US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5768

On October 26 2016 10:11 Buckyman wrote:
Nigeria => government that's overtly corrupt to the point of being nonfunctional
Russia => Nuclear armed power with an egotistical leader who's intent on expanding its influence in the middle east

Although both Trump and Clinton's respect for open political discourse seems to be on par with Russia's, so I can see how you might be confused.

A Wisconsin city clerk said that she had heard "students lean more toward the democrats" and cited it as a reason not to open a campus early voting site, as some college groups had requested, according to an email surfaced by The Nation Tuesday.

Her admission reflects an elections administration culture where even low-level bureaucrats are on alert for any voting protocol that appears to make it easier for Democratic-leaning groups to vote, in a state that has passed a number of voting restrictions that have drawn scrutiny from federal courts.

In the email sent in August to an official at the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, Green Bay City Clerk Kris Teske said there were staffing, budgetary and ballot security issues that turned her off to the idea of putting an early voting site on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus, as a state representative had proposed.

She added, however, "I was reading the statutes and read: No site may be designated that affords an advantage to any political party."

“UWGB is a polling location for students and residents on Election Day but I feel by asking for this to be the site for early voting is encouraging the students to vote more than benefiting the city as a whole," the email continued. "I have heard that that students lean more toward the democrats and he [the state representative] is a democrat."

Teske goes on to ask the ethics official to weigh in as to whether she has "an argument about it being more of a benefit to the democrats?”

The email was provided to The Nation via an open records request filed by One Wisconsin Institute, which successfully sued the state over its attempt to cut back early voting.

The request for the early voting site on the campus came from eight different student groups, including the college Republican and Libertarian organizations, and from state Rep. Eric Genrich (D), according to The Nation. The Nation report detailed the trouble some students had casting ballots during the primary, as off-campus polling places attracted long lines that some students said amounted to too long of a wait for their busy college schedules. The nearest early voting site for students is at the clerk's office, a 15-minute-drive from campus, and is only open during business hours, The Nation said.

While Teske argued there were budgetary issues in opening the early voting site -- which she said she had confirmed with the mayor's chief of staff and other City Hall officials --- The Nation pointed out that the city had a surplus that could have funded the $10,000 proposal Genrich had offered for a campus site open for 20 hours the week before the election.

Teske was appointed by Republican Mayor Jim Schmitt, who is an ally of Gov. Scott Walker (R), a voting restriction proponent, according to The Nation.

A federal judge struck down in July a 2014 Wisconsin law that had scaled back early voting. He left in place, however, the state's voter ID law, while ruling the state needed to do a better job of making sure voters who did not have the required ID would be able to get the free state ID available for voting. (He has since had to issue an additional order knocking the state for struggling to implement this process.)

Students were also among the targets of the Wisconsin voter ID law, according to voting rights advocates. The law only allows for student IDs to be used if they have a signature and expire within two years after their issuance date, even as the regular drivers' licenses that are accepted are good for 10 years. Only a few Wisconsin colleges issue IDs meeting those qualifications.

On October 26 2016 10:15 zlefin wrote:those hyperbolic claims are excessive

On October 26 2016 10:40 Dan HH wrote:
http://live.reuters.com/Event/Election_2016/433031628

Trump saying 'with her you'll end up in WW3'. Lately he's been copy pasting doomsday predictions and conspiracy theories a lot more and a lot faster from places like /pol/ and r/the_donald. Wanna bet he'll talk about Soros voting machines by the end of this week?

On October 26 2016 10:15 zlefin wrote:
bucky -> why do you claim that clinton's disrespect for discourse is on par with russia's?

On October 26 2016 10:42 Buckyman wrote:


Her campaign's record of calling in retaliation at journalists like Matt Buenig who criticize her. Correct the Record's attempts to subvert moderator control at major online discussion fora to hide anti-Clinton content. Her stated intent to ignore and/or override the pro-free-speech portion of the Citizens' United decision.

"on par with Russia" is hyperbolic as an interpretation of her public stance, but I infer from her actions (and her supporters' actions) that she views open policy discussion as an obstacle.

On October 26 2016 10:41 CannonsNCarriers wrote:


You know, my conservative friend also ran the WW3 talking point. Crazy how this stuff spreads so fast.

On October 26 2016 10:42 Buckyman wrote:


Her campaign's record of calling in retaliation at journalists like Matt Buenig who criticize her. Correct the Record's attempts to subvert moderator control at major online discussion fora to hide anti-Clinton content. Her stated intent to ignore and/or override the pro-free-speech portion of the Citizens' United decision.

"on par with Russia" is hyperbolic as an interpretation of her public stance, but I infer from her actions (and her supporters' actions) that she views open policy discussion as an obstacle.

On October 26 2016 10:42 Buckyman wrote:


Her campaign's record of calling in retaliation at journalists like Matt Buenig who criticize her. Correct the Record's attempts to subvert moderator control at major online discussion fora to hide anti-Clinton content. Her stated intent to ignore and/or override the pro-free-speech portion of the Citizens' United decision.

"on par with Russia" is hyperbolic as an interpretation of her public stance, but I infer from her actions (and her supporters' actions) that she views open policy discussion as an obstacle.

I don't think there's a data point that better captures the weirdness of this presidential election cycle than the following:

According to the Federal Election Commission filings, Donald Trump's presidential campaign has spent $1.8 million on polling from June 2015 through September of this year (the most recent month for which data are available). The report also lists $3.2 million spent on hats.

rump has probably spent more on hats than he has spent on direct mail. The campaign filings occasionally aggregate a few things from the same vendor under one line-item, so some of the hat spending was on collateral generally that includes some hats. (His campaign spent more than $2 million on a line-item that was exclusively hats, though.) Overall, Trump's spent about $15.3 million on collateral — shirts, hats, signs, etc. — more than he has spent on field consulting and voter lists and data.

He has spent at least twice as much on collateral as he has on payroll.

In one apparent concession to the traditions of running a political campaign, Trump has at least started spending more on ads. The FEC reports don't go into great detail about what is or isn't ad spending, so for our purposes we included things like direct mail, telemarketing services (which probably went to fundraising), the campaign's website and digital outreach and so on. You're welcome and encouraged to take issue with this categorization, but it seemed appropriate.

That said, Trump spent more on ads (in that broad sense) in September than he had in any previous month, and also spent more as a percentage of his overall spending. It's not a surprise that the majority of his recent spending was on ads; what's surprising is that in 11 of the 16 months he's been running, ad spending was not the majority of what he was spending on.

Nothing encapsulates Trump's primary and general election campaigns more neatly than his spending on collateral generally, and hats specifically. Most candidates dream of seeing people clamoring for shirts and signs bearing their name or campaign message, but only a select few actually engender that kind of interest. Donald Trump did, and the force of celebrity that made his hats hot items also powered him to a plurality of the vote against a wide field of Republican opponents.

In the general election, that wasn't enough. His spending on polling was reported only in the last two months, a period that overlapped with his hiring Kellyanne Conway, a pollster, as his campaign manager. She has tried to get Trump's campaign to look more like a traditional one, with mixed success.

But Trump has still spent more on hats than polls and more on collateral than get-out-the-vote tools. The campaign in a nutshell.

On October 26 2016 10:53 MyLovelyLurker wrote:
You make some decent points, but they certainly pale in comparison to Trump's public pledge to jail her

Trump's refusal to acknowledge election results should they not go his way wouldn't look out of place at all in a banana republic. It is in the strongest interest of America to send a stability message to the world, re-affirm the democratic values that you cherish, and repudiate him on election day.

On October 26 2016 11:10 Buckyman wrote:
I do not find this pledge credible on its face, just like a lot of things Trump says. Existing checks and balances should see to that.

However, if it becomes evident that she did e.g. lie under oath about her Blackberry or carelessly leak classified information, a promise to make sure she's prosecuted under the appropriate statute would be fair play.

I'm more worried about the campaign finance situation, that it might become normal for the presidential election's loser's campaign team to be jailed for violating election laws while the winner's campaign team gets mass-pardoned for the same offenses, and anyone not willing to violate the laws loses. But I think Clinton's just as likely to employ that tactic as Trump is.

Is this an argument to elect Trump to avoid the tantrum? Is the tantrum even relevant if Trump loses?

On October 26 2016 11:00 ticklishmusic wrote:
1. buenig tweeted some pretty bad shit (well, by pre trump standards) about folks. he got fired for unprofessional conduct. nothing complicated or sinister.

2. thats a pretty funny way of referring to what i assume is reddit.

3. you do realize citizens united was about a group which was explicitly anti clinton?

4. we clinton supporters love discussing policy. our candidate was the only one that even had a coherent, detailed, workable policy platform. but we got alternately drowned out of the latest dumb faux scandal or got tired of relitigating the same points about minimum wage or healthcare.