Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[PhaelixWW]

It's still the belief that land should vote. You can justify it all you like, but that's what it is in the end.

It's really not. You can ignore the distinction all you like, but it doesn't change the truth.

The real tragedy is when they then seek to use that same mentality to elect the leader of the nation.

But yes, while it makes some sense in a legislative body, it doesn't really make sense anymore to be any part of the process of electing the President, especially when you consider the effect it's had on campaigning.

"Swing states" shouldn't be a thing.

[Machismo]

It's really not. You can ignore the distinction all you like, but it doesn't change the truth.



But yes, while it makes some sense in a legislative body, it doesn't really make sense anymore to be any part of the process of electing the President, especially when you consider the effect it's had on campaigning.

"Swing states" shouldn't be a thing.

It really is.

If all but 10 people left Wyoming, they'd still have 2 Senators. Those Senators are not based on the people, they are based on the land itself. Now, you can say it's based on the "state," and that's also correct. But, as we see, that state is based on the land, and it's labeled boundaries.

[PhaelixWW]

It really is.

If all but 10 people left Wyoming, they'd still have 2 Senators. Those Senators are not based on the people, they are based on the land itself. Now, you can say it's based on the "state," and that's also correct. But, as we see, that state is based on the land, and it's labeled boundaries.

You're equating anything "not based on the people" as "based on the land", which is asinine. A state is not "based on land" any more than a country is, even if they have labeled boundaries.

And would this wildly hypothetical Wyoming have one or zero Representatives? Either way, that's not very "based on the people".

[Machismo]

You're equating anything "not based on the people" as "based on the land", which is asinine. A state is not "based on land" any more than a country is, even if they have labeled boundaries.

And would this wildly hypothetical Wyoming have one or zero Representatives? Either way, that's not very "based on the people".

They are both based on land, as the thing that defines them is their physical borders. Wyoming is Wyoming, regardless of how many people reside there. It still gets two Senators.

[Toppy]

Honestly as someone who has spent most of their life living in the south. I feel the states system is a complete failure anyway. Your geographic location shouldn't dictate whether or not you can succeed in life as it seems to in this backward ass, let the southern politicians kill their constituants thing we have going.

[Kathranis]

So this Parler fiasco may actually be a bit weirder than I, at least, realized.

-snip-

That seems a bit far-fetched to me. Not that the entire platform has been functioning as an FBI honeypot -- that was obvious to me from the start -- but that the method of obtaining user information would be so convoluted. For one, they can probably get that info by request. They also have methods to intercept and scrape data, and tons of people whose job is basically just eavesdropping on communications.

It's also not like any of these people have been careful about hiding their identities.

Case in point: Yesterday, I completely randomly came across a guy on Twitter making excuses for the mob that attacked one of the cops by saying the cop had insulted them; scrolling back through his feed he was previously begging Trump for a pardon, gleefully replying to pictures taken within the capitol, and talking about how "fcukable" Ivanka was. A few months back he tweeted about where he lived. His handle was his first and last name. I submitted that shit to the FBI tip line. The whole process took a few minutes.

They also have flight records of everyone that flew into DC, and very few of these folk are DC residents. They were also belligerent on the flights in and it's obvious that the flight attendants didn't want them back on the flights, period.

Whipping up no-fly lists would not be that difficult. I doubt they needed to hack into parler to get photos of IDs. Though I'm sure parler is a hell of a honeypot and woe to any fool who trusted them to keep that info private while promoting illegal activity on their platform.


Edit: Confirmed that parler hack post was by someone seemingly tech-illiterate. What actually happened was that an archival team wrote a script to scrape a bunch, or possibly all, of its user uploaded content from the site before the AWS shutdown. This includes stuff that wasn't intended to be accessible to end users, but which wasn't really secured.

[Resurgo]

heh, here's a couple relevant links I saw... not sure on their veracity though...

https://gizmodo.com/every-deleted-pa...quZdirMiB2idpI

https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch...as_we/giu04o6/

[solinari6]

Does Parler have a direct messaging system like twitter? Would all those private emails of prominent parlor republicans be part of the data dump?

[Endus]

It really is.

If all but 10 people left Wyoming, they'd still have 2 Senators. Those Senators are not based on the people, they are based on the land itself. Now, you can say it's based on the "state," and that's also correct. But, as we see, that state is based on the land, and it's labeled boundaries.

But that technically is correct. It's based on the political entity that is the State.

The amount of land in that state is irrelevant; Rhode Island gets as many Senators as Alaska. It isn't based on the amount of jurisdiction within its borders, just that it has said jurisdiction.

By the same token of "if all but 10 people left Wyoming", if Rhode Island shrank until it was literally just one guy's basement apartment, it'd still get 2 Senators. Land is actually irrelevant, here, existence as a State in the Union is what's relevant.

[Machismo]

But that technically is correct. It's based on the political entity that is the State.

The amount of land in that state is irrelevant; Rhode Island gets as many Senators as Alaska. It isn't based on the amount of jurisdiction within its borders, just that it has said jurisdiction.

By the same token of "if all but 10 people left Wyoming", if Rhode Island shrank until it was literally just one guy's basement apartment, it'd still get 2 Senators. Land is actually irrelevant, here, existence as a State in the Union is what's relevant.

The issue is that it's not people that are represented, and the State is not based on the people, but the territorial boundaries... the land.

In the current paradigm, a State is based on the land, as it has power over specific borders. The same can not be said for the people within, and more important, outside of those borders. Now, I would love a State to be based on people, but I don't know if humanity will ever be on board with such a thing.

[Endus]

The issue is that it's not people that are represented, and the State is not based on the people, but the territorial boundaries... the land.

In the current paradigm, a State is based on the land, as it has power over specific borders. The same can not be said for the people within, and more important, outside of those borders. Now, I would love a State to be based on people, but I don't know if humanity will ever be on board with such a thing.

It's defined by its boundaries, but the concept of the State itself is political, and is not fundamentally based on the land itself. You could, in theory, have a State that was a cruise ship. All that matters is how the State is defined within the USA, and recognition as such by the federal government.

That's why there's no difference on Senatorial memberships based on land size. If it were based on land, the way members of the House of Representatives are based on people, then states like Texas and Alaska would get way more Senators than Rhode Island and Delaware. They don't. They all get 2. Because the amount of land isn't relevant. Land still doesn't get a vote.

[Machismo]

It's defined by its boundaries, but the concept of the State itself is political, and is not fundamentally based on the land itself. You could, in theory, have a State that was a cruise ship. All that matters is how the State is defined within the USA, and recognition as such by the federal government.

That's why there's no difference on Senatorial memberships based on land size. If it were based on land, the way members of the House of Representatives are based on people, then states like Texas and Alaska would get way more Senators than Rhode Island and Delaware. They don't. They all get 2. Because the amount of land isn't relevant. Land still doesn't get a vote.

Except, they really are. Those boundaries are based on land, the amount of land is not relevant. It's not based on people, because everything gets tied back to those very boundaries. It's why jurisdiction is also based on those very same land-based boundaries.

I never said it was based proportionally on land, merely that land was the basis for it.

[Fugus]

For the talk about land voting, while no REASONABLE person makes that claim, one of the parties has effectively been pushing for an equivalent.

Some food for thought, not a single house is even remotely representative of the population and all 3 tilted to favor the Republican Party.

Congress hasn’t been expanded to account for population size in a century and instead has just had the seats they have reassigned with none getting less then 1 seat. Which gives the small states with more representation than their population would give them and the big ones with less. Wyoming would get like a third of a seat if given proper representation under this system. That also gives them more representation in the presidential election as well since the number of electors are based on it as well.

Then you have the senate which isn’t supposed to represent people but states and you have a case in our history where the Republicans before losing power admitted 12 states at one time into the nation because they were all leaning in their favor to help secure power while fighting to not allow other areas from becoming states because they don’t vote Republican.

And all that before voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering.

[Hadriker]

For the talk about land voting, while no REASONABLE person makes that claim, one of the parties has effectively been pushing for an equivalent.

Some food for thought, not a single house is even remotely representative of the population and all 3 tilted to favor the Republican Party.

Congress hasn’t been expanded to account for population size in a century and instead has just had the seats they have reassigned with none getting less then 1 seat. Which gives the small states with more representation than their population would give them and the big ones with less. Wyoming would get like a third of a seat if given proper representation under this system. That also gives them more representation in the presidential election as well since the number of electors are based on it as well.

Then you have the senate which isn’t supposed to represent people but states and you have a case in our history where the Republicans before losing power admitted 12 states at one time into the nation because they were all leaning in their favor to help secure power while fighting to not allow other areas from becoming states because they don’t vote Republican.

And all that before voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering.

Just out of curiosity i found this study

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...s-in-taft-era/

IF the US had kept the same ratio of representatives in the house, starting at the 1930 census (when the house was capped at 435 seats) it would now have a little over 1100 members

[Fugus]

Just out of curiosity i found this study

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...s-in-taft-era/

IF the US had kept the same ratio of representatives in the house, starting at the 1930 census (when the house was capped at 435 seats) it would now have a little over 1100 members

That is why they have better ways that maintain proportionality.

The Wyoming Option is a great one where they take the state with the lowest population and make that equal to 1 seat and then all other seats be based on that ratio.

[Breccia]

IF the US had kept the same ratio of representatives in the house, starting at the 1930 census

Did the names "Huntington-Hill" come up? Because if we took your suggestion, we'd never have to deal with that shitty math.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump sanctions Russia for election interference.

"What, seriously?"

The Treasury Department on Monday announced sanctions aimed at disrupting a Russia-linked influence network associated with Andrii Derkach, a marginalized Ukrainian politician with close ties to President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Derkach was identified by U.S. intelligence services in August as being part of a Russian-backed operation to smear and discredit President-elect Joe Biden and the Democratic party during the 2020 presidential campaign, and was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in September.

Giuliani, Trump’s top operator in efforts to overturn the election, had met with Derkach in December 2019 to discuss investigating the Biden family and the two appeared together on the pro-Trump news channel One America News Network where they pushed debunked theories of corruption involving Biden and his son Hunter.

The sanctions announced Monday target seven individuals and four entities related to Derkach’s inner circle. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that they are blacklisted for repeating “malicious narratives that U.S. Government officials have engaged in corrupt dealings in Ukraine.”

“Derkach, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, has been an active Russian agent for more than a decade, maintaining close connections with Russian intelligence services,” Pompeo said in a statement.

Derkach, a Ukrainian politician who studied at a Moscow school for Russia's internal security agency the KGB, released in May a series of edited and misleading tapes of phone conversations between Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Derkach claimed the tapes showed evidence of corruption by Biden when he was serving as vice president in the Obama administration.

The seven individuals identified by the Treasury Department on Monday are sanctioned in part for their role in the propagation, release and support of the tampered tapes.

This includes former Ukrainian politician Oleksandr Onyshchenko, who is a fugitive from Ukraine on charges of corruption and is in exile in Europe. He was sanctioned for providing the edited audio tapes.

Other blacklisted individuals include Konstantin Kulyk, a former prosecutor for the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, who the Treasury Department said formed an alliance with Derkach to “spread false accusations of international corruption.”

Another sanctioned former Ukrainian official, Andriy Telizhenko, is blacklisted for his involvement orchestrating meetings between Derkach and “U.S. persons” aimed at propagating “false claims concerning corruption in Ukraine.”

Telizhenko is described as a “former low-level Ukrainian diplomat.”

Three other individuals, Petro Zhuravel, Dmytro Kovalchuk, and Anton Simonenko are sanctioned “for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Derkach.”

The Treasury Department further said it was sanctioning four entities as a “disinformation apparatus” that supported Derkach. These include four media companies the government says are front companies in Ukraine that disseminate false narratives at the behest of Derkach and his associates, including NabuLeaks, Era-Media, Only News, and Skeptik TOV.

“Russian disinformation campaigns targeting American citizens are a threat to our democracy,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “The United States will continue to aggressively defend the integrity of our election systems and processes.”

I don't know the motivation behind this. Mnuchin clearly is out of a job no matter what he does in the next nine days. Russia will just get mad at Trump instead of Biden. Either I'm missing something, or this is an 87th minute own goal. Oh wait, I'm American, I mean GO BROWNS

- - - Updated - - -

Donald Trump is due to speak at 1:30 on (at least) FOX News.

Oh man. This is going to be amazing.

[Fugus]

I don't know the motivation behind this. Mnuchin clearly is out of a job no matter what he does in the next nine days. Russia will just get mad at Trump instead of Biden. Either I'm missing something, or this is an 87th minute own goal. Oh wait, I'm American, I mean GO BROWNS

If I had to guess, maybe Trump mad because Russia wasn’t able to make sure he won and maybe even refused to grant him asylum after his term is up. Either that or he is a sacrificial lamb in the matter that his boss already said he could take.

Trump is also fuming that Scotland refused his visit which makes his efforts to flee harder and less likely to succeed with even more people watching him.

[Breccia]

BRECCING NEWS!

SCOTUS refuses to fast-track Trump election lawsuits.

This all but mandates they won't be heard by Jan 20th and therefore won't change the results.

This means Trump's record is over at 1-60, which even the NYJets have beaten.

"So what was the breakdown?"

Funny story: SCOTUS refused to sign it. We don't know which Justices agreed and which dissented. Which means neither does Trump and neither does the rabid fanbase.
@cubby wanna get in on this one too?

[Forogil]

If I had to guess, maybe Trump mad because Russia wasn’t able to make sure he won and maybe even refused to grant him asylum after his term is up.

I'm not sure if Russia actually bothered to interfere this time. To me it seems the current result is pretty good for Russia: a weakened US wrapped up in internal problems and an international laughing stock.

[Breccia]

I'm not sure if Russia actually bothered to interfere this time.

There was the whole Hunter Biden thing. Plus let's be honest, there's a shitload of Party of Trump conspiracy posts out there. Surely Russia had no problem doing those?

- - - Updated - - -

NYState moves to disbar Giuliani.

Hey @cubby want to ah fuck it, the guy's probably busy.