Presidential Election: 11/3/20 ---Now the President Elect Joe Biden Thread

[LadySkinsFan]

I agree with LD0506 that voter suppression is our biggest challenge. When Republicans figured out that they weren't going to win the popular vote, they ramped up their voter suppression tactics to ensure that they win the EC. 

 

I check my voter registration every month after I moved to Texas, a big voter suppression state. I am white but have a foreign last name not Latin/Hispanic. I urge others to check their registration no matter what state they live in. 

 

Voter suppression and healthcare are the two most important issues in this election. 

 

Edited to add:  Just saw this article on Yahoo News about a little known and never used article of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that includes a remedy for voter suppression by reducing the number of House Representatives of states utilize suppression tactics. It's time it's used.   From the news article.

 

I bet you’ve never heard of that part of our founding document. That’s because, throughout U.S. history, legal ambiguities and confusion over implementation authorities have kept this provision from realizing its potential. But there are ways to put it to work right now. And there’s no better time. From widespread closure of polling locations and expanding imposition of voter identification laws to escalating purges of voter rolls, assaults on the right to vote nationwide illustrate that we need these lost words back, urgently.

 

The 14th Amendment is divided into five sections, all aimed at protecting civil rights in the wake of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Section 2 states:

 

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

 

The first sentence will, at least in its principle, be familiar to many: It ensured that apportionment in the House of Representatives would fully count the recently emancipated black Americans, thus supplanting the provision in the original constitutional text that counted enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person. But most Americans—indeed, even most American lawyers and judges—have no familiarity with the second sentence of Section 2 that would penalize those states that abridge or deny the right to vote. It may well be the Constitution’s most important lost provision.

 

The Radical Republicans who crafted the 14th Amendment thought Section 2’s second sentence was quite important—critical, in fact, to ensuring the rest of the amendment’s guarantee of equality would become a reality, especially in the face of states sure to resist implementation of its guarantees. The Amendment’s framers worried, in particular, that recalcitrant states would respond to the formal expansion of the vote by devising new ways to abridge that vote. Section 2’s second sentence would be a powerful threat, saying that, should a state dare to try that, it would have to reduce its number of representatives in the House proportional to the vote infringement carried out by that state. Call it the Constitution’s “reduction clause,” punishing infringement of voting rights with the stiff penalty of a reduction in representation.

 

 

 

https://news.yahoo.com/lost-110-words-constitution-120023947.html

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Mooka]

27 minutes ago, LD0506 said:

But still, it went from one in five to one in three? Gonna have to do better than that

 

All of us do

 

Unfortunately you start getting into the more underlying problems that have little to do with voting.

 

18-29's don't vote, not just because they're young or uninvolved, its also logistical; they're less likely to have a physical address. They might be at college, might sorta live at home or between addresses, have less bills/expenses/property, obviously far less likely to have school-aged children.

 

Same deal give or take for poor people. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

1 hour ago, LadySkinsFan said:

https://news.yahoo.com/lost-110-words-constitution-120023947.html

Who decides to implement this and how?  I'd imagine the Senate would have to be involved and you know they won't go along with it.

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[NoCalMike]

Anyone familiar with the comedian Jimmy Dore? He has a podcast and does a live show touring around different cities. He is pretty left, a Bernie guy for the most part.  I went to his live show on Friday. It was really well done. I don't agree with 100% of what he says all of the time on every single issue, but he does do a great job of taking the media to task on how they cover certain things and try to shape narratives.   Here is a short clip from the show for anyone semi-interested in what I am blathering about. I am posting it in here because the content of the video is relevant to the primary process itself:

 

(NSFW: Language) 

 

 

[Larry]

Anybody know if this "must get 15% of the vote, or you get zero" rule applies to all primaries?  Or just the ones we've seen so far?  

 

Super Tuesday Florida voter here, trying to decide if voting for Pete (at 9% in the poll above) would be a waste, and should vote Biden instead.  

[LadySkinsFan]

Larry, I am going to vote for who I want in the primary regardless of percentages, and vote for the nominee in the general. It's how I am going to live with myself. 

 

This is a general comment. I hate open primaries where anyone can vote in either party. It skews results for a party's nominee. Plus we see opposition voters casting votes for candidates who they think are weaker against their main candidate, in this case Trump.

[twa]

4 minutes ago, Larry said:

Anybody know if this "must get 15% of the vote, or you get zero" rule applies to all primaries?  Or just the ones we've seen so far?  

 

Super Tuesday Florida voter here, trying to decide if voting for Pete (at 9% in the poll above) would be a waste, and should vote Biden instead.  

 

they have the rule,but it is variable by at large or congressional district

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Florida_Democratic_primary

[Larry]

Looking just at the title of @NoCalMike 's video, above.  "Bernie's Opponents Agree Elites Should Pick Nominee Not Voters".  

 

Y'know, I once thought rhetoric like that was only used by cartoon caricatures of communist propaganda spokesmen, where everybody who disagree with The Party are either "bourgoir" or "counterrevolutionary".  (And everybody else was "comrade".)  

 

Seriously?  I'm not even going to click on that video, after reading that title, because I can already tell it's complete propaganda.  

[LadySkinsFan]

12 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Who decides to implement this and how?  I'd imagine the Senate would have to be involved and you know they won't go along with it.

 

I don't know but it needs to be enforced. And since it's part of a Constitutional amendment, I think a court case needs to go up the federal court system.

[@DCGoldPants]

14 minutes ago, Larry said:

Anybody know if this "must get 15% of the vote, or you get zero" rule applies to all primaries?  Or just the ones we've seen so far?  

 

Super Tuesday Florida voter here, trying to decide if voting for Pete (at 9% in the poll above) would be a waste, and should vote Biden instead.  

 Biden

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

12 minutes ago, Larry said:

Anybody know if this "must get 15% of the vote, or you get zero" rule applies to all primaries?  Or just the ones we've seen so far?  

 

Super Tuesday Florida voter here, trying to decide if voting for Pete (at 9% in the poll above) would be a waste, and should vote Biden instead.  

https://www.270towin.com/content/thresholds-for-delegate-allocation-2020-democratic-primary-and-caucus

 

Depends on your congressional district. If you think Pete can get 15% there.

[88Comrade2000]

11 minutes ago, Larry said:

Anybody know if this "must get 15% of the vote, or you get zero" rule applies to all primaries?  Or just the ones we've seen so far?  

 

Super Tuesday Florida voter here, trying to decide if voting for Pete (at 9% in the poll above) would be a waste, and should vote Biden instead.  

I think it's a combo of state and DNC but basically you have to win 15% to be allocated delegates. Whether they allocate by congressional districts or the overall state winner.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Can totally see a presidential nominee who thinks Cuba is well run losing to trump...

[Larry]

Actually, thinking about it?  

 

Thought occurs to me, one vote is not going to make any noticeable difference whatsoever.  (It's not like I'm in one of those weird states where the state is determined by 21 people in a school house playing  musical chairs for 12 hours.)  

 

So, if I vote for the guy I think would be best, (Pete), and my vote doesn't make any difference (99.999% chance of that), then at least I will go forth knowing that I voted right. 

 

(And it's somebody else's fault.)  

 

And isn't that what American democracy is all about?  

[Momma There Goes That Man]

3 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Can totally see a presidential nominee who thinks Cuba is well run losing to trump...

Shocking you’d think that, but that’s not what he said. 

[Larry]

10 minutes ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

Shocking you’d think that, but that’s not what he said. 

 

Could you provide some support for what he actually said?  (Cause I'm sure we're going  to be hearing the claim repeated endlessly.)  

[CousinsCowgirl84]

He said Cuba wasn’t all bad.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/02/23/politics/sanders-fidel-castro-cuba/index.html

[NoCalMike]

From what I read Bernie pulled a "not everything he did was horrible" thing with Castro.  Whether he is technically right or not, it was just a dumb thing to say that provides very easy fodder for his opponents.  Sort of why having some of these old guys who seem to routinely stumble over their words and trying to get points across isn't always a fun thing to watch.

 

I am sure if pressed, he will try to say something about healthcare or whatever, but there are easy ways to share that sentiment that don't involve giving others easy soundbites for political ads, because guess what we already are seeing push back, even from Democrats who are already saying things like Bernie was "singing the praises of Castro" which is also a bunch of nonsense, but in the world of politics that is the kind of discourse that goes on.

[Destino]

27 minutes ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

Shocking you’d think that, but that’s not what he said. 

What he said was stupid.  No one is interested in hearing what aspects of a tyrants overall rule weren’t necessarily all that bad.  It’s like that stupid saying “that at least he (Mussolini) made the trains run on time.”  Yes Castro implemented a literacy program, which is not a bad thing, but it means absolutely nothing because the man was a tyrant.

 

The problem with this is simple.  Democratic socialists exist on the idea that they are nothing like those other bad socialists that exist prominently in recent history.  A lot of folks that grew up during the Cold War, or those with more personal experiences like Florida’s Cuban population, struggle with this distinction.  Saying anything that appears to defend those tyrants makes people even more uneasy.  Perhaps even angry.  
 

Bernie is the last person in this election that should be saying anything positive about authoritarian socialists or communists.  He must build a wall between what he represents and them. He must be unequivocal.  Yes, I’m aware that he also pointed out that a Castro was bad, but it’s still dumb for him to say anything positive about people like Castro at this point.  
 

 

[bearrock]

15 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

Could you provide some support for what he actually said?  (Cause I'm sure we're going  to be hearing the claim repeated endlessly.)  

 

This is the transcript of the 60 min segment

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-democratic-presidential-front-runner-anderson-cooper-60-minutes/#

 

Quote

Back in the 1980s, Sanders had some positive things to say about the former Soviet Union and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.  

 

Here he is explaining why the Cuban people didn't rise up and help the U.S. overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro: "…he educated their kids, gave them health care, totally transformed the society, you know?"

 

Bernie Sanders: We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it's unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?

 

Anderson Cooper: A lot of p-- dissidents imprisoned in-- in Cuba.

 

Bernie Sanders: That's right. And we condemn that. Unlike Donald Trump, let's be clear, you want to-- I do not think that Kim Jong Un is a good friend. I don't trade love letters with a murdering dictator. Vladimir Putin, not a great friend of mine.

 

No, he didn't explicitly say Cuba was well run.  But yes, he seemed to intimate that some successful policies had at least an effect on why Cubans didn't join US efforts to overthrow Castro.  Regardless, it is a bat**** stupid thing to say for a presidential candidate (and no, I don't think that Cubans did or had any meaningful opportunity to evaluate whether going along with Castro's totalitarian regime was worth it given the improvements in xyz).

[NoCalMike]

3 minutes ago, Destino said:

The problem with this is simple.  Democratic socialists exist on the idea that they are nothing like those other bad socialists that exist prominently in recent history. 

 

 

Right.  Out of all the Candidates, because everyone is going to hammer him with the "socialism, socialist, commie etc etc" tag, he should be the one out there making it clear that Authoritarianism supersedes anything else good or bad you do as a leader.   That is all that needs to be said about it. Very simple. 

[Momma There Goes That Man]

12 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

He said Cuba wasn’t all bad.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/02/23/politics/sanders-fidel-castro-cuba/index.html

Can you find me in the article where he says Cuba is “well run” as you claimed. I didn’t see but could have missed it. 
 

What I saw was him say they implemented a nice literacy program. 
 

now I get that he shouldn’t say anything positive about anything happening in a country like that while he himself is running as a Democratic Socialist. He’s simply inviting criticism and making it harder on himself by potentially offending people and giving the GOP free ammo to lie about it. 
 

But be honest at least 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Destino said:

What he said was stupid.  No one is interested in hearing what aspects of a tyrants overall rule weren’t necessarily all that bad.  It’s like that stupid saying “that at least he (Mussolini) made the trains run on time.”  Yes Castro implemented a literacy program, which is not a bad thing, but it means absolutely nothing because the man was a tyrant.

 

The problem with this is simple.  Democratic socialists exist on the idea that they are nothing like those other bad socialists that exist prominently in recent history.  A lot of folks that grew up during the Cold War, or those with more personal experiences like Florida’s Cuban population, struggle with this distinction.  Saying anything that appears to defend those tyrants makes people even more uneasy.  Perhaps even angry.  
 

Bernie is the last person in this election that should be saying anything positive about authoritarian socialists or communists.  He must build a wall between what he represents and them. He must be unequivocal.  Yes, I’m aware that he also pointed out that a Castro was bad, but it’s still dumb for him to say anything positive at this point.  
 

 

I agree with all of this but that’s no reason to lie about what he said 

[tshile]

the biggest fault of the democrats, in modern politics, is that they think if they just explain themselves it'll help.

 

it doesn't matter what he said. it doesn't even matter if he's right. what matters is he said something positive about a Castro-run Cuba. 

 

This little issue is sort of a microcosm of the problem he's going to have running for president. In a fair, informed debate he could hold his own. But that's not what he's going to get.

 

Add to it that our media is for-profit based, and you're going to get unfair coverage, unfair questions, unfair segments, etc. 

 

The next 8 months are going to be pretty much this. THe question is whether Sanders can ever get out ahead of it or if he's constantly stuck in the same battle, over and over.