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President Elect Biden speaking now, sounding pretty sharp, more so than he has for a while
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@Kiwiwomble said in US Politics:
President Elect Biden speaking now, sounding pretty sharp, more so than he has for a while
very shouty though
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No us and them talk, just really positive, good to hear
Have to say, it’s fascinating how little talk there has been about the first female Vice President
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@nzzp said in US Politics:
@Kiwiwomble said in US Politics:
President Elect Biden speaking now, sounding pretty sharp, more so than he has for a while
very shouty though
Nothing beats a speech mumbled in a whisper!
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Having watched Harris' televised phone call to Biden to congratulate him I'm not sure what's going to get Joe first.
Alzheimer's or the knife in his back.
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@MiketheSnow said in US Politics:
Having watched Harris' televised phone call to Biden to congratulate him I'm not sure what's going to get Joe first.
Alzheimer's or the knife in his back.
Do you really believe Joe will ever become President?
Here's a good video to consider (about the vote recording systems used in the US). At the 45 minute mark it shows how Biden's total increased by 138,000 votes in Michigan after voting was closed down. Why was it closed down for starters at the same time in these key states. I was watching when this occurred. Trump was in the lead then surprise surprise he was behind. I saw it happening on election night
The recounts will pick these 'corrections' (or bogus updates) all up.
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@Winger said in US Politics:
Trump was in the lead then surprise surprise he was behind.
There is no surprise the city ballots came in later. They favoured the Democrats.
You remind me that Trump said the 2016 votes were rigged until he won. Then he didn't say that any more.
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@nostrildamus said in US Politics:
They favoured the Democrats.
Funny that. It favored Joe 100%. My view if this crap holds (the fraud is too obvious) elections in the US will be meaningless. And everyone will know it. The people who control these machines will determine the election winners.
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Funny that you don't note Trump told them to vote in person, Biden didn't and mail-in votes get counted later.
Funny stuff alright, because of the Republicans
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-blames-democrats-for-late-counted-mail-ballots-he-should-blame-the-gop/ar-BB1aJIkV- It’s a big mystery to Trump, it seems. But if he’s really that concerned about it, he should be taking it up with the parties responsible: namely, the state Republican parties.
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The idea of a rigged election has come up before, notably in 1960 which was very close. Nixon, the loser refused to contest the result saying that to do so was bad for America, though many felt that he knew it was futile and didn’t want to be cast as a sore loser. The GOP did contest several counts to no avail, finding in some instances Nixon’s votes had actually been over-counted. Will Trump go down as a sore loser? My guess is yes.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/10/was-nixon-robbed.amp
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@Godder Spot on. The things that get me about these election rigging conspiracies is that seemingly the tin foil hat mob don’t consider the sheer scale of such an operation, how many people would have to be involved and in something that is always going to be highly scrutinised. The chances of the thing getting exposed is really quite high and the consequences of getting caught are huge.
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@Catogrande It is always somewhat bizarre to see some of the theorists get themselves in knots over how these things are supposed to happen. Most of the politicians and civil servants involved were probably run off their feet just trying to get an actual election run.
The amount of work to rig it as well? There are only so many hours in the day.
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@Snowy said in US Politics:
@Winger said in US Politics:
One way is removing ballots and replacing them. Or inserting ballots where the voter didn't vote.
They are coded aren't they? Are you saying that they photocopy millions of ballots that weren't sent to them. How do you replace them? How do you collect those? Insert ballotts how? There has to be identity verification.
I think they do things like checking postmarks on the envelopes which seems pretty old school to me, but I think @Godder pointed out above: if you really want to rig an election you'll find a way.
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@NTA said in US Politics:
The amount of work to rig it as well? There are only so many hours in the day.
Spot on. One of the reasons I like paper - stuffing ballot boxes is one thing, but doing that at a scale to actually influence an election without being caught is almost impossible.
Also note that cheap video cameras everywhere has pretty much killed that. The videos of Putin's election from a couple of years ago were astonishing, and we just haven't seen anything like that here.
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https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/trump-presidential-transition-421465
Article from September on the potential for transition - the planning they need to do in order to hand over in the event it occurs. For me it was interesting to see that there are certain points where they need to show they're meeting the standard. It is particularly noteworthy to understand how Trump handled the transition in 2016 i.e. firing almost everyone.
Trump’s team plots his departure — even if he won’t
One of the most organized parts of the White House these days is a surprising place — the West Wing office planning a presidential transition.
President Donald Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses. But his team is carefully developing plans for that very outcome.
One of the most organized and functional parts of the Trump White House these days is a surprising place — the West Wing office planning a potential presidential transition.
As the president rails against mail-in ballots and “Sleepy Joe Biden,” assistant to the president Chris Liddell has spent weeks mapping out a possible handover of power to Democrat Joe Biden.
Liddell has met the congressionally mandated deadlines to file two different transition reports in May and August. He is working closely with a career government official who is serving as the federal transition coordinator — typically the type of worker Trump would label as part of the “Deep State.” And the Justice Department has already agreed to start pre-processing Biden officials’ security clearances just in case he wins, according to people familiar with the planning.
“They are very, very focused on implementing the law and doing it by the book, and they are doing a good job,” said David Marchick, director of the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service.
Instead of on-the-fly decisions, staff infighting or governing by instinct — all hallmarks of Trump’s leadership style over the last four years — transition planning has happened quietly, efficiently and with little public fanfare.
The question is whether Liddell can maintain this level of professionalism if and when Trump starts paying more attention to the prospect of leaving office. Trump’s last transition team under Gov. Chris Christie also ran smoothly and made plans for hiring Cabinet officials and rolling out executive orders — until the Trump team fired Christie days after winning and threw his binders of plans in the trash.
“I suspect the president is totally unaware,” one former Obama transition official said about Trump and the transition plans. “It could go sideways as soon as he knows this is going on.”
A White House official said the president is aware of the transition work of Liddell, who has been at it for months.
“The Trump Administration has met and will continue to meet all requirements under the law as it relates to any needed transition between administrations,” said White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere.
In a political environment already gripped by Trump’s repeated refusal to agree to a peaceful transfer of power, both Democrats and some Republicans feel nervous about the road ahead. Democrats fear Trump could sabotage it by denying Biden aides access to federal agencies, slow-walking security clearances or, more broadly, questioning and undermining the results of the election for several weeks in November and December.
Friends and allies say Liddell is aware of the delicacy of the situation and is purposefully seeking to work under the radar. Liddell declined to comment.
Aiding Liddell in both the planning for a potential transition, or a second Trump term, is top White House attorney Pat Cipollone. Liddell and his team have also been working on a policy agenda for Trump if he wins a second term and are coordinating with the head of presidential personnel, John McEntee, on possible senior personnel picks for both the Cabinet and key White House posts.
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, for instance, is not expected to stay on for four more years. And top aides have been eyeing Jim Donovan, a former partner from Goldman Sachs, to either replace Kudlow or take a top Treasury post. Neither Kudlow nor Donovan responded to requests for comment.
The White House handed Liddell the transition portfolio because of his past work on the transition team for 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. During that period, Liddell served as the executive director of the roughly 600-person Romney transition team and made sure the operation, which functioned more like a consulting firm, met its deadlines, with timelines and deliverables.
“He knows how to run the machinery,” said Tim Adams, a former Romney transition official and a former top Treasury official. “Hopefully, they are leaving him alone and letting him do this job.”
Following the 2012 election, the New Zealand-born Liddell helped to write an entire 138-page book on the Romney team’s methodical and corporate approach. It was an environment well-suited to Liddell’s business background, which includes stints as the chief financial officer for both Microsoft and General Motors.
In the spring of 2016, Liddell, who had become a close ally of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, Liddell helped to present on the mechanics of transition planning at a retreat for the six presidential campaigns.
He joined the Trump White House in the early days — first working for Kushner’s Office of American Innovation before becoming a deputy chief of staff in charge of policy coordination. Though Liddell lacked deep policy expertise like some of his colleagues, he oversaw the coordination of contentious areas like immigration and trade. In July 2018, he told POLITICO his newness to policy was an asset, not a weakness.
“It’s essential that I don’t bring personal bias to the role,” he said at the time.
Roughly three weeks ago, Trump nominated Liddell to serve as the secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the intergovernmental body meant to encourage economic progress and global trade. A White House official said the nomination would not affect planning for a transition or a second term since the selection process takes place between November and January.
For now, Liddell is impressing business leaders, good government types and even former Obama aides with the ease of the White House’s transition planning. The former Obama transition official said he was “somewhat flabbergasted that they have maintained regular order for an administration that is not about regular order.”
Potential pitfalls still remain if Trump loses.
If the results of the election are unclear or Trump protests a Biden win, that could delay the process of the General Services Administration certifying the winner and giving the Biden team access to millions of government dollars to fund their transition team and salaries.
The Trump team could also hold off on allowing the Biden teams to go into the federal agencies – or simply not communicate with incoming officials.
“The truth is if they decide to not cooperate, there is a way around it,” said Chris Lu, the former deputy Labor secretary under President Barack Obama. Lu served as executive director of the Obama-Biden transition team in 2008. “Democrats have only been out of power for three-and-half years and there are ways to adjust to it.”
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@NTA said in US Politics:
Article from September on the potential for transition -
All well and good. But the election has a long way to go yet (the media don't decide the winner). This observer issue for one must be addressed. Ballots were counted in secret. Why would this be done I wonder
Sunday Talks: Rudy Giuliani Outlines Upcoming Election Lawsuits…
Posted on November 8, 2020 by sundance“We do not yet know where this current political crisis and ongoing battle is going to end; but we do know that 71,000,000 Americans will not accept the outcome of a political process transparently filled with fraud and manipulation. That makes President Trump a very dangerous entity to the DC system, regardless of whether DC admits what surrounds them.
There is no reference point for 71 million Americans being disenfranchised by Wall Street, bribery, corporations, media and big tech. That 71 million person army is fuel for a stunning and cataclysmic shift in the American landscape. (more)”
Rudy Giuliani appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss pending election lawsuits that will be filed over the next few days in several states. The Trump campaign indicates they are not going to allow election fraud to remain hidden.
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@Winger said in US Politics:
There is no reference point for 71 million Americans being disenfranchised by Wall Street, bribery, corporations,
What a stunning piece of text. Americans - and in particular Conservatives - are champions of the free market, unfettered capitalism, and admiring success above all other things. And pursuing those goals ruthlessly.
It has been a recent global trend with conservatives - rich, powerful, socially elite conservatives - to convince a large section of the masses that they will be championed by silver spoon inheritors. The masses hate wall street, yet aspire to its ideals of endless growth, financial success, and security.
What is that old quote?
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@NTA said in US Politics:
are champions of the free market, unfettered capitalism, and admiring success above all other things. And pursuing those goals ruthlessly.
But not rigged elections
The biggest issue though is useless computer vote recording systems. Where the data can be changed along with the audit file. We will hear a lot more about these systems (like Dominion) , who runs them, where the data is held (not the US), what the issues are etc over the next few weeks. Its these systems that allow votes to be flipped from one candidate to another one. Or votes just added to one candidate as noted below. With no audit trail.
Time will tell how valid these claims are. But some top people people (like Sidney Powell) are all over this
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