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US Politics - Term of surrender? Or is it wise to follow the Dumpty?


Lykos

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56 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m going to say the same thing I just said to a Trump supporter on Facebook who called the impeachment trial a “sham” (for very different reasons than you have).  It’s not a sham because it’s not a trial in the sense of an alleged criminal being put on trial for a crime.  There is no possibility of the Senate doing anything other than removing Trump from office and stripping his ability to run for public office in the future.  
 

It is a political process.  Same as in the house.  Thinking of the process as a criminal trial actually plays into the Trumpanista claim that Trump is being denied “due process”.  
 

I’d like to see witnesses called as well but because the process is political, not legal, the process is whatever the Senate decides it should be.

This is a very good point, Scot.  And Pelosi is not a fool and KNEW this when she proceeded. It is, in fact, political theater, and should be treated as such.  

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By the way, even though Biden is the presumptive nominee, his lead is a bit more tenuous than I thought. There is a good non-zero probability that Sanders wins IA, NH and NV, which could change the dynamic of Biden's 6 point lead nationwide. Of course SC will stem the flow a bit, and things may settle down. And IA is far from settled of course.

But its frustrating to see him just coast along (I feel he isn't fighting for votes as much as the others). He's also been getting into these weird confrontations with voters (Democratic voters I might add), so I have to wonder what's going on.

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35 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

By the way, even though Biden is the presumptive nominee, his lead is a bit more tenuous than I thought. There is a good non-zero probability that Sanders wins IA, NH and NV, which could change the dynamic of Biden's 6 point lead nationwide. Of course SC will stem the flow a bit, and things may settle down. And IA is far from settled of course.

But its frustrating to see him just coast along (I feel he isn't fighting for votes as much as the others). He's also been getting into these weird confrontations with voters (Democratic voters I might add), so I have to wonder what's going on.

What's going on is that Biden is an old and somewhat out of touch politician.  He hasn't had to stay current with his voters for a long time.  He's getting old and a bit clumsy mentally.  it happens to most people as they age.  Bernie seems to be a bit sharper.

Frankly why we elect people to LEAD A NATION, who we'd force into retirement from our daily grind offices is beyond me.  We need some new young blood up there, but oh well.

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15 hours ago, Kalbear said:

My wife raised that point recently. Why are there not huge protests about this farce of a trial? Why are people not up in arms about this injustice? Why are people accepting that no witnesses being called is at all reasonable and fair? Or that it's entirely reasonable to simply block all ways of getting information from the White House? 

I suspect people are simply tired, the active people are out campaigning for dems right now, and most everyone is just at this point resigned to autocracy. But I'm curious if others see it the same way. 

I told you the answer to this before.  The average American is lazy, dumb and simply doesn’t care. Most people I try to talk politics with outside of the political world want nothing to do with the conversation. Apathy will be the downfall of the Republic.

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If this election turns into a two person race between Sanders and Biden (and all indications are that it is going that way), I am going to be extremely disappointed in the winnowing process.  Those are literally my two least favorite candidates* (and not coincidentally the two I think least likely to beat Trump). 

I can accept voting for them in the general, because sometimes your team doesn't pick your favorite, and you live with that.  But there's no way I'm voting for either of them in the primary, I don't care if they are the only ones left. 

* Amongst the real, serious candidates, so not Gabbard or Steyer or Delaney or Williamson.  

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54 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

By the way, even though Biden is the presumptive nominee, his lead is a bit more tenuous than I thought.

While Biden is decidedly the front-runner, his lead is indeed (and always has been) so tenuous I definitely would not describe him as the presumptive nominee.

8 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

If this election turns into a two person race between Sanders and Biden (and all indications are that it is going that way), I am going to be extremely disappointed in the winnowing process.  Those are literally my two least favorite candidates* (and not coincidentally the two I think least likely to beat Trump). 

Same.  I'd say it's even pretty depressing it looks like it's going to come down to those two:

 

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538 gave Biden a 40% chance of winning till a week back (mysteriously, their model today shows a jump to 45-50%, must be a glitch in the matrix). Its a very speculative model to be sure....and I got bored of writing frontrunner.

Interestingly, if you roughly add Warren + Sanders delegate count in the model it ends up about tied with Biden. Probably just another way of saying their probabilities add up to Biden's (roughly speaking etc. etc.)

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58 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

If this election turns into a two person race between Sanders and Biden (and all indications are that it is going that way), I am going to be extremely disappointed in the winnowing process.  Those are literally my two least favorite candidates* (and not coincidentally the two I think least likely to beat Trump). 

I can accept voting for them in the general, because sometimes your team doesn't pick your favorite, and you live with that.  But there's no way I'm voting for either of them in the primary, I don't care if they are the only ones left. 

* Amongst the real, serious candidates, so not Gabbard or Steyer or Delaney or Williamson.  

I’m only going by my gut, but I think there’s a decent chance that either Pete or Amy have a shockingly good result, and I think they believe it too, hence why they are going after one another a lot. Last poll I saw had like 40% undecided, and if you’re not already with Biden or Bernie, you’re probably picking someone else, and I think Warren has already ceilinged out.

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3 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

538 gave Biden a 40% chance of winning till a week back (mysteriously, their model today shows a jump to 45-50%, must be a glitch in the matrix). Its a very speculative model to be sure....and I got bored of writing frontrunner.

Interestingly, if you roughly add Warren + Sanders delegate count in the model it ends up about tied with Biden. Probably just another way of saying their probabilities add up to Biden's (roughly speaking etc. etc.)

I don't know how the model works, obvs, but it looks to me like it is using a weird average method of calculating how many delegates someone like Warren or Buttigieg is getting.  If Warren (or Buttigeig) doesn't win any of the first four states, I expect she drops out before Super Tuesday.  If she doesn't, then she drops out after Super Tuesday unless she does very well then.  So in both those scenarios, Warren would have less than 10% of total pledged delegates, possibly much less.  While it's possible that Warren with 7% of pledged delegates could be enough to be a kingmaker between Sanders and Biden, it would really only come up if the two of them are very close. 

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12 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I don't know how the model works, obvs, but it looks to me like it is using a weird average method of calculating how many delegates someone like Warren or Buttigieg is getting.

Silver's never going to be transparent about it for obvious reasons, but building a probabilistic model for the primaries is inherently going to include a lot of hocus pocus.  I don't think it's possible to construct a credible one that would stand up to scrutiny.  The primary process is too volatile based on the early contests, there's simply not enough information to actually be reliable.  Might as well just look at the betting odds, just as good an indicator.

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1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

If this election turns into a two person race between Sanders and Biden (and all indications are that it is going that way), I am going to be extremely disappointed in the winnowing process.  Those are literally my two least favorite candidates* (and not coincidentally the two I think least likely to beat Trump). 

I can accept voting for them in the general, because sometimes your team doesn't pick your favorite, and you live with that.  But there's no way I'm voting for either of them in the primary, I don't care if they are the only ones left. 

* Amongst the real, serious candidates, so not Gabbard or Steyer or Delaney or Williamson.  

It shouldn't be that surprising if Sanders and Biden are the last two standing. They had the most name recognition going into the race and that still counts for a ton. 

30 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

538 gave Biden a 40% chance of winning till a week back (mysteriously, their model today shows a jump to 45-50%, must be a glitch in the matrix). Its a very speculative model to be sure....and I got bored of writing frontrunner.

Interestingly, if you roughly add Warren + Sanders delegate count in the model it ends up about tied with Biden. Probably just another way of saying their probabilities add up to Biden's (roughly speaking etc. etc.)

I think the primary process is too complicated to truly make predictions like Silver is trying to do. But as for the jump today, Silver tweeted about it. Apparently they had previously made a mistake where a sign was reversed in the formula and it was causing Sanders to look stronger in the model than he was supposed to be. Fixing it helped Biden.

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7 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Being reported that Trump has issued a direct and formal threat to Bolton with regards to publishing the book, citing executive privilege.

Link?  I floored that anyone would think “Executive Privilege” would apply in the context of trial for removal from office.

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12 minutes ago, DMC said:

Silver's never going to be transparent about it for obvious reasons, but building a probabilistic model for the primaries is inherently going to include a lot of hocus pocus.  I don't think it's possible to construct a credible one that would stand up to scrutiny.  The primary process is too volatile based on the early contests, there's simply not enough information to actually be reliable.  Might as well just look at the betting odds, just as good an indicator.

I think that creating a model to estimate the overall winner is doable.  Obviously it's not perfect, but I think it could potentially be useful.  The problem is when you're showing graphics like how many pledged delegates each candidate has into the future, the error bars are just ridiculous.  IF Warren wins IA and NH, then obviously the number of pledged delegates we should expect her to take in CA will be vastly higher than we should expect if she finishes third in each of those.  So showing the "average" pledged delegates with a colossal uncertainty range just isn't useful.  They should just stop at the top line numbers, at least until after the first four states vote and the race settles down. 

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2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Link?  I floored that anyone would think “Executive Privilege” would apply in the context of trial for removal from office.

Or apply to something that didn't happen lol

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Poor Trump, no one cares about the USMCA deal, or the Middle East 'deal', all everyone is focused on is impeachment. He only has himself to blame for that of course, but it would be a delicious irony if Biden wasn't even the nominee. All that quid pro quo would have been for nothing.

The one thing I read about Kushner's plan was that there was no outrage in the Middle East, just quiet resignation. The Palestinians have been forgotten by their former champions. This might be a consequence of Trump-Saudi Arabian canoodling but I dont know enough to be sure.

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