US politics: Georgia on my mind

[mormont]

43 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

I agree, and I have my opinion on which explanation is more likely to be correct, but what's the point in making conclusions until we have evidence?

That's always been my approach. I hope we can look forward to you taking such a calm and measured approach the next time there's a terrorist attack. However, if we want a provisional hypothesis, I think the presumption that this was a right-winger is much safer bet than floating the notion that this was a 'false flag' attack. Are you happy to condemn the people promoting that last theory, on the basis of no evidence at all? 

[Morpheus]

Trump just put out a tweet blaming the media for everything.

[Relic]

The outcries of "false flag!" are incredibly predictable. I don't begrudge anyone having a a health dose of skepticism, unless said skepticism is used only to confirm existing bias. 

 

[S John]

9 hours ago, Triskjavikson said:

YES.  On my mind all day was how quickly "False Flag!" went up.  There is no escape from this, is there? 

No, there's not.  The really crazy thing is that Republicans hold complete power right now and they are still this nuts.  

4 hours ago, James Arryn said:

The thing is, false flags have often been used, effectively, because no one ever believes that any specific one is a false flag op even if they know in general that FFO’s happen. That’s how unbelievable they are, normally, even when there’s some evidence that might be suggestive. They wouldn’t ever be used if people weren’t so loathe to believe in them.

So having a huge chunk of the population suddenly completely flip the norm and believe in a specific FFO right off the bat, with nothing more than knee jerk assertions...it’s a fundamental shift in how people think. And it’s becoming the norm for the right on anything they don’t want to acknowledge. Crisis actors, false flags, etc...It’s taking the incredible and turning it into the default. It’s just bizarre beyond words. 

The president himself has gleefully stoked this.  Fake News.  This is where calling anything you don't like Fake News gets you.  A place where your followers do not believe any negative stories about your side.  We've gone from a place where, a few years ago some fringe right wing radio nuts like Alex Jones would claim false flags, to about 40% of the country doing it.  And doing it every time. 

[Week]

4 hours ago, maarsen said:

So Trump is so thick he talks constantly on an unsecured phone. But then again he is so thick he does not read or understand his intelligence briefings and therefore does not spill secrets. Can the safety of the US be dependent on Trump being ever stupider? 

Well, no need for a back-channel to China or Russia if they can listen in at any time.

[SweetPea]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

That's always been my approach. I hope we can look forward to you taking such a calm and measured approach the next time there's a terrorist attack. However, if we want a provisional hypothesis, I think the presumption that this was a right-winger is much safer bet than floating the notion that this was a 'false flag' attack. Are you happy to condemn the people promoting that last theory, on the basis of no evidence at all? 

I don't condemn anyone yet, expect those that act as if this was a settled matter, even though we have no information.

I can see the merit of both explanations. It's entirely possible that a lunatic right-winger decided it was a good idea to send bombs to these people. There are loads of deranged people (especially in the US, if you don't mind me saying so), and we've seen similiar things happen in the past. SO maybe it's as simple as that.

But I think we can ask some valid questions. Why right now? Why not in the past few months, or a year ago? Why just before the midterms? Did the attacker not realize this would have the effect of giving the right and the Republicans extremely negative media coverage, and drive higher democrat turnout? Why didn't any of the bombs go off? Is the attacker so incompetent, or was it meant only as a threat? In which case, what where they hoping to achieve? This does not help the right at all.

Again, maybe the answer is that it was some psychotic right-winger, and we shouldn't be trying to make sense of it, but I think we can't rule out the false-flag scenario yet. That's all I'm going to say about the matter for now, let's wait for more information.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Let's assume for a second this was the burden of proof; how many cases like this would ever be prosecuted?

Again, she brought it up in texts to him without going public. She discussed it with her son without going public. The only reason that she revealed it was because her son stated it in another context. 

As to the investigation, well, there's a difference between the claim being unsubstantiated and not substantiating it. If you read the article you linked, it's the latter, not the former. That doesn't mean that it's not credible, merely that the investigator didn't find anything specifically to substantiate it - which is pretty much par for the course for domestic abuse cases. 

Why should she have to? Again, imagine this was the standard of evidence for Dr. Ford. Imagine it was for rape victims. She has another person who has stated they saw the video as well - her son. I agree that the video would be significantly better evidence, but that not being provided for whatever reason (and honestly, it being leaked to the universe is a pretty good reason not to) is not itself enough to shift the burden of proof. 

What's interesting to me is that in the texts from Ellison to Monahan, when she brings up the video to him of him dragging her off the bed he doesn't call her a liar. Why not?

I'm not suggesting that this should be the burden of proof for every such allegation, but rather since the veracity of this particular allegation hinges upon a piece of evidence she claims to have which would be immediately damning, it's rather difficult to believe her claim, especially considering that no other women have come forward to suggest a pattern of conduct that would lend credence to her allegations even without video evidence.

And I did read the article, and the investigator's exact conclusion is that the allegation is unsubstantiated because Ms. Monahan purportedly has the ability to substantiate it, but refuses to do so.

Again, let's not let what we know about violence against women in general cloud our judgment of this case in particular. No one is suggesting that video evidence should be a required factor for a woman (or man) to bring forth allegations. But if part of the allegation is "I have a video, but won't show it", then I think it's right to be skeptical absent other corroborating factors, such as other allegations establishing a possible pattern of abuse.  And while I take your point about not wanting the video leaked everywhere, I also think that bringing forth actual incriminating evidence could be a powerful statement in support of believing women, much like the recent spate of videos showing police brutality towards men and women of color opened the eyes of a lot of people who were oblivious to it, since it happened in the shadows. But even now, I'd be skeptical if an officer was accused of a specific instance of brutality by someone claiming to have a video, but refuses to show it, and there are no other indications that this is a pattern of behavior for the officer.

And I'm rather curious where you think the burden of proof lies in this instance. Do you think that the burden of proof falls on Ellison to prove it didn't happen (since you state that her failing to produce the video doesn't "shift" the burden of proof - from where is it shifting, and to whom)?

As for why for someone who was innocent wouldn't come right out and call that person a liar over text, perhaps he wanted to avoid provoking her? He seems to have spent a good amount of time ignoring her texts. And despite her protestations that she never wanted for this to get out, her actions may speak differently.

Quote

Monahan also sent additional text messages to MPR News indicating that she alerted Ellison to a video in December 2017. "We never discussed — the video I have of you trying to drag me off the bed," Monahan wrote to Ellison, quoting abusive language he allegedly shouted at her.

Ellison did not respond to that message or several that followed. Monahan said the recording also came up in a meeting with Ellison one day before he filed to run for attorney general. Monahan said Ellison was concerned about their text message exchanges and her increasingly frequent social media posts alluding to their relationship.

Receiving text messages that could be construed as vaguely threatening would seem to be a pretty good reason not to respond if one were innocent, because then the person you're dealing with is obviously unstable. That's at least one reason I could think of and I'm sure there are many more.

None of this is to say that I don't believe in the MeToo goals, or that I'm refuting the fact that domestic violence and sexual assault are big problems happening mostly in the shadows. This is simply about the specifics of this case, which I don't yet find credible. If more accusers come forward, or if the video is released, then I'll happily change my mind.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

I don't condemn anyone yet, expect those that act as if this was a settled matter, even though we have no information.

I can see the merit of both explanations. It's entirely possible that a lunatic right-winger decided it was a good idea to send bombs to these people. There are loads of deranged people (especially in the US, if you don't mind me saying so), and we've seen similiar things happen in the past. SO maybe it's as simple as that.

But I think we can ask some valid questions. Why right now? Why not in the past few months, or a year ago? Why just before the midterms? Did the attacker not realize this would have the effect of giving the right and the Republicans extremely negative media coverage, and drive higher democrat turnout? Why didn't any of the bombs go off? Is the attacker so incompetent, or was it meant only as a threat? In which case, what where they hoping to achieve? This does not help the right at all.

Again, maybe the answer is that it was some psychotic right-winger, and we shouldn't be trying to make sense of it, but I think we can't rule out the false-flag scenario yet. That's all I'm going to say about the matter for now, let's wait for more information.

Those aren't valid questions. They're dumb questions because you supplied the answer in the previous paragraph when you say there are loads of deranged people in the U.S.

If a deranged right-winger sent the bombs, wouldn't their deranged mental state inhibit the kind of reasoned thought and awareness of possible future outcomes you describe? Isn't it more likely that since they targeted the media also, they've reasoned that all that drummed up sympathy is fake news anyway, and won't have a bearing on the election since it is, by their definition, fake?

If there is any false flag going on here, I'd wager my paycheck that it's a right-wing group masquerading as a left-winger, drumming up the false flag theory and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to a manufactured character so they can crow about their false flag theory being true and gain the satisfaction of believing their false-false flag operation worked. A matryoshka false flag; the False Flag Ouroboros, if you will.

[Zorral]

11 hours ago, komantebunte said:

What's going to happen in 2020 if Trump loses to a progressive? You think the Nazis are going to go to sleep and take the L? Fuck no. Is a Dem POTUS prepared to use government force to keep these traitors in line? Because have no doubt that's exactly what will be needed. At the moment right wing violence is at an ebb, they won, they control the government, but when they lose we must expect a hurricane of terrorism and unrest. It's not rhetorical posturing, we have to start seriously thinking about how we deal with a fascist fifth column. A temporary suspension of some constitutional protections has historical precedent during times of crisis, but are white liberals going to be too squeamish to go along with it?

They don't expect to lose in 2020.  Read the account of the luxe of luxe book parties for Scaramucci's book launch party in the New Yorker.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-sub-gatsby-phantasmagoria-of-anthony-scaramuccis-book-party

A very well off orange nazi acolyte just out and says it.  

Quote

I sit down with Curtis Ellis, a Republican operative who first met Scaramucci on the Trump campaign and now works for America First Policies, a Trump-supporting super PAC. He tells me that the President is playing nice. When Trump is reëlected in 2020, the reign of niceness will end. “It will be the Night of the Long Knives,” Ellis prophesies.

 

[mormont]

36 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

I don't condemn anyone yet, expect those that act as if this was a settled matter, even though we have no information.

So, no. You're not prepared to condemn irresponsible scare-mongering and baseless conspiracy theorising. OK. 

36 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

I can see the merit of both explanations.

There's no merit to an explanation based on nothing at all.

The explanation that it was an act of right-wing terrorism fits what little we know, though it may yet prove to be untrue. The explanation that it was a deliberate attempt at a political distraction by a left-winger is pure pie-in-the-sky. It is not a reasonable, plausible or fair explanation of the facts as they are known at this time. 

36 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

But I think we can ask some valid questions. Why right now? Why not in the past few months, or a year ago? Why just before the midterms?

Presumably because the bomber sees the likelihood of the Democrats making gains, and is angered by it. And/or they were encouraged by Trump#s recent enthusiasm for violence against reporters. Maybe he went to a recent Trump rally and got inspired. There are a hundred reasons more plausible than conspiracy theories. There always are. 

36 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Did the attacker not realize this would have the effect of giving the right and the Republicans extremely negative media coverage, and drive higher democrat turnout?

A similar question can be asked about any terror attack. 

36 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Why didn't any of the bombs go off?

Because they were intercepted. 

36 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Is the attacker so incompetent, or was it meant only as a threat? In which case, what where they hoping to achieve? This does not help the right at all.

Wrong question. The question isn't 'does this, in fact, help the right?' The question is 'would a person in a frame of mind where they are willing to kill and maim strangers plausibly believe that this would help the right?' 

Again, you can ask a similar question about any terror attack. 

Here's a truly valid question: why are you only asking these 'valid questions' about this particular attack? 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, Morpheus said:

Trump just put out a tweet blaming the media for everything.

Bloody Ted Turner.

[Fragile Bird]

I saw the other day that NBC was reporting extremely heavy advanced voting by Republicans. Anyone have more info on the advance voting?

[Zorral]

19 minutes ago, mormont said:

 

Wrong question. The question isn't 'does this, in fact, help the right?' The question is 'would a person in a frame of mind where they are willing to kill and maim strangers plausibly believe that this would help the right?' 

Again, you can ask a similar question about any terror attack. 

Here's a truly valid question: why are you only asking these 'valid questions' about this particular attack? 

The mind-set of so many aren't about helping the right.  Their mind-set is flaming, blazing, crazy-mad hate for certain targets.  It has nothing to do with anything at all except what is in their hate drenched state of mind.  They want to hurt what they hate.  The target of the hatred however, stays in their laser-point attention constantly, thanks to the relentless drumbeat of hatred for these figures coming out of the orange nazi's mouth and fingers.

It's typical of bullies, racists, bigots and domestic abusers of all kinds.  They go utterly batshyte if access to the object of their wrath is blocked in anyway and will hurt anyone and everyone including themselves in order to punish the object of their wrathful hatred.

 

 

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

26 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I saw the other day that NBC was reporting extremely heavy advanced voting by Republicans. Anyone have more info on the advance voting?

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but Republicans do better in mail-in early voting, and Democrats in-person early voting (insert Millenials not knowing what a stamp is joke here).  And in-person early voting hasnt begun yet in Texas and Florida.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/surge-in-first-early-voting-numbers.html

"As noted, in-person early voting has just begun in Texas, and won’t begin in Florida until October 27. "

" Historically, the relationship between early voting in a state and the final voting totals there has been weak, and attempts to make inferences from early voting data have made fools of otherwise smart people "

 

It's hard to make too many inferences from early-voting trends, so we should probably just wait till Nov 6 to see how turnout is.

[OldGimletEye]

On 10/22/2018 at 9:51 PM, Frog Eater said:

Globalism left middle America behind in this country, and they know it

Oh fuckin' puuuleeeze.

Like Trump and the Republican Party give one iota of a fuck about this issue.

In an earlier thread I made the comment that the Republican Party is simply incapable of parsing the issue of globalism and free trade carefully. It either adopts the free market fundamentalist approach or Trump's mindless mercantilism.

I don't think Trump even remotely considers or cares what import penetration did some workers. He pretty much thinks that running deficits means the US is losing in some sense. But ,that is not how free trade works. A country can run deficits and it's not loosing wealth, but that is how Trump sees it. Interestingly enough, the corporate tax cuts Trump supported was supposed to attract foreign investment, which um, tends to increase trade deficits. But,  showing how he is utterly confused about this issue along with the Republican Party, the territorial provisions decrease foreign investments. It's kind of like "hey dude, make up your mind on what you want."

Trump has always been confused about trade along with his administration. Start with that Navarro and Ross trade paper which would have got a freshman student an F.

I've personally ranted before about how globalism has gone down. I think there is some things that could have been done better and some issues that could be fixed. But, the Republican Party has been virtually absent on this topic.  Of course Republicans pretty much suck on any policy topic, and yet it's the left that allegedly are the delusional ones. Take for instance there bullshit on healthcare, where now they are big supporters of protecting people from pre-existing conditions, the fuckin' liars. They are definitely putting the "con" in conservative.  In fact they are so terrible on policy topics the only thing they are left with is stirring up bogus conservative outrages like Hillary's emails or whatever. I would expect them to having anything useful to say about something like globalism or trade.

[OldGimletEye]

The "Hack Gap":

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/23/18004478/hack-gap-explained

Quote

n the fall of 2016, Hillary Clinton, asked at a fundraiser how she explained the political appeal of Donald Trump, said that “to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”

The rest, she allowed, were fundamentally good people, pushed by circumstance into embracing Trump, and she was hoping to win them over.

Insulting rank-and-file Republicans (even if it was only about half of them) was treated as a huge national scandal. Republican Party politicians and conservative pundits harped on the line, providing a point of party unity at a time when many party and movement stalwarts were reluctant to actually praise Trump. The mainstream press covered the controversy intensively, and left-of-center pundits weighed in with a range of takes, including one from yours truly, which concluded that Clinton really had messed up by violating “the norm against attacking the other party’s constituents” rather than its politicians.

This past Friday, meanwhile, President Trump said that 100 percent of people planning to vote Democratic in the upcoming midterms — a majority of the electorate, in other words — are “crazy.” Nobody cared and almost nobody even noticed.

An ex-plainer about special conservative snowflakes.

Interesting reading about immigration:

https://voxeu.org/article/losing-it-economics-and-politics-migration

Quote

Migration is the focus of intense political debate across the OECD. These debates increasingly generate smoke and heat, but precious little light for the evidence or focus on the substantive questions that demand answers.  A better understanding of the economics of migration, its social impact and the associated political dynamics is urgently needed.

 

Quote

Now, however, a quantifiable causal migrant contribution to aggregate productivity growth is emerging. Higher productivity growth can both drive migration and reflect it. We have overcome this endogeneity challenge econometrically and identified strong positive effects, corroborating the microeconomic and policy-based evidence that suggests policies designed to promote skilled migration can be successful innovation policy tools.

For productivity, skill level matters. Unskilled and semi-skilled migrants can both drive productivity benefits, but these are more consistently associated with high skilled migration.  The latter has been an integral part of virtuous circles in many global cities and, subsequently, economies. 

 

Quote

Our work identifies that while significantly beneficial for the society as a whole, and overall levels of income and growth, migration has disadvantaged certain social subgroups and occupations, particularly with low skill levels. Migrants in a number of economies have been substitutes for lower skilled people and complements for the higher skilled. This results in aggregate benefits being skewed towards higher earners. It is worth noting that, in many cases, those most easily substituted for migrants are other recent migrants themselves – an observation that has been borne out in the UK’s recent experience. 

 

Quote

In contrast to the UK’s Migration Advisory Committee’s policy recommendations (Migration Advisory Committee 2018), however, we find that the problem for these native workers is less from low-skilled migrants (for whom substitutability remains relatively low) but instead from migrants with higher skill levels than the lower-skilled natives, who are working in occupations for which they are overqualified. Inequality augmenting outcomes have often been driven by poor skill recognition, and the subsequent push of labour competition disproportionately onto the narrower shoulders of lower-skilled workers. 

 

[SweetPea]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Those aren't valid questions. They're dumb questions because you supplied the answer in the previous paragraph when you say there are loads of deranged people in the U.S.

That's exactly what I said, that maybe it was a deranged individual, and then those questions are pointless. But we don't know that yet.

1 hour ago, mormont said:

So, no. You're not prepared to condemn irresponsible scare-mongering and baseless conspiracy theorising. OK. 

There's no merit to an explanation based on nothing at all.

It's not a baseless conspiracy theory, it's very much possible that is what happened. Let's say there's a far-left progressive individual who believes Trump is a fascist neonazi, whose leadership is going to lead to the genocide of minorities. This isn't rare among progressives. So he waits for the best time for an October surprise just before the midterms. He builds some (non-functional) bombs and decides to send them to some of the people most known and disliked by the right. Knowing that the majority of the media is on his side, he can safely expect that it will instantly be portrayed as right-wing terrorism, and used to drum up support for the democrats just before the elections. What exactly is so impossible about this scenario? You don't think there are radical progressives who would do such a thing? Let me remind you that there are progressives on this very forum who condone political violence, one of them going as far as to wish brain cancer on every member of the Republican Party.

Quote

Because they were intercepted. 

They weren't functional anyway, none of the bombs had the fuse connected. At least, that's what I read, might not be true.

Quote

Wrong question. The question isn't 'does this, in fact, help the right?' The question is 'would a person in a frame of mind where they are willing to kill and maim strangers plausibly believe that this would help the right?' 

You're right. Let me rephrase. It's possible that some idiot thought this would be a good idea and would help the right (or maybe he just wanted to kill some people he hates), but the fact that this so obviously harms the right and helps the left, makes a different explanation also worth considering.

[Ice Queen]

2 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

That's exactly what I said, that maybe it was a deranged individual, and then those questions are pointless. But we don't know that yet.

It's not a baseless conspiracy theory, it's very much possible that is what happened. Let's say there's a far-left progressive individual who believes Trump is a fascist neonazi, whose leadership is going to lead to the genocide of minorities. This isn't rare among progressives. So he waits for the best time for an October surprise just before the midterms. He builds some (non-functional) bombs and decides to send them to some of the people most known and disliked by the right. Knowing that the majority of the media is on his side, he can safely expect that it will instantly be portrayed as right-wing terrorism, and used to drum up support for the democrats just before the elections. What exactly is so impossible about this scenario? You don't think there are radical progressives who would do such a thing? Let me remind you that there are progressives on this very forum who condone political violence, one of them going as far as to wish brain cancer on every member of the Republican Party.

They weren't functional anyway, none of the bombs had the fuse connected. At least, that's what I read, might not be true.

You're right. Let me rephrase. It's possible that some idiot thought this would be a good idea and would help the right (or maybe he just wanted to kill some people he hates), but the fact that this so obviously harms the right and helps the left, makes a different explanation also worth considering.

Those devices were fully functional. So there goes your theory. 

[mormont]

5 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

It's not a baseless conspiracy theory

It is, I'm afraid. It has no basis.

Your argument appears to be that if something is possible, if it can be imagined to be true, that's enough. It can't be called 'baseless'. But as an argument that, to use a technical term, is bollocks. By that argument, nothing is baseless.

5 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

You're right. Let me rephrase. It's possible that some idiot thought this would be a good idea and would help the right (or maybe he just wanted to kill some people he hates), but the fact that this so obviously harms the right and helps the left, makes a different explanation also worth considering.

I'll repeat my point above. There have been numerous terrorist attacks in the US in the last few years. Why is it that on this particular occasion, suddenly you feel there are all these 'valid questions' and a 'different explanation also worth considering'? What is it about this specific attack that has you coming over all speculative and so keen to consider alternative possibilities?

[OldGimletEye]

12 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Let me remind you that there are progressives on this very forum who condone political violence, 

I really don't condone political violence. But, I do balk when certain sorts of people want to make false comparisons between Antifa and Nazis. There is no comparison. Nazis are way worse. The comparisons between the two are horseshit.

And you know which sorts of people that like to make the comparisions, I think. They typically are alt right sympathizers, who try to play the "reasonable centrist" role.