019. But he claims he copied the hard drive first and provided it to Rudy Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello.

Months later, somehow, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon (who was indicted on fraud charges in August) learned of the hard drive and told the Post. Finally, Giuliani provided the hard drive to the New York Post last Sunday, after having apparently kept it under wraps for about 10 months.

Trump's team has spread the unfounded conspiracy theory that Joe Biden forced out Ukraine's prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to protect Burisma and his son from an investigation. This theory makes little sense, as it was the consensus position of the US government and Western institutions like the International Monetary Fund to oust Shokin due to his corruption and ineffectiveness. But Trump's aim is to paint Biden as corrupt, in a repeat of his 2016 strategy against Hillary Clinton.

Now, the Post is touting one purported email from Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskyi as a scandalous "smoking gun." In the purported email, Pozharskyi thanks Hunter for "inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent some time together," and proposes meeting that day. But there's no confirmation the meeting with then-Vice President Biden happened or, if it did, that the two men discussed Shokin. (A Biden campaign spokesperson told Politico that they reviewed the VP's official schedules and that "no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.")'

https://www.vox.com/...emails-giuliani

'Man Who Reportedly Gave Hunter's Laptop to Rudy Speaks Out in Bizarre Interview

[...] He appeared not to have a grasp on the timeline of the laptop arriving at his shop and its disappearance from it. He also said the impeachment of President Trump was a "sham." Social media postings indicate that Mac Isaac is an avid Trump supporter, and voted for him in the 2016 election.

Mac Isaac said he had a medical condition that prevented him from actually seeing who dropped off the laptop but that he believed it to be Hunter Biden's because of a sticker related to the Beau Biden Foundation that was on it. [...]

Throughout the entire interview, Mac Isaac switched back and forth from saying he reached out to law enforcement after viewing the files in the laptop to saying that it was actually the Federal Bureau of Investigation that reached out to him. [...]

Mac Isaac referenced the infamous Seth Rich conspiracy theory—which holds that a DNC staffer who police say was murdered in a botched robbery was actually killed off by Clinton allies because he leaked committee emails—as reason for his paranoia. He said he made a copy of the hard drive for purposes of personal protection.

[...] Pressed on his relationship with Giuliani, he replied: "When you're afraid and you don't know anything about the depth of the waters that you're in, you want to find a lifeguard."

Seeming to realize he'd said too much, he added: "Ah shit."'

https://www.thedaily...erview?ref=home

So let's hope the ultimate October Surprise isn't 'Acting Attorney General Rudy Giuliani indicts Trump's enemies... who die in a shoot-out with Giuliana's Trumplandia loyalists in the FBI'.

https://thehill.com/...-is-trumplandia

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 October 2020 - 10:51 PM

[HoosierDaddy]

Aptorian, on 13 October 2020 - 07:59 AM, said:

Today I've been seeing a bunch of articles and videos touting the enormous lead Biden has, how big of a percentage of the electoral college Biden is going to win, how the senate and congress are likely to turn blue, etc.

I can't help wondering how many of these polls and analyses take into account just how much voter manipulation and outright rigging is going on. It's cool that people want to vote but what happens when there's only one voting place in a hundred miles, there's only one person manning the station and ooops, we accidentally missplaced all the blue ballots. Not to mention the "unofficial ballot boxes" in California, which are gonna get double checked for suspicious looking clearly illegal democratic votes, not to mention all the mail ballots that will never get counted, etc.

I keep seeing people saying "Doesn't matter how big the lead is, VOTE!". Well, does it matter that everybody is voting if Republicans are using every trick out of a banana republic election?

I'd probably plan a vacation out of country around election day if I was an American.

Yes. It matters. Because it doesn't matter what you suspect, only what you can prove. And the more overwhelming the evidence is of a rigged election, the stronger the case is for change (I'll use a nice, clean term).

[Malankazooie]

Does anyone know what Trump's event tonight is going to be? Is it just going to be NBC airing one of his rallies?

I know the 2nd debate was originally scheduled for tonight, where Biden and Trump were to appear in a town hall format and would take questions from the audience. But then the superspreader in chief got da 'rona and refused to do a virtual format. So, as I understand it, Biden's team decided soon after they would forge ahead with a town hall like event separately . But now NBC will be airing Trump's event tonight, and I was just wondering what that will look like? I'm guessing just another "build the wall!" "lock her up" hit of broken record chants and Trump giving us stream of conscious thought diarrhea about why toilets don't flush as good as they used to and that he is immune to coronavirus and will kiss everyone in the audience. Does anyone know?

[Mezla PigDog]

All the talk of the Biden lead in the polls is setting my teeth on edge. My first reaction is that I don't dare to hope. My second reaction is that he's the status quo candidate and it's still not good enough. It's kinda depressing to be hoping for more of the same from 4 years ago when we haven't moved on climate change.

The guy really needs to win though. Not least because it will be a bad day for Boris Johnson when it happens.

[HoosierDaddy]

The situation is pretty fragile. I think, no matter what the outcome, there is going to be some pretty major fallout in the streets of America.

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

I think it does depends on the outcome. If it's a clear Biden landslide victory on election night, I don't expect much to happen. If Trump is ahead the day after the election and Biden squeaks out a win weeks later after mail in ballots are counted (after Trump loses some court challenges) or Trump wins after court challenges cut off counting of mail in ballots, then I could see there being some unrest.

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

Briar King, on 15 October 2020 - 03:06 AM, said:

Saw some graffiti on a overpass over I-10 in Houston today. “Vote or die” it was like 60ft long or more.

How the fuck they do that on this insanely steadily driven on interstate?

Tomorrow I intend to look into where my temp location is going to be.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Gwynn ap Nudd, on 16 October 2020 - 02:33 AM, said:

I think it does depends on the outcome. If it's a clear Biden landslide victory on election night, I don't expect much to happen. If Trump is ahead the day after the election and Biden squeaks out a win weeks later after mail in ballots are counted (after Trump loses some court challenges) or Trump wins after court challenges cut off counting of mail in ballots, then I could see there being some unrest.

If Biden wins by a landslide on election day Trump and his followers will say that's proof of voter fraud. He couldn't possibly have gotten that many votes....

For in-person votes, they'll complain that their unregistered "poll watchers" weren't allowed into voting places, or they weren't allowed to "challenge" voters.

For mail-in ballots, they're already collecting stories of discarded Trump ballots, purported fraud, etc.

If Trump loses, he'll have to permanently flee to countries with no US extradition treaty, or almost certainly go to prison. He has a long history of pursuing frivolous law suits and meritless court cases. He'll try to take it the Supreme Court.

OTOH Wall Street seems to agree that a 'blue wave' Biden landslide will happen and that will be enough to prevent Trump from causing enough chaos to disrupt the markets. Perhaps the financial power players have secret inside information... or they're being irrationally optimistic again. Or they're driving up stock prices before an anticipated crash, knowing their faster fiberoptic cables and AI can start the sell off faster than ordinary investors who are piling on to the rally like lambs being buttered and fattened for the slaughter....

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

Azath Vitr (D, on 16 October 2020 - 04:08 AM, said:

Gwynn ap Nudd, on 16 October 2020 - 02:33 AM, said:

I think it does depends on the outcome. If it's a clear Biden landslide victory on election night, I don't expect much to happen. If Trump is ahead the day after the election and Biden squeaks out a win weeks later after mail in ballots are counted (after Trump loses some court challenges) or Trump wins after court challenges cut off counting of mail in ballots, then I could see there being some unrest.

If Biden wins by a landslide on election day Trump and his followers will say that's proof of voter fraud. He couldn't possibly have gotten that many votes....

For in-person votes, they'll complain that their unregistered "poll watchers" weren't allowed into voting places, or they weren't allowed to "challenge" voters.

For mail-in ballots, they're already collecting stories of discarded Trump ballots, purported fraud, etc.

Yes, in those cases Trump supporters may complain. There is a difference between complaint and uncivil actions. E.g., I do not expect the liberate Wisconsin BS to be repeated, or further plots to kidnap government officials, if there is a Biden landslide on election day. More like some people will piss and moan a bit, and maybe drive a cavalcade of pickups through Portland on Saturday. By Sunday they'll be drinking beer and watching football.

Nevermind that a bunch of that stuff would go away if the states enforced the laws prohibiting civilian militias.

[Malankazooie]

Malankazooie, on 15 October 2020 - 05:10 PM, said:

Does anyone know what Trump's event tonight is going to be? Is it just going to be NBC airing one of his rallies?

I know the 2nd debate was originally scheduled for tonight, where Biden and Trump were to appear in a town hall format and would take questions from the audience. But then the superspreader in chief got da 'rona and refused to do a virtual format. So, as I understand it, Biden's team decided soon after they would forge ahead with a town hall like event separately . But now NBC will be airing Trump's event tonight, and I was just wondering what that will look like? I'm guessing just another "build the wall!" "lock her up" hit of broken record chants and Trump giving us stream of conscious thought diarrhea about why toilets don't flush as good as they used to and that he is immune to coronavirus and will kiss everyone in the audience. Does anyone know?

huh, so Trump's event was a town hall doodad, like Biden's. DIdn't watch any them though. Were they any good? Anything new revealed? I hear tell that Hillary Biden's son and emails are being hammed on by Trump and co. Uh, "lock her him up!" ? "Trump that bitch dick!" ? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯