All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[GindyPosts]

This is an example of why people who haven't read anything since narrowly escaping high school don't understand why "populism" is a bad thing

For decades, conservatives have ran on populist platforms, arguing about "the liberal elite" being the obstinate force that ignores everyone else's pleas, as if that is a thing that exists. Meanwhile, it seems like the only person they keep coming up with is George Soros (sometimes Bill Gates, but he's not Jewish enough for most conspiracies), due to the general ideology of individuals who could be categorized as "elite" in the traditional sense (i.e. monetary value) lean heavily into conservatism.

[Mister Mets]

Hollywood actors and directors might like to get political, but producers and executives like to stay out of it. Notice how whenever a Senator or Congressman or office holder is the victim or a suspect on a cop show, what are the two words you never hear? Democrat and Republican. No matter how righteous or how corrupt the character is, they like to keep their political affiliation vague. That way, if the character is depicted as a hero, everyone can believe that the character is a member of their party, or that the character is a member of the other party if they're portrayed as a villain.

I mean, even when a regular character on a sitcom decides to run for City Council, they rarely mention what party the character is affiliated with.

Quite a few shows tend to reveal the partisan affiliations of characters. This is the case in The Good Wife, Scandal, House of Cards, and anything Sorkin. It is often necessary in a series about politicians, when it's relevant to the relationships between characters. It matters for a storyline whether a Senator is in the same party as the President.

I can understand why TV writers might want to keep it vague if a show's case of the day involves a political figure. It's not that the audience wants to believe a fictional good mayor is one of theirs, and a fictional bad senator is on the other side, but they might get pissed off at the perception that showrunners are making some kind of grand statement about political parties when they've got their fingers on the scale by being able to make up the circumstances.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Honestly, yes.

The party loves Stacey Abrams, who has kept complaining about the illegitimacy of a close but definitive loss in Georgia.

Gonna gloss over the mass voter roll purges there, huh?

Regular Republican logic. When accused of something illegitimate, they try to appropriate someone else's misfortune and spin it as their own

[worstblogever]

Gonna gloss over the mass voter roll purges there, huh?

Regular Republican logic. When accused of something illegitimate, they try to appropriate someone else's misfortune and spin it as their own

This is the double standard. Republican loser is allowed to claim voter fraud without evidence.

Stacey Abrams can't point out that her opponent was in charge of the elections and disqualified hundreds of thousands of ballots in his narrow victory, and that's not any sane kind of democracy.

Therefore, "both sides are just as bad" even though the GOP hasn't any f***ing evidence.

G-A-S-L-I-G-H-T

[Tendrin]

This is the double standard. Republican loser is allowed to claim voter fraud without evidence.

Stacey Abrams can't point out that her opponent was in charge of the elections and disqualified hundreds of thousands of ballots in his narrow victory, and that's not any sane kind of democracy.

Therefore, "both sides are just as bad" even though the GOP hasn't any f***ing evidence.

G-A-S-L-I-G-H-T

I mean, sheesh. They're STILL whining about Bork while commanding a now 6-3 majority.

[Mister Mets]

Gonna gloss over the mass voter roll purges there, huh?

Regular Republican logic. When accused of something illegitimate, they try to appropriate someone else's misfortune and spin it as their own

You cut out the portion of my post in which I did address those. I wrote "There was also a lot of complaints about how people were removed from the voter rolls, as part of a law the Democrats had passed when they held control of the state."

I wrote about it last year.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post4494792

Many of the people removed from the voter rolls were those who had died, moved out of state, or were incarcerated.

The rule in Georgia for over a generation (adopted in the early 1990s under Democratic leadership) had been that people get removed from the voter rolls if they haven't voted in seven years (they do receive notification). For this to change the outcome of the election, there would have to be a significant number of Democrats who did not go out to vote from 2011-2018, including when Obama ran for reelection, but did intend to vote for Stacey Abrams.

This seems unlikely.

It was also the law that had been on the books for over a generation, back when Democrats controlled the state government.

This is the double standard. Republican loser is allowed to claim voter fraud without evidence.

Stacey Abrams can't point out that her opponent was in charge of the elections and disqualified hundreds of thousands of ballots in his narrow victory, and that's not any sane kind of democracy.

Therefore, "both sides are just as bad" even though the GOP hasn't any f***ing evidence.

G-A-S-L-I-G-H-T

A Republican Secretary of State lost the race for Governor in Kansas in the same cycle, so their ability to sway elections in their favor is rather limited.

Cathy Cox, a Democratic Secretary of State, ran for Governor in Georgia in 2006, so the idea of elections officials running for office wasn't exactly taboo.

Max Cleland, a Democratic Senator and Obama administration official, had served as Georgia Secretary of State when he ran successfully for Senate.

I just looked it up. Georgia had one weird Secretary of State, Benjamin Fotson who stayed in the office for 34 years, until his death in 1979. Since then, every secretary of state ran for statewide office, sometimes unsuccessfully and sometimes successfully (Kemp, Cleland.)

I completely understand the argument that there's a conflict of interest with the supervisor of elections overseeing their election to another office. But that's an argument to have about changes in the future, rather than why someone shouldn't be running at the time, when that was the norm. It also neglects that someone who isn't running for a particular office can still have partisan preferences, especially if we're talking about individuals in an elected office.

I get the idea that this shouldn't be a partisan office. But that's not the attitude Democrats have in the state. It is a position for which the party has routinely nominated career politicians; former state legislator/ gubernatorial cabinet official Cathy Cox in 2002 (she won), state legislator Gail Buckner in 2006, state legislator Georganna Sinkfield in 2010, failed candidate for state legislature Doreen Carter in 2014, and former Congressman John Barrow in 2018.

[Wildling]

This is the double standard. Republican loser is allowed to claim voter fraud without evidence.

Stacey Abrams can't point out that her opponent was in charge of the elections and disqualified hundreds of thousands of ballots in his narrow victory, and that's not any sane kind of democracy.

Therefore, "both sides are just as bad" even though the GOP hasn't any f***ing evidence.

G-A-S-L-I-G-H-T

And the GOP/Trump keeps spitting more affidavits and frivolous lawsuits to undermine democracy than Mets can write posts people can politely bother to keep track of.

Future you chose and all that.

[GindyPosts]

I mean, sheesh. They're STILL whining about Bork while commanding a now 6-3 majority.

The Supreme Court has a literal conservative slant with a good portion of those judges being rather spry, and they still whine it's not good enough.

[Tendrin]

The Supreme Court has a literal conservative slant with a good portion of those judges being rather spry, and they still whine it's not good enough.

Well, of *course*. They haven't put Hillary in jail yet.

[Wildling]

Well, of *course*. They haven't put Hillary in jail yet.

Or beheaded Fauci? He's like, the Hillary of health nowadays. Not at all about state-sponsored herd "mentality".

All jokes and stuff, but if I hear about riots in 2021 about not taking vaccines, I'm really going to be pissed outside the internet.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Saw this item on Twitter:



Despite all that, Trump lost the Electoral College by some 70 votes and the general election by six or seven million. Imagine how badly Trump would've been butchered WITHOUT those machinations by the GOP. Food for thought.

[Steel Inquisitor]

You cut out the portion of my post in which I did address those. I wrote "There was also a lot of complaints about how people were removed from the voter rolls, as part of a law the Democrats had passed when they held control of the state."

I wrote about it last year.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post4494792

Many of the people removed from the voter rolls were those who had died, moved out of state, or were incarcerated.

The rule in Georgia for over a generation (adopted in the early 1990s under Democratic leadership) had been that people get removed from the voter rolls if they haven't voted in seven years (they do receive notification). For this to change the outcome of the election, there would have to be a significant number of Democrats who did not go out to vote from 2011-2018, including when Obama ran for reelection, but did intend to vote for Stacey Abrams.

This seems unlikely.

It was also the law that had been on the books for over a generation, back when Democrats controlled the state government.

Except that wasn't what was going on in Georgia, people who lived there were getting purged.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ion-brian-kemp

Under Georgia procedures, registered voters who have not cast ballots for three years are sent a notice asking them to confirm they still live at their address. If they don’t return it, they are marked inactive. If they don’t vote for two more general elections after that, they are removed from the rolls.

Georgia removed more than 534,000 voters that way in 2016 and 2017. Using databases employed by commercial mailing firms, analysts commissioned by Palast’s group found that 334,134 of those citizens actually still live at the address they registered.

Of the rest, 41,797 had in fact moved out of state, and 8,990 moved from one county to another within Georgia. More than 19,000 had died. Others could not be determined.

And it gets worse, Kemp's administration erased evidence during the investigation.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/*******...chine-lawsuit/

This is whitewashing how bad voting controlled by the GOP was in Georgia.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Except that wasn't what was going on in Georgia, people who lived there were getting purged.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ion-brian-kemp



And it gets worse, Kemp's administration erased evidence during the investigation.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/*******...chine-lawsuit/

This is whitewashing how bad voting controlled by the GOP was in Georgia.

Your basic Republicans.

"Fraud is happening! We should know, we do it all the time!"

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Despite all that, Trump lost the Electoral College by some 70 votes and the general election by six or seven million. Imagine how badly Trump would've been butchered WITHOUT those machinations by the GOP. Food for thought.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com...11/checkmate-3

LG&M had a great post about this and how for the Dems winning isn't just about the 270 votes:

Biden will become president on January 20. This doesn’t mean that we should be complacent about the Electoral College, which continues to lie around like a loaded weapon ready to produce an even more undemocratic outcome than 2016. It’s also not great that as long as the Supreme Court is the way it is it’s not enough for Dems to merely win; they need to win out of election theft range. And can we talk again about how clueless you had to be to criticize Biden for expanding the campaign to Georgia and Arizona? The Biden campaign in fact deserves a lot of credit for recognizing Trump’s best chance would be to have it come down to a close contest in Pennsylvania, making an Electoral College cushion critically important. (I think the gutsy and correct decision by Fox to call Arizona for Biden on Election Night and tell Trump to piss up a rope when he complained was also probably an important event; it certainly got me a foot back from the ledge.)

Anyway, unfair as it is, Biden did what he needed to do, and he’s going to be the next president.

It's fitting that the Democrat Party has become the party of American immigrants and minorities. They too have to work "twice as hard to be half as good" as the Republicans on Elections.

[Mister Mets]

Except that wasn't what was going on in Georgia, people who lived there were getting purged.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ion-brian-kemp



And it gets worse, Kemp's administration erased evidence during the investigation.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/*******...chine-lawsuit/

This is whitewashing how bad voting controlled by the GOP was in Georgia.

Weirdly, it seems that the board is censoring "Georgia -" ( in any links, and replacing it with asterisks, so if anyone want to check those links, they should replace the asterisks with "georgia -" (removing the space between georgia and the dash)

The existing law in Georgia was that if someone had not voted in seven years, they get notified by mail, prior to the removal from the rolls. That law had been passed under democratic leadership in the 90s, and applied only to people who had not voted for seven years, including Obama's reelection. You could disagree with the law, but it was the law.

As for the 2019 lawsuit, we shouldn't take what's said by one side in a lawsuit completing at face value. The suit seemed to be about a different topic (Was there a security vulnerability?) and it seems inaccurate to suggest the Kemp administration erased evidence, as the mistake was made by technicians at the Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University. This came out during an investigation by an assistant Attorney General (in Georgia, the Attorney General is a Republican.)

https://******.com/article/877ee1015...5f63538b035d3f

In the above link, the asterisks are "ap news" (no space)

To get the link to work, replace the asterisks with "ap news" (removing the space; if I don't include the space, I think it will result in this post being bleeped.)

The server’s data was destroyed July 7 by technicians at the Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University, which runs the state’s election system. The data wipe was revealed in an email sent last week from an assistant state attorney general to plaintiffs in the case that was later obtained by the AP. More emails obtained in a public records request confirmed the wipe.

The lawsuit, filed July 3 by a diverse group of election reform advocates, aims to force Georgia to retire its antiquated and heavily criticized election technology. The server in question, which served as a statewide staging location for key election-related data, made national headlines in June after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn’t fixed six months after he reported it to election authorities.

WIPED OUT

It’s not clear who ordered the server’s data irretrievably erased.

The Kennesaw elections center answers to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brian Kemp, a Republican running for governor in 2018 and the suit’s main defendant. His spokeswoman issued a statement Thursday saying his office had neither involvement nor advanced warning of the decision. It blamed “the undeniable ineptitude” at the Kennesaw State elections center.

After declining comment for more than 24 hours, Kennesaw State’s media office issued a statement late Thursday attributing the server wiping to “standard operating procedure.” It did not respond to the AP’s question on who ordered the action.

And the GOP/Trump keeps spitting more affidavits and frivolous lawsuits to undermine democracy than Mets can write posts people can politely bother to keep track of.

Future you chose and all that.

The frivolous lawsuits get smacked down.

One of the arguments people use in Stacey Abrams' favor is that she never filed any lawsuits, although this has the downside that she made some serious claims and insinuations, without putting it up to the scrutiny of the legal process.