2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Zkribbler]

That's pretty much everyone

 

[Patine]

That's pretty much everyone

No. Probably less than 2-3% of the American population, at a generous estimate. But, that tiny of a number having such disproportionate electoral power and influence - in a corrupt and criminal way - is comparable, as such, to the current Russian and Zimbabwean electoral schemes. The U.S. have become among the five worst electoral systems and political cultures in the First World - alongside Japan, Singapore, Hungary, and Portugal (and, I believe, Romania and Poland are transitioning into that "club").

 

[Zardnaar]

No. Probably less than 2-3% of the American population, at a generous estimate. But, that tiny of a number having such disproportionate electoral power and influence - in a corrupt and criminal way - is comparable, as such, to the current Russian and Zimbabwean electoral schemes. The U.S. have become among the five worst electoral systems and political cultures in the First World - alongside Japan, Singapore, Hungary, and Portugal (and, I believe, Romania and Poland are transitioning into that "club").

They've been downgraded to a flawed democracy.

 

[Takhisis]

That's pretty much everyone

It was estimated 2 or 3 years ago that at least two thirds of the Brazilian legislature at the federal level were heavily involved in various types of graft. I said ‘remove them all’ and the same goes for our congress here and the US one and so on.

 

[Ajidica]

There needs to be an investigation, with arrests and trials, and massive reforms, over domestic forces who interfere with EVERY election in the United States - the DNC and the RNC, and their State and local affiliates, the plutocratic corporate donors and moneyed special interest groups, the partisan Federal courts who are supposed to judge electoral malfeasance, and the sensationalist media who've gained control, by monopolizing direct coverage, debates, and such, who CANNOT win...

Honestly, that is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

 

[Berzerker]

People would rather vote for Biden than Trump, because of the measurable impact of comparable administrations. If you can't see that, then that's on you. Individual examples of how Biden isn't perfect (nowhere near perfect) aren't the foolproof gotchas you keep assuming them to be, @Berzerker.

What is Biden's administration you're comparing to Trump? If Biden's 'imperfections' are not 'gotchas', why are Trump's? Shame on the politician who lies us into war, shame on the people who reward them with their votes. I cant do that to the victims, I'd feel like I'm giving them the finger.

It's the exact same (ironically Republican) argument against Obama. The centres existed under his administration too, ergo, checkmate libs! Except that the centres under both administrations could be bad. They could even be worse under one of them, which means when comparing which administration people arguably might want to have in power, people would therefore have a preference.

Obama started our wars in Libya and Syria (and apparently a few other countries)

To repeatedly make arguments against the Democrats (in defense of criticism of Republicans, either individually or by policy), which boil down to "both sides are bad so why vote for the Democrats", is such an amazing insight into your apparent lack of support for Trump it really removes the need for further discussion

If both sides are bad - and they are - how is that a defense of Republicans? I'm not defending Republicans, I'm accusing Biden and his supporters of hypocrisy. When Jesus asked the Pharisees which among them was without sin they didn't stone the adulteress or accuse Jesus of defending her with 'whataboutism'.

Didn't even watch the short bit from Tapper did ya? Even though I said it's at the beginning and that's all that's necessary. He refers to talking with a Bush strategist after the election who admitted they were more apprehensive about facing Dean who had much more excitement about his run than Kerry. Kerry was specifically chosen because of the wartime aspect in '04. He was a military officer and people thought that would play better vs Bush who only had a short stint in the guard.

Yes, I watched it... I was addressing Kulinski's other points. Kerry voted to invade Iraq, thats why he was the establishment's choice. The Iraq War had not become unpopular by then, but by 2008 the tide had turned and Obama rode it into the WH. Then he stabbed the peaceniks in the back by making Hillary his SecofState and we got Libya and Syria as a result.

So the Deep State is now democratically elected politicians? All of the stuff you listed was pushed from the White House, or do you think the security services should push back and work against a democratically elected administration if the security services disagree with the administration? You can't just say everything you don't like is part of the 'deep state'.

Before Cheney was 'elected' as Bush 43's VP he was Bush 41' secofdef for the 1st Gulf War and before Bush 41 got elected he was Ford's CIA director, cant get much more deep state than that. So yes, when an elected politician has career overlap in the deep state and they lie us into war - Cheney did it twice for father and son - they have deep ties to the deep state.

And when deep state operatives get elected and make appointments to the bureaucracies, they wont be appointing people opposed to them. So this notion the intel community was a victim of WH policy is at best partly true, Trump has shown us just how bipartisan the warmongering really is. How many people resigned when Obama and Clinton were starting wars all over the place? Over 6 decades of Cold and cool war with Russia had produced a deep state devoted to a policy Trump wanted to change.

"Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday evening on MSNBC

That was before Trump even took office and because he wasn't sufficiently anti-Putin. How dare the elected President direct foreign policy!

 

[Tristan_C]

Are you saying the security services shouldn't investigate potential attempts by foreign powers to interfere in our elections?

Obama's DOJ would have needed probable cause. And in a sane media environment, they'd really need more than that tbh. We're talking about deploying law and intel agents against the rival political campaign— an obvious conflict of interest— done by an administration that had already weaponized the IRS in a like manner and been caught.

I can only imagine the sort of fit you would have pitched if Bush's DOJ had done this. Gone through the secret court, deployed spies, tried to plant people, wiretap, sabotage... the campaign of Barack Hussein Obama? On evidence as shaky as the Steele dossier? And it all ended up being garbage? Wow. There's no safe-for-work meme image that would do that scene justice.

 

[Socrates99]

What is Biden's administration you're comparing to Trump? If Biden's 'imperfections' are not 'gotchas', why are Trump's? Shame on the politician who lies us into war, shame on the people who reward them with their votes. I cant do that to the victims, I'd feel like I'm giving them the finger.



Obama started our wars in Libya and Syria (and apparently a few other countries)



If both sides are bad - and they are - how is that a defense of Republicans? I'm not defending Republicans, I'm accusing Biden and his supporters of hypocrisy. When Jesus asked the Pharisees which among them was without sin they didn't stone the adulteress or accuse Jesus of defending her with 'whataboutism'.



Yes, I watched it... I was addressing Kulinski's other points. Kerry voted to invade Iraq, thats why he was the establishment's choice. The Iraq War had not become unpopular by then, but by 2008 the tide had turned and Obama rode it into the WH. Then he stabbed the peaceniks in the back by making Hillary his SecofState and we got Libya and Syria as a result.



Before Cheney was 'elected' as Bush 43's VP he was Bush 41' secofdef for the 1st Gulf War and before Bush 41 got elected he was Ford's CIA director, cant get much more deep state than that. So yes, when an elected politician has career overlap in the deep state and they lie us into war - Cheney did it twice for father and son - they have deep ties to the deep state.

And when deep state operatives get elected and make appointments to the bureaucracies, they wont be appointing people opposed to them. So this notion the intel community was a victim of WH policy is at best partly true, Trump has shown us just how bipartisan the warmongering really is. How many people resigned when Obama and Clinton were starting wars all over the place? Over 6 decades of Cold and cool war with Russia had produced a deep state devoted to a policy Trump wanted to change.



That was before Trump even took office and because he wasn't sufficiently anti-Putin. How dare the elected President direct foreign policy!

Yeah but none of that really had anything to do with my post.

 

[Estebonrober]

Obama's DOJ would have needed probable cause. And in a sane media environment, they'd really need more than that tbh. We're talking about deploying law and intel agents against the rival political campaign— an obvious conflict of interest— done by an administration that had already weaponized the IRS in a like manner and been caught.

I can only imagine the sort of fit you would have pitched if Bush's DOJ had done this. Gone through the secret court, deployed spies, tried to plant people, wiretap, sabotage... the campaign of Barack Hussein Obama? On evidence as shaky as the Steele dossier? And it all ended up being garbage? Wow. There's no safe-for-work meme image that would do that scene justice.

Wow Obama did all that?! Holy crap. Seriously its like you guys put your brains in alex jones sold blenders.

 

[Tristan_C]

Been through this already. Like I said, the situation is so atrocious that you have no choice but to mock it. It's lawful evil at its finest.

 

[Berzerker]

I think Halliburton and the no-bid contracts would qualify, but these issues are all treated differently, by all of us, depending on who is the target. During the 2000 campaign, NYTimes called Cheney out for being a board member of Halliburton, whose lucrative defense contracts invite a conflict of interest (read MIC), so he resigned and sold his shares. This development caused the stock to drop. So NYTimes then called him out for insider trading. NYTimes is widely regarded for its high-quality journalism.

lol... He got 'em back though by feeding BS to Judith Miller so the NYT became propagandists for invading Iraq. Well, they didn't really need him to fool them into pimping for war. All the news thats fit to print

Nah, no deep state there... Thats the revolving door between politicians and lobbyists for the deep state. Look who MSNBC and CNN hired as 'analysts', Freaking John Brennan and James Clapper?

Using foreign intelligence surveillance as a pretext for deploying the agencies and the secret court against your party's opponent is pretty serious. It certainly makes a joke out of Watergate. The problem is, the president who ran the DOJ in 2016 and who is ultimately accountable for this behavior, as well as his would-be successor, are no longer in a position to suffer any consequences.

Worse, the same media that sacked Nixon goalkeeps for this party. As far as we consumers of this media are concerned, this business with the FISA court did not happen. You took me to task about it earlier. Confronted with 400 pages of evidence of wrongdoing, you asked me for evidence of wrongdoing. Couldn't have happened. There's no swamp. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

He called me a liar for saying the dossier was crucial to getting the Fisa application. I'd love to see Obama and Clinton investigated and put under oath for their roles.

The president fired the director of the FBI after the FBI director refused to swear personal loyalty to the president, and after the director informed the president the FBI was aware of an investigating possible attempts by the Russian government -or individuals closely associated with the Russian government - to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign. A few days later the president went against the 'official' reason for the firing of the FBI director by saying on national television he fired the FBI director 'because of the Russia thing'.

None of that makes you think an outside investigation is warranted into what went down in 2016 and presidential attempts to get involved in that investigation?

We got that investigation and it showed RussiaGate was a hoax. These people weren't fired for refusing personal loyalty, they got fired because they either lied to a Fisa court to spy on him or let others compromise the investigation with Dem dirty tricks.

You see, while Obama's people were lying about Trump's alleged ties to Putin he knew they were lying. He had absolutely no reason to trust Comey, Brennan, Clapper, McCabe, Strzok, Page, or other people from the Obama administration pushing RussiaGate nonsense.

Yeah but none of that really had anything to do with my post.

I wasn't arguing with your premise about Dean

 

[Patine]

Honestly, that is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

This sounds like a case of deep denial of reality to preserve the status quo of one's viewpoint of the world. Unfortunately, the world - and certainly this particular matter - are not nearly in as good of shape as they should be, and need to be addressed and reformed before the corruption is absolute, and elections, Constitutional limits, citizens' voice in government, and guaranteed inalienable rights become - by piecemeal slice-by-slice - a thing of the past.

 

[Berzerker]

Health insurance stocks jumped big with Biden's wins on super Tuesday

Are you saying the security services shouldn't investigate potential attempts by foreign powers to interfere in our elections? Suppose the security services were to learn that Icelandic nationals were trying to interfere in the US election on behalf of [insert candidate]. Should that not be investigated to see if there was any truth and put a stop to it?

So you supported spying on the Obama administration and Clinton campaign?

Further, this has very little to do with Watergate. Despite Nixon's abuses of the security services, at its core the Watergate scandal was about the President covering up a break-in carried out by private individuals to gather dirt on his opponents. The role of the security services - while important in the background and for the parties motivations- weren't front-and-center in the Watergate scandal.*

But those security services were front and center to RussiaGate

You had stated the Horowitz Report provided the FBI investigation was abused for political reasons when that is the exact opposite of what Horowitz found. He was unable to find any evidence of political abuse.

Horowitz said no one who touched the Fisa applications was exonerated by his report. He said the explanations he got for why people made 'mistakes' were unsatisfactory - how many of them said they were just trying to look good? And he found out somebody at the FBI altered a CIA email claiming Carter Page was a CIA asset. He changed the email to say Page was not a CIA asset. Now why would someone do that? Because a Fisa judge would see Page was working with the CIA while the only person accusing Page of being a Russian asset was hired by the Democrats.

However, there were multiple instances of serious and not-so-serious lapses in protocol and of agents being economical with the truth. Why that occurred remains unclear, various commentators over at Lawfare believe it was the result of poor oversight, low level investigators trying to look good on their performance evaluation, and long standing failures with the FISA system.

"Mistakes were made"... How many furthered spying on Trump? All, most, some, none? I'll put my money on all. How did altering a CIA email make someone look good? How did lying to the Fisa court make the liars look good? Tristan is right, had the Bush administration done this to Obama in 2008 you and the Dems would be howling. So would I...

 

[Ironsided]

This sounds like a case of deep denial of reality to preserve the status quo of one's viewpoint of the world. Unfortunately, the world - and certainly this particular matter - are not nearly in as good of shape as they should be, and need to be addressed and reformed before the corruption is absolute, and elections, Constitutional limits, citizens' voice in government, and guaranteed inalienable rights become - by piecemeal slice-by-slice - a thing of the past.

That is exactly what it is – denial. America was a top democracy in 1960. It’s fallen ever since and is no longer considered a full democracy. The most used democracy index by the EIU has the US as a flawed democracy in the same bracket as Botswana.

The factual evidence presented so far on Russian interference in 2016 is some $200k in Facebook adds and $4k on Google – the value of a used 1999 Toyota Camry. A piss in the ocean compared to domestic corruption. A red herring.

Look at exit poll discrepancies for primaries 2020 so far. The EU guidelines for exit poll discrepancies has anything over 4% as signs of corruption. That’s basically all US primary states so far. At least 6 states are over 10% with some up to 15%. That is damning. Add the active voter suppression onto that and then a corporate owned media climate where public service channels play a bit part at best and you have the perfect storm for a corrupt system with democratic façade.

The one politician in recent times to even whisper about getting money out of politics and move to public funding of elections is unsurprising to everyone (with two or more braincells rubbing together) on the receiving end of the might of this very real domestic corruption.

 

[Zardnaar]

That is exactly what it is – denial. America was a top democracy in 1960. It’s fallen ever since and is no longer considered a full democracy. The most used democracy index by the EIU has the US as a flawed democracy in the same bracket as Botswana.

The factual evidence presented so far on Russian interference in 2016 is some $200k in Facebook adds and $4k on Google – the value of a used 1999 Toyota Camry. A piss in the ocean compared to domestic corruption. A red herring.

Look at exit poll discrepancies for primaries 2020 so far. The EU guidelines for exit poll discrepancies has anything over 4% as signs of corruption. That’s basically all US primary states so far. At least 6 states are over 10% with some up to 15%. That is damning. Add the active voter suppression onto that and then a corporate owned media climate where public service channels play a bit part at best and you have the perfect storm for a corrupt system with democratic façade.

The one politician in recent times to even whisper about getting money out of politics and move to public funding of elections is unsurprising to everyone (with two or more braincells rubbing together) on the receiving end of the might of this very real domestic corruption.

USA got downgraded due to gerrymandering and voter suppression.

It's on the high end of flawed democracies, it's not in the same league as a few other flawed democracies.

 

[Camikaze]

The one politician in recent times to even whisper about getting money out of politics and move to public funding of elections is unsurprising to everyone (with two or more braincells rubbing together) on the receiving end of the might of this very real domestic corruption.

Taken from Biden's website:

Biden has advocated for public financing of federal campaigns since the very beginning of his Senate career. He first co-sponsored legislation to create a public financing system for House and Senate candidates in 1973. In 1997 and many years afterward, he co-sponsored a constitutional amendment that would have limited contributions as well as corporate and private spending in elections and prevented the damage caused by the Supreme Court in Citizens United.

To my understanding, every single Democratic candidate through this cycle has been in favour of getting money out of politics. Sanders certainly made it a centrepiece of his campaign (although his true focus was healthcare; cf Warren, whose big focus was money in politics, with healthcare being a secondary concern). But it was never unique to him during the course of this race.

 

[klar_heiland]

Why? Is American democracy the measurestick?

 

[Zardnaar]

All that shows is how unreliable and flawed that index is.

They're barely ranked lower than Portugal.

It was done in 2016 due to gerrymandering and voter suppression.

We're ranked near the top.

There's a map down the page.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_electorates

Have a look with your own eyes. See the difference?

Flawed Democracies are technically Democratic but usually aren't fair in various ways. Apartheid era south south for example used very lopsided electorate's in terms of population. Kinda like the US Senate.

We also have independent electoral commission who draw the boundaries.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The factual evidence presented so far on Russian interference in 2016 is some $200k in Facebook adds and $4k on Google – the value of a used 1999 Toyota Camry. A piss in the ocean compared to domestic corruption. A red herring.

This unduly discounts the impact and reach of social media.

 

[luiz]

Biden is now tied with Trump on the betting markets. A dramatic change from two weeks ago, when Sanders was the huge favorite to win the democratic nomination and Trump had over 60% odds of winnning the presidency.

Of course, we don't know know how much of the change is due to betters thinking Biden is more electable and how much is due to to Corona tanking the economy.