2020 US Elections | Biden certified as President | Dems control Congress

[Raoul]

Not unless the amount you were reallocating was 100%. Services get budgets cut and reallocated all the time, and until now people didn't feel any need to start talking about that equalling abolition. Probably because that's dumb.

Reducing funding for law enforcement in any way is simply playing into a Republican trap. If you reduce funding, cops will be understaffed and under resourced, which means when crime rates continue to rise because underlying social problems aren't addressed, the GOP will simply use the spectacle of violence to securitize voters into believing it was the Dems fault. Its a trap that can be seen from miles away, which is why the Dems shouldn't fall for it - especially with control of the Senate and a Presidential election hanging in the balance.

 

[Sweet Square]

You should post the Republican plan for reference.

Also rising sea levels don't give a shit that Biden plan is vastly better than Trumps.

No idea what you're on about here.

1. If you think we should have rid ourselves of fracking but are pro fracking
during an upcoming election(In order to win votes) then you are lying to the electorate. Which doesn't exactly build confidence.


2. I'm not sure you get the threat of climate change(Better than the republicans doesn't mean anything). The positives of clean energy school buses is completely cancelled out if you're still for extraction of fossil fuels from public lands.


3. The "true climate purists" you are talking about are scientists.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

Reducing funding for law enforcement in any way is simply playing into a Republican trap. If you reduce funding, cops will be understaffed and under resourced, which means when crime rates continue to rise because underlying social problems aren't addressed, the GOP will simply use the spectacle of violence to securitize voters into believing it was the Dems fault. Its a trap that can be seen from miles away, which is why the Dems shouldn't fall for it - especially with control of the Senate and a Presidential election hanging in the balance.

This would only be true if there was actually a linear rate of causation between funding for police and crime. Of course, there isn't, not even a linear correlation.

Sure, it's how the Dems think but it's not based on data or research at all. Just feelings.

Your post makes other assumptions as well of course, that funding taken from the police will never go to addressing social problems.

 

[Beachryan]

1. If you think we should have rid ourselves of fracking but are pro cranking during an upcoming election then you are lying to the electorate.


2. I'm not sure you get the threat of climate change(Better than the republicans doesn't mean anything). The positives of clean energy school buses is completely cancelled out if you're still for extraction of fossil fuels from public lands.


3. The "true climate purists" you are talking about are scientists.

If you've read any of my posts you'd know that I very much do care about the environment, and very much do trust scientists on matters of science. Of course we should be letting them decide policy on the environment. We should also stop sucking as human beings, starting wars, hoarding wealth and being tribal about football.

But over here on planet earth in 2020, politicians in the US will determine how a very large, industrialised country moves forwards with regards to environmental policies. And Biden's plan is a compromise to attempt to both make a difference and be in the place to make a difference.

Like it or not, climate change and trying to not ruin our planet is a political issue, not just a science one. So this type of compromise is the kind of thing that is necessary.

 

[Raoul]

This would only be true if there was actually a linear rate of causation between funding for police and crime. Of course, there isn't, not even a linear correlation.

Sure, it's how the Dems think but it's not based on data or research at all. Just feelings.

Your post makes other assumptions as well of course, that funding taken from the police will never go to addressing social problems.

Social problems can be addressed holistically at a state or above level, not by targeting one off police stations in selected cities. The money needs to therefore be sourced at the federal and state levels and citizens in cities shouldn't have to worry about the prospect of more crime because there aren't enough cops around to address high crime areas.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

Social problems can be addressed holistically at a state or above level, not by targeting one off police stations in selected cities. The money needs to therefore be sourced at the federal and state levels and citizens in cities shouldn't have to worry about the prospect of more crime because there aren't enough cops around to address high crime areas.

There already aren't enough cops to address high crime areas but not because of funding, because of distribution incentives and how the criminal justice system is rigged. :

" African American and Latino neighborhoods -- largely on Chicago's West and South sides -- continue to suffer inequitable police services, according to new data obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois through Freedom of Information Act requests to the City. The data shows that as a result of a disparate system of deploying police officers across the city -- over-deploying police in predominantly white neighborhoods -- African American and Latino neighborhoods wait much longer for a police officer to be dispatched after an emergency 911 call, have fewer officers assigned to minority districts for each emergency call than predominantly white neighborhoods and that minority neighborhoods continue to have more violent crimes per officer than white neighborhoods. "
https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-re...nues-deny-equitable-police-services-south-and

"Most arrests and citations in Tulsa are for relatively minor crimes. If you get ticketed for speeding or running a stop sign, you get these fees and fines. Poor people, who get cited and arrested the most, often cannot afford to pay. So the court will issue an arrest warrant. Almost 40 percent of arrests made by the Tulsa Police Department are just warrant arrests and a large percentage of those are for failure to pay court debt. Court costs was the third most common booking charge in the county jail.

People can’t get out of debt. This court debt is predominantly in poor and black communities. I spoke with people who kept getting arrested for failure to pay and would miss work and lose their jobs. I spoke to a man who could not retire because he had to make payments. The debt just keeps piling up on people."
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/12...one-us-city-hurts-black-and-poor-communities#

And then lets see where a lot of arrests actually come from:

and despite the fact we have so many states decriminalizing and a large majority wants cannabis legalized we have in 2018:

and then this effect:
" America's poorest neighborhoods, and neighborhoods with the greatest number of non-white residents, are the most likely to see deadly police encounters, a new study finds. The only significant exception was that in the country's whitest neighborhoods, black Americans were disproportionately likely to be killed in police interactions. For blacks, the lowest-risk neighborhoods for police-involved deaths were those that were racially mixed—neither having far more people of color than average, nor far more whites. "
https://psmag.com/news/police-are-m...n-poorer-more-highly-segregated-neighborhoods

The only way to change things is to change the system and that can occur on city, state and federal levels. For instance, the insane amount of money the LAPD gets doesn't correlate to crime at all. LA could easily slash 10-20% of the police budget, switch to more data-based policing and use that extra money for social programs and LA as a city and county would probably see a greater reduction in crime than just throwing more money into an already broken system of incentives.

 

[Kentonio]

Reducing funding for law enforcement in any way is simply playing into a Republican trap. If you reduce funding, cops will be understaffed and under resourced, which means when crime rates continue to rise because underlying social problems aren't addressed, the GOP will simply use the spectacle of violence to securitize voters into believing it was the Dems fault. Its a trap that can be seen from miles away, which is why the Dems shouldn't fall for it - especially with control of the Senate and a Presidential election hanging in the balance.

Which do you think is more efficient, a mental health worker and a cop turning up to deal with a mentally ill person, or just two cops? Branching out resources into areas that are actually specialized in dealing with them delivers better results for a lower overall cost.

 

[4bars]

 

[Raoul]

Which do you think is more efficient, a mental health worker and a cop turning up to deal with a mentally ill person, or just two cops? Branching out resources into areas that are actually specialized in dealing with them delivers better results for a lower overall cost.

The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can have the health worker if necessary as well as law enforcement.

 

[entropy]

Kinda like Portland. Oh wait. They are still getting gassed and getting the shit beat out of them.

 

[Kentonio]

The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can have the health worker if necessary as well as law enforcement.

Yes of course you can. One way of achieving that is by diverting funds from one to the other.

 

[berbatrick]

The 2 bills and their fates are symbolic of many things

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[berbatrick]

Two weeks ago, the Associated Press reported that President Trump deployed unidentified agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to Portland, Ore., where they were filmed getting out of unmarked vehicles and abducting protesters off the street.

A few days later, House Democrats responded by obediently advancing an appropriations bill that funds the department -- with no apparent restrictions on such deployments.

“This bill as a whole will strengthen our security and keep Americans safe while upholding our American values of fairness and respect,” said Democratic House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, amid growing outrage at the situation in Oregon.

With congressional Democrats on their way to approving $50 billion for DHS, Trump administration officials are now boasting about their plans to replicate the Portland invasion in other cities. Those officials seem emboldened to ignore local Democratic opposition to the federal deployments.

“I don’t need invitations by state mayors or state governors to do our job -- we’re going to do that whether they like us there or not,” Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf defiantly declared on Fox News this morning.

https://sirota.substack.com/p/dems-sternly-worded-letter-wont-stop

 

[Raoul]

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[Raoul]

This is bonkers...

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[4bars]

This is bonkers...

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Do you think that this and another poll of Biden leading by +10 in Texas are reliable? or at least, do you think that currently Biden has more options in those states than Trump?

 

[Raoul]

Do you think that this and another poll of Biden leading by +10 in Texas are reliable? or at least, do you think that currently Biden has more options in those states than Trump?

I haven’t seen any polls of him up by 10 in TX. The last one I saw had him up by 1. I doubt he will win TX, but the fact that it’s even close suggests that Trump is in serious trouble in most usual swing states - most notably FL, OH, NC, and also means Biden has a solid shot at GA.

The only person I know who has come back from this sort of deficit in the final 100 days was Bush v Dukakis in 88, and the big difference between then and now is the pandemic and the fact that early voting begins in some places within 8 weeks.

 

[calodo2003]

This is bonkers...

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Dear god, this one cannot be true, can it?

 

[Raoul]

Dear god, this one cannot be true, can it?

I want to consider it an outlier but Quinnipiac is usually pretty reliable.

 

[Pexbo]

Perhaps he should offer them free broadband instead?

A genuinely brilliant policy.

 

[100]

Is Florida the most important state in the US election?

 

[Raoul]

Is Florida the most important state in the US election?

Ohio is probably just as important. It has been won by every future President for the past 60 years..

 

[calodo2003]

I want to consider it an outlier but Quinnipiac is usually pretty reliable.

No, they definitely are reliable. It just looks so fecking out of whack.

 

[Organic Potatoes]

Is Florida the most important state in the US election?

It is from a GOP perspective, as that would mean the election is over if it was lost. But if it actually ends up being a close contest then FL was irrelevant because that result means FL stayed red and PA, WI, and/or AZ would be the dealbreakers there.

 

[Raoul]

No, they definitely are reliable. It just looks so fecking out of whack.

Could be due to COVID. FL is getting hit hard and DeSantis, who was riding high months ago, now seems to be tanking as well.

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[The Firestarter]

I fully expect the Florida poll to change back and forth several times in the upcoming months. It appears to be the most fickle state of them all.

 

[calodo2003]

Could be due to COVID. FL is getting hit hard and DeSantis, who was riding high months ago, now seems to be tanking as well.

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We have had an absolute murder’s row of idiots as governor for the past 25 years save for partially decent spell by Crist (but it certainly wasn’t puppies & kittens under Charlie).

 

[berbatrick]

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a lot of fact-checking is BS, opinions masquerading as fact-checking. a long list here of the puliter-nominated wapo fact-checker being plainly wrong a thousand times.
...

Perhaps he should offer them free broadband instead?

might be useful for distance learning during a potential future pandemic but then who wants to invest with no tangible reason

 

[Raoul]

PA number is looking good

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[RoadTrip]

This would only be true if there was actually a linear rate of causation between funding for police and crime. Of course, there isn't, not even a linear correlation.

Sure, it's how the Dems think but it's not based on data or research at all. Just feelings.

Your post makes other assumptions as well of course, that funding taken from the police will never go to addressing social problems.

Think the point your missing is perception rather than fact. All of this may well be true but is irrelevant because the significant majority of people don’t scrutinise the headlines and detail, and so it is an easy spin for the GOP.

In other words, no point in trying to defend the slogan or explain it, better to just not bite and then work on achieving those things in office.

 

[utdalltheway]

A bit of education wouldn’t go astray then?
But it’s easier to stoke fear and keep the status quo.

 

[entropy]

Think the point your missing is perception rather than fact. All of this may well be true but is irrelevant because the significant majority of people don’t scrutinise the headlines and detail, and so it is an easy spin for the GOP.

Besides the fact that this argument is mostly PR talk. We are talking about Joe Biden here. This guy made his career destroying black communities. He is a moderate republican who has never advocated for less funding towards law enforcement.

 

[RoadTrip]

Besides the fact that this argument is mostly PR talk. We are talking about Joe Biden here. This guy made his career destroying black communities. He is a moderate republican who has never advocated for less funding towards law enforcement.

I think one has to consider the unique nature of this election cycle. With everything Trump is doing that could do lasting damage to a more left democratic agenda, this election is more like a stepping stone of making sure he isn’t re-elected rather than putting in a candidate who will enact real reform.

I know you’ve already made your views on Biden clear, and there’s been plenty of debate about the implications of not voting for him as he isn’t “left” enough so I’ll just stop there.

 

[Dr. StrangeHate]

This is bonkers...

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Every election, polls show Florida and Texas turning blue. Every election they remain red. May be Corona virus makes it different, so let's see.

 

[sun_tzu]

Dear god, this one cannot be true, can it?

It can be true but also it might not be as good as it first looks

How many of the 11% who didn't express a preference for either candidates are actually trump voters who are easily won back over the election or quanon types who don't trust polls etc

If say 75% of them are trump voters rather than biden we then end up a lot closer .... probably within / around the margin of error... chuck in some voter suppression and probably the dirtiest campaign ever and by November that could still end up pretty close

 

[utdalltheway]

Every election polls show Florida and Texas turning blue. Every election they remain red. May be Corona virus makes it different, so let's see.

Yeah I doubt it too. We can hope for OH, WI, PA and AZ then it’ll be curtains, right?

 

[freeurmind]

Clinton I think is the only one to win the election while losing Florida in recent times. Biden needs Florida to win imo.

 

[entropy]

I think one has to consider the unique nature of this election cycle. With everything A Circus Clown is doing that could do lasting damage to a more left democratic agenda, this election is more like a stepping stone of making sure he isn’t re-elected rather than putting in a candidate who will enact real reform.

I know you’ve already made your views on Biden clear, and there’s been plenty of debate about the implications of not voting for him as he isn’t “left” enough so I’ll just stop there.

It has very little to do with left politics tbh. Biden's career and racist policies speak for themselves.

 

[sun_tzu]

Clinton I think is the only one to win the election while losing Florida in recent times. Biden needs Florida to win imo.

Not sure about that... there have been a lot of demographic changes since 1992

 

[Raoul]

No, they definitely are reliable. It just looks so fecking out of whack.

Even if it’s a few points off (The St Pete Poll only has Biden up by 6 in FL) it’s still a significant swing from where we were 4 years ago.

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