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Open thread on the “debate”

Dan Crawford | October 1, 2020 8:08 am

Politics
Comments (17) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
17 Comments
  • Ron (RC) Weakley (a.k.a., Darryl for a while at EV) says:
    October 1, 2020 at 9:06 am

    Joe would not have appeared nearly so competent if not for the contrast of the obnoxious babbling moron in chief. Better dogs than Donald Trump have been put down because of their total uselessness. Joe’s TV ads work fine for him, better than his ad hoc performances regardless of how well rehearsed he had believed them to be, at least when Joe is subjected to bombardment from the AH in chief.

  • EMichael says:
    October 1, 2020 at 9:53 am

    One thing is fairly clear, if the election is close it will end up in the courts. If it is a blowout it will probably still end up in the courts. And the fight has already begun.

    Pennsyltucky.

    ” Pennsylvania Republican legislators took the first step on Wednesday toward enacting a nightmare scenario in which they could challenge the outcome of the state’s presidential election if President Donald Trump loses.

    Republicans in the state House of Representatives passed a resolution out of the chamber’s government committee on a 15-10 party-line vote to create a special “election integrity committee” of three Republicans and two Democrats to investigate the 2020 election. It could possibly certify its own slate of electors for Trump based on phony charges of voter fraud.”

    ://www.huffpost.com/entry/dona…

    “On Sept. 24, Manzoni sent an email to county residents, stating: “Many
    people who own second homes in Pike County have been spending more time here as a result of COVID-19. Anyone considering registering to vote in PA should be aware of Pennsylvania Residency requirements when
    considering how to vote this year.” She attached a flyer that she also posted in the elections office. This flyer warned voters that while “many people who own second homes in Pennsylvania are spending more time here due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” they are not necessarily eligible to vote. The flyer then asserted that voters “must register in the state of their Primary Residence.” It listed “indicators” of “an established Primary Residence.” Qualifiedvoters, the flyer explained, must have a Pennsylvania driver’s license, bank statements, and payroll stubs with a Pennsylvania address, and “medical and other insurance policies” with a Pennsylvania address. They must file federal taxes from a Pennsylvania address and “spend more than 183 days per year in Pennsylvania.” Any individual who does not meet these qualifications but still registers, the flyer explained, may be imprisoned for seven years, fined $15,000, and stripped of their voting rights.

    Virtually all of the flyer’s alleged voter qualifications are false, as a group of local attorneys informed the elections board on Monday in an alarmed letter. Pennsylvania voters are not required to have a Pennsylvania driver’s license to register. They are not required to have bank statements, payroll stubs, or insurance policies with a Pennsylvania address. They do not have to file federal taxes from a Pennsylvania address and spend more than 183 days per year in the state.”

    https://slate.com/news-and-…

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  • borderdenizen says:
    October 1, 2020 at 11:42 am

    Live blogging the humiliation – I see on a lot of sites an analysis how the GOP is setting up the swindle, but none show any solution to force the GOP not to use dirty tricks to steal the election. Its like a train wreck in slow motion — the take home story is 4++ more years of Orange Julius and we are powerless in the descent into dictatorship.

  • Ken Houghton says:
    October 1, 2020 at 11:49 am

    It was nice to see DJT declare very publicly that he intends to have the SupCt overturn the will of the voters.

    Laurence Tribe who (literally) wrote the book on Constitutional Law contributed to a piece yesterday in which they free-finessed the idea that the SupCt would d/o/ w/h/a/t/ i/t/ d/i/d/ i/n/ 2/0/0/0/ not help Trump win.

    As Charles Gaba notes, the goal for Democrats right now should be to flip two of the States with Republican-majority House members, since that’s the only chance of anything approaching majority rule.

  • EMichael says:
    October 1, 2020 at 11:56 am

    Border,

    The Dems have 600 attorneys and 10,000 volunteers to deal with this attempted theft. They have already won some battles.

  • borderdenizen says:
    October 1, 2020 at 12:43 pm

    Orange Julius has 4 Supremes and a million moron army so “The Dems have 600 attorneys and 10,000 volunteers” does not give me confidence. That sounds like a rear-guard action.

  • borderdenizen says:
    October 1, 2020 at 12:53 pm

    Yeah, I am sorry, though, It is just really difficult to keep up morale when I am being disenfranchised, being told by the GOP and the “leader of the free world” that white supremacy is an acceptable political platform, and that I should just suck it up.

  • EMichael says:
    October 1, 2020 at 1:05 pm

    No problem.

    States are where this will be decided. That’s where they are working.

  • Lord says:
    October 1, 2020 at 1:31 pm

    While Biden could say enough is enough with ‘debates’, it wouldn’t be to his advantage. Trump loves to hear himself talk and always wants to be the center of attention. He is too stupid to realize his mere appearance is a negative for him and can’t help himself. Biden can ridicule and dismiss him while focusing on his own message.

  • Ken Melvin says:
    October 1, 2020 at 2:33 pm

    Oh yes they would.

    In the land of really big counties; One drop box per county-

    https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-issues-proclamation-enhancing-ballot-security

  • Ken Melvin says:
    October 1, 2020 at 2:35 pm

    There is nothing more unAmerican than suppressing the vote.

  • Joel says:
    October 1, 2020 at 3:07 pm

    @Ken,
    If you’re black or brown, there’s nothing more American than suppressing the vote. Of course, the suppression techniques were pretty crude for the first century after Reconstruction. Read American history.

  • EMichael says:
    October 1, 2020 at 3:55 pm

    Via Pierce, the fight is underway.

    https://www.democracydocket…

    “According to Elias, his organization is litigating 32 cases in 16 states
    and they’ve already won 35 victories. But, as the South Carolina case
    indicates, it takes almost constant litigation to make those victories
    into anything resembling permanent. For now, though, it seems like at
    least the lower federal courts have grown tired of dealing with blatant
    finagling with the relatively simple action of casting a ballot. Which,
    of course, isn’t stopping the attacks. And the attacks are
    systemic—federal, state, and local, as this week’s New York Times Magazine reports.”

    https://www.esquire.com/new…

  • Ken Melvin says:
    October 1, 2020 at 4:12 pm

    @Joel,

    I get your gist, Joel, know of our history; but, 1920, 1965, and for some years now, many states have automatic voter registration, vote anyhow anywhere., … Get out the vote is an official national policy. Those suppressing the vote and yapping about voter fraud these days are red states. These are the same states mostly likely to abuse redistricting. The Republicans in these states are admitting that they would lose a fair election; therefore they opt to cheat.. No one likes to play with someone who cheats. These are they I wish to condemn; ask how they see themselves.

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 1, 2020 at 5:27 pm

    Voters weigh in on the debate: Trump lost the night

    via @BostonGlobe – October 1

    … Many voters believed Biden’s best line was about Trump’s performance: “Under this president, we have become weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided, and more violent.” As Dan, an independent from Michigan, noted, “Biden probably should have just repeated that line all night long, interspersed with reminders about the two key metrics we should keep in mind: $750 and 200,000.”

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    October 1, 2020 at 5:37 pm

    Not so vaguely related.

    Stanley McChrystal, a Top General Fired Over Insults to Biden, Says He’ll Vote for Him

    NY Times – October 1

    Fired after an article portrayed him and senior aides as disrespectful of Obama administration officials, General McChrystal added a coda to the story: He endorsed Joe Biden to be the next commander in chief.

    “I worked most closely with President Obama and Vice President Biden when I commanded in Afghanistan,” Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said. “They didn’t see everything the way I did. But in every instance, they listened.”

    WASHINGTON — On the day it was published in the summer of 2010, the Rolling Stone article electrified Washington in a way that almost seems quaint by today’s news standards: The commander of American troops in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and his aides were quoted privately mocking several government officials. One McChrystal aide referred to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. using the phrase “bite me.”

    An angry President Barack Obama promptly fired the general, putting an end to a storied career that had included running the military’s most secretive Special Operations missions and the American-led war effort in Afghanistan.

    On Thursday, General McChrystal added a coda to the story: He endorsed Mr. Biden, now the Democratic presidential candidate, not President Trump, to be the country’s next commander in chief.

    “I worked most closely with President Obama and Vice President Biden when I commanded in Afghanistan,” the general told Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

    “They didn’t see everything the way I did,” he added. “But in every instance, they listened. In every instance, they took in my view. In every instance, I felt that they were trying to make the best decision based on all the information they had, and based on a bedrock of values.”

    The Biden campaign immediately embraced General McChrystal’s statement.

    “Vice President Biden is honored by General McChrystal’s endorsement,” said Andrew Bates, the campaign’s spokesman. “And he couldn’t agree more that the next commander in chief must ‘respect people who serve and have served’ and be ‘someone that you can trust’ — which would be a decisive break from Donald Trump, the most dishonest president in American history and the only one to have utterly disgraced himself by calling veterans and the fallen ‘losers and ‘suckers.’” …

  • Ron (RC) Weakley (a.k.a., Darryl for a while at EV) says:
    October 2, 2020 at 6:57 am

    @Ken,

    “There is nothing more unAmerican than suppressing the vote.”

    [Eh!]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States

    The issue of voting rights in the United States, specifically the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been contested throughout United States history.

    Eligibility to vote in the United States is established both through the United States Constitution and by state law. Several constitutional amendments (the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-sixth specifically) require that voting rights of U.S. citizens cannot be abridged on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude, sex, or age for those above 18; the constitution as originally written did not establish any such rights during 1787–1870, except that if a state permitted a person to vote for the “most numerous branch” of its state legislature, it was required to permit that person to vote in elections for members of the United States House of Representatives.[1] In the absence of a specific federal law or constitutional provision, each state is given considerable discretion to establish qualifications for suffrage and candidacy within its own respective jurisdiction; in addition, states and lower level jurisdictions establish election systems, such as at-large or single member district elections for county councils or school boards. Beyond qualifications for suffrage, rules and regulations concerning voting (such as the poll tax) have been contested since the advent of Jim Crow laws and related provisions that indirectly disenfranchised racial minorities.

    A historic turning point arrived when the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled in 1964 that both houses of all state legislatures had to be based on election districts that were relatively equal in population size, under the “one man, one vote” principle.[2][3][4] The Warren Court’s decisions on two previous landmark cases—Baker v. Carr (1962) and Wesberry v. Sanders (1964)—also played a fundamental role in establishing the nationwide “one man, one vote” electoral system.[5][6] Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Twenty-fourth Amendment, and related laws, voting rights have been legally considered an issue related to election systems. In 1972, the Burger Court ruled that state legislatures had to redistrict every ten years based on census results; at that point, many had not redistricted for decades, often leading to a rural bias.

    In other cases,[which?] particularly for county or municipal elections, at-large voting has been repeatedly challenged when found to dilute the voting power of significant minorities in violation of the Voting Rights Act. In the early 20th century, numerous cities established small commission forms of government in the belief that “better government” could result from the suppression of ward politics. Commissioners were elected by the majority of voters, excluding candidates who could not afford large campaigns or who appealed to a minority. Generally the solution to such violations has been to adopt single-member districts (SMDs), but alternative election systems, such as limited voting or cumulative voting, have also been used since the late 20th century to correct for dilution of voting power and enable minorities to elect candidates of their choice. ..

    *

    [OK, I get it. There is nothing more unAmerican than American history :<) ]

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