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2020 Election News and Information (Week of November 1st)
A thread you can easily ignore
A new week a new thread
As the pace and the quantity of information that is coming out of the election increases. Instead of creating a new post for everything, or not posting things because it is a smaller item, please feel free to post here.
Feel free to break out any information posted here into its own thread if the discussion warrants it.
Major news can/should be broken out into its own topic. (use your own discretion)
Final thread before the election
Texas Supreme Court rejects Republican-led effort to throw out nearly 127,000 Harris County votes
Some more coverage from Mark Joseph Stern at Slate, who's one of my favorite reporters on SCOTUS and the courts:
I hadn't heard of that "attempted doxxing" case before, but goddamn...
Some more good info on the case from Judd Legum's Popular Information newsletter too: Messing with Texas
Not SCOTUS (yet), but a federal lawsuit is still pending. The Texas Supreme Court only denied the state-level lawsuit.
The "normal" process would be for an appeal of that ruling to go first to the 5th Circuit appeals court, and then to SCOTUS.
Federal judge tosses challenge from GOP to throw out Harris County drive-thru ballots
Law enforcement officers in Graham, North Carolina, used pepper spray on people, including young children, who were marching to a local polling station on Saturday, and made multiple arrests.
Trump Is Barricading Himself Behind a Massive 'Non-Scalable' Fence on Election Day
Sign of a healthy democracy right there.
oh we're fucked. My worry is that even if we are able to de-worm the whitehouse of him. He is going to start "The Trump News Network". That will allow him a large mouth piece long after this election is gone.
If Biden wins there needs to be a push to reinstate the FCC fairness doctrine which has directly lead to the extremely partisan reporting.
FTFY: FCC fairness doctrine
Fixed, thanks!
When Biden wins, I expect Trump to eventually end up in prison.
I can only hope.
Philadelphia police are investigating an alleged plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia on Thursday night.
A reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer posted a photo to twitter of a Hummer with Virginia plates and a QAnon "WWG1WGA" sticker parked nearby.
And also:
Secret Service plans to ramp up protection of Biden in anticipation of his possible win
I have a really bad feeling that we're in for some of the worst right-wing terrorism we've ever seen.
Supreme Court throws out First Amendment ruling against Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson
Spanberger on the Dem caucus call
We might get a new speaker out of all this.
I don't know how you can possibly look at the current state of the democratic party / american politics and think "You know what the problem is? It's not uninspiring and wishywashy enough! They need to say less and lean even harder into unoffensive respectability."
Jesus Christ, people need something to vote FOR, not just against The Bad People.
I'm not sure when "my vision" was put to vote.
Trump was a celebrity before running for president in 2016, not an unknown. Being a celebrity gave him a huge head start.
Democrats have been running this moderate message and getting wiped out across every level of government for a decade.
Need to drop gun control. It does nothing, it affects POC and the poor more than anything, and is alienating an entire voter base that votes single-issue because of it.
Note
I'm going to play a lot of devil's advocate in here, I'll mention it in some places, but overall these are the arguments many have against gun control.Background checks are already done every single time a gun is sold from a dealer, auction company, pawn shop, etc.
The only time a background check is not done is on a private party (person-to-person) sale and as a gun enthusiast I wholly support being able to do so. Dealers, et al. use the NICS system to run background checks. This is a simple online system run by the ATF; you put in identifying details of the individual purchasing the gun (name, address, DOB, race, and other info like social security number if you've ever been mixed up with someone else), hit go, wait a couple of minutes, get result. It'll either be pass, fail, or wait (meaning they need longer to check). There is zero reason I shouldn't be able to use this on my phone when selling a gun to someone. Instead I have to go with a "gut feeling" that this person is not a felon, not planning on killing someone, mentally stable, etc.
Personally I just require anyone I've sold guns to privately to have a concealed carry license as it means they've already gone through the checks and approved. However not all people do that and it's not required of them.
In nearly half of the states do have some measure of "universal background check" by requiring a private sale to go through a dealer where the dealer will run the check before the gun can be transferred. This can and should be done across the country, but that's not where it stops with DNC. All of the guns used in Sandy Hook were legally purchased by the perpetrator's mother. Connecticut is one of the states that requires even private sales to go through a background check. A national universal background check law would have done nothing to prevent it.
From Biden's website on gun control:
There's plusses and minuses here. Are guns meant to kill things? Yes, but so is every weapon. Should I get to sue Bear Archery (makers of almost 400 different models of compound bow) if I get hit by an arrow from one of their weapons? Should my wife get to sue Cutco if I'm murdered by someone using one of their knives? How about if someone beats me to death with a DeWalt hammer? Kills me in a bar with a broken Budweiser bottle? Lures me to an electronics recycling warehouse and crushes me under the weight of a million gen 1 iPods?
Now there's definitely some really fucked marketing by gun companies and that is why there's a lawsuit against Remington about it. Just as tobacco ads no longer show babies and doctors, gun shouldn't be marketed like it makes average idiot extremist into Rambo either. I fully support this just as I would any fertilizer company advertising "Great for Oklahoma!"
Assault weapons are already banned and have been since 1986 when further changes to the National Firearms Act went into effect. No civilian can own an assault rifle made after that date, as a result any full auto firearm made and registered with the ATF prior to that date is prohibitively expensive (think cheapest in the $10k range) and requires a intense background check and fingerprinting by the ATF that takes a year or more to get a result.
Now if we want to start the moving-the-goalposts definition of "assault weapon" we'll head over the to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban:
Want to guess what civilian semi-auto rifles haven't had since WW2? Bayonet lugs. Want to know what is already banned by the NFA and no civilian has? Grenade launchers. Most rifles already have fixed stocks, pistol grips are optional (and don't make a gun more deadly or easier to fire), and most rifles don't have threaded barrels. Law = ineffective
This definition was in place to stop the traditional "gang banger" guns like the Tec-9. None of these definitions apply to pretty much any pistol. Law = ineffective
This definition was to stop street sweeper style shotguns that were shit when they were being made and aren't made any longer because they're still shit. Although now there are better (but not good) shotguns that would be banned by this, too bad they aren't actually used by anyone or in mass shootings. Law = effective at banning something that doesn't happen in the first place
For "high capacity magazines" they like to throw out the 10 round limit. I don't have a problem with this as I have firearms that I find mechanically interesting pieces of engineering; I don't shoot people and I don't hunt (and even if I did capacity isn't a thing to worry about because if you can't kill your meal with one shot you probably can't kill it with 30); I just put holes in paper at greater and greater distances to challenge myself to be accurate.
However I'll play devil's advocate on this point: Why does "high capacity" start at 11 rounds? Why not 6, the traditional number for revolvers? Why not 15, half the capacity of the standard rifle magazine now and the standard capacity of nearly every pistol? Why not 30, the standard capacity in the most popular (both civilian and military) rifles and what they're designed to use? Why not 50, where traditional magazines tend to have trouble working reliably and even non-traditional magazines are considered too heavy and bulky to be worth carrying? How about the fact that attempting to make a law to stop something only creates innovation to get around it. Even the National Criminal Justice Reference Service study at the end of the 1994 ban noted advertisements for post-ban guns that barely changed from the pre-ban models. Looking at gunfight statistics shows that even the trigger happy NYPD doesn't fire 10 rounds per incident (average 5.2), which drops further in places like Miami-Dade where it's down to 3.2, or in LA where if there are multiple officers involved it jumps to 6.48 (4.98 with 2 officers, 3.59 with only 1), Baltimore averages 2.8 rounds fired.
What is a ban going to accomplish? Mass shootings are awful, no one will argue that. However, gun deaths per capita are 12 for every 100,000. 4.6 of that are homicides, 6.9 are suicides. A magazine limit and ban on grenade launchers and bayonets isn't going to stop someone shooting themselves.
If we want to talk about impact and effective policies, why are we legalizing drugs across the country when they average 19.4 deaths per 100,000 while an "assault weapon and magazine ban" would maybe half the 4.6 per 100,000 homicides that happen each year?
So Biden and the Democratic Party are pushing legislation that in a best case scenario will halve the number of homicides per year from 4.6 per 100k to 2.3 per 100k while alienating millions more voters so that the changes we all actually need (climate change, green energy, socialized medicine, etc) will never happen.
They. Already. Are. Unless you're talking about renewing the 1994 ban at which point one of two things will happen. Manufacturers will change the guns to get around it as needed or they won't and you'll disproportionately effect the poor and POC as guns regulated under the NFA carry an additional tax on top of the purchase of $200 per firearm. Which is more than half the price of the guns that the poor and POC already purchase. So yeah, great idea, let's put in another law that only protects those with the money to afford protection.
Buybacks don't work. The second part requires people who don't let the government buy back their guns to register them with the NFA. Which is a $200 tax per item on something you cannot trace at present and no one will do in the first place. So no one will sell it back to you and no one will register it. Again, ineffective.
This limits purchases to one gun per person per month. On the one hand I don't buy that many guns that quickly all that often (I like unique guns and they don't come up often so of the dozen or so I have, not counting my wife's, only a couple were purchased at one time), but when a collector does die/liquidate and has several guns I'd like to collect this would limit me which is a pain in the ass.
That's the universal background check that I and most people have no issue with.
There isn't a loophole. The "boyfriend loophole" is where you have someone that will pass a background check buy the gun and then give it to you. This is already illegal.
Mental instability is already one of the things that bars you from passing a background check, however the ATF does have limited records on mental health issues as not every state or institution reports it. Trump reversed an Obama policy that had the SSA report mental hospitalizations to the ATF for the background check purposes.
This is a "loophole" about misdemeanor hate crimes. Felons can't have guns. The solution is to make misdemeanor hate crimes into felonies. Hate crimes are so rarely prosecuted in the first place that this seems useless.
So remember the pass, fail, wait in the background check from earlier? The "wait" thing has a timer. If the ATF doesn't respond in three business days the law says you have to release it to the buyer, if it comes back fail later the dealer contacts the police/ATF to say it failed and that this person has a gun they shouldn't have. Biden's proposal pushes this to 10 days instead of three. I have no problem with this either.
Making it easier for the average joe selling a gun to run a background check is a no brainer.
Making it harder to get guns by people that shouldn't have them is a no brainer. Push Universal Background Checks, explain it simply that every gun sale needs a check to make sure bad people aren't getting guns. Say you can run a background check on the person you're selling a gun to on your phone, for free, and all you need is for them to show you their ID.
Saying that some guns that look scary need to be banned is taking an entire group of people that like your other policies out of your corner.
Saying you won't ban some arbitrary definition of "assault weapon" and won't put an ineffective limit on magazine capacity isn't going to magically make a bunch of democrats start voting republican as the republicans aren't suddenly going to go "Keep your guns, abortions, immigrants, and gay marriage!" to counter the dems dropping "gun control". They don't like to be controlled, they like being safe. Don't try to control the guns, put in legislation that keeps people safe by expanding access to background checks.
Don't try to push gun registration. The repubs will call you a nazi as they revisit Hitler's requirement of Jews to register themselves.
I agree. On the car front I'm of the opinion that not only should a license be required, regular retests should be as well. Nothing huge, but once a decade doesn't seem out of the question considering how badly people seem to drive or otherwise are unable to correctly operate their vehicle. As an automotive enthusiast as well 10 years is typically an amount of time that most people replace their car at least once and have new advancements that come with it, inability to operate the vehicle correctly should lead to failure and requirement to retest. The sheer number of people I see driving at night or in the rain in brand new cars that haven't figured out that daytime running lights aren't headlights and so are driving around a nearly three ton missile is frightening.
On the gun license front, I'm not opposed either, to an extent. On the one hand greater barriers to entry disproportionally affect the poor and POC, but on the other hand I don't think you should be allowed something that has the potential to easily kill (like a car or gun) with zero knowledge of how to use it safely. One of the things that gun nuts (whom have a complete lack of tolerance for any gun laws/control/licensing, which I differentiate from my own descriptor as a gun enthusiast) like to bring up about Texas (in the context of the general public seeing us as this cowboy frontier of zero regulations) here is that in order to have a concealed handgun license you have to pass a safety and marksmanship course. It teaches about safe operation of a handgun, when it is and is not legal to use it in defense, what to do if you have it and are pulled over, and the various laws around the state along with a shooting test of 50 rounds that has a minimum 70% accuracy score to pass; along with fingerprinting and background checks.
I have zero issue with requiring people to know how to hit their target and when they should or should not defend themselves/others if they are going to carry a gun with them constantly as would be expected with a CHL holder. I like the idea that at least a basic education has been passed and they've been briefed that if they choose to use a gun and are wrong they will lose the privilege of owning guns in the future. I've been to gun ranges and seen people that have zero experience using a gun do so dangerously. These people are typically yelled at by the RO (range officer, just a guy that's watching people not a cop) without telling them how to be safe as that would be a training course and pretty much every range charges for that as a service. So they get yelled at, not really know why they're getting yelled at, try not to screw up again, likely get yelled at again and this time told to leave. It's like disciplining a child without explaining what they did wrong and expecting them to learn from it, only now the child has something that can kill people.
I try to step in if it seems like they're open to communication and I'm not there with people I'm teaching (many of my range trips are with friends or coworkers that have never fired a gun). My gun dealer is also a longtime close friend and this year's craziness has seen a massive uptick in business, having seen a few people that buy a gun and look immediately uncomfortable with it he's begun to take them to the range for some basic training on how to use it safely for free so he's comfortable that these first time gun buyers aren't going to hurt themselves or someone they don't intend to should they need to use it or even just take it out of the case. I have a CHL, but I choose not to carry a gun for various reasons.
I can't say that I understand it either as there is no single answer and even the fight over gun control is relatively new; it really started in the 80's with the passing of changes to the 1968 Gun Control Act which was perfectly fine by most gun nuts (and the NRA but they don't want you to talk about that) because it was specifically in place to stop black people from getting guns. The NRA is another reason I distance myself from gun nuts as they have remained entirely silent when black people that have legally owned guns have been murdered by police. This is one major reason the NRA's membership is dropping quickly as there are lots of "liberal gun owners" like me and even republican gun owners that see the hypocrisy/outright racism of only speaking up if it's about white people.
Personally, I like guns for the mechanical ingenuity and engineering behind their function and I like the challenge of accurately putting holes in paper at greater and greater distances. If all guns disappeared overnight I wouldn't have a problem with it other than being ticked at the money I've spent on them disappearing. I only have one "normal" gun for protection when needed all others are mechanical/engineering oddities and something I'd likely share here on Tildes at some point.
How many states don't already have universal background checks?
Just under half. Notably Connecticut does and all of the guns used in Sandy Hook were legally purchased by the perpetrator's mother. So a nationwide universal background check law would have stopped nothing.
Peter Zeihan via twitter
Didn't know that was a thing that happens. Then again I didn't pay nearly as much attention to 2016 as I am now. I wonder what the delta is for 2016 between the percentage of people who said "I will definitely vote" and the actual percentage turnout?
From 538: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems
It seems a lot of absurd, undemocratic things are very possible in the next few days (or weeks, or month, or two) so a live blog tracking them is very useful.
This is the real worry. The polls all look great for the Dems.
NPR is reporting that Biden is (narrowly) ahead in Michigan
With him (also narrowly) ahead in Wisconsin, (assuming nothing changes) that adds up to exactly 270 EC votes
I think most of us have a few reactions:
1: Biden is almost there!
2: That's a really close result, odds are the Republicans are gonna request a recount, or worse.
3: The Dems are likely screwed in 2022 if they don't get the Senate, which seems quite likely (most likely path seems to be MI, NC and the runoff in GA turning D (like so), but most of those votes there are already counted so a blue shift for all of them, and especially Georgia, seems to be a pretty big bet.) I'm not gonna say this was all for nothing, but that is an unfortunately reasonable take.
BTW I'm not sure if this should go in this thread or the election day thread. That thread was apparently supposed to be a 'conversational thread' while this one was more for 'articles and events', but I'm not sure.
Biden has officially won michigan. Nevada is releasing additional results today instead of tomorrow. There's a chance Biden gets 270 tonight.
Edit: In case this was missed: For some inexplicable reason, Nevada walked back its willingness to share results early. We're in a holding pattern still.
Election Day Protection Briefing with Jen O'Malley Dillon & Bob Bauer | Joe Biden for President 2020 - Youtube
President Trump Delivers Remarks
This is being posted on the Whitehouse.gov site. This will probably be a shitshow. It is supposed to start @ 6:30pm eastern but will probably be late, because he always comes to these things late.
I am on the fence if this deserves its own thread. It probably will.
But on the chance this is a nothing burger I don't want to waste everyone's emotional energy.Other weird notes, throughout the day I have seen it reported that Trump was going to hold remarks in Philadelphia @9:15 @3:30 and then in Georgia at 6:30. Now it is just a press conference at the whitehouse
Separate thread = https://tildes.net/~news/t3y/donald_trump_gives_remarks_regarding_the_us_election_results_live
Last Edit: Link starting at the beginning of speech
Seconds in... and it's already absolutely unhinged. I am deeply concerned to see what comes of this. Hopefully nothing, as everyone continues to just ignore him.
What's so amazing to me is that he's reading a script. His speech writers have really honed in on his rambling style.
As insanely unlikely as it is, I'm desperately hoping that for once in his miserable, godforsaken, pathetic life he has decided to take the high road and this presser is his concession speech. Sadly, it's far far far far more likely that he is once again just going to ramble about how "rigged" the system is, nonexistent election fraud being the reason he is losing/lost, and outline the legal campaign he and the Republicans have now set in motion to try to ensure he remains President. :(
Edit: Yep... nevermind. It's just more bullshit about "illegal votes", "election interference", and how he "really won". Fucking jackass.
I appreciate your optimism, but instead it seems to be a victory speech for a victory he hasn't actually won and probably isn't going to.
Posted a thread... cause fuck me, really?
https://tildes.net/~news/t3y/donald_trump_gives_remarks_regarding_the_us_election_results_live
USPS processed 150,000 ballots after Election Day, jeopardizing thousands of votes
So the government suppressing voters did work.
Nice.
Those numbers seem too small to change the outcome? It might flip Georgia but that wouldn’t be enough.
In my opinion, that doesn't matter in the slightest. The 2000 election was decided by less, and even if not, voter suppression is completely unacceptable. Also, consider that it was planned to happen at a much larger scale, if the courts hadn't called back the postal service.
Take this with a Large grain of salt, but it is interesting that it is being pushed out
Trump won't concede until December 14 - report
EDIT: Trump says will pursue election-related legal challenges; 'will never give up fighting' for the nation
Polling info, Sort by Competitiveness to get a more detailed view of the numbers
Why Bush v. Gore Still Matters in 2020
I would also recommend season 1 of the Fiasco podcast on this topic. It's on the Luminary network which is normally paywalled, but they've made those episodes free as a teaser.
Zeynep Tufekci's op-ed in the NYT: Why You Can’t Rely on Election Forecasts - Voting models are not as scientific or certain as they may seem
And a post on her newsletter going a little further into her thoughts on the topic: Why I changed my mind on modeling electoral forecasts
How to Price an Election: A Martingale Approach- Discussion with Dhruv Madeka and Nassim Taleb
Pennsylvania National Guard Troops Deployed Throughout Philadelphia On Halloween
Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday activated up to 1,000 members of the Massachusetts National Guard as one step in preparations to ensure Massachusetts “is positioned to maintain public safety following Tuesday’s election,” his administration said.
National Guard arrives at McCormick Place in #Chicago
An Election Day role for National Guard? Maybe, but limited
National Guard Readies for Election Day Deployment - NYT
This "theory" seems to have made a lot of rounds on many social media platforms recently so I felt like linking a fact-check about it: Biden did not get 100% of 138k votes in Michigan for seemingly no reason (Snopes link if you prefer)
I've been watching /pol/ the past couple days and the speed that this "theory" became "fact" is alarming. They are living in an alternate reality. The fact that a lot of these people (at least the ones who aren't larping teenagers) are voting is kinda scary.
Even /r/conservative didn't buy into it and they aren't (hmm... how do I do this nicely?) the more rational people I've seen.
A Flomaton, Alabama police captain is defending himself after social media posts that called to “put a bullet in their skull” in response to political posts on Facebook
He is, predictably, defending himself with "that's not what I meant / that's taken out of context" excuses. But the exchange, in context, is pretty goddamn clear:
I don't know how to post this one, as it is mostly speculation at this point, I do believe that is is important to get familar with people who will be making news in the coming weeks/months.
NY AG Tish James On 2020 Election, Trump Org Investigation, NYPD + NRA
Twitter
Biden and Trump campaigns each say in dueling press briefings that they will win
This one is just too on the nose
Georgia judge dismisses Trump campaign lawsuit
AP - Biden plans prime-time televised address
BIDEN EXPECTED TO SPEAK TO THE NATION TONIGHT -PERSON FAMILIAR WITH CAMPAIGN PLAN - RTRSBut looking at their main page, WTF is up with that twitter account and the all-caps? It's super obnoxious, IMO.
Putting up a new link, thanks for catching that!
AP - Biden plans prime-time televised address