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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Getting rid of the Filibuster entirely would make it much more irrelevant. It'd also make Budget Reconciliations pointless too.
As a security matter, demanding a second signature on a mail-in ballot is “utterly useless,” notes Phil Keisling, former Oregon Secretary of State, and a Washington Monthly contributing editor. Vote-by-mail systems in nearly all states already check voter’s signatures against voter registration records, so requiring a witness signature amounts to a “superfluous and unnecessary obstacle to voters,” he adds.
The requirement is particularly burdensome for older voters who live alone and have difficulty finding witnesses, especially in the middle of a surging pandemic. Understandably fearful of leaving their homes to find a co-signer, these voters are forced either to mail in their ballots without a second signature and risk having them thrown out or not vote at all if they can’t find someone to sign for them. That’s why state courts over the last several months have overturned witness signature mandates in Rhode Island, Virginia, Minnesota, and Alaska. Yet such restrictions are still on the books in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Sure enough, that has already created problems. In North Carolina, for instance, the Associated Press reported last month that “lack of a witness signature or other witness information has emerged as the leading cause of ballots being set aside before being counted in North Carolina, with problems disproportionately affecting Black voters in the state.”
In past elections, the requirement has not been much of a problem because few people in these states voted absentee and, if they did, they had a handy workaround. They could get their local letter carriers to co-sign their ballots or ask a clerk at their local post office to do so.
In this election cycle, however, not only are vastly more residents choosing to vote by mail—absentee ballot requests in Wisconsin, for instance, have more than doubled compared to 2016—but, in a much under-covered move, the U.S. Postal Service under Donald Trump’s handpicked Postmaster General Louis De Joy issued an order this summer forbidding Postal Service employees from providing witness signatures on voters’ absentee ballots.
Fucking shit.
In a free and fair election, I have no doubt whatsoever that Biden would win. But the deck is stacked so thoroughly against him that he has to not just win, but win by such overwhelming margins that he overcomes all of the efforts by the Postmaster General and 6-3 Supreme Court to invalidate as many ballots as possible.
And if he fails this time, there may be no second chances.
Someone please hold me.
No beer?! But if there's no beer, then there's no beef or beans!They way they got their tax cuts through was by making them temporary
, so that it won't necessarily increase the deficit more than 10 years in the future (which is what the "Byrd Rule"—the rule that allows budget reconciliation in the first place, states). That is, they decreased taxes now by promising to let the rise later (the fact that this was all lies
doesn't change the way the process worked). Basically, a bill is revenue neutral if the Senate says it's revenue neutral. To reverse this, the Democrats need only do this in reverse: temporary tax increases that do not raise revenue beyond 10 years. There are other budget gimmicks that I'm sure the party can think of.
What's good for the goose is also good for the gander. Seems to me like the filibuster is already dead.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.So I did check whether an electoral map with Biden winning only these swing states that have Democratic governors and losing North Carolina works. It does
So if Republicans plan to steal the election, they cannot do this without sidestepping governors in some fashion.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanMy main concern right now is that the theft could occur in the courts, which Republicans have been setting up for this purpose for years.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"From the Wikipedia article [1]![]()
Reconciliation bills can be passed on spending, revenue, and the federal debt limit, and the Senate can pass one bill per year affecting each subject. Congress can thus pass a maximum of three reconciliation bills per year, though in practice it has often passed a single reconciliation bill affecting both spending and revenue.
This to me says filibuster reform/removal is still needed, because budget reconciliation doesn't cover things like electoral reform or anti-discrimination laws. And under budget reconciliation, Democrats can only pass 3 bills a year, which is nowhere near enough to get everything done.
Edited by nova92 on Oct 28th 2020 at 8:58:09 AM
Fear Of Voter Intimidation Is Its Own Voter Intimidation
So it's been brought up here that this will be the first presidential election in decades in which the RNC isn't banned from organizing poll watching initiatives. That's made some people worried it'll become a repeat of what happened in New Jersey in 1981 that got that been instated in the first place, but on a larger scale.
But, apparently, experts think that while that shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, it's not particularly likely. But just the thought that there will be voter intimidation efforts is enough to intimidate some people from not voting.
So has anybody brought up yet that Trump wants a winner officially declared on election night? Nevermind that it never goes like that, even in years when we weren't dealing with a pandemic and didn't have the amount of absentee ballots we have now that will take time to count. But screw that, apparently he thinks all absentee ballots should be counted by the end of day or they don't "count".
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He will immediately take that back once it turns out that Biden got the most votes at that moment and say "let's wait until ALL of them have been counted."
Trump got the spine of a straw in the wind... it bends from even the slightest pressure in any direction.
Edited by TitanJump on Oct 28th 2020 at 5:22:50 PM
Lordy, Woodward has tapes on Kushner. From April.
Highlights include; bragging about taking power from doctors, replacing people with yes men, admitting plans to foist response and blame onto Governors, and calling Trump's control of the GOP a "hostile takeover".
Nothing we didn't already know, but admissions are nice.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.The way he words these things is very telling. He talks like it's all a sleazy business deal, you can feel the slime and contempt oozing just from the transcript. There was also his garbage earlier where he implied black people were unambitious and lazy.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 28th 2020 at 2:20:36 PM
The only thing that can definitively kill Trump's chances are a) the COVID-19 situation getting much worse or b) an unexpected hurricane strike on Election Day in a state where all Trump voters are voting in-person.
a) is pretty likely - in fact, it's already happening in Wisconsin if that outlier poll Falrinn referenced is correct - while b) is improbable.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanKushner's idea is that ignoring health experts would end up helping Trump on election day?
What.
Glad we have confirmation Trump is the most dangerous person around Trump. Also yourself, Kushner.
Edited by RainehDaze on Oct 28th 2020 at 5:31:50 PM

Remember that all of these rules are merely Senate procedure: they are not enshrined in the Constitution. Democrats could change them with a simple majority vote, although that sets a dangerous precedent if Republicans hold power there again.
Edited by Fighteer on Oct 28th 2020 at 11:13:02 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"