2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Takhisis]

Too much news and none of it good from Trump.

1. For 500+ kids separated from families at border since 2016 the government has no way to find their parents.
2. Trump has a secret (as in unreported on his federal disclosure forms) bank account and company based in China and in 2017 it had $17 million in revenue of which Trump took $15 million out as cash. The source of the money has yet to be determined. The $17 N was more than the total revenue the company had over the previous 5 years.
3. Today Trump publicly ordered William Barr to indict Joe Biden before the election.

1) #borderdefence
2) Same as with his business deals in Cuba.
3) Sounds familiar. Once again the caudillo method.

 

[Berzerker]

Our war in Syria didn't start the claims to land. But if you're going to get involved and kill until a resolution, you're involved. Or you're faithless.

That's actually a really good word for The West, these days.

Oh we've screwed the Kurds before, Nixon and Bush 41 come to mind. But if I start a war in your country (Syria) causing you and your family and friends to flee and my friends take your land, do ya'll have a claim to the land?

That aint faithless, thats returning the rightful owners to their homes or whats left of them. The Kurds dont get to keep land they took from terrorists because it belongs to other people who've been waiting to return.

 

[Drakle]

Hm, any new polls of note?
And any estimate on what percentage (roughly, of course) of the expected voters already voted by mail?

Also, are there good measures taken to ensure large-scale (meaningful scale) double-voting won't take place? (given Trump instructed his flock to both mail the vote and go check if it was registered and potentially vote in person too - some magas may just try to vote twice for the hell of it; can't trust the deep state).

A few states have already reached half of total votes in 2016, such as Vermont and Texas. Vermont is usually high turnout, but Texas is normally one of the worse turnout states. A lot of others have hit half their early vote, even with most of the early vote period to go.

Nationally, nearly 40 million have already voted.

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1318783340204482560

At least 37.9 million people have voted in the 2020 general election https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

If the turnout in Texas shoots up, it could lurch leftwards really fast. And it counts fast, so it could end Trump on election night.

North Carolina, Georgia and Florida also count fast and count early votes and mail-in votes before election day. So we could have the reverse of the 'red mirage' where Democrats start with a massive lead, and then it gets chipped away as the count progresses. Exactly the opposite of what Trump has said. So he will go, from 'don't count the ballots' to 'wait for the ballots to be counted'.

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh we've screwed the Kurds before, Nixon and Bush 41 come to mind. But if I start a war in your country (Syria) causing you and your family and friends to flee and my friends take your land, do ya'll have a claim to the land?

That aint faithless, thats returning the rightful owners to their homes or whats left of them. The Kurds dont get to keep land they took from terrorists because it belongs to other people who've been waiting to return.

If you don't want to pick sides in an ethnic conflict, you don't show up with guns and cajole people to kill and die for things that are convenient for you. The Israelis have picked sides in a religious and ethnic conflict. If you want to think of Armenia. Oh wait, or are they simply hardball pieces of **** the world would be better off... yada yada, ethnic conficts. More of the same. More people the world would be better off... whatever.

 

[Zkribbler]

Today Trump publicly ordered William Barr to indict Joe Biden before the election.

More properly worded: "Present evidence to a federal grand jury, asking it to issue an indictment."

I know nothing about how federal grand juries work, but I feel safe in saying that it could not hear and evaluate evidence in just two weeks, even if it wanted to.
Moreover. Trump lacks authority to order Barr to do anything because the Justice Department is independent of the White House.
Trump is just biting bubbles in the bathtub.

 

[Farm Boy]

Some states have already reached half of total votes in 2016, in Vermont and Texas. A lot of others have hit half their early vote, even with most of the early vote period to go.

Nationally, nearly 40 million have already voted.

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1318783340204482560



If the turnout in Texas shoots up, it could lurch leftwards really fast. And it counts fast, so it could end Trump on election night.

Why would anyone care about twitter information from a man who assumes people who talk in ways they don't understand must be damaged in some stereotypical and bigoted way? <yawn> How's Beijing this time of year? To meet you on your level.

 

[stinkubus]

Ehh. Can you flesh out the "petro-dollar" model a bit more because I've never seen a satisfactory explanation of the idea.



I understand the concept of the "good example", I just don't think Iraq fits that model at all. The US sanctions under the Clinton administration really destroyed Iraq, brought it back to largely premodern standards of living and greatly intensified Saddam Hussein's despotism by making nearly everyone dependent on goods distributed by the state.

The Petro-Dollar refers to the scheme concocted by Nixon's state department and sold to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So long as Saudi Arabia accepts US dollars only for their product and agrees to purchase and hoard treasuries at the direction of US policy makers they get perpetual and limitless security guarantees. Our arrangement with China produces a similar outcome (i.e. China is willing to accumulate treasuries) although on a smaller scale.

China and the Kingdom of Saud should consider themselves quite lucky they got any consideration at all. Most resource rich nations who do not follow the same path are unceremoniously invaded or their internal politics are interfered with to the greatest extent possible up to and including genocide.

So long as the scheme keeps running we can perpetually import. Trillions upon trillions in liquidity circulate outside of our borders and many of these are never coming back as claims against the real economy of the United States, however every single one of them did finance consumption or investment in the United States. Everyone else must hoard them or risk finding themselves shutout of crucial commodities markets. The same rules are enforced whether you are exporting oil, copper, rubber, or anything else. US hegemonic interests are centered every bit as much around this control as they are access to the actual resources themselves. Even countries that mostly play ball, like Venezuela or Bolivia, step out of line even a little (like enact too many social welfare reforms) they are at risk.

This practice is literally the source of the free lunch that MMT claims to offer. It's something only the US can do because only the US has the ability to force the rest of the world to use Disney Bucks or risk being shut out of the global economy or worse. It's also dependent upon stripping the Earth of its natural resources at our current break neck pace. It's baffling to me that anyone on the left buys into this stuff. The consumer economies of the west are destroying the planet and I don't think re-industrializing our society is a real solution even in a world where we could just snap our fingers and force this country to stop importing which any informed observer of the current global economy should understand is impossible.

I actually meant to type this up when we had that big ideology thread going and we went off on an MMT tangent but I never got around to it.

 

[Drakle]

Why would anyone care about twitter information from a man who assumes people who talk in ways they don't understand must be damaged in some stereotypical and bigoted way? <yawn> How's Beijing this time of year? To meet you on your level.

You are still whining? mkay.

 

[Farm Boy]

Amazingly enough, people remember when your first meaningful interaction with them is, essentially, "Shut up ******."

 

[Drakle]

Amazingly enough, people remember when your first meaningful interaction with them is, essentially, "Shut up ******."

You do remember that there is a filter. I have no idea what you are trying to say.

Anyway, I don't really care. You offer zero discussion value, you just endlessly whine about abortion and throw around buzzwords in a series of incoherent posts. I answered a factual question that had nothing to do with you, and you just had to remind everybody how triggered you are.

 

[Joij21]

It's also dependent upon stripping the Earth of its natural resources at our current break neck pace. It's baffling to me that anyone on the left buys into this stuff. The consumer economies of the west are destroying the planet and I don't think re-industrializing our society is a real solution even in a world where we could just snap our fingers and force this country to stop importing which any informed observer of the current global economy should understand is impossible.

Okay well if you don't like the modern way of living you can go back to farming the land and catching the plague. But for the rest of the world, developing nations want to be like the west, full mass consumption and all. Everyone wants to be like a fat American and eat five cheeseburgers a day without ever having to worry about starving.

 

[Kyriakos]

Other than resigning the Paris climate accord, what other international policy actions is Biden's administration going to take?

 

[Farm Boy]

You could count the asterisks, misinfobot. It's the word you think it is.

The pejorative use is on point for a particular flavor of this stupid and idiotic multi-purpose word, given our interaction. I mean, we're deepening it here, and it's still holding from the idiot highschooler spouting crap point of view.

Moderator Action: Settle down. --LM

 

[AdrienIer]

There's no reason for Puerto Rico to not be a state, but for the other US territories, incorporations into Hawaii (for the pacific territories) and Maryland (which makes a lot more sense geographically than Virginia) for DC is probably a better sell than individual states. You get rid of the taxation without representation problem all at once and make it a lot harder for the GOP and its friends like Manchin to disagree.

 

[Estebonrober]

You could count the asterisks, misinfobot. It's the word you think it is.

The pejorative use is on point for a particular flavor of this stupid and idiotic multi-purpose word, given our interaction. I mean, we're deepening it here, and it's still holding from the idiot highschooler spouting crap point of view.

Honestly man, you seem to be lashing out an awful lot at people here in the last couple of weeks. I know you don't care what I think and will probably just insult me again for saying this to you, but it has been noticeable.

 

[IglooDame]

I mean, most logically you'd probably just want to see American Samoa just unifying with the much larger independent Samoan state.

There's also scope to just add these places to other states so they get representation, eg moving Guam and NMI into Hawaii. Or join them to DC for electoral purposes if DC gets voting rights.

(Australia has this complicated kludge for representing four very small territories each with less than 2000 residents, whereby they vote in an electoral division of either the Northern Territory or Australian Capital Territory even though they're legally run as separate entities, not administered by any states. This led to the hilarious situation of people in Norfolk Island voting for a party called "Bullet Train for Australia" a few years ago)

I just saw a bit of a televised debate between one of my current US senators (Jeanne Shaheen) and her GOP challenger, and PR statehood was brought up. I expected the GOPer would punt the question ("if the PR votes in the majority in favor of statehood, would you in the Senate vote to bring them in"), but Shaheen punted it too.

But it makes an important distinction: if the PR votes again against statehood, are all you talking about PR+DC solutions to the EC intending to assimilate it by force, Crimea-style?

Courtesy of USN port visits, I've been to American Samoa and Western Samoa. The difference is what I'd imagine West and East Germany had to contend with once the Berlin Wall came down.

All that aside, I agree that the current US protectorates/districts/colonies/whatever should get a vote annually on either merging with the nearest US state (if relatively small), becoming a new one (if not small), and use geography (distance from the nearest state) and population (let's say that if you're under a half-million, no new state for you) as the factors, or full on independence so then they can annex their poor neighbors just like their big brother did when he was growing up.

I'm not saying this because of Senate/EC reasons, I just think it's coherent.

 

[Estebonrober]

I just saw a bit of a televised debate between one of my current US senators (Jeanne Shaheen) and her GOP challenger, and PR statehood was brought up. I expected the GOPer would punt the question ("if the PR votes in the majority in favor of statehood, would you in the Senate vote to bring them in"), but Shaheen punted it too.

But it makes an important distinction: if the PR votes again against statehood, are all you talking about PR+DC solutions to the EC intending to assimilate it by force, Crimea-style?

Courtesy of USN port visits, I've been to American Samoa and Western Samoa. The difference is what I'd imagine West and East Germany had to contend with once the Berlin Wall came down.

All that aside, I agree that the current US protectorates/districts/colonies/whatever should get a vote annually on either merging with the nearest US state (if relatively small), becoming a new one (if not small), and use geography (distance from the nearest state) and population (let's say that if you're under a half-million, no new state for you) as the factors, or full on independence so then they can annex their poor neighbors just like their big brother did when he was growing up.

I'm not saying this because of Senate/EC reasons, I just think it's coherent.

Well the EC should jsut be abolished, as for other territories I think it depends and I'm open for debate as long as they get a very loud voice in that debate. In regards to PR, it has always been up to PR, no more Hawaiis.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yeah, I am in that post. Still more polite than deserved.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well the EC should jsut be abolished, as for other territories I think it depends and I'm open for debate as long as they get a very loud voice in that debate. In regards to PR, it has always been up to PR, no more Hawaiis.

I think the US is likely headed to splitting into two countries anyway. Though the border will be very ugly
In this theoretical case, would the north territories allow for a corridor to unite the west and the east coast?

 

[Drakle]

Other than resigning the Paris climate accord, what other international policy actions is Biden's administration going to take?

Something to do with Yemen (hopefully more than just scaling back weapon sales to the Saudis), some form of Iran deal (harder since Trump has weakened the Iranian moderates), TPP, coordinate international efforts to deal with the rest of COVID/Vaccine, rebuilding the state department generally, try and bring US relations back from the slide they have suffered. I'd say it's an almost certainty that Biden and Harris do an international tour at some point to rebuild relations, likely after the COVID vaccine.

A lot of other questions remain somewhat of a mystery. And a lot of foreign policy is dependent on how domestic policy shakes out. Obama showed a lot more interest and broke with the establishment a lot more in his second term when it was clear that Republicans would prevent him from governing domestically. If Democrats have a good 2020, and a soft or positive 2022 than I suspect Biden will do a bit less in terms of foreign policy, vs the usual 2022. Whether that ends up being good or bad, depends on what is happening and the advice he is getting.

Harris as a very clear successor will also be interesting. She doesn't really have a lot of foreign policy credentials, so I suspect she will go on more public overseas trips than the normal VP. Though she will have to avoid any potential Benghazi's that the right-wing media gins up.

I will say that Biden's hawkishness is a bit overstated, but also that his foreign policy views are clearly from a different era. But underrated is the fact that Joe Biden listens to the political tune, and the American people seem pretty clearly sick of real large scale wars, and he will likely listen to it. Hillary Clinton believed in an overseas project, but I don't think Biden really does.

You could count the asterisks, misinfobot. It's the word you think it is.

The pejorative use is on point for a particular flavor of this stupid and idiotic multi-purpose word, given our interaction. I mean, we're deepening it here, and it's still holding from the idiot highschooler spouting crap point of view.

What's your point? Keep proclaiming to the thread how aggrieved and offended you are? No one seems to be buying your whole victim routine.

I really don't get the point of calling me a misinfobot? What misinformation have I peddled? I try and back my posts with evidence or sources when needed.