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[Frumple]

Early voting has started in NC, and people are waiting up to 4 hours (mostly in minority neighborhoods), despite (or perhaps because of) Republican attempts to curtail early voting. I'm hoping this presages a resounding electoral defeat for the Republicans in just 16 days' time.

Early voting in general is looking rather terrible for republicans at the moment, actually. There's been a few charts and whatnot released of current data. More than a few are showing sign of either drastically increased dem turnout, notably decreased republican turnout, or some combination of the two.

Like, we're talking if patterns hold and they're roughly indicative of vote day trends, we may be looking forward to something of a drubbing.

[mainiac]

notably decreased republican turnout,

That could mean electoral coattails!  Guys, we might have two whole years of a (barely) functioning government coming up!  Two whole years!

[smjjames]

Early voting has started in NC, and people are waiting up to 4 hours (mostly in minority neighborhoods), despite (or perhaps because of) Republican attempts to curtail early voting. I'm hoping this presages a resounding electoral defeat for the Republicans in just 16 days' time.

Early voting in general is looking rather terrible for republicans at the moment, actually. There's been a few charts and whatnot released of current data. More than a few are showing sign of either drastically increased dem turnout, notably decreased republican turnout, or some combination of the two.

Like, we're talking if patterns hold and they're roughly indicative of vote day trends, we may be looking forward to something of a drubbing.

Plus theres a big increase in women doing early voting, enough to call it 'dispoportionate numbers', http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/early-voting-women-battleground-states-230176

notably decreased republican turnout,

That could mean electoral coattails!  Guys, we might have two whole years of a (barely) functioning government coming up!  Two whole years!

The Dems getting a house majority is unlikely, but the Republicans are certainly going to see a greatly reduced house majority, just how much reduced remains to be seen.

Also, it's looking like Paul Ryan might lose speakership anyway, either due to being voted out in the House when they do their leader elections later as he is losing some of his popularity.

edit: Actually, I'm not sure what his polls are against his Democrat opponent, if Paul Ryan has one. Trying to find.

[SirQuiamus]

This is exactly what's fueling the feedback loop between the alt-right and regressive left, each is busy labeling each other (and anyone who dares to disagree with them) as being basically Hitler, rather than addressing harmful ideas or opinions. It's a tactic designed to shut down dissent and otherize people, to create clear divisions between the Good People (i.e. "us") and the Bad People (i.e. "them") rather than eliminating genuinely harmful behaviors.

And yet, here you are. Labeling people on both extremes of the political spectrum as Uncivil Enemies of Reason and Free Speech (i.e. Bad People) while emphasizing your own status as an Independent Champion of Liberty Who Don't Need No Political Identity (i.e. one of the Good People). The Prongs are bad, only the Bend is good! All hail the Great Horseshoe!

Yet because FD has not claimed any label of their own, FD cannot be said to be demolishing alt right and progressives for the benefit of their third position tribe

Is this another of those "fish, meet water" moments? I think so.

Yes, but I think everyone agrees that there are some limits to separating an opinion from the person expressing it. Let's say, for example, that there's a guy with a habit of telling absolutely everyone---very calmly and politely---that he wishes them to die in the most horrifying way imaginable. One might argue that merely wishing for the death of everyone in the world does not make him a deplorable person---merely a person with some pretty deplorable thoughts in his head. But then again, if he decides to share his deplorable thoughts with the world, wilfully and persistently, what does that make him?

Gregarious and boring

If he's British, then yes. In any other case he's just nuts.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

What I don't get is what the fuck is going on with Mitch McConnell. At this stage, he should be scrambling to launch a Senate hearing and confirm Merrick Garland. It's a risk if Trump should end up pulling a Trump and winning the election, but then Trump probably would have had him executed anyway. All the Senate Republicans have a chance to reinvent history to make them the saviors of the Supreme Court which ends if Hill Dawg wins and the Senate flips Dem.

Garland is qualified but he's also an olive branch to the Republicans. 50 seats and a different president means Clinton finds the most radically socialist living document supporting former abortion doctor and liberal circuit judge in the country instead.

I will, at least, enjoy the base hypocrisy when they inevitably demand Garland be accepted by Clinton after the election because he was the standing pick before, when the wait until after the election was to "let the American people choose (to have a bible-believing small business owner who passed the bar yesterday)".

[mainiac]

Garland is qualified but he's also an olive branch to the Republicans. 50 seats and a different president means Clinton finds the most radically socialist living document supporting former abortion doctor and liberal circuit judge in the country instead.

I didn't know Bernie Sanders had a medical degree.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Garland is qualified but he's also an olive branch to the Republicans. 50 seats and a different president means Clinton finds the most radically socialist living document supporting former abortion doctor and liberal circuit judge in the country instead.

I didn't know Bernie Sanders had a medical degree.

>implying you need a medical degree to perform abortions in America

Besides, Bernie will want to stay in the Senate for sure, to get on the budget committee.

[smjjames]

He's probably still in the 'America needs to choose the President first!' phase. Even though Garland is arguably the most neutral and most palatable to both sides that Obama could find, Clinton is really under no obligation to continue pushing Garland as a choice.

[Neonivek]

If there is one solice to the Bernie Sanders lovers...

Since he didn't get to the presidential... It means he doesn't get dragged through the mud (which he most assuredly would have).

To admit I question if he would have stood any chance against Trump... Given he is "socialist" it might as well be communist.

[Frumple]

He's probably still in the 'America needs to choose the President first!' phase. Even though Garland is arguably the most neutral and most palatable to both sides that Obama could find, Clinton is really under no obligation to continue pushing Garland as a choice.

Eh, I could see a scenario where she does keep garland as the nom, though there's probably plenty more besides it. Basically, she nominates him as the lube for what comes when the next slot opens. A kind of, "This is y'all's one." Maybe a bit of rubbing of faces in things on the side, a sort of "even when you little shits can't be little shits this guy's still a good idea" thing, too. But yeah, obligation there is not.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

He's probably still in the 'America needs to choose the President first!' phase. Even though Garland is arguably the most neutral and most palatable to both sides that Obama could find, Clinton is really under no obligation to continue pushing Garland as a choice.

Garland is something else. He's got more experience and qualifications than anybody sitting on the court now does (discounting the experience and qualification of serving on the Supreme Court). He seems eminently reasonable and unswayed by partisanship. He hasn't even advocated an overly dogmatic standard for Constitutional interpretation. By all accounts he is theoretically what every SCOTUS nominee is supposed to be, but the fucking Republicans can't seem to accept that there's more than just endless maneuvering for the next election even when Obama is giving them someone who's not really against them.

Frankly, the most important part of the court is qualification, and given past standards I'd say they'd be fucking up even if Obama gave them a qualified abortion doctor to nominate, but this is just obscene. Even Clarence Thomas got a hearing.

Clinton won't be obligated to keep him, shit, Obama isn't obligated to keep him in the event there's a clusterfuck and the Obama Invictus plan gets deployed. But that is what the narrative will become and will be the "first controversy" since I'm sure Clinton won't wait more than a month in office to bring up a nominee. Garland at this point only gets in if McConnell decides to be a naked opportunist and call the hearing on election day, or if Clinton wins but the Senate stays Republican.

I'm just fucking disgusted that one of the few previously operating elements of the legislature is now breaking down into the tit-for-tat cycle. First it was the budget, now it's judicial appointments all the way up to SCOTUS. This shit keeps up and we really are going to need a one-party state, just to function.

[mainiac]

Republicans probably want to lame duck Garland at this point.  I think Obama promised Garland not to withdraw the nom.

[Starver]

He's probably still in the 'America needs to choose the President first!' phase. Even though Garland is arguably the most neutral and most palatable to both sides that Obama could find, Clinton is really under no obligation to continue pushing Garland as a choice.

If things go well enough for Clinton in the other arenas of battle, it may well behoove her to push for someone else exactly because the Republicans were offered the not unreasonable choice and they bet the farm on delaying that in the hope of being able to go much more conservative when their candidate won.

If the brinkmanship goes wrong enough for them, would Clinton give them their original 'worst, but not terrible, choice' or just push through a worserer one?

[penguinofhonor]

.

[mainiac]

If the brinkmanship goes wrong enough for them, would Clinton give them their original 'worst, but not terrible, choice' or just push through a worserer one?

The game theory does mean that she should retaliate if she wins.  But if there was a promise to Garland the game theory is different because rewarding your friends is generally more important then punishing your enemies.