American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by octothorp

significant news on the mueller investigation yesterday with the news that mueller's working with the ny ag on investigations into manafort. Significant because as they're trying to flip manafort on trump, trump pardoned arpaio as a reminder that he has broad pardon powers that he can protect allies with; but charges laid by a state cannot be pardoned by the president. I'm not clear on exactly what falls within state law, but at a minimum racketeering and money-laundering do, crimes that pretty much everyone suspects manafort of.

lock him up, lock him up

[direwolf]

Lol.

Donald J. Trump‏
@realDonaldTrump

After reading the false reporting and even ferocious anger in some dying magazines, it makes me wonder, WHY? All I want to do is #MAGA!

6:27 AM - 30 Aug 2017

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

The Trump administration has shown that polls for approval ratings are basically meaningless. Americans are going to staunchly vote for the party no matter how poor a job a President is doing. Nothing he does will ever move the opinion of his core base. Trump or any other Republican candidate could probably brazenly obliterate Iceland with nukes and rationalize that he's trying to reactivate volcanoes to terraform earth for America's benefit and the base would still support their leader.

Honestly, people need to stop saying this. The polls were not that far off of the final result. They showed a close race nationally with a slight lead for Clinton--which is exactly what happened at the national level. She won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes.

The polling "error" here was largely at the state level, and was primarily a function of not having enough data for states that were unexpectedly in play, like Wisconsin. Polls are not meaningless, and these polls are apocalyptically bad for Trump and the GOP.

[octothorp]

Yuge: that Trump tower meeting that everyone there has been trying to downplay and make about anything other than the campaign? Manafort's notes on it contain a reference to 'donations', in close proximity to 'RNC'. If that meeting was in any way to discuss Russians channelling donations to the RNC (possibly through something like a Manhattan real-estate money-laundering scheme)...

This also makes so much sense about why the FBI is pressing Manafort so hard; he's vulnerable, and may know a whole lot about what went on during the campaign.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ations-n797816

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Honestly, people need to stop saying this. The polls were not that far off of the final result. They showed a close race nationally with a slight lead for Clinton--which is exactly what happened at the national level. She won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes.

The polling "error" here was largely at the state level, and was primarily a function of not having enough data for states that were unexpectedly in play, like Wisconsin. Polls are not meaningless, and these polls are apocalyptically bad for Trump and the GOP.

Yes she won California by too much and lost Texas by too little. Both meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Democrats can flip the house in 2018 but may lose the Senate by even more. The house is where the action will be.

Here's an article by Nate Silver explaining how Trump is still ok at 35%. 25% might be the tipping point that finally shows Trump in trouble.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...proval-rating/

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Here's an article by Nate Silver explaining how Trump is still ok at 35%. 25% might be the tipping point that finally shows Trump in trouble.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...proval-rating/

I'm not sure what I'm missing in that article, but I don't see anything saying that he's okay at 35%. The closest I can find is this quote:

Presidential approval ratings shift by a median of 13 percentage points between this point in their terms and the midterm elections — which means that if he’s at 37 percent now, Trump could very easily be at 50 percent in November of 2018 — or at 24 percent.

Which is a very different thing; it's not saying he's okay at 35%; it's saying that if Trump improved by the median amount that approval ratings change between now and the midterms, he could get back to 50%, but it goes on to say that there's roughly equal reason to think that we'll see some reversion to the mean (improvement), vs. the continual downward trend that presidents typically experience.

The article talks a lot about how 25% is probably his floor, but that doesn't mean he's okay now... just that things could still get a lot worse.

If there's another part of the article that says he's okay now, would you mind highlighting that for me?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Honestly, people need to stop saying this. The polls were not that far off of the final result. They showed a close race nationally with a slight lead for Clinton--which is exactly what happened at the national level. She won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes.

The polling "error" here was largely at the state level, and was primarily a function of not having enough data for states that were unexpectedly in play, like Wisconsin. Polls are not meaningless, and these polls are apocalyptically bad for Trump and the GOP.

It's also seriously quite possible that the polls were right.

I know it's crazy to think about, but based on information officially available I would say it seems almost certain that some voting machines were hacked by Russian agents.

(Information being: we know voting machines are generally not that tough to crack from IT people who have tried it, and we know Russians tried to hack them in at least more than half the states from US intelligence. I think the only real question is; how often did they succeed, and how much did it matter.)

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Itse

It's also seriously quite possible that the polls were right.

I know it's crazy to think about, but based on information officially available I would say it seems almost certain that some voting machines were hacked by Russian agents.

(Information being: we know voting machines are generally not that tough to crack from IT people who have tried it, and we know Russians tried to hack them in at least more than half the states from US intelligence. I think the only real question is; how often did they succeed, and how much did it matter.)

There is also serious, legitimate concern about what disclosing a successful voting infrastructure hack would do the the populace at large.

These machines have been vulnerable for over a decade. I believe it is part of the concerted GOP effort to continue to use compromised or compromisable voting infrastructure.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Honestly, people need to stop saying this. The polls were not that far off of the final result. They showed a close race nationally with a slight lead for Clinton--which is exactly what happened at the national level. She won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes.

There's a reason why they use electoral voting for President

Clinton only won the popular vote because she got 4,269,978 more votes in deep blue California

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

There's a reason why they use electoral voting for President

Clinton only won the popular vote because she got 4,269,978 more votes in deep blue California

And those votes were all cast by illegal aliens, amirite?

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

There's a reason why they use electoral voting for President

Clinton only won the popular vote because she got 4,269,978 more votes in deep blue California

The reason they use the electoral college is so slave holding states get credit for their population without letting them vote. It is probably the most racist aspect of institutional/structural racism left in America.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

There's a reason why they use electoral voting for President

Clinton only won the popular vote because she got 4,269,978 more votes in deep blue California

Breaking News:

Clinton only won the popular vote because more people voted for her.

[Biff]

Tom Bossert, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, is giving a great press conference. It is incredibly refreshing to hear someone at an administration podium who isn't a babbling moron, a serial liar, or an embarrassing shill of banana-republic proportions.

Note to republicans and the White House: THIS is what effective governance sounds like and how it behaves. Actual competence matters more than blind ideological purity.

[Muta]

Was just thinking, this guy is knowledgeable and well-spoken.

[octothorp]

At the risk of dragging anyone down into my own circle of nonproductivity, there's solid reason to expect another major Trump/Russia revelation today. Ben Wittes (Comey confidant, law journalist, tiny cannon enthusiast) has been really accurate in his hints about major Trump/Russia stories dropping (particularly from WaPo and NYT), and hinted this morning that there were going to be a couple big revelations today. Unlike some of the other twitter sources (such as Louise Mensch), he doesn't divulge details of what the stories are, but he does have a great track-record in terms of timing. The Manafort donations note was the first, but he's hinting that there's another one out there.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Yes she won California by too much and lost Texas by too little. Both meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Democrats can flip the house in 2018 but may lose the Senate by even more. The house is where the action will be.

Here's an article by Nate Silver explaining how Trump is still ok at 35%. 25% might be the tipping point that finally shows Trump in trouble.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...proval-rating/

Originally Posted by octothorp

I'm not sure what I'm missing in that article, but I don't see anything saying that he's okay at 35%. The closest I can find is this quote:


Which is a very different thing; it's not saying he's okay at 35%; it's saying that if Trump improved by the median amount that approval ratings change between now and the midterms, he could get back to 50%, but it goes on to say that there's roughly equal reason to think that we'll see some reversion to the mean (improvement), vs. the continual downward trend that presidents typically experience.

The article talks a lot about how 25% is probably his floor, but that doesn't mean he's okay now... just that things could still get a lot worse.

If there's another part of the article that says he's okay now, would you mind highlighting that for me?

GirlySports misrepresenting an article to push a nonsensical agenda? Now I've seen everything.

[Biff]

Sarah Sanders is distinctly unwatchable and unlistenable. All I get from her is the matronly battle-axe figure from Monster, Inc.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by octothorp

At the risk of dragging anyone down into my own circle of nonproductivity, there's solid reason to expect another major Trump/Russia revelation today. Ben Wittes (Comey confidant, law journalist, tiny cannon enthusiast) has been really accurate in his hints about major Trump/Russia stories dropping (particularly from WaPo and NYT), and hinted this morning that there were going to be a couple big revelations today. Unlike some of the other twitter sources (such as Louise Mensch), he doesn't divulge details of what the stories are, but he does have a great track-record in terms of timing. The Manafort donations note was the first, but he's hinting that there's another one out there.

And here's the other story, though not a huge bombshell or anything. Just revelations about Trump's lawyers meeting with Mueller to present arguments in defense of the obstruction of justice charges. There's nothing in those arguments that really exonerates the president beyond the weak 'has the authority to hire or fire anyone for any reason' defense.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-a...ler-1504207495

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I'm not sure what I'm missing in that article, but I don't see anything saying that he's okay at 35%. The closest I can find is this quote:


Which is a very different thing; it's not saying he's okay at 35%; it's saying that if Trump improved by the median amount that approval ratings change between now and the midterms, he could get back to 50%, but it goes on to say that there's roughly equal reason to think that we'll see some reversion to the mean (improvement), vs. the continual downward trend that presidents typically experience.

The article talks a lot about how 25% is probably his floor, but that doesn't mean he's okay now... just that things could still get a lot worse.

If there's another part of the article that says he's okay now, would you mind highlighting that for me?

Maybe I should have put a line in between those two paragraphs. The senate and house races are one issue, Nate Silver's article is a different issue.

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The democrats are very unfortunate that during this period of turmoil, the Republicans are only defending 8 senate seats compared to the Democrats 23. And only 8 of those 2 seats are at risk. Heller and Flake.

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Regarding the article, perhaps I'm reading between the lines too much but when 25% is described as the possible floor and 37% can easily be fought to a draw then to me it doesn't feel like Trump is in trouble yet at 35%. I mean he won the election at barely 40%. Do you think I'm reading that wrong?

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

. And only 8 of those 2 seats are at risk. Heller and Flake.

say what?