I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

And now the Hillary campaign is joining in, because voter fraud only is a thing when Democrats lose (especially after the Obama admin said there was no evidence of hacking or Russian influence).

I actually thought the statement from Hillary's campaign lawyer was quite sensible -- it acknowledged that the margin is bigger than has ever been changed in a recount, but said that if Stein was going to file for a recount, they would participate.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I actually thought the statement from Hillary's campaign lawyer was quite sensible -- it acknowledged that the margin is bigger than has ever been changed in a recount, but said that if Stein was going to file for a recount, they would participate.

So he doesn't think it adds an aura of credibility? As long as Spacefuck is asking why not join in? I wish he hadn't won but he did and all this noise is detrimental, ultimately.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

So he doesn't think it adds an aura of credibility? As long as Spacefuck is asking why not join in? I wish he hadn't won but he did and all this noise is detrimental, ultimately.

I basically agree with you. Read this and tell me whether you think it's reasonable. I did.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I basically agree with you. Read this and tell me whether you think it's reasonable. I did.

No I don't think it reasonable. People who are anti Trump need to develop a plan of action. Something to increase the odds of D senators being elected in 2018, something to help fight fucking with immigrants, etc. AND educating third party voters what they did here. Recounts or talking about abolishing the electoral college or hoping the electoral college will make hil prez are all pathetic misdirection.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

No I don't think it reasonable. People who are anti Trump need to develop a plan of action. Something to increase the odds of D senators being elected in 2018, something to help fight fucking with immigrants, etc. AND educating third party voters what they did here. Recounts or talking about abolishing the electoral college or hoping the electoral college will make hil prez are all pathetic miss directions.

I can't open it, but I know it is not just misdirection. It is hypocritical pablum satisfying the people that wasted their money on a feckless campaign for more Clintons, and don't mind throwing good after bad.

LessinOkinawa

[SEC_Chick]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

I can't open it, but I know it is not just misdirection. It is hypocritical pablum satisfying the people that wasted their money on a feckless campaign for more Clintons, and don't mind throwing good after bad.

LessinOkinawa

And it is sure to make everyday Americans (whom Hillary hates anyway) detest her even more. It stinks of sour grapes, and prolongs an election when most people (even a bunch of her voters) wanted nothing more than for it to be over.

ETA But Trump's claims he won the popular vote are also likely bullcrap. While I would be quite confident in most elections making the assertion that by far most fraudulent votes are Dem votes, Trump in particular brings out the crazies. (No need to rehash the felons whose illegal votes likely elected Al Franken).

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I actually thought the statement from Hillary's campaign lawyer was quite sensible -- it acknowledged that the margin is bigger than has ever been changed in a recount, but said that if Stein was going to file for a recount, they would participate.

The fundamental lesson of the last year and a half is that terms like "sensible", "thoughtful", and "intelligent" are not helpful in the same sentence as a politician's name.

Sure, somebody calls a recount, you show up. But she probably should have said that millions of illegal votes were cast but Trump won anyways....

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

ETA But Trump's claims he won the popular vote are also likely bullcrap.

See, where I grew up, in real rural America, we can spot bullcrap before we're knee-deep in it.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspe...social-science

On target, except not really dealing with the extent to which advocates for austerity were breaking from economic analysis to advance pre-existing political objectives. And to the extent that it asserts that Trumpism is "new."

This is the same old 20th century unrest that gave rise to the modern social welfare state as a means to stave it off.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

They are. Student debt forgiven for the kids, credit cards forgiven for the doublewide demographic.

Again, both of these things disproportionately advantage the relatively well off. The poor - and certainly not the uneducated working class - don't have student debt and can't get big credit card balances.

You're advocating forgiveness for your neighborhood.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

So he doesn't think it adds an aura of credibility? As long as Spacefuck is asking why not join in? I wish he hadn't won but he did and all this noise is detrimental, ultimately.

I agree it's all detrimental, but I'm not sure Hillary's team can stay out if it's happening anyway.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

ETA But Trump's claims he won the popular vote are also likely bullcrap.

Why did you include the word "likely" here?

While I would be quite confident in most elections making the assertion that by far most fraudulent votes are Dem votes,

You have no basis for that belief. I do have a basis for saying in most elections there are almost no fraudulent votes.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller

A comment on the Forsetti piece posted by Thurgreed.

There is far, far more truth in the article than most people realize. I qualify as a coastal elitist. I am the poster boy for coastal elites. Born in NYC suburbs, Ivy education, career in Washington.

Oddly, my closest lifelong friends are the thirty or so people who passed through my combat platoon lo these 45 years ago. They are, by and large, flyover state people who are utterly incapable of realizing that the government is the only reason they have even a semblance of middle class life. They scapegoat. They blame the government for their failure to move up the economic ladder, notwithstanding that virtually every one of them that did get a college education got it at a state university for a pittance. They cannot understand the enormous changes of globalization. They only know that they are worse off than their parents, they don't come home to an Ozzie and Harriet marriage, and their kids have even fewer prospect than they did.


Generalizations are always flawed, but even those in this group who aren't fundamentalist know nothings have a willful blindness to the causes of their situation. In the run-up to this year's reunion, these men who I love were vehement Trumpeteers on social media. My closest friend in the group, a Californian, decided it was best if he didn't attend. I agreed, and stayed away.

There is one point in the Forsetti article I would personally disagree with. I WOULD come for their god damn guns, in the sense that civilians should not have AR 15s. I would tighten penalties on gun owners who don't secure their weapons. I know, first hand, what these machines can do. If your unemployed, bullied, meth addled son gets your semiautomatic rifle and sprays his high school it, you have committed murder. But that's just a coastal elitist view.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/28/us/ohi...ter/index.html

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Understanding them is a worthwhile endeavor, I guess. But isn't it more productive to find ways to properly message them? Trump just manipulated them without a hell of a lot complex marketing. One would think the Democratic Party, with far more resources, could similarly do so.

Someone didn't read the article.

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Again, both of these things disproportionately advantage the relatively well off. The poor - and certainly not the uneducated working class - don't have student debt and can't get big credit card balances.

You're advocating forgiveness for your neighborhood.

On the contrary, the poor often have surprisingly high balances. In a past life, I purchased debt portfolios. I was shocked at how loose cc lending was prior to 2008, and though it did become more disciplined afterward, it's still quite liberal. It wasn't at all unusual to see people with $50k income demographics holding $20k in cc debt. Lenders do so well based on the enormous interest that the default risk is minimized. And that risk has been tamped post-crisis as credit cards are often the last line of liquidity for the poor.

I'm generally adverse to regulation, but you don't hear me arguing much about the CFPB. Predatory lending is up there with private prison lobbying. Of the many sins I've accrued, that portfolio work is probably what'd land me in hell were there an afterlife (right behind certain of the plaintiff's work, for which I claimed the Nuremberg Defense).