US Elections: FBI. F-B-I... (Comey turns the ID the right way up) FBI.

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

A good longform construction of what I was talking about above - which is that partisanship and weak parties has made the US democracy threatened.

 

The american system of government is, all in all, not very well constructed and can't withstand ideologically coherent and partisan parties. It's straining like crazy these days and in many ways the only hope in the near future is one party controlling most of the big prizes because there's no real solution in the alternative.

[Fez]

28 minutes ago, IamMe90 said:

Upthread, James Arryn asked what we'd come to learn from this election. While I don't this is quite the sort of lesson he had in mind, it's a lesson nonetheless. Don't ever hedge your bets on breaking party loyalty in US elections any more, because it just ain't gonna work. 

For the most part, yeah definitely. But this year there still could be a bit more party splitting than usual, it just balances out between the non-college educated whites going Republican and the college educated whites going Democratic. On the third hand though, a lot of the remaining Dixiecrats finally became registered Republicans this year so they could vote Trump in the primaries, and technically they were an example of people breaking party loyalty. So with them no longer in the party, Clinton may get a higher Democratic % than Obama did.

There was also that poll Tuesday claiming that 28% of Republicans who voted early in Florida had voted for Clinton. I really doubt that, but there's at least one outfit claiming the crossover is happening. And I could see Florida having more Republicans going for Clinton than most states thanks to the Cuban-American population; just not to that extent.

[Shryke]

Sorry if I'm reposting this but this was a good read/summary of alot of shit going down right now:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/11/03/republicans-are-now-vowing-total-war-and-the-consequences-could-be-immense/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.740d82ba3b8f

Quote

 

Consider these recent developments:

- There appears to be a war going on inside the FBI, and from what we can tell, a group of rogue agents, mostly in New York, may be in such a fervor to destroy Hillary Clinton that they may be aggressively leaking damaging innuendo to the press against her in the waning days of the campaign. They succeeded in their apparent goal of making FBI director James Comey a tool of their campaign — and the basis for their investigation is an anti-Clinton book written under the auspices of an organization of which the CEO of the Trump campaign is co-founder and chairman. Pro-Trump FBI agents now seem to be coordinating with Trump surrogates to do maximal possible damage to Clinton.  

- Republicans continue to cheer the fact that the electronic systems of American political groups were illegally hacked, and then private communications were selectively released in order to do damage to one side in this election. The Republican nominee has explicitly asked a hostile foreign power to hack into his opponent’s electronic systems.

- High-ranking Republican officeholders are now suggesting that they may impeach Clinton as soon as she takes office. These are not just backbench nutbars of the Louie Gohmert variety, but people with genuine power, including Ron Johnson, the senator from Wisconsin,Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and veteran legislators like James Sensenbrenner and Peter King. The message is being echoed by top Trump surrogates like Rudy Giuliani.

- There is a growing movement among Republicans in the Senate to simply refuse to approve any nominee appointed by a Democratic president to the Supreme Court, leaving open any and all vacancies until a Republican can be elected to fill them.

- State and local Republican officials are engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to suppress the votes of African-Americans and other groups likely to vote disproportionately Democratic; in many cases officials have been ordered by courts to stop their suppression efforts and they have simply ignored the court orders.

- Republican elected officials increasingly feel emboldened to openly suggest violence against Clinton should she be elected.

 

Hyperlinks showing all these points are available at the article itself.

Honestly, I think I find the FBI one the most shocking if only because it completely surprised me. I did not see this level of institutional failure coming there.

Comey a ratfucking idiot? Yeah, alright, been thinking that for like 2 months now or something. But this shit is getting crazy all the back and forth.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Well, unlike Trump, the Clintons and Obamas don't go wherever they want when campaigning (maybe Bill does sometimes), they go where their data folks tell them to go. And unlike Romney's data people, Clinton's data people have proven to be very good (its mostly Obama's 2012 folks along with their recommended hires). Also, these data people are Democrats and are numbers geeks; and Democratic numbers geeks are generally some of the most nervous people around. If they thought there was any chance there was another place any of the Clintons or Obamas should be to help bring in more votes, that's where they'd be.

Again, its a pretty small point. But it suggests a fairly high degree of confidence.

 

I think the main difference between Hillary's data people and Romney's data people is that independent polls that are reported in the media are generally in line with Hillary's data people. i.e. that Hillary remains in the lead, albeit narrowly and with less certainty of a substantial victory. IIRC all the public polls in 2012 were pointing to Obama winning whereas the internal Republican polling was somehow erroneously telling Romney he would win, and there was genuine shock and suprise when Obama won easily even though public polls were saying that exact thing.

We might be in a Brexit situation though, where public and internal polling for Hillary are both measuring the electorate incorrectly. And that is a realistic prospect, and Barak and Bill's prior experience in being able to read the electoral situation would count for naught if the Brexit effect is at play here.

[Altherion]

57 minutes ago, Fez said:

Well, unlike Trump, the Clintons and Obamas don't go wherever they want when campaigning (maybe Bill does sometimes), they go where their data folks tell them to go. And unlike Romney's data people, Clinton's data people have proven to be very good (its mostly Obama's 2012 folks along with their recommended hires). Also, these data people are Democrats and are numbers geeks; and Democratic numbers geeks are generally some of the most nervous people around. If they thought there was any chance there was another place any of the Clintons or Obamas should be to help bring in more votes, that's where they'd be.

Again, its a pretty small point. But it suggests a fairly high degree of confidence.

There's an interesting Atlantic article about this. The Clinton campaign has generally been very confident about which states it devotes resources to, preferring to go on the attack in states where Trump is competitive (if not always favored) rather than defend its "firewall." If this strategy works, they will have a significant electoral college victory. However, there does exist a small, but not entirely negligible probability of a 2017 article titled "The Epic Hubris of the Clinton Data Team": if Trump manages to hold on to all of the states they're attacking and breach the firewall (e.g. by winning New Hampshire), he would win.

[The Anti-Targ]

24 minutes ago, Shryke said:

  Quote

24 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Sorry if I'm reposting this but this was a good read/summary of alot of shit going down right now:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/11/03/republicans-are-now-vowing-total-war-and-the-consequences-could-be-immense/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.740d82ba3b8f

Hyperlinks showing all these points are available at the article itself.

Honestly, I think I find the FBI one the most shocking if only because it completely surprised me. I did not see this level of institutional failure coming there.

Comey a ratfucking idiot? Yeah, alright, been thinking that for like 2 months now or something. But this shit is getting crazy all the back and forth.

 

Consider these recent developments:

- State and local Republican officials are engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to suppress the votes of African-Americans and other groups likely to vote disproportionately Democratic; in many cases officials have been ordered by courts to stop their suppression efforts and they have simply ignored the court orders.

 

Forget the FBI thing. For a people who claim to love democracy, actively seeking to suppress voter turnout is unconscionable. It's one thing to say that certain factors will lead to reduced voter turn out for likely supporters of a certain candidate and that's good for my preferred candidate. But to actually actively seek to prevent people who want to vote from voting is something no one who professes to be an American patriot should condone in any way shape or form. 

It is a completely valid tactic to say to someone that if you can't vote for me, and you don't like your candidate then don't vote. But it's not valid to try to prevent someone who wants to vote for your opponent from voting. Disgusting.

[The Anti-Targ]

16 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There's an interesting Atlantic article about this. The Clinton campaign has generally been very confident about which states it devotes resources to, preferring to go on the attack in states where Trump is competitive (if not always favored) rather than defend its "firewall." If this strategy works, they will have a significant electoral college victory. However, there does exist a small, but not entirely negligible probability of a 2017 article titled "The Epic Hubris of the Clinton Data Team": if Trump manages to hold on to all of the states they're attacking and breach the firewall (e.g. by winning New Hampshire), he would win.

Indeed. A campaign always has to direct its resources to where it thinks it will get the best return. But if it misreads where the best returns are then catastrophe can strike hard.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The New Hampshire situation genuinely worries me. Given the small size, you would think ground game could be a make or break - and at least Hillary seems to have the advantage there:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/10/27/clinton-operation-leaves-trump-dust/2J1SufLUOx472FsKIJnpTN/story.html

[Shryke]

34 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Forget the FBI thing. For a people who claim to love democracy, actively seeking to suppress voter turnout is unconscionable. It's one thing to say that certain factors will lead to reduced voter turn out for likely supporters of a certain candidate and that's good for my preferred candidate. But to actually actively seek to prevent people who want to vote from voting is something no one who professes to be an American patriot should condone in any way shape or form. 

It is a completely valid tactic to say to someone that if you can't vote for me, and you don't like your candidate then don't vote. But it's not valid to try to prevent someone who wants to vote for your opponent from voting. Disgusting.

Yeah but voter suppression is as American as apple pie. You can't be shocked or surprised by this. It's basically assumed at this point.

[Boris the Blade]

2 hours ago, Ariadne23 said:

No, that there are signs that the Obamas feel confident is good news. They really do have the best data people out there.

Chaffetz's statements are worth spending time picking apart. Because if we do lose this election, people saying something like what he's saying will be the reason why.

Note it's not really a corruption/email thing. It's more like "well, maybe he assaults women but at least he's not a Democrat." 

Those voters are never voting for Democrats. And the Clinton campaign made a bet that they might. For all their endorsements from Colin Powell to the Economist and other center right organizations and figures, I'm not sure that's translated to actual voters.

Ah okay. Yea, that is true. 

1 hour ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Here is an interesting article with a different perspective on polls.  It's an opinion piece by the former manager of Obama's 2012 campaign and is chairman of Priorities USA Action, a super pac that supports Clinton. 

edt; this from the article too  "Hillary Clinton can do that. To my knowledge, Donald J. Trump, who has bragged that he doesn’t care about data in campaigns, can’t."
 

That's pretty interesting. 

[The Anti-Targ]

So, odds on one or two states genuinely trying to secede if Hillary wins? Every time a Democrat wins it seems like people from at least one state say they would like to secede, but no one ever really does anything about it.

[TheKitttenGuard]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

There's an interesting Atlantic article about this. The Clinton campaign has generally been very confident about which states it devotes resources to, preferring to go on the attack in states where Trump is competitive (if not always favored) rather than defend its "firewall." If this strategy works, they will have a significant electoral college victory. However, there does exist a small, but not entirely negligible probability of a 2017 article titled "The Epic Hubris of the Clinton Data Team": if Trump manages to hold on to all of the states they're attacking and breach the firewall (e.g. by winning New Hampshire), he would win.

Playing just to protect can also be quite disastrous since having all those Battlegrounds being forfeited can give a sense of losing momentum and your firewall state will be more endanger.

Losing in N.H will be a very small price to pay to win Florida.

There is an (U.S) football saying that playing a Prevent defense prevents you from winning.

[karaddin]

7 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Very interesting article.  I had no idea that this was allowed.  Seems borderline unethical to me to swap votes.  In effect, it allows a person to vote in a different state than they live, which is prohibited.  It also seems like the practice is highly susceptible to fraud.  I don't think there's really any way to guarantee that the person you are swapping votes with will actually follow through with the agreement.  

The 9th Circuit decision only is applicable to states under the jurisdiction of that court.  Apparently Minnesota and some other states have prohibited the practice.  I don't think the 9th Circuit ruling would be applicable in Minnesota and other states outside the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit.

I think its a really clear demonstration of the failures of the system when it comes to this, as such I don't think its unethical at all - the system that requires it is.

I think Kalbear is pretty spot on with his fears of what can come from this election, that even with a Trump loss a ton of damage has been done through what has been revealed and the precedents that have now been set. Trump has come far closer than anyone would have thought possible, even if it ends up in a blowout, from someone who breaks so many of the rules that should have applied to a Republican candidate. You don't need to actually be a good Christian, you don't need to actually be a patriot - you can actually openly praise the leader of Russia and call for Russian attacks on the institutes of American democracy no less, you don't have to hide your racism behind dog whistles, you don't have to pretend to respect women. You don't even need to be a good politician, you can be incoherent as long as you have that masculine bluster and 'tell it like it is' by being as offensive as possible, even if that contradicts what you said a couple of hours ago you are somehow honest. So if he can get this far with a terrible ground game and no polish, the next Trump that comes along might be just marginally more competent and walk it in.

[Altherion]

6 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So, odds on one or two states genuinely trying to secede if Hillary wins? Every time a Democrat wins it seems like people from at least one state say they would like to secede, but no one ever really does anything about it.

Virtually zero. People aren't that stupid: the outcome of such an action is obvious and unappealing (especially since there probably won't be any amnesty this time around). However, there do exist possible actions outside of the traditional framework other than secession. Though I personally consider it very unlikely in the next 4 years, it is possible that the government does something exceptionally stupid and sparks a brush fire among the various militias.

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Here is an interesting article with a different perspective on polls.  It's an opinion piece by the former manager of Obama's 2012 campaign and is chairman of Priorities USA Action, a super pac that supports Clinton. 

edt; this from the article too  "Hillary Clinton can do that. To my knowledge, Donald J. Trump, who has bragged that he doesn’t care about data in campaigns, can’t."
 

Except Trump has spent a lot of money on the system that Cruz had, and likely has very similar data. 

[Kalbear]

23 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I think Kalbear is pretty spot on with his fears of what can come from this election, that even with a Trump loss a ton of damage has been done through what has been revealed and the precedents that have now been set. Trump has come far closer than anyone would have thought possible, even if it ends up in a blowout, from someone who breaks so many of the rules that should have applied to a Republican candidate.

To be clear, this isn't just about Republicans. Democrats are going to look at the ideological purity tests that Sanders had with quite a bit of happiness too. The main reasons that Sanders failed where Trump succeeded is that the Democratic party consists of several groups, and at least a couple of them are not at all ideologically motivated aside from 'put the best Democrat in the white house', and Clinton was simply a better politician with better party support. But it doesn't take much for the next Trump-like thing to be a Democrat. Hell, people are talking about Kanye in 2020 as a legitimate candidate. Kanye. Seriously.

What this election has shown is that there is no crossing the aisle to vote for the better candidate, because there is no way that any Democrat could be better than any Republican (and vice versa). And yes, there will be a few who say otherwise, but the vast majority of them will return to the fold - just like we've seen with Republican voters, and just like we've seen with Republican politicians. Chaffetz went out and said he could not vote for Trump and face his daughter - and then three weeks later voted for Trump. And he's going to be re-elected! Cruz caved. Ryan caved. McCain caved. And on the other side - Sanders caved! There is no value at all in being moderate. The only value is finding those few people who might choose differently and find what they care about, and then get out as much of your vote as possible. That's it.

Furthermore, you can do whatever you want and get away with it as long as your demographics are good. Unless it's literal corruption and actually being jailed. If you actively sexually assaulted women? Doesn't matter. If you pledge to block all nominations for the Supreme Court? The entire Republican strategy is based on this! Hold your breath and choose not to vote for a budget? Doesn't matter. Compromise and even doing your basic job doesn't matter, because people would rather vote for someone that they can ideologically believe in over someone who might get things done. Republicans have pledged to investigate Clinton from day one and potentially impeach her as soon as she comes into office. They've publicly said this. And this isn't mocked by republicans - this is actively lauded! Policy planning doesn't matter. No one cares. No one cares Trump has no fucking idea what he's doing, and no one cared that Sanders had no fucking idea how to do any of the things he wanted done. 

So yeah, I don't see how this is going to be healed. In other countries the party has a lot more actual power about things - they are the ones who nominate prime ministers, not the people, they are the ones who rank their desired party candidates in order of who they want to get in. As a result, the party can get rid of idiotic outliers and be somewhat strong. That's not what America has. 

[Kalbear]

I mean, fuck. 

82% of Republican women support Trump. And this was a few weeks ago; chances are now it's closer to the standard 90%. This means that about 40% of all the women in the United States support Trump as President.

Or, like, 64 MILLION women. Maybe only 45 million women who can vote or so. But...45 million women support Trump as their president. Because none of what he said is as important to them as that he is a Republican. Even though he's not a particularly good Republican, either, mind you - he's running as their candidate, and they will support him. 

[Stannis is the man....nis]

I've been hearing some interesting stories coming out of ground people in Florida. It seems that Trump and his EV in Florida committed what is called in politics "self cannibalism" in that likely election day people (ie people not really old/sick/really poor and might be working election day) have voted early while in turn more likely election day people for Hillary's side are still lurking out there while non-likely election day have made up most of her EV. SO she might be in a better position in Florida then people realize  

[Shryke]

27 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I mean, fuck. 

82% of Republican women support Trump. And this was a few weeks ago; chances are now it's closer to the standard 90%. This means that about 40% of all the women in the United States support Trump as President.

Or, like, 64 MILLION women. Maybe only 45 million women who can vote or so. But...45 million women support Trump as their president. Because none of what he said is as important to them as that he is a Republican. Even though he's not a particularly good Republican, either, mind you - he's running as their candidate, and they will support him. 

Are they wrong though? I mean, there are many ways in which if you are a Republican that Trump will simply be better then Clinton. It very much depends what you care about.

Like, there was a recent article in .. I think the Washington Post who's basic point was the Evangelicals voting for Trump aren't crazy or stupid or hypocritical. They are making the smart play because if what you care about is the culture war, fought mostly via the judiciary these days, then Trump is better in every way then the alternative for you.

There is nothing actually wrong with ideologically distinct and cohesive political parties. The problem is mostly that the US system is incapable of accommodating them and that one of the two parties in the US is out to exploit that while delegitimizing the opposition.

[Altherion]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Policy planning doesn't matter. No one cares. No one cares Trump has no fucking idea what he's doing, and no one cared that Sanders had no fucking idea how to do any of the things he wanted done.

Correct. No one cares, most likely because no one believes that any of these politicians will do even half the things that they've promised in the way that one would expect. On the one hand, there are Trump and Sanders and on the other, there is Clinton with her extremely well-crafted proposals... which everyone knows are part of her "public" persona and distinct from her "private" one. This is the price to be paid by the politicians for decades of policy which screwed over the middle and working classes as a means of enriching their donors.

The system is almost ripe for a demagogue. Imagine somebody like Trump, but 15-25 years younger, self-made (perhaps a tech billionaire with a middle or working class background or something of the sort) and a lot smarter. Somebody who is willing to say that the system is rigged and corrupt, but without Trump's baggage of offensive comments towards representatives of ~75% of the population or Trump's tendency to swing at practically any offense (even when the obvious course of action is to ignore it).