US Election 2016, part II

[Malcador]

Wow that is more brazen than I would have expected.

[Namutree]

For the last two elections I've voted for the lesser of two evils. I'm done with that for good. The lesser of two evils is still evil. I hear the expression "wasted vote" thrown around. But nothing done on principle could ever be a wasted act.

That's the exact opposite of what should be done. In 2008 and 2012 voting for Gary Johnson would be a great idea. Neither John McCain or Romney are better than Obama (I'd argue that McCain is actually worse). Can't imagine why you thought these clowns were lesser evils.

 

This time is different however, Hillary is worse than Obama and Trump while VERY flawed is far better than McCain or Romney. Not to mention that supreme court justices will be getting picked this time around. The kind of judges Hillary would appoint are MUCH worse than the kind we would get with Trump. All your libertarian party shilling will get us is president Hillary, and you're delusional if you don't think that's a hell of a lot worse than president Trump.

[Malcador]

Why would she be worse than Trump?

[Meshugger]

Why would she be worse than Trump?

 

...or lets say we pick the positives instead, why is she better than Trump?

[Hurlshort]

 

For the last two elections I've voted for the lesser of two evils. I'm done with that for good. The lesser of two evils is still evil. I hear the expression "wasted vote" thrown around. But nothing done on principle could ever be a wasted act.

That's the exact opposite of what should be done. In 2008 and 2012 voting for Gary Johnson would be a great idea. Neither John McCain or Romney are better than Obama (I'd argue that McCain is actually worse). Can't imagine why you thought these clowns were lesser evils.

 

This time is different however, Hillary is worse than Obama and Trump while VERY flawed is far better than McCain or Romney. Not to mention that supreme court justices will be getting picked this time around. The kind of judges Hillary would appoint are MUCH worse than the kind we would get with Trump. All your libertarian party shilling will get us is president Hillary, and you're delusional if you don't think that's a hell of a lot worse than president Trump.

 

 

You can reverse all the names in this and you have the exact same argument.  This is also the sad logic that gets us stuck in a two party rut.

[Malcador]

Why? He was asserting the negative.

[Meshugger]

Was this posted before? 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFxFRqNmXKg

 

It would be very damning if true.

[BruceVC]

Why? He was asserting the negative.

Yes I agree, lets have this debate with the facts and surly people can state why she would be worse than Trump....

 

It must be one of the most preposterous statements  I have ever heard so I am keen to understand this logic more 

Edited June 10, 2016 by BruceVC

[Guard Dog]

Bruce I'd be very interested to hear your opinion of the video Shady linked in #529.

[Wrath of Dagon]

 

Why? He was asserting the negative.

Yes I agree, lets have this debate with the facts and surly people can state why she would be worse than Trump....

 

It must be one of the most preposterous statements  I have ever heard so I am keen to understand this logic more 

 

Here's one of a million reasons : http://pagesix.com/2016/06/05/tell-all-book-reveals-hillarys-erratic-uncontrollable-ways-in-the-white-house/

[Leferd]

Well written/researched profile on Gary Johnson.

 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gary-johnson-is-here-to-tell-you-youre-a-libertarian/

[BruceVC]

Bruce I'd be very interested to hear your opinion of the video Shady linked in #529.

Okay I hadn't read it and started now but I see it makes some serious accusations against Hilary, I need time to go through it properly but I will respond 

[Namutree]

 

 

For the last two elections I've voted for the lesser of two evils. I'm done with that for good. The lesser of two evils is still evil. I hear the expression "wasted vote" thrown around. But nothing done on principle could ever be a wasted act.

GD if you dont think Hilary Clinton cares about the well being of USA citizens do you agree Trump also doesn't care?

 

Completely agree. I believe each may have one or two principles they believe in but at the end of the day they are all about themselves.

 

In a sense this is true, but Trump's particular brand of narcissism will have a very different result than Hillary's.

 

IMO Trump will see America in a similar way as he sees his golf courses. He'll want America to prosper because it will be a reflection of himself.

 

America's prosperity is not a concern of Hillary's, as she has a much more global mindset than Trump. 

 

Their presidencies will be worlds apart, and America will be far better off with competent ego maniac than the incompetent globalist who'd sell the country out to virtue signal to her "progressive" friends.

[redneckdevil]

Brenie seems like a cold dude and while I appreciate his work over the years, I don't agree with his vision.

 

I have not been to happy with our president in areas that for the most part don't matter on a global scale, but the things I do have issues is 1. The forced insurance and being fined for not being able to pay for it. As a single white father I don't qualify for the help insurance at rates that are affordable to me. 2. His face baiting. One thing that stuck out to me is when he went on national tv and condemned a police officer for gunning down the black "kid" before the trial even started and later found out that the media blew the whole damn thing up. 3. His refusal to hold his hand over his heart when the pledge of alligeance is going on. Just a few and minor when in light with global problems. He has done a good job on our economy but it's not up to par and that brings me to Hillary.

 

Reason why I will not be voting for Hillary is because her husband not only is known for the "economic surge in our debt" which actually wasn't his but was Older Bush's raising taxes, BUT because it was her husbands fault for our ****ed economy in the first place. While Clinton was in office, he signed the bill that sent that surge of company's out of country into other countries and which plunged our economy into what it is today.

 

I'll be voting for trump. I'll be honest and say not mainly for his political proposals (I do agree that Americans no matter their race should be taken care of first before immigrants) but because he is bold and brash. Has someone who is blunt and raised up blunt, it seems outside the Internet there is a safety net that's strangling people in what they can and cannot say. This dude is just being blunt and bold and saying whatever the **** he wants weither it's stupid and idiotic (which quite a bit is) or intelligent but a "hot button that is not okay to talk about".

 

Then again my dream would be where everyone is treated equally until the individual changes themselves thru their own actions, not we gotta treat such differently and better because of their race. Equality for all where everyone is treated the same good and ****ty and not special because of the race they are.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Here's an interesting analysis: https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/trump-politics-and-option-pricing-or-why-trump-voters-are-not-idiots-1e364a4ed940#.fhajaivtk

[Zoraptor]

Hm, doesn't whistleblowing entail working internally rather than just leaking everything to the world?

 

Minor quibble I suppose. Though now the guy is treated as some authority on security, heh.

 

There's been plenty of evidence that the official whistleblower program was either a joke or worse, an attempt to snare discontents and suppress them: e.g. TLDW: former head of the whistleblower program at the DoD basically saying it was fatally compromised by criminal proceedings against said whistleblowers (specific case Thomas Drake) that probably used information supplied to his office and were blatant attempts to suppress whistleblowing via Chilling Effect.

 

Also has to be said that Snowden (unlike Assange/ WL though even they didn't leak absolutely everything they got) didn't leak everything to the world, indeed he leaked a small amount and most of the really juicy stuff is escrowed against the CIA giving him a polonium sandwich. He leaked selected stuff to selected journalists and it was only stuff that (1) most rational people suspected already happened and (2) the foreign alphabet soup acronyms would already know about. The idea that China with one of the most controlled internet ecologies in the world wouldn't know that a PRISM/ xkeyscore program existed is laughable as they have the exact same thing in operation there.

 

More broadly, Snowden is certainly qualified to comment as he'd have a good idea of what foreign countries can do from his time in the NSA('s contractor), but in this case it probably doesn't matter. Assuming the FBI information is correct her server had appallingly bad security that was vulnerable to a bog standard Romanian hacker and while that was probably 'just' gross stupidity she also appears to have tried to hide evidence via mass deletions (later recovered off a cloud back up). Whether she'll get in trouble for it or some underlings will take the fall- probably with a promise of a pardon later, per Susan McDougall- is an open question, though the obvious fall guy already has an immunity agreement. She certainly should be in trouble for it though as there's no need for her to have deliberately lost classified material, only negligently lost it. I can't see any way that having a badly configured private server against protocols and designed primarily to subvert Freedom of Information requests then using it for classified material doesn't pass the negligence threshold.

Edited June 10, 2016 by Zoraptor

[Guard Dog]

So for this FY the United States collected $2,139,254,000,000 in tax revenue for an average $14,164 per tax payer. If you paid less than that in taxes and still think the "rich" are not paying their fair share kindly STFU. Everyone else is paying for you. Now $2.1 trillion dollars might seem like a lot of money but under the guidance of Barack Hussein Obama the United States has a budget deficit this year of $407,099,000,000. So the country is spending 20% more than it is taking.

 

 Well... can't imagine why anyone would be concerned about that. In other news gold is trading at $1274.40 at the close today. Just sayin'

[Malcador]

 

 

Hm, doesn't whistleblowing entail working internally rather than just leaking everything to the world?

 

Minor quibble I suppose. Though now the guy is treated as some authority on security, heh.

There's been plenty of evidence that the official whistleblower program was either a joke or worse, an attempt to snare discontents and suppress them: e.g. TLDW: former head of the whistleblower program at the DoD basically saying it was fatally compromised by criminal proceedings against said whistleblowers (specific case Thomas Drake) that probably used information supplied to his office and were blatant attempts to suppress whistleblowing via Chilling Effect.

 

Also has to be said that Snowden (unlike Assange/ WL though even they didn't leak absolutely everything they got) didn't leak everything to the world, indeed he leaked a small amount and most of the really juicy stuff is escrowed against the CIA giving him a polonium sandwich. He leaked selected stuff to selected journalists and it was only stuff that (1) most rational people suspected already happened and (2) the foreign alphabet soup acronyms would already know about. The idea that China with one of the most controlled internet ecologies in the world wouldn't know that a PRISM/ xkeyscore program existed is laughable as they have the exact same thing in operation there.

 

More broadly, Snowden is certainly qualified to comment as he'd have a good idea of what foreign countries can do from his time in the NSA('s contractor), but in this case it probably doesn't matter. Assuming the FBI information is correct her server had appallingly bad security that was vulnerable to a bog standard Romanian hacker and while that was probably 'just' gross stupidity she also appears to have tried to hide evidence via mass deletions (later recovered off a cloud back up). Whether she'll get in trouble for it or some underlings will take the fall- probably with a promise of a pardon later, per Susan McDougall- is an open question, though the obvious fall guy already has an immunity agreement. She certainly should be in trouble for it though as there's no need for her to have deliberately lost classified material, only negligently lost it. I can't see any way that having a badly configured private server against protocols and designed primarily to subvert Freedom of Information requests then using it for classified material doesn't pass the negligence threshold.

Yes, but have seen him comment on things that Schneier is probably better to comment on. Then again, it was on Reddit.

 

Shame the movie about him doesn't look that promising

Edited June 10, 2016 by Malcador

[Hurlshort]

So for this FY the United States collected $2,139,254,000,000 in tax revenue for an average $14,164 per tax payer. If you paid less than that in taxes and still think the "rich" are not paying their fair share kindly STFU. Everyone else is paying for you. 

 

I am paying more than that by a good deal.  But it isn't about the 'rich' not paying their fair share, it's about the fact you cannot grow any wealth below a certain income level, while those at the top are able to grow their wealth extremely fast.

 

Edited June 11, 2016 by Hurlshot

[Guard Dog]

 

So for this FY the United States collected $2,139,254,000,000 in tax revenue for an average $14,164 per tax payer. If you paid less than that in taxes and still think the "rich" are not paying their fair share kindly STFU. Everyone else is paying for you. 

 

I am paying more than that by a good deal.  But it isn't about the 'rich' not paying their fair share, it's about the fact you cannot grow any wealth below a certain income level, while those at the top are able to grow their wealth extremely fast.

 

 

The point of the post was the deficit, that little barb about who is paying what was just an aside.

[Hurlshort]

Heh, well you know I side with you on having a more fiscally conservative government.  

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

So for this FY the United States collected $2,139,254,000,000 in tax revenue for an average $14,164 per tax payer. If you paid less than that in taxes and still think the "rich" are not paying their fair share kindly STFU. Everyone else is paying for you.

 

I am paying more than that by a good deal.  But it isn't about the 'rich' not paying their fair share, it's about the fact you cannot grow any wealth below a certain income level, while those at the top are able to grow their wealth extremely fast.

 

 

The point of the post was the deficit, that little barb about who is paying what was just an aside.

 

But this is about the budget deficit. The money for it ain't gonna fall from the sky(well it is, because the US is most in debt to the US because shell games used to borrow at lower rates) and has to come from somewhere. Big corporations and Wall Street guys can pay very little % in tax while reaping the lion's share the state's benefits and they pass the burden on to the Hurlshots of this country. Why shouldn't someone like me who currently pays a lot less than the average be able to say these rich ****s ain't paying enough when in a decade I'll likely be where Hurlshot is and I'll be impacted by any austerity measures enacted in response to the budget deficits?

Edited June 11, 2016 by KaineParker

[Zoraptor]

Yes, but have seen him comment on things that Schneier is probably better to comment on. Then again, it was on Reddit.

 

Snowden may not be the best source but he's certainly qualified enough to comment as a technical specialist. He's certainly not a great source for the procedural aspects of the Hillary server saga, such as whether the server itself was legal or not or any data preservation law breaches, but he's equally certainly qualified to say whether it was secure and whether it could reasonably be expected that it would have been compromised.

 

There is some question of his objectivity with respect to Hillary though, I'd definitely admit that.

[Meshugger]

*delete* *delete* *delete*

 

https://archive.is/DIUQc

 

She's turning into a caricature of a politician.

[Rostere]

Gary Johnson is more than likely my candidate, and I even have my wife looking at him, since she cannot stomach Trump as a Republican. I think after the conventions we need to really push his name out there so people stop the stupid "I hate one candidate but I hate the other more, so I will vote for the lesser of two evils."

 

Sure he may have no real chance, but he can shift the paradigm a bit.

 

 

For the last two elections I've voted for the lesser of two evils. I'm done with that for good. The lesser of two evils is still evil. I hear the expression "wasted vote" thrown around. But nothing done on principle could ever be a wasted act.

 

If you are choosing the lesser of two evils and choose to throw away your vote, then you are wasting your vote. However, if you think Hillary and Trump are exactly equally good, then of course you can happily throw away your vote. Wasting your vote won't change the current system, which is what you need. You need electoral reform, you do not need to make yourselves a laughing stock for the Democratic and Republican elites, and the donors which bribe both of them.

 

But let us consider the best-case scenario for the LP: They reach so high in polls that they become one of the two main contenders for the presidency. But then another part of the electorate will act as the spoiler! Gary Johnson voters will be screaming at the unrealistic Trump voters, who would rather throw their vote away than help Gary defeat Hillary.

 

The problem is not the specific candidates, the problem is the FPTP system, which only allows for a very coarse-grained type of democracy which systematically misrepresents the views of the electorate. It's your own fault for choosing a stupid system of representation for introducing this problem to begin with.

 

Every non-joke country which has instituted a presidential system where citizens vote directly for the president for the last 150 years or so has some type of preferential vote, or run-offs in elections. If the US had this in the presidential elections, you could possibly sleep well at night voting for the candidate you actually prefer. Get you ****ing **** together, USA. It's time to move your democracy into the 20th century.

 

Here, this is explained with cute animals, for you who feel you do not understand the reasoning above:

 

 

 

Ok - I got a solution for you! Draw three magic lines through California, separating it in four pieces. Then conduct elections in each part and add the results together. Should be as simple as in Sweden, right?

 

Seriously, if anything the economics of scale should make elections easier.

K

 

 

It's a good thing you have me, or you wouldn't understand much about the world.

 

No, no need to thank me, you can consider me donating my valuable time to advice you an act of altruism.

 

 

Why is it that the US can't manage to hold decent elections? I've voted in four elections but never had to stand in line for a single second. As soon as you read about US elections, it is like if you'r reading about a third-world country.

 

Meanwhile:

 

Exit polls off by 16% compared to California Dem result, 0,07% for Republicans.

 

3 million votes left to count.

 

Clinton has been superb at beating exit polls earlier though. We also don't know how many of the votes left to count are placebo ballots. I heard NPP voters were in many places refused Democratic ballots, even though they are legally entitled to them in California.

99.9% of elections in the US are done with little waiting and no problems. What problems there are are often blown out of proportion or made up completely to cast doubt on the process, usually by the losing party.

 

I do hope so. But for a person with such paranoid distrust for the government, it seems strange that you put such strong trust in the voting process, which is the first thing anyone would want to manipulate in a democracy.

 

There are a lot of systemic differences with how you vote in the US compared to other countries. Some incidents might be inflated by hyperbole, but others such as the dramatic cut in polling places in Arizona in all poor areas seem without possible excuse. This seems to be the consensus in American media as well.