USA Politics

[geralmar]

I have doubts about accuracy; but interesting.

[drogulus]

But there were a few this year.

     It's impossible to say with certainty, but it would surprise me if there was one BLM protester who committed murder.

     These are not difficult distinctions to make. I follow news of protests like other people do, and no matter how determined BLM is to maintain order among their own groups their ability to control the behavior of people unaffiliated with them is limited, since there are small but determined groups intent on causing trouble, in some cases despite who will be blamed, in others because of who'll be blamed. Then there are criminals who are apolitical and couldn't care less about blame.

[71 dB]

Well, apparently Antifa does.

Well, they should not.

[Daverz]

I have doubts about accuracy; but interesting.

I wonder what the methodology was.  Appalachia really stands out.  Why is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan so racist?  And Bakersfield/Fresno more racist than Eastern Oregon, Eastern Washington state, and Idaho?  That swath of California looks like it also includes Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.  I have heard of white supremacists in SLO.

[André]

I would imagine it tallies the number of reported racial incidents (police records?) vs a county's population. There must be a national figure from which the 'less' and 'more' than average is calculated. But over what time period ?

[Karl Henning]

greg, this is for you, budddy!

The percentage of eligible voters who abstain from voting measures the degree of concrete liberty in a democracy.
Where liberty is fictitious, or where it is threatened, the percentage tends toward zero. - Nicolás Gómez Dávila

If interested, more here: http://don-colacho.blogspot.com/

Great aphorism.  Although I am exhilirated at the much-increased turnout of the vote, the percentage of abstentions is nowhere near zero, and there is nothing admirable in Greg's disengagement from the privilege of voting: especially as he regularly wanks on this thread.

[milk]

Thanks for replying, but  honestly I think you conflated two questions in one answer. Allow me to separate them.

My first question was: Do both sides have their share of fanatics and (useful) idiots?

Your answer: Not really..

My second question was: If yes: Given the proper circumstances, can these fanatics and (useful) idiots on both sides do a lot of harm?

Your answer: Serious violence and murder has been almost exclusively on the side of right wing groups white supremacists

Thanks for answering. again. I have some supplementary questions, if I may:

1. What do you mean by "serious"? Where do you draw the line between "serious violence and murder" and "trivial violence and murder"?

2. according to you, "right wing groups white supremacists" have been given, and taken full advantage of, proper circumstances. Fine. Let me rephrase my second question: are there no far-left groups which given the proper circumstances will retort to just as serious violence and murder as the right-wing groups?

This discussion I find worthwhile. I think I have more sympathy with the left and I can kind of see how my friends think of themselves as being on the right side of justice and history. It's easier to identify where the intentions of the American far right are immoral, grotesque, hateful, etc. The question of the left is stranger and more interesting to me. I see a lot of my friends, for example, having had sympathy with Kathleen Soliah/Sara Jane Olson, who's even spoken publicly on panels about various social issues. You'd think someone like her would just hide in shame and thank her luck to be walking free. For those of you who don't know, she was a member of the SLA in the 60's and eluded capture by living under an assumed name (she became a bourgeois housewife in Minnesota, raising a family and volunteering for various charities) for many decades. She was paroled after finally being caught and serving a short sentence for crimes related to terrorism and murder.
You'd think Keith Ellison would be exiled from holding public office for having downplayed and rationalized the murder and terrorism committed by the SLA and having giving speeches in support of Soliah (and for having connections to Louis Farrakhan).
I've had conversations pointing out Ellison's speeches on this - thinking if they knew what he'd said, they'd be surprised and try to distance themselves. But they just minimize it. Now Ellison is the Attorney General of the state of Minnesota. 
The left does have a lot of people who find ways not to take itself seriously but these days, it seems, that you especially don't want to get caught, "owned" or "taken down" for not being radical enough.
I've had similar encounters over many issues of the hashtag left. I had a conversation over "believe all women." I was disagreeing with this while exchanging views with a feminist and a dude got very hot with me. He started to argue that "believe all" didn't actually mean "all" and was a kind of metaphor. But the feminist turned on him in an instant, "no, it really does mean all!" The left is willing to murder and destroy in the name of good intentions. Maybe that makes it more insidious.
I'm still on the left, BTW, though maybe my train has left the station. These days the left seems more like the right in its almost religious devotion to certain attitudes and irrational beliefs.

[greg]

     It's impossible to say with certainty, but it would surprise me if there was one BLM protester who committed murder.

You might have missed them, then. There was one where they followed a Trump supporter and then murdered him. Another where there was an argument at some protest and the BLM guy murdered the Trump supporter. And then another one I just discovered, that I had missed in July, a 24-year old mom getting shot and killed for saying "All Lives Matter" at a BLM protest.

[flyingdutchman]

You might have missed them, then. There was one where they followed a Trump supporter and then murdered him. Another where there was an argument at some protest and the BLM guy murdered the Trump supporter. And then another one I just discovered, that I had missed in July, a 24-year old mom getting shot and killed for saying "All Lives Matter" at a BLM protest.

You're going to have to do better than that. Show some evidence. There is one in Portland and even with that one there's evidence that when the police found the guy who did kill the Proud Boy member they may have not announced themselves and shot him in cold blood.

BUT, I can give you some very real people on the rightwing side who have murdered people. The El Paso murderer of the people at Walmart. Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Jeremy Christian in Portland. He was a Proud  Boy member who murdered 2 men on a Portland MAX train. The two men rushed to the assistance of two muslim girls and Christian slashed them with a knife.

You want to claim most of the violence comes from antifa, but I can tell you that that is clearly NOT the case. I'm sure you support the "very fine people" in Charlottesville who came out to spread their vile hatred, with one mowing down Heather Hyer in his car.

Greg, it's clear you have a rightwing agenda.

[flyingdutchman]

Get ready for the shock of your lives, leftists, liberals, globalists, neoconservatives and neoliberals. MAGA is coming for you Tuesday.

Last post till election when I get to gloat at the American people's victory over the illegal  Dem power grab.

Ya, I'm sure your fanatical "dear leader" will proclaim himself king that day even without clear evidence of his "victory."  FOOL. Talk about an illegal power grab. He'll say he's won even though only 2 states show him potentially "leading."

BTW, you clearly don't know what a neoliberal is.

[Herman]

indeed, it looks like this is the GOPs game plan.

Declare victory some time between ten pm and midnight, no matter what.

Posit this as a fact and after that the foot soldiers will not accept a reversal.

Chaos will ensue and that's when the SCOTUS comes in handy.

[Herman]

BTW it's hard to believe you guys have let yourself draw into a "good / bad people on both sides" discussion by the lo-info greg troll.

[71 dB]

VASA
Vote America Sane Again

[Karl Henning]

My party is destroying itself on the altar of Trump

Opinion by Benjamin L. Ginsberg

Benjamin L. Ginsberg practiced election law for 38 years. He co-chaired the bipartisan 2013 Presidential Commission on Election Administration.

President Trump has failed the test of leadership. His bid for reelection is foundering. And his only solution has been to launch an all-out, multimillion-dollar effort to disenfranchise voters — first by seeking to block state laws to ease voting during the pandemic, and now, in the final stages of the campaign, by challenging the ballots of individual voters unlikely to support him.

This is as un-American as it gets. It returns the Republican Party to the bad old days of "voter suppression" that landed it under a court order to stop such tactics — an order lifted before this election. It puts the party on the wrong side of demographic changes in this country that threaten to make the GOP a permanent minority.

These are painful words for me to write. I spent four decades in the Republican trenches, representing GOP presidential and congressional campaigns, working on Election Day operations, recounts, redistricting and other issues, including trying to lift the consent decree.

Nearly every Election Day since 1984 I've worked with Republican poll watchers, observers and lawyers to record and litigate any fraud or election irregularities discovered.

The truth is that over all those years Republicans found only isolated incidents of fraud. Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesn't exist.

As he confronts losing, Trump has devoted his campaign and the Republican Party to this myth of voter fraud. Absent being able to articulate a cogent plan for a second term or find an attack against Joe Biden that will stick, disenfranchising enough voters has become key to his reelection strategy.

Perhaps this was the plan all along. The president's unsubstantiated talk about "rigged" elections caused by absentee ballot "fraud" and "cheating" has been around since 2016; it's just increased in recent weeks.

Trump has enlisted a compliant Republican Party in this shameful effort. The Trump campaign and Republican entities engaged in more than 40 voting and ballot court cases around the country this year. In exactly none — zero — are they trying to make it easier for citizens to vote. In many, they are seeking to erect barriers.

All of the suits include the mythical fraud claim. Many are efforts to disqualify absentee ballots, which have surged in the pandemic. The grounds range from supposedly inadequate signature matches to burdensome witness requirements. Others concern excluding absentee ballots postmarked on Election Day but received later, as permitted under state deadlines. Voter-convenience devices such as drop boxes and curbside voting have been attacked.

Texas Republicans even thought it was a good idea to challenge 100,000 ballots already cast at a Harris County drive-through voting center that they want retroactively declared illegal. Perhaps they forgot the Republican expressions of outrage in Florida in 2000 when Democrats sought unsuccessfully to exclude 25,000 absentee ballots in GOP counties because of administrative error, not voter fault.

I was there, and I haven't.

The GOP lawyers managing these lawsuits may have tactical reasons for bringing each. But taken as a whole, they shout the unmistakable message that an expanded electorate means Trump loses.

This attempted disenfranchisement of voters cannot be justified by the unproven Republican dogma about widespread fraud. Challenging voters at the polls or disputing the legitimacy of mail-in ballots isn't about fraud. Rather than producing conservative policies that appeal to suburban women, young voters or racial minorities, Republicans are trying to exclude their votes.

"We have volunteers, attorneys and staff in place to ensure that election officials are following the law and counting every lawful ballot," Justin Riemer, chief counsel for the Republican National Committee, said Friday.

That's not precisely true. The Republican challenging effort is focused almost exclusively in heavily Democratic areas. Signature mismatches will go unheeded by Trump forces in friendly precincts. This is not about finding fraud and irregularities. It's about suppressing the number of votes not cast for Trump.

Maybe the president foreshadowed his real purpose at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday night, predicting "bedlam" if the results aren't known Nov. 3. In fact, challenged ballots aren't reviewed until days later. So in a tight race, Trump's demands for a quick result could cause the very bedlam he rails against. Or allow him to claim a false election night victory based on bad-faith challenges.

How sad it is to recall that just seven years ago the Grand Old Party conducted an "autopsy" that emphasized the urgency of building a big tent to reach communities of color, women and young voters. Now it is erecting voting barriers for those very groups. Instead of enlarging the tent, the party has taken a chain saw to its center pole.

My party is destroying itself on the Altar of Trump. Republican elected officials, party leaders and voters must recognize how harmful this is to the party's long-term prospects.

My fellow Republicans, look what we've become. It is we who must fix this. Trump should not be reelected. Vote, but not for him.

[Todd]

Here's some high end political journalism: Election: Incumbent Kurt Schrader faces challenger Amy Ryan Courser in 5th District

I will quote in full simply in case it is removed or updated before the promised time.

This story will be updated when initial election results are announced around 8 p.m. Nov. 3.

Incumbent Democrat Kurt Schrader faces Republican challenger Amy Ryan Courser and Libertarian candidate Matthew Rix to represent Oregon's Fifth Congressional District in the General Election.

Oregon Democrat Kurt Schrader held a commanding XX-XX lead against Republican challenger Amy Ryan Courser in the race for Oregon's Fifth Congressional District in initial election returns Tuesday.

Republican upstart Amy Ryan Courser appears to be pulling out a stunning upset in Tuesday's initial returns, leading Democrat incumbent Kurt Schrader by a XX-XX margin in Tuesday's initial election returns.

Libertarian candidate Matthew Rix has a distant XX% of the initial vote.

Schrader, a 68-year-old from Canby, has held Oregon's Congressional District 5 seat since 2008, winning six terms by wide margins, usually without serious opposition.

Ryan Courser, a 51-year-old from Keizer, was known as Amy Ryan when she held her first public office as a city council member in Keizer from 2015 to 2018.

Rix, a 29-year-old from Oregon City, had never run for or held a public office previously.

Oregon's fifth congressional district represents Salem, a swath north to parts of Portland, east to Stayton and Detroit and west to the central coast, including Lincoln City, Tillamook and Newport and includes parts of Marion, Clackamas, Yamhill, Lincoln and Tillamook counties.

Journalism is hard.

[JBS]

My party is destroying itself on the altar of Trump

Opinion by Benjamin L. Ginsberg

Benjamin L. Ginsberg practiced election law for 38 years. He co-chaired the bipartisan 2013 Presidential Commission on Election Administration.

President Trump has failed the test of leadership. His bid for reelection is foundering. And his only solution has been to launch an all-out, multimillion-dollar effort to disenfranchise voters — first by seeking to block state laws to ease voting during the pandemic, and now, in the final stages of the campaign, by challenging the ballots of individual voters unlikely to support him.

This is as un-American as it gets. It returns the Republican Party to the bad old days of "voter suppression" that landed it under a court order to stop such tactics — an order lifted before this election. It puts the party on the wrong side of demographic changes in this country that threaten to make the GOP a permanent minority.

These are painful words for me to write. I spent four decades in the Republican trenches, representing GOP presidential and congressional campaigns, working on Election Day operations, recounts, redistricting and other issues, including trying to lift the consent decree.

Nearly every Election Day since 1984 I've worked with Republican poll watchers, observers and lawyers to record and litigate any fraud or election irregularities discovered.

The truth is that over all those years Republicans found only isolated incidents of fraud. Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesn't exist.

As he confronts losing, Trump has devoted his campaign and the Republican Party to this myth of voter fraud. Absent being able to articulate a cogent plan for a second term or find an attack against Joe Biden that will stick, disenfranchising enough voters has become key to his reelection strategy.

Perhaps this was the plan all along. The president's unsubstantiated talk about "rigged" elections caused by absentee ballot "fraud" and "cheating" has been around since 2016; it's just increased in recent weeks.

Trump has enlisted a compliant Republican Party in this shameful effort. The Trump campaign and Republican entities engaged in more than 40 voting and ballot court cases around the country this year. In exactly none — zero — are they trying to make it easier for citizens to vote. In many, they are seeking to erect barriers.

All of the suits include the mythical fraud claim. Many are efforts to disqualify absentee ballots, which have surged in the pandemic. The grounds range from supposedly inadequate signature matches to burdensome witness requirements. Others concern excluding absentee ballots postmarked on Election Day but received later, as permitted under state deadlines. Voter-convenience devices such as drop boxes and curbside voting have been attacked.

Texas Republicans even thought it was a good idea to challenge 100,000 ballots already cast at a Harris County drive-through voting center that they want retroactively declared illegal. Perhaps they forgot the Republican expressions of outrage in Florida in 2000 when Democrats sought unsuccessfully to exclude 25,000 absentee ballots in GOP counties because of administrative error, not voter fault.

I was there, and I haven't.

The GOP lawyers managing these lawsuits may have tactical reasons for bringing each. But taken as a whole, they shout the unmistakable message that an expanded electorate means Trump loses.

This attempted disenfranchisement of voters cannot be justified by the unproven Republican dogma about widespread fraud. Challenging voters at the polls or disputing the legitimacy of mail-in ballots isn't about fraud. Rather than producing conservative policies that appeal to suburban women, young voters or racial minorities, Republicans are trying to exclude their votes.

"We have volunteers, attorneys and staff in place to ensure that election officials are following the law and counting every lawful ballot," Justin Riemer, chief counsel for the Republican National Committee, said Friday.

That's not precisely true. The Republican challenging effort is focused almost exclusively in heavily Democratic areas. Signature mismatches will go unheeded by Trump forces in friendly precincts. This is not about finding fraud and irregularities. It's about suppressing the number of votes not cast for Trump.

Maybe the president foreshadowed his real purpose at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday night, predicting "bedlam" if the results aren't known Nov. 3. In fact, challenged ballots aren't reviewed until days later. So in a tight race, Trump's demands for a quick result could cause the very bedlam he rails against. Or allow him to claim a false election night victory based on bad-faith challenges.

How sad it is to recall that just seven years ago the Grand Old Party conducted an "autopsy" that emphasized the urgency of building a big tent to reach communities of color, women and young voters. Now it is erecting voting barriers for those very groups. Instead of enlarging the tent, the party has taken a chain saw to its center pole.

My party is destroying itself on the Altar of Trump. Republican elected officials, party leaders and voters must recognize how harmful this is to the party's long-term prospects.

My fellow Republicans, look what we've become. It is we who must fix this. Trump should not be reelected. Vote, but not for him.

The Loch Ness comparison is not entirely accurate.
There are after all fuzzy photographs, incoherent accounts of first hand sightings, and a couple of banged up boats that can be cited as "proof" of Nessie's existence.

The claim of systemic voter fraud does not even have that much to back it up.

[Karl Henning]

Passed as emended.

[drogulus]

You might have missed them, then. There was one where they followed a Trump supporter and then murdered him. Another where there was an argument at some protest and the BLM guy murdered the Trump supporter. And then another one I just discovered, that I had missed in July, a 24-year old mom getting shot and killed for saying "All Lives Matter" at a BLM protest.

     I'm sure there are "they" murderers. I'm talking about BLM protesters. If you could link to failing news sources it would be helpful.

     

[Karl Henning]

You don't expect a guy with such a high IQ to rely on mere  news sources, do you?

[71 dB]

You might have missed them, then. There was one where they followed a Trump supporter and then murdered him. Another where there was an argument at some protest and the BLM guy murdered the Trump supporter. And then another one I just discovered, that I had missed in July, a 24-year old mom getting shot and killed for saying "All Lives Matter" at a BLM protest.

Serious violence by the left has been pretty anecdotal in nature. Of course every murder is too much no matter who murders who. I wrote earlier the left should wise up and become more strategic. Violence against Trumpists doesn't help achieving left wing goals.