SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[Jub]

I don't disagree that a lot of people (if you mean "people on the Left") want more than Biden is offering. But the difference between him and Trump is that Biden can be, at least to some extent, pushed. Biden listens, and modifies his positions, whereas Trump responds with jackboots and even when he does concede something, tends to quickly backtrack or not follow through. So the difference is that one man can be worked with, negotiated with, pressured- and the other is a raging narcissistic psychopath.

Does that mean that Biden is ideal? No, of course not. He's a Not Trump placeholder until we can get someone better. I'm still 90+% going to support a primary challenge against him, presuming there is a viable one (its also possible he only serves one term and his VP is the nominee next time).

For the record, my ideal 2024 ticket, as of right now, would be AOC/Tlaib.

A vote for Biden is a vote for more of the same. I'd almost rather another term of Trump if it would mean people getting angry enough to push for actual fixes and not more empty platitudes from Democrats who care more about keeping their seats and getting another term than they do about fixing issues for people.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, at least you're honest about it, but I find the willingness to condone the reelection of a man who is literally gassing minorities in concentration camps in the hopes that it will lead to what you want in the long run to be staggeringly immoral. You are very cavalier about treating thousands or potentially millions of humans as acceptable collateral damage to get what you want. Plus, like all accelerationists, your position relies on a very arrogant assumption (that if things get bad enough, your utopia will rise from the ashes, rather than yet another bloody revolution which either ends in failure, or leads to another regime just as bad as the one it replaced). Hell, if four years of Trump didn't get us what you consider "real" change, what's the guarantee that another four will? Or another ten? Or twenty? How long does it go on, how bad does it have to get, how many have to die before accelerationists stop pretending that simply destroying as much as possible is a sure path to progress?

I would also dispute that Biden is simply "more of the same". First, because a return to the Obama-era status quo would still be much, much better than what we have now, and secondly, because Biden and the party have moved markedly Left on several issues since then.

[Jub]

Well, at least you're honest about it, but I find the willingness to condone the reelection of a man who is literally gassing minorities in concentration camps in the hopes that it will lead to what you want in the long run to be staggeringly immoral. You are very cavalier about treating thousands or potentially millions of humans as acceptable collateral damage to get what you want. Plus, like all accelerationists, your position relies on a very arrogant assumption (that if things get bad enough, your utopia will rise from the ashes, rather than yet another bloody revolution which either ends in failure, or leads to another regime just as bad as the one it replaced). Hell, if four years of Trump didn't get us what you consider "real" change, what's the guarantee that another four will? Or another ten? Or twenty? How long does it go on, how bad does it have to get, how many have to die before accelerationists stop pretending that simply destroying as much as possible is a sure path to progress?

I would also dispute that Biden is simply "more of the same". First, because a return to the Obama-era status quo would still be much, much better than what we have now, and secondly, because Biden and the party have moved markedly Left on several issues since then.

Hasn't Trump almost directly lead to the current BLM movement? Hasn't standing opposed to him allowed voices like AOC's to rise to prominence?

Also, moving leftwards on several issues doesn't mean they've even moved into a space worthy of being called left. Every single plan of Bernies could have gone off without a hitch and the US would still lean right compared to Canada and be lightyears behind Europe. The US 'Left' simply isn't and resetting things back to the only a little more to the right than they were after the last Republican term with a couple of small changes isn't doing anybody any good. It's merely causing fewer people active harm and that's not commendable, its the bare fucking minimum.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, at least you're honest about it, but I find the willingness to condone the reelection of a man who is literally gassing minorities in concentration camps in the hopes that it will lead to what you want in the long run to be staggeringly immoral. You are very cavalier about treating thousands or potentially millions of humans as acceptable collateral damage to get what you want. Plus, like all accelerationists, your position relies on a very arrogant assumption (that if things get bad enough, your utopia will rise from the ashes, rather than yet another bloody revolution which either ends in failure, or leads to another regime just as bad as the one it replaced). Hell, if four years of Trump didn't get us what you consider "real" change, what's the guarantee that another four will? Or another ten? Or twenty? How long does it go on, how bad does it have to get, how many have to die before accelerationists stop pretending that simply destroying as much as possible is a sure path to progress?

I would also dispute that Biden is simply "more of the same". First, because a return to the Obama-era status quo would still be much, much better than what we have now, and secondly, because Biden and the party have moved markedly Left on several issues since then.

Hasn't Trump almost directly lead to the current BLM movement? Hasn't standing opposed to him allowed voices like AOC's to rise to prominence?

No, he hasn't. He's exacerbated the violence, and suffered politically as a consequence, but Black Lives Matter has been around since the middle of the Obama Presidency, and he was not directly responsible for any of the recent police killings that sparked this uprising. He has contributed to a general climate of racism and tension, but police violence and systemic racism predate his Presidency, as I'm sure you're aware.

Trump's Presidency has fueled the rise of the Left, but that too began before his Presidency, with the Occupy Movement and then the Sanders campaign of 2016. I am also concerned that, far from invigorating the Left, a Trump win now will be immensely demoralizing, divide the opposition to him, and probably be followed by a violent crackdown on said opposition. And if you're hoping for a revolution, I think a successful revolution would be very hard to pull off if Trump clearly won the race, because most of the military would likely feel obliged to back him. If Biden wins, and Trump cheats/refuses to recognize it, is when I think there would be the most support to remove him from office.

Also, moving leftwards on several issues doesn't mean they've even moved into a space worthy of being called left. Every single plan of Bernies could have gone off without a hitch and the US would still lean right compared to Canada and be lightyears behind Europe. The US 'Left' simply isn't and resetting things back to the only a little more to the right than they were after the last Republican term with a couple of small changes isn't doing anybody any good. It's merely causing fewer people active harm and that's not commendable, its the bare fucking minimum.

Actually, some of what Bernie proposed was significantly Left of the Canadian status quo. Some of it wasn't. But that aside- the point is that under the Democrats, we are moving slowly in the right direction, while under Republicans we move quickly in the wrong one.

[Jub]

No, he hasn't. He's exacerbated the violence, and suffered politically as a consequence, but Black Lives Matter has been around since the middle of the Obama Presidency, and he was not directly responsible for any of the recent police killings that sparked this uprising. He has contributed to a general climate of racism and tension, but police violence and systemic racism predate his Presidency, as I'm sure you're aware.

He brought it out into the light and made people mad enough to do something about it. He's a common foe that people who might overwise look at one another as enemies can rally against. Is Biden really the best we can cash this unity in for?

Actually, some of what Bernie proposed was significantly Left of the Canadian status quo. Some of it wasn't. But that aside- the point is that under the Democrats, we are moving slowly in the right direction, while under Republicans we move quickly in the wrong one.

One or two left-leaning policies doesn't make a country left. Also, we need to see Biden and the Dems actually act for once, Obama talked a smooth game but got precious of value done. Show me what makes it likely that Biden will actually accomplish something.

[The Romulan Republic]

He brought it out into the light and made people mad enough to do something about it. He's a common foe that people who might overwise look at one another as enemies can rally against. Is Biden really the best we can cash this unity in for?

He did. As did covid, and some other things.

As to whether Biden is the best we can get- well, you know that I backed Warren initially, and then Sanders. But despite many other strong options, and despite four years of Trump, the voters chose Biden. And its worth noting that it was the black community more than any other, ie the ones who are among the most oppressed groups in the country, and the ones who's suffering is at the heart of these protests and uprisings, that put Biden where he is today.

One or two left-leaning policies doesn't make a country left. Also, we need to see Biden and the Dems actually act for once, Obama talked a smooth game but got precious of value done. Show me what makes it likely that Biden will actually accomplish something.

A lot depends on whether Democrats control the House and Senate or not. The President does not have the authority to enact anything he wants unilaterally (and considering who the PotUS is right now, that's a damn good thing). But the Covid situation has also made a lot of things at least possible to consider that were politically unthinkable before.

[Jub]

As to whether Biden is the best we can get- well, you know that I backed Warren initially, and then Sanders. But despite many other strong options, and despite four years of Trump, the voters chose Biden. And its worth noting that it was the black community more than any other, ie the ones who are among the most oppressed groups in the country, and the ones who's suffering is at the heart of these protests and uprisings, that put Biden where he is today.

It would have been nice if any of the other candidates, and the Democratic party in general, made the black voters feel like they had their interests in mind. It would also be nice if the US system, or even just the primaries, allowed people to rank their choices so it's not just first choice are nothing.

A lot depends on whether Democrats control the House and Senate or not. The President does not have the authority to enact anything he wants unilaterally (and considering who the PotUS is right now, that's a damn good thing). But the Covid situation has also made a lot of things at least possible to consider that were politically unthinkable before.

I suspect you'd be singing the exact same tune regardless of which Dem won the primary because of your unity against Trump at almost any cost stance.

[The Romulan Republic]

I honestly don't know what I would have done had it been Bloomberg or Gabbard. I am very glad I won't have to find out.

I can't speak for anyone else, but the impression I got was less that black voters didn't think other candidates had their interests in mind, but that many black voters (black voters are not homogenous after all) thought Biden had a better chance of actually winning. A lot of voters certainly supported Sanders' policies yet voted Biden, presumably because they didn't think Bernie could win.

I won't disagree with you about ranked ballots.

[The Romulan Republic]

In other news, Biden expresses concern on the Daily Show that Trump will cheat or refuse to accept election results, but confidence that the military leadership will not side with him:

https://globalnews.ca/news/7053508/joe- ... -election/

Former U.S. vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, says his biggest fear is that Donald Trump will try to steal the election in November — and that he won’t accept the result if he loses.

“It’s my greatest concern, my single greatest concern. This president is going to try to steal this election,” Biden said during an interview with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show on Wednesday.

Biden said he worries about a repeat of the disastrous voting process that happened Tuesday in Georgia, where several counties with large minority populations faced hours-long lineups to vote in an election run by the state’s Republican government. He also referred to several recent tweets from Trump in which the president suggested — without evidence — that voting by mail in Democrat-governed states would lead to voter fraud.

“This is a guy who said all mail-in ballots are fraudulent, voting by mail, while he sits behind the desk in the Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in the primary,” Biden said.

Trump has said that mail-in ballots would lead to “massive fraud,” while failing to provide evidence to back up his repeated claims on Twitter. He also tried to vote by mail in Florida while claiming the White House as his home address last year, according to state election records obtained by the Washington Post. He later changed his address to a Florida location and successfully voted by mail.

A recent analysis by the Washington Post found a “minuscule” amount of potential fraud in three vote-by-mail states, based on data gathered from five elections between 2016 and 2018. The analysis found that only 0.0025 per cent of the ballots were suspicious.

Host Trevor Noah also asked Biden if he’s thought about what might happen if Trump is defeated at the polls but refuses to accept the result — particularly after Trump repeatedly claimed that the 2016 election might be “rigged” before he won it.

“Yes, I have,” Biden said. He added that he trusts top military officials will do the right thing, after several of them came out to denounce Trump’s crackdown on a peaceful protest outside the White House last week.

“I am absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch,” Biden said.

Biden was referring to the incident in Lafayette Square on June 1, when security forces attacked peaceful protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets and flashbang grenades to clear a path for Trump to walk to a nearby church for a photo op.

Gen. Mark Milley, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologized on Thursday for joining the president’s photo op after the protest crackdown.

“I should not have been there,” Milley said in a pre-recorded commencement address video for National Defense University.

Several ex-military officials also came out to condemn the use of force against American citizens, including Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s own ex-secretary of defence.

“Never did I dream that troops … would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside,” Mattis wrote in a statement to The Atlantic.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that many National Guard troops who participated in the crackdown are ashamed to tell their families about it.

Nevertheless, Trump bragged about how easily his forces dispersed the protesters in a tweet on Thursday morning, describing the crackdown as a “walk in the park” for “the Guard, D.C. Police, & S.S.”

— With files from The Associated Press

Hopefully his assessment of the military's loyalties is correct. It is nonetheless striking that Biden is openly acknowledging the risk that he may have to rely on the military to ensure that the election results are observed, although I also find it somewhat reassuring that he is aware of and acknowledging the danger.

[The Romulan Republic]

Leaks indicate Biden's VP list has narrowed to around half a dozen serious contenders, including Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Susan Rice, while Klobuchar's star seems to have fallen:

https://apnews.com/cfb9f51767aeee83f1f426fb42070a9e

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden’s search for a running mate is entering a second round of vetting for a dwindling list of potential vice presidential nominees, with several black women in strong contention.

Democrats with knowledge of the process said Biden’s search committee has narrowed the choices to as few as six serious contenders after initial interviews. Among the group still in contention: Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California, as well as Susan Rice, who served as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser.

Those with knowledge declined to name other contenders and said the process remains somewhat fluid. Additional candidates may still be asked to submit to the extensive document review process now underway for some top contenders. Those familiar with Biden’s search spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the process.

The campaign dismissed the idea of a shortened list as early speculation. “Those who talk don’t know and those who know don’t talk,” said Andrew Bates, a Biden spokesperson.

Biden, who has already said he will pick a woman as his running mate, is facing increased calls from Democrats to put a woman of color on the ticket — both because of the outsize role that black voters played in Biden’s road to the nomination and because of the reckoning over racism and inequality roiling the nation following the death of George Floyd. The black Minneapolis man died after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for several minutes, an episode that was captured on video.

Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and former Democratic National Committee chairman, said that while Biden’s choice was likely to be “all about personal chemistry,” it would be “exciting for the party” to have a black woman on a major party presidential ticket for the first time.

The campaign’s list includes several black women, including Harris and Rice. Advisers have also looked closely at Florida Rep. Val Demings and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, both of whom are black, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Latina.

Biden’s vetting committee had conversations with a larger group of women earlier this spring; those continuing on in the process have been asked to turn over financial records, past writings and other documentation. Biden has had various public and private interactions with many of the women his vetting committee has considered thus far, but has not yet had any formal one-on-one interviews expressly to discuss the No. 2 spot on the ticket. Those aren’t expected for several weeks.

Rice, who worked closely with Biden during his time as vice president, has emerged as a favorite among some former Obama administration officials and is personally close to the former president. She has never held elected office but has extensive foreign policy experience, including as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She’s also been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration since leaving the White House and considered running for U.S. Senate in Maine.

Rice has long been a target of Republicans, including for statements she made after the deadly 2012 attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Republicans have also accused her of spying on Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, though records declassified by the Trump administration show no evidence of Rice improperly accessing any information.

Harris and Warren have been seen as top contenders for the No. 2 spot since ending their own presidential campaigns.

Warren and Biden have forged a surprising bond in recent months and talk regularly about the progressive policy ideas the Massachusetts senator put at the forefront of her campaign. Biden already has adopted her proposed bankruptcy law overhaul. And now, with the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic slowdown elevating the nuts-and-bolts of governing, some Democrats see Warren’s policy credentials as an asset to the ticket.

A Biden-Warren pairing would mean both Democrats on the ticket are white and in their 70s. Biden is 77, and Warren is 70.

Harris is the lone black contender who has won statewide office, notable experience given Biden’s emphasis on wanting a partner “ready to be president.” She and Biden have also demonstrated a comfortable manner with each other in online fundraisers. Harris is an expert voice in discussions of criminal justice, but some black progressives view her background as a prosecutor skeptically.

One contender whose standing does appear to have fallen is Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who was a prosecutor years ago in the county that includes Minneapolis. During that period, more than two dozen people — mostly minorities — died during encounters with police.

While the people with knowledge of Biden’s vetting process did not rule Klobuchar out, she is widely viewed among Democrats with close ties to the Biden campaign as less likely to be tapped given recent events.

Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Alexandra Jaffe and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

Glad Klobuchar is dropping, disappointed that it looks like Stacey Abrams isn't being given more consideration. Of those three names (Warren, Harris, Rice), my top pick would probably be Warren, though the argument for a black woman now is very strong.

Rice seems to be being pushed by the Obama camp, which likely gives her a good shot. Of course, if its her, basically means all the old Benghazi shit is going to get trotted out again.

[loomer]

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police
Mariame Kaba

Congressional Democrats want to make it easier to identify and prosecute police misconduct; Joe Biden wants to give police departments $300 million. But efforts to solve police violence through liberal reforms like these have failed for nearly a century.

Enough. We can’t reform the police. The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police.

There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized populations to protect the status quo.

So when you see a police officer pressing his knee into a black man’s neck until he dies, that’s the logical result of policing in America. When a police officer brutalizes a black person, he is doing what he sees as his job.

Now two weeks of nationwide protests have led some to call for defunding the police, while others argue that doing so would make us less safe.

The first thing to point out is that police officers don’t do what you think they do. They spend most of their time responding to noise complaints, issuing parking and traffic citations, and dealing with other noncriminal issues. We’ve been taught to think they “catch the bad guys; they chase the bank robbers; they find the serial killers,” said Alex Vitale, the coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College, in an interview with Jacobin. But this is “a big myth,” he said. “The vast majority of police officers make one felony arrest a year. If they make two, they’re cop of the month.”

We can’t simply change their job descriptions to focus on the worst of the worst criminals. That’s not what they are set up to do.

Second, a “safe” world is not one in which the police keep black and other marginalized people in check through threats of arrest, incarceration, violence and death.

I’ve been advocating the abolition of the police for years. Regardless of your view on police power — whether you want to get rid of the police or simply to make them less violent — here’s an immediate demand we can all make: Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in half. Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people. The idea is gaining traction in Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles and other cities.

History is instructive, not because it offers us a blueprint for how to act in the present but because it can help us ask better questions for the future.

The Lexow Committee undertook the first major investigation into police misconduct in New York City in 1894. At the time, the most common complaint against the police was about “clubbing” — “the routine bludgeoning of citizens by patrolmen armed with nightsticks or blackjacks,” as the historian Marilynn Johnson has written.

The Wickersham Commission, convened to study the criminal justice system and examine the problem of Prohibition enforcement, offered a scathing indictment in 1931, including evidence of brutal interrogation strategies. It put the blame on a lack of professionalism among the police.

After the 1967 urban uprisings, the Kerner Commission found that “police actions were ‘final’ incidents before the outbreak of violence in 12 of the 24 surveyed disorders.” Its report listed a now-familiar set of recommendations, like working to build “community support for law enforcement” and reviewing police operations “in the ghetto, to ensure proper conduct by police officers.”

These commissions didn’t stop the violence; they just served as a kind of counterinsurgent function each time police violence led to protests. Calls for similar reforms were trotted out in response to the brutal police beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the rebellion that followed, and again after the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The final report of the Obama administration’s President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing resulted in procedural tweaks like implicit-bias training, police-community listening sessions, slight alterations of use-of-force policies and systems to identify potentially problematic officers early on.

But even a member of the task force, Tracey Meares, noted in 2017, “policing as we know it must be abolished before it can be transformed.”

The philosophy undergirding these reforms is that more rules will mean less violence. But police officers break rules all the time. Look what has happened over the past few weeks — police officers slashing tires, shoving old men on camera, and arresting and injuring journalists and protesters. These officers are not worried about repercussions any more than Daniel Pantaleo, the former New York City police officer whose chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death; he waved to a camera filming the incident. He knew that the police union would back him up and he was right. He stayed on the job for five more years.

Minneapolis had instituted many of these “best practices” but failed to remove Derek Chauvin from the force despite 17 misconduct complaints over nearly two decades, culminating in the entire world watching as he knelt on George Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes.

Why on earth would we think the same reforms would work now? We need to change our demands. The surest way of reducing police violence is to reduce the power of the police, by cutting budgets and the number of officers.

But don’t get me wrong. We are not abandoning our communities to violence. We don’t want to just close police departments. We want to make them obsolete.

We should redirect the billions that now go to police departments toward providing health care, housing, education and good jobs. If we did this, there would be less need for the police in the first place.

We can build other ways of responding to harms in our society. Trained “community care workers” could do mental-health checks if someone needs help. Towns could use restorative-justice models instead of throwing people in prison.

What about rape? The current approach hasn’t ended it. In fact most rapists never see the inside of a courtroom. Two-thirds of people who experience sexual violence never report it to anyone. Those who file police reports are often dissatisfied with the response. Additionally, police officers themselves commit sexual assault alarmingly often. A study in 2010 found that sexual misconduct was the second most frequently reported form of police misconduct. In 2015, The Buffalo News found that an officer was caught for sexual misconduct every five days.

When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm.

People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation. What would the country look like if it had billions of extra dollars to spend on housing, food and education for all? This change in society wouldn’t happen immediately, but the protests show that many people are ready to embrace a different vision of safety and justice.

When the streets calm and people suggest once again that we hire more black police officers or create more civilian review boards, I hope that we remember all the times those efforts have failed.

Source

Prisonculture has some of the best resources and explanations of abolitionism, and this is a great little oped that should shed a little light on why there's eyerolling at Biden's proposal.

[bilateralrope]

Trump campaign asks supporters to sign coronavirus waiver ahead of rally

Oliver Milman in New York
@olliemilman
Published onFri 12 Jun 2020 17.35 BST

Donald Trump will hold a political rally in an indoor arena in Oklahoma next week – his first amid the coronavirus pandemic – prompting organizers to demand attendees sign a waiver that absolves the president’s campaign of any liability from virus-related illnesses.

Trump is so keen to return to his cherished campaign format of fronting adoring crowds that he will hold a rally in Tulsa next Friday in the 19,000-seat BOK Center despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Oklahoma is in the process of reopening businesses, although Governor Kevin Stitt has said people still need to employ social distancing and “minimize time spent in crowded environments”.

To overcome this impediment, one that has claimed more than 115,000 lives in the US, the Trump campaign is asking supporters to sign a waiver that makes clear the campaign is not responsible if anyone gets ill from crowding with thousands of others in an enclosed space.

By registering to attend, supporters “are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to Covid-19 exists in any public place where people are present”, the waiver states, adding that attendees and guests “voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to Covid-19” and agree to not hold the Trump campaign, the venue or other organizers liable.

Despite the rally breaking the guidelines he has set down, Stitt has welcomed Trump to the state, saying that the event “confirms Oklahoma is the national example in responsibly and safely reopening”.

With the US suffering mass joblessness and roiled by anti-racism protests, Trump is attempting to generate momentum for a re-election campaign in which he trails the Democratic challenger Joe Biden in early opinion polls. He should, regardless, still win the electoral college votes of Oklahoma, a solidly Republican-voting state.

The rally has already proved controversial, however, because of the site and the date. Tulsa is where a 1921 massacre took place in which a white mob killed up to 300 black people and burned down their buildings. The rally will be held on 19 June, also known as Juneteenth, a holiday that marks the end of slavery in the US.

Reacting to the Trump campaign’s choice of location and date for the rally, the California senator Kamala Harris, who is widely tipped to lead Biden’s potential list of vice-presidential candidates, tweeted: “This isn’t just a wink to white supremacists – he’s throwing them a welcome home party.”

Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump, tweeted that: “If your rallies come with a liability waiver, you shouldn’t be holding them.”

So Trump still thinks his rallies are more important than the lives of his supporters.

Plus Governor Kevin Stitt thinks asking people to sign liability waivers makes it safe to reopen.

[The Romulan Republic]

Bwahahahaha... Trumpers reportedly destroying their own absentee ballot applications to protest mail voting:

https://dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/14/ ... n-the-libs

I have to admit, this is a strategy that never occurred to me: burning your own absentee ballot application to protest too much voting by the other side.

This should become a national movement. Show them what you’re made of, Trump fans. You’re no fools!

So, yeah, Grand Rapids, Michigan, MAGAs were apparently sent into a rage over steps to ensure ease of voting in their state, and so they TOOK TO THE STREETS. (This is what conservatives deem worthy of protesting: their inability to eat at Applebee’s and their ability to avoid dying two weeks after exercising their right to vote.)

The Detroit News:

The applications were burned Friday during an event called Operation Incinerator outside the DeltaPlex Arena in Walker. Many people had flags, shirts and signs showing support for President Donald Trump and Republicans.

“For them just to issue them without merit, without request to absolutely everybody — that is a great waste of taxpayer money,” said Michael Farage, president of the Grand Rapids Taxpayers Association.

The applications are being sent to 7.7 million people at a cost of $4.5 million — an amount that’s covered by federal funds and roughly equals the bill for a few Trump golf trips.

Don’t know if their protest had a corporate sponsor, but I’ve got some ideas for them:

Can’t wait until they slash their own tires and pour sugar in their own gas tanks so they can’t get to their polling places on November 3.

Then I’ll really feel humiliated.

[The Romulan Republic]

Mind you, it might not make much difference anyway- latest polling has Biden 16 points up in Michigan:

https://freep.com/story/news/politics/e ... 190077001/

Granted, probably an outlier, its probably closer than that, but yeah.

[The Romulan Republic]

Fivethirtyeight puts Trump's approval rating at 40.8, disapproval at 55.3 (the worst since February of last year). The overall trend is still down.

The generic Congressional ballot has remained remarkably steady the last few months- Dems between 48 and 49%, Republicans around 41, give or take a few tenths of a point. I don't anticipate it changing much until the election.

[The Romulan Republic]

Amy Klobuchar withdraws from VP consideration, backs Biden picking a woman of color. She was reportedly still being vetted as late as Wednesday, but may have dropped out after being informed that her record as a prosecutor in Minneapolis would result in her not being selected.

Warren reportedly remains high on the list, as does Kamala Harris, with Susan Rice, Val Demmings, Keisha Bottoms, Gretchen Witmer, Tammy Baldwin, and Gina Raimondo reportedly still under consideration.

https://nytimes.com/2020/06/18/us/polit ... ident.html

WASHINGTON — Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota announced late Thursday that she was withdrawing from consideration to be the running mate to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on the Democratic ticket.

Ms. Klobuchar, who mounted her own campaign for the presidency before dropping out and becoming one of Mr. Biden’s most spirited surrogates, said during an MSNBC interview that she called Mr. Biden on Wednesday night and told him he should choose a woman of color to be his running mate.

Ms. Klobuchar, a moderate and veteran of the Senate like Mr. Biden, was known to have a strong rapport with the presumptive Democratic nominee, and was an early favorite of a significant number of his donors and supporters. But her case for being Mr. Biden’s running mate was badly damaged after the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police officers. The death, which has prompted weeks of demonstrations and protests against police violence across the country, led to renewed scrutiny of Ms. Klobuchar’s career as a local prosecutor in Minneapolis.

“After what I’ve seen in my state and what I’ve seen across the country, this is a historic moment and America must seize on this moment,” she said. “I truly believe, as I told the vice president last night, that I believe that this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket.”

In a Twitter post late Thursday, Mr. Biden praised Ms. Klobuchar and described her as a key ally in the contest to beat President Trump in November.

Amy — from the moment you announced you were running for president in a snowstorm, it wasn't hard to see you had the grit and determination to do anything you set your mind to. You know how to get things done. With your help, we’re going to beat Donald Trump. https://t.co/4kquPZtSV9

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 19, 2020
Mr. Biden committed to naming a woman as his vice-presidential pick during a debate with Senator Bernie Sanders on March 15. His team’s search committee has contacted roughly a dozen women, and eight or nine are being vetted more intensively, according to people familiar with the process.

BIDEN’S SEARCHHere’s who’s on the Biden campaign’s list of possible running mates.
Senator Kamala Harris of California, who also ran against Mr. Biden and is the only black woman in the Senate, is widely regarded as a strong candidate for the vice-presidential slot. Several other black women are being vetted by Mr. Biden’s search committee, including two whose prospects have risen as the national debate over racial justice amplifies calls for him to select a woman of color: Representative Val Demings of Florida and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta. Mr. Biden is also considering Susan E. Rice, the former national security adviser under President Barack Obama, the people familiar with the process have said.

Ms. Klobuchar was still being vetted until her Wednesday night phone call to Mr. Biden, according to a person familiar with Mr. Biden’s running mate selection process. But in conversations earlier this week, Ms. Klobuchar suggested to friends that she recognized that her own history made it difficult for Mr. Biden to select her, given the widespread Black Lives Matter protests.

As the district attorney in Hennepin County, which encompasses Minneapolis, Ms. Klobuchar developed a tough-on-crime reputation 20 years ago that is a difficult fit with modern Democratic Party politics. Though she has rebutted criticism that she failed to prosecute police misconduct, her record was scrutinized during the presidential campaign and would quite likely have become a major headache for Mr. Biden’s campaign had he selected her as the running mate.

One person she spoke with on Monday said Ms. Klobuchar relayed then that she understood she would not be selected, and said she cited the scrutiny of her record as prosecutor. A Klobuchar spokeswoman disputed the recollection of the call.

Ms. Klobuchar’s declaration that Mr. Biden should choose a woman of color created something of an awkward political dynamic for Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, another former presidential rival who is being considered by Mr. Biden as a possible running mate. Ms. Warren is the most prominent and formidable white candidate in the running, and she is far along in the vetting process.

Other white candidates under consideration include Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island.

Asked by the MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell if her past record as a prosecutor would have made it difficult for her to “function” as Mr. Biden’s running mate, Ms. Klobuchar said it was not a factor in her decision.

“I think I could have functioned fine,” she said. “There’s a lot of untruths out there about my record and now is not the time to debate them.”

I do think it will be very hard for Biden not to justify picking a black woman, and this will only make it harder. So as much as I like Warren, I suspect its going to be Kamala Harris.

[The Romulan Republic]

If current polling holds, Biden is set to get nearly 370 electoral votes, and is within reach of over 400, which would be the strongest Democratic win since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. His average 10 point lead is just ahead of Clinton's 9 point lead in 1996- the biggest Democratic win since Johnson.

However, forecast models predict a range of plausible outcomes. Best case: Biden gets over 400 votes, taking everything Clinton won plus Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida. Worst case, he gets around 200, and America is a Neo-Nazi dictatorship under Fuhrer Trump. A Biden win in the low to mid 300s is the most likely outcome, however.

https://cnn.com/2020/06/19/politics/ele ... index.html

(CNN)Former Vice President Joe Biden is well ahead in the national polls right now. More importantly, he holds the advantage in the pivotal swing states.

Chances are Biden will still be ahead come November and that he'll win a comfortable, not blowout win.
Still, it's worth emphasizing that with more than four months to go there's an incredibly wide range of results that are within the margin of error.
Biden could win the largest landslide for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 -- or he could lose to President Donald Trump.
For Biden to score a huge win, very little needs to change. Biden is ahead by 10 points in an average of live interview polls nationally. The largest Democratic win in the last 56 years was Bill Clinton's 9-point win in 1996.
More impressively, Biden isn't that far from taking more than 400 electoral votes. Let's assume Biden wins all the electoral votes Hillary Clinton did four years ago (232), as polls indicate. One or more recent polls put him up as well in Arizona (11 electoral votes), Florida (29 electoral votes), Georgia (16 electoral votes), Michigan (16 electoral votes), North Carolina (15 electoral votes), Ohio (18 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) and Wisconsin (10 electoral votes).
If Biden wins all of these states, he gets to just south of 370 electoral votes.
Add on Iowa (6 electoral votes) and Texas (38 electoral votes), where Biden was down just a point in two high quality polls released in June, and he gets more than 400 electoral votes. That would beat Clinton's 379 electoral votes in 1996 as the largest since Johnson's 486 electoral vote win in 1964.
Indeed, forecast models based on a slew of indicators (such as one put together by University of Alabama student Jack Kersting) have Biden earning more than 400 electoral votes within its 95% confidence interval.
Yet, models such as these also have Biden getting only about 200 electoral votes as a plausible scenario too.
Remember, it was only a few months ago when Biden's lead in the live telephone national polls was 6 points. That would put Trump within the range where he could win an electoral college victory with a small polling error, even if he lost the national vote. In fact, in many of the 2016 Trump states where Biden currently leads, there were polls that favored Trump just a few months ago.
In our fast moving news cycles, one could imagine a new unforeseen crisis arising. Likewise, a topic currently dominating the news (e.g. the protests) may fall to the background. Either of these could cause the presidential race to tighten up.
Moreover, history tells us that it's also quite conceivable that Biden loses. Harry Truman in 1948 was facing a similar deficit in the national polls that Trump is facing now. He'd win by nearly 5 points nationally and carry the electoral college in a tight contest. More recently, Clinton was in a distant third place at this point in 1992 to Republican George H.W. Bush and independent Ross Perot. Clinton took the popular vote by 6 points and scored 370 electoral votes.
If we have any movement in the national polls like those two cycles, Trump would almost certainly win.
Now, the best bet is we won't end up at either extreme discussed here. Biden, given his large lead nationally and Trump's struggling approval ratings, is the clear favorite. The most likely scenario is he'll end up somewhere in the low to mid-300s in terms of electoral votes.
Still, there are a lot of states with a lot of electoral votes where the polling has dramatically shifted the last few months. Biden may win all of them or none of them. There are a lot of potential scenarios on the table.

Edit: Of course, all such models are presumably assuming something like a normal election, not massive disruption due to political violence or covid, which regrettably is by no means a given. Either of those would likely benefit Trump, although vastly-increased mail voting may aid Biden.

[Knife]

Yeah, any 'historic' gains will also be apostrophe by "COVID and Riots over George Floyd's death". People don't WANT Biden, they want an end of Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, any 'historic' gains will also be apostrophe by "COVID and Riots over George Floyd's death". People don't WANT Biden, they want an end of Trump.

I think without covid and the riots, we'd be looking at a close race, could have gone either way, with "Biden wins the popular vote but Trump squeaks an Electoral College win again" being a very plausible outcome. I think it probably would have been the same with any major Democrat. The majority of the country aren't Trumpers, but there are enough of them that, combined with voter supression and the imbalance of the EC, and the illusory strong economy, they'd have had a good shot.

Now... nothing is certain until Trump is out office, even if he loses I expect him to try to stay on by fraud and force, but I think that almost any Democrat would have a fair shot under these conditions. So while I won't say Biden would have lost if things were what they were three months ago, I do agree that any "historic" win is going to be due more to circumstances than to any extraordinary popularity on Biden's part, or any extraordinarily skillful campaign he has run. More a repudiation of Trump and the horror he's created, than an endorsement of Biden.

Which makes me worried about four years from now, especially since Biden is going to get saddled with the blame for not instantly fixing Trump's mess by magic as soon as he takes office, while Republicans will likely do all they can to obstruct him. I think if we want to hold the Congress in 2022, and the Presidency in 2024, Biden is going to have give voters something really exciting to get behind- or Biden may not run again, in which case he needs to pick a VP strong enough to be an exciting candidate in their own right, rather than relying on riding Biden's coattails.

[Knife]

Biden straight up can't run in 2024 if he wins 2020. The man is a shadow of himself now, just physically let alone politically. That is why the VP is the important choice here.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, this is probably going to be the most important VP pick in a very long time.

[The Romulan Republic]

This is how a campaign dies, not with a bang but with a whimper:

https://cbc.ca/news/world/trump-tulsa-r ... -1.5620900

U.S. President Donald Trump launched his comeback rally Saturday by defining the upcoming election as a stark choice between national heritage and left-wing radicalism. But his intended show of political force amid a pandemic featured thousands of empty seats and new coronavirus cases on his own campaign staff.

Trump ignored health warnings to hold his first rally in 110 days — one of the largest indoor gatherings in the world during a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 120,000 Americans and put 40 million out of work. The rally was meant to restart his reelection effort less than five months before the president faces voters again.

"The choice in 2020 is very simple," Trump said. "Do you want to bow before the left-wing mob, or do you want to stand up tall and proud as Americans?"

Trump unleashed months of pent-up grievances about the coronavirus, which he dubbed the "Kung flu," a racist term for COVID-19, which originated in China. He also tried to defend his handling of the pandemic, even as cases continue to surge in many states, including Oklahoma.

He complained that robust coronavirus testing was making his record look bad — and suggested the testing effort should slow down.

"Here's the bad part. When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more cases," he said. "So I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down.' They test and they test."

"Speed up the testing," Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, tweeted later.

In the hours before the rally, crowds were significantly lighter than expected, and campaign officials scrapped plans for Trump to address an overflow space outdoors. When Trump thundered that "the silent majority is stronger than ever before," about a third of the seats at his indoor rally were empty.

Trump tried to explain away the crowd size by blaming the media for scaring people and by insisting there were protesters outside who were "doing bad things." But the small crowds of pre-rally demonstrators were largely peaceful, and Tulsa police reported just one arrest Saturday afternoon.

Before the rally, Trump's campaign revealed that six staff members who were helping set up for the event had tested positive for the coronavirus. Campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said neither the affected staffers nor anyone who was in immediate contact with them would attend the event.

The president raged to aides that the staffers' positive cases had been made public, according to two White House and campaign officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Trump devoted more than 10 minutes of his 105-minute rally — with the crowd laughing along — trying to explain away a pair of odd images from his speech last weekend at West Point, blaming his slippery leather-soled shoes for video of him walking awkwardly down a ramp as he left the podium. And then he declared that he used two hands to drink a cup of water that day because he didn't want to spill water on his tie — and proceeded to this time drink with just one hand.

But Trump also leaned in hard on cultural issues, including the push to tear down statues and rename military bases honouring Confederate generals following nationwide protests about racial injustice.

"The unhinged left-wing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments, our beautiful monuments," Trump said. "They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose their new repressive regime in its place."

Trump also floated the idea of a one-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of burning an American flag, an act of protest protected by the First Amendment. And he revived his attacks on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who emigrated from Somalia as a child, claiming she would want "to make the government of our country just like the country from where she came, Somalia: no government, no safety, no police, no nothing — just anarchy."

"And now she's telling us how to run our country," Trump continued. "No, thank you."

After a three-month break from rallies, Trump spent the evening reviving his greatest hits, including boasts about the pre-pandemic economy and complaints about the media. But his scattershot remarks made no mention of some of the flashpoints roiling the nation, including the abrupt firing of a U.S. attorney in Manhattan, the damaging new book from his former national security adviser or the killing of George Floyd.

Large gatherings in the United States were shut down in March because of the coronavirus. The rally was scheduled over the protests of local health officials as COVID-19 cases spike in many states, while the choice of host city and date — it was originally set for Friday, Juneteenth, in a city where a 1921 racist attack killed as many as 300 people — prompted anger amid a national wave of protests against racial injustice.

But Trump and his advisers forged forward, believing that a return to the rally stage would re-energize the president, who is furious that he has fallen behind Biden in polls, and reassure increasingly anxious Republicans.

But Trump has struggled to land effective attacks against Biden, and his broadsides against the former vice-president did not draw nearly the applause as did his digs at his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

City officials had expected a crowd of 100,000 people or more in downtown Tulsa. Trump's campaign, for its part, declared that it had received over a million ticket requests. The crowd that gathered was far less than that, though the rally, being broadcast on cable, also targeted voters in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida.

A Trump supporter, left, argues with Black Lives Matter protester ahead of Trump's rally in Tulsa on Saturday. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP)
The president's campaign tried to point fingers elsewhere over the smaller-than-expected crowd, accusing protesters of blocking access to metal detectors and preventing people from entering the rally.

The campaign handed out masks and hand sanitizer, but there was no requirement that participants use them and few did. Participants also underwent a temperature check.

"I don't think it's anything worse than the flu," said Brian Bernard, 54, a retired IT worker from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who sported a Trump 2020 hat. "I haven't caught a cold or a flu in probably 15 years, and if I haven't caught a cold or flu yet, I don't think I'm gonna catch COVID."

Pitifulness of the rally aside, the content is horrible even by Trump's standards- more or less open authoritarianism and white supremacy, including racist attacks on Representative Omar, demands to slow down coronavirus testing, and a proposed one year prison term for flag-burning.

Also, no shit almost none of the attendees chose to use masks or hand sanitizer. If I went to a Trump rally wearing a face mask, I'd be genuinely at risk of having my head beaten in for it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Fivethirtyeight has finally started releasing the polling averages for Biden vs Trump (previously they'd just had approval ratings for Trump and the generic Congressional race poll):

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/po ... /national/

In an average of polling since February, Biden has maintained a clear lead, though by how much has fluctuated. At his weakest, in mid-April, Biden lead by an average of only 3.4% (47.5 to 44.1). At his strongest (earlier this month), he briefly held a lead of 9.3% (50.7 to 41.4).

Currently, he holds an 8.9% lead, at 50.4 to 41.5.

Looking at the current averages for key swing states, the numbers currently are:

Wisconsin: Biden +6.4

Michigan: Biden +9

Pennsylvania: Biden +5

Iowa: Trump +0.8

Ohio: Biden +2.5

Florida: Biden +6.8

Arizona: Biden +4

North Carolina: +1.3

Georgia: Biden +0.8

Texas: Trump +0.7

Based on this, and given possible tightening by election day plus voter suppression, I would tentatively predict that Trump will likely narrowly hold Texas, Georgia, and Iowa; Ohio, NC, and Arizona could go either way; and Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania likely go to Joe (albeit I can maybe see a slim chance of Pennsylvania going Trump).

Assuming Trump still picks up one EC vote in Maine, and gets all of Nebraska's, that would likely give Biden a win of between 287 and 351 electoral votes- solid, but not a blowout. Popular vote, I'd guess he probably wins by around five points, maybe a bit more.

Of course, its unpredictable because we don't know what the full effects of covid and possible postal service cuts will be on voting, or whether Trump will issue an illegal order to postpone or cancel the election (which many states would ignore, but which would create great confusion over the election).

[Tribble]

One potential outcome is that some swing states end up appointing Trump electors directly due to the election being “too close to call,” “rampant democrat voter fraud” etc. The prep work do that is already well underway.

I’m pretty sure that would be constitutional too since states are more or less given the power to choose electors as they please.

[Lost Soal]

One potential outcome is that some swing states end up appointing Trump electors directly due to the election being “too close to call,” “rampant democrat voter fraud” etc. The prep work do that is already well underway.

I’m pretty sure that would be constitutional too since states are more or less given the power to choose electors as they please.

SCOTUS is currently hearing a case to decide if their bound to actual vote or not.