Author Topic: The Joe Biden Thread  (Read 41823 times)

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Offline segnosaur

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #210 on: October 23, 2020, 10:34:12 am »
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The Republicans have won the popular vote twice in the last 30 years.

Also, you should check your facts.
Why are you cherry-picking 30 years?  Why not 40 or 50?  Is it because Nixon won twice?  Reagan won twice?
The reason why people tend to put more emphasis on the republicans loss over the past 30 years (as opposed to the past 40/50 years) is because of the way politics has evolved.

First of all, the political environment has become much more static since the days of Bush Sr., with most states firmly entrenched in their political camps.... Carter won texas, Ford won California, Reagan won new york, Clinton won multiple deep-south states, etc. But since 2000, most states have become firm in their voting patterns.... Republicans always win texas, the deep south, and most interior states, Democrats win NY, California, etc. There are very few swing states. This appears to be a new development, and it does not appear to be changing.

Secondly, the republican party have become a group of ass-hats, between dirty election tricks (gerrymandering congressional districts, widespread voter suppression, etc.) and the breaking of political norms (such as the use of obstructionism). Back in the 70s, the republicans had enough integrity to play a role in forcing Nixon out of office. Now, in the 21st century, Trump has engaged in more unethical behavior than Nixon ever did, and the republicans continue to line up behind him. And those are the people that are deciding on judges, who will have an influence on how people live for decades to come.

Lastly, we pay more attention to what has happened in the past 30 years because it appears to be the trend. If you have centuries of relatively stable "winner of the popular vote usually also wins the electoral college", and then within a few decades have a system where the republicans regularly fail to win the popular vote but still end up in power, people are right to question it.

If I show up at the hospital emergency room gushing blood through an open wound, the question the doctors are going to be primarly concerned with what happened post-injury. They are not going to say "There is nothing to worry about because you lived for decades before that injury".
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Offline segnosaur

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #211 on: October 23, 2020, 10:55:06 am »
Sometimes the court is more liberal, especially in the past.  Sometimes it’s more conservative.  It’s not meant to be a mini House of Representatives.
No its not. But its also not supposed to be the personal plaything of Moscow Mitch and Stubby McBonespurs.

The democrats have won the popular vote in the majority of the past elections. Democratic politicians represent a larger share of the American voters. The majority of the population favors things like Abortion rights and Obamacare. Yet we are in a situation where a russian-backed president who lost the popular vote, along with senators who largely represent states with more cows than people, are going to be in charge of selecting the people who will be interpreting the laws and the constitution.

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Packing the court only delegitimizes it.
Delegitimized according to who? If the democrats pack the court, it will still have the same authority it will have before.

Actually, the court has already been delegitimized, thanks to the actions of the republicans.

If it is perfectly acceptable for the Republicans to break political norms (e.g. blocking court nominations, cramming through judicial appointments), then they can't necessarily complain when the Democrats decide to do the same.
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When FDR tried it, he was roundly denounced by both parties.
Different era.  Back then, at least the republican party had some integrity. They do not now.
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It’s what happens in banana republics.
And what does having a president that got into power in part through the manipulation of Russia, and supported by a senate who's republican members represent a minority of the population count as?
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If you want to appoint judges, win the presidency and control the senate.  You don’t expand the number of judges.  That’s absurd and illustrates how out of touch you are with American history and politics.
Actually it seems to be you that is out of touch with American history.

The number of judges is not defined in the constitution, nor has the number of judges been fixed at 9. In the past it has varied from 6 to 10.

It should also be pointed out that by blocking the appointment of Garland, Republican senators basically stated that the number of judges does not HAVE to be 9... functionally they were allowing the court to have 8... (And in fact one Republican senator claimed that had Clinton won in 2016, they would have continued to block any nominations.) So Republicans can't both claim "9 is the perfect number" and "8 was A-OK for a year".
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Offline segnosaur

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #212 on: October 23, 2020, 11:22:37 am »
Hunter's business partner just confirmed that those emails are real. Here's the link
https://nypost.com/2020/10/22/hunter-biz-partner-confirms-e-mail-details-joe-bidens-push-to-make-millions-from-china/
Correction... Hunter's business partner did not confirm the emails were real.

Some individual (at this point we don't know how trustworthy he is) has claimed (without yet providing proof) that a few emails (actually it may only be one) has TEXT that is real. We do not know whether this individual is trustworthy. Furthermore, he has not verified ALL of the emails, nor has he provided anything (such as email metadata) to illustrate that the email itself was sent from/received on Hunter Biden's laptop (Or, more appropriately, on the laptop CLAIMED to be Hunter Biden's). More importantly, he has not done anything to verify any of the other allegations (such as the images of child abuse)

Oh, and by the way, there is also this:
From: https://time.com/5902557/hunter-biden-rudy-giuliani-ukraine/
Explicit photos and emails purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in Ukraine last year at the same time that Rudy Giuliani was searching for dirt there on former Vice President Joe Biden

So, this laptop, that the shop owner claimed the laptop he received in Mid-2019 and about which he only contacted people in late 2019, already had data that may have been circulating before Guilianni and the FBI got involved.

Oh, and by the way, note that my reference was from Time Magazine... a reputable mainstream media source, and not some tinfoil-hat conspiracy site like you seem to favor.
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The former mayor of New York filed a police report on purported Hunter Biden laptop, alleging child endangerment
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/rudy-giuliani-reports-evidence-alleged-child-endangerment-delaware-police
You mean the guy who is currently under investigation because it is thought that he is being targeted to be a Russian stooge?

From: https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/521328-intelligence-officials-warned-trump-that-giuliani-was-target-of
Intelligence officials warned President Trump that his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was the target of an influence campaign conducted by Russian intelligence...intelligence officers were worried that the president’s personal lawyer was being used to pass Russian misinformation to Trump.
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The Homeland Security Committee of the Senate published the report on Hunter's corruption
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Ukraine%20Report_FINAL.pdf

Is Senate a reliable source of information?
At this point I would not trust any republican senator.
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For anybody who takes reputation seriously and is facing such an accusation would definitely publicly defends himself or even go further like files lawsuits against the person or newspaper for damaging his reputation. Have you seen any action from Biden? Absolutely nothing except just saying it's all false information.
What more needs to be done?

Its such a silly accusation that anyone going out of their way to deny it gives it more credibility than it deserves.
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Wake Up! Do your research and it's pretty easy as we have Google!
Ah yes, the whole "wake up!" argument.

The same argument used by Moon Hoaxers, (Wake up! Can't you see the moon landings were faked), 9/11 deniers (Wake up! Can't you see the towers were destroyed by alien death rays!), and flat earthers (Wake up! Can't you see that NASA is all a hoax!)

Here's a suggestion... learn to apply some rationality and skepticism when you look at information. Evaluate information based on the sources. Before you post something from your google searches, ask yourself "is this web site legitimate", and look at something like the media bias web site.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2020, 11:29:18 am by segnosaur »

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #213 on: October 23, 2020, 12:34:47 pm »
True, the senate isn't "gerrymandered". But, it is biased in the fact that smaller, rural states have more power/influence on a per-voter basis than larger, more urbanized states.

The use of the phrase 'gerrymandering' is incorrect, but concentrating on that error ignores the bigger problem: that the U.S. senate system is problematic because it disenfranchises voters to a significant degree.Time and time again,

That's the way the system was specifically designed.  The rep by pop is in the House of Representatives.  It was designed so the people can't dominate the states and vice versa.  Checks and balances.  Also, the "United States" is at its core a union of states.
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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #214 on: October 23, 2020, 12:40:57 pm »
That's the way the system was specifically designed.  The rep by pop is in the House of Representatives.  It was designed so the people can't dominate the states and vice versa.  Checks and balances.  Also, the "United States" is at its core a union of states.
Exactly.  They don't understand federalism.  They don't understand representative republic.  Every state was made to have the same number of senators in the senate, while the house reflects population percentages.
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Offline Montgomery

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #215 on: October 23, 2020, 01:00:43 pm »
That's the way the system was specifically designed.  The rep by pop is in the House of Representatives.  It was designed so the people can't dominate the states and vice versa.  Checks and balances.  Also, the "United States" is at its core a union of states.

That's correct but it's not a system that is working very well. It's hard to imagine how they could fix it without just throwing it out and turning to a parliamentary system.

The formation of the union called for compromises to democracy. Any ideas? perhaps some adjustment in the power of the people's House to make it at least equally as powerful as their senate?

It seems to me that the system has shown how it can be perverted in the very short time of Trump's 4 years.
The power of the president
The corruption of the Scotus
The corruption of the justice system. (Barr)
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said. ~M.T.

Offline WakeYouUp

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #216 on: October 23, 2020, 01:17:12 pm »
Just can't wake up the people refusing to be wakened.

Hope all the Biden supporters here coming back in about a month to review their posts here and not feel ashamed.

Enjoy your weekend
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Offline segnosaur

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #217 on: October 23, 2020, 01:24:40 pm »
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The use of the phrase 'gerrymandering' is incorrect, but concentrating on that error ignores the bigger problem: that the U.S. senate system is problematic because it disenfranchises voters to a significant degree.
That's the way the system was specifically designed.  The rep by pop is in the House of Representatives.  It was designed so the people can't dominate the states and vice versa.
Yes, that was the way it was designed. And it might have worked for a while. But what worked well in the 18th and 19th centuries does not seem to work well in the 21st century.

Things have changed... the population has become more urbanized, the population differences between the smallest and largest states has become more pronounced, the U.S. has more states, plus territories that it did not have in the 18th century (and in one case a territory that has more people than Wyoming, Vermont and North Dakota combined). And as I mentioned before, the political system is suffering from both stagnation (i.e. states that are locked into one particular party) and corruption (hello Moscow Mitch).

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Checks and balances.
Checks and balances are a good thing. But the United States does not really seem to have that at this point in time. Instead, they have obstruction and enablers (both thanks to the Republican party).

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Also, the "United States" is at its core a union of states.
Which is irrelevant. It would still be a union of states, even if they adjusted the rules to redistribute the senate seats.

The idea that "all states must be equal" is a nice philosophical idea, but it would be foolish to stick to the idea that "they must all have equal senate representation" if that idea is failing in practice.
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Offline segnosaur

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #218 on: October 23, 2020, 01:38:06 pm »
That's correct but it's not a system that is working very well. It's hard to imagine how they could fix it without just throwing it out and turning to a parliamentary system.
I don't know if they would have to completely throw it out. There are a couple of things that could be done:

- Make Puerto Rico (and maybe Washington D.C.) a state... this will make sure certain people who don't have full representation will have their concerns heard
- Adjust the distribution... Perhaps make sure each state gets between 1 and 3 seats, based on population (but with a formula that totals 100 senators). Voters in smaller states (like Wyoming) would still get a little bit more power than voters in California (so the smaller states wouldn't be "overrun"), but it would not be quite as lopsided as it is now. Granted, this would require a constitutional amendment (which would be a near impossible task), but then so would switching to a parliamentary system
- Modify the rules of the senate, and have them codified into law (or even the constitution) to prevent someone like Moscow Mitch from corrupting the system as he has. So, you would still have each state with 2 senators, but it would limit the dirty tricks they could pull

Offline Montgomery

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #219 on: October 23, 2020, 01:51:35 pm »
I don't know if they would have to completely throw it out. There are a couple of things that could be done:

- Make Puerto Rico (and maybe Washington D.C.) a state... this will make sure certain people who don't have full representation will have their concerns heard
- Adjust the distribution... Perhaps make sure each state gets between 1 and 3 seats, based on population (but with a formula that totals 100 senators). Voters in smaller states (like Wyoming) would still get a little bit more power than voters in California (so the smaller states wouldn't be "overrun"), but it would not be quite as lopsided as it is now. Granted, this would require a constitutional amendment (which would be a near impossible task), but then so would switching to a parliamentary system
- Modify the rules of the senate, and have them codified into law (or even the constitution) to prevent someone like Moscow Mitch from corrupting the system as he has. So, you would still have each state with 2 senators, but it would limit the dirty tricks they could pull

Thanks for your reply and your thoughts!

While your ideas of awarding bigger states more senators and deducting a senator from smaller states would be a step in the right direction to solving the problem, in my opinion it would only be a partial remedy. It would be impossible to afford equal representation by population by going to that mehod of a fix.
So it wouldn't be 'quite' as lopsided as it is but still lopsided.

They have a huge problem that's developed on fairness according to population and the union of the states isn't a factor that they will ever allow to be ignored.

I think it's just a question of how much destruction of democracy they can allow to take place before they're forced to change. It's such an enormous problem that it could be the cause of a total breakdown of their union of states.
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said. ~M.T.

Offline segnosaur

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #220 on: October 23, 2020, 02:03:03 pm »
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I don't know if they would have to completely throw it out. There are a couple of things that could be done:

- Make Puerto Rico (and maybe Washington D.C.) a state... this will make sure certain people who don't have full representation will have their concerns heard
- Adjust the distribution... Perhaps make sure each state gets between 1 and 3 seats, based on population (but with a formula that totals 100 senators). Voters in smaller states (like Wyoming) would still get a little bit more power than voters in California (so the smaller states wouldn't be "overrun"), but it would not be quite as lopsided as it is now. Granted, this would require a constitutional amendment (which would be a near impossible task), but then so would switching to a parliamentary system
- Modify the rules of the senate, and have them codified into law (or even the constitution) to prevent someone like Moscow Mitch from corrupting the system as he has. So, you would still have each state with 2 senators, but it would limit the dirty tricks they could pull
Thanks for your reply and your thoughts!

While your ideas of awarding bigger states more senators and deducting a senator from smaller states would be a step in the right direction to solving the problem, in my opinion it would only be a partial remedy. It would be impossible to afford equal representation by population by going to that mehod of a fix.
So it wouldn't be 'quite' as lopsided as it is but still lopsided.

They have a huge problem that's developed on fairness according to population and the union of the states isn't a factor that they will ever allow to be ignored.

I think it's just a question of how much destruction of democracy they can allow to take place before they're forced to change. It's such an enormous problem that it could be the cause of a total breakdown of their union of states.
Personally I don't think there is a problem with a little lopsidedness (such as my 1-3 senator redistribution method). I think a partial fix may be all that is needed.

After all, Canada also has riding boundaries that give more political power to rural ridings and its system seems to be functioning well enough.
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Offline Montgomery

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #221 on: October 23, 2020, 02:22:29 pm »
Thanks for your reply and your thoughts!

While your ideas of awarding bigger states more senators and deducting a senator from smaller states would be a step in the right direction to solving the problem, in my opinion it would only be a partial remedy. It would be impossible to afford equal representation by population by going to that mehod of a fix.
So it wouldn't be 'quite' as lopsided as it is but still lopsided.

They have a huge problem that's developed on fairness according to population and the union of the states isn't a factor that they will ever allow to be ignored.

I think it's just a question of how much destruction of democracy they can allow to take place before they're forced to change. It's such an enormous problem that it could be the cause of a total breakdown of their union of states.

Personally I don't think there is a problem with a little lopsidedness (such as my 1-3 senator redistribution method). I think a partial fix may be all that is needed.

After all, Canada also has riding boundaries that give more political power to rural ridings and its system seems to be functioning well enough.

You could be right that there's noting else possible.
But the problem could become so destructive that it tears their country apart.
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said. ~M.T.

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #222 on: October 23, 2020, 02:33:06 pm »
The parties will support whatever proposals favour their side.  This means we probably won't see any changes because one side will inevitably lose out.  Unless there's a super majority in the Senate and House and POTUS of all one party or whatever they need to make constitutional amendments.
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Offline Montgomery

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #223 on: October 23, 2020, 02:43:48 pm »
The parties will support whatever proposals favour their side.  This means we probably won't see any changes because one side will inevitably lose out.  Unless there's a super majority in the Senate and House and POTUS of all one party or whatever they need to make constitutional amendments.

And so any opinion on the negative effect that's destroying their country?
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said. ~M.T.

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: The Joe Biden Thread
« Reply #224 on: October 23, 2020, 05:07:37 pm »
And so any opinion on the negative effect that's destroying their country?

What's destroying the US is corrupt money in their politics. 

If they want to change the electoral college and the Senate formula or admit Puerto Rico etc that's fine, but if big money remains in the system it won't do much because both parties are paid off very handsomely by corporate interests. Bernie Sanders should be POTUS.
"Nipples is one of the great minds of our time!" - Bubbermiley