So I've been giving @bartongellman's long piece on how Trump could steal the election a close read and there's a major problem with his argument that needs to be pointed out. THREAD theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Gellman says, "Many states forbid the processing of early-arriving mail ballots before Election Day; some allow late-arriving ballots to be counted."
This is eliding important Information: FL, NC (and I believe AZ) process early arriving votes beforehand.
They will likely dump their mail in votes when the polls close, so in both states there's a good chance we'll know the winner on Election Night. If, for example, Biden is winning in Florida and/or NC we will know that night.
If that happens, it makes Trump's efforts to steal the election largely impossible. Biden will be the clear winner and Trump's bluster won't matter if we have verifiable evidence that Biden has won.
But Gellman argues that in Florida, Trump's advantage with in-person voting will make it possible for HIM to declare victory that night. But that's wrong. The first returns from FL will be early voting ballots, WHICH WILL LIKELY FAVOR BIDEN.
If Trump wins Florida he will have to overcome Biden's initial advantage. In fact, as @ElectProject (Michael McDonald) said to me - the Biden team could look at the early results in FL and declare victory right away.
If the Trump team complains, the Biden team could respond by saying "you're right let's count every vote before anyone declares victory."
But let's say Trump wins Florida and NC. There are three battleground states where Gellman's doomsday scenario could play out - Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
But in Michigan, Republican state legislators just sponsored a bill that would make it easier to count votes ahead of time in the state. Considering Biden's lead there, it seems unlikely that Trump would be ahead on Election night freep.com/story/news/pol…
So that leaves Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. There could be delays in counting votes in both states. But will the delay be long enough for the GOP to implement a strategy to appoint their own electors. Possibly, but that does seem a bit far-fetched.
Still even if it does happen, GOP state legislators would have to circumvent the law in both states, a Democratic governor, the will of the voters, and run the gamut of legal challenges .. and that's just to get to the House, which could accept electors certified by the governor
Many people have focused on the fact that Gellman got the chairman of the PA Republican Party to say that appointing pro-Trump electors is a possibility But the PA Senate GOP leader went on the record and did not endorse the idea.
In other words, one has to believe that a crazy confluence of events will occur - pre-election polling to be wrong, Trump leading on Election night etc - for the GOP to even get to a point where Trump could steal the election.
Then you have to have another unlikely confluence of events - delayed counting, state legislators rejecting the will of the voters, winning numerous legal fight - and all that does is throw the decision into the House, which is controlled by Democrats
To say this is far-fetched is putting it mildly.
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Lots of people are analogizing Biden’s withdrawal to LBJ’s withdrawal in 1968 … they are very, very different situations. 🧵
When LBJ announced his departure from the race on March 31, 1968 no one saw it coming. There’d been virtually no speculation that LBJ might drop out and only a handful of people knew his plans before he announced them. There were no trial balloons.
Americans were stunned. Even though LBJ had barely won the NH primary over Gene McCarthy and RFK had entered the race about 2 weeks earlier, the reigning assumption in DC was that LBJ would run and be the Democratic nominee in November
CNN says Biden "has privately acknowledged that the next stretch of days are critical to whether he can save his reelection bid for president."
Why would the WH leak a story that feeds the narrative that Biden might drop out?
Because the WH is under enormous pressure, particularly from Capitol Hill, to "do something" to respond to Thursday's debate. They are getting slammed for being tone-deaf and gaslighting Congress about Biden's predicament.
This letter signed by journalism professors demanding that the NYT re-examine its 12/28 article chronicling the sexual assaults that took place on October 7 is as misinformed as it is shameful.
First, the letter ignores the multiple reports and journalistic accounts that back up the Times' reporting. That includes a UN report ... un.org/sexualviolence…
... and a report by the Association of Rape Crisis Center in Israel gov.il/BlobFolder/new…
Yesterday, @TheAtlantic published my piece on October 7 rape denialism ... and there are a few points I want to highlight.
The first is that, contrary to the skeptics and denialists -- widespread sexual violence took place on October 7. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel found "Hamas’s attack included brutal sexual assaults carried out systematically & deliberately against Israeli civilians and "sadistic practices aimed at intensifying the degree of humiliation and terror." gov.il/BlobFolder/new…
The UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General reached similar if more circumspect conclusions, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks.” un.org/sexualviolence…
Ok, time for some game theory ... for @ezraklein @NateSilver538 @DamonLinker and others who continue to argue that Biden should drop out of the 2024 race. What happens next? 🧵
If Biden withdraws the overwhelming likelihood is that he endorses Kamala Harris for president. Why? It would show loyalty to his running mate, ensure Biden's legacy, and, even more important, would block a divisive nomination fight.
With Biden's endorsement, plus access to money raised for the election and the campaign infrastructure that's already been built, Harris would have a huge edge over any other potential nominee. But there's an even bigger advantage ..,.
In this exchange, @RepThomasMassie says, "there's never been a school shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry."
I guess it depends on how one defines a teacher, but in the Parkland shooting, there was an armed officer present. He hid as 17 people were killed
THREAD
As far as shootings at schools where teachers carry weapons ... we don't know. That information isn't readily available. But very few teachers carry guns in schools. The last estimate in 2018 put the number at 2.6% of schools. nytimes.com/2022/07/31/us/…
And since it is such a small sample size (there are still very few school shootings in America) ... if one has not taken place in the tiny percentage of schools that have armed teachers, it's statistically irrelevant.