Trump vs. Biden

[Jaguar]

Well, the way I understand it the brains behind this brealthrough is actually BioNtech rather than Pfizer. They are a German company in Mainz founded by two medical professors (a married couple). They were originally working on mRNA-based cancer treatment when the pandemic hit and decided to develop a mRNA-based vaccine with some help by Pfizer. The two are children of Turkish migrants and already became billionaires before this breakthrough due to their company taking off like crazy because of the cancer research they've done.

Thanks but that wasn't the point of my post.

 

[Jonny]

What's ironic is that the 70 million people who voted for him feel the exact same way- like word for word- about the other 70+ million that voted against him. The symmetry is almost beautiful.

I don’t think you can speak for 70 million people. And I don’t claim to either. I was talking specifically about the video, not about anyone who may or may not believe it. It’s propaganda.

 

[Jaguar]

Trump Supporter Arrested For Requesting Absentee Ballot For Dead Mother

That must be the widespread fraud I keep hearing about.

 

[Red Herring]

Thanks but that wasn't the point of my post.

What I meant is some weird conspiracy against him by Pfizer or the FDA is even less plausible when they aren't the ones behind this latest development.

 

[Jaguar]

What I meant is some weird conspiracy against him by Pfizer or the FDA is even less plausible when they aren't the ones behind this latest development.

Pfizer’s Early Data Shows Coronavirus Vaccine Is More Than 90% Effective - The New York Times

The drug maker Pfizer announced on Monday that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested the vaccine was robustly effective in preventing Covid-19, a promising development as the world has waited anxiously for any positive news about a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people.

Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with the German drugmaker BioNTech, released only sparse details from its clinical trial, based on the first formal review of the data by an outside panel of experts.

The company said that the analysis found that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior coronavirus infection. If the results hold up, that level of protection would put it on par with highly effective childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles. No serious safety concerns have been observed, the company said.

Pfizer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of the two-dose vaccine later this month, after it has collected the recommended two months of safety data. By the end of the year it will have manufactured enough doses to immunize 15 million to 20 million people, company executives have said.

Trump Falsely Takes Credit For Pfizer Vaccine Success, Accuses FDA And Democrats Of Stalling News Until After Election

 

[Mad Hatter]

I don't know. Can you?

Here's what I wrote earlier in this thread:

Time to celebrate, but not to gloat. After all, there's over 70 million people out there who didn't get their will. They won't disappear after the election. Some of them are fucking idiots of course, but with those numbers, they can't all be. I hope Biden will be able to win back some of the good people even if they didn't vote for him. No time for payback, but for paying it forward.

FWIW, I think Trump might well be the worst president this country has had since maybe Grant or Garfield, but just because he's a president doesn't mean that all his supporters are equally as bad. That's not what I think, and it never was. Quite frankly, many of them have legitimate concerns (especially the economic situation blue collar folks) that needs to be adressed; the problem I see is that Trump did do shit to help them but only made their situation worse. I'm not too keen on Biden solving these problems either.

75% of me 100% agrees. The problem is that his base seems to believe him, and so ignoring all of it is like ignoring engine sounds in a car that almost surely indicate a problem will surface down the road. Ignoring it is like thinking "Well the engine starts, that's all I need to know right now." Thinking "I better figure out what that is so that I don't get stranded with a broken engine one of these days" is ultimately the smarter thing to do.

Granted, that's precisely why narcissists throw distractions out there - blocking the signal by throwing in copious amounts of noise - but that doesn't mean there isn't significant value in paying a modicum amount of attention to the noise before any of it takes on too much of a life on its own.

(One thing these past few years has brought to light - as stig keeps alluding to - is that Democrats really suck at focused debunking and signal boosting. I'm glad Buttigedge (?, booty judge guy) will be appointed a high position, because that's something he's damn good at.)

Agreed - what I'm saying is not that his questioning, doubting, misleading etc. should be ignored, but that people shouldn't comment or report on stuff he says if he has said exactly the same thing four hours ago. We should be vigilant, but not fall for his constant attention whoring anymore.

If I'm not mistaken, the election is done done once the results are certified. I would think, specifically, PA certifying its results puts an end to the shenanigans. That happens on 11/23.

Obviously certified results won't stop whatever legal steps the Trump team have undertaken, nor will it prevent his administration from obstructing the transition process. But it does mean that the results are official, and things can move forward.

Of course, and the final actual counting won't be completed before Nov. 12 if I'm not mistaken. If there should be any irregularities or doubts, I'm all for recounts. The game is more imporant than the players, and a fair election is more important than having a president Biden. If in (some unlikely scenario) it should turn out that the election was in fact a huge fraud, we'd have to accept this. It's just that at this stage, there seems next to no evidence that any of the allegations that were made os fare are even remotely substantiated. - If any of that changes and there is indeed evidence that the election was fradulent, the authorities have to step in and react as is their duty. For the time being, however, it looks again like Trump is using institutions that shouldn't take sides in this matter (that emphatically includes the Attorney General) for his own political ends.

 

[anticlimatic]

I don't think you can speak for 70 million people. And I don't claim to either. I was talking specifically about the video, not about anyone who may or may not believe it. It's propaganda.

My mistake, I was taking it in a macro political sense. The video is a random Canadian expressing her opinion. Does that qualify as propaganda? More than say, the entire establishment news media, corporate America, social media titans etc?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Quite frankly, many of them have legitimate concerns (especially the economic situation blue collar folks) that needs to be adressed; the problem I see is that Trump did do shit to help them but only made their situation worse. I'm not too keen on Biden solving these problems either.


.

I agree with this. I think rather than fixing the conditions that create the kind of resentment that allows for the support of someone like Trump, what we're going to be seeing in the next four years is a lot of focusing on the cultural and the symbolic. Access to health care or not having disastrous interventions like in Libya will be off the table; what will be on the table are discussions about what is "problematic" that will signify whether or not you are the right sort of person. It'll probably be a lot like the last two years of Obama; a great deal of much-ado about the purely symbolic so that people can feel superior, and very little about anything that might actually help people or make things better for them. There will be a great deal of judgemental hay about nothing of consequence.

 

[Jonny]

My mistake, I was taking it in a macro political sense. The video is a random Canadian expressing her opinion. Does that qualify as propaganda? More than say, the entire establishment news media, corporate America, social media titans etc?

Well it depends on the specific piece of media being analyzed. Certainly there is propaganda everywhere. And yes, that youtube video qualifies:

information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.​

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Oh, and despite all the cultural signifiers that they'll throw around, that doesn't mean they won't throw Black Lives Matter under the bus. They've already started to; they're blaming that for why they lost seats in the House and didn't gain the Senate.

 

[Jaguar]

If I'm not mistaken, the election is done done once the results are certified. I would think, specifically, PA certifying its results puts an end to the shenanigans. That happens on 11/23.

Obviously certified results won't stop whatever legal steps the Trump team have undertaken, nor will it prevent his administration from obstructing the transition process. But it does mean that the results are official, and things can move forward.

Trump campaign sues to block Pennsylvania election result

This is the stupid shit we have to deal with in this country.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Agreed - what I'm saying is not that his questioning, doubting, misleading etc. should be ignored, but that people shouldn't comment or report on stuff he says if he has said exactly the same thing four hours ago. We should be vigilant, but not fall for his constant attention whoring anymore.

Ah. Yeah, I think it's a focus issue. When one person has to trick a narcissist off their soapbox, or even a team of people have to organize to accomplish it, there's a protocol of ignoring certain behaviors to manipulate them into not wanting that soap box anymore. But when that team is made of more than 70 million people, it gets difficult to coordinate.

I think Biden's team is actually doing an okay job, but it would really help if most news sources knew exactly how to stop giving him so much oxygen.

 

[violet_crown]

Trump campaign sues to block Pennsylvania election result

This is the stupid shit we have to deal with in this country.

I can't follow the news at this point. It's hard for me to discern what's posturing and what will actually gain traction. In an indirect way, the conversation that SCOTUS is having on California v Texas is heartening because it signals the court is not going to make any grand interventionist leaps any time soon.

It also says good things that outlets like Fox are not airing the Trump administrations "arguments" for...whatever.

Instead! Some helpful human found a way to share NYT's data source on votes counted/total number of outstanding votes in remaining toss up states, so I've been watching that counter. There's close to 200,000 votes outstanding in Alaska and North Carolina, and while it doesn't matter at this point one way or the other, my secret petty hope is that those states end up going to Biden, too.

 

[Stigmata]

75% of me 100% agrees. The problem is that his base seems to believe him, and so ignoring all of it is like ignoring engine sounds in a car that almost surely indicate a problem will surface down the road. Ignoring it is like thinking "Well the engine starts, that's all I need to know right now." Thinking "I better figure out what that is so that I don't get stranded with a broken engine one of these days" is ultimately the smarter thing to do.

Granted, that's precisely why narcissists throw distractions out there - blocking the signal by throwing in copious amounts of noise - but that doesn't mean there isn't significant value in paying a modicum amount of attention to the noise before any of it takes on too much of a life on its own.

(One thing these past few years has brought to light - as stig keeps alluding to - is that Democrats really suck at focused debunking and signal boosting. I'm glad Buttigedge (?, booty judge guy) will be appointed a high position, because that's something he's damn good at.)

It's also getting harder and harder to ignore when sitting Republican members of congress keep validating his claims of voter fraud. It also appears as if he's putting things in place to stage a coup. Firing your Secretary of Defense who said he wouldn't approve of military usage within the US would probably be a good first move if you were planning one. Also, getting the US attorney general who shouldn't be involved in what are consisted state level issues, is also quite concerning.

This isn't Bush vs Clinton where you may have a few sore losers who are begrudgingly accepting the winner, this is something entirely different. I'm not sure it's a coup but it didn't is expressing some coup tendencies.

 

[FemMecha]

Trump Fires Mark Esper, Defense Secretary Who Opposed Use of Troops on U.S. Streets

With Esper gone, Democrats concerned over what Trump will do with the military

He also fired Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Head of nuclear weapons agency unexpectedly resigns

What would he be planning? He wouldn't try to bomb swing states that don't vote for him, would he? Or maybe he finally has a plan to kill the coronavirus? It hurts to joke.

 

[Totenkindly]

GOP List of Alleged Voter Fraud in Nevada Contains Hundreds of Military Addresses

Bob Carey, a retired Navy captain who serves as chairman of the National Defense Committee and was director of the Defense Department's Federal Voting Assistance Program from 2009 to 2012, said he reached out to the campaign and believes a modified complaint is forthcoming.

"In my role as chairman of the National Defense Committee, I reached out to the campaign and the Republican National Committee. I believe that these military voters were included in the complaint illegally, and I believe a modified complaint will be filed to redact this," Carey said.

Postal Worker Admits Fabricating Allegations of Ballot Tampering, Officials Say

A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities admitted to U.S. Postal Service investigators that he fabricated the allegations, according to three officials briefed on the investigation and a statement from a House congressional committee.

Richard Hopkins’s claim that a postmaster in Erie, Pa., instructed postal workers to backdate ballots mailed after Election Day was cited by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in a letter to the Justice Department calling for a federal investigation. Attorney General William P. Barr subsequently authorized federal prosecutors to open probes into credible allegations of voting irregularities and fraud, a reversal of long-standing Justice Department policy.

But on Monday, Hopkins, 32, told investigators from the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General that the allegations were not true, and he signed an affidavit recanting his claims, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee tweeted late Tuesday that the “whistleblower completely RECANTED..."

The Erie postmaster, Rob Weisenbach, called the allegations “100% false” in a Facebook post and said they were made “by an employee that was recently disciplined multiple times.”

“The Erie Post Office did not back date any ballots,” Weisenbach wrote...

 

[Jaguar]

Defeating Trump in a landslide would have worked

No one needs to win in a landslide for people to act like adults after an election. There's no landslide here:

William J. Clinton 44, 908, 254
George H.W. Bush 39, 102, 343
Ross Perot 19, 743, 821

Everyone moved on without a problem and no one cried out like a child: "I'M SO MISUNDERSTOOD!!!! DIVIDED NATION!!!! FRAUD!!!!"

Honestly, grow the fuck up.

 

[ceecee]

This is hilarious. Republican grifters gonna grift.

The saga of Dean Browning's tweet about being "Black and gay"

 

[Jaguar]

This is hilarious. Republican grifters gonna grift.

The saga of Dean Browning's tweet about being "Black and gay"

Slime.

 

[anticlimatic]

No one needs to win in a landslide for people to act like adults after an election.

So act like one. Having to be patient while they count mail in votes also means having to be patient while the legal process plays out due to the fraud potential, paired with the close results. In December the electors vote. After that we have a president elect. In January they're sworn in. In the meantime suck it up and let the process do its job.