"The August 2020 US Politics Thread is highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That's all."

I also saw a pic of mailboxes with heavy locks on them, but apparently the other side of the boxes had accessible slots for mail, and those boxes had been locked like that well before this stuff started.

locking mailboxes outside office hours is SOP in a lot of southern california. there's been a huge amount of misinformation about this. i don't think subtly undermining trust is the plan. it seems like the plan is (was?) an incredibly stupid and straight up criminal attempt to sabotage the USPS. but if undermining trust via confusion is a side effect then i'm sure they'll take it. in that sense, the febrile twitter stuff about stuff that is absolutely normal and nothing to do with the election is not helpful.

There's actual footage of mailboxes being taken away, confirmation from postal workers, and all the reports of the mail sorting machines being removed and/or dismantled come from postal workers. We don't need to even bring erroneous febrile twitter stuff into the discussion, let alone in order to downgrade concern about the things that are actually happening.

"it seems like the plan is (was?) an incredibly stupid and straight up criminal attempt to sabotage the USPS" but go on.

I was concurring!

Ah sorry got u

If Trump actually got Q to speak at the RNC he’d surely win

If they were James Bond fans maybe

ILXers know I don't post RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA shit, but these revelations are impressive:

The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, drew to a close one of the highest-profile congressional investigations in recent memory and could be the last word from an official government inquiry about the expansive Russian campaign to sabotage the 2016 election.

It provided a bipartisan Senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government disrupted an American election to help Mr. Trump become president, Russian intelligence services viewed members of the Trump campaign as easily manipulated, and some of Mr. Trump’s advisers were eager for the help from an American adversary.

And:

Like the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who released his findings in April 2019, the Senate report did not conclude that the Trump campaign engaged in a coordinated conspiracy with the Russian government — a fact that Republicans seized on to argue that there was “no collusion.”

But the report showed extensive evidence of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and people tied to the Kremlin — including a longstanding associate of the onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, whom the report identified as a “Russian intelligence officer.”

The Senate report was the first time the government has identified Mr. Kilimnik as an intelligence officer — Mr. Mueller’s report had labeled him as someone with ties to Russian intelligence. Most of the details about his intelligence background in the Senate report were blacked out.

Mr. Manafort’s willingness to share information with Mr. Kilimnik and others affiliated with the Russian intelligence services “represented a grave counterintelligence threat,” the report said.

impressive, but they turned their findings over the the justice department? good luck

look forward to the usual gang of suspects explaining to us why this is all fake

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EfvhF_FXYAMr_GI.jpg

The Hill posted something that felt like a sane walkthrough of the situation re: USPS. definitely difficult to encapsulate down to anything headline or twitter-size.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y43yViY0geM&fbclid=IwAR3vM3Vc6S7ibO-ydQRR_5I5CEKGMFUqfN5Q0QzApNcu_PQczAGM7lZ6uYk

ok unperson I'm gonna need you to tell me if that's a Vic Berger or not

they look like the goddamn Addams Family

That photo is 100% real, and yeah, it looks like a late 90s no-budget Addams Family remake starring Johnny Knoxville.

That's a solid Blue district, yes?

Re Convention, did this person get transferred to a new starship?

This is how I feel about the Russiagate stuff

It's been a fun ride, caring about this, getting yelled at for caring about this, and gradually deciding there was no point to caring about it anymore even though it remains true. I've really enjoyed it! https://t.co/Cpp1q4hi5G

— David Klion (@DavidKlion) August 18, 2020

yeah, same here

everyone is mad at everyone about it

That's a solid Blue district, yes?

Yeah, she's gonna get launched into the sun in the general. (Who knows, maybe she'll hitchhike to DC — since no ride-share service will have her — and chain herself to the doors of the House if she loses.)

good job Loomer, now you get to lose by 30 points to Lois Frankel

Lol wiki:
Loomer is banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, GoFundMe, Venmo, MGM Resorts, PayPal, Lyft, Uber and Uber Eats.[7]

Uber Eats don't fuck around...

Dame time

Loomer is legitimately mentally ill

all Frankel has to say in reply to anything she says is "Ok, Loomer"

Gaetz looks like the bastard spawn of Unknown Hinson, which seems entirely appropriate since Hinson revealed himself to be a racist and misogynist this week.

watch the trim

thoughts on jill biden: i didn't know very much at all about her, before tonight. i think it's really cool that she was a community college teacher, 15 credits a semester, for the entirety of the obama presidency. i'm sure there's a cynical view on it, but my first reaction is just that i think it's great. she went and got her phd in education after she was already married to a sitting congressman, and pursued teaching afterward. i'm guessing she probably turned down more high profile gigs along the way. i like all of that. as a political speaker, i thought she was on the average, mid-90s fake/authentic level. she made a sudden turn to camera 2, about a minute in, with such urgency and precision that it immediately brought to mind the video for En Melody on Histoire de Melody Nelson, where jane birkin turns exactly 90 degrees to a new camera with every phrase, snapping and being extremely horny all the while. so, cool/weird ref there.

my impression of her is that she's not a great speaker but her actions seem to speak pretty loudly. she seems like a good person to have with an eye on education. say what you will about the bidens, but i do appreciate the symbolism of teaching at a community college and riding an amtrak rather than taking a private car.

having Colin Powell speak was so fucking stupid

Unknown Hinson just locked down a slot at the RNC!

Colin Powell carries a ton of symbolism and credibility for older Bush-wing Republicans who connect him with the first Gulf War. He also carries a huge load of negative symbolism for all the progressive voters who recall his speech to the U.N. about Saddam's WMDs before the Iraq War. Maybe the Biden campaign calculates Powell's endorsement can bring in enough ex-military voters to swing a state like Virginia or Montana. Seems like a double-edged sword to me.

virginia is not in any danger of going for trump, and montana is not in any danger of going for biden.

they look like the goddamn Addams Family

how long before MAGAnites start destroying and removing blue USPS boxes themselves, on the grounds that postal ballots are a threat to the integrity of the election? if you believed that, then surely there's a moral justification for taking matters into your own hands?

Having Colin Powell speak was merely a signal that Biden believes in imperialist warfare. Nothing to see here folks

Yeah, having people like Powell, Kasich or whomever, it ultimately just benefits the GOP as a party that can be rehabilitated. But this is their sinking shit-ship they built, they don't deserve rehabilitation, no matter how much they hate Trump. If they don't like or want Trump, then they shouldn't be Republicans. Like, how hard would it be for Powell to change his political affiliation and just be a Democrat who likes war, or Kasich a democrat who doesn't like abortion or whatever shit keeps them with the GOP. If they identify as Republicans then they identify with the Republicans, and the Republicans overwhelmingly identify with Trump.

They've spent the past 30 years maligning the Democrats on every media platform, so hard to see them going all the way.

Colin Powell gave some bullshit quote about "the Republican party needs me more than the Democrats need me" or something, but that goes both ways. Clearly right now the Democrats need him more than the GOP does. Now, if *he* still needs the GOP that's another matter, and the fact that he doesn't change parties indicates that's the case. So like the Lincoln Logs or whatever they are, accept their support, but don't give them a fucking platform that normalizes their party as anything but abhorrent.

Josh OTM. Democrats are giving Republicans a life raft instead of telling them to go down with their own ship or come on board with them. Gotta maintain that status quo 2 party show of a battle for the center.

Like we learned nothing from 2008-2010

My personal take is that rogue republicans are more than welcome to help oust Trump if such is their wont (I mean, they helped make the mess so it's only right that they should help clean it up) but if they expect one goddamn concession in return they can pound sand.

how hard would it be for Powell to change his political affiliation and just be a Democrat who likes war,

if he did this, he would still be an uncool guy.

For sure, fuck him.

On the other hand:

A portrait of how much Donald Trump turned the GOP establishment upside down -- Cindy McCain is speaking at the DNC about her late husband's relationship with Biden, and neither the last Republican president (GWB) nor the last Republican nominee (Romney) are speaking at the RNC

— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) August 18, 2020

Does anyone have a full count of republicans speaking? Is there really no worry that legitimizing these creeps will hurt them down-ballot?

if they expect one goddamn concession in return they can pound sandhave been paying attention

Sadly, I seem to have very little pull at the DNC.

i think trump should be proud of the fact that he drove these lowlifes out of the party. the only problem is, he is worse than them.

Lowlife of the party.

but the point still stands. in itself, being hated by mitt romney is not a point against him.