If American - which presidential candidate will you vote for? (Nov Edition) If

[Tim Eriksen]

Well Onyx, the FBI didn't say that they've reopened the investigation into Clinton, nor has anyone talked about an indictment, nor about its probability. But if you have a credible source from DOJ that says that Hillary is highly likely to be indicted please post it so I can stand corrected.

 

Tim, I'm not trolling you. On Hillary's side you have conspiracy theories about the Clinton foundation.

 

On Trump's side he is on video basically talking about how he bribes politicians. He has improperly contributed to political campaigns and has a history of investigations into his business going away shortly after making large political donations to state AGs - exactly how he bragged on video. I don't know if the pending RICO fraud and racketeering case falls under corruption or another category.

 

Then it is clear that we cannot have a rational discussion on the issue. 

[RichardGibbons]

Here's corruption and lies metric:

 

Which candidate is under criminal investigation by the FBI with a highly likely indictment forthcoming?

 

Clinton ...... YES

Trump ....... NO

 

Here's corruption and lies metric:

 

Which candidate currently has three open investigations for fraud, including one going to trial on November 28, and has a lawsuit going to trial in December for raping a 13-year-old child?

 

Clinton ...... NO

Trump ...... YES

 

But you're right--Clinton's way worse.  She used her own computer server.  Hard to imagine anything more evil!  Seth Meyers summarizes the situation nicely, showing how malevolent Clinton is compared to Trump:

 

 

[onyx1]

Well Onyx, the FBI didn't say that they've reopened the investigation into Clinton, nor has anyone talked about an indictment, nor about its probability. But if you have a credible source from DOJ that says that Hillary is highly likely to be indicted please post it so I can stand corrected.

 

Bret Baier reports the latest news about the Clinton Foundation investigation from two sources inside the FBI. He reveals five important new pieces of information in these two short clips:

 

1. The Clinton Foundation investigation is far more expansive than anybody has reported so far and has been going on for more than a year.

 

2. The laptops of Clinton aides Cherryl Mills and Heather Samuelson have not been destroyed, and agents are currently combing through them. The investigation has interviewed several people twice, and plans to interview some for a third time.

 

3. Agents have found emails believed to have originated on Hillary Clinton's secret server on Anthony Weiner's laptop. They say the emails are not duplicates and could potentially be classified in nature.

 

4. Sources within the FBI have told him that an indictment is "likely" in the case of pay-for-play at the Clinton Foundation, "barring some obstruction in some way" from the Justice Department.

 

5. FBI sources say with 99% accuracy that Hillary Clinton's server has been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that information had been taken from it.

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/02/fbi_sources_tell_fox_news_indictment_likely_in_clinton_foundation_case.html

 

 

 

The DOJ has publicly committed to accept the recommendation of the FBI in Clinton email investigation.

[Packer16]

Well Onyx, the FBI didn't say that they've reopened the investigation into Clinton, nor has anyone talked about an indictment, nor about its probability. But if you have a credible source from DOJ that says that Hillary is highly likely to be indicted please post it so I can stand corrected.

 

Tim, I'm not trolling you. On Hillary's side you have conspiracy theories about the Clinton foundation.

 

On Trump's side he is on video basically talking about how he bribes politicians. He has improperly contributed to political campaigns and has a history of investigations into his business going away shortly after making large political donations to state AGs - exactly how he bragged on video. I don't know if the pending RICO fraud and racketeering case falls under corruption or another category.

 

I have a friend who has seen Hillary in action in the pay for play.  He works for a federal agency & had caught some Swiss bankers in money laundering & had them in custody in the US.  Clinton comes in & tells the agency employees to leave.  Next thing you know the bankers are free and a donation to the Clinton Foundation appeared from these folks.  I have to believe this is not just one instance as this is how HRC bullies and encourages others to bully on her behalf.  Do you think this person who has bullied in the US gov't for years and got away with it is the right person to be the President?  Or a guy who has made bullying remarks that are mainly bluster?

 

Packer 

[Liberty]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-only-way-trump-can-win/2016/11/02/1512d15c-a07c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html

[vox]

So you actually believe that when it comes to lies and corruption that Trump is a worse choice than Hillary.  Are you trolling me?  Seriously, you have to be joking or blind to reality.       

 

I believe this. To put the issue in context, the Clintons have been political figures for nearly forty years. The couple's tax returns since 1977 are public. There has been opposition research and special prosecutor investigations that have spent easily in excess of $100 million trying to find proof of criminal behavior on their part. On the other hand, Donald Trump has steadfastly refused to release any of his tax returns - even those that are not under audit. Thanks to investigative reporting by David Fahrenthold, there is abundant evidence that he used his charity for self-dealing.

 

Michael Chertoff, lead Republican counsel on the Senate Whitewater Committee will vote for Hillary Clinton. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-03/clinton-s-former-prosecutor-michael-chertoff-endorses-her

 

Kenneth Starr, former Whitewater independent counsel praises Bill Clinton for his philantropic work. He stated: "President Clinton of course is serving the country magnificently, the work of the Clinton Foundation, his leadership in Haiti obviously. The then first lady is an extremely and able energetic secretary of state." http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/02/17/why-ken-starr-would-apologize-to-bill-clinton.html

[rb]

yea, what vox said.

[Jurgis]

It is simply a system setup with improper incentives leading to crazy outcomes.  You are dealing with a system where the people who make the mistakes are not the ones who suffer the consequences.  And these people are chosen by a method where your vote counts so little that it doesn't make much sense to spend real time and effort to educate yourself.  You have a better chance of winning powerball then you do casting the deciding vote in this election. If you spent a lot of time on how you are going to vote, was that really an intelligent use of your limited time on this planet?  They say the lottery is a tax on those who are bad at math. An election is a way to give those bad at math a false illusion of control.  The perverse incentives are everywhere, at every level, in every step of the process, from the government policing itself to printing its own money, to the lack of oversight, you name it.  You could never run a successful company this way: Start by letting the public vote on your management (everyone gets 1 vote whether they are customers or shareholders or not)...

 

People aren't completely irrational, but they do respond to incentives (both good and bad).

 

And that's where we disagree. Yeah, US/European-democracy/republic is not perfect, but there's nothing better at this time in human development. Perhaps humans will become more ... something ... and then we can have other solutions. Right now that's the best there is.

 

And just to respond to some things: there are incentives in voting/elections; there is government control: it's called elections/voting; the fact that your vote is one of millions is a feature not a bug: the outcome is based on majority will;

 

Perhaps we should have voting on issues/laws rather than voting for people/parties. But if you look at referendums and California (not to pick on CA, but that's example I know) "resolutions" (or whatever they are called), the outcome of people voting for issues/laws seems to be even worse than when they vote for politicians/parties. Perhaps more-direct-democracy would work when people become something ... more. But I think I'm somewhat in the camp of "republicans" (not to be confused with GOP): I think that like we have experts for surgery, aircraft flying, etc., so we should have experts for governing. So no direct democracy, but some kind of meritocratic republic. (OT: I don't believe China is an example, sorry valcont).

[rb]

Well Onyx, the FBI didn't say that they've reopened the investigation into Clinton, nor has anyone talked about an indictment, nor about its probability. But if you have a credible source from DOJ that says that Hillary is highly likely to be indicted please post it so I can stand corrected.

 

Tim, I'm not trolling you. On Hillary's side you have conspiracy theories about the Clinton foundation.

 

On Trump's side he is on video basically talking about how he bribes politicians. He has improperly contributed to political campaigns and has a history of investigations into his business going away shortly after making large political donations to state AGs - exactly how he bragged on video. I don't know if the pending RICO fraud and racketeering case falls under corruption or another category.

 

I have a friend who has seen Hillary in action in the pay for play.  He works for a federal agency & had caught some Swiss bankers in money laundering & had them in custody in the US.  Clinton comes in & tells the agency employees to leave.  Next thing you know the bankers are free and a donation to the Clinton Foundation appeared from these folks.  I have to believe this is not just one instance as this is how HRC bullies and encourages others to bully on her behalf.  Do you think this person who has bullied in the US gov't for years and got away with it is the right person to be the President?  Or a guy who has made bullying remarks that are mainly bluster?

 

Packer

So countless investigations into Clinton keep coming empty, but a buddy told you she's corrupt and that should settle it then?

 

By the way, I don't see Trump's remarks as mainly bluster. He's a thin skinned, petty bully who holds onto his grudges and never lets go and follows through. Case in point: A he picks up a fight with Rosie O'Donell then a decade later he makes time for a shout-out to Rosie during a presidential debate which he is loosing. Sure. Give that man an army, the FBI, and the rest of the security aparatus.

[Packer16]

You are right about our system.  Despite its flaws & attempts to manipulate public opinion on average the best answer is arrived at despite as Churchill said about Americans that we will try everything else before arriving at the best answer.  I think social media has enhanced this.  I think past Presidents probably did alot that could be covered up that today cannot & this transition is painful for those who were used to spinning things.  I think for the most part folks have caught onto the spin and are rebelling against it.

 

Packer

[rkbabang]

I am becoming a fan of your thought process even though you post some crazy sh**t from time to time.

 

Thank you. I do my best.  :)

 

Just the other day, me and the wife were discussing if people should go through a test before voting and weather their test results should determine how much their vote would count. Would that be a fair system? Probably not because it will disenfranchise some segment of population. Would that be better for the country? The closest thing to that system is China( Believe it or not, their  politburo is extremely meritorious) and the jury is out if its working or not.

 

My first reaction to this is that I want to be the one to write the test.  Which probably means it is a bad idea.

 

[rb]

I am becoming a fan of your thought process even though you post some crazy sh**t from time to time.

 

Yes he does say some crazy sh*t from time to time

 

Just the other day, me and the wife were discussing if people should go through a test before voting and weather their test results should determine how much their vote would count. Would that be a fair system? Probably not because it will disenfranchise some segment of population. Would that be better for the country? The closest thing to that system is China( Believe it or not, their  politburo is extremely meritorious) and the jury is out if its working or not.

 

My first reaction to this is that I want to be the one to write the test.  Which probably means it is a bad idea.

Then he say something insightful and funny like that and you just gotta love him. :)

[valcont]

Just cast my vote if it matters for anything although Wisconsin is still a swing state. The line was long and there were a lot more women than men. I was really tempted to ask few women if they are Trump or Hillary fan but the passions are running so high in this election , I thought I would get beat up if I was incorrect.

 

The person at the polling center told me that they decided to extend the hours from 4:30 to 7:30PM due to the crowds.

[rb]

Seriously, what's with these long lines? If you have long lines, why not add more polls?

[rkbabang]

Just cast my vote if it matters for anything although Wisconsin is still a swing state. The line was long and there were a lot more women than men. I was really tempted to ask few women if they are Trump or Hillary fan but the passions are running so high in this election , I thought I would get beat up if I was incorrect.

 

The person at the polling center told me that they decided to extend the hours from 4:30 to 7:30PM due to the crowds.

 

Early voting?  What lengths they are now going to try to get people to vote.  Pandora plays an ad a few times per hour lately (probably paid for with your tax dollars) with Obama saying that it gets him "fired up" when people say that votes don't matter.  What is next them coming to your house to ask you for your vote?    This is all evidence to me that not voting matters.  The ruling elite doesn't care who you vote for, just as long as you lend the system legitimacy by voting.

 

[rkbabang]

Seriously, what's with these long lines? If you have long lines, why not add more polls?

 

It's a perception thing.  There are long lines, because everyone is voting.  The last thing they want is the perception that I went to vote and almost no one was there.

 

[valcont]

Seriously, what's with these long lines? If you have long lines, why not add more polls?

 

It's a perception thing.  There are long lines, because everyone is voting.  The last thing they want is the perception that I went to vote and almost no one was there.

 

Sort of like a night club huh. I don't know. I might have hit the lunch crowd. But tomorrow is the last day to vote as an absentee ballot here. I'm sure lot of people are realizing that there will be even longer lines on the election day so coming out early.

[rb]

It's not just early voting I remember that on every election day there are long lines. Some places longer than others *cough*darkerplaces*cough*.

 

And I don't see why it should be inconvenient to vote, yes even to vote early. It doesn't even have to cost the tax payer anything. Pay for it with a fee/tax on PACs and SuperPACs. If these clowns are gonna spend countless millions on telling people who to vote and who not to vote, why not pitch in a little to make sure those people are comfortable when they vote?

 

I know, I know, I'm dreaming.

[rkbabang]

Seriously, what's with these long lines? If you have long lines, why not add more polls?

 

It's a perception thing.  There are long lines, because everyone is voting.  The last thing they want is the perception that I went to vote and almost no one was there.

 

Sort of like a night club huh. I don't know. I might have hit the lunch crowd. But tomorrow is the last day to vote as an absentee ballot here. I'm sure lot of people are realizing that there will be even longer lines on the election day so coming out early.

 

Maybe that is a little too conspiracy-theory-ish, but even if it isn't by design, it probably explains why they won't be in a rush to add more.

 

[Tim Eriksen]

It's not just early voting I remember that on every election day there are long lines. Some places longer than others *cough*darkerplaces*cough*.

 

And I don't see why it should be inconvenient to vote, yes even to vote early. It doesn't even have to cost the tax payer anything. Pay for it with a fee/tax on PACs and SuperPACs. If these clowns are gonna spend countless millions on telling people who to vote and who not to vote, why not pitch in a little to make sure those people are comfortable when they vote?

 

I know, I know, I'm dreaming.

 

Do you not even realize that your idea violates the Constitution??  You can't tax certain groups for participating in the political process.   

 

The reasons lines are long is government is incompetent and doing even simple things such as holding an election. 

[rb]

Well the dreaming part implies that I actually haven't given this stuff a lot of thought. And yes you can't tax PACs and SPACs but i think you can hit them with registration fees and the sort. Anyway it wasn't a serious proposal.

[TorontoRaptorsFan]

Maybe these women think differently than you.  Maybe they are smarter.  Maybe they compared both candidates and decided that a corrupt, serial liar, who supports the killing of unborn children at any time for any reason is worse in their mind than Trump.  It doesn't mean they love Trump, or even like Trump.  Nor does it mean they don't care about sexual harassment or the disabled.  It means they believe HRC is a worse choice in their minds.  You can rip on them or respect their choice even if you don't agree.

 

And no, I don't have to respect people's choices when they are bad choices. When it comes to corruption and lies there are actually metrics and facts they can look at.

 

 

Here's corruption and lies metric:

 

Which candidate is under criminal investigation by the FBI with a highly likely indictment forthcoming?

 

Clinton ...... YES

Trump ....... NO

 

It appears to be multiple investigations - the misuse of classified information (email server) and the Foundation.

 

And if your choice of media is CNN, you wouldn't even know it.

 

I can't stand Van Jones. I wish they fired him when they fired Donna Brazile.

I just wish CNN was more neutral. They'll line their expert panel with 8 Clinton supporters and only 2 Trump supporters (Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh McEnany).

[rukawa]

It's not just early voting I remember that on every election day there are long lines. Some places longer than others *cough*darkerplaces*cough*.

 

And I don't see why it should be inconvenient to vote, yes even to vote early. It doesn't even have to cost the tax payer anything. Pay for it with a fee/tax on PACs and SuperPACs. If these clowns are gonna spend countless millions on telling people who to vote and who not to vote, why not pitch in a little to make sure those people are comfortable when they vote?

 

I know, I know, I'm dreaming.

 

Do you not even realize that your idea violates the Constitution??  You can't tax certain groups for participating in the political process.   

 

The reasons lines are long is government is incompetent and doing even simple things such as holding an election.

 

Correction. The AMERICAN government is incompetent at holding an election. The Canadian government holds elections every year. Everything is extremely orderly.

 

If I were to guess the reason (because I don't really know much) I would suspect that the reason for this is that your election system is a legacy of your whole political culture. Your political culture is based on the idea of democracy, in particular the idea that the people should be running the government. In practice, what this used to mean, is that a large number of offices in your government were actually politically appointed. What used to happen is that you had a spoils systems in which political parties would reward members of the party by giving them political appointments. Over time this changed and more and more of the American government was professionalized. This meant that there was in fact a large number of people not politically appointed who would serve in government regardless of which party was in power.

 

Your elections system though still follows the old model. Firstly based on your constitution the election system is not centralized...each state runs its own part of the election separately and your voters don't vote for the president..they vote for electors. This is bad. But what is worse is that the States often decentralize the election even further to the local level. This election processes differ even inside the State. Second many of the people actually in charge of the election are political appointees and are partisans of either the Democrats or Republicans. They game the elections to try and give their side the advantage. You basically have a really stupid system that is the legacy of your history and constitution.

 

Contrast this with Canada. We have Elections Canada. Its non-partisan and independent of government. And it runs the election across the whole country. Simple, easy, effective. If I were to guess, I would guess that nearly every country in the developed world runs elections like this except maybe for Switzerland (since it decentralized and an old democracy).

 

Its not a government problem.

[RichardGibbons]

Pandora plays an ad a few times per hour lately (probably paid for with your tax dollars) with Obama saying that it gets him "fired up" when people say that votes don't matter.  What is next them coming to your house to ask you for your vote?    This is all evidence to me that not voting matters.  The ruling elite doesn't care who you vote for, just as long as you lend the system legitimacy by voting.

 

Another alternative--which actually seems more likely to me--is that Pandora has figured out that people who listen to Pandora (and possibly even your particularly playlist) are more likely to vote Democrat.  And, they might also believe that an appeal by Obama is more likely to sway a Democrat.

 

Thus, a Democratic president telling a group of mostly Democrats to vote might not be evidence that they don't care who you vote for, but rather that they're pretty good at targeted advertising.

 

(To test this, one strategy might be to create an account with a bunch of country music, and see if these appeals go away, or switch to something that would be more appealing to Republicans. Might not matter though, since younger demographics are more likely to be Democrats and Pandora users are more likely to be younger.  It depends on how smart they are with their market segmenting.)

[rb]

They have gotten incredibly good at this stuff - media segmentation and targeting. On the left and on the right. But especially on the left. They're also really good at negotiating media buys and being very efficient at how much to buy. It's incredible really.

 

One of the things I'm working on requires a media campaign. Nothing too creative, but we need to hit some specific demographics. We've decided to go with one of the political shops on the left as opposed to a Madison ave shop. Nothing to do with ideology, the left guys have much better targeting on the segments we're looking at as opposed to the right wing guys. They're also so much cheaper than the the regular ad guys.

 

It's a pity that none of these guys are public. They're so focused on their little corner of the world, but once they figure out all the stuff they can do commercially they'll make a lot of money.