US Elections: When Murder isn't Murder

[lokisnow]

Old thread closed, continue discussion here:

I picked Alaska in the last thread because it's the only state that voted significantly more democrat in 2012 than in 2008:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012#/media/File:Election-state-08-12.png

probably just regression to the non-Palin mean.

[Myshkin]

Perhaps I have to go back and re-read the interview, but did Frank tie caucuses to low turnout in the midterms? It seemed to me that he was saying that caucuses are a problem and, unrelated to that, low turnout in the midterms is also a problem. Both of which are true statements.

[lokisnow]

I may have misread Frank's statement as well, but it seemed like he was blaming caucuses for midterm turnout collapse? which makes no sense.

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

Perhaps I have to go back and re-read the interview, but did Frank tie caucuses to low turnout in the midterms? It seemed to me that he was saying that caucuses are a problem and, unrelated to that, low turnout in the midterms is also a problem. Both of which are true statements.

Yes, that is correct. OAR misinterpreted it as 'the people who turn out big for caucuses are the problem'. Here is the exact quote from the article:

Quote

 

It’s ironic that we complain about voter suppression and shortened voting times and then we have so many caucuses. The caucuses are the least democratic political operation in America. They cater to the people who have a lot of time on their hands, and what’s interesting is Sanders is the nominee of the caucuses and Hillary is the nominee of the primaries.

I am disappointed by the voters who say, “OK I’m just going to show you how angry I am!” And I’m particularly unimpressed with people who sat out the Congressional elections of 2010 and 2014 and then are angry at Democrats because we haven’t been able to produce public policies they like. They contributed to the public policy problems and now they are blaming other people for their own failure to vote, and then it’s like, “Oh look at this terrible system,” but it was their voting behavior that brought it about.

 

The two statements aren't directly linked. 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

He accuses Sanders supporters of being people who don't show up during midterms, while also acknowledging that they are the same people turning out for a bunch of caucuses and handing Sanders victories, he says this is because they are people with a lot of time on their hands. So if Sanders supports are turning out for caucuses, and he's saying Sanders supporters aren't turning out in midterms, he's saying caucus goers aren't turning out for midterms. He's disparaging them in one breath as being people with time on their hands, and in the next he assumes they are people who don't show up in midterms. Show me some evidence for this. Anyone.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

He accuses Sanders supporters of being people who don't show up during midterms, while also acknowledging that they are the same people turning out for a bunch of caucuses and handing Sanders victories, he says this is because they are people with a lot of time on their hands. So if Sanders supports are turning out for caucuses, and he's saying Sanders supporters aren't turning out in midterms, he's saying caucus goers aren't turning out for midterms. He's disparaging them in one breath as being people with time on their hands, and in the next he assumes they are people who don't show up in midterms. Show me some evidence for this. Anyone.

He accuses democrat supporters of being people who don't show up during midterms. And is especially annoyed by those angry ones who didn't show up and then are all pissy about it. 

I don't think anyone's going to show you anything because no one is, ya know, claiming what he said is what you think he said. 

[Myshkin]

1 minute ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

He accuses Sanders supporters of being people who don't show up during midterms, while also acknowledging that they are the same people turning out for a bunch of caucuses and handing Sanders victories, he says this is because they are people with a lot of time on their hands. So if Sanders supports are turning out for caucuses, and he's saying Sanders supporters aren't turning out in midterms, he's saying caucus goers aren't turning out for midterms. He's disparaging them in one breath as being people with time on their hands, and in the next he assumes they are people who don't show up in midterms. Show me some evidence for this. Anyone.

First let's agree that Frank did not say that the problem with caucuses is directly related to the problem of low turnout in the midterms. It seems like he implied that some people who were turning out for caucuses (and primaries, and the general) in presidential election years were not turning out in midterm election years. This is undeniably true, at least for primary and general voters. The argument from you seems to be that if a person is motivated enough to caucus durning a presidential election year then they will also be motivated to vote in a midterm election year. This is a logical leap not grounded in fact. Having enough time to caucus in 2016 in no way indicates that you'll have enough motivation to vote in 2018. This is because the problem with caucuses is not primarily a problem of motivation, but rather one of time; caucuses disenfranchise people who cannot afford to spend three hours voting on a Tuesday.

[Mauvka]

I find the conservative brouhaha over Trump's abortion comments to be laughably hypocritical.  Otherwise, where was the prolife outrage when American women were being prosecuted under current laws for obtaining (or being suspected of having done so) self-induced abortions?  I remember a few of these cases coming up on national news, and the only outrage I remember hear was from the pro-choice side, aimed at the abortion restrictions that drove many of these women to self-abort.

Prosecuting Women for Self-Inducing Abortion: Counterproductive and Lacking Compassion

Quote

There have been at least half a dozen U.S. cases where women have been arrested and charged after attempting to self-induce an abortion using illicitly obtained abortifacients. For instance, in 2004, one woman in South Carolina was charged with illegal abortion and failure to report the abortion to the coroner after using an abortifacient.21In a 2007 case in Massachusetts, a woman was charged with illegal procurement of a miscarriage; however, because of the state’s inability to assess whether the fetus met its definition of viability at the time of the abortion, she was not charged with murder.22 In Idaho in 2011, a woman was charged with unlawful abortion and the prosecutor threatened to charge her under the state’s newly enacted 20-week ban on abortion.23 In a case in Pennsylvania in 2013, a mother who had ordered abortifacients off the Internet for her daughter was reported by hospital staff after they sought medical attention for side effects; she was eventually charged with “providing abortion without a medical license, dispensing drugs without being a pharmacist, assault and endangering the welfare of a child.”24 And in 2015, a Georgia woman was arrested and charged with murder after she gave birth on her way to the hospital after taking abortifacients she ordered off the Internet.25

Conviction and punishments varied in these recorded cases. In the South Carolina and Pennsylvania cases, both women were convicted; the woman in South Carolina was sentenced to jail time and a fine, but was let out on time served, while the Pennsylvania woman began a 9–18-month jail sentence in September 2014.5,24In Massachusetts, the defendant was given probation and ordered to attend counseling.26 In the Idaho case, the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.23 The murder charges were eventually dropped in the Georgia case as well, although the woman is still facing a misdemeanor charge of possession of a dangerous drug.

Quote

Although abortion is legal in the United States, cases of women who experience miscarriages getting caught up in the legal system are occurring here. Seemingly, this is the result of the convergence of widespread fetal homicide laws and overly aggressive and ideological prosecutors. In large part, enforcement of fetal homicide laws relies on medical professionals’ reporting to authorities women whom they suspect may have self-induced an abortion. Thus, these laws can pit women seeking care against the health care providers they need to help them, and can create situations in which women are forced to weigh the costs of forgoing critical postmiscarriage care against the possibility of being reported to the authorities.

For example, in 2010, a pregnant woman in Iowa sought medical attention after falling down the stairs. A hospital worker reported her to law enforcement, and claimed the patient told her she was trying to induce an abortion—something the patient strongly disputes.30 The patient was arrested and only released after it became clear that the hospital had misdated her pregnancy and that she was not far enough along to be charged under Iowa’s fetal homicide law.31 In 2010, an Indiana woman in her third trimester attempted suicide and subsequently lost her pregnancy after undergoing an emergency cesarean section. She was charged with feticide and held in jail without bail for over a year. She ultimately agreed to plead guilty to criminal recklessness and was sentenced to time served.32

In another highly publicized case in Indiana, a woman was reported to authorities by a physician in the emergency department after she told hospital staff that she had miscarried. She was eventually charged with feticide and neglect of a dependent, and the prosecution argued that she had delivered a live baby after attempting to induce an abortion using drugs purchased on the Internet. Although the prosecution failed to present conclusive evidence that the woman had actually obtained or ingested mifepristone or misoprostol,33 she was convicted in 2015 of both crimes and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She is currently appealing the sentence.34

Clearly, at least some prosecutors shared the opinion that women who self-abort should be punished according to the laws.

 

 I don't know whether this latest controversy will have an impact on Trump's support or not, but I see this clearly as very much another case of him exchanging the code-speak dog whistle of conservative politics for directly catering to what a certain segment of the Republican electorate believes. This is the party that includes Todd Akin, of the infamous "If it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down,” line of reasoning.

[Shryke]

33 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

Perhaps I have to go back and re-read the interview, but did Frank tie caucuses to low turnout in the midterms? It seemed to me that he was saying that caucuses are a problem and, unrelated to that, low turnout in the midterms is also a problem. Both of which are true statements.

Yup.

I went through it all in detail last thread but OAR is still going on about it for some reason.

He begins by attacking the premise of the question, which is that Sanders has been successful, by pointing out that he's winning caucuses which are a bunch of anti-democratic bullshit.

Then he moves on to discussing his disappointment with the angry anti-establishment voter, which he characterizes as people who don't get that they have to show up and vote during midterms too if they want shit to change. He thinks they don't know wtf they are talking about when it comes to the political system and how it works.

[Shryke]

3 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

First let's agree that Frank did not say that the problem with caucuses is directly related to the problem of low turnout in the midterms. It seems like he implied that some people who were turning out for caucuses (and primaries, and the general) in presidential election years were not turning out in midterm election years. This is undeniably true, at least for primary and general voters. The argument from you seems to be that if a person is motivated enough to caucus durning a presidential election year then they will also be motivated to vote in a midterm election year. This is a logical leap not grounded in fact. Having enough time to caucus in 2016 in no way indicates that you'll have enough motivation to vote in 2018. This is because the problem with caucuses is not primarily a problem of motivation, but rather one of time; caucuses disenfranchise people who cannot afford to spend three hours voting on a Tuesday.

Yup. Even if we grant the silly assumption that he was making one point and not two (he wasn't) it still doesn't work because engagement and free time are not the same thing.

I mean, primary voters are basically by definition more engaged voters then the usual. But not even all of them can afford to stick around for caucuses. Talk to people who went to, say, Washington caucuses and there were plenty of people who showed up, dropped off ballots and left. Or voted early. Just cause you care enough to vote doesn't mean you have the time to caucus. You can also look at turnout for caucuses vs primaries if you choose as well. So engaged does not imply that they have the time.

In the other direction you have the difference between election turnout in presidential years vs midterms. Clearly not all people who are engaged in one are engaged in the other. Even though it takes even less time to vote for midterms because the lines will on average be much shorter and not a caucus. We can then assume that free time does not imply engagement either.

The two are not the same thing and so one can easily say that people who show up to vote in caucuses during presidential election years can easily overlap with those that don't show up at all during midterms.

You can see the same kind of thing based on the number of people showing up that are first time voters.

[Shryke]

Re: The Trump discussion from last thread

Swordfish:

Quote

 

All of which makes sense if you assume he's some kind of a bumbling buffoon when it comes to these kinds of optics.  But he isn't.  He is extremely savvy in this space. 

And I don't think the abortion question is the only recent mis step we've seen from him.

 

But he is a buffoon. He always has been. He's displayed his utter ignorance on several matters many times during this election already. He's spoken off the cuff before and had to walk it back.

This isn't that hard to understand. He speaks with little planning most of the time. He bullshits his way through these things.

This time, it bit him harder then usual because he fucked up worse then usual. Which isn't that surprising given that this subject is one on which his commitment is almost certainly a load of bullshit and so he knows nothing about the issue.

[Myshkin]

8 minutes ago, Shryke said:

You can see the same kind of thing based on the number of people showing up that are first time voters.

This is a good point. If you are one of the multitude of first time voters who came out to caucus for Sanders and you are over 19 years old that perforce means you skipped the 2014 midterms.

[BloodRider]

45 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I may have misread Frank's statement as well, but it seemed like he was blaming caucuses for midterm turnout collapse? which makes no sense.

No, he was saying that the people who showed up for caucasus to punish the people who are in office trying to make it happen were not there during midterms or other off year elections.  And that makes them assholes for complaining that their agenda didn't magically happen.  While other people should also show up at midterms, and they share much of the blame, they are not (for the most part) complaining about how nothing got done for eight years.

More on Sander's ignorance on how government functions, now or in the future.

You know, I guess I just don't trust him.  He just says whatever he thinks will get the audience happy, but has no ability to do anything.  He's a typical politician, gladhanding with no plans to actually enact anything.

[Kalbear]

And if you're wanting more ammo for Clinton being something of an interventionist, this piece on Obama has a few choice words. It's a great piece and worth the long read. 

Quote

For some foreign-policy experts, even within his own administration, Obama’s about-face on enforcing the red line was a dispiriting moment in which he displayed irresolution and naïveté, and did lasting damage to America’s standing in the world. “Once the commander in chief draws that red line,” Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director and then as secretary of defense in Obama’s first term, told me recently, “then I think the credibility of the commander in chief and this nation is at stake if he doesn’t enforce it.” Right after Obama’s reversal, Hillary Clinton said privately, “If you say you’re going to strike, you have to strike. There’s no choice.”

Quote

Obama’s reticence frustrated Power and others on his national-security team who had a preference for action. Hillary Clinton, when she was Obama’s secretary of state, argued for an early and assertive response to Assad’s violence. In 2014, after she left office, Clinton told me that “the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad … left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.” When The Atlanticpublished this statement, and also published Clinton’s assessment that “great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” Obama became “rip-shit angry,” according to one of his senior advisers. The president did not understand how “Don’t do stupid shit” could be considered a controversial slogan. Ben Rhodes recalls that “the questions we were asking in the White House were ‘Who exactly is in the stupid-shit caucus? Who is pro–stupid shit?’ ” The Iraq invasion, Obama believed, should have taught Democratic interventionists like Clinton, who had voted for its authorization, the dangers of doing stupid shit. (Clinton quickly apologized to Obama for her comments, and a Clinton spokesman announced that the two would “hug it out” on Martha’s Vineyard when they crossed paths there later.)

 

[Altherion]

It looks like New York is not as solidly in Clinton's corner as was recently believed:

Quote

 

Even though Clinton aides say her lead in pledged delegates is "almost insurmountable," they are now doing something they never expected: Investing considerable time and money to the April 19 New York primary.

Clinton is preparing to spend far more in New York than she originally budgeted, according to people close to the campaign, a fact that underscores how the campaign is girding for a fight and knows it needs to spend money to win. She leads Sanders 54% to 42%, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday morning.

 

She's still winning, but a 12% lead is not as daunting as a 40% one and the fact that she's actually going to spend money there is interesting.

[Kalbear]

The other take is that she is looking for a knockout punch for it and doesn't want any narrative otherwise. But yeah, the news is that she's spending considerable resources in New York making sure that it isn't a surprise or embarrassment. 

Sanders is as well, mind you. 

[Shryke]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The other take is that she is looking for a knockout punch for it and doesn't want any narrative otherwise. But yeah, the news is that she's spending considerable resources in New York making sure that it isn't a surprise or embarrassment. 

Sanders is as well, mind you. 

Yeah, there's been rumblings from the Sanders camp that they think they have a shot in NY. Clinton is likely responding to that. She doesn't want to give him a chance to close the gap.

[Shryke]

Also, how unpopular is Trump?

So unpopular:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/03/31/nightmare-nominee-nobody-likes-donald-trump-not-even-white-men/

https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/files/2016/03/postchart.jpg

Quote

 

These numbers are simply amazing. Trump is viewed unfavorably by at least 80 percent of some of the groups that Republican strategists had hoped the GOP might improve among: young voters and Latinos. He’s viewed unfavorably by three out of four moderates. That GOP autopsy into what went wrong in 2012 has been torn to shreds and scattered to the winds from the top of Trump Tower.

Just as bad, this new polling further undercuts the already weak case for an implausible Trump victory: the idea that he can win by making surprise inroads in relatively white states in the industrial Midwest, thus riding a wave of working class white anger into the White House. Trump is viewed unfavorably by a narrow majority of non-college whites (52 percent).

What’s more, these new numbers also suggest other complications to Trump’s working-class-white strategy that we’ve discussed before: Trump seems uniquely positioned to alienate white women and white college graduates to an untold degree. This renders the working-class-white strategy’s math even more far fetched.

In our polling, Trump is viewed unfavorably by 68 percent of white women and 74 percent of white college graduates. If a lot of white women view Trump unfavorably, that would complicate his chances of over-performing among working class whites. And if Trump under-performs among college educated whites (and alienates nonwhites to an untold degree), he might need truly enormous margins among working class whites (who, as noted above, already view Trump unfavorably) to make up the difference.

Can Trump win by driving up tremendous, great, terrific, and huge margins among white men? Well, even they view Trump unfavorably, by 51-47.

 

 

[alguien]

50 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Talk to people who went to, say, Washington caucuses and there were plenty of people who showed up, dropped off ballots and left.

That would be me. Caucuses are fucking annoying. 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

He accuses democrat supporters of being people who don't show up during midterms. And is especially annoyed by those angry ones who didn't show up and then are all pissy about it. 

I don't think anyone's going to show you anything because no one is, ya know, claiming what he said is what you think he said. 

No. He's clearly talking about Sanders supporters:

Quote

I am disappointed by the voters who say, “OK I’m just going to show you how angry I am!” And I’m particularly unimpressed with people who sat out the Congressional elections of 2010 and 2014 and then are angry at Democrats because we haven’t been able to produce public policies they like. They contributed to the public policy problems and now they are blaming other people for their own failure to vote, and then it’s like, “Oh look at this terrible system,” but it was their voting behavior that brought it about.

So it seems like you’re saying Bernie’s voters have a slightly unrealistic sense about the political process. And that this is driven—

I didn’t say slightly.

 

1 hour ago, Myshkin said:

First let's agree that Frank did not say that the problem with caucuses is directly related to the problem of low turnout in the midterms. It seems like he implied that some people who were turning out for caucuses (and primaries, and the general) in presidential election years were not turning out in midterm election years. This is undeniably true, at least for primary and general voters. The argument from you seems to be that if a person is motivated enough to caucus durning a presidential election year then they will also be motivated to vote in a midterm election year. This is a logical leap not grounded in fact. Having enough time to caucus in 2016 in no way indicates that you'll have enough motivation to vote in 2018. This is because the problem with caucuses is not primarily a problem of motivation, but rather one of time; caucuses disenfranchise people who cannot afford to spend three hours voting on a Tuesday.

This is not undeniably true. We know the turnout drops between Presidential and midterm years, particularly among Democrats. It has not been established that people who vote in primaries and caucuses are the same people who don't turn up in the midterm. I consider this unlikely. I think the far more likely culprits are the many many people who only vote in the general election. The fraction of the American electorate that turns out for primaries and caucuses is small. I think that voters who are engaged enough to show up for these contests- particularly effort and time consuming caucuses- probably have extraordinarily high turnout rates for general elections, particularly relative to the general population. I've characterized this as making intuitive sense, and it does.

Further, and more to the point, Frank says he's talking about Sanders voters in particular when he complains about people who don't turn out in midterms. I've asked again and again for evidence of this and none is forthcoming.