Tuesday Open Thread

45
  by: Colorado Pols December 8, 2020 at 6:39 AM MST

“Win or lose, we go shopping after the election.”

–Imelda Marcos

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45 Community Comments, Facebook Comments

  1. kickshot says:
    December 8, 2020 at 7:41 AM MST

    On Tuesday, the Arizona Republican Party cranked things up a few notches when they retweeted “Stop the Steal” advocate Ali Akbar for saying “I am willing to give my life for this fight.”

    “He is. Are you?” The party asked.

    —

    Another tweeter that should have be banned for his call to violence.

    • MattC says:
      December 8, 2020 at 10:23 AM MST

      If he chooses to die, that is his choice.

      Just like when wealthier Americans say that the wealthy should pay more in tax and the anti-tax crowd says if you want to pay more tax, go ahead.

      The problem, of course, is the real message is To arms! and further violent opposition. So the real response needs to be something more real-wordish sabre rattling.

      I was generally disgusted by COINTELPRO and similar federal intervention into local communities. But there must be a way for DHS and FBI to defend the Constitution of the United States that includes arresting and charging those who pursue violence.

  2. davebarnes says:
    December 8, 2020 at 8:11 AM MST

    Today is Finnish Music Day.

    Jean Sibelius was born on December 8, 1865.

  3. JohnInDenver says:
    December 8, 2020 at 8:38 AM MST

    Sailing into Safe Harbor today …

    Marc Elias closed out yesterday saying the score was Trump & co. 1— the good guys 49.

    Today’s crazy banana pants approach:  Lawsuit filed directly with the Supreme Court, brought by the state of Texas against Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Michigan seeking to invalidate their election results. For the full on crazy, Democracy Docket has posted the submission

     

    these flaws affect an outcome-determinative numbers of popular votes in a group of States that cast outcome-determinative numbers of electoral votes. This Court should grant leave to file the complaint and, ultimately, enjoin the use of unlawful election results without review and ratification by the Defendant States’ legislatures and remand to the Defendant States’ respective legislatures to appoint Presidential Electors in a manner consistent with the Electors Clause and pursuant to 3 U.S.C. § 2.

    • kickshot says:
      December 8, 2020 at 8:49 AM MST

      Dump's illegal appeals to state officials to work to overturn the election on his behalf seems to have worked in TX.

      TX has the proof of massive fraud in these other states?

      • Genghis says:
        December 9, 2020 at 7:42 AM MST

        The Court could have denied Texas's motion for leave to file outright, but didn't. It instead ordered MI, GA, WI and PA to file responses no later than tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. Naturally, the wingosphere considers this a complete and flawless victory, and are already planning festivities to celebrate Trump's second term.

        SCOTUSblog, one of a tiny handful of sources for reliable Supreme Court reporting, has a write-up on the case here.

        • kickshot says:
          December 9, 2020 at 8:03 AM MST

          Rachel covered this at length last night and gave a lengthy review of Paxton's history including yet another indictment for securities fraud while serving as AG … only in Texas, eh? He got reelected after that episode. No wonder dump likes the guy.

          Paxton needs a pardon and this is how he gets it; bowing to the law&order fascist in the WH.

          Watch this space.

          Rachel pooh-poohed the lawsuit but was unaware (or at least didn't mention) the requirement for response.

           

           

           

           

          • Genghis says:
            December 9, 2020 at 9:16 AM MST

            "Pooh-poohed" is an appropriate reaction, considering that Texas's motion, supporting brief and proposed complaint are Cleveland Steamers of shocking proportions.

            I'd ordinarily be comfortable as hell predicting a swift judicial beat-down here, but hey, 2020.

            • kickshot says:
              December 9, 2020 at 11:18 AM MST

              To someone not very familiar with SCOTUS machinations it just seemed nonsensical to ask for formal responses from the states when they have responded sufficiently and appropriately in the public forum.

              Lawyers creating billable hours for lawyers. Paxton deserves some measure of thanks along those lines.

    • kickshot says:
      December 8, 2020 at 9:52 AM MST

      How many outright lies and/or distortions of fact can you find in the above submission?

      Gold star for the correct answer.

      • JohnInDenver says:
        December 8, 2020 at 10:48 AM MST

        This case could well become a law school exercise … "how not to do appellate law"

        Lawyers with experience with the Supreme Court are having a great time tweeting problems with this submission. 

    • Early Worm says:
      December 8, 2020 at 10:02 AM MST

      There are a few dots to connect with this Supreme Court case. It was filed by Ken Paxton, the Texas AG. He is a Trump bootlicker. He is currently under indictment for state charges of felony securities fraud. Those charges have been pending for 5 years. Separately, the FBI is investigating him, based on allegations of eight of his former top aides, for improperly intervening in claims the AG's office was investigating against one of his top political donors. 

      The lawsuit is pure political theater. In exchange for this ridiculous suit, Paxton is no doubt hoping for one of the many pardons to be signed between now and January 20. 

      • kickshot says:
        December 8, 2020 at 10:06 AM MST

        quid pro quo

        Couldn't snag the Ukranian Pres so now dump is fishing in TX.

        Eventually whoever does oppo research for dump will be exposed.

        dump sounded like a mafia don from early in the campaign.

      • JohnInDenver says:
        December 8, 2020 at 10:52 AM MST

        Texas Solicitor General did not sign on.

        The Office of the Solicitor General is responsible for supervising and approving all appellate litigation for the State of Texas and for ensuring consistency in legal positions taken by the state. The Solicitor General determines which division within the Office of the Attorney General will handle any appeal in a case. The Office of the Solicitor General is responsible for handling the appeals deemed most significant to Texas’s interests and the development of federal and state jurisprudence. 

        Ted Cruz used to be Texas Solicitor General — so maybe this is the case Cruz was tweeting about yesterday, offering to do oral argument if the Supreme Court granted cert.

  4. CDW says:
    December 8, 2020 at 9:05 AM MST

    It wouldn't surprise me if alito, barret, gorsuch, and thomas agreed to year one or more of the cases. 

  5. MichaelBowman says:
    December 8, 2020 at 9:25 AM MST

    Will Jenna Ellis be known hereafter as the first American to contract COVID via a fart?

  6. Diogenesdemar says:
    December 8, 2020 at 10:18 AM MST

    Filed under: "Walker, Scott — Greatest Hits"; "Corporate Welfare — Who Really Pays?"; and "Same As It Ever Was" . . .

    'They demolished my house for this?' Residents outraged by the Foxconn factory that fizzled

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/08/wisconsin-foxconn-factory-residents-displaced

    • MattC says:
      December 8, 2020 at 10:51 AM MST

      I have a cousin who works at that facility. He makes $10.04/hr for what he describes as night shift sweeping the floors. He opted out of the health plan because it costs too much.

      He has made two work related trips to the ER due to inhalation of hazardous material. The first time he went home first so the company was not going to pay. The ER sent them the bill anyway because they knew my cousin never would.

      He still thinks it was a great deal.

  7. itlduso says:
    December 8, 2020 at 10:22 AM MST

    42,918 votes.  That is how close we were to reelecting Trump.  

    A turn of these votes in GA (11,779), WI (20,682) and AZ (10,457) would have changed 37 Electoral votes to Trump creating a 269-269 tie.  Then, it would have gone to the House of Representatives where each state receives one vote based on their Dem/GOP representation, of which the GOP has the majority.

    That is a smaller number than the approximately 74,000 votes that swayed the 2016 election. 

    American democracy dodged a heat seeking missile by less than 4 tenths of one percent of the total votes cast in those three states. 

     

    • ParkHill says:
      December 8, 2020 at 10:55 AM MST

      Do we have Kanye West to thank?

      • JohnInDenver says:
        December 8, 2020 at 11:04 AM MST

        I don't think Kanye West by himself would have made a difference.  But "other candidates" votes were larger than the Democratic – Republican difference in Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona.  

        • RepealAndReplace says:
          December 8, 2020 at 11:18 AM MST

          Kanye was thrown off the ballot in Wisconsin. So maybe we should be thanking Howie Hawkins for this close call. At least I’m over Jill Stein.

          Cue the ride of the Valkyries.

    • JohnInDenver says:
      December 8, 2020 at 10:57 AM MST

      And remember … if those votes "flipped" instead of just being out voted or having them stay home, it would only take HALF as many.  So, less than 25,000 people could have voted differently and we would have had Trump 2.0.

      After two of the last six elections with the popular vote loser emerging to be sworn into office, it would be three of the last six.   Time to find a way to move to a National Popular Vote, so EVERYONE can have an equal vote for President.

      • kwtree says:
        December 8, 2020 at 2:40 PM MST

        Organized, carefully planned voter suppression in battleground states suppressed millions of votes in 2020, primarily from Democratic-leaning voters.

        That’s a far greater impact than that of third party candidates. 

        In any event, minor parties have a Constitutional right to run candidates; it isn’t something we need to “fix” to repair our democracy.

        However, we do need laws and policies to fix how we vote in America. National Popular Vote, and Federal standards states must meet including universal registration and mail in ballots, same day registration, minimum number of polling stations per population, and the right to “cure” faulty ballots need to be the law of the land. We’ll also likely need to a newVoting Rights Act ( VRAA) so that partisans can’t just change the rules to disenfranchise voters. 
         

        As much as some delight in scapegoating progressive voters for narrow Democratic margins, voter suppression is a much larger problem. 

        • RepealAndReplace says:
          December 8, 2020 at 3:26 PM MST

          “suppressed millions of votes in 2020, primarily from Democratic-leaning voters.”

          If people are getting phone calls from the opposition party telling them that election day has been moved to the following Wednesday and are stupid enough to adhere to that advice, that is not voter suppression. If voters are told by the opposition party that they should write in “Donald Trump” in the Georgia senate special election and waste their votes doing so, that too would not be voter suppression.

          There are not doubt instances of genuine voters suppression but playing on people’s stupidity does not amount to voter suppression. That’s called politics.

          Unfortunately for you, we can quantify the number of votes lost to frivolous vanity candidates on the left. (And on the right, but that does not upset me; it brings me joy when it happens.)

          But you can’t quantify votes lost to “voter suppression”  because there isn’t even a uniform definition for what constitutes voter suppression.

          Making someone guess of the number of jelly-beans in a jar before letting them, IMHO is voter suppression.  Expecting them to know that election day is held on election day – and if they are so stupid as to think otherwise – is not.

           

          • kwtree says:
            December 9, 2020 at 12:00 AM MST

            ACLU, the Brennan Center, Former AG Eric Holder. Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight, and many others seem to have no problem “quantifying” voter suppression. It’s how they fight and win court cases against suppressing voters. 

            That’s because voters are suppressed not only by misinforming them, as in your examples, but by closing 90% of their polling locations, requiring witnesses on absentee ballots, then changing rules 2 more times within two weeks of an election.(333,000 in S Carolina).  Or purging hundreds of thousands of  mostly minority  voters before an election, but not telling voters and not allowing them to “cure” their ballots. Brennan Center calculated16 million were disenfranchised between 2014 and 2016 alone. Or making voters stand in the snow all day in a pandemic to cast a ballot.  Or many other fun creative ways. Which are different for each state and locality. And all are quantifiable.

            Lawyers and sociologists use census counts and voter registration data and polls and surveys to quantify them and to win court decisions prohibiting discriminatory election practices. 

            You know what ACLU and Fair Fight and all those organizations don’t do? They don’t try to keep third party organizations off the ballot. Occasionally, they help them to access the ballot. Because the Constitution says it’s their right. Because candidates are supposed to grow campaigns based on the power of their ideas and messaging. That’s how democracies are supposed to work.
             

            Now clearly you think those priorities are backassward. You don’t like minority parties  and you don’t like progressives or leftists and you don’t like me or my ideas, even though you constantly try to  bait me into this same old tired argument. Whatever. 

            Voter suppression is real. It matters a lot more than your whining about Jill Stein or Kanye West or whomever crapped in your cornflakes this week. And yes, the Kanye candidacy was clearly a form of voter suppression by  diversion, calculated to draw off disenchanted voters.  We managed to overcome voter suppression this time, but just barely. Trump’s awfulness helped. 

            We need NPV and Federal voting standards. We don’t need to keep 3rd party voters off the ballot.

  8. Genghis says:
    December 8, 2020 at 12:48 PM MST

    Apparently the Arizona Republican Party has asked its members whether they're willing to die to overturn the presidential election.

    Any comment from the Party of Lincoln crew?

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