Election 2016

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 11:55 am

Apart from Georgia, it looks like 538's electoral map is back to post-convention levels of blue states.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 1:27 pm

Post-Democrat-convention, fortunately. Like the debates have been one giant pro-Clinton event. Arizona is polling +10% Clinton.

Looks like a good shot at the vice president being the deciding vote in the Senate too, also trending to Democrats, though much more gradually.

Haha, Trump is hinting folks shouldn't vote for certain Republican senators, because they're not supporting him hard enough. The implosion is pulling in more of them. Glorious. Imagine, two years of social progress, and a few supreme court justices.

Or, you know, that chance Trump wins and sees to it that Roe vs Wade gets overturned, and maybe tries out some nukes for a laugh.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 4:18 pm

Things really seem to be breaking apart for the GOP. Trump has pushed them past their limits and the party seems to be turning in on itself. Fucking Glenn Beck apparently is now supporting Hillary (apparently) and I'm still not sure I can believe it.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 4:50 pm

Reports from the right-wing insanosphere suggest that there's a strong movement among Trumpers to vote against down-ticket Republicans to punish the party establishment for betraying Hair Furor. Trump was doing badly enough that the House was considered losable before the sexual assault conversation came up.

If the Dems end up taking the House, I will jizz in my pants.

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 5:01 pm

Oh man, then she'd have no excuse to go back on her promise to overturn Citizen's United! It won't solve ALL our problems, but it'll lay the groundwork for a proper progressive push by some later president.

sendaz · Post by **sendaz** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 5:32 pm

MGuy wrote:Fucking Glenn Beck apparently is now supporting Hillary (apparently) and I'm still not sure I can believe it.

Actually he came out and said he isn't voting for either Hillary or Trump at this point.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/glenn-beck- ... -or-trump/

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 6:40 pm

SlyJohnny wrote:Oh man, then she'd have no excuse to go back on her promise to overturn Citizen's United! It won't solve ALL our problems, but it'll lay the groundwork for a proper progressive push by some later president.

Uh, that really isn't her choice. Unless she plans to amend the constitution, which would be great and all, but is completely unfeasible, then all she can do is appoint a Supreme Court Justice who will vote with the others to overturn it, which even then requires justices who usually give at a long spiel about how stare decisis prevents them from redeciding even cases they voted against to rehear and overturn a very recent case.

So yeah, honestly, it probably won't happen at all, but if it does, it won't have anything to do with a Majority in the House. IF you think Democrats are getting 2/3rds then that's a whole nother level of delusion you are living in.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Oct 13, 2016 6:58 pm

sendaz wrote:
MGuy wrote:Fucking Glenn Beck apparently is now supporting Hillary (apparently) and I'm still not sure I can believe it.
Actually he came out and said he isn't voting for either Hillary or Trump at this point.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/glenn-beck- ... -or-trump/

Eh good enough. Trump seems to be the catalyst needed for the Right to fracture and once he loses I'm sure they probably won't be able glue it all back into place.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 1:31 am

Couldn't they just "overturn" Citizens United by doing what the justices asked and making a rule that applies to everyone rather than just Unions and Corporations?

You could for instance, require everyone to disclose how much money they spent making and airing the series of advertisements. Require packaged spending near elections over a certain amount to be previewed for potential court injunction for gross and harmful falsehoods (by the same way that libel or defamation laws work, only for political ads aired near an election). Require real control and ownership and major donors to be disclosed, the court encouraged disclosure so do more of it.

The ruling is you can't just ban classes of people or collectives from speaking about political issues, nor limit their spending without proof of harm, but you can totally ban specific harms and also make those bans legally enforceable in a practical fashion that would basically eliminate attack advertisements by superpacs.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 1:41 am

So why can't they just overturn Citizen's United by allowing corporations and superpacs to continue spending infinite money while also creating a huge government bureaucracy that has to hut down literally 300 million americans every year to quiz them on their spending habits and investigate all spending?

Yeah, off the top of my here's an idea, because that was literally the bullshit made up by people who wanted their corporations to keep buying their side elections as a made up example that was picked because it's infeasible and doesn't accomplish the actual goals.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 4:51 am

No. You just get to have a legal block on harmful spending over a certain amount. Like how there's laws about donation limits to politicians and declaring the name of the donor over a certain amount, and that doesn't actually stop or investigate or disclose the 50 million people donating pocket change.

And there's smaller donation limits on smaller races, and that works too, as there could be smaller numbers that you check on smaller contests for advertising. Hell, there's taxes that only kick in over a certain amount of earning, and those laws work without auditing every single person in the country every year.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 7:13 am

Well, the way the election's going, I could make a killing scalping alcohol here in the redstate. I need to buy booze now and hang out around a liquor store on Election Night...*

*this is way illegal in my state and I'm not going to do it. But still.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 2:57 pm

This is more rhetorical, but it's frustrating to see people view Trump's flaws as mere rudeness. People going on about Clinton being some kind of existential threat, and Trump posing no more than short-term damage...no idea how to respond other than just stew and ignore.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 6:02 pm

virgil wrote:This is more rhetorical, but it's frustrating to see people view Trump's flaws as mere rudeness. People going on about Clinton being some kind of existential threat, and Trump posing no more than short-term damage...no idea how to respond other than just stew and ignore.

Just remember they cry over it, too.

Like, they really believe Hillary is Evil (TM), like D&D alignment Evil. Seriously.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 7:11 pm

I just took it as cognitive dissonance, where they need to justify their voting republican by downplaying his flaws. So "sexual assault" becomes "rudeness".

It's similar to how the religious right has been saying Trump deserves our forgiveness because everyone falls short of the grace of God, while ignoring

By that logic, Clinton does, too.
Trump has given no evidence that he is Christian in any meaningful sense.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 7:51 pm

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 8:31 pm

Also, Trump continues to find lower depths: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-wonder ... l-assault/

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 10:59 pm

Maxus wrote:Well, the way the election's going, I could make a killing scalping alcohol here in the redstate. I need to buy booze now and hang out around a liquor store on Election Night...*

*this is way illegal in my state and I'm not going to do it. But still.

Not familiar with the term in this context and Google isn't helping.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 11:02 pm

as in ticket scalping.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Oct 14, 2016 11:25 pm

Omegonthesane wrote:
Maxus wrote:Well, the way the election's going, I could make a killing scalping alcohol here in the redstate. I need to buy booze now and hang out around a liquor store on Election Night...*

*this is way illegal in my state and I'm not going to do it. But still.
Not familiar with the term in this context and Google isn't helping.

There are places with all kinds of weird not alcohol laws in the US, where the local christians passed dumb laws for no reason that just permanently stayed on the books, in the modern world, everyone who lives there just knows which direction to go to get to the shop right on the county border that sells alcohol for people in that county.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Oct 14, 2016 11:53 pm

What's even worse is last year when they closed the bars several candidates got locked inside!

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 12:06 am

Kaelik wrote:
Omegonthesane wrote:
Maxus wrote:Well, the way the election's going, I could make a killing scalping alcohol here in the redstate. I need to buy booze now and hang out around a liquor store on Election Night...*

*this is way illegal in my state and I'm not going to do it. But still.
Not familiar with the term in this context and Google isn't helping.
There are places with all kinds of weird not alcohol laws in the US, where the local christians passed dumb laws for no reason that just permanently stayed on the books, in the modern world, everyone who lives there just knows which direction to go to get to the shop right on the county border that sells alcohol for people in that county.

Well, this particular county has liquor stores. But this place is so red that I guarantee you they're going to run out of stock as some of the conservatives take the loss hard.

And yes, I mean buying liquor to resell it at a markup to people who really, really want it when the official sources have run out. Just like scalping tickets.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 1:13 am

sendaz wrote:
MGuy wrote:Fucking Glenn Beck apparently is now supporting Hillary (apparently) and I'm still not sure I can believe it.
Actually he came out and said he isn't voting for either Hillary or Trump at this point.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/glenn-beck- ... -or-trump/

In that vein, Scott Adams decided to back Gary Johnson (possibly just for the week):
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1515525485 ... -this-week

after a previous blog where he played apologist for Trump and explained why all this 'controversy' was not a big deal:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1515049936 ... -the-trump

The best part? Where he rags on Johnson for not knowing what Aleppo was... while misspelling it Allepo.

Scott Adams wrote:To be fair, Gary Johnson is a pot head who didn’t know what Allepo was.

The rest is just horrible apologia from a fucking bastard. Particularly when he equates Trumps behavior to the LGBTQ community.

8. If the LGBTQ community wants to be a bit more inclusive, I don’t see why “polyamorous alpha male serial kisser” can’t be on the list. If you want to label Trump’s sexual behavior “abnormal” you’re on shaky ground.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 1:28 am

RobbyPants wrote: Trump has given no evidence that he is Christian in any meaningful sense.

I always assumed that Trump was a Muslim. I mean, it sounds like a Muslim name.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 1:32 am

Voss wrote:
Scott Adams wrote:8. If the LGBTQ community wants to be a bit more inclusive, I don’t see why “polyamorous alpha male serial kisser” can’t be on the list. If you want to label Trump’s sexual behavior “abnormal” you’re on shaky ground.

RUSH LIMBAUGH wrote:You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing. You can do anything, the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it's perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.

Pretty standard right wing. Think that Rape is totally the same thing as consensual sex, think sexual assault is the same as consensual kissing.

Even when they can accidentally figure out what the common element in the way sane people view sex, they still can't figure out why that's the correct system of sorting which actions are good or bad.

Pro Tip to Scott Adams: it's not being abnormal that is the problem, it's the part you left out, where he serially kisses people without consent and grabs genitals without consent, which is sexual assault.