Presidential election, 2016

[pbrower2a]

(10-30-2016, 06:18 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(10-28-2016, 06:27 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I hate to bring up Hitler... but he never promised to leave a Germany a nation in shame and ruin, disgraced for what its armies and paramilitary forces did to millions, and partitioned by foreign powers. He never promised the Holocaust, let alone aggressive war that would allow American and Soviet armies to meet. Hitler never promised a war even more destructive than World War II. Of course Hitler may not have wanted such things, even the Holocaust, in 1932. Hitler sought to bring back national pride, and by 1936 the Germans (unless they were Jewish) were proud to be Germans. In 1946 "German" was a badge of shame.

Actually, Hitler did promise the Holocaust.  From the get-go, he wanted to rid Germany of the evil influence of Jews.  You can see that in his writings.  Getting rid of the Jews was part of his plan to restore the pride and purity of the German nation.

Hitler hated the Jews from at least November 1918, blaming them for the defeat of his beloved Germany (never mind that Germany had run out of infantrymen, its economy had collapsed, and Wilhelm II panicked and fled). But even he knew enough to downplay that hatred as necessary for winning seats for his crime syndicate (the Nazi Party) in the Reichstag. As with other persons with evil personalities he made sure to hide his vilest tendencies to avoid scaring people off. He also had to seem useful to economic elites who had other interests, like destroying the labor unions, privatizing the public sector, offering lucrative contracts for rearmament, and suppressing leftist political groups. Threats to Jewish property would have to give way to protecting the plutocrats who knew that someone with the power to dispossess the Jews could dispossess anyone (which also proved true to the few plutocrats who got in Hitler's way, let alone those outside Germany). 

Hitler threatened at most (at first) to make life miserable for Jews, which was abominable enough in itself to have rightly given shame to any German*. He was concerned about how the rest of the world perceived him. He would have been satisfied at first to get every Jew to leave Germany while stealing whatever assets Jews had. That was all that he had available -- basically what the Inquisition did except for allowing no outlet of conversion -- until 1941, when he started the Holocaust in occupied parts of the Soviet Union. Then he could murder at will under the fog of war or under complete secrecy.

Hitler learned his techniques of mass murder from the expert of the time -- Josef Stalin -- and applied those to the Jews with modifications to suit the realities of Germany. Hitler simply had to do the killing outside of Germany, taking Jews out of and even through Germany for slaughter in Poland. He had much learning to do about such in 1933 and 1934. He learned well and his collaborators were as clever as they were cruel and ruthless as he.

It took Hitler about six years to become a bigger killer than such vile leaders as Agosto Pinochet, Idi Amin, Ivan the Terrible, or Leopold II of Belgium. He had to start believing that he could get away with it. When he had victory in sight and complete power over everyone he could begin.

Could Hitler have promised the extermination of the Jews in 1932 or 1933? Hardly. Civilized people just do not do that. Barbarous people like the Mongols and Crusaders of the Middle Ages, or the Soviet Union of the time, could. The most sophisticated and technologically advanced, and one of the most learned? Of course not. Who did Hitler think the Germans were -- tobacco-spewing, superstitious, semi-literate hicks in the American South of the time?

*The example of blacks in the segregated South shows how easy it is for people to slough off an unconscionable order so long as it hurts helpless 'others'.

[pbrower2a]

(10-31-2016, 06:57 AM)Odin Wrote:

(10-30-2016, 02:01 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: I have tended to agree with Bob Butler in the past that we were not close enough (yet) to the kind of eliminationist rhetoric that triggers a spiral of violence against "The Other."  I am now prepared to say--seven years after David Neiwert first published his prescient book--that we are now dancing on the edge of the abyss.  The hate speech--and let's call it what it is--is no longer limited to the extremist windbags of talk radio or cable TV.  As author and journalist Chris Hedges has said before, "America Is a Tinderbox," and Trump and his ilk seem hell bent on lighting the match. 

"Trump rally speaker fantasizes about death of Hillary Clinton"

LAS VEGAS — A speaker warming up the crowd for Donald Trump at a campaign rally fantasized about the deaths of Hillary Clinton and a senior aide on Sunday morning.

Conservative commentator Wayne Allyn Root describing his fantasy of a made-for-TV movie about Clinton and aide Huma Abedin, said, “We all get our wish. The ending is like ‘Thelma and Louise.” In the 1991 film, the title characters drive over a cliff to their death. Root’s line drew cheers from rally attendees.

Root’s call is the latest elevation in the increasingly extreme and violent rhetoric directed by Trump and his surrogates at Clinton at campaign events...

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/clinton-trump-abedin-death-230510#ixzz4Ob1sS3zn

Those who utter such rhetoric may claim that their speech is merely allusive or archaic, and not an incitement to violence, but it is highly suggestive--and very, very dangerous in the current political climate.

I've noticed that in the past couple weeks there has been a wave of bitter, childish, angry Bernie Sanders supporters on Millie-dominated sites like Reddit openly supporting Trump because they are so enraged that they openly want to "burn everything down", It's sickening that so many grown men (and it is almost exclusively men spewing this shit) are acting like spoiled toddlers throwing a temper tantrum against "the system" because they didn't get their way in the primaries. These people are unironically regurgitating 25 years of right-wing lies about the Clintons as if it were gospel truth.

The Sanders supporters who have decided that Hilary Clinton may be flawed, but not evil as is Donald Trump, draw little attention. They will be voting, and they will be voting for Hillary Clinton.

Bernie Sanders did excite the Radical Left... but radical leftists are more likely to go to the Far Right than to the mainstream center when the dreams of the Far Left are made impossible to achieve. We need avoid letting the Perfect become the enemy of the Good... Donald Trump is undeniably awful. The only rationale that anyone on the Left can give for transitory support to Demagogue Don is that he will make things so bad that people will quickly become supporters of radical causes. Thus as Fascism fails the socialist insurrection can succeed because the bourgeois order has lost all claim to any liberal benevolence.

The only part of that story that I believe is that Donald Trump will make America very bad very fast.

[Eric the Green]

Average of last 5 polls (if taken) or less (if not), reported on real clear politics, or default status:



Oct 31, 10 AM pacific time

toss up (gray) within 1%
leaning (light red or blue) 1-5%
likely (middle red or blue) 5-10%
Strong (dark red or blue) 10%+

swing states:
AZ Clinton 43.2 Trump 42.4
CO Clinton 43.4 Trump 39.6
FL Clinton 44.8 Trump 45.4
GA Clinton 43.2 Trump 46.8
Iowa Clinton 40 Trump 42.2
MI Clinton 46 Trump 38.2
NH Clinton 43.8 Trump 39.2
NV Clinton 44.2 Trump 44.4
NC Clinton 47.4 Trump 45
OH Clinton 44.2 Trump 45.8
PA Clinton 45.8 Trump 40.6
VA Clinton 47.4 Trump 36.8
IN Clinton 37 Trump 45
MN Clinton 47 Trump 39.6
MO Clinton 40.6 Trump 47.8
NJ Clinton 46.2 Trump 38.2
SC Clinton 38.8 Trump 44.6
WI Clinton 46.4 Trump 39.8
TX Clinton 40 Trump 44.8
UT Clinton 24.4 Trump 30.4, McMullin 25.8
Maine Clinton 43.2 Trump 37
Maine CD2 Clinton 37.2 Trump 43.8

fivethirtyeight (Silver) estimate:
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016...-forecast/

[Eric the Green]

Please, let this thing be over soon! We've hit a bottomless bottom:

[Ragnarök_62]

(10-31-2016, 12:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Please, let this thing be over soon! We've hit a bottomless bottom:

It's getting more and more awesome for Rags.

A recap:    Monica Lewinki's blue dress with Bill Clinton's white cum stains!   

Anthony Weiner.  Bwaahahahahahahaha.  Awesome surname and it's accurate.  Sexting teenage girls.  Oh, how tacky.  I guess he's in the sex offender database someplace, right?


Wait there's more!     Bill Epstein is a friend of Bill and a sex fiend as well.

This election is just so awesome.  It's all Sex, Lies, and emails.  

[pbrower2a]

Weiner for Prison 2017!

[Eric the Green]

This election needs to be rated X. Not suitable for viewing by children.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-31-2016, 10:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This election needs to be rated X. Not suitable for viewing by children.

True enough, but why should we adults have to suffer?  

[Bob Butler 54]

A Republican senator "jokes" about putting a target image on the cover of a gun magazine over a Hillary picture.  Another minor tick in the spiral of rhetoric.

[Eric the Green]

(11-01-2016, 08:14 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-31-2016, 10:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This election needs to be rated X. Not suitable for viewing by children.

True enough, but why should we adults have to suffer?  

Because we act like children?

[Eric the Green]

If you look at the map I posted above. You can see a possible break in the red monopoly in Odin's "fly-over country." If you fly from San Francisco to New York, you can avoid flying over any states that are strongly red. It's still 6 blue states (to one degree or another) and 5 red states (leaning or likely) and one tossup state, but no dark red states. Maybe it's a potential ribbon of intelligence through the land of "ignorant hick" folks in "fly-over country." Maybe the opposite of the late Paul Harvey's statement that the Bible Belt stretched from coast to coast in the George W Bush elections.

[pbrower2a]

(11-01-2016, 03:16 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-01-2016, 08:14 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-31-2016, 10:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This election needs to be rated X. Not suitable for viewing by children.

True enough, but why should we adults have to suffer?  

Because we act like children?

True. Much of the problem is that adults acting like children deny children the right to be children. Just think of how Boomers trying to extend their childhood and the Silent trying to recover the childhood that they thought they missed kept Generation X from getting what they needed -- competent care, direction, and attention.

Imagining oneself as a child again allows an adult to fully enjoy Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, The Wizard of Oz, and Spirited Away.  Being fully adult means being able to relate such and incorporate them into the consciousness of a child, let alone have the genius for creating them.

Donald Trump is the stereotypical man-child. I question whether he ever grew up. Most Boomers really did have to grow up, learning to show deference to bosses and customers out of necessity But such people found themselves having to spend their lives ducking a very low glass ceiling in life, one that protected the privileged classes from any challenge of people more competent and moral. Such people have never had much influence in life. What a pity! We instead get someone so hollow and petty as Donald Trump as the nominee for one of the major Parties.

[TeacherinExile]

This from The Cook Political Report on October 28th:

You’ll Likely Be Reading One Of These 5 Articles The Day After The Election

I would set up a forum poll, but I'm not technically disposed to do so.  Which article do you think we'll be reading on November 9th?

Anyway, after the release of the Access Hollywood tape of Trump but prior to the renewed FBI investigation into Clinton's emails, I would have assigned the following odds to the five scenarios laid out in the article:

1.  The Clinton Landslide         0%  (Like Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, I always thought it would be a reasonably close race.)

2.  Modest Clinton Majority     25%

3.  2012 Map Redux               75%

4.  Narrow Clinton Nail-Biter     0%

5.  Trump Shocks the World     0%

However, after Comey's "bombshell" letter to Congress last week, along with evidence that Clinton and Trump are in a "dead heat" in national and key battleground state polls, the odds look like this to me now:

1.  The Clinton Landslide          0%  (The word "landslide" to me recalls such elections as 1932, 1964, 1972 and 1984; 2016, no way.)

2.  Modest Clinton Majority       0%

3.  2012 Map Redux               25%

4.  Narrow Clinton Nail-Biter    50%   

5.  Trump Shocks the World    25%  (Post-Brexit, and with Clinton (and DNC) scandals galore, I can no longer rule out this scenario.)

My best guess with a week to go is that the following RealClearPolitics electoral map is what we'll wake up to on November 9th, which is essentially Scenario 4.  Scenario 4 is actually most problematic--in a way--in that it plays into the hands of Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, his constant pre-emptive claim that the election is "rigged."  He may not concede, as is his wont, if he loses by a razor-thin margin.  And worse, the voters who have supported him every step of the way, may be tempted to act out in ways that sow social chaos for a time.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/...s_ups.html


I also agree with NBC's Chuck Todd that Trump only prevails if he somehow manages to win any one of three "blue firewall" states:

Chuck Todd Electoral Map: Trump Has To Win PA, MI, or WI; "The Comey Effect"

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2...ffect.html

[Eric the Green]

(11-02-2016, 02:49 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: This from The Cook Political Report on October 28th:

You’ll Likely Be Reading One Of These 5 Articles The Day After The Election

I would set up a forum poll, but I'm not technically disposed to do so.  Which article do you think we'll be reading on November 9th?

Anyway, after the release of the Access Hollywood tape of Trump but prior to the renewed FBI investigation into Clinton's emails, I would have assigned the following odds to the five scenarios laid out in the article:

1.  The Clinton Landslide         0%  (Like Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, I always thought it would be a reasonably close race.)

2.  Modest Clinton Majority     25%

3.  2012 Map Redux               75%

4.  Narrow Clinton Nail-Biter     0%

5.  Trump Shocks the World     0%

However, after Comey's "bombshell" letter to Congress last week, along with evidence that Clinton and Trump are in a "dead heat" in national and key battleground state polls, the odds look like this to me now:

1.  The Clinton Landslide          0%  (The word "landslide" to me recalls such elections as 1932, 1964, 1972 and 1984; 2016, no way.)

2.  Modest Clinton Majority       0%

3.  2012 Map Redux               25%

4.  Narrow Clinton Nail-Biter    50%   

5.  Trump Shocks the World    25%  (Post-Brexit, and with Clinton (and DNC) scandals galore, I can no longer rule out this scenario.)

My best guess with a week to go is that the following RealClearPolitics electoral map is what we'll wake up to on November 9th, which is essentially Scenario 4.  Scenario 4 is actually most problematic--in a way--in that it plays into the hands of Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, his constant pre-emptive claim that the election is "rigged."  He may not concede, as is his wont, if he loses by a razor-thin margin.  And worse, the voters who have supported him every step of the way, may be tempted to act out in ways that sow social chaos for a time.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/...s_ups.html


I also agree with NBC's Chuck Todd that Trump only prevails if he somehow manages to win any one of three "blue firewall" states:

Chuck Todd Electoral Map: Trump Has To Win PA, MI, or WI; "The Comey Effect"

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2...ffect.html

I think it's too late for a poll here on this now anyway.

As I see it, #2 and #3 should be switched, so that it reads:

1.  The Clinton Landslide          0%  (The word "landslide" to me recalls such elections as 1932, 1964, 1972 and 1984)

2.  2012 Map Redux               0%

3.  Modest Clinton Majority      25%

4.  Narrow Clinton Nail-Biter    50%   

5.  Trump Shocks the World    25%

The 2012 map was a sizeable Obama majority, at least in the presidential election and in the electoral college. A "modest" majority would be something less than that.

It looks like #4 right now. But trends are volatile. I still think Hillary could rebound back up to #2. It needs to happen, probably, in order for Hillary to be able to govern (have a Democratic Senate, and a House with at least a much-reduced Republicrap majority.

[Eric the Green]

If it's a nail-biter next Tuesday, the states to watch are New Hampshire (which Nate Silver calls a TRUE swing state with swing voters), Colorado, and Nevada. Even then, Nevada is reported to be favoring Hillary substantially in early voting. So, watch New Hampshire, which will start coming in early. And watch the Senate race there too. If Hillary and Hassan win, then Hillary needs only Colorado to seal a narrow win, and the Senate likely only needs Cortez-Masto in Nevada in order to get the Senate majority. That assumes current leads in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (and solid Illinois) hold up.

But without Colorado, wins in New Hampshire and Nevada will not be enough. And if she wins all three, any blue wall states are very unlikely to fall to Trump, although he may win Ohio, Iowa, Florida and/or North Carolina. I predicted earlier that Hillary would win all of these states.

[Eric the Green]

Nate Silver's chart shows Hillary in free-fall; if trends continue as they are, Trump will be ahead by Nov.6.

[Eric the Green]

This gives me some hope in a time of electoral peril. And it was a dramatic comeback in the 10th inning too!

[pbrower2a]

(11-03-2016, 04:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(11-03-2016, 03:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Nate Silver's chart shows Hillary in free-fall; if trends continue as they are, Trump will be ahead by Nov.6.

The vast majority of the current US electorate scares the shit out of me. It's an indictment to most people's critical thinking skills to witness how fickle they are with such matters of importance.

This is a good reason to expand the educational norm of K-12 education to K-14, with expected courses in philosophy (to push formal logic), psychology (for showing the techniques of personal manipulation) and economics (the basic reality of much of human relationships).

Obviously if it is without charge to the student it can be regulated in content... but we could use more liberal-arts learning at the undergraduate learning anyway.

The better-educated people are much less likely to fall for any demagogue, Left or Right.

[Eric the Green]

(11-03-2016, 09:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This gives me some hope in a time of electoral peril. And it was a dramatic comeback in the 10th inning too!

A wrinkle in the pattern:
"it turns out that there is an interesting pattern. Every time the Cubs win the World Series in an election year, the Republican candidate goes on to take the White House. This has held true for more than a century—108 years, to be exact. So, it could be Donald Trump's year after all. (Z)" reported at http://www.electoral-vote.com/

108 is a spiritual number. Another pattern involving 108 years ago is found in my current horoscope scoring system. In 1908, Taft defeated Bryan. Taft, a successor candidate chosen by TR, had a score of 12-9, but with Jupiter rising (like TR himself). Hillary Clinton, for whom Obama is campaigning hard to succeed him, has the identical 12-9 horoscope score, and with Jupiter rising (like Bill). Taft's opponent Bryan was a "populist" with an 8-3 score. Trump, also a "populist," has an 8-4 score. The successor candidate won in 1908. 108 years later, we'll see.

https://youtu.be/sF0T18rOp9o
http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentialelections.html

[pbrower2a]

12 x 9 = 108, as if one wants to make any mystical connections with numbers.