Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

On the Electoral College ........ I believe there is a distinct possibility that R officials in certain states will interfere with the voting of the state's electors. That would likely occur in what have been named in this election as battleground states where Biden's margin of victory is small.

Failing attempts to disqualify votes, this will be the next target of R's who support Trump's claims that he won the election, not Joe Biden. There are a lot of them and this despite that in a pure popular vote sense, Joe Biden prevailed.

Such an effort on the part of Rs - if it developed legs - would represent a significant threat to democracy and the American voting process. I read a WSJ Opinion piece on Monday speculating about this. The author noted that from a historical perspective, the potential for this happening has been recognized but not addressed. The author was dismayed it hasn't been.

I suspect, if it does, the lawyers will get involved and I do not know, or seen it written about anywhere, on what basis they could prevent electors from abandoning the voters they represent and cast their electoral votes for Trump. Would it be on a constitutional basis? I don't see that.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Decision Desk called Arizona late last night. There's about 24,000 ballots left and Trumps still trails by about 11,600. Trump would need to win over 65% of what's left and that's almost certainly not going to happen. Especially since the county with the most ballots left isn't Maricopa, it's Pima, the most Dem-friendly county in the state.

[froot loops]

On the Electoral College ........ I believe there is a distinct possibility that R officials in certain states will interfere with the voting of the state's electors. That would likely occur in what have been named in this election as battleground states where Biden's margin of victory is small.

Failing attempts to disqualify votes, this will be the next target of R's who support Trump's claims that he won the election, not Joe Biden. There are a lot of them and this despite that in a pure popular vote sense, Joe Biden prevailed.

Such an effort on the part of Rs - if it developed legs - would represent a significant threat to democracy and the American voting process. I read a WSJ Opinion piece on Monday speculating about this. The author noted that from a historical perspective, the potential for this happening has been recognized but not addressed. The author was dismayed it hasn't been.

I suspect, if it does, the lawyers will get involved and I do not know, or seen it written about anywhere, on what basis they could prevent electors from abandoning the voters they represent and cast their electoral votes for Trump. Would it be on a constitutional basis? I don't see that.

Greg Sargent spoke with people and wrote about this and the conclusion he came up with is it is against most of these states' law and would be thrown out. But who knows with Kegger Kavanaugh at the Supreme Court.

[froot loops]

Decision Desk called Arizona late last night. There's about 24,000 ballots left and Trumps still trails by about 11,600. Trump would need to win over 65% of what's left and that's almost certainly not going to happen. Especially since the county with the most ballots left isn't Maricopa, it's Pima, the most Dem-friendly county in the state.

The Fox News dude was right all along

[Dr. Strangelove]

On the Electoral College ........ I believe there is a distinct possibility that R officials in certain states will interfere with the voting of the state's electors. That would likely occur in what have been named in this election as battleground states where Biden's margin of victory is small.

Failing attempts to disqualify votes, this will be the next target of R's who support Trump's claims that he won the election, not Joe Biden. There are a lot of them and this despite that in a pure popular vote sense, Joe Biden prevailed.

Such an effort on the part of Rs - if it developed legs - would represent a significant threat to democracy and the American voting process. I read a WSJ Opinion piece on Monday speculating about this. The author noted that from a historical perspective, the potential for this happening has been recognized but not addressed. The author was dismayed it hasn't been.

I suspect, if it does, the lawyers will get involved and I do not know, or seen it written about anywhere, on what basis they could prevent electors from abandoning the voters they represent and cast their electoral votes for Trump. Would it be on a constitutional basis? I don't see that.

It's not going to happen. There were a handful of Republican legislators in PA talking about this but notably the Speaker of the House (a Republican) and the majority of the caucus had nothing to do with it.

We just had a Supreme Court case about this that allows states to pass laws requiring Electors to respect the popular vote. I'm not sure if PA is one of the states with such a law but there are other legal options available too.

[iam416]

Greg Sargent spoke with people and wrote about this and the conclusion he came up with is it is against most of these states' law and would be thrown out. But who knows with Kegger Kavanaugh at the Supreme Court.

Actually, anyone who pays attention does KNOW. Justice Kavanaugh joined Justice Kagan's opinion in the "faithless elector" case (Chiafalo v. Washington, just in case you wish to remedy your ignornace).

Once again, why do you lie?

[Jeff Buchanan]

In COVID news, you'd have to be deaf, dumb, blind or dead to not know the entire globe is being overtaken by the exponential growth of SARS-CoV-2 infections. I can read claims of hospitals in the US, mostly rural, saying things like they don't have enough staff to cover all the patient's being admitted to that specific hospital's care. I reiterate, every state that I have worked in has redistribution plans for just such an occurrence so, meh on that one.

"Deaths are rising" is another claim. The fear produced by that is burned into the public awareness by reports that various locals are adding morgue capacity and personal interest stories that should not be generalizes but are, about the suffering of the families of a single family member's struggles with COVID. I tried to put the death claims in context in an earlier post - the most misleading ones are those that deal only with absolute numbers failing to put those in context with other metrics such as decreasing hospital stay times and improved COVID survival rates.

I'm concerned that the media's penchant to focus on everything that is bad about COVID is being driven by the need to punish Donald Trump, this need being increased by his petulant refusal to acknowledge he lost the presidential election and all the fear baggage that produces. Not much can be done about this but I'd urge everyone to keep this in mind when assessing COVID's true impact.

Life should mostly go on with everyone taking the same precautions they have been taking and not worrying too much about folks under 40 who become infected and suffer only mild symptoms or none at all - this is where the large numbers of new cases resides.. At risk individuals seem to be doing more and the numbers reflect that in the over 65 cohort or in the over 40 cohort with risk factors that are recovering and not succumbing to the virus in the numbers they did in April ..... it's not even close.

Fortunately, I'm seeing rational changes to mitigation measures on a local basis in places I have been or am reading about over the last month. Nobody is going nuts but there's a risk of that if the uninformed and mislead public, all fo that coming from the constant scream of bad news form the media, starts screaming "blood on your hands" at local officials and to save their skins they "do something" that makes no sense.

[iam416]

Cases are definitely rising enough that we will see (and have seen) a spike in deaths. But, again, this isn't April Covid. To refresh, NY was at over 10,000 cases a day at its peak under the Cuomo regime. Florida, e.g., also was over 10,000 under the DeSantis regime in August. Under Cuomo, nearly 1000 people were dying per day at its peak. Under DeSantis, roughly 180 people were dying per day at the peak. Apples to apples in case numbers. Apples stuffed with razor blades and poison to Apples wrt deaths.

In Ohio, we still have 20% hospital capacity to deal with spiking hospitaliations PLUS emergency contingency plans. It's not ideal, and I suspect DeWine will eventually do some sort of partial shutdown again.

Meanwhile, it's becoming increasingly clear that Biden is going to do a national 4-6 weeks total lockdown.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Talent or DSL ...... would EC issues like this - the faithless elector - necessarily become a constitutional issue to be dealt with by SCOTUS? I would think this is an issue that would be resolved - not necessarily the way the Trump supporters might like it - with a state's legislature. Certainly, the Trump supporters could file for an injunction to hold up the EC process if a state's legislature cut off an end run to create faithless electors, but I'd think SCOTUS would simply defer and not hear the case. Does this make sense?

[iam416]

Talent or DSL ...... would EC issues like this - the faithless elector - necessarily become a constitutional issue to be dealt with by SCOTUS? I would think this is an issue that would be resolved - not necessarily the way the Trump supporters might like it - with a state's legislature. Certainly, the Trump supporters could file for an injunction to hold up the EC process if a state's legislature cut off an end run to create faithless electors, but I'd think SCOTUS would simply defer and not hear the case. Does this make sense?

The Supreme Court will defer to state law. Full Stop. Pennsylvania (and M) apparently have laws that bind electors to the popular vote (33 states have laws like that). You don't get to choose. The Rs in Pennsyvlania are going to follow the law and certify the vote.

This is a total non-issue. PDJT will run through his legal challenges (just as Biden would have) and lose (just ad Biden would have). The states will certify the results. The electors will vote as they are REQUIRED. Joe Biden will be officially elected by the EC. PDJT will "accept" that the EC has voted for Biden (maybe) and never concede he actually loss (almost certainly).

The rest is pearl-clutching media nonsense.

[iam416]

Pennsylvania has until November 23 to certify the results. By that date, they will. And all 20 electors will vote for Joe Biden.

[lineygoblue]

Hillary conceded that night

You missed the point.

While Hillary "conceded" the next day, she has never, ever stated that Mr. Trump won the election fair and square. In fact her voice has been loud in stating that the Electoral College needs to be abolished because of her popular vote numbers.

My comment was directed to Hillary's behavior since 2016 where she has never missed the opportunity to claim she was robbed of the Presidency by Trump and the Russians, .. and .. oh yes,.. the most "deplorable" people of our society. Rational democrats tend to ignore Hillary, probably a lot like Bill does.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Meanwhile, it's becoming increasingly clear that Biden is going to do a national 4-6 weeks total lockdown.

The appointment of Biden confidants to various roles dealing with the pandemic include individuals who early on were lock-down proponents, that probably isn't going to happen at least not on the scale that it happened in March..... and I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. A couple of things:

(1) In the US, unlike within some EU countries, while the chief executive does have the power to mandate lock-downs through his powers to declare a National Public Health Emergency, which Trump did in March - abundant waivers have been granted to the states.

(2) Based on these waivers, states like FL, developed extensive and liberal plans for phased re-openings. That isn't going to change and state officials, much like Desantis has done, aren't locking anything down as lockdowns are defined in our minds.

(3) Of course, Governors in other states may not follow the lead of Desantis but the political costs of doing anything unreasonable or unjustified are going to be huge and rightly so. The economic and social costs of taking draconian steps, especially in light of the proven limited PH benefits of them, are just too high.

I think that Biden, so far, has been messaging on COVID well. I'd be surprised if besides a bit of jawboning of Governors, he's not going to issue any sweeping mandates, for example, shutting down businesses, activities or masks. Of course, the mask mandating shit has become a soap box for both opponents and supporters of it. The media, being what it is, should be expected to pillory Biden for not issuing a mask mandate but I bet they won't.

The CDC has played a role in identifying high risk activities and venues for COVID super-spreader events. The Trump administration has avoided imposing federally mandated closings - the cruise line industry is a notable exception. Even then, while VP Pence negotiated an end to the no-sail-order, the CDC prevailed by imposing guaranteed to fail gates that cruise companies have to make their way though before resuming passenger operations. Most think the cruise industry will be hobbled until mid march. How much the CDC is given purchase to direct the closings of other high risk events is TBD. I think Biden will proceed cautiously.

[froot loops]

You missed the point.

While Hillary "conceded" the next day, she has never, ever stated that Mr. Trump won the election fair and square. In fact her voice has been loud in stating that the Electoral College needs to be abolished because of her popular vote numbers.

My comment was directed to Hillary's behavior since 2016 where she has never missed the opportunity to claim she was robbed of the Presidency by Trump and the Russians, .. and .. oh yes,.. the most "deplorable" people of our society. Rational democrats tend to ignore Hillary, probably a lot like Bill does.

I didn't miss anything, I think your point is absolute nonsense. Your savior lost.

[Hannibal]

Hillary "conceded". Then the entire media, America's intelligence apparatus, and the entire Democrat party pursued a complete nonsense "Russian election interference" theory for three years and have insisted ever since then that Vladmir Putin somehow hacked the election and got Trump into office. For four years, we heard about how our fragile democracy is hanging by such a tiny thread that the Russians buying a few Facebook ads is going to bring it all crashing down. Now every Tweet and youtube video that mentions election fraud literally has some sort of content warning that our elections have safeguards in place and there can't possibly be any fraud anywhere. Dozens of the most popular Twitter and youtube accounts that show statistical anomalies have been shut down without warning or explanation. We have reached new levels of "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia" hilarity.

Let's not forget that Al Gore didn't concede after the first count, and then he didn't concede after the first recount, and then he didn't concede even after the second recount. We're still a ways off from that timetable.