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US Politics: Ready, Set, Announce! Bookering the Odds


Fragile Bird

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

The sad truth is we’re probably still screwed to some extent even if Trump loses. If he’s not jailed and/or deeply discredited, he’ll be able to further divide the nation via Twitter from Trump Tower.

One of the most important first actions congress could take assuming trump loses and dems get a two house win is a “national security” presidential/congress/cabinet gag order law for five years after leaving office. Whether or not it holds up constitutionally, if nothing is done to muzzle trump they’ll be very very sorry.

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3 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

This is a giant nothing burger.  Third parties don't work with our electoral system.  No Democrat is going to vote for Schultz over whoever gets the D nomination.  Not in any way that matters - a moderate candidate would likely pull more Repubs over the Dems.  Do you live in the US?

I'm reminded heavily of the awesome site Spurious Correlations.

That said, Schultz will pull from Dems, either stupid ones who voted Bernie-Trump, or ones that are discouraged by the constant negative ads Schultz will run and will simply not vote. 

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2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Okay, so I've already made my thoughts known on the whole Northam affair and those haven't changed in the interim. 

However, as I've learned a little more about how the story originally broke (initially published by a right-wing, Trump- backing website, picked up by the right-wing echo chamber until the mainstream press got wind of it), I started becoming very concerned about whether it will become a possibility that this kind of stuff becomes commonplace in the future, except where any such photos or video is actually fake. 

We already know the right doesn't give a shit about anything but winning. I mean hell, James O'Keefe is still considered a hero among most of the far-right crowd even though every "sting" he's perpetrated has been a hoax.

What happens when the technology of photoshopping and deep-fake videos becomes so advanced as to become almost indistinguishable from the real thing? We know the right will have no moral qualms when it comes to doctoring videos or pictures to manufacture a scandal (probably with the help of their new best buds, the Russians). And these kind of manufactured scandals won't even need to rise to the point of having the target actually resign; the right-wing will just keep hammering this inside their bubble, and force Democratic leaders to spend all their time and political capital answering baseless accusations instead of actually governing. 

Fighting fire with fire will only hasten the decline of any shred of bi-partisanship that may be left among the American populace, and will further degrade the already shaky epistemological foundation upon which the voting public relies to cast votes for candidates whom they believe to reflect their values. 

Right now, I believe that even if Northam wasn't one of the ones depicted in the yearbook, he probably has dressed up in blackface at some point in his life. But if something similar comes out in 10 years during the 2028 elections, how could we be certain?

I’m still astonished the yearbook is real! I took one look at it when the story broke and said, “well that’s an incredibly obvious fake” I’m like two rungs  above beginner on photoshop and I could do a better job on that fake (except maybe the font work). I even posted here that I expected the entire thing was a fake!

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Trump’s State of the Union Theme: Democrats, Please Don’t Hurt Me
The president plans to use his address to plead for bipartisanship in an era of deep division and bitterness largely engineered by Trump himself.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-state-of-the-union-theme-democrats-please-dont-hurt-me?ref=home

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On Friday afternoon, a senior Trump administration official briefed reporters on some of the planned contents of the upcoming address, which is set to include themes of “American greatness,” Trump’s standard talk of immigration and violent crime, NAFTA and China-bashing, and “endless foreign wars.”

One element the senior official repeatedly touched on during the background briefing was Trump’s plans to emphasize the virtues of “cooperation and compromise,” and to try to rhetorically dissuade Democrats from giving themselves over to “resistance and retribution.”

The official also read excerpts from a draft of the State of the Union speech, which had Trump speaking against “political stalemate,” and imploring Democratic politicians to help “build new coalitions” and to find “new solutions” across the aisle on several policy fronts, such as prescription drug pricing and infrastructure spending.

 

 

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25 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

One of the most important first actions congress could take assuming trump loses and dems get a two house win is a “national security” presidential/congress/cabinet gag order law for five years after leaving office. Whether or not it holds up constitutionally, if nothing is done to muzzle trump they’ll be very very sorry.

There’s no way that will hold up in court considering it’s a direct violation of the First Amendment. The only way to shut him up is to get the social media giants to ban him, which is unlikely but not impossible, and to get the media to ignore him, which will never happen because he’s a boon for them.    

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7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

There’s no way that will hold up in court considering it’s a direct violation of the First Amendment. The only way to shut him up is to get the social media giants to ban him, which is unlikely but not impossible, and to get the media to ignore him, which will never happen because he’s a boon for them.    

It would depend on the level of violence he caused.

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21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

There’s no way that will hold up in court considering it’s a direct violation of the First Amendment. The only way to shut him up is to get the social media giants to ban him, which is unlikely but not impossible, and to get the media to ignore him, which will never happen because he’s a boon for them.    

Yeah, but I'll bet they'd scrutinize his tweets for any possible breach of national security.

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Also, this seems relevant: POTUS  candidates are becoming more and more ideologically extreme - and don't get particularly punished for it. (it's the economy, stupid):

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So are presidential candidates punished for extremism? The second study, by Martin Cohen and three other political scientists, finds that they aren’t. Candidates that are arguably more ideologically extreme — such as Barry Goldwater or George McGovern — do not lose much vote share compared with more centrist candidates, once other factors are accounted for. Those other factors are important: Goldwater and McGovern did lose in landslides, but this had as much if not more to do with the fundamental conditions in the country, not with their own ideological positions.

The graph below is a good summary of how much more economic fundamentals (here, the percent growth in real disposable income) affect vote share than does candidate extremism.

 

 

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32 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

There’s no way that will hold up in court considering it’s a direct violation of the First Amendment. The only way to shut him up is to get the social media giants to ban him, which is unlikely but not impossible, and to get the media to ignore him, which will never happen because he’s a boon for them.    

The courts historically give almost unlimited latitude for national security “concerns”. If properly drafted it could really jam the gears of the court systems and would give the social media monopolies cover to temporarily suspend the affected accounts while it works it’s way through the system.

 

How do you prove in court that trump irresponsibly tweeting about Syria out of office is not a national security risk?

Or that trump going on his daily hourlong branded Fox News and talk radio show (simulcast broadcast!) to demand debt ceiling breaches from republican lawmakers or to publically attack democrat lawmakers (or his successors) on highly confidential things he (allegedly) learned in briefings is not a national security risk?

And on and on, you will be able to litigate an entire decade of cases out of the first week of “the trump show” which will air in prime time on Fox News (Donald’s contract would be not less than 100,000,000, per annum, with bonuses if he uses his platform to crack the whip on his republican peons to instigate government shutdowns and debt ceiling breaches etc to keep the ratings up).

trump is going to have, post presidency, the biggest media megaphone any one individual has ever had in the history of the world, unless congress does something to stop him.

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7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And in case you were wanting to think positively about things, well, the model that has correctly predicted everything - including Trump beating Clinton - sees the current economic forecast and says Trump wins.

https://twitter.com/pklinkne/status/1089905249714868227

His model in 2016 predicted Trump would win the popular vote, didnt say anything about the EC. In that sense it was wrong (but right in the sense that it predicted a Trump victory), just as it could be probably wrong about Trump's share of the vote this time around. It's very tough for him to get 51.2% of the vote as nearly half of voters are already opposed to him.

The question is how wrong, that is, can we use 2016 as a baseline to extrapolate if his model tells us how many votes Trump will have won or lost and what consequence that has for the EC.

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Just now, IheartIheartTesla said:

His model in 2016 predicted Trump would win the popular vote, didnt say anything about the EC. In that sense it was wrong (but right in the sense that it predicted a Trump victory), just as it could be probably wrong about Trump's share of the vote this time around. It's very tough for him to get 51.2% of the vote as nearly half of voters are already opposed to him.

Again, turnout matters too. 49% of all voters as assumed to come out by the polling agencies are against him. That's a lot! But it doesn't matter if AA turnout is down and white male HS only is up. 

Just now, IheartIheartTesla said:

The question is how wrong, that is, can we use 2016 as a baseline to extrapolate if his model tells us how many votes Trump will have won or lost and what consequence that has for the EC.

Right, and that's the real issue - in the key states, is he trending up or down? It's disheartening to me to see Ohio basically entirely Republican at this point. Florida is still open, I suppose. But realistically the Democrats went from having a whole lot of options to having basically two - Florida, and WI/MI/PA. 

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27 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And in case you were wanting to think positively about things, well, the model that has correctly predicted everything - including Trump beating Clinton - sees the current economic forecast and says Trump wins.

Actually, this is totally a way to think positively about things.  The disparity between Abramowitz's two variables - GDP growth and approval - have never looked this bad for a president running for reelection in the history of polling.  The only examples that come close are Truman (Korean War), Johnson (Vietnam War), and Nixon (Watergate - and he was dealing with a recession).  This disparity makes it abundantly clear Trump is the weakest incumbent in modern history running for reelection independent of the economy.  Of course, nothing about a presidential race is independent of the economy, but I'll take it.

20 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

His model in 2016 predicted Trump would win the popular vote, didnt say anything about the EC. In that sense it was wrong (but right in the sense that it predicted a Trump victory), just as it could be probably wrong about Trump's share of the vote this time around. It's very tough for him to get 51.2% of the vote as nearly half of voters are already opposed to him.

It should also be noted Abramowitz didn't agree with his own model at the time.  (Also, just as a note, most scholarly predictive models estimate the two party vote.  Trying to estimate what happens in the EC really only started with Silver, I'll give him credit for that.)

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2 hours ago, Zorral said:

Where have you been?  Oppo digging, phony information and lies, have been in play since at least Reagan's day (actually  -- see Cadwallader, Adams and Hamilton and the Thomas Jefferson dirty campaigns).  It's gotten to be the public order of the day  targeting every voter, now, since the internet has made it possible to drown out responsible reporting.  It goes on all the time, with the orange nazi's trumpeting of fake news.

If you think the tech isn't there yet to alter, edit and create media to make it look 'real' -- I really don't have a clue as to where you have been living and what you've been doing for at least 15 years.

I'm well aware that the book of dirty tricks in politics is well-worn and often used.  But I disagree with your assertion that the technology now exists to make completely fabricated situations look real. Enough digging and examination will mostly show when pictures or videos have been shipped or edited. Plus Republicans don't need any excuse to believe a Democrat did something awful. 

But what about middle-of-the-road, see-it-to-believe it types? Or even Democratic supporters who might be fooled as the technology improves? We're heading towards an epistemological nightmare. 

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15 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm well aware that the book of dirty tricks in politics is well-worn and often used.  But I disagree with your assertion that the technology now exists to make completely fabricated situations look real. Enough digging and examination will mostly show when pictures or videos have been shipped or edited. Plus Republicans don't need any excuse to believe a Democrat did something awful. 

But what about middle-of-the-road, see-it-to-believe it types? Or even Democratic supporters who might be fooled as the technology improves? We're heading towards an epistemological nightmare. 

As trump supporters like altherion will be happy to gloat, this is a side effect of democrats embrace of the philosophy that the existence of an accusation indicates complete guilt. It’s an easily exploitable vulnerability, remedied, mostly, by democrats not nominating nor electing in the first place entitled, privileged, ass grabbing, old white men from the good old boys country club. So short term it’s a problem, but if ten years from now 70% of all elected democrats are women, it’s nto much of a problem. It’s the interregnum where we are most vulnerable.

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One of the biggest causes of the California homeless crisis is that institutional racism in housing is LITERALLY written into the California state constitution. (And was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, a decision that was crucial to opening the floodgates of the enthusiastic racist policies and rollbacks of the Nixon and Reagan administrations)  So even though we have passed something like ten billion in funding for homeless housing relief, most of it cannot be spent because the constitution is legally aligned with the racist trash from the reprehensible and racist 1950s.

that is to say, they’re going to try to repeal the white supremacy article 34 for the California constitution in 2020, but until then, even with billions in funding, little will be possible to be done for the homeless—all because racist assholes in the 1950s have control of us today seventy years later:

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-affordable-housing-constitution-20190203-story.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

 

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Been reading a lot of Virginia Dems are worried Northam will hurt them in the upcoming state legislature elections - which happen this November.  The GOP Senate has a 21-19 majority (and wasn't up in 2017) while the GOP House has a 51-48 majority (and was up in 2017).  This just smacks of typical Democratic hand-wringing.  You're worried about the GOP attacking the Dems due to Northam refusing to resign?  Then fucking impeach him.  Would the Republicans block it?  Probably, just like the Dems did with Mark Sanford (which is probably the closest recent comparison I can think of in terms of a party wanting its own governor gone and him refusing to leave), but it would certainly mitigate GOP attacks on Dem legislators.

Also, the same same website that propagated the Northam photo is now bringing up old sexual assault allegations of Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax:

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Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax said Monday that it’s no coincidence an uncorroborated sexual assault accusation from more than a decade ago has emerged right as he potentially could be elevated to the state’s governorship.

The accusation surfaced Sunday night on the fledgling conservative website Big League Politics, the same site that on Friday unearthed a racist photo on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page that has gravely imperiled his governorship.

 

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13 minutes ago, DMC said:

Been reading a lot of Virginia Dems are worried Northam will hurt them in the upcoming state legislature elections - which happen this November.  The GOP Senate has a 21-19 majority (and wasn't up in 2017) while the GOP House has a 51-48 majority (and was up in 2017).  This just smacks of typical Democratic hand-wringing.  You're worried about the GOP attacking the Dems due to Northam refusing to resign?  Then fucking impeach him.  Would the Republicans block it?  Probably, just like the Dems did with Mark Sanford (which is probably the closest recent comparison I can think of in terms of a party wanting its own governor gone and him refusing to leave), but it would certainly mitigate GOP attacks on Dem legislators.

Also, the same same website that propagated the Northam photo is now bringing up old sexual assault allegations of Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax:

 

And, to making the point that politically racism is intimately entwined with sexism, all of this frantic digging was in response to protection of women's rights to abortion -- INFANTICIDE! They Screamed.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

There’s no way that will hold up in court considering it’s a direct violation of the First Amendment.

Quite the contrary, any gag order imposed for security issues will likely be validated by the courts, since this is the basis for restrictions on the 1st Amendment already. The legal precedents are well-established and in this instance there might even be a way to make executive privilege part of it, if you say that executive privilege also means the *current* president is free to place limits on the former presidents' freedom of speech for security reasons.

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56 minutes ago, DMC said:

Been reading a lot of Virginia Dems are worried Northam will hurt them in the upcoming state legislature elections - which happen this November.  The GOP Senate has a 21-19 majority (and wasn't up in 2017) while the GOP House has a 51-48 majority (and was up in 2017).  This just smacks of typical Democratic hand-wringing.  You're worried about the GOP attacking the Dems due to Northam refusing to resign?  Then fucking impeach him.  Would the Republicans block it?  Probably, just like the Dems did with Mark Sanford (which is probably the closest recent comparison I can think of in terms of a party wanting its own governor gone and him refusing to leave), but it would certainly mitigate GOP attacks on Dem legislators.

Also, the same same website that propagated the Northam photo is now bringing up old sexual assault allegations of Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax:

 

Yeah, a democrat refusing to resign over a picture of ignorant and dumb behavior in college thirty five years ago is probably not going to affect the outcomes of races in unrelated state legislative contests. Particularly as this whole kerfluffle is only occurring because of the tsunami of fake abortion stories about the Virginia legislature last week that dominated right wing social media prior to this.

the election is ten months away, grab them by the pussy faded to nothing after three weeks, I think he’s probably fine and like all scandals it’ll fade in a couple weeks.

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