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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[bambu.]

"God Bless Australia" indeed.

Hopefully Obama and Ms Clinton will be doing the thinking regarding anything to do with Australia.
Both travelled to Australia while their admin was in office.

While visiting foreign countries a President and Secretary of State are expected to be nice to the locals, but it seemed that by the end of their visits they both seemed to be genuinely strongly in favour of ANZUS Alliance continuing.
Obama especially seemed surprised by what he had seen and experienced.

Trump never really seemed so keen.

***

Biden...

[It’s the fact he often has no idea where he is.

“Hello, Dallas,” he said in Pennsylvania.

“Hello, Florida,” he said in Minnesota.

In Iowa, he thought he was in Ohio.

[josh]

writes Miranda Devine.

At which point, anybody who wants honest reporting stopped reading.

[josh]

Three days of successively higher record new COVID-19 cases.

Last time our daily deaths were this high was September 1st.

[LarryBnDC]

North Dakota strong

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/04/politics/north-dakota-candidate-died-covid-wins-election-trnd/index.html

Horton Wilde chuckles

A mayor elsewhere won after dying, too.

Missouri Governor Mel  Carnahan was running for US Senate against John Ashcroft when he was killed in a plane crash three weeks before the election.

He won.

[REDSTATEWARD]

The suspicion is understandable, but no evidence of political manipulation has yet emerged...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-2020-election-meltdown-that-didnt-happen-even-amid-the-covid-pandemic-11604667974

Wow! What left-wing conspirator newspaper is printing this?

The Wall Street Journal, of course.

I found much to like in the editorial,

It wasn’t an editorial it was written for and edited by the news division of the WSJ.

[oilcan]

But what about one of the major concerns often voiced about a popular vote – that rural areas would be ignored in favor of big population centers?

Patrick Rosenstiel, a senior consultant to National Popular Vote, says the current system overlooks both rural and urban voters, depending on the state they live in.

"States like New York and North Dakota are valued the exact same way under the current system. They're valued not at all, because they're reliably either Republican or Democrat," he says. "The only way I know how to put urban voters at parity with rural voters and rural voters at parity with urban voters is to make every voter in this country politically relevant in presidential elections."

The way to do that? a national popular vote that would require candidates to campaign in all 50 states.

The effect would be that every voter would know their vote matters, Rosenstiel says: "I don't care if you're in the heart of Manhattan or in the outskirts of Helena. When you go vote for the American president, you know what's going to count toward the final result in a national popular vote election. And you're not going to be treated like a second-class citizen."   

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/931891674/as-presidency-hinges-on-a-handful-of-states-some-have-made-a-popular-vote-pact

My only question is -- if you can get a majority to go in on the NPV  Interstate Compact, why not just go for elimination of the EC?  If you have a compact that subverts the function of the EC,  why keep all that complex structure at all?   Ditch the 12th amendment as the antiquated crap it is,  and ratify a new one.   Seems like Americans in two-thirds of states could get behind dumping this stupid system.   As the article notes,  we'd be talking about Biden's cabinet choices now,  if it were the popular vote deciding things.   

(forum note:  I will reply to posts from anyone who read the entire article...)

[josh]

Three days of successively higher record new COVID-19 cases.

Last time our daily deaths were this high was September 1st.

We blew past our prior one day record by 10,000.

And actually, the last time daily deaths were this high was in August, as well as the last time our one day deaths were - 11 weeks ago for the latter.

And no, Kid, I am still not rooting for the virus.

I just believe it is important to know how deep the shit this president got us into is.

I commented a day or two ago that our average daily deaths was running below the IHME projections, which was a good thing, given what they had to say about our next 3 months. We'd been running about 50 deaths per day below, which was a good thing. Their chart is in an upturn.

Our path is in a sharper upturn, with our daily average only 20 below their path now, not 50. Not good.

[luee]

tough campaign for uncle Joe. Handled it well overall. Defeated the steely orange beast.

[josh]

Federal judge denies Republican candidates effort to stop ballot counting in Nevada's Clark County
From CNN's Kara Scannell

A federal judge denied Republican congressional candidates request to stop the counting of mail-in ballots in Clark County, a critical seat in the key battleground state of Nevada, saying they would not succeed on the merits of the case.

After a two-hour hearing, Judge Andrew Gordon said, “The public interest is not in favor of disrupting the completion of the process of the counting of the ballots” that could disenfranchise hundreds if not thousands of mail-in ballots legally cast.

The judge also noted that a similar case that is ongoing in state court is the better venue, noting that questions about the review of signatures on ballots are issues “involving state laws and should be interpreted by state courts, particular Supreme Court justices elected by state of Nevada citizens.”

[Hamilton Samuels]

The suspicion is understandable, but no evidence of political manipulation has yet emerged...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-2020-election-meltdown-that-didnt-happen-even-amid-the-covid-pandemic-11604667974

Wow! What left-wing conspirator newspaper is printing this?

The Wall Street Journal, of course.

I found much to like in the editorial,

It wasn’t an editorial it was written for and edited by the news division of the WSJ.

It was an opinion piece.

Anti-American asswipe.

[josh]

One of the stupider challenges out of the Trump camp.

Arizona judge sets hearing in Sharpie case for Nov. 13
From CNN's Kara Scannell

An Arizona state court judge set a hearing for next Friday in the Trump campaign-backed litigation challenging the use of Sharpie pens to fill out ballots in Arizona's Maricopa County, the largest county in the battleground state.

The judge wrote in the order that she would hear legal arguments and from witnesses at the Nov. 13 hearing. She denied the Trump campaign’s request to conduct discovery.

[josh]

Justice Alito's order "preserved the status quo" in Pennsylvania, says top GOP elections lawyer
From CNN's Josiah Ryan

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's order for Pennsylvania election officials to put aside late arriving ballots and count them separately is in line with previous guidance from the secretary of state, Republican elections lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg said moments after the ruling tonight.

"I think what Justice Alito's order does is ... preserve the status quo, the way things are now," said Ginsberg.

The ruling comes in a wake of a filing today from Pennsylvania Republicans who argued in court that that not every county in the state was abiding by the secretary of state's guidance, which may not be legally binding.

Some officials in Pennsylvania, including the secretary of state, have argued there should be a three-day grace period so that ballots that arrive after Election Day through today, should be included in the final count, as long as they were not postmarked after Election Day, a policy which was approved by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Ginsberg said Alito's order represents a mixed result for Republicans.

"...The ballots are still being counted, so the Republican Party lost its attempt to halt the counting... but this is not an amount that it appears it will impact the election," he said. "The ballots will be counted, but not included in the counts so ... the status quo, all options, will still be on the table with this order."

Ginsburg pointed out that Alito's order has no actual bearing on whether those ballots which were received after Election Day may ultimately be a part of the final count, but the order may signal that the Supreme Court would get involved if those ballots became relevant.

It does not say "...whether to count these ballots, or not count the ballots, or to exclude them," he said.

[REDSTATEWARD]

But what about one of the major concerns often voiced about a popular vote – that rural areas would be ignored in favor of big population centers?

Patrick Rosenstiel, a senior consultant to National Popular Vote, says the current system overlooks both rural and urban voters, depending on the state they live in.

"States like New York and North Dakota are valued the exact same way under the current system. They're valued not at all, because they're reliably either Republican or Democrat," he says. "The only way I know how to put urban voters at parity with rural voters and rural voters at parity with urban voters is to make every voter in this country politically relevant in presidential elections."

The way to do that? a national popular vote that would require candidates to campaign in all 50 states.

The effect would be that every voter would know their vote matters, Rosenstiel says: "I don't care if you're in the heart of Manhattan or in the outskirts of Helena. When you go vote for the American president, you know what's going to count toward the final result in a national popular vote election. And you're not going to be treated like a second-class citizen."   

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/931891674/as-presidency-hinges-on-a-handful-of-states-some-have-made-a-popular-vote-pact

My only question is -- if you can get a majority to go in on the NPV  Interstate Compact, why not just go for elimination of the EC?  If you have a compact that subverts the function of the EC,  why keep all that complex structure at all?   Ditch the 12th amendment as the antiquated crap it is,  and ratify a new one.   Seems like Americans in two-thirds of states could get behind dumping this stupid system.   As the article notes,  we'd be talking about Biden's cabinet choices now,  if it were the popular vote deciding things.   

(forum note:  I will reply to posts from anyone who read the entire article...)

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is unconstitutional, the sole constitutionally proper mechanism for doing so is a federal constitutional amendment, not an interstate compact negotiated by a handful of states.
End of debate 

[facilitatorn]

The suspicion is understandable, but no evidence of political manipulation has yet emerged...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-2020-election-meltdown-that-didnt-happen-even-amid-the-covid-pandemic-11604667974

Wow! What left-wing conspirator newspaper is printing this?

The Wall Street Journal, of course.

I found much to like in the editorial,

It wasn’t an editorial it was written for and edited by the news division of the WSJ.

It was an opinion piece.

Anti-American asswipe.

Red wants to feel he still has someone in his side.

He is an anti-American asswipe.

He keeps proving it with every post.

[facilitatorn]

...

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/931891674/as-presidency-hinges-on-a-handful-of-states-some-have-made-a-popular-vote-pact

My only question is -- if you can get a majority to go in on the NPV  Interstate Compact, why not just go for elimination of the EC?  If you have a compact that subverts the function of the EC,  why keep all that complex structure at all?   Ditch the 12th amendment as the antiquated crap it is,  and ratify a new one.   Seems like Americans in two-thirds of states could get behind dumping this stupid system.   As the article notes,  we'd be talking about Biden's cabinet choices now,  if it were the popular vote deciding things.   

(forum note:  I will reply to posts from anyone who read the entire article...)

270 on the NPV pact would definitely force the issue.

I don’t think it would lead to candidates campaigning in all 50 states though. There’s no mechanism for it and not much incentive to do so.