2020 Presidential Election 4: How Much Longer?

[Ozlsn]

Could the polls be wrong again?

Analysis opinion piece comparing polling in 2016 to now, and basically asking if the polls are accurate. A thought that troubles me too, because God help us all if they aren't.

[fraurosena]

4 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Could the polls be wrong again?

Analysis opinion piece comparing polling in 2016 to now, and basically asking if the polls are accurate. A thought that troubles me too, because God help us all if they aren't.

I... eh... nah, on second thought I will not expound my opinion on polls yet again. You know by now not to take any stock in them whatsoever. 

Just get out there and exercise your democratic right to vote. All else is noise.

[GreyhoundFan]

He can't answer a simple question:

 

[fraurosena]

Mail ballots in Pennsylvania can no longer be discarded over signature matching

Quote

County elections officials in Pennsylvania may no longer discard mail ballots simply because they question the authenticity of a voter’s signature.

The Pennsylvania Department of State issued that guidance last week and, on Tuesday, two organizations that had sued the state over the practice dropped a federal lawsuit challenging it.

“As a result of this case, Pennsylvania voters can cast their vote without fear that their ballot could be rejected solely because an election official — who isn’t trained in handwriting analysis — thinks their signatures don’t match,” said Mark Gaber, the director of trial litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, which represented the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania in the lawsuit.

With the dramatic expansion of mail voting in Pennsylvania this year, the two organizations had filed suit in August arguing that local Boards of Elections in Pennsylvania had made subjective decisions on which ballots to discard.

Research has shown that a variety of factors — including age and disability — cause signatures to change over time.

The link above leads to the NYT election updates pages, which is not behind a paywall and has quite a lot of useful information on voting rights. Well worth perusing. 

[Audrey2]

Trump will prepare for the debates just like he does for everything else. He will do no reading and listen to no research but will say whatever comes to the top of his head.

He would have been the student frantically writing as the teacher was collecting papers.

[Audrey2]

Not quite the spot for it but I don't know a better one. I have seen talk that Tucker Carlson might be interested in running for 2024 as well as Ivanka Trump. I don't know which would be worse.

[GreyhoundFan]

10 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

Not quite the spot for it but I don't know a better one. I have seen talk that Tucker Carlson might be interested in running for 2024 as well as Ivanka Trump. I don't know which would be worse.

I've seen the reports about tucker. I think Junior and Ivanka are going to have a death match in the primaries because they've both been pushed by agent orange. Our only hope is that they take each other out of our misery.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm sure nazi weekly will also endorse agent orange.

[Alisamer]

17 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

He would have been the student frantically writing as the teacher was collecting papers.

Nah, he paid somebody to write the paper for him.

I really hope that Biden wins and the entire Trump family disperses off to locations where they can work on creating new ultra-luxury resorts (as long as there's no extradition treaty with the US). I'd prefer if the orange himself ended up wearing an orange jumpsuit full time, but anything that gets them out of the way of influencing government would be a step up. I'll be amazed if any of them stick around to continue in politics. 

[fraurosena]

Probably won't be able to watch it live (it'll be night over here) but I've marked my calendar anyway.

 

16 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I've seen the reports about tucker. I think Junior and Ivanka are going to have a death match in the primaries because they've both been pushed by agent orange. Our only hope is that they take each other out of our misery.

Nah. After the Dems win the elections and take over Congress and the presidency, the whole Trump family, and all of their enablers and cronies (Tucker included) will be indicted and prosecuted -- and sentenced. Their names will be tarnished so badly that they will be held synonymous with corruption and cronyism. They will never be able to run for any public office ever. 

9 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

the entire Trump family disperses off to locations where they can work on creating new ultra-luxury resorts 

The bolded made me snort with laughter. They wouldn't know what ultra-luxury was if it hit them in the face with a sledgehammer. Tacky and gaudy on the other hand...

[Audrey2]

22 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Nah. After the Dems win the elections and take over Congress and the presidency, the whole Trump family, and all of their enablers and cronies (Tucker included) will be indicted and prosecuted -- and sentenced. Their names will be tarnished so badly that they will be held synonymous with corruption and cronyism. They will never be able to run for any public office ever. 

You have more optimism than I have now. Unfortunately, my naturally optimistic personality turned cynical after the 2016 disaster. I fear that if Trump rigs the election this year, and he will, there will be a Trump (or Sucker Carlson- see, I can mess up someone's name too) for years to come.

24 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The bolded made me snort with laughter. They wouldn't know what ultra-luxury was if it hit them in the face with a sledgehammer. Tacky and gaudy on the other hand...

Well of course it's ultra luxury, it's gold plated.

[47of74]

Just saw this on Forbes

Quote

If you’re like most of us, you may wake with a visceral urge to check email first thing in the morning. Somehow email checking has worked its way up the food chain to become an almost physiological need ranking just below going to the bathroom and brushing our teeth. While somewhat understandable given our 24/7 technologically driven environment, that seemingly innocent reflexive urge can really set us up for failure throughout the rest of our work day. So if you’re in the habit of scanning your email as you scarf down a quick bite (or even before then), take heed. The real time satisfaction might not be worth it in the long run so you just might want to reconsider this seemingly innocent habit.

The truth is that checking email first thing in the morning can in fact set us up for chaotic, less productive work days. “Your inbox is nothing more than everyone else’s to do list for you,” explains Working Simply, Inc.’s Managing Partner Carson Tate. “If you start your day reacting to everyone else’s emergencies and needs, you divert time and energy away from your priorities.” To reduce stress and enhance productivity, it’s critically important to start mornings in the driver’s seat – methodically and intentionally deciding how you’ll allocate your time and energy, and obsessively monitoring email can too often sabotage our ability to do that.

Nah I'm not checking email first thing in the morning.  Instead I'm trying to find out if fuck face has started World War III and the apocalypse yet, along with any other fuckery he committed overnight.  Then I'm coming here to vent. 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, Audrey2 said:

You have more optimism than I have now. Unfortunately, my naturally optimistic personality turned cynical after the 2016 disaster. I fear that if Trump rigs the election this year, and he will, there will be a Trump (or Sucker Carlson- see, I can mess up someone's name too) for years to come.

It is easier for me to be optimistic than you though, as I don't live in the US and don't have a direct stake*. That said, I have not forgotten the results of the 2018 midterms. Things have only gotten worse since then with Trump and his cronies and enablers. People want them out, and it's my firm belief that they are going to go out and vote in droves. So it's not just my optimistic nature saying that, it's also based in fact. 

 

*Indirectly I do worry what could happen to the world with the US under authoritarian rule. Especially the enormous military might that the US has (it could be turned at anyone or anything based on Trump's whim) is frightening.

[nausicaa]

On 9/15/2020 at 5:58 AM, Ozlsn said:

Could the polls be wrong again?

Analysis opinion piece comparing polling in 2016 to now, and basically asking if the polls are accurate. A thought that troubles me too, because God help us all if they aren't.

Most local polls in swing states did have Trump within striking distance. So the polls weren't that wrong; we just looked at them wrong. Most of these same local polls now have Biden safely in the lead.

Trump now has a path to (honestly) win through Florida and Pennsylvania, but it's a narrower and trickier path than Biden's. (But yeah, I'm still scared.)

And most of the current late deciders are POC, not working class white guys. Trump's supporters have mostly all made up their minds, and so it's likely the small late decider voter will help Biden if anything. 

I'm not too worried about the debates. HRC handily beat Trump in three of them and she still lost. I'm worried about protests turning into riots in swing states (or at least being portrayed that way), especially Pennsylvania, that turn off a lot of moderates and independent voters. 

But Biden has a safe lead in Wisconsin and Michigan, and it looks like Arizona might even go his way. 

Also, Dem voters have always been less reliable voters. I think a lot of them in 2016 thought their vote didn't matter because HRC would win in a landslide and so they didn't go. The past four years have woken a lot of people up, and the fact that the numbers are tight will encourage more people to show up on the Biden side. The Trump cadre was gonna show up no matter what. 

Or at least this is what I'm telling myself so I don't have a nervous breakdown. 

Also Symone Sanders has been running one hell of a campaign. She just seems to really get it and is a pragmatic realist with her ear to the ground. I appreciate HRC's personal loyalty to Huma Abedin, but Abedin just seemed to make so many missteps, and her personal life drama didn't help. 

Edited September 16, 2020 by nausicaa

[Alisamer]

I'll have to remember to wear my Nasty Woman perfume on the days of the debates. And to vote. I really hope the debates make perfectly clear the truth of who is better qualified. There are people who genuinely believe that Trump is intellectually superior to Biden. I don't know how or why, but they do think that. 

I don't think Biden will have to do too much beyond stick to his talking points and stay calm to prove that wrong, frankly. Trump is a blithering idiot.

[fraurosena]

17 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

There are people who genuinely believe that Trump is intellectually superior to Biden. I don't know how or why, but they do think that. 

It's my theory that they believe that being a bully makes you superior, period. Demeaning and belittling others are signs of superiority. And being superior means you're smarter...

Secretly, they wish they were him, or dared to be like him.

 

[AuntK]

3 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Just saw this on Forbes

Nah I'm not checking email first thing in the morning.  Instead I'm trying to find out if fuck face has started World War III and the apocalypse yet, along with any other fuckery he committed overnight.  Then I'm coming here to vent. 

I check to see if the asshole is still breathing. . . One can hope!

[GreyhoundFan]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

It's my theory that they believe that being a bully makes you superior, period. Demeaning and belittling others are signs of superiority. And being superior means you're smarter...

Secretly, they wish they were him, or dared to be like him.

I've seen the statement that twitler is a weak man's idea of a strong man. I think that applies to most of his followers.

[GreyhoundFan]

So disgusting:

 

[SassyPants]

Yesterday, I had coffee with my friend for the first time in 7 months. We did the social distance thing and were outdoors. She said the first thing that she does every day is check the news to see if Trump is still physically viable. I’ll admit, I did sneaker.

[GreyhoundFan]

From the WaPo: "Former Pence aide says she will vote for Biden because of Trump’s ‘flat out disregard for human life’ during pandemic"

Spoiler

President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic showed a “flat out disregard for human life” because his “main concern was the economy and his reelection,” according to a senior adviser on the White House coronavirus task force who left the White House in August.

Olivia Troye, who worked as homeland security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser to Vice President Pence for two years, said that the administration’s response cost lives and that she will vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden this fall because of her experience in the Trump White House.

“The president’s rhetoric and his own attacks against people in his administration trying to do the work, as well as the promulgation of false narratives and incorrect information of the virus have made this ongoing response a failure,” she said in an interview.

Troye is the first Trump administration official who worked extensively on the coronavirus response to forcefully speak out against Trump and his handling of the pandemic. But she joins a growing number of former officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton and former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who have detailed their worries about what happened during their time in the administration while declaring that Trump is unfit to be president.

The amount of criticism Trump has faced from former aides is unprecedented in the modern presidency, and it could pose a political risk to his reelection campaign as some of the aides who have spoken out are pressuring other former colleagues to join them.

The White House dismissed Troye as a disgruntled former employee and downplayed her role on the task force, while disputing her characterization that the pandemic response has not gone well.

“Ms. Troye is a former detailee and a career Department of Homeland Security staff member, who is disgruntled that her detail was cut short because she was no longer capable of keeping up with her day-to-day duties,” Lt. General Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser, said in a statement. “Ms. Troye directly reported to me, and never once during her detail did she ever express any concern regarding the Administration’s response to the Coronavirus to anyone in her chain of command. By not expressing her concerns, she demonstrated an incredible lack of moral courage.”

White House spokesman Judd Deere said that Troye’s “assertions have no basis in reality and are flat out inaccurate” and that “the truth is President Trump always put the well-being of the American people first,” citing the president’s efforts to produce medical equipment, his early social distancing recommendations and the plan to produce a vaccine quickly.

Troye had an inside view of the White House’s pandemic response, which polls show is hurting the president with voters, and her review of the effort is scathing. She said in an interview that she would be skeptical of any vaccine produced ahead of the election because of worries its release was due to political pressure.

“I would not tell anyone I care about to take a vaccine that launches prior to the election,” she said. “I would listen to the experts and the unity in pharma. And I would wait to make sure that this vaccine is safe and not a prop tied to an election.”

Though Troye played a behind-the-scenes role during her time in the White House, she was a major participant in the task force’s work, attending and helping to organize “every single meeting” it held from February until July, she said. She worked closely with Pence on the administration’s response, including establishing an agenda for each meeting, preparing the vice president and arranging briefings for him, writing and editing his comments and dealing with the vice president’s political aides.

She was often pictured sitting against the back wall of the Situation Room near Pence in photos posted to social media. Her assistant would send the seating chart to officials across the administration, who in turn would consult with her about the workings of the group and Pence.

She described herself as a lifelong Republican who voted for every one of the party’s nominees before 2016. Troye did not vote for Trump because she didn’t like his rhetoric. She declined to say whom she voted for in the last election.

“But I got past it and accepted he was our president,” Troye, 43, said of the election result.

Troye said that she worked in the administration because she hoped Trump would morph into a stronger leader after a divisive campaign and that she had respect for other Trump officials, such as Pence.

“I still have a lot of respect for the vice president,” she said. “I worked very loyally for him to do everything I could for him. I don’t want this to become a speaking-out-against-him thing.”

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 6.5 million Americans and has killed nearly 200,000 — a toll Troye said has been exacerbated by Trump and his administration’s mishandling of the pandemic and by the conflicting messages he and his top aides have disseminated to Americans on masks, social distancing and other public health precautions.

Trump, she said, was not usually focused on the virus but would often “blindside” the task force and administration officials with public comments, such as his support for hydroxychloroquine, his Twitter attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the agency’s guidance on the reopening of schools, his skeptical comments about masks and his public musings about “herd immunity.” Many of his comments were the opposite of what had been discussed in the White House Situation Room, where task force meetings were often held, and were at odds with scientific recommendations or the administration’s own data, Troye said.

The administration, she said, missed months to slow the spread of the virus because the president and other key administration officials refused to embrace masks, even as members of the task force and health officials “repeatedly begged” Trump to do so. Trump allies note that many of the health officials first advised against masks before advising that they be used.

“The mask issue was a critical one. If we would have gotten ahead on that and stressed the importance of it, we could have slowed the spread significantly,” Troye said. “It was detrimental that it became a politicized issue. It still lingers today.”

Senior aides to Pence held a contemptuous view of the administration’s scientists and tried to project a far too rosy outlook about the virus with cherry-picked data — and key public health agencies including the CDC were marginalized throughout her tenure, Troye said. Advisers were afraid to express positions contrary to the president’s views because they feared a public denunciation or “that they would be cut out,” she said.

“At some point, every single person on the task force has been thrown under the bus in one way or another,” Troye said. “Instead of being focused on the task at hand, people were constantly wondering what was going to drop next or when you’re going to get reprimanded or cut out of a process for speaking out.”

Troye said the White House did not quickly resolve problems with coronavirus testing in the early months as the virus spread, though she concedes those hitches were not personally Trump’s fault.

Trump rarely attended task force meetings and was briefed only on top-level discussions by Pence or the government’s public health officials. When Trump attended one meeting, Troye said, he spoke for 45 minutes about how poorly he was being treated by certain personalities on Fox News.

“He spent more time about who was going to call Fox and yell at them to set them straight than he did on the virus,” she said.

Troye said Trump was constantly looking to reopen states and schools — even when others feared it would be unsafe — and would regularly disregard what his advisers suggested.

“There were a lot of closed door conversations I have had with a lot of senior people across the administration where they agree with me wholeheartedly,” she said, of her assessment on Trump.

Urging others to speak out

With seven weeks until the election, there is a concerted effort by a coterie of former Trump administration officials to push more aides to speak out, particularly boldface names who can secure national media attention and aides who can tell damaging stories in detail.

The president, for his part, has described many of those critical as “disgruntled former employees” who were not cut out for his administration. Administration officials note that a number of former employees also have praised the president extensively and that the president has overwhelming support in his own party.

Some former and current officials say they do not think ex-Washington officials will move many voters in key states. But Miles Taylor — who worked in the Homeland Security Department between 2017 and 2019, including as chief of staff — said compelling narrators with first-person testimonials can influence voters.

“Is the voice of an ex-Trump official going to change millions of votes? No. But if you can change the minds of several tens of thousands of people in swing states, it could absolutely impact the election,” said Taylor, who has formed a Republican anti-Trump group called Repair 45. Troye is joining the group and has recorded a video for it, she said.

Taylor said it had been difficult to secure marquee names to speak out against the president because “the president has done a very effective job of creating a culture of fear.”

According to people familiar with their views, those privately critical of Trump include Mattis, former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, former top economic aide Gary Cohn and former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. These people, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of these officials. The former officials either did not respond to requests for comment or declined to discuss their views.

Kelly is among those most torn about what to do, according to people who have spoken with him. He describes the president in derisive terms — a narcissist who does not understand the military, cares only about his political fortunes and is unqualified to be president, the people said. He declined to comment for this article but has told others he is undecided over whether he should speak out more before the election, citing his previous role in the military and his concern about generals speaking out against elected presidents.

Beyond the fear of being attacked, there are other reasons that former advisers have not spoken out publicly.

Some of them are still staunchly Republican — even if they dislike Trump — and do not want to publicly support Biden. Some, like Nielsen, would have to defend their own roles in some of Trump’s most contentious decisions.

Taylor said he is encouraging former officials such as Mattis and Kelly to see that now is the time to break their self-imposed reticence.

“It took longer than it should have for every single one of us,” Taylor said. “All of us, myself included, should have spoken out sooner.”

Why Troye says she stayed

Troye said she expects sharp denunciations from former colleagues in the administration and also expects to be denigrated by the White House and the president on Twitter.

“Honestly, I am scared,” she said. “I have never done anything like this.”

Troye has long had an obscure profile in Washington — working behind the scenes at the Pentagon as a political appointee during the George W. Bush administration and then as a career official at the Homeland Security and Energy departments during the Obama administration before joining the vice president’s office in 2018 as an employee detailed from DHS.

Troye said she was disturbed by the president’s handling of myriad issues over two years — most notably his “military dictator, false prophet-like” march to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo with the Bible earlier this year after protesters were cleared from Lafayette Square.

Thoughts during her tenure of leaving gave way to other considerations, she said. Troye held a key role on the coronavirus task force but also carried out an array of other duties for the vice president, advising him on mass shootings, immigration, hurricanes and some foreign affairs issues, she said. The vice president would sometimes dial her cellphone, Troye said.

“I was the 24-hours-on-call person for major events for two years for him in the role,” Troye said.

In private, she said, Pence would say the “right things” in calls to governors and “was in an impossible situation with the president.” Troye also praised a number of the administration’s top health officials.

Troye said she and other advisers regularly encountered a desire on the part of the president and his political advisers, along with some senior members of the vice president’s team, to move on from the coronavirus even as thousands were dying and to focus on the economy or the campaign. She was asked by senior Pence aides, she said, to help on an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that minimized the fears of a second coronavirus wave and touted the administration’s work on the virus as a success story.

“It was ludicrous,” she said of the piece, which ran in June. Troye, however, said she helped write it.

There regularly were suggestions from Pence’s top political advisers for his coronavirus remarks “that I could just not support, and it became harder and harder to push back,” Troye said.

These advisers, Troye said, wanted to wind down the task force at the end of April. “In the middle of a pandemic, how could you do that?” she said.

She declined to publicly name these Pence aides but said there was consistent pressure from Pence’s senior officials to focus more on the economy and the reelection campaign. She added that she felt Pence’s top officials often showed derision toward the administration’s medical experts.

Asked about her own regrets, Troye said that she wished she would have spoken out internally more often and that she had wrestled with many “sleepless nights” about her actions and time in the administration.

“I wished I had been more aggressive in fighting internal forces that were working against the CDC and other policies for the president’s personal agenda,” she said. “I wish I would have been more aggressive with the staff on the vice president’s team and some of the president’s staff.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

O'Reilly is clearly not sticking to the GOP message that Biden is mentally impaired.

 

[fransalley]

I’ve voted Republican most of my life, and I am going to vote for Biden simply because it is too dangerous to leave Donald Trump in the White House for another four years.  

I’m keeping most of my politics off of my main FB page because I have friends who feel opposite of what I do.  And I don’t really talk politics with my husband because he doesn’t plan to vote Democrat.  We respect each other’s politics, which is good. 

I’m Christian, I believe God is going to work no matter what; but I at times am just pain scared.