2020 Presidential Election

[elengil]

'Friday Night Massacre' at US Postal Service as Postmaster General—a Major Trump Donor—Ousts Top Officials


"Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. All told, 33 staffers included in the old postal hierarchy either kept their jobs or were reassigned in the restructuring, with five more staffers joining the leadership from other roles."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/ ... onor-ousts

[Impenitent]

Well, that's one way to set things up to ensure electoral fraud... [/cynical joke]

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

[RoseMorninStar]

I'll second that and raise you a

[Dave_LF]

I might have predicted that a president would pack the Pentagon and Justice Department leadership with loyalists in anticipation of rigging an election. The Post Office is a bit of a surprise.

[River]

I think Trump's vendetta with the USPS initially had more to do with his vendetta with Jeff Bezos and Amazon than the election. However, the pandemic and voting by mail gave him added excuse. It gives Trump an oppurtunity to create more chaos and uncertainty and thus keep all the attention on him. Also, people shifting to voting by mail because they don't want to get COVID probably, in his imagination, looks like a personal rebuke or criticism of his pandemic response (remember, to a narcissist, it's all about them all the time, no exceptions, no pee breaks).

[RoseMorninStar]

(remember, to a narcissist, it's all about them all the time, no exceptions, no pee breaks).

Yup. And they will stop at NOTHING and tear everything around them down because to them NOTHING else matters. Like a giant black hole sucking everything in and putting nothing good out.

[Túrin Turambar]

Biden selects Harris

Not a surprise, and a prudent choice. The Party's left won't like her record on policing and law enforcement in CA, but most are committed enough to beating Trump they'll vote for the ticket anyway. She'll be progressive enough to satisfy most without alienating moderates, and shows that the Democrats are serious about diversity. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that the VP pick boosts a ticket's chances, but at the very least it shouldn't harm them (cf. GOP 1988 and 2008). And as I said upthread, Biden seems to be doing best the fewer unexpected and headline-grabbing things he does - particularly with the President giving interviews like the one he gave to Jonathan Swan at Axios last week.

[Dave_LF]

Stand by for social media posts from trollbots simultaneously attacking Biden/Harris for being too soft on crime AND too tough on it.

[yovargas]

Biden selects Harris

There doesn't seem to be much evidence that the VP pick boosts a ticket's chances but at the very least it shouldn't harm them

That might be a little different this time considering that Biden, if he wins, will be the oldest president ever. The odds of the vice president becoming president in this instance are far higher than they normally are.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Party's left won't like her record on policing and law enforcement in CA.

This is largely based on a false narrative built on a few examples taken out of context. As prosecutors go, she has always been on the progressive side of things, and she has a long history of fighting for criminal justice reform and particularly of working to reduce recidivism, both as the San Francisco D.A. and as California Attorney General. Indeed, most of the controversy that she created during the time that she was a prosecutor was her reluctance to apply the death penalty.

[Túrin Turambar]

Biden selects Harris

There doesn't seem to be much evidence that the VP pick boosts a ticket's chances but at the very least it shouldn't harm them

That might be a little different this time considering that Biden, if he wins, will be the oldest president ever. The odds of the vice president becoming president in this instance are far higher than they normally are.

True, although I still think that even in these cases a VP pick doesn’t harm a ticket rather than actually helps it. IOW, I don’t think there’s any significant number of people who weren’t planning to vote for Biden who could be persuaded to vote for him based on his VP pick, but a decent number who could have been put off. This applies to the president, actually – there are always more people willing to vote for ‘generic Democrat’ (or Republican) than the actual candidate the party settles on. The trick is to lose as few as possible.

The Party's left won't like her record on policing and law enforcement in CA.

This is largely based on a false narrative built on a few examples taken out of context. As prosecutors go, she has always been on the progressive side of things, and she has a long history of fighting for criminal justice reform and particularly of working to reduce recidivism, both as the San Francisco D.A. and as California Attorney General. Indeed, most of the controversy that she created during the time that she was a prosecutor was her reluctance to apply the death penalty.

Fair enough. I get my opinions on what the left wing of the Democratic Party wants or doesn’t want from Youtube, so the narrative might be skewed.

Of course, there seems to be a vocal minority for whom pretty much any use of policing seems to be considered oppressive, so I doubt that any DA or A-G would get their approval.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Sadly, much of the left wing of the Democratic Party is not any more interested in "facts" or "truth" than the right wing of the Republican Party.

[Túrin Turambar]

As a side note, viewing the Overton Window as an outsider is always interesting. For example, universal healthcare provided by the government free to the end user is considered a left-wing position in the Democratic Party but is a mainstream view across major parties in every other western country. Then you have positions like abolition of police and prisons, which I've never seen seriously argued anywhere else. Hell, not even the fringe socialist party which dropped a leaflet in my letterbox the other day only goes so far as to call for more independent oversight of police and prison reform in its manifesto.

[elengil]

As a side note, viewing the Overton Window as an outsider is always interesting. For example, universal healthcare provided by the government free to the end user is considered a left-wing position in the Democratic Party but is a mainstream view across major parties in every other western country. Then you have positions like abolition of police and prisons, which I've never seen seriously argued anywhere else. Hell, not even the fringe socialist party which dropped a leaflet in my letterbox the other day only goes so far as to call for more independent oversight of police and prison reform in its manifesto.

Possibly because policing and prisons as run in the US are such fundamentally different animals here.

[RoseMorninStar]

Stand by for social media posts from trollbots simultaneously attacking Biden/Harris for being too soft on crime AND too tough on it.

This was one of my first thoughts upon hearing the pick. It will be interesting to hear a 'law and order' president attack Harris for being too tough. That might not work so well.

[Túrin Turambar]

The Federalist, a conservative website, is selling "Kamala is a Cop" t-shirts - apparently that's a bad thing. #Bluelivesmatter!

[RoseMorninStar]

The Federalist, a conservative website, is selling "Kamala is a Cop" t-shirts - apparently that's a bad thing. #Bluelivesmatter!

*sigh*
A girl just can't catch a break.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As a side note, viewing the Overton Window as an outsider is always interesting. For example, universal healthcare provided by the government free to the end user is considered a left-wing position in the Democratic Party but is a mainstream view across major parties in every other western country. Then you have positions like abolition of police and prisons, which I've never seen seriously argued anywhere else. Hell, not even the fringe socialist party which dropped a leaflet in my letterbox the other day only goes so far as to call for more independent oversight of police and prison reform in its manifesto.

Possibly because policing and prisons as run in the US are such fundamentally different animals here.

I can't comment on how policing and prisons are run outside of the U.S., but there is no question that there are major problems in this country. As for the police, the primary problems are the militarization of the police, the fact that law enforcement officers are too often not trained to deescalate situations and are forced to address situation that really require mental health providers that they are not, most of all the fact that law enforcement is so permeated with the white supremacist ideals that this country is founded on that it infects even minority officers. As for the prison system, it is run as an extension of the system of plantation capitalism that drove slavery in this country (I strongly urge anyone who has not seen it to watch the documentary "13th" which addresses this issue so well).

But the solution to these problems is not to abolish the police, or prisons. That is a classic example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and is a simplistic, slogan-driven response to a complex issue. The real answer to address the underlying issues that cause the disfunction in policing and prisons in the U.S., which is a much more complicated, but necessary for real change.

All in my humble opinion, of course.

[River]

538's model is up: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/20 ... -forecast/.

[Inanna]

And may the output stay that way - all the way to certainty.