America Spring? Let's do this

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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby Kurt » Sat Nov 12, 2016 1:37 pm

ROB wrote:Rubbish. Yep, the pollsters got it very wrong. Once.

But 538 (for example) literally called every polling station correctly for the last 2 elections. (Not forgetting that they also still gave Trump a 1 in 3 chance on the morning of the election so still very much a chance).

So obviously something about what they do is also right.

Now what they do, is go back to the drawing board, figure out why their data was wrong and correct their methodology.

This is how intelligent, rational people improve things.

Sure, it doesn't always work. But it works most of the time and will normally produce increasingly accurate outcomes.

You don't just throw the whole fucking lot out.

And let's not forget. Literally a 1% change in voting and we would have been talking about President Hillary.

And yeah, Trump's win would have been far more likely if Sanders had taken Sandtards' votes to a third party.


If any election has given us reason to "throw the whole fucking lot out" it's this one. It's the DNC's fault, pure and simple. They did this with Dean in 2004 and again with Sanders. To this day people forget the Anyone But Dean commitee of the DNC but remember the "scream" (a candidate enthused by his candidacy..how shocking!). They continue to dismiss the dissidents, even though they are a large percentage of the primary voters, with terms like "Sandtards" and these are people who tried to participate in the system that was set up for being "fair". Time for "Sandtards" to dismiss everyone else because this system you are clinging to and want to return is not working at all and a large number of voters in the West hate it.

Imagine a political movement that puts everything back where it was supposed to be? That's not gonna cut it now. No lefty is going to be enthused about bringing back an establishment that almost elected a Neo-Liberal /Neo-Conservative open borders and free capital and labor movement when the economy is puking on itself but we are being told the world is just fine.

Obama should have purged the old guard that tried to dismiss him as a viable candidate in 2008
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby snaark » Sat Nov 12, 2016 1:43 pm

ReptilianKittenEater wrote:The thing is, its no secret. Well paying manufacturing jobs have been lost to technology or moved offshore. Mainly shitty jobs at Walmart have replaced them. Its been going on for decades yet neither party has done fuck all about it. So Trump comes along and pts it in his platform. Maybe he won't be successful, but its better than nothing.


I'm pretty sure nothing would be better. There is absolutely nothing in his platform that is even remotely conducive to economic growth. Most of it is extremely damaging. Even in the case of brexit there were a few, albeit a very slim minority, of economists who were equivocal. No serious economist has said anything other than that Trump's plans are batshit crazy.

I understand why people are angry, but I never thought they were angry enough to do something this drastic. I mean, if you ask someone why Hitler was elected, they'd tell you about hyperinflation in the Weimar republic. I suspect that in 50 years time people would struggle to find a convincing reason why the US public elected a demagogue.

The fact is he was elected because people - I'm talking about normal people, not alt-right types - liked the fact he isn't a career politician and says things ordinary politicians don't say. What they don't understand is that there's a good reason why politicians don't talk that way. It's because that sort of language leads to recessions and wars.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby seektravelinfo » Sat Nov 12, 2016 3:15 pm

Gotta say, Kurt, you are correct. The Democrats like me who are mere constituents let this happen. Being nice & dutiful to the machine didn't bode well for any of us. I have to wonder if the tears of Hillary and her inner-sanctum crew are for the country or for themselves. Goddamn the Limosine Liberals.

The bright side of this, I am hoping, is that the Trump administration will be so gnarly, ugly and violent that the Dems will gain a running start for 2020. In the meantime it's imperative that local politics, from the school boards to the Senate, be built up for Democrats from the grassroots.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby RYP » Sat Nov 12, 2016 3:41 pm

burn it down and start again. It's not like the two party system hasn't changed sides before.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby Kurt » Sat Nov 12, 2016 11:41 pm

seektravelinfo wrote:Gotta say, Kurt, you are correct. The Democrats like me who are mere constituents let this happen. Being nice & dutiful to the machine didn't bode well for any of us. I have to wonder if the tears of Hillary and her inner-sanctum crew are for the country or for themselves. Goddamn the Limosine Liberals.

The bright side of this, I am hoping, is that the Trump administration will be so gnarly, ugly and violent that the Dems will gain a running start for 2020. In the meantime it's imperative that local politics, from the school boards to the Senate, be built up for Democrats from the grassroots.


My guess is he is not gonna be the savior people think he is. He has Pence heading up the transition...so far with Washington insiders. He wants the biggest anti second amendment east coast liberal as Attorney General (I am more worried about the genuinely crazy and stupid Guilliani than I am about Trump himself).

The thing about his support base is that these people are born to be screwed and Pence is gonna make sure that happens. The only thing Trump is really going to do for them is show them one day that the kind of people who hold them in contempt are the kind of people he made cry on election night.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby RYP » Sun Nov 13, 2016 4:19 pm

He hasn't actually done anything yet. The media narrative is that a) hillbillies voted him in and b) smart white people are protesting. The reality is that intelligent women were a large part of his voter block and Clinton and the Democrats destroyed their own house. Trump will make numerous mistakes so the left better get their shit together and help.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby goat balls » Sun Nov 13, 2016 4:32 pm

I'm very curious. I hope you guys don't think that the pollsters "got it wrong."

All of you did see the wiki leaks emails on the polling right?
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby Kurt » Sun Nov 13, 2016 5:17 pm

goat balls wrote:I'm very curious. I hope you guys don't think that the pollsters "got it wrong."

All of you did see the wiki leaks emails on the polling right?


I believe the Pollsters "did what they were supposed to do" meaning that in 2004, people listened to them when they said "Kerry is more popular than Dean" and said, "Shit, I am not voting for a loser" but this year it was tried again and it was not effective.

Also these same groups are the ones who help determine how people "feel" about the economy (awesome!) and no one in the flyovers believes that for a second.

Now there is a safety pin wearing campaign to make people feel "safe" since the same people who declared this a three hanky election are the ones who refuse to see any other reason for it other than people are racist, sexist and homophobic they want people to feel "safe" with pin clad back patters.

Like usual, they miss the point and by doing that they are creating the same problem for later.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby goat balls » Sun Nov 13, 2016 5:46 pm

So you didn't read those emails then.

In a nutshell, Clinton campaign issued directives to the pollsters to over sample groups favorable to her. Take the polling results to the media, have the media sell the results to the public as Hillary is inevitable. It was an effort to dispirit the opposition and make them feel that voting was a waste of their time. Classic psy ops/disinformation operation. Usually works very well when the media is all gung ho on your side. In other words, the media didn't need their arm to be twisted.

The pollsters do this with most polls of a political nature. But usually they start reporting more accurate results as an election nears. They have a reputation to think about. This time they didn't. They fell on their swords for Hillary and they're still doing it. Claiming they just don't know how this happened. Same with the media.

Blumenthal is out blaming "rogue FBI agents" for the leaked emails. It wasn't just the FBI guys leaking this stuff to wiki leaks. The intelligence guys know a disinformation op when they see it.

You don't have to believe me. It's in the emails and most people still don't know about it.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby RYP » Sun Nov 13, 2016 6:21 pm

at the end of the day Clinton won the popular vote and went with traditional media and traditional polling. Trump used the internet and spent far less on media. Paul Manafort goes back to Reagan in California and knows his shit, most recently in the Ukraine and working wth dictators since UNITA in Angola and Savimbi.

Clinton was not liked or trusted, she arrogantly assumed she would win traditional blue states but Trump's people saw the weakness and won electorate votes by a hair. That same media do loop made her think she was winning as well. She wasn't.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby grawp » Sun Nov 13, 2016 7:37 pm

Every four years, I drag out my dog-eared copy of Hunter S Thompson's "Fear & Loathing: on the Campaign Trail '72."

With regard to survival of the two-party system, I am comforted by the quote from Dr. Gonzo himself to Democratic Party chief Larry O'Brien on the subject:

Remember the Whigs, Larry? They went belly up, with no warning at all, when a handful of young politicians like Abe Lincoln decided to move out on their own and fuck the Whigs… which worked out very nicely, and when it became almost instantly clear that the Whig hierarchy was just a gang of old impotent windbags with no real power at all, the Party just curled up and died… and any politician stupid enough to “stay loyal” went down with the ship.”

The political makeup of my home district changed with this last election. Not only did we get a couple of Libertarian aldermen, but the county now has a commissioner from the Green Party, this in what can charitably be called the buckle on the (Republican) Bible Belt. This election got the fringe parties the validation as honest and viable alternatives to the status quo. In Tennessee, the dominance of a Two-Party system is beginning to crumble at the grassroots level. I prophesy we will see multiple parties participating in local and state elections in 2016.
Should be a real hoot, too.
And no I was not a-feared for the country's survival if Hillary won.
The USA has already survived the impossible in 1864 by holding a general election in time of nationwide Civil War.
If the Republic can survive that, it can withstand anything.
The world will never love us. They respect us - they might even grow to fear us.
But they will never love us, for we have too much audacity!

- Theodore Roosevelt – “The Wind & the Lion” (1975)
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby goat balls » Sun Nov 13, 2016 9:23 pm

There was a guy in Yuma this summer that made the news. He said that one night he heard an electrical buzzing type noise coming from under his RV. In a classic Darwinian moment, he stuck his hand under the RV. The rattlesnake bit him on the forearm. It was a mojave rattler. But he lived.

That Green Party guy on your county council-yeah he's an electrical buzzing type noise.
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby grawp » Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:04 pm

When I was doing contract work for Raytheon in Waxahatchie, I lived in a slab house with no lawn to speak of.
Early one morning I walked out to the carport to go to work and heard that "buzzing electrical noise" coming from under the front of my vehicle.
Back in the house to get a flashlight.
A quick look from a reasonable distance confirmed the presence of a sidewinder curled up on the concrete under the engine block, watching and rattling at me.
Got the garden hose with the power washer attachment and hose-blasted the little cuss from his snug hide-y hole.
Just then, my wife comes out of the storm door saying "What the HELL are you DOING?"
So I sprayed her too.
We still laugh about it.
The world will never love us. They respect us - they might even grow to fear us.
But they will never love us, for we have too much audacity!

- Theodore Roosevelt – “The Wind & the Lion” (1975)
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby Kurt » Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:46 pm

The most Darwin-y snakes are probably the Coral Snake. Docile creatures. The only people who have been killed by them in at least the last 50 years have been drunks who pick them up and torment them to demonstrate how docile they are.

Anyway, Trump picking anti-gun Guilliani for AG and an ex-Goldman exec for Treasury.

Wonder if anyone still thinks he is going to rein in the banksters and anti-second amendment people?
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Re: America Spring? Let's do this

Postby nowonmai » Tue Nov 15, 2016 1:20 am

grawp wrote:When I was doing contract work for Raytheon in Waxahatchie, I lived in a slab house with no lawn to speak of.
Early one morning I walked out to the carport to go to work and heard that "buzzing electrical noise" coming from under the front of my vehicle.
Back in the house to get a flashlight.
A quick look from a reasonable distance confirmed the presence of a sidewinder curled up on the concrete under the engine block, watching and rattling at me.
Got the garden hose with the power washer attachment and hose-blasted the little cuss from his snug hide-y hole.
Just then, my wife comes out of the storm door saying "What the HELL are you DOING?"
So I sprayed her too.
We still laugh about it.


A story worthy of a reading by Tommy Lee Jones.

Is it a story about love or snakes. I think both.
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