Dem Post Mortem

[Derec]

Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because they glued their balls to their thigh.

That was a good one!

The D's must play hardball. For example, Biden once said "That's for the Senate Parliamentarian to decide; it's not for Joe Biden to decide."
What the F**king F**k! No wonder the country is lost.

Was that when the fauxgressives wanted to use reconciliation to pass stuff that had nothing to do with the budget?

 

[Derec]

Another huge albatross, if not even a millstone, around Kami's back was the whole crime/defund police thing.

Starting in 2019 when she lied (yes, lied, she is a prosecutor and knew better) about St. Michael Brown of the Blessed Swisher Sweets having been "murdered".

Even left-of-center Vox recognized that she and Fauxachontas were wrong.
Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris’s controversial Michael Brown tweets, explained

Then came 2020 and the riots and Kamala flirted with the idea of defunding police. And despite her poor primary performance she got selected for Veep because Biden backed himself into the corner - he pledged that he would not even consider anybody with a Y chromosome, and the 2020 race riots pushed him to not consider anybody white.

In 2024 election, not only did Kamala Harris lose, so did lefty George Gascon in LA. The Alameda County DA Pamela Price, another fauxgressive prosecutor, was recalled. California overwhelmingly (> 2/3 support) passed Prop 36 which repealed an earlier prop that reduced sentences for theft.

 

[Politesse]

Let us repeat: Trump didn't win the popular vote by a huge margin.

Donald Trump Has NOT Won a Majority of the Votes Cast for President

Donald Trump’s popular vote total has fallen below 50 percent, and his margin over Kamala Harris has narrowed considerably as all the votes are counted.

www.thenation.com

Cue the inane conspiracy theories and post-hoc confirmation bias laden speculation.

But some of our international "friends" think it's fair to throw us all under the bus because we voted for him... For fuck's sake, I don't so much as know anyone who did, nor do I particularly care to.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Dems really need to stop nominating people because "it's their turn" or because "they would make history".

for this election it was too late to do much else and have a good chance. But for the next they really do need a robust primary.

 

[thebeave]

Let us repeat: Trump didn't win the popular vote by a huge margin.

Donald Trump Has NOT Won a Majority of the Votes Cast for President

Donald Trump’s popular vote total has fallen below 50 percent, and his margin over Kamala Harris has narrowed considerably as all the votes are counted.

www.thenation.com

Cue the inane conspiracy theories and post-hoc confirmation bias laden speculation.

Phew! Trump didn't win the popular vote by a huge margin. Finally some good news about the election. I guess you take your victories wherever you can find them.

 

[thebeave]

Let us repeat: Trump didn't win the popular vote by a huge margin.

So what? He still got more votes than her, for what it's worth, even if it wasn't quite 50%.

Also, this is a Dem Post Mortem thread. Not yet another Trump thread. That shitty AI "art" Elixir inflicted on us was especially off topic.

To wrangle this thread back on topic, here's a thought.

Harris reportedly has a $20M debt, despite raising record amounts of money.
Harris campaign’s spending comes under scrutiny
I wonder how much of that money was spent on celebrities like Beyonce.

Being bad with money echoes Kami's 2019 campaign, where she enjoyed an early fundraising advantage, but had spent it all before 2020 even began.
April 2019: Kamala Harris takes early lead in the big-money race
December 2019: Kamala Harris ends White House bid, citing lack of funding

Dems really need to stop nominating people because "it's their turn" or because "they would make history".

Kamala should make a girl math Tik Tok video explaining how she spent over 1 billion in a matter of a few months, and still came out $20 million in debt. Throw in some of that cackle she's famous for. A little levity like that might help soften the rage coming from donors who dropped the big (and even small) bucks on her campaign. Seriously, there had to be some major grift going on with some of these consultants and celebrities. And one of her platforms for the campaign was going after the "price gagers" (aka "price gougers")! A high level campaign staffer for the DNC, Lindy Li, is hitting the media circuit talking about the billion dollar spendapalooza:

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Huh... Well, OK, if it makes you happy, I'll change the sentence for you, as unfortunately its too late to edit the post:

It is Republicans and Trump who are always harping about the border and millions of imaginary people crossing it.

Not sure that changes my point, though.

Oh, it doesn't change your point of trying to take spacetime inhabitants's post out of context, to try and make them look silly when the Mayor of NYC is talking about resources being strained by the increase in new immigrants heading (and or being sent to) NYC. It was just that emphasizing the "millions of imaginary people" just made your disingenuous post more obvious.

Dude, leave it to you to parse my responses down to the nitty gritty and assign nefarious intents to all my posts. The fact is, millions of people have illegally crossed the border in recent years, as has been harped on by both Democrats and Republicans alike. These are not imaginary people, they are quite real. Does that clarify things? Spacetime Inhabitants statement is blatantly false, so why don't you harp on him about his blatant falsehoods and stop micromanaging my responses?

I obviously was too subtle with my reference to millions of imaginary people. It is not simply the raw numbers (which ARE exaggerated, especially with regard to time scale, they are claiming those numbers each year) but the alleged nature of these immigrants - for instance, that they all are carting in a big package of Fentanyl ready to corrupt the American people. If this was true then these immigrants wouldn't be super poor. Also Americans should take some responsibility for their drug indulging habit. Drug dealers are only successful because there are so many drug buyers/consumers. Also, they are not all illegals.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, humanity and humility are reprehensibly being shoved down people's throats. Just like the gay agenda! Oh wait... that is normal now, so we don't worry about the "gay agenda" anymore.
We have 40% of the nation that wants to pretend that Transgenders don't even exist! I'm not going to swallow your tripe that insisting they are real is wrong.

Fine. You guys keep screaming about transgender issues e.g. harassing JK Rowling and wanting their own bathrooms. It's done us all so much good. Keep trading minuscule demographics for the big ones. It's done us all so much good. Women have lost abortion rights and same sex marriage is next. Glad to see you're more concerned about support 0.05% of the population at the expense of those lost rights.

I must be getting old. I am apparently the only one that remembers 2002 and 2004 and the GOP using gay rights as a wedge to drive right-wing turn out in elections by putting anti-gay marriage state amendments on the ballot. Now they are doing the same thing with transgenders. Lying, making shit up, to rile up the base.

Are you suggesting that in losing those elections, supporting gay rights was a mistake too? I'm not losing sleep over recognizing that transgenders exist and that they aren't freaks.

Wanna talk issues of transgenders in women sports? The same sports that these assholes fucking mock! Yeah, let's have that discussion, bring science into the discussion. Discuss the UCI study, look at the transgender performance in swimming while medicated to drop certain chemical levels. The UCI study alone would seem to suggest that it won't be fair, but not just because of the chassis, but because how the people who want to hold back transgender people feel about women in sports in the first place. I find it outrageous that the exact same people shitting on the World Cup winning USWNT asking for more equitable pay and training facilities and excoriating transgenders for harming the fairness of women's sports.

Women locker rooms, bathrooms, etc... the conversation sounds a lot more about what men think women's spaces should be than what women think they should need.

Women are concerned about this, but don't let it bother you.

Those concerns vary. Their positions vary. But all I hear (nationally) are generally men complaining. But thanks for informing me of my position and apparent disinterest in how women feel about transgender issues.

The same goes for border issues, and on and on and on.

Oh, that's right, "the border". I'll take issues that don't impact the average American's life for $800 Ken. Wanna talk shoving down one's throat? How about Trump and the hoards of illegals.

Oh really? Illegal immigration doesn't impact average Americans?

No.

About 83% of Hispanics beg to differ (see most recent Pew study).

Do the math please.

Generations ago when they came here, they worked their asses off, got paid less, but now they're getting the same wages as everyone else. I say this with respect to the construction industry, which I worked in since I was 12 (yes, 12). Now they want to keep what they've earned and I don't see a problem with that.

I love how liberal whites claim to speak for Hispanics, but haven't the slightest clue about what's important to them as a whole. It's pandering and insulting. It's also arrogant because the thought that a large ethnic group doesn't have agency except what the Democrats assign to them is galling.

Interesting part is that I wasn't speaking for Hispanics, but speaking to the truth that the average American is not impacted (negatively) by immigration. I know in Ohio, climate change impacts my life (particularly my job in the winter) more than immigration does. Though I do suppose the deportations will likely impact the broader economy negatively.

To quote my Trump voting cousin once more: "It's all that shit."

That isn't real, impacting their lives, or amounts to anything more than noise. They are raging over the windmills taking over the nation because the media they consume 24/7 has riled them up to think this shit matters to their lives. All the underaged daughters out there are doing active shooter drills in their schools... not active transgender student in the bathroom drills.

Well, they sure seem to believe that it isn't impacting their lives.

I can't fix stupid. That is the problem I saw with the upcoming 2024 election. A Trump victory would speak to an unbelievably hopeless electorate, re-electing the man who claimed the election was stolen from him, yet never actually took the claim to court to contest the election(s). Instead getting a mob to riot at the US Capitol Building. This is 40 years of propaganda in the making. These people want to burn it all down because the right-wing programmed to think it was all needless. I can't fix that. I can't fix that they have no idea what they are talking about and all the "problems" that concern them are nothing compared to the real issues they and this nation face.

 

[scombrid]

Another huge albatross, if not even a millstone, around Kami's back was the whole crime/defund police thing.

Starting in 2019 when she lied (yes, lied, she is a prosecutor and knew better) about St. Michael Brown of the Blessed Swisher Sweets having been "murdered".

Even left-of-center Vox recognized that she and Fauxachontas were wrong.
Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris’s controversial Michael Brown tweets, explained

Then came 2020 and the riots and Kamala flirted with the idea of defunding police. And despite her poor primary performance she got selected for Veep because Biden backed himself into the corner - he pledged that he would not even consider anybody with a Y chromosome, and the 2020 race riots pushed him to not consider anybody white.

In 2024 election, not only did Kamala Harris lose, so did lefty George Gascon in LA. The Alameda County DA Pamela Price, another fauxgressive prosecutor, was recalled. California overwhelmingly (> 2/3 support) passed Prop 36 which repealed an earlier prop that reduced sentences for theft.

They complain about the Democrats not doing anything for the common man and "Fauxahontas" is the pinnacle of their commentary on Elizabeth Warren.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But what body of adequate authority ever determined that it was an insurrection?? That's where I have a problem--if a suitable body declares that 1/6 was an insurrection then he should be yeeted on the 14th. But that didn't happen--remember the various red areas talking about yeeting Biden on "insurrection"?

Did you read the ruling of the Colorado case? Would the Colorado Supreme Court be a “body of adequate authority”?

I think it needs to be either Congress or SCOTUS.

 

[Shadowy Man]

But what body of adequate authority ever determined that it was an insurrection?? That's where I have a problem--if a suitable body declares that 1/6 was an insurrection then he should be yeeted on the 14th. But that didn't happen--remember the various red areas talking about yeeting Biden on "insurrection"?

Did you read the ruling of the Colorado case? Would the Colorado Supreme Court be a “body of adequate authority”?

I think it needs to be either Congress or SCOTUS.

Thanks for your opinion.

 

[TomC]

But what body of adequate authority ever determined that it was an insurrection?? That's where I have a problem--if a suitable body declares that 1/6 was an insurrection then he should be yeeted on the 14th. But that didn't happen--remember the various red areas talking about yeeting Biden on "insurrection"?

Did you read the ruling of the Colorado case? Would the Colorado Supreme Court be a “body of adequate authority”?

I think it needs to be either Congress or SCOTUS.

Why would Colorado need a federal agency to decide who qualifies to run in their own state? Colorado wasn't making a decision for any other state.
In fact, according to the Constitution, state legislatures appoint EC delegates. Not the feds, much less political parties.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof" except if Congress declares an action insurrection or rebellion, or else if an individual gets convicted of a relevant federal crime, passed by Congress?

It would be a bad precedent indeed to give state courts power to declare presidential candidates ineligible, and indeed, the Amendment does not seem to do that. It is also curious that the Amendment specifies "elector of President and Vice-President", but not "President and Vice-President" themselves. Strange omission.

Horse crap. We all know what he did and who he had helping him. The fake electors scheme goes straight back to the Oval Office. The fact that he let the insurrection go on for three hours definietly shows aid and comfort. His promise to pardon those convicted of associated crimes also shows it.

Trump should have been immediately arrested the morning of January 21st.

To me the fundamental problem is that we don't have a definition of exactly what constitutes insurrection. This has a I-know-it-when-I-see-it nature. And that doesn't belong in law.

What we do have are quite useable rules for what constitutes incitement.

Trump's violent rhetoric leading up to and following the 2020 election so clearly constitutes incitement to violence that it would be difficult to find a clearer example that doesn't include super specific language like, "Now go and spread shit on the walls of Congress!" There are no so called "magic words" that constitute incitement.

The problem isn't "incitement", but "insurrection". Look what happened when Colorado tried to use it--a bunch of red states were going to come up with pretexts to use it against Biden. We need an authoritative source on whether an action is insurrection, not 50 states making their own decisions.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

To me the fundamental problem is that we don't have a definition of exactly what constitutes insurrection. This has a I-know-it-when-I-see-it nature. And that doesn't belong in law.

What we do have are quite useable rules for what constitutes incitement.

Trump's violent rhetoric leading up to and following the 2020 election so clearly constitutes incitement to violence that it would be difficult to find a clearer example that doesn't include super specific language like, "Now go and spread shit on the walls of Congress!" There are no so called "magic words" that constitute incitement.

The problem isn't "incitement", but "insurrection". Look what happened when Colorado tried to use it--a bunch of red states were going to come up with pretexts to use it against Biden. We need an authoritative source on whether an action is insurrection, not 50 states making their own decisions.

The law needs to make sense. So either we need 50 states to individually concur that insurrection happened, and sign off on it, or one centralized authority indicates as such. Being excluded from serving is a national thing, not a state thing, so it can be reasonably argued that if one states says they are disqualified, no state can allow that person to serve in Government without a note from Congress.

The trouble with the 14th Amendment is it was written specifically for the Civil War. That wasn't remotely a gray area! So it fit fine with the circumstances. Heck, didn't lots of people get permission regardless of their actions? (John Brown was executed for his insurrection... the Southerners were treated quite like royalty for theirs... which cost the lives of over 800,000 Americans. And the South still whines about it.!

 

[Colonel Sanders]

or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof" except if Congress declares an action insurrection or rebellion, or else if an individual gets convicted of a relevant federal crime, passed by Congress?

It would be a bad precedent indeed to give state courts power to declare presidential candidates ineligible, and indeed, the Amendment does not seem to do that. It is also curious that the Amendment specifies "elector of President and Vice-President", but not "President and Vice-President" themselves. Strange omission.

Horse crap. We all know what he did and who he had helping him. The fake electors scheme goes straight back to the Oval Office. The fact that he let the insurrection go on for three hours definietly shows aid and comfort. His promise to pardon those convicted of associated crimes also shows it.

Trump should have been immediately arrested the morning of January 21st.

To me the fundamental problem is that we don't have a definition of exactly what constitutes insurrection. This has a I-know-it-when-I-see-it nature. And that doesn't belong in law.

What we do have are quite useable rules for what constitutes incitement.

Trump's violent rhetoric leading up to and following the 2020 election so clearly constitutes incitement to violence that it would be difficult to find a clearer example that doesn't include super specific language like, "Now go and spread shit on the walls of Congress!" There are no so called "magic words" that constitute incitement.

The problem isn't "incitement", but "insurrection". Look what happened when Colorado tried to use it--a bunch of red states were going to come up with pretexts to use it against Biden. We need an authoritative source on whether an action is insurrection, not 50 states making their own decisions.

Federal law defines what a riot is. It needs to have all the following criteria:

• A public disturbance
• Involve three or more people
• The group engages in acts of violence
• There is a clear and present danger of damage to property or injury to people

The law includes threats of violence if those involved could immediately act on the threat.

Under federal law, inciting a riot (18 U.S. Code Section 2101) includes acts of "organizing, promoting, encouraging, participating in a riot" and urging or instigating others to riot.

The criminal code clarifies that incitement is not the same as simply advocating ideas or expressing beliefs in speech or writing. To qualify as incitement, the speech must advocate violence, the rightness of violence, or the right to commit violent acts.

Federal riot crimes provide up to five years in prison upon conviction.

Incitement to Riot would be included in any insurrection charges (see following):

• 18 U.S.C. 2383
  Covers insurrection or rebellion against the United States, and the punishment for such acts. This includes a fine, up to 10 years in prison, and a permanent disqualification from holding any government office.
  
  
  
  
• 14th Amendment, Section 3
  Also known as the Disqualification Clause, this section prevents people who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding certain offices. Congress can remove this disqualification with a two-thirds vote in each House.
  
  

Insurrection is defined as the act of revolting against an established government or civil or political authority, or the crime of inciting such a revolt.

In short, the charges go hand in hand.

I remember being convinced that the Emoluments Clause would get Trump removed. I remember thinking that incitement and insurrection would land him in prison.

Now I've come to the conclusion that Constitutional law means jackshit to the Trump Party and that nearly every charge of weakness and flaccidity leveled against the Democratic party is undeniably true.

 

[TomC]

Now I've come to the conclusion that Constitutional law means jackshit to the Trump Party and that nearly every charge of weakness and flaccidity leveled against the Democratic party is undeniably true.

Welcome to 21st century USA.
I've been watching this happen for decades.
Tom

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Now I've come to the conclusion that Constitutional law means jackshit to the Trump Party and that nearly every charge of weakness and flaccidity leveled against the Democratic party is undeniably true.

Welcome to 21st century USA.
I've been watching this happen for decades.
Tom

It's erosion started decades ago and now that's come to its fruition.

The only thing we can hope for is that those in power e.g. SCOTUS will exercise their conscience(s) and professional obligations....

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Its almost never easy or inexpensive adding a bathroom after the fact. You have to tap into a hot and cold water source from somewhere nearby, and that means tearing up floors, walls and/or ceilings and patching and painting them back up again. Drains too, which can be even more of a problem, as you have to have the drain slope towards its destination at 1/4" per foot. If you're a small business having to add an extra bathroom, the cost is likely prohibitive.

A small water heater, if necessary at all, can be purchased for less than $200. And a few public restrooms would be enough; no need for every small business to have one. (There's a number-of-employees threshold for applying rules to small businesses. Perhaps some of those thresholds should be raised anyway.)

The small water heater is a small part of the cost of adding said water heater. I've paid to run another circuit from the panel--easy run, still twice the price of your water heater. By the time you've added a bathroom I wouldn't be shocked at $20k.

But for small businesses it's not a problem--they should have a single-occupancy bathroom anyway.

 

[TomC]

But for small businesses it's not a problem--they should have a single-occupancy bathroom anyway.

Why?
I see no reason for that.

Provide two restrooms, a restroom for anyone male or female, and I see no reason for them to spend any more.

If it's in their best interest to do so, fine. But if there's a restroom for everyone they've done their public duty.
Tom

 

[TV and credit cards]

But for small businesses it's not a problem--they should have a single-occupancy bathroom anyway.

Why?
I see no reason for that.

Provide two restrooms, a restroom for anyone male or female, and I see no reason for them to spend any more.

If it's in their best interest to do so, fine. But if there's a restroom for everyone they've done their public duty.
Tom

A father with a very young daughter or mother with a very young son in tow might.

A Lowe's in my area has the usual men's/women's and one single use lockable labeled "family" for whomever may feel comfortable using it.