The GTP Unofficial 2020 US Elections Thread

[jjaisli]

(if he doesn't do that, then his fantasy that the election was stolen from him would mean he is no longer eligible to be president).

So would being in federal prison during the campaign. Very soon, Trump is going to see a new side to the law.

 

[Liquid]

So would being in federal prison during the campaign. Very soon, Trump is going to see a new side to the law.

Don't tease us.

 

[Morgoth_666]

Your first mistake was thinking they cared in the first place.

Honestly, I fully support Trump doing this solely because it exposes the farce U.S. politics has become. If this isn’t a wake up call for all voters than I really can’t feel bad for my fellow citizens when crap keeps getting worse.

You can be sure that it won't be. What he is doing is nowhere near as bad as whatever his party's supporters imagine The Left is doing. There isn't a lot of rational thought involved in the US general public's view of politics anymore if there ever was. It's just "which side do you hate more because reasons?" Everything else can be handwaved away for a staggeringly high amount of people.

 

[jjaisli]

Don't tease us.

I have no inside knowledge. But reading bits and pieces from a number of well informed people, it's pretty clear he's in a LOT of legal trouble once he's out of office.

 

[Pupik]

Private companies do this too. Internal budgets get yanked and reallocated from one department to the next if they don't use it up - so they gush at the end of the FY if they have surplus.

You'd figure that the best way to reward yearly budgets for the following year would be to those who finish (1) under budget (2) competently/safely (3) on time/earlier*. Then, you know they're working and planning smarter and that innovation and clarity should be rewarded. But every bid must be re-created for each new project to prevent favoritism.

Instead, you get a ton of this with government spending – contractors and private industry too – and it only contributes to more spending waste. It's all ca-ca-cuckoo, I tells ya. It's the kind of stuff that make you turn into Frank Grimes.

* pipe dream

 

[TexRex]

It's the kind of stuff that make you turn into Frank Grimes.

Dead?

 

[UKMikey]

For the love of god do they realize the Electoral College already wrapped up?

 

[GTFan24]

This is the circus act that will never end

 

[TexRex]

These Republican dead-enders are ****ing pathetic. It would be funny if it wasn't so very sad.

 

[McLaren]

 

[Blitz24]

Does anyone have any objections to the election?
*Hawley raises his hand*
Does anyone with any evidence and actual data have any objection to the election?
*Questioner ignores Hawley who is at this point screaming "fraud and cheater".*

 

[Crash]

Can someone sue Hawley and contest his election and seating in the Senate?

 

[Danoff]

You'd figure that the best way to reward yearly budgets for the following year would be to those who finish (1) under budget (2) competently/safely (3) on time/earlier*. Then, you know they're working and planning smarter and that innovation and clarity should be rewarded. But every bid must be re-created for each new project to prevent favoritism.

Instead, you get a ton of this with government spending – contractors and private industry too – and it only contributes to more spending waste. It's all ca-ca-cuckoo, I tells ya. It's the kind of stuff that make you turn into Frank Grimes.

* pipe dream

I know, it seems crazy. But it also makes sense. One area needs more resources, one area doesn't. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The idea is not bad - give resources to the areas that need them. The unintended consequences are that suddenly nobody comes in under budget. This issue in management can be found basically wherever people manage people.

 

[TexRex]

Creepy lookin' dude, but this is fun:

 

[Liquid]

the dumpster fire that was the 2016 US Presidential election; one of the most ridiculous and insane real-world events I've ever had the displeasure of watching from a comfortable chair.

I think the sequel has been worse.

 

[McLaren]

Creepy lookin' dude, but this is fun:

Fetterman? He's a good dude. Passed on living at the Lt. Gov. mansion & opened its pool to the public.

 

[TexRex]

Fetterman? He's a good dude. Passed on living at the Lt. Gov. mansion & opened its pool to the public.

I realize you can't judge a book by its cover...even when that cover skews so Cro-Magnon.



I should add that I love what he's doing. I enjoyed the "snake handlers" and "simp tribute" remarks in particular.

 

[Rossell2]

Meh I can't wait for January 6th to come and this utter idiocy to be over. They haven't succeeded in overturning the election thus far and I doubt they will with this but would rather not have the worry.

 

[APC900]

This year and this lunacy can't end quick enough.
These guys have damaged the election process in this country to an irreversible level.
Nobody will ever be comfortable with elections moving forward.
It is truly sad, considering it was all unwarranted.
Trump and his minions went out there screaming fraud because he got beat in a fair fight by Biden...a man he bragged he could never lose to.
In typical Trump fashion, he tried every under-hand tac-tic....and still lost.
That is why it is so hard for him to accept.
He wasn't even sly about his tricks.
The only person arrested for voter fraud to date was a Trump supporter.
The guy used his dead mother's name to vote.

 

[TexRex]

This is fun. A new lawsuit filed in D.C. with the aim of overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election takes absurdity itself to absurd new levels. It's real. It can't possibly be real, but it's real.

 

[Blitz24]

This is fun. A new lawsuit filed in D.C. with the aim of overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election takes absurdity itself to absurd new levels. It's real. It can't possibly be real, but it's real.

In a sense, Trump was extremely unlucky to have a pandemic. If all of these things were done under a normal election year, there MIGHT (maybe a 5% chance) be some merit to this lawsuit.

 

[Touring Mars]

In a sense, Trump was extremely unlucky to have a pandemic. If all of these things were done under a normal election year, there MIGHT (maybe a 5% chance) be some merit to this lawsuit.

If this issue is that important, why hasn't someone filed a similar suit before the election... like, any time in the last 200+ years?

The timing seems just a tad coincidental, to say the least. By all means address the basic issue, but maybe they should be careful what they wish for, since if they could render the 2020 Presidential election result legally invalid, would it not also apply to every other Presidential election too, thus rendering dear old POTUS 45 plain old Mr. Trump once again? Now that would be funny.

 

[Joey D]

Now that would be funny.

What would be even funnier is that the likelihood a new election could take place before January 21 is practically nil, so that means we'd get a Biden/Pence presidency.

 

[ryzno]

What would be even funnier is that the likelihood a new election could take place before January 21 is practically nil, so that means we'd get a Biden/Pence presidency.

Now THAT would be interesting.

 

[Blitz24]

What would be even funnier is that the likelihood a new election could take place before January 21 is practically nil, so that means we'd get a Biden/Pence presidency.

If CBS gets the rights, we could have a second revival of "The Odd Couple"!

Oh no, now I kind of want this to happen.

 

[TexRex]

In a sense, Trump was extremely unlucky to have a pandemic. If all of these things were done under a normal election year, there MIGHT (maybe a 5% chance) be some merit to this lawsuit.

I figure that's easily ten times the chance the case has of being taken seriously by anyone not given to fellating Trump on social media. But this is the season for generosity.

Lots of things would be different in the absence of a global pandemic. For instance, Trump would only be running against the rest of his record from the last four years. The GOP also wouldn't have it to seize on in an attempt to rob the People of its voting power for fear of unnecessary exposure to a deadly virus.

But there is a global pandemic. Trump took that extra opportunity to simultaneously attack his enemies and play the victim while countless people in this country died, including those immediately whiny-little-bitch-adjacent. The GOP also took the opportunity to attack the democratic process by taking advantage of people's very legitimate fears, but then they've torched so many bridges these last four years that they undoubtedly--and understandably--figure their only chance of survival is to retain power by any means necessary.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

You'd figure that the best way to reward yearly budgets for the following year would be to those who finish (1) under budget (2) competently/safely (3) on time/earlier*. Then, you know they're working and planning smarter and that innovation and clarity should be rewarded. But every bid must be re-created for each new project to prevent favoritism.

Instead, you get a ton of this with government spending – contractors and private industry too – and it only contributes to more spending waste. It's all ca-ca-cuckoo, I tells ya. It's the kind of stuff that make you turn into Frank Grimes.

* pipe dream

I think you (and everyone on Nextdoor, come to think of it ) are expecting an unreasonably efficient process.

The problem is that contracts to do anything substantial often involve a huge amount of people with differing motivations. If you tell a contractor you want to finish ahead of schedule and under budget (lets call it a bond-funded public building) he will just look at you and say "no". Now you can probably get it finished ahead of schedule, but that typically involves paying out a bonus (effectively, the balance of the unspent budget) to do so. If you have a $300m public building budget, it will probably be bid at a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) and so the contractor has absolutely no incentive to finish under budget - he will do everything to hit exactly $300m, not a penny more or less. If you try to structure the bid such that any amount of budget left over goes back to the owner, then contractors may not even bid the project (they do want to make money afterall), or you'll end up with the bottom feeders and low quality. See how the public reacts to that. I've been on teams going after projects where the financial terms of the project were so unappealing that we actually couldn't find a contractor willing to team up with us, because it wasn't worth the risk/liability. In one instance, a project received zero proposals.

There are other ways of structuring a bid, but a contractor is going to act in his own self interest, whatever the method. If you dare to establish a budget around time and materials (as in no predetermined maximum price), it's absolutely certain you will go massively over budget. There's also cost-plus where the contractor is paid a fixed fee and whatever the cost of materials, but I don't know if this is really applicable to big projects of the governmental variety, and again, the final cost is somewhat unknowable. If you have tax payers funding a project and you cannot tell them what it will cost, that is not good.

Another issue is that public projects are often funded very specifically with things like bond measures which are typically voted on (at least here in the golden state). If voters approve $300m to build a new library, and if $280m is spent on the library and $20m goes somewhere else (lets say a project you didn't vote for), that doesn't reflect the will/intent of the voters.

The spend it or lose it model is far from perfect, and there are very clearly examples of abuse of funds, but realistically its probably the most reasonable approach. It's as good as the people managing it are.

 

[TexRex]

Pence asks judge to toss GOP lawmaker's bid to overturn election results

Vice President Pence on Thursday asked a federal judge to reject a bid by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and other Republicans to broaden Pence’s powers in a manner that would effectively allow him to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral win.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, seeks to expand Pence’s role in an upcoming Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to count states’ electoral votes and finalize Biden’s victory over President Trump.

But in a Thursday brief to Texas-based U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, Pence said he was not a proper defendant to the suit.

“A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” a Department of Justice attorney representing Pence wrote in the filing.

Typically, the vice president’s role in presiding over the Jan. 6 meeting is a largely ceremonial one governed by an 1887 federal law known as the Electoral Count Act.

But the Republican lawsuit seeks to invalidate the law as an unconstitutional constraint on the vice president's authority to choose among competing claims of victory when state-level election results are disputed.

Republicans in several key battleground states have disputed Biden's win and offered alternate "slates" of pro-Trump electors to be counted on Jan. 6, but experts say these efforts carry no legal weight.

The lawsuit targeting the vice president comes as Pence finds himself under increasing pressure from supporters of the president, and even the president himself, to use his statutory role to challenge normal election protocols.

The White House did not provide a comment when contacted by The Hill.

Among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were Kelli Ward, who chairs the Arizona Republican Party and formerly served as an Arizona state senator. Ward has repeated unsupported claims similar to Trump and his allies that the 2020 election was tainted by widespread fraud.

Ward was also involved in an earlier unsuccessful lawsuit to overturn Biden’s win in Arizona.

Election law expert Edward Foley, a law professor at the Ohio State University, said Pence’s position amounted to “a straightforward lawyerly response" to the lawsuit.

“It’s main argument is to say that the plaintiffs should have sued the Senate and House of Representatives, not the Vice President, but it also suggests reasons — like no standing on the part of the plaintiffs — that a suit against the two chambers of Congress would fail as well procedurally,” Foley said.

In separate developments in the case Thursday, an attorney for the Democratic-led House indicated that Democratic lawmakers would file an amicus brief in the suit.

Additionally, a Biden elector from Colorado asked the judge for permission to join the lawsuit as a defendant, citing concerns that Pence and the Justice Department would not adequately represent the interests of Biden electors.

Right trash throwing everything at the wall with the hope that it sticks. It's ****ing pathetic.

 

[McLaren]

I think Pence is just ready for this all to be done with & stay out of the public eye for the next year.

 

[UKMikey]

Not sure whether this should be in the election thread or the conspiracy thread. I'm going with conspiracy.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...-theories-thread.290602/page-44#post-13317649