GET OUT: US politics November 2020

Automatic recount threshold in AZ is 0.1%; that's about 3500 votes. Very unlikely to go to a recount there. Biden lead 11.4k with 11.6k left to process.
In GA it's 0.5%, so around 25k votes. No one seems to know how much is still to be counted in GA (presumably they're just grinding through the handfuls of provisionals, only 400 votes have been added to the tallies since Wednesday afternoon), Biden lead is 14k. So recount still required.

Amazing that there's still over 2m to be counted in NY. A few ppl on Twitter were pointing at that state as being a rare example of a substantial swing to Trump (something like 43 of 51 states+DC went bluer vs 2016), with Biden only leading by 12-13pts (Hillary won by 23pts). But I think he'll end up with a margin in the high teens.

*points, laughs.*

BREAKING: The law firm alleging voter fraud in PA on behalf of the Trump campaign has RESIGNED. @davidenrich @jbsgreenberg @alanfeuer https://t.co/tLuTdIyugf

— Rachel C. Abrams (@RachelAbramsNY) November 13, 2020

I get up and down with the current shit show, but this feels like an up.

He slid into first and felt something burst

I just want this fucker to concede so he quits taking up airtime and digital real estate and, as a result, spends less time in my head.

I like the comment that suggests maybe the firm had no serious principled objection to the case, just that they weren't getting paid, which ... seems possible!

This is full-on Mad Max/Idiocracy:

VIDEO THREAD: Last night, a caravan of Trump supporters heading to DC led by Infowars' Owen Shroyer in an armored truck stopped in Richmond, Virginia.

The pitstop became a sort of rally, attracting Trump supporters, militia and boogaloo activists, and BLM counter-protesters. pic.twitter.com/ZrGiNbHG6g

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) November 13, 2020

xpost - I mean, any new business that willingly does work for him is just asking to be stiffed at this point, no?

A friend told me there's an entry in Andy Warhol's diaries where Warhol's upset at Trump about non-payment for some design work in one of his hotels...going back a few hundred years.

I have this feeling that real lifer professionals - these lawyers, government employees, etc. - just don't pay attention to all that noise and are always taken by surprise by stuff that does not seem surprising to us. Both for reasons of plausible deniability but also because they're busy. I have a couple of really good lawyer friends, for example, and when they are working and focusing on something they barely know what's going on in the world.

Close, not quite: "And I just hate the Trumps because they never bought my Trump Tower portraits. And I also hate them because the cabs on the upper level of their ugly Hyatt Hotel just back up traffic so badly around Grand Central now and it takes me so long to get home.” (The Andy Warhol Diaries, 571)

It must be true

I must say, I have never seen this before. Typically, you have evidence first and then file a lawsuit.

From the PA lawsuit filed by voters to stop certification⬇️ pic.twitter.com/vGZKUYukJ6

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) November 13, 2020

The evidence is a man of his word, best known for telling it like it is. That’s good enough for me.

A timing pattern, in football parlance.

ned - have any of the legal people talked about any consequences for filing such frivolous garbage? i'm not very familiar of what contempt of court can entail, etc

How do you get t to pay rent for the space he's taken up in your head, can't everybody evict him for squatting.
Like be so cool if you could just bunburry him since he's of no longer use.

that reminds me of the time I got an appeal at work for an audit I did where the appeal was "ok so there's no formal record I submitted the appropriate task but I know I did, I distinctly remember it"

I’ve seen some chatter about sanctions but it sounds like the damage is mostly reputational. But more than one judge has essentially asked for clarifications that amount to “Nice law license you’ve got there, shame it’s going to be revoked for this abject perjury you’re about to commit unless you specify the answer to the question I asked.” In every case said lawyers fold.

In federal court you can get Rule 11 sanctions, although they're not easy to get. Sounds like the lawyers are hedging a lot to try to avoid them.

and thus the birther king, donnie 1term, crashed the market on his way out the door :(

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/baron-trumps-marvelous-underground-journey/

and the worms, they entered his brain

I have this feeling that real lifer professionals - these lawyers, government employees, etc. - just don't pay attention to all that noise and are always taken by surprise by stuff that does not seem surprising to us. Both for reasons of plausible deniability but also because they're busy. I have a couple of really good lawyer friends, for example, and when they are working and focusing on something they barely know what's going on in the world.

Some of that is a class thing - a lot of biglaw partners are democrats but also know this shit just doesn't affect them too much (although some are surely upset about the loss of the SALT deductions on their westchester homes). I was at a lawyer event - one of my first big banquet hall type things -- shortly after the election and felt genuinely anxious and worried, and I remember being struck by how little of a shit a lot of people seemed to give, and how the open trump supporter from our office was jovially chatting with the other lawyers like nbd.

yeah seems big law partners trend nominally democratic, but this one client is def a crapshoot, depending on the office location

At least in the NE. Maybe different in Texas biglaw.

we all knew this local lawyer in Orlando who was a massive conservative and seemed to pretend to not know how laws worked despite being a lawyer and he would also physically threaten people he disagreed with despite being 50+ years old, out of shape, and not very threatening.

think he's blocked by just about everybody I know.

Yeah, you get enough money + power under your belt and it's easy to keep your head above the cloud of shit that the little people worry themselves into the grave about.

Ah, here's a little twist

UPDATE: At a press conference last week, Eric Trump & Rudy Giuliani introduced a "poll watcher" who said he was obstructed in PA, but DIDN'T mention that he was also a lawyer at the firm representing the campaign. That firm, Porter Wright, just resigned https://t.co/tLuTdIyugf

— Rachel C. Abrams (@RachelAbramsNY) November 13, 2020

I only heard about it secondhand but there was a partner at my previous (lawfirm, natch) job who was going around person-to-person on his floor trying to strongarm everyone into voting for McCain.

fucking lol at the incompetence

xpost oh, he was the guy?

I just created a VoIP account just so I could create another burner Twitter to taunt a Trump voter.

up to ten permanently suspended accounts now

I knew these lawsuits were gonna be frivolous and dumb but even I'm impressed with the rate this is all falling apart, this is some real Lionel Hutz shit

and Trump is the Kentucky bourbon that Marge stole

"pay rent for the space he's taken up in your head"

if I see this phrase or a variation of it again I'm going to scream

"pay rent for the space he's taken up in your head"

if I see this phrase or a variation of it again I'm going to scream

― akm, Friday, November 13, 2020 9:54 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofb2UZhMXyg

Mentioned bits of this before, but I worked with a lot of die hard conservatives at my first job out of college. It was so engrained and pervasive that it took me years to realize that it wasn't typical

- my boss sent out Christmas cards in late November of 2000 with his family huddled around their Bush/Cheney yard sign and smiling
- i had two different Obama '08 magnets stolen off our car, each time when i was parked at the same contractor's headquarters in the west suburbs of Milwaukee for meetings
- found out later the owner of said contractor called my boss and told me i could never come to his office again if i was going to have anything advertising "that guy" on my vehicle; on the plus side my boss laughed it off and never told me about it, only heard through another employee but the fact that this call even occurred at all is o_O

I still maintain that after the bottom dropped out of the market in 2008 and they ended up laying off 40% of the staff in 2009, that the Obama magnets were a large part of why I was part of that departing group.

sadly I wouldn't doubt it. but that's terrible behavior.

i hate the sound of guitars... a thousand grouching young millionaires

When you hear about employers bringing their politics into the workplace, it's always conservatives. Granted I wasn't around for the height of union politics.

told this story before but I had a client once (can't say their name, but they're a clothing store chain and rhyme with "bowls") who had two executives who were spitting out Obama birther rants in front of me, and our goddamn Service Manager was totally going along with it. I was furious and said nothing cos lol my career but the audacity (this was...uhh...2013, so he'd already been re-elected)

SAY LIKE THE FRENCH SAY / BON SOIR REGRET / A DEMAINS DEMAINS A DEMAINS DEMAINS!!!

fuck yes. I don't have a joke or anything, just that song rules.

like if I was Serious Bizness Person I’d be concerned if people in my org were spouting moon landing conspiracies, and honestly the birther shit is no different.

these ppl are diseased

if I had forseen the Trump era, I probably would have emailed ceo at storethatsellsclothesandrhymeswithbowls.com and said "do u know two of your biggo execs think our Black President is a fakey fake?"

i hate the sound of guitars... a thousand grouching young millionaires

― Change Display Name: (stevie), Friday, November 13, 2020 11:00 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The kickoff to one the best albums ever recorded

All Fugazi, all the time, imo.

There was a legal term they mentioned on the radio this morning for someone who keeps filing pointless lawsuits. Abuse of process? Frivolous litigation? Something like that. Supposedly if you're branded a frivolous litigant that often prejudices courts against you, which makes sense.

conservatism was bad as long as I've been alive, but the Tea Party movement really did seem like a shift into "even worse"-ness. like really it was the genesis of "alternative facts" and exploring extra-legal ways to push back on liberalism.

I remember crying when Jared Loughner shot Gabrielle Giffords because I saw actual tea party assholes online celebrating it and felt sick.

I'm coming up on a decade in a government agency (as a contractor up until 7-8 months ago) and there's a sort of unwritten "we aren't talking politics in groups" rule that's been a relief.

Whomp whomp

UPDATE: Attorney for Trump team, RNC and AZ Republican party has filed a motion noting plaintiffs' request for relief is now moot for most of Arizona's ballot.

In other words: A favorable ruling from the judge would, at most, be relevant in two down-ballot races at this point. https://t.co/sjUceByidH pic.twitter.com/2JTItBOo8W

— Maria Polletta🌵 (@mpolletta) November 13, 2020