US Election: 2016

tomahawk6 · 12 Sep 2016

In the case of FDR I dont think it would have mattered.He was popular no matter his health.

http://www.270towin.com/1944_Election/

mariomike · 12 Sep 2016

tomahawk6 said:
In the case of FDR I dont think it would have mattered.He was popular no matter his health.

http://www.270towin.com/1944_Election/

I recently read a book - audiobook actually - about the 1944 election. As you say, he was indeed popular. But, Hillary? She's not in the same league as FDR.

Fishbone Jones · 12 Sep 2016

FJAG said:
You're now a doctor who can do a diagnosis from a YouTube video? There's got to be good money in that.

;D

I know we don't see things the same, but in your haste to slag me, you missed the part where I simply speculated, not offering a diagnoses. I simply said it was not any symtoms that I was personally familiar with.

However, with all your legalise I'm sure you can spin anything to prosecute someone else's opinion. It's what lawyers do.

Fishbone Jones · 12 Sep 2016

cupper said:
The market appears to be oversaturated in that respect. [

See above.

Fishbone Jones · 12 Sep 2016

tomahawk6 said:
In the case of FDR I dont think it would have mattered.He was popular no matter his health.

http://www.270towin.com/1944_Election/

It also took place at a time that was so different, it might as well happened on another planet.

cupper · 12 Sep 2016

Also, as the article points out, there was a conerted effort to hide the extent of the effects of polio which he suffered in His late 30's before he entered the national political scene.

a_majoor · 12 Sep 2016

How far they have fallen:

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/243617/

HMM: “The media elites are in a panic. They witnessed the meltdown of their candidate in broad daylight and can feel that shiver up their spine…”

Whether Trump wins or loses, his candidacy so far has revealed deep failures within the Republican Party, the media, and American politics in general. There are important lessons to be learned here, and important people who will be careful not to learn them.

But it’s not just the GOP. From the comments to the first piece:
Many people see the choice of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee as a disaster for the Republican Party. Maybe. That out of the chaos of 17 Republican candidates we get Trump because of a disconnect between the Republican base & the money-men is one thing. But, for the entire Democratic political & cultural establishment to get together & choose Hillary as their only possible standard-bearer is a rot of an entirely more profound order. The fact that within the Democratic Party the only faction that resisted Hillary’s spell was the space-cadet Left under Bernie Sanders just makes the total picture all the more horrifying.

Yep. Trump’s a symptom, not the disease. Ditto Hillary.

America needs the same sort of shakeup that Europe is getting from their nativist parties, or the UK got from the Brexit. This is the reaction to what was described as "The Revolt of the Elites", and it is only going to get messier.

and a twofer today:

http://atimes.com/2016/09/deplorably-trump-is-going-to-win/

Deplorably, Trump is going to win
BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN on SEPTEMBER 11, 2016 in AT TOP WRITERS, DAVID P. GOLDMAN, SPANGLIER

The presidential election was over the moment the word “deplorable” made its run out of Hillary Clinton’s unguarded mouth. As the whole world now knows, Clinton told a Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender fundraiser Sept. 10, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’ Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up.”

Hillary is road kill.

She apologized, to be sure, but no-one will believe her: she was chilling with her home audience and feeling the warmth, and she said exactly what she thinks. The “Clinton Cash” corruption scandals, the layers of lies about the email server, health problems, and all the other negatives that pile up against the former First Lady are small change compared to this apocalyptic moment of self-revelation.

You can’t win an American presidential election without the deplorables’ vote. Deplorables are America’s biggest minority. They might even be the American majority. They may or not be racist, homophobic and so forth, but they know they’re deplorable. Deplorable, and proud. They’re the median family whose real income has fallen deplorably by 5% in the past ten years, the 35% of adult males who deplorably have dropped out of the labor force, the 40% of student debtors who deplorably aren’t making payments on their loans, the aging state and local government workers whose pension funds are $4 trillion short. They lead deplorable lives and expect that their kids’ lives will be even more deplorable than theirs.

Americans are by and large forgiving people. They’ll forgive Bill for cavorting with Monica “I did not have sex with that woman” Lewinsky in the Oval Office and imposing himself on any number of unwilling females. They might even forgive Hillary for losing tens of thousands of compromising emails on an illegal private server and then repeatedly lying about it in a way that insults the deplorable intelligence of the average voter. But the one thing you can’t do is spit on them and tell them it’s raining. They’ll never forgive you for that. They’re hurting, and they rankle at candidates who rub their faces in it.

Mitt Romney’s campaign was unsalvageable after the famous 2012 “47% remark,” by which he simply meant that the 47% of American workers whose income falls below the threshold for federal taxes would be indifferent to his tax cut proposals. The trouble is that these workers pay a great deal of taxes–to Social Security, Medicare, and in most cases to local governments through sales taxes and assessments. After a covert video of his remarks at a private fundraiser made the rounds, Romney spent the rest of the campaign with the equivalent of an advertising blimp over his head emblazoned with the words: “I represent the economic elite.” Clinton has done the same thing with the cultural elite.

There are racists and homophobes in the Trump camp, to be sure. Everybody’s got to be somewhere. Trump is no Puritan, however, and really couldn’t care less what sort of sex people have, or who uses what bathroom (as he made clear), or who marries whom. He built a new country club in Palm Beach two decades ago because the old ones excluded blacks and Jews. He’s no racist. He’s an obnoxious, vulgar, salesman who plays politics like a reality show. I’ve made clear that I will vote for him, not because he was my choice in the Republican field (that was Sen. Cruz), but because I believe that rule of law is a precondition for a free society. If the Clintons get a free pass for influence-peddling on the multi-hundred-million-dollar scale and for covering up illegal use of private communications for government documents, the rule of law is a joke in the United States. Even if Trump were a worse president than Clinton–which is probably not the case–I would vote for him, on this ground alone.

That’s not why Trump crushed the Republican primaries. He won because Americans are tired of an economic elite that ignores them. Americans know the game is rigged against them. For generations Americans could make their way from the bottom to the top of the heap by starting businesses. In some periods more of them succeeded than others, but everyone knew someone who got rich more or less honestly. That came to a crashing end during the Obama Administration. There were fewer small firms with fewer workers in 2013 than there were in 2007.

Small Firms Decline in Number and Total Employment between 2007 and 2013 (Census Bureau)

ENTERPRISE EMPLOYMENT SIZE NUMBER OF FIRMS NUMBER OF ESTABLISHMENTS EMPLOYMENT
02: 0-4 -129,985 -130,063 -212,803
03: 5-9 -67,969 -69,904 -451,075
04: 10-19 -44,291 -48,177 -598,105
05: <20 -242,245 -248,144 -1,261,983
06: 20-99 -29,358 -38,422 -1,225,253
07: 100-499 -3,322 4,737 -556,311
08: <500 -274,925 -281,829 -3,043,547
09: 500+ 325 65,164 705,535

The deplorables look at the American economy as a lottery. They aren’t sophisticated, but they’re sly: They know the game is rigged, because there aren’t any winners. The American economy is more corrupt and more cartelized then at any time in its history. Productivity growth was negative for the past two quarters, and five-year productivity growth is the lowest since the stagflation of the 1970s.

Corporations are making money by gaming the regulatory system rather than deploying new technologies. Close to half of the increase in corporate profits during the past decade can be attributed to regulatory rent-seeking by large corporations, according to a June 2016 study by Boston University economist Jim Bessen. Bessen concluded that “investments in conventional capital assets and R&D account for a substantial part of the rise in valuations and profits especially during the 1990s. However, since 2000, political activity and regulation account for a surprisingly large share of the increase.”

That’s why Trump won the nomination. Ted Cruz, an evangelical Christian, solicited the religious vote (what Hillary Clinton thinks of “homophobes”), but the evangelicals by and large voted for Trump. They want an outsider with a big broom to come in and sweep away the Establishment, because the Establishment has given them deplorably few crumbs from the table these past eight years. As “Publius” wrote Sept. 5 in Claremont Review, “A Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.”

There are any number of things I would like Donald Trump to do as president. I have no idea what he will do when elected. Deplorably, we’re going to find out.

mariomike · 12 Sep 2016

Loved this line, “A Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.”

I once read that five out of six people enjoy playing Russian Roulette.

Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out the Celebrity Death Pool.
Although hardly scientific, it ranked Mr. Trump at #7. Right behind President George H. W. Bush, age 91.
Mrs. Clinton ranked at #42 right behind comedian Jackie Mason, age 84. Although after yesterday's "medical event", I suspect she may rise up in rank.
http://www.ranker.com/list/celebrity-death-pool-2016/celebrity-events?&var=9

Oldgateboatdriver · 12 Sep 2016

Well, Trump ranks that high on the list probably because they factor in the real possibility of an assassination attempt. :nod:

If the secret service does its job right, he should be OK.

mariomike · 12 Sep 2016

Oldgateboatdriver said:
Well, Trump ranks that high on the list probably because they factor in the real possibility of an assassination attempt. :nod:

If the secret service does its job right, he should be OK.

I read that guarding Mrs. Clinton is the most loathed detail in the Service.

Not sure I'd want to take a bullet for either one of them. In the leg, maybe.

Also read a non-medical opinion that presidents age at roughly twice the normal age while they occupy the Oval Office.

FJAG · 12 Sep 2016

mariomike said:
. . .
Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out the Celebrity Death Pool.
Although hardly scientific, it ranked Mr. Trump at #7. Right behind President George H. W. Bush, age 91.
Mrs. Clinton ranked at #42 right behind comedian Jackie Mason, age 84. Although after yesterday's "medical event", I suspect she may rise up in rank.
http://www.ranker.com/list/celebrity-death-pool-2016/celebrity-events?&var=9

:rofl:

That is one nasty web site. Never heard of it before. Thanks for the link.

:cheers:

FJAG · 12 Sep 2016

An interesting opinion piece IMHO

Is America at risk of following the path of failing nation-states?

By Jim Sciutto, Chief National Security Correspondent
Updated 1:51 PM ET, Mon September 12, 2016

(CNN)In the 15 years since 9/11, I've spent the bulk of my time as a journalist covering failed or failing states and countries in deep crisis. The root causes vary from war to economic collapse to popular revolution but the resulting conditions are familiar: fear, division, violence, and, over time, loss of hope.

The places where I've reported most extensively on such instability won't surprise you: Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, the occupied territories, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Venezuela. US intelligence agencies rate these areas as among the most unstable in the world.

So when I asked the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper at the Aspen Security Forum this summer if he saw any similar warning signs here at home, his answer surprised me: "I do worry," he said. Noting that the US intelligence community has metrics for measuring nations' stability, Clapper explained, "I guess if you apply that same measure against us, well, we are starting to exhibit some of them, too."

The measure he singled out as most telling is the loss of confidence in US institutions: "legal institutions, the rule of law, protection of citizens' liberty, privacy," all of which he described as "under assault," adding, "that's not being helped by a lot of the rhetoric that we're hearing."

To be clear, Mr. Clapper is not saying the US is Iraq or Somalia. But the nation's top spy, with more than four decades in intelligence, is taking the rare step of warning in public that the trend lines in the US worry him. And having spent most of my own professional life covering nations in crisis, I find myself recognizing some disturbing commonalities as well.
In Iraq, I watched Sunnis and Shias who had lived and worked together for years turn deeply suspicious, then hostile, then violent towards each other. In Iran, I watched different factions of the same Islamic-led government fight each other in the streets. In Myanmar, I watched a Buddhist government and its functionaries beat and murder Buddhist monks, the personification of their faith and national identity. That these were people not only of the same nationality but also of the same race and religion didn't matter. Seeing your opponents as fundamentally different and threatening can come to justify remarkable brutality.

Despite diverse cultures, histories, and geographies, there is a surprising uniformity when nations splinter apart. I wrote a piece several years ago called "The Police State Playbook", on how dictators from Zimbabwe to Myanmar to Iran -- whether African and Christian, Asian and Buddhist, or Middle Eastern and Muslim -- turned on their people in nearly identical ways. The same goes for their populations.

And I'm not talking about natural political disagreement, but an us-against-them mentality that leads people to see the other side as not only wrong but unpatriotic and dangerous.

Violent division is not new to the US of course, even in modern times. Many commentators are drawing parallels between today's divisions and the upheaval of the 1960s. However, today's divisiveness -- as Director Clapper highlighted -- comes at a time of cratering trust in the laws and institutions that have overcome such discord in the past.

Today, two months away from a major US presidential election, only 11% of Trump supporters and 49% of Clinton supporters are very confident that votes nationally will be counted accurately, the Pew Research Center found. More broadly, only 19 percent of Americans say they trust the government "always or most of the time," according to a 2015 study, also released by Pew.

These doubts extend to a whole host of institutions. According to Gallup's latest survey, only 36% of Americans express "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the presidency, the same for the Supreme Court. The number for the criminal justice system is 23%, for Congress, an anemic 9%. As possible causes, experts cite everything from political gridlock to the increasing politicization of the supreme court. Some ratings are the lowest since Gallup began measuring them.

The numbers for the television and print media are paltry: 20% and 21%, driven in part by the growing polarization of media outlets and the increasing influence of social media "echo chambers" where consumers view only information and analysis that conforms with their views. Such distrust in the media has undermined the very possibility of agreed upon facts. Today, one in five Americans believe the president was born out of the country and 29% believe he is Muslim, despite widely available and reported evidence to the contrary, including President Obama releasing a copy of his birth certificate. Nineteen percent of Americans believe the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks.
I got a personal taste of this new hostility to facts when I tweeted a quote from Alt-Right leader Jared Taylor last week in which he explicitly disputed that the races are equal. I was immediately inundated by comments expressing support for his view, many quoting as fact long-debunked "science."

Compare the surveys of Americans to those in countries we view as failing or already failed. In Afghanistan, according to a 2015 survey by the Asia Foundation, 57% express confidence in the democratic process, still relatively high even after declining significantly in recent years. The same percentage approves of the performance of the national government.

In Iraq, a 2015 Gallup survey found 60% express confidence in the national government. These remarkable contrasts do not mean that the US is headed for civil war or on a par with the violence we see today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Negative outcomes several degrees short of that, however, would be deeply disorienting and disturbing.
The most unstable societies I've covered are ones where most believe the system doesn't work, or works only for a few.

The most unstable societies I've covered are ones where most believe the system doesn't work, or works only for a few. This destroys a sense of community and shared mission, and creates a carry-on effect: success becomes a zero sum game. There are no shared benefits. My betterment comes at the expense of yours, and the other way around.
Despite increasing divisions like this, the US is a country of remarkable contrasts. Its economy is growing faster than much of the world's and with far lower unemployment. Anyone who travels the country can see that local politics are far more functional, even at times heroic, than the current perception of Washington.

Again, the US is not Iraq or Somalia. A more apt comparison today could be Brazil, where economic slowdown and collapsing confidence in government has led to the impeachment of a president, a broader political crisis and popular unrest. But as with nations in crisis or approaching it, the US is not immune to peoples' worst impulses, which have led such nations down a dangerous path.

"We pride ourselves on the institutions that have evolved over hundreds of years," Clapper told me, "and I do worry about the...fragility of those institutions."

The US has suffered and survived dangerous crises and divisions in its past. The events of 9/11 were, of course, among the most challenging and potentially divisive. Still, the lesson of today's world is that the barriers between stability and instability -- the ones Americans count on -- are often more fragile than we think.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/12/opinions/us-following-path-of-unstable-countries-sciutto/index.html

:cheers:

cupper · 12 Sep 2016

US Election: 2016

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