US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians

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Kane Lives said:
I still have no idea how any functional democracy would even tolerate this. Even around these parts if the elderly wants to vote they get to do it themselves, or best case, have their family help them to the voting booth.

If you're too infirm to vote perhaps you shouldn't be voting at all. (But we all know why American elites tolerate this.)
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Some places which do have it like the UK have universal voter ID.

I would guess it made a lot more sense at the start of the history of the USA, given one argument to why a republic with democratic representation would never work like the Founding Fathers wanted was the distances involved (similar democratic republics had existed before but they were all fairly small, as in city states). So it made sense to have a caveat added so little towns could just agree to write their ballots and just send Jeremiah on his trusty mule to go to the capital to deliver that and save the rest of the village from having to plan trips.

As time went on however no one updated the procedure to account for fraud and foul play. For too long the Americans held to a honestly naive idealism that people wouldn't cheat, or that if they did it wouldn't be that bad because there was no way for the cheating to become widespread. Then the Civil War happened and the South had Jim Crow which forever soured the concept of voter ID and poll taxes, allowing the communists and dishonest to use the specter of it to ignore honest questions like "how the fuck do you make sure some dude with a printer isn't voting en masse?"
 
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Sekirodiealot said:
I often wondered if the left even know what a cult or convicted felon is cause they love throwing those terms around like a ball.
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It's interesting how Democrats used to portray themselves as the party of the downtrodden and those wronged by society, and now refer to "felons" and "uneducated" like you'd describe dog shit you can't get off your shoe. The parties have switched, indeed.
 
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General Emílio Médici said:
Some places which do have it like the UK have universal voter ID.

I would guess it made a lot more sense at the start of the history of the USA, given one argument to why a republic with democratic representation would never work like the Founding Fathers wanted was the distances involved (similar democratic republics had existed before but they were all fairly small, as in city states). So it made sense to have a caveat added so little towns could just agree to write their ballots and just send Jeremiah on his trusty mule to go to the capital to deliver that and save the rest of the village from having to plan trips.

As time went on however no one updated the procedure to account for fraud and foul play. For too long the Americans held to a honestly naive idealism that people wouldn't cheat, or that if they did it wouldn't be that bad because there was no way for the cheating to become widespread. Then the Civil War happened and the South had Jim Crow which forever soured the concept of voter ID and poll taxes, allowing the communists and dishonest to use the specter of it to ignore honest questions like "how the fuck do you make sure some dude with a printer isn't voting en masse?"
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Mail-in ballots and absentee ballots as we know them today in America are a relatively new development.


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From an article going over their history as a way to vote in the United States:
The idea that ballots could be cast anywhere other than a physical precinct close to a voter’s home hasn’t always been embraced in the United States (and still isn’t in many other countries). What we in the U.S. now call absentee voting first arose during the Civil War, when Union and Confederate soldiers were allowed to cast ballots from their battlefield units and have them be counted back home.

The issue of absentee voting next became a major issue during World War II, when Congress passed laws in 1942 and 1944 related to soldiers stationed overseas. Both laws became embroiled in controversies over states’ rights and the voting rights of African Americans in southern states, so their effectiveness was muted. Subsequent laws, particularly the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) and the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, have been more effective in encouraging voting by active service members through absentee voting.

States began passing absentee ballot laws for civilians in the late 1800s. The first laws were intended to accommodate voters who were away from home or seriously ill on Election Day. The number of absentee ballots distributed was relatively small, and the administrative apparatus was not designed to distribute a significant number.
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Compare the early voting process of the Republic to today:
Voting in the modern United States looks very different than it did during the country’s early years. The women and men who voted in New Jersey between 1800 and 1807, participated in a democratic process based on British and American precedents. Voting in the new United States generally increased the American people’s participation in various levels of government, but also continued discriminatory policies and led to extreme partisanship. Each state had its own voting laws and elections had less regulation than they do today. New Jersey’s diverse voters, in particular, broke new ground and helped define the relationship between “We the People” and their local, state, and national governments.

The New Jersey voters recorded on the recently discovered poll lists voted by secret ballot in the township in which they lived. That means they went to a designated polling place (often a prominent tavern) on the day or days set aside for an election, and either brought with them or filled out a slip of paper with the names of the candidates of their choosing or their response to a referendum, and placed the slip of paper in a ballot box.

According to New Jersey law, ballot boxes were to be strongly built and feature locks to preserve secrecy and prevent tampering. An election official, such as a clerk or poll inspector, also recorded each voter’s name on a paper poll list, which was kept as part of the township record. Once all the votes were counted, the town clerk or collector counted the number of ballots in the ballot box against the number of names recorded on the poll list. If more ballots were counted than there were names on the poll list, only the total number of votes recorded on the poll list would be counted. A similar process of voting by secret ballot was done in all of the new United States.

Unlike today, there was no formal way to register to vote prior to an election in the Early Republic. Instead, voters had to swear an oath or affirm that they met the voter eligibility requirements prior to casting their ballots. In New Jersey, between 1776 and 1807, that meant swearing you were at least 21 years of age, an inhabitant of the town or township in which you voted, and the owner of at least 50 pounds worth of property. Since voting took place locally, voters could potentially be called out for not meeting the requirements and there are a number of court cases about voter fraud during this period. Election officials, who were often prominent members of their community, also became de facto authorities on deciding who could and could not vote.

In 1807, politicians charged that New Jersey’s inclusive voter laws encouraged illegal voting by unpropertied women and enslaved people. By unanimous vote, the state legislature adopted a new law stripping the vote from all women, “persons of color," and immigrants, but expanded the vote to include all white male taxpayers. Generations since have fought to continue expanding the vote and recover those lost voting rights.
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Breadbassket said:
There was a point where people complained about it but not much changed so now the USA is in the "who cares anymore, just use it to try and win" phase when it comes to ballot harvesting. It's anyone guess if it will ever become illegal.
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It will become illegal once Republicans go all in and cheat just as hard as the Dems.

The worst things Republicans don't understand is that unless you commit 100% to the "eye for a eye" bit the Dems are always going to cheat/arrest/etc to win cause there is no penalty for it.
 
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Some fun fallout from Biden's big boy conference. (archive)

Biden’s gaffe has ruined months of our hard work, say European officials​


Joe Biden’s gaffes have ruined months of hard work and undermined the Nato summit, diplomatic sources told The Telegraph.

On stage, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz defended the president over a slip of the tongue in which he called Volodymyr Zelensky “President Putin”.

The US leader went on to call Kamala Harris “vice-president Trump”.

But roaming the corridors of the summit, aides were more frank in their verdict of the president’s performance.

“It was awful,” an official said, describing standing in the crowd as events unfurled.

The consensus amongst diplomats and officials who spoke to The Telegraph, and were granted anonymity to speak more freely, was that it took less than a minute to change the narrative of an entire summit.

The sources realised they would be forced to read about the gaffe on tomorrow’s front pages instead of stories of their successes.

“It’s taken the focus away from what has been a great summit for us,” a diplomat said.

Before the slip-up, officials and diplomats were overjoyed with the outcomes of the meeting, which marked the alliance’s 75th anniversary with a show of unity in defiance of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

President Biden’s allies described it as a “slip of the tongue” that could have happened to any of them delivering a high-profile speech.

There was reason to feel optimistic with the outcome.

The spectres of President Biden’s health, the potential return of Donald Trump and an undiplomatic rant by Mr Zelensky all loomed over the summit.

Until that moment, the US leader had been almost word perfect having spoken in every single session of the meeting.

Nato members believed they had done enough to “Trump-proof” the alliance, announcing that 23 of its 32 states had hit the spending goals of 2 per cent of GDP on defence, with more setting out plans to reach the figure.

And most importantly, Mr Zelensky was leaving Washington satisfied with the levels of support shown by Nato, despite not being handed a formal invitation to the alliance.

“The Americans had put in months of groundwork into preventing another ‘Vilnius moment’,” a second official said, referring to the Ukrainian’s president’s outburst at last year’s summit after being refused an invitation.

There was also a sense of frustration that this moment would dominate questions put to other leaders in their final press conference before heading home.

Sir Keir Starmer was asked no fewer than three times if he thought President Biden was up to the task of running for a second term in the White House.

The Prime Minister said the US leader should be “given credit” for his work at the Nato summit, in defence of his ally.

He would’ve preferred to have been able to boast of his own achievements at the gathering instead of being the receiving end of diplomatically tricky questions.
 
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Cornelius Pop said:
Arguably Trump got walked over within foreign policy but Joe has been used by foreign nations.
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Trump had the best foreign policy of any US President since Reagan. He didn’t vomit on a Japanese, he didn’t let Putin take territory, he didn’t bomb as many hospitals as Bill and Hill or Obama, he didn’t make gay anal sex and child mutilation the corner stone of our foreign policy.

He asked allies what they wanted, asked potential allies what they wanted, and asked enemies what they wanted.
 
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HodgePodgeRogerDodger said:
Trump had the best foreign policy of any US President since Reagan. He didn’t vomit on a Japanese, he didn’t let Putin take territory, he didn’t bomb as many hospitals as Bill and Hill or Obama, he didn’t make gay anal sex and child mutilation the corner stone of our foreign policy.

He asked allies what they wanted, asked potential allies what they wanted, and asked enemies what they wanted.
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He sold out our industrial base to India.
 
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tehpope said:
I'm not saying trust the plan. Stay vigilant until Trump is sworned in.

@General Emílio Médici summed my thoughts up better than I could. But idk if Trump is ballot harvesting this time with the RNC. I haven't seen anything to indicate that. Though it would be smart to keep it on the DL until after the election since the left would scream bloody murder for using their tactics.
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Charlie Kirk and tpusa are doing a lot of work on the ground for that stuff. Unlike Fuentes they’re focusing efforts where it’s legal to do so
 
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Francis York Morgan said:
Nato members believed they had done enough to “Trump-proof” the alliance, announcing that 23 of its 32 states had hit the spending goals of 2 per cent of GDP on defence, with more setting out plans to reach the figure.
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I guess it's nice that 2/3 of NATO is now doing what they have been suppose to been doing but calling it "trump-proofing" is just odd.

It'll be interesting to see how our allies factor into the election, it's no secret they're no fan of Trump but Biden is a legitimate liability.
 
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Breadbassket said:
Maybe "Trump-proofing" for them amounts to doing the bare minimum so that Trump doesn't point out how their not contributing their fair share to the organizaiton again.

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And that's exactly what they did. It's just weird they phrased like some big political maneuvering when they just gave him what he wanted.
 
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