So if you follow the news, you might be forgiven for thinking Mitch McConnell is an evil genius.
So back when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, Democrat Barack Obama was President of the United States with about a year left in his term.
Yet, when Scalia's replacement was finally confirmed, it was done by the new Republican President Donald Trump.
As many have pointed out, this seems well odd. Or to use the democrats term for it....this seems like stealing a supreme court seat from the Democrats to be filled by a Republican.
And it is.....even the man responsible for doing it, Mitch McConnell would agree to that.
Granted McConnell would feed you a bullshit line about needing to uphold the balance of the court (Scalia being a conservative and all, and Obama likely to have appointed a liberal), but he'd agree on the principle.
But what makes Mitch McConnell seem like an evil genius is that, in getting Neil Gorsuch (Donald Trump's nominee) confirmed to the Supreme Court, he destroyed the Filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, preventing the Democrats from being able to block the nomination indefinitly, as McConnell himself had done to Merrick Garland (Obama's nominee who wasnt confirmed).
In fact this is the interpretation many of the mainstream, right wing and left wing media are all taking (granted the Right wing points out its genius, and the left calls it evil but still again they agree on the core idea). Per the media, Mitch McConnell is the man who prevented the president of the opposition party from filling a supreme court seat he was constitutionally allowed to fill and turned that seat over to his parties president to fill it instead.....while also destroying the mechanism the opposition party could use to do the same thing to his party.
There is however a small problem with this interpretation: It's not accurate.
Some parts of it are indisputable: McConnell DID prevent Obama from making an appointment...and held the seat open until his party held the White House.
McConnell also nuked the filibuster.
The problem is....these two things are not the same, nor really connected.
See the filibuster was a method for the minority party to prevent anything from happening.
However at the time Garland was nominated by Obama, the Republicans were the majority party.
So to stop Garland, they didnt filibuster his nomination.
Instead they just flat out refused to hold vote (or even a hearing) on the man.
Now they did this, because the truth is, they couldnt come up with a politically viable reason to vote against him if he came up to a vote. And as McConnell repeated pointed out, this all happened in an election year.
Which was part of the problem....if Republicans voted for an Obama nominee they were afraid they would be used against them in election ads. At the same time, if they failed to vote for a obviously qualified nominee it would be used against them in election ads.
So no matter how they voted, they believed they would get screwed. So they found a way out. Dont vote. Its a bit harder to hold people accountable for things they didnt do, a belief, that given the GOP gained the white house while holding the senate was seemingly verified.
Now this may all seem irrelevant...after all according to most media reporting, this cant happen again...McConnell completed his genius plan by nuking the filibuster and getting Gorsuch on the court.
Except again....the Filibuster is a tactic where the minority stops a vote from happening.
Whereas McConnell invented a new tactic where the majority stops a vote from happening.
And well, quite frankly there is nothing preventing it from happening again.
Assuming anyone who reads this blog is a conservative and thrilled with how Trump got to put a right winger on the court, let me ask you a question: If the democrats take the senate in 2018 and their's another vacancy or two on the Supreme Court, what exactly do you think the chances are Donald Trump is going to get to fill those?
Thanks to Mitch McConnell new invention, its basically zero. Democrats would be guilty of political negligence and malpractice if they allowed Trump to make any supreme court appointments when they held the senate.
Afterall. Mitch McConnell did prove the court works just fine when its not full thanks to what he did to Merrick Garland. So there is no pressing rush to ever put a new justice on the court.
Furthermore, now that the senate has no reason to ever allow a hearing on an opposition presidents nominee, even Senate election in affect determines the future of the supreme court, will vacancies be allowed to be filled. And the justification for not holding hearings on Garland is it was an election year. And every other year is an election year for the senate.
So if the president and the senate arnt held by the same party, I guess we cant nominate Supreme Court Justices in the presidents 2nd or 4th (and 6th/8th if hes a two termer) year.
Actually its probibly worse than that....you know how everyone is making a big deal about Donald Trump's first 100 days? the same way they made a fuss about Barack Obama and George W's first 100 days?
Well the idea of the "First 100 days" is that thats really all the time there is until the next election cycle kicks off. So its not much of a stretch for an opposition senate to say they cant consider a presidents nominations after that 100 day period...cause you know, its an election and all.
And actually (the argument will go) the Supreme Court is so important we cant afford to compromise on a nominee at any time....so I guess we can never hold a hearing for an opposition president.
What I'm getting at is, thanks to Mitch McConnell we are going to see a whole lot more Merrick Garlands in the future, and we are going to need a term for them....and I think I have an idea.
The closest thing I can think of to this situation, when one party tries to take political power in a blatantly unfair and unintended fashion is the Gerrymander. This is of course when the congressional districts are drawn in such a way as to make it impossible for the opposition party to win no matter the actual voter support.
Now what you may not know is that the term Gerrymander takes it name from the former Vice President of the United States (under James Madison) Elbridge Gerry. As Governor of Massachusetts Gerry had signed a law allowing the redrawing of congressional districts in unorthodox shapes (one of which looked like a salamander) to benefit the Democratic-Republican party.
In that vein I suggest the term for a Supreme Court Nominee who never receives a hearing by the Senate (because its held by the opposition party to the president) is to say that nominee got "McConnelled"
So Merick Garland is the first nominee in history to be "McConnelled" but he wont be the last.
Now eventually its true, we will likely stop seeing nominees being "McConnelled" but thats likely going to be because Presidents are going to stop bothering to make the nominations in the first place. Meaning we are going to wind up with long chunks, possible as long as 8 or more years, in which it wont be possible to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court and no ones even nominating people to fill those spots.
I suggest the name for this period should be the "McConnell period".
So if the Democrats win the senate in 2018, we will enter a "McConnell period" that will last at least 2 years.....though its possible it even lasts 6 if Trump wins reelection and the Dems continue to hold the senate. And heck the "McConnell period" could last even longer than that. Between 1933 and 1981 the democrats held the senate for that entire 27 year period....which also included 14 years of Republicans Presidents.
Or, to use more modern example, of the currently serving members of the Supreme Court, only John Roberts, Sam Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were nominated outside a "McConnell" period. (note in an ironic twist, Antonin Scalia himself would never have been on the court, he was also an McConnell Period nominee).
And heres the thing, with the "McConnell rules" in effect, there currently wouldnt have been a vacancy on the court, as Barack Obama would have nominated 5 other justices as well during the 6 years his party held both the senate and white house.
Which would mean the current balance of the court would be 7-2 in favor of liberals.
Which sounds great for liberals....but who knows when the next non "McConnell" period is going to happen...next time if could be 7-2 or 8-1 in favor of the conservatives once the president of the senates party gets to fill all the open vacancies
And heres the real kicker....there is no way to fix this problem short of both sides agreeing to do something politically stupid and allow an opposition president to make an appointment: a constitutional amendment requiring a senate hearing on all presidential nominees.
So you better get used to nominees being "McConnelled" and long extended vacancies on the Supreme Court during possibly near decade long "McConnell periods".
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Saturday, February 25, 2017
The President's Russian Problem
President Donald Trump has a problem, its called Russia. And its not going away.
Ok so back during the campaign then Candidate Trump made waves with a generally more sympathetic Russian policy than Americans were used to. So far no problem.
Then he suggested that the Russian Government should hack into his opponents emails and release them in an attempt to help him win the election. Which for what I assume are self explanatory reasons was a bit of problem for him when he said it. Now while Trump claimed "it was joke" [ed note read fake quote with Russian accent] it is still the thing that kicked off the idea that the Russian were trying to throw the election to Donald Trump, and that Trump might actually know and be ok with it.
Then he lost his campaign manager Paul Manafort, as Manafort was revealed to have had some shady dealings with a Ukrainian group backed by the Russians that might have made him into a blackmail risk by the Russian government.
Then Candidate Trump won the election and became president....and most people expected the story was over. Most people were wrong.
Not long after winning office, but before actually taking it every American intelligence agency concluded that Russia HAD in fact attempted to influence the election for Donald Trump.
Now it should be noted, in fairness, 2 things:
1) the claim was only that the Russians had attempted to influence the election.....there was no evidence to suggest they had actually seceded nor that they changed a single vote directly. The claim was more about helping funnel money to Trump's super-pac's or advertising
2) there was also a report suggesting Ukraine was doing similar things on a much smaller scale for Hillary Clinton.....so its possible this whole concept of foreign governments trying to influence our election via fundraising ect is much more common than we think.
Now, given the conscientious of American Intelligence on this issue, the smart thing for Trump to do would have been to acknowledge the results, stress the part where there was no proof the attempts worked, claim ignorance and pledged to call for an investigation to figure out how to prevent the same thing from happening in the future.
But this is Donald Trump, and unless he's trying to blow hot-air up his own ass, the words "Trump" and "smart" dont usually appear in the same sentence.
So Trump instead decided to go to war with the intelligence agencies stating "Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to 'leak' into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?" among other issues.
Though to be fair, for a thin skinned ego maniac who's questioned the legitimacy of his own election because he cant accept the fact that he won despite not winning the popular vote (after all, per Trump everyone loves Trump), I suppose another thing that could be seen as suggesting he wasnt as liked as he thought (cause the Russians had to try to get people to like him...and still couldnt get him the popular vote) would piss him off.
But again, since we cant redo the election, most people assumed Trump was at least right about the "last shot" part...this story is totally over.
And then weeks later Mike Flynn was forced to resign. So much for the end of the story,
So, Mike Flynn had been Trump's National Security Adviser, so it was kinda a big deal when a story broke that, before Trump had taken office, Flynn had had some off the record (IE not handled, known about or approved by the state department) conversations with the Russian government.
Specifically that he'd contacted the Russian ambassador the very day then President Obama had announced sanctions and expelled Russian diplomats in response to the intelligence reports of Russia's attempted influence of our election.
Now Russia's original reactions per their diplomatic twitter account was:
#Peskov: There is no doubt that Russia's adequate and mirror response will make Washington officials feel very uncomfortable as well
#Zakharova: Tomorrow there will be official statements, countermeasures@MFA_Russia
Announced on December 29 sanctions are aimed directly at undermining #Russia #US bilateral relations. They won't be left unanswered
After those were posted is when Flynn allegedly contacted the Russian Ambassador.
And it turned out Russia's answer to the sactions was to do absolutely nothing....no promises of retaliation, no protests, nothing.
Which, lets be honest, seems extremely weird.
Well unless Mike Flynn promised them something on behalf of the incoming administration.
A conclusion backed up seemingly by the Russian government as President Putin issued the following statement:
“As it proceeds from international practice, Russia has reasons to respond in kind, Although we have the right to retaliate, we will not resort to irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration.”
Flynn of course denied he had discussed the sanctions in the one phone call. then incoming Press Sec Sean Spicier, incoming VP Mike Pence and incoming Chief of Staff Reince Preibus would also go on TV and defend Flynn saying all 3 of them had seperately questioned him about it and gotten the same response....he hadnt said anything.
Donald Trump then takes the oath of office (Jan 23rd), and has Sean Spicier give an offical denial of wrongdoing on behalf of the White House.
3 days later (Jan 26th), Donald Trump was informed by acting attorney general Sally Yates (who Trump fired days later over the backlash of his immigration law) that per an FBI investigation what Flynn had said wasnt true and he was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russian government.
Though at the time, and for weeks later nobody knew anything about this conversation, since Trump decided not to do anything about.
Then parts of the FBI investigation, included that Flynn had lied to the VP and to the FBI about the phone calls (of which there were 5, not the previously claimed 1) went public on February 9th. At which point Flynn changed his story to "he couldn't remember what they had discussed so its possible sanctions came up....its also possible they didnt"
However, before finally being forced to admit all of the last paragraph was true, Donald Trump on February 10th said the following when asked about the report on Flynn said "I don’t know about that. I haven’t seen it. What report is that? I haven’t seen that. I’ll look into that.” which, at the time, seemed like it might be true.
And then on February 13th it came out that Trump had been informed of the Flynn issue on Jan 26th, and hadnt done anything about it......including not bothering to inform the Vice President that his defense of Flynn wasnt true (Pence only discovered he'd been lied too when the media reported it) and that Trump's statement on February 10th was a lie.....or a cover-up which ever you prefer.
At which point, not 1, not 2, not 3, not even 4, but 5 congressional committees, in the Republican controlled congress started an investigation into Donald Trump's ties to Russia.
That's when it became obvious that this story was not going away.
Even after Flynn either chose to resign, was forced to resign, or was fired (Officials in the Trump administration gave conflicting accounts that support all 3 of these possibilities) this pretty much ensured this aint over yet.
(And for what its worth, it should be noted the FBI, in the report Trump got on Jan 26th, cleared Flynn of any legal wrongdoing...he did not break any laws in his conversations with the Russian's, nor did he intentionally lie to the FBI (as opposed to having a faulty memory) however they did confirm he was a national security risk due to something (still unknown to the public) that he said that made him a blackmail target...meaning Trump needed to get rid of him even if not for legal reasons, and chose not to and to cover it up until he had no choice. It should also be noting that in the conflicting rationales given as to how Flynn departed the White House mentioned other times Flynn had mislead them without going into specifics, so its possible those other events might resurface and create more problems for the Administration)
At which point we enter the current phase of the ever growing scandal:
A news story came out not long after Flynn's ouster saying the Trump campaign had been in near constant contact and coordination with the Russian government...which is well, flagrantly illegal. Not only that, but the FBI was investigating said coordination.
Trump for his part seemingly confirmed this story when he tweeted: "The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security ‘leakers’ that have permeated our government for a long time,They can't even find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW.”
Consider, the only way Trump's tweet makes logical sense, is if the news story is accurate. If it wasnt, there was nothing for the FBI to have leaked, and the story would have been "fake news" instead. Oops.
Then the other shoe dropped, as a story came out that Reince Preibus, Trump's chief of staff can contacted the FBI to get them to issue an statement pushing back on the media reports that the FBI was investigating the Trump Campaign.
The FBI refused for 2 reasons
1) The report was accurate...in fact the FBI is running 3 separate investigations into the Trump campaigns potential coordination with Russia.
2) That kind of coordination between the FBI and the White House, especially about an ongoing investigation is unethical, and possible illegal.
That's not a good sign if your name happens to be Reince Prebus. His longevity in the white house now seems a little questionable.
Of course, the White House did their best to defend him.....sorta. The first reaction from the White House was to claim the FBI called Preibus (not the other way around) to let him know the news reports were wrong.
Which they then later changed to Preibus had in fact called the FBI, but not to influence the investigation.
So yea.....changing story, possible illegal contacts that at the end of the day are all about Russia....its like Mike Flynn all over again.
And should Priebus fall (which I think he will), I doubt the story will end with him either.
We now have at least one member of congress, Darrell Issa (the man who kicked off the whole Bengahzi investigations into Clinton) calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Trump's ties to Russia, and a Republican Senator calling for Trump's tax returns to subpoenaed as part of the congressional investigations to address the rumors floating around Trump for years that after his 6 bankruptcies american banks basically blacklisted him and most of his money these day tied up in foreign governments banks....including Russia.
So more things are going to keep turning up.
Furthermore, there are a few other elements at play that seem to confirm this story will keep growing even more and wont be going away anytime soon if at all.
1) Rex Tillerson, Sec of State, was formerly the head of Exxon. And as head of Exxon negotiated several deals worth 500 billion dollars with the Russian Government. Except none of those deals could go through thanks to the US Sanctions with Russia. However those deals could still go through, if an exception was given by the appropriate US official....like the Sec of State.
2) A few weeks back, Buzzfeed released a dossier on Trump, that to be fair was filled with some outrageous (and almost certainly untrue) allegations against Trump....including the existence of sex tapes, orgies ect. But also contained some much more reasonable claims as well (mostly conversations between Russian officals about Trump and influence over Trump)...those more reasonable claims have now seemingly been collaborated by the FBI (though we still dont have specifics or context to know exactly what that means).
3) Yesterday, Trump's administration banned several news organizations from the press pool, and as it happened those were the very same organizations who broke every single thing referenced in this blog.
So its hard to interpret that as anything other than a threat, reporting the administration doesnt like = loss of access....so only report stories the Administration wants or else.
Except the banned media organizations seem to have taken this as confirmation they are on to something (otherwise why would Trump care) and therefore should totally keep digging....which would seem to increase the odds even more Trump/Russia connections come out.
4) Just to end on a light note:
Yesterday Trump gave a speech at CPAC. During the speech many of his supporters starting waving a rather peculiar flag:
Ok so back during the campaign then Candidate Trump made waves with a generally more sympathetic Russian policy than Americans were used to. So far no problem.
Then he suggested that the Russian Government should hack into his opponents emails and release them in an attempt to help him win the election. Which for what I assume are self explanatory reasons was a bit of problem for him when he said it. Now while Trump claimed "it was joke" [ed note read fake quote with Russian accent] it is still the thing that kicked off the idea that the Russian were trying to throw the election to Donald Trump, and that Trump might actually know and be ok with it.
Then he lost his campaign manager Paul Manafort, as Manafort was revealed to have had some shady dealings with a Ukrainian group backed by the Russians that might have made him into a blackmail risk by the Russian government.
Then Candidate Trump won the election and became president....and most people expected the story was over. Most people were wrong.
Not long after winning office, but before actually taking it every American intelligence agency concluded that Russia HAD in fact attempted to influence the election for Donald Trump.
Now it should be noted, in fairness, 2 things:
1) the claim was only that the Russians had attempted to influence the election.....there was no evidence to suggest they had actually seceded nor that they changed a single vote directly. The claim was more about helping funnel money to Trump's super-pac's or advertising
2) there was also a report suggesting Ukraine was doing similar things on a much smaller scale for Hillary Clinton.....so its possible this whole concept of foreign governments trying to influence our election via fundraising ect is much more common than we think.
Now, given the conscientious of American Intelligence on this issue, the smart thing for Trump to do would have been to acknowledge the results, stress the part where there was no proof the attempts worked, claim ignorance and pledged to call for an investigation to figure out how to prevent the same thing from happening in the future.
But this is Donald Trump, and unless he's trying to blow hot-air up his own ass, the words "Trump" and "smart" dont usually appear in the same sentence.
So Trump instead decided to go to war with the intelligence agencies stating "Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to 'leak' into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?" among other issues.
Though to be fair, for a thin skinned ego maniac who's questioned the legitimacy of his own election because he cant accept the fact that he won despite not winning the popular vote (after all, per Trump everyone loves Trump), I suppose another thing that could be seen as suggesting he wasnt as liked as he thought (cause the Russians had to try to get people to like him...and still couldnt get him the popular vote) would piss him off.
But again, since we cant redo the election, most people assumed Trump was at least right about the "last shot" part...this story is totally over.
And then weeks later Mike Flynn was forced to resign. So much for the end of the story,
So, Mike Flynn had been Trump's National Security Adviser, so it was kinda a big deal when a story broke that, before Trump had taken office, Flynn had had some off the record (IE not handled, known about or approved by the state department) conversations with the Russian government.
Specifically that he'd contacted the Russian ambassador the very day then President Obama had announced sanctions and expelled Russian diplomats in response to the intelligence reports of Russia's attempted influence of our election.
Now Russia's original reactions per their diplomatic twitter account was:
#Peskov: There is no doubt that Russia's adequate and mirror response will make Washington officials feel very uncomfortable as well
#Zakharova: Tomorrow there will be official statements, countermeasures@MFA_Russia
Announced on December 29 sanctions are aimed directly at undermining #Russia #US bilateral relations. They won't be left unanswered
After those were posted is when Flynn allegedly contacted the Russian Ambassador.
And it turned out Russia's answer to the sactions was to do absolutely nothing....no promises of retaliation, no protests, nothing.
Which, lets be honest, seems extremely weird.
Well unless Mike Flynn promised them something on behalf of the incoming administration.
A conclusion backed up seemingly by the Russian government as President Putin issued the following statement:
“As it proceeds from international practice, Russia has reasons to respond in kind, Although we have the right to retaliate, we will not resort to irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration.”
Flynn of course denied he had discussed the sanctions in the one phone call. then incoming Press Sec Sean Spicier, incoming VP Mike Pence and incoming Chief of Staff Reince Preibus would also go on TV and defend Flynn saying all 3 of them had seperately questioned him about it and gotten the same response....he hadnt said anything.
Donald Trump then takes the oath of office (Jan 23rd), and has Sean Spicier give an offical denial of wrongdoing on behalf of the White House.
3 days later (Jan 26th), Donald Trump was informed by acting attorney general Sally Yates (who Trump fired days later over the backlash of his immigration law) that per an FBI investigation what Flynn had said wasnt true and he was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russian government.
Though at the time, and for weeks later nobody knew anything about this conversation, since Trump decided not to do anything about.
Then parts of the FBI investigation, included that Flynn had lied to the VP and to the FBI about the phone calls (of which there were 5, not the previously claimed 1) went public on February 9th. At which point Flynn changed his story to "he couldn't remember what they had discussed so its possible sanctions came up....its also possible they didnt"
However, before finally being forced to admit all of the last paragraph was true, Donald Trump on February 10th said the following when asked about the report on Flynn said "I don’t know about that. I haven’t seen it. What report is that? I haven’t seen that. I’ll look into that.” which, at the time, seemed like it might be true.
And then on February 13th it came out that Trump had been informed of the Flynn issue on Jan 26th, and hadnt done anything about it......including not bothering to inform the Vice President that his defense of Flynn wasnt true (Pence only discovered he'd been lied too when the media reported it) and that Trump's statement on February 10th was a lie.....or a cover-up which ever you prefer.
At which point, not 1, not 2, not 3, not even 4, but 5 congressional committees, in the Republican controlled congress started an investigation into Donald Trump's ties to Russia.
That's when it became obvious that this story was not going away.
Even after Flynn either chose to resign, was forced to resign, or was fired (Officials in the Trump administration gave conflicting accounts that support all 3 of these possibilities) this pretty much ensured this aint over yet.
(And for what its worth, it should be noted the FBI, in the report Trump got on Jan 26th, cleared Flynn of any legal wrongdoing...he did not break any laws in his conversations with the Russian's, nor did he intentionally lie to the FBI (as opposed to having a faulty memory) however they did confirm he was a national security risk due to something (still unknown to the public) that he said that made him a blackmail target...meaning Trump needed to get rid of him even if not for legal reasons, and chose not to and to cover it up until he had no choice. It should also be noting that in the conflicting rationales given as to how Flynn departed the White House mentioned other times Flynn had mislead them without going into specifics, so its possible those other events might resurface and create more problems for the Administration)
At which point we enter the current phase of the ever growing scandal:
A news story came out not long after Flynn's ouster saying the Trump campaign had been in near constant contact and coordination with the Russian government...which is well, flagrantly illegal. Not only that, but the FBI was investigating said coordination.
Trump for his part seemingly confirmed this story when he tweeted: "The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security ‘leakers’ that have permeated our government for a long time,They can't even find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW.”
Consider, the only way Trump's tweet makes logical sense, is if the news story is accurate. If it wasnt, there was nothing for the FBI to have leaked, and the story would have been "fake news" instead. Oops.
Then the other shoe dropped, as a story came out that Reince Preibus, Trump's chief of staff can contacted the FBI to get them to issue an statement pushing back on the media reports that the FBI was investigating the Trump Campaign.
The FBI refused for 2 reasons
1) The report was accurate...in fact the FBI is running 3 separate investigations into the Trump campaigns potential coordination with Russia.
2) That kind of coordination between the FBI and the White House, especially about an ongoing investigation is unethical, and possible illegal.
That's not a good sign if your name happens to be Reince Prebus. His longevity in the white house now seems a little questionable.
Of course, the White House did their best to defend him.....sorta. The first reaction from the White House was to claim the FBI called Preibus (not the other way around) to let him know the news reports were wrong.
Which they then later changed to Preibus had in fact called the FBI, but not to influence the investigation.
So yea.....changing story, possible illegal contacts that at the end of the day are all about Russia....its like Mike Flynn all over again.
And should Priebus fall (which I think he will), I doubt the story will end with him either.
We now have at least one member of congress, Darrell Issa (the man who kicked off the whole Bengahzi investigations into Clinton) calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Trump's ties to Russia, and a Republican Senator calling for Trump's tax returns to subpoenaed as part of the congressional investigations to address the rumors floating around Trump for years that after his 6 bankruptcies american banks basically blacklisted him and most of his money these day tied up in foreign governments banks....including Russia.
So more things are going to keep turning up.
Furthermore, there are a few other elements at play that seem to confirm this story will keep growing even more and wont be going away anytime soon if at all.
1) Rex Tillerson, Sec of State, was formerly the head of Exxon. And as head of Exxon negotiated several deals worth 500 billion dollars with the Russian Government. Except none of those deals could go through thanks to the US Sanctions with Russia. However those deals could still go through, if an exception was given by the appropriate US official....like the Sec of State.
2) A few weeks back, Buzzfeed released a dossier on Trump, that to be fair was filled with some outrageous (and almost certainly untrue) allegations against Trump....including the existence of sex tapes, orgies ect. But also contained some much more reasonable claims as well (mostly conversations between Russian officals about Trump and influence over Trump)...those more reasonable claims have now seemingly been collaborated by the FBI (though we still dont have specifics or context to know exactly what that means).
3) Yesterday, Trump's administration banned several news organizations from the press pool, and as it happened those were the very same organizations who broke every single thing referenced in this blog.
So its hard to interpret that as anything other than a threat, reporting the administration doesnt like = loss of access....so only report stories the Administration wants or else.
Except the banned media organizations seem to have taken this as confirmation they are on to something (otherwise why would Trump care) and therefore should totally keep digging....which would seem to increase the odds even more Trump/Russia connections come out.
4) Just to end on a light note:
Yesterday Trump gave a speech at CPAC. During the speech many of his supporters starting waving a rather peculiar flag:
For the uninitiated, thats the Russian flag. OOPS.
now to be fair, this appears to be work of a pair of liberal pranksters who were giving the flags away for free, and is more an indictment of the intelligence of the Trump supporters who took it and didnt realize what it was, than any actual wrongdoing or scandal by the Trump administration.
But it is symbolic of the fact that no matter where he goes, Trump cant seem to get away from Russia.
now to be fair, this appears to be work of a pair of liberal pranksters who were giving the flags away for free, and is more an indictment of the intelligence of the Trump supporters who took it and didnt realize what it was, than any actual wrongdoing or scandal by the Trump administration.
But it is symbolic of the fact that no matter where he goes, Trump cant seem to get away from Russia.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
If you want to piss off Donald Trump, share this blog.
So Donald Trump has been president now for about 48 hours, but if one thing has already become clear, nobody likes Trump.....and it bothers the hell out of him.
Take this picture for example:
Spicer by the way wasnt the only one to lie about inauguration either.
President Trump himself decided it was a good to lie about the inauguration too, at an event he was doing at the CIA. Now given that the purpose of the event was to convince people Trump wasnt fueding with the intelligence agencies when they spent months saying Russia influenced our elections, and trump wouldnt accept it, its not that surprising really he tossed in a couple more lies.
Like Spicer Trump claimed he had a YUGE crowd, possibly the biggest ever:
"We had a massive field of people. You saw that. Packed, I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, they show an empty field. I said, wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out, it looked like a million, a million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there. It went all the way back to the Washington Monument,"
You know, I dont want to suggest the president is mentally ill...but I think hes seeing invisible people....
But he followed it up with an even bigger and better lie...in fact it might be my favorite lie hes ever told:
“God looked down and, and he said we’re not going to let it rain on your speech.. . .The truth is it stopped immediately.”
Cause see, like a bridzilla, on Donald Trump's big day everything is going to be perfect god damn it, and when its not...hes just going to lie about it so you'll think hes special.
Now I could respond more to this claim directly myself...but I'm not going to.
Instead I'm going to outsource my response to my team of professional bullshit analysts, first from our Irony Department, the Rev, Franklin Graham who also gave a speech at Trump's inauguration:
“Mr. President, in the Bible, rain is a sign of God’s blessing. And it started to rain, Mr. President, when you came to the platform (for his inaugural speech).”
Now not only does that sound like it was totally raining during Trump's speech...it sounds like that should be seen as a good thing as far as God's concerned....and if Trump was telling the truth that it really did stop raining when he started talking, that would mean even God hates him.
But I dont really trust Rev Graham on this any more than I do Trump (either that or Graham and I have very different recollections about Noah and his Ark) so I'd like some visual proof, which happened to be collected by my other trained bullshit analysts:
First up, Former First and Second Ladies Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, as well as Former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton:
Ladies was it raining during trumps inauguration?:
I'm going to go ahead and say between the poncho and the umbrella, that 3 votes for "it was raining"
But of course, all 3 of those ladies are Democrats...and therefore want to make Trump look bad....so lets get some republican opinions
Former President George W. Bush, was it raining at Trump's inauguration?
Madam First Lady, was it raining when your husband was speaking????
So remember folks....if you really want to piss Trump off.....just keep pointing out how on the most important day of his life we all had better things to do.
Take this picture for example:
Donald Trump HATES this picture, because it shows that more people had the audacity to see someone else's inauguration than see his.
Which is why he had his press secretary lie and actually try to claim your eyes are deciving you
Per press secretary Sean Spicer: "This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past, the grass eliminated this visual."
Yea, it turns out a fuck ton of people in the photo on the left arnt real....its an illusion created by magic grass, which is able to impersonate people....
Oh yea...except it turns out, this is not the first time those plastic coverings were used...they were used in 2013 as well (normally id provide a picture to prove this, but all the pictures ive found keep getting rejected this website ass backwards https system, so instead just go here to see one of them if youd like)
Nor was that the only lie Spicer told: He also claimed that as proof the magic grass is the reason you only think the Obama inauguration was more popular that metro's ridership numbers back him up.
Again per spicer:
"We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama's last inaugural."
Actually to be fair, one of those numbers is correct. in 2009 317,000 people took trips on metro downtown PRIOR to 11am (IE the start of inauguration)
The other number on the other hand, is actually embarrassingly wrong.
See in the context of the sentence, it appears Spicer is looking at the daily totals of metro riders, which for Trump wasnt 420,000.....it was 570,557.
Thats right in his hurry to lie....Spicer/Trumps team made up a number....and if we take the comparison at face value (which we shouldnt for reasons I'll get to in a second) it makes Trump look WORSE than the actual number word.
Lying about how much better you were than the last guy....and then making your guy look less impressive when doing it.....that takes real talent.
Unless of course, Spicer wasnt trying to trick you by comparing the total number of rides that day (which would include rides to and from) ONLY to the rides in one direction for Obama.
Then lying makes more sense.
See while Obama had 317,000 rides into DC before 11am, Trump's inauguration generated only 193,000.
So that might explain why spicer pulled a random large number out of his ass....though still youd think he'd have stuck with the daily total, as people might not have noticed the unfair comparison that quickly if both number checked out.
(by the way, even on the whole day numbers. Obama still crushed Trump with 1.1 million trips to and from his inaguration compared to the 570.557 for Trump)
Which is why he had his press secretary lie and actually try to claim your eyes are deciving you
Per press secretary Sean Spicer: "This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past, the grass eliminated this visual."
Yea, it turns out a fuck ton of people in the photo on the left arnt real....its an illusion created by magic grass, which is able to impersonate people....
Oh yea...except it turns out, this is not the first time those plastic coverings were used...they were used in 2013 as well (normally id provide a picture to prove this, but all the pictures ive found keep getting rejected this website ass backwards https system, so instead just go here to see one of them if youd like)
Nor was that the only lie Spicer told: He also claimed that as proof the magic grass is the reason you only think the Obama inauguration was more popular that metro's ridership numbers back him up.
Again per spicer:
"We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama's last inaugural."
Actually to be fair, one of those numbers is correct. in 2009 317,000 people took trips on metro downtown PRIOR to 11am (IE the start of inauguration)
The other number on the other hand, is actually embarrassingly wrong.
See in the context of the sentence, it appears Spicer is looking at the daily totals of metro riders, which for Trump wasnt 420,000.....it was 570,557.
Thats right in his hurry to lie....Spicer/Trumps team made up a number....and if we take the comparison at face value (which we shouldnt for reasons I'll get to in a second) it makes Trump look WORSE than the actual number word.
Lying about how much better you were than the last guy....and then making your guy look less impressive when doing it.....that takes real talent.
Unless of course, Spicer wasnt trying to trick you by comparing the total number of rides that day (which would include rides to and from) ONLY to the rides in one direction for Obama.
Then lying makes more sense.
See while Obama had 317,000 rides into DC before 11am, Trump's inauguration generated only 193,000.
So that might explain why spicer pulled a random large number out of his ass....though still youd think he'd have stuck with the daily total, as people might not have noticed the unfair comparison that quickly if both number checked out.
(by the way, even on the whole day numbers. Obama still crushed Trump with 1.1 million trips to and from his inaguration compared to the 570.557 for Trump)
Spicer by the way wasnt the only one to lie about inauguration either.
President Trump himself decided it was a good to lie about the inauguration too, at an event he was doing at the CIA. Now given that the purpose of the event was to convince people Trump wasnt fueding with the intelligence agencies when they spent months saying Russia influenced our elections, and trump wouldnt accept it, its not that surprising really he tossed in a couple more lies.
Like Spicer Trump claimed he had a YUGE crowd, possibly the biggest ever:
"We had a massive field of people. You saw that. Packed, I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, they show an empty field. I said, wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out, it looked like a million, a million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there. It went all the way back to the Washington Monument,"
You know, I dont want to suggest the president is mentally ill...but I think hes seeing invisible people....
But he followed it up with an even bigger and better lie...in fact it might be my favorite lie hes ever told:
“God looked down and, and he said we’re not going to let it rain on your speech.. . .The truth is it stopped immediately.”
Cause see, like a bridzilla, on Donald Trump's big day everything is going to be perfect god damn it, and when its not...hes just going to lie about it so you'll think hes special.
Now I could respond more to this claim directly myself...but I'm not going to.
Instead I'm going to outsource my response to my team of professional bullshit analysts, first from our Irony Department, the Rev, Franklin Graham who also gave a speech at Trump's inauguration:
“Mr. President, in the Bible, rain is a sign of God’s blessing. And it started to rain, Mr. President, when you came to the platform (for his inaugural speech).”
Now not only does that sound like it was totally raining during Trump's speech...it sounds like that should be seen as a good thing as far as God's concerned....and if Trump was telling the truth that it really did stop raining when he started talking, that would mean even God hates him.
But I dont really trust Rev Graham on this any more than I do Trump (either that or Graham and I have very different recollections about Noah and his Ark) so I'd like some visual proof, which happened to be collected by my other trained bullshit analysts:
First up, Former First and Second Ladies Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, as well as Former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton:
Ladies was it raining during trumps inauguration?:
I'm going to go ahead and say between the poncho and the umbrella, that 3 votes for "it was raining"
But of course, all 3 of those ladies are Democrats...and therefore want to make Trump look bad....so lets get some republican opinions
Former President George W. Bush, was it raining at Trump's inauguration?
That looks to be another yes.......though lets be fair to Trump, he did admit it was raining, just not when he was speaking....and we cant be 100% sure those pictures were taken as he was speaking...so lets go to one last Bullshit analyst and a expert on Donald Trump.......First Lady Melania Trump:
Madam First Lady, was it raining when your husband was speaking????
Yep....I think that evidence is irrefutable.....even Donald Trump's wife thinks he's full of shit on this one.
So remember folks....if you really want to piss Trump off.....just keep pointing out how on the most important day of his life we all had better things to do.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
The Right Wing Presidential Recount Conspiracy
If you've been following the news recently you might have heard Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has successfully raised 4 million dollars for recounts of the popular vote in the states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, all of which were won by about 1% by Donald Trump.
Now to the right wing wack jobs....this is evidence of a massive conspiracy as evidenced by their headlines:
First per The Donald's personal media site Breitbart: "
Jill Stein Trying to ‘Delegitimize’ Trump With Recount"
Now to the right wing wack jobs....this is evidence of a massive conspiracy as evidenced by their headlines:
First per The Donald's personal media site Breitbart: "
Jill Stein Trying to ‘Delegitimize’ Trump With Recount"
Or the home of Birthism, WorldNetDaily:
"Operation steal seeks recount to declare Hillary president"
Shockingly thought......it turns out they are 100% correct.
Generally speaking the purpose of a recount is because you dont believe the results are correct and your hoping a recount will change those results.
That's not a conspiracy....thats the fucking point of a recount.
But apparently the right wing cant wrap their heads around that, as the mental gymnastics and accusations they have to go through to get their is crazy.
For example, from that 2nd InfoWars article:
"Some Trump supporters are concerned that Jill Stein’s recount is an attempt to steal the election for Hillary Clinton after questions were asked as to why the recount is only taking place in closely fought swing states that Trump won.
“This is not being done to benefit one candidate at the expense of the other,” Stein told PBS.
If that’s the case, why is Stein only fundraising to conduct recounts in states where Trump won?"
Literally just explained this. No one ever asks for a recount of results they agree with....its not a thing that happens
"Hillary won New Hampshire, Minnesota & Nevada by fewer votes than Trump won Pennsylvania, but there will be no recount in any of those three states.
While Trump won Pennsylvania by around 78,000 votes, Clinton won New Hampshire by less than 3,000 votes. Hillary won Minnesota by less than 44,000 votes and Nevada by around 26,000 votes.
"Operation steal seeks recount to declare Hillary president"
And per Infowars, home of most right wing conspiracy theories and infamous conspiracy theorists Alex Jones:
"BREAKING: DEMOCRAT COUNTER-COUP AGAINST TRUMP IN PROGRESS"
"IS JILL STEIN’S RECOUNT AN ATTEMPT TO STEAL THE ELECTION FOR HILLARY?"
"BREAKING: DEMOCRAT COUNTER-COUP AGAINST TRUMP IN PROGRESS"
"IS JILL STEIN’S RECOUNT AN ATTEMPT TO STEAL THE ELECTION FOR HILLARY?"
Generally speaking the purpose of a recount is because you dont believe the results are correct and your hoping a recount will change those results.
That's not a conspiracy....thats the fucking point of a recount.
But apparently the right wing cant wrap their heads around that, as the mental gymnastics and accusations they have to go through to get their is crazy.
For example, from that 2nd InfoWars article:
"Some Trump supporters are concerned that Jill Stein’s recount is an attempt to steal the election for Hillary Clinton after questions were asked as to why the recount is only taking place in closely fought swing states that Trump won.
“This is not being done to benefit one candidate at the expense of the other,” Stein told PBS.
If that’s the case, why is Stein only fundraising to conduct recounts in states where Trump won?"
Literally just explained this. No one ever asks for a recount of results they agree with....its not a thing that happens
"Hillary won New Hampshire, Minnesota & Nevada by fewer votes than Trump won Pennsylvania, but there will be no recount in any of those three states.
While Trump won Pennsylvania by around 78,000 votes, Clinton won New Hampshire by less than 3,000 votes. Hillary won Minnesota by less than 44,000 votes and Nevada by around 26,000 votes.
If this was a fair and impartial effort to recount closely fought swing states, at least one of the recounts should be taking place in a state where Hillary won, but that isn’t the case.".
I havnt checked the numbers, but I know they are more or less right here, Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota were very close Clinton wins.
Now if only there was something someone could do about that......like raise money for a recount in those states as well....maybe some right wing group like Info Wars could do that?
NAHHH, that would require time, effect, and of course the believe Trump actually won those states.....which I have to say, as much as they are whining about recounts, I'm not sure the right wing has.
Ok, so look, to be completely fair, the chances of Steins recount actually changing the results of the election is incredibly small. Trump currently has 306 electoral votes, and needs to keep at least 270 to win. Meaning the recount would have to flip 38 electoral votes.
The combined votes of those 3 states is 46....but the smallest of those states is worth 10 votes. Which basically means, the only way to remove 38 electoral votes from Trump is to flip ALL 3.
They ALL have to go to Clinton or nothing changes.
So realistically, this is not a thing that Trump supporters should worry about...unless the results in Florida are also challenged (as they too are razor thin for Trump, but they are not currently being challenged) as Florida + any of the other 3 states could tip the election if the results changed......but again even that is very very very very very very very unlikely.
And of course that brings us right back to where we started on this bit.....if the right wing is that worried those 3 states or potentially Florida flipping....file recounts in NH, NV and MN...y'all have that right.
So this isnt a conspiracy and right wingers arnt helpless....despite the fact the remainder of that InfoWars article makes them out to be so:
"Stein’s recount effort only began after computer scientists claiming anomalies between the electronic voting machine results and the paper ballot results met with the Clinton campaign and asserted that the vote may have been “hacked”.
That explanation also makes zero sense in the case of Michigan, which didn’t use electronic voting machines.
“We are an entire paper and optical scan state,” Chris Thomas, the longtime director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections, told the Detroit Free Press. “Nothing is connected to the Internet.”
The vote has already been counted twice in Michigan. A quick count was conducted and the results announced on the morning of November 9th. A second certified count was then conducted, with the final results announced yesterday, with Trump winning by 10,704.
If a third vote count in Michigan, which only uses paper ballots, was to flip the state to Hillary, this would obviously suggest vote fraud not with regard to the original vote, but the recount itself.
Questions are also swirling as to how Stein managed to raise such a whopping sum of money, now over $4.7 million dollars, in such a short space of time given that she only raised around $3 million dollars for her entire campaign.
Suspicions over the regularity and timing of the donations have also led some to claim that the entire process is illegitimate."
See, instead of suggesting Right Wingers do something proactive (like demand the recounts they are entitled too in the 3 states mentioned), InfoWar's "solution" is to attack the legitimacy of the Stein Recounts....even though they are highly highly unlikely to work.
They apparently cant believe that a recount that clearly would benefit the candidate most people voted for might actually be able to raise a ton of money real fast to see if she [clinton] did actually win. Stein is being attacked on the same lines in pretty much all the other headlines I mentioned too....they are all going after the legitimacy of the money she raised and how impossible it is for this to have happened.
There is something else telling here as well....given the amount of effort going into delegitimizing the recall effort...the right seems terrified Trump didnt actually win a couple of those states.
And that wouldnt be a new thing either. Quoting from the other InfoWars article I mentioned at the top:
"Calls for a recount and the erroneous assertion that Hillary won the popular vote are fueling the latest sneak effort by the globalists to rip the control out of the hands of the rightful heirs: The American Patriots."
Its the bold part that's relevant here Hillary DID win the popular vote, as even Donald Trump admits. Now of course the popular vote doesnt matter as far as who becomes president......but the right wing is out to undermine it anyways....anything they have to do to make the Recounts appear build on a false idea and completely illegitimate to ask for.....because deep down, they seem to be terrified Jill Stein is right and Donald Trump didnt win.
Though I will be fair and close with one more quote from a slightly more sane Right Winger, the guy mentioned in the Breitbart Article I mentioned at the beginning, a radio host named Craig Melvin...who actually said something I somewhat agree with:
“I would like to float another theory out there , my own personal theory perhaps, that this could be an effort, an early effort to try and delegitimize a president before he’s sworn in. If you can create this idea, plant this seed with a significant number of people in the country, that it was rigged—oh, the irony—then, perhaps, maybe that’s — maybe that’s part of it.”
Yes, it would be ironic if, after Donald Trump spent weeks if not months claiming the elections were rigged against him and after the GOP spend 8 years floating crazy idea after crazy idea about how Barack Obama wasnt a legitimate president.....because say he was born in Kenya, at least according to Donald Trump, that it would now be Donald Trump whose viewed as the illegitimate president.
But again, even this is based on the premise that the recounts cut into Trump's electoral lead, if not outright reverse it.
If all 3 recounts take place, and if all 3 recounts reveal Trump actually did win the state (which is a MUCH more likely outcome than Hillary taking any of them, let alone all 3), that actually supports the idea that Donald Trump was legitimately elected President...in fact we went back and proved it twice.
So instead of being an effort to "delegitimize a president before he’s sworn in", it would actually wind up legitimizing him.
But this is apparently a thought that is well above and beyond most right wing media. Because at the end of the day, it seems even they cant believe they actually won, and are convinced everyone must still be out to get them.
They've become so paranoid they cant take yes for an answer. If they werent about to be running the country, this would be fucking hilarious.
I havnt checked the numbers, but I know they are more or less right here, Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota were very close Clinton wins.
Now if only there was something someone could do about that......like raise money for a recount in those states as well....maybe some right wing group like Info Wars could do that?
NAHHH, that would require time, effect, and of course the believe Trump actually won those states.....which I have to say, as much as they are whining about recounts, I'm not sure the right wing has.
Ok, so look, to be completely fair, the chances of Steins recount actually changing the results of the election is incredibly small. Trump currently has 306 electoral votes, and needs to keep at least 270 to win. Meaning the recount would have to flip 38 electoral votes.
The combined votes of those 3 states is 46....but the smallest of those states is worth 10 votes. Which basically means, the only way to remove 38 electoral votes from Trump is to flip ALL 3.
They ALL have to go to Clinton or nothing changes.
So realistically, this is not a thing that Trump supporters should worry about...unless the results in Florida are also challenged (as they too are razor thin for Trump, but they are not currently being challenged) as Florida + any of the other 3 states could tip the election if the results changed......but again even that is very very very very very very very unlikely.
And of course that brings us right back to where we started on this bit.....if the right wing is that worried those 3 states or potentially Florida flipping....file recounts in NH, NV and MN...y'all have that right.
So this isnt a conspiracy and right wingers arnt helpless....despite the fact the remainder of that InfoWars article makes them out to be so:
"Stein’s recount effort only began after computer scientists claiming anomalies between the electronic voting machine results and the paper ballot results met with the Clinton campaign and asserted that the vote may have been “hacked”.
That explanation also makes zero sense in the case of Michigan, which didn’t use electronic voting machines.
“We are an entire paper and optical scan state,” Chris Thomas, the longtime director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections, told the Detroit Free Press. “Nothing is connected to the Internet.”
The vote has already been counted twice in Michigan. A quick count was conducted and the results announced on the morning of November 9th. A second certified count was then conducted, with the final results announced yesterday, with Trump winning by 10,704.
If a third vote count in Michigan, which only uses paper ballots, was to flip the state to Hillary, this would obviously suggest vote fraud not with regard to the original vote, but the recount itself.
Questions are also swirling as to how Stein managed to raise such a whopping sum of money, now over $4.7 million dollars, in such a short space of time given that she only raised around $3 million dollars for her entire campaign.
Suspicions over the regularity and timing of the donations have also led some to claim that the entire process is illegitimate."
See, instead of suggesting Right Wingers do something proactive (like demand the recounts they are entitled too in the 3 states mentioned), InfoWar's "solution" is to attack the legitimacy of the Stein Recounts....even though they are highly highly unlikely to work.
They apparently cant believe that a recount that clearly would benefit the candidate most people voted for might actually be able to raise a ton of money real fast to see if she [clinton] did actually win. Stein is being attacked on the same lines in pretty much all the other headlines I mentioned too....they are all going after the legitimacy of the money she raised and how impossible it is for this to have happened.
There is something else telling here as well....given the amount of effort going into delegitimizing the recall effort...the right seems terrified Trump didnt actually win a couple of those states.
And that wouldnt be a new thing either. Quoting from the other InfoWars article I mentioned at the top:
"Calls for a recount and the erroneous assertion that Hillary won the popular vote are fueling the latest sneak effort by the globalists to rip the control out of the hands of the rightful heirs: The American Patriots."
Its the bold part that's relevant here Hillary DID win the popular vote, as even Donald Trump admits. Now of course the popular vote doesnt matter as far as who becomes president......but the right wing is out to undermine it anyways....anything they have to do to make the Recounts appear build on a false idea and completely illegitimate to ask for.....because deep down, they seem to be terrified Jill Stein is right and Donald Trump didnt win.
Though I will be fair and close with one more quote from a slightly more sane Right Winger, the guy mentioned in the Breitbart Article I mentioned at the beginning, a radio host named Craig Melvin...who actually said something I somewhat agree with:
“I would like to float another theory out there , my own personal theory perhaps, that this could be an effort, an early effort to try and delegitimize a president before he’s sworn in. If you can create this idea, plant this seed with a significant number of people in the country, that it was rigged—oh, the irony—then, perhaps, maybe that’s — maybe that’s part of it.”
Yes, it would be ironic if, after Donald Trump spent weeks if not months claiming the elections were rigged against him and after the GOP spend 8 years floating crazy idea after crazy idea about how Barack Obama wasnt a legitimate president.....because say he was born in Kenya, at least according to Donald Trump, that it would now be Donald Trump whose viewed as the illegitimate president.
But again, even this is based on the premise that the recounts cut into Trump's electoral lead, if not outright reverse it.
If all 3 recounts take place, and if all 3 recounts reveal Trump actually did win the state (which is a MUCH more likely outcome than Hillary taking any of them, let alone all 3), that actually supports the idea that Donald Trump was legitimately elected President...in fact we went back and proved it twice.
So instead of being an effort to "delegitimize a president before he’s sworn in", it would actually wind up legitimizing him.
But this is apparently a thought that is well above and beyond most right wing media. Because at the end of the day, it seems even they cant believe they actually won, and are convinced everyone must still be out to get them.
They've become so paranoid they cant take yes for an answer. If they werent about to be running the country, this would be fucking hilarious.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
What the fuck just happened 2016?
With all due respect to whatculutre.com and their bit with with same name.....WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED!?!?
Donald Trump is the President-Elect of the United States.
Now to say this is unexpected would be a massive understatement.....in fact reporting has come out that even the RNC's internal polls had Trump losing.
Donald Trump is the President-Elect of the United States.
Now to say this is unexpected would be a massive understatement.....in fact reporting has come out that even the RNC's internal polls had Trump losing.
Still, Donald Trump is the President-Elect of the United States.
Hillary Clinton WON the popular vote. The majority of american saw through Donald Trump's bullshit.
Still, Donald Trump is the President-Elect of the United States.
So how did this happen?
Well on paper the answer seems easy enough, in a massive shock Wisconsin went red for the first time since 1984, and Hillary Clinton massively under-preformed in (still uncalled) Michigan and Pennsylvania, the latter of which went red for the first time since 1988.
Well on paper the answer seems easy enough, in a massive shock Wisconsin went red for the first time since 1984, and Hillary Clinton massively under-preformed in (still uncalled) Michigan and Pennsylvania, the latter of which went red for the first time since 1988.
But honestly, I think the answer is slightly more insidious, and complicated.
For starters I think it was the "they are both the same" mentality that people embraced as a way to "tune out" the election.
People heard Trump was a bad candidate. As he was, I mean look no farther than what he wants to do to women's vagnias, or his views on giving more countries nuclear weapons.
For starters I think it was the "they are both the same" mentality that people embraced as a way to "tune out" the election.
People heard Trump was a bad candidate. As he was, I mean look no farther than what he wants to do to women's vagnias, or his views on giving more countries nuclear weapons.
But they would also hear Hillary was a bad candidate. And she was, I mean look no farther than her wall street speeches or complete inability to defend herself on her emails.
So many people decided "They both suck" was an easier position to take than figuring out who was the lesser of two evils and voting for that one.
Which is INSANE because in no way were Trump and Hillary equally as bad on almost any given issue.
For example, Abortion.
If your pro choice, you can not honestly believe Donald "I would overturn Roe V Wade and Punish Women who have abortions" Trump is as bad as Hillary "well Im not exactly in favor of late term abortions" Clinton on that issue
Or on free trade, you cant honestly believe Hillary "I have a public and private position on TPP" Clinton and Donald "I oppose the TPP, CAFTA and NAFTA" Trump were going to exactly the same on that issue.
Now yes, you might find yourself agreeing with one on one issue and the other on the other....but that doesnt mean they are equally as bad, that means you have to decide which of those issues is slightly more important to you and vote that way.
But people think that is hard, and they cant be bothered.
And this in turn I think led to many people voting 3rd party, cause hey, then you can send a message to the "establishment" they suck....even when the candidates your voting for tend to hold the same position as the ones you think suck.
For example I have bad news for any pro choice people who voted Gary Johnson over Hillary....hes anti abortion like Trump. Ditto by the way if your anti free trade and voted Jill Stein over Trump...shes pro free trade.
So you didnt make a choice...you took the easy way out.
I happened to watch the election with a group of people who all voted 3rd party, or didnt vote. Now as the night dragged on, and our state wasnt called for either candidate....and was looking more and more necessary for Clinton to win to have a chance of winning, I watched recrimination after recrimination go around the room, mostly a lot of "oh god maybe I should have voted for clinton".
Now my state DID eventually go for Clinton, not that it mattered at the end of the day.
But a lot of other states didnt. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in particular didnt go for Clinton. Neither did Florida. Michigan and Airizona havnt been called yet, but still probably wont go to clinton. New Hampshire hasnt been called yet either....that might go to Clinton though.
But heres the thing, look at the vote totals out of those states:
So many people decided "They both suck" was an easier position to take than figuring out who was the lesser of two evils and voting for that one.
Which is INSANE because in no way were Trump and Hillary equally as bad on almost any given issue.
For example, Abortion.
If your pro choice, you can not honestly believe Donald "I would overturn Roe V Wade and Punish Women who have abortions" Trump is as bad as Hillary "well Im not exactly in favor of late term abortions" Clinton on that issue
Or on free trade, you cant honestly believe Hillary "I have a public and private position on TPP" Clinton and Donald "I oppose the TPP, CAFTA and NAFTA" Trump were going to exactly the same on that issue.
Now yes, you might find yourself agreeing with one on one issue and the other on the other....but that doesnt mean they are equally as bad, that means you have to decide which of those issues is slightly more important to you and vote that way.
But people think that is hard, and they cant be bothered.
And this in turn I think led to many people voting 3rd party, cause hey, then you can send a message to the "establishment" they suck....even when the candidates your voting for tend to hold the same position as the ones you think suck.
For example I have bad news for any pro choice people who voted Gary Johnson over Hillary....hes anti abortion like Trump. Ditto by the way if your anti free trade and voted Jill Stein over Trump...shes pro free trade.
So you didnt make a choice...you took the easy way out.
I happened to watch the election with a group of people who all voted 3rd party, or didnt vote. Now as the night dragged on, and our state wasnt called for either candidate....and was looking more and more necessary for Clinton to win to have a chance of winning, I watched recrimination after recrimination go around the room, mostly a lot of "oh god maybe I should have voted for clinton".
Now my state DID eventually go for Clinton, not that it mattered at the end of the day.
But a lot of other states didnt. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in particular didnt go for Clinton. Neither did Florida. Michigan and Airizona havnt been called yet, but still probably wont go to clinton. New Hampshire hasnt been called yet either....that might go to Clinton though.
But heres the thing, look at the vote totals out of those states:
Wisconsin was 1,382,210 votes for Clinton and 1,409,467 votes for Trump.
So Trump won by 27,257 votes.
Pennsylvania was Clinton: 2,844,705, Trump: 2,912,941. A difference of 68,236.
So Trump won by 27,257 votes.
Pennsylvania was Clinton: 2,844,705, Trump: 2,912,941. A difference of 68,236.
Florida was Clinton 4,485,745, Trump 4,605,515. A difference of 119,770
And Michigan seems set for similar numbers...though as it hasnt been called yet, I wont be doing the math for that one. Ditto with New Hampshire (Arizona has Trump up 5% at the moment, so not that close)
Still in all cases, those are TINY numbers.
In fact, in Wisconsin,
And Michigan seems set for similar numbers...though as it hasnt been called yet, I wont be doing the math for that one. Ditto with New Hampshire (Arizona has Trump up 5% at the moment, so not that close)
Still in all cases, those are TINY numbers.
In fact, in Wisconsin,
Gary Johnson got 106,442, or almost 5 times the difference in the vote total
And Jill Stein beat the difference in the vote total, she got 30,980.
And the Constitution Party, Workers World, and Independent party got about 15,000 combined. (and Im betting you never heard of those parties before)
Those numbers by the way, play out the same in PA
Gary Johnson himself beat that number. He got 142,653 votes.
Gary Johnson himself beat that number. He got 142,653 votes.
Jill Stein even almost beat that number, she got 48,912
Heck even the Constitution party candidate in PA got about a 1/3 of that difference with 20,896 votes
And Florida, Gary Johnson got 206,007, roughly double the vote difference
And Florida, Gary Johnson got 206,007, roughly double the vote difference
Stein and other 3rd parties got a total of about 80,000 for the record.
Michigan seems set for an even narrower decision, with about 10-15,000 votes being the deciding factor...meaning this time even the Constitution party probably has more votes than than, let alone Stein and Johnson.
And, just for the record in New Hampshire right now, Clintons lead is less than 1,000 votes...so pretty much ALL 3rd parties beat that difference in the votes.
Now your probibily thinking....whats my point?
Well first, anyone who voted 3rd party in any of those states and woke up this morning going "holy fuck, what the fuck just happened, how can Donald Freaking Trump be president?"......I got news for you, YOUR THE GOD DAMN REASON WHY.
Now look I admit, Im sure some of those 3rd party voters are happier with Trump than Clinton, or legitimately are 3rd party and didnt do it because "both candidates suck" but I have a sneaking suspicion in all 3 of those states there were definitely enough voters who would have preferred Clinton to Trump but voted 3rd party cause they "both suck" to swing those states.
Now what difference would that have made?
Well at the moment with the 3 states uncalled, the Electoral vote is 228 for Clinton and 279 for Donald Trump (and 31 still up for grabs).
But, lets say instead of voting 3rd party, all the "we prefer Hillary to Trump" people actually voted for Hillary and switched those 3 states (PA, WI and presumably MI) blue?
Then the Electoral map would be 274 votes for Clinton and 249 votes for Trump (with 15 unassigned between AZ and NH).
in otherwords Hillary would have won. And it turns out, she wouldnt even need New Hampshire.
And Florida by the way is worth 29 electoral votes, meaning she could have lost any 2 of those 3 listed above +NH, AND STILL WON.
But hey, both candidates sucked and you voted 3rd party.....good fucking job.
And too be honest, I dont mean to direct that just to the "prefer Hillary" 3rd party voters in MI, WI and PA.....it applies to the voters in NH, CO, MA. MN, and NV voters as well, where Hillary won by about 1-2%...or any state like VA that took a lot longer to call than it should even it it wasnt close (5%) win....you all just got fucking lucky your state went the way of your second choice.
Now I know some people are going to think maybe I'm being a bit unfair to the 3rd party voters, I mean you know if the democrats had run a better candidate....like say Bernie Sanders, then maybe those folks would have voted Democrat, and you know we wouldnt have record 3rd party support in a lot of states.
To which I say, I dont think Im being unfair at all....its not my problem those people didnt understand the possible consequences of their actions.....but Im understandably pissed we all have to live with them....despite the plurality of us voting for Hillary Clinton.
Which brings us to the ultimate irony here.....at the end of the day, Donald Trump was 100% correct. The system IS rigged, as for the second time in 16 years we get set to swear in our 2nd republican president who failed to win a majority of the popular vote.
Thank you Electoral College. And thank you Founding Fathers for creating the Electoral College cause the average american was too stupid to elect the "right" person to be president.
The last 2 (of 5) times we really got a pair of geniuses foisted on us because we were too stupid to pick the "better and more qualified" one. And actually given that one of those 3 previous times resulted in us getting President Hayes, who ended Reconstruction in the south, and let them put Jim Crow laws and legal discrimination in place for the next century, I think we should really consider you guys 2 for 5 (at best) in terms of making sure we got the best choice cause we are too dumb to pick it our selves.
And, just for the record in New Hampshire right now, Clintons lead is less than 1,000 votes...so pretty much ALL 3rd parties beat that difference in the votes.
Now your probibily thinking....whats my point?
Well first, anyone who voted 3rd party in any of those states and woke up this morning going "holy fuck, what the fuck just happened, how can Donald Freaking Trump be president?"......I got news for you, YOUR THE GOD DAMN REASON WHY.
Now look I admit, Im sure some of those 3rd party voters are happier with Trump than Clinton, or legitimately are 3rd party and didnt do it because "both candidates suck" but I have a sneaking suspicion in all 3 of those states there were definitely enough voters who would have preferred Clinton to Trump but voted 3rd party cause they "both suck" to swing those states.
Now what difference would that have made?
Well at the moment with the 3 states uncalled, the Electoral vote is 228 for Clinton and 279 for Donald Trump (and 31 still up for grabs).
But, lets say instead of voting 3rd party, all the "we prefer Hillary to Trump" people actually voted for Hillary and switched those 3 states (PA, WI and presumably MI) blue?
Then the Electoral map would be 274 votes for Clinton and 249 votes for Trump (with 15 unassigned between AZ and NH).
in otherwords Hillary would have won. And it turns out, she wouldnt even need New Hampshire.
And Florida by the way is worth 29 electoral votes, meaning she could have lost any 2 of those 3 listed above +NH, AND STILL WON.
But hey, both candidates sucked and you voted 3rd party.....good fucking job.
And too be honest, I dont mean to direct that just to the "prefer Hillary" 3rd party voters in MI, WI and PA.....it applies to the voters in NH, CO, MA. MN, and NV voters as well, where Hillary won by about 1-2%...or any state like VA that took a lot longer to call than it should even it it wasnt close (5%) win....you all just got fucking lucky your state went the way of your second choice.
Now I know some people are going to think maybe I'm being a bit unfair to the 3rd party voters, I mean you know if the democrats had run a better candidate....like say Bernie Sanders, then maybe those folks would have voted Democrat, and you know we wouldnt have record 3rd party support in a lot of states.
To which I say, I dont think Im being unfair at all....its not my problem those people didnt understand the possible consequences of their actions.....but Im understandably pissed we all have to live with them....despite the plurality of us voting for Hillary Clinton.
Which brings us to the ultimate irony here.....at the end of the day, Donald Trump was 100% correct. The system IS rigged, as for the second time in 16 years we get set to swear in our 2nd republican president who failed to win a majority of the popular vote.
Thank you Electoral College. And thank you Founding Fathers for creating the Electoral College cause the average american was too stupid to elect the "right" person to be president.
The last 2 (of 5) times we really got a pair of geniuses foisted on us because we were too stupid to pick the "better and more qualified" one. And actually given that one of those 3 previous times resulted in us getting President Hayes, who ended Reconstruction in the south, and let them put Jim Crow laws and legal discrimination in place for the next century, I think we should really consider you guys 2 for 5 (at best) in terms of making sure we got the best choice cause we are too dumb to pick it our selves.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Early Sleepers Guide to when you can sleep on election night 2016
Alright, so even if youve been living under a rock, you know theres an election tomorrow. Hell an alien ship could crash land in the middle alaska, and the one thing they would know by the time their people came to pick them up is we have an election.
And youve probibily also heard its going to be a close election, which usually means a long night..and you might need to go to bed early
So with that in mind, heres the early sleepers guide to election night 2016:
Ok so first, we establish the states that wont have any real surprises for each side,
For Hillary Clinton, thats VT, MA, RI, NY, CT, NJ, MD, VA, DC, WI, MN, IL, CO, NM, CA, OR, WA, HI and 3 votes from ME, for a starting total of 252 of the needed 270 electoral votes.
For Donald Trump thats WV, IN, KY, TN, SC, AL, MS, LA, AK, MO. KS, TX, OK, ND, SD, MT, WY, ID, AK and 4 Votes from NE, for a starting total of 157 votes.
Now you can see already, Trumps winning more states....but Clintons winning the more populated states, and since the electoral college (EC) works on population, that means Clinton has almost an 100 EC vote lead, and is much closer than Trump is to victory.
Now this also leaves several swing states, NH, MI, OH, IA, NC, GA, FL, NV, UT, AZ, and 1 vote each from ME and NE are the commonly accepted swing states.
Though to be honest, I think thats actually way to broad....it now seems a safe bet Clinton will pick up MI, and Trump is a near lock to win GA, UT and that 1 vote from NE, and a safe bet for AZ, and IA as well
Making the new totals Clinton 268 to 197 for Trump.
This leaves NH, OH, NC, FL, NV, and that 1 ME vote as the remaining swing votes.
And to be honest, there is no way for a 269/270 split, meaning that one vote in ME is basically worthless as far as affecting someones chances to win, so we can ignore it.
Of these remaining 5 states, its not outside the realm of possibility that either candidate wins, any of them, and in theory a win in any of them puts Hillary Clinton over the top and makes her president.
Trump by comparison needs to win all 5, so the odds dont appear in his favor from this initial set up.
But upsets happen, and its likely going to take some time for any of those 5 states to actually get called, so the question becomes how soon can you safely go to bed.
And of course each side has a couple of "reach states" the would like to take from the other, Clinton would like to pick off GA and AZ from Trumps pile.
Trump meanwhile would like MI and PA from Clintons pile.
Now because we are trying to get this done early....Im not going to focus too much on AZ, I think the race could and will be called before anyone tries to call AZ
now because Clinton is so close to winning, the truth is, if they call GA as "too close to call" , you can probably safely go to bed....the chances of Trump not getting a solid win in GA and picking up all 5 of those swing states is incredibly small unless he scores an upset in PA
And if they already called PA for Clinton, and then GA as "too close to call"...go to bed, Clinton's going to win, the odds of trump running the table on those 5 states is basically nill.
Conversely if they call PA as "too close to call" and GA for Trump.....your going to be pulling late hours, and Trumps got a decent shot, as this particular set up results in a 248/197 Clinton lead.
But if they call FL for Clinton in this situation....you can probably go to bed, that kicks her up to 277...if she holds MI. However none of the other swings put her over the top alone, if she can win two of them though...you can sleep.
And of course, the reverse is true as well, if GA goes red and MI goes "too close to call", and Clinton picks up FL and keeps PA....shes got 281, you can sleep now.
However in this case, she could also win in OH and have exactly 270....meaning you can go to bed if that call is made for Clinton as well.
But what if they call GA for Trump and both MI and PA as "too close to call"?
Well at this point, its officially a fight, with Clinton at 232 to Trumps 197....but I dont like Clintons chances if she cant lock down both MI and PA, so you can probably go to bed.
And if Trump somehow wins both PA and MI (plus GA), then its going to be a very long night. At that point the EC vote total is a Trump lead of 233 to 232....and no one of the 5 swing states is large enough for either candidate to win....though again the safe bet is this means Trump wins cause theres not any likely situation in which Clinton can lose those 2 states, and still have a chance of winning enough of the remaining 5 to win.
Finally we get to the least likely situation of all, and the only one that likely requires you staying up past 10 o'clock EDT or so,
Trump wins PA and MI but loses GA and AZ.
This would result in total and utter annihilation of the space time continuum (cause of how extremely unlikely it is)
no seriously, this would give us a 259 to 206 EC vote split....with Hillary still winning. Now this and a call in any of FL, NC or OH for Hillary would allow you to go to bed, she just won (somehow).
This also happens to be the ONLY case in which that 1 vote in ME is at all relevant, as a call for Hillary in both NV and NH would give her 269 votes....meaning that ME vote could put her over the top.
Conversely this also means, if they only call NH and NV for Hillary in this situation, and Trump gets the rest......we have a tie.
Which means every body should make their way to the nearest bar and drink them out of businesses...we are totally fucked.
So yea, there you have it....at least for the presidential race, it might actually be an early night...assuming no surprises it will take only 1 call of one of the east coast/central swings (NH, FL, NC or OH) for Clinton...and we can all call it a night.
And even in most of the likely surprise cases where one of the 4 possible reach states gets flipped or at least turned "too close to call" you probably wont have to be up all that late....maybe 11 or midnight EDT.
Now if you care about the senate races.....thats going to be a whole different problem....and you better get the coffee ready cause you likely wont be sleeping anytime soon.
So the odds are extremely good the Democrats will take 3 Republican Seats specifically IL, WI and PA (in that order of likelyhood). But to take the senate....they need 5, 4 if Hillary wins.
The only other seats they have a chance at are in NH and MO, now if they lose both of them....thats it for the senate, you can call it a night and go to bed once the presidential race is called.
But if they win either or both....things get real bumpy.
See even if the pick up either seat, the senate still isnt decided no matter the presidential race outcome.
See the democrats are defending a seat as well in a very tight race....in Nevada.
Which means if you want to know for SURE who's going to control the senate, if the Dems take only 1 of those seats, you have to wait until the results come in from Nevada AND the presidential election....and the absolute earliest the NV results are coming in is 10pm EDT....but dont count on it cause thats when polls close and short of a blowout its going to take a while to count those votes.
So the only way your getting an early night for the senate is if Hillary wins the presidency early, AND the dems take both the MO and NH seats (thereby rending the NV seat kinda irrelevant since the VP breaks ties), and to be honest....I dont see this being the most likely outcome as I dont think the dems are taking the MO seat.
So there you have it, early sleepers.....the chances you wont have to stay up late tomorrow, and the "calls" that can signal you when its safe to sleep....or not as the case may be.
And youve probibily also heard its going to be a close election, which usually means a long night..and you might need to go to bed early
So with that in mind, heres the early sleepers guide to election night 2016:
Ok so first, we establish the states that wont have any real surprises for each side,
For Hillary Clinton, thats VT, MA, RI, NY, CT, NJ, MD, VA, DC, WI, MN, IL, CO, NM, CA, OR, WA, HI and 3 votes from ME, for a starting total of 252 of the needed 270 electoral votes.
For Donald Trump thats WV, IN, KY, TN, SC, AL, MS, LA, AK, MO. KS, TX, OK, ND, SD, MT, WY, ID, AK and 4 Votes from NE, for a starting total of 157 votes.
Now you can see already, Trumps winning more states....but Clintons winning the more populated states, and since the electoral college (EC) works on population, that means Clinton has almost an 100 EC vote lead, and is much closer than Trump is to victory.
Now this also leaves several swing states, NH, MI, OH, IA, NC, GA, FL, NV, UT, AZ, and 1 vote each from ME and NE are the commonly accepted swing states.
Though to be honest, I think thats actually way to broad....it now seems a safe bet Clinton will pick up MI, and Trump is a near lock to win GA, UT and that 1 vote from NE, and a safe bet for AZ, and IA as well
Making the new totals Clinton 268 to 197 for Trump.
This leaves NH, OH, NC, FL, NV, and that 1 ME vote as the remaining swing votes.
And to be honest, there is no way for a 269/270 split, meaning that one vote in ME is basically worthless as far as affecting someones chances to win, so we can ignore it.
Of these remaining 5 states, its not outside the realm of possibility that either candidate wins, any of them, and in theory a win in any of them puts Hillary Clinton over the top and makes her president.
Trump by comparison needs to win all 5, so the odds dont appear in his favor from this initial set up.
But upsets happen, and its likely going to take some time for any of those 5 states to actually get called, so the question becomes how soon can you safely go to bed.
And of course each side has a couple of "reach states" the would like to take from the other, Clinton would like to pick off GA and AZ from Trumps pile.
Trump meanwhile would like MI and PA from Clintons pile.
Now because we are trying to get this done early....Im not going to focus too much on AZ, I think the race could and will be called before anyone tries to call AZ
now because Clinton is so close to winning, the truth is, if they call GA as "too close to call" , you can probably safely go to bed....the chances of Trump not getting a solid win in GA and picking up all 5 of those swing states is incredibly small unless he scores an upset in PA
And if they already called PA for Clinton, and then GA as "too close to call"...go to bed, Clinton's going to win, the odds of trump running the table on those 5 states is basically nill.
Conversely if they call PA as "too close to call" and GA for Trump.....your going to be pulling late hours, and Trumps got a decent shot, as this particular set up results in a 248/197 Clinton lead.
But if they call FL for Clinton in this situation....you can probably go to bed, that kicks her up to 277...if she holds MI. However none of the other swings put her over the top alone, if she can win two of them though...you can sleep.
And of course, the reverse is true as well, if GA goes red and MI goes "too close to call", and Clinton picks up FL and keeps PA....shes got 281, you can sleep now.
However in this case, she could also win in OH and have exactly 270....meaning you can go to bed if that call is made for Clinton as well.
But what if they call GA for Trump and both MI and PA as "too close to call"?
Well at this point, its officially a fight, with Clinton at 232 to Trumps 197....but I dont like Clintons chances if she cant lock down both MI and PA, so you can probably go to bed.
And if Trump somehow wins both PA and MI (plus GA), then its going to be a very long night. At that point the EC vote total is a Trump lead of 233 to 232....and no one of the 5 swing states is large enough for either candidate to win....though again the safe bet is this means Trump wins cause theres not any likely situation in which Clinton can lose those 2 states, and still have a chance of winning enough of the remaining 5 to win.
Finally we get to the least likely situation of all, and the only one that likely requires you staying up past 10 o'clock EDT or so,
Trump wins PA and MI but loses GA and AZ.
This would result in total and utter annihilation of the space time continuum (cause of how extremely unlikely it is)
no seriously, this would give us a 259 to 206 EC vote split....with Hillary still winning. Now this and a call in any of FL, NC or OH for Hillary would allow you to go to bed, she just won (somehow).
This also happens to be the ONLY case in which that 1 vote in ME is at all relevant, as a call for Hillary in both NV and NH would give her 269 votes....meaning that ME vote could put her over the top.
Conversely this also means, if they only call NH and NV for Hillary in this situation, and Trump gets the rest......we have a tie.
Which means every body should make their way to the nearest bar and drink them out of businesses...we are totally fucked.
So yea, there you have it....at least for the presidential race, it might actually be an early night...assuming no surprises it will take only 1 call of one of the east coast/central swings (NH, FL, NC or OH) for Clinton...and we can all call it a night.
And even in most of the likely surprise cases where one of the 4 possible reach states gets flipped or at least turned "too close to call" you probably wont have to be up all that late....maybe 11 or midnight EDT.
Now if you care about the senate races.....thats going to be a whole different problem....and you better get the coffee ready cause you likely wont be sleeping anytime soon.
So the odds are extremely good the Democrats will take 3 Republican Seats specifically IL, WI and PA (in that order of likelyhood). But to take the senate....they need 5, 4 if Hillary wins.
The only other seats they have a chance at are in NH and MO, now if they lose both of them....thats it for the senate, you can call it a night and go to bed once the presidential race is called.
But if they win either or both....things get real bumpy.
See even if the pick up either seat, the senate still isnt decided no matter the presidential race outcome.
See the democrats are defending a seat as well in a very tight race....in Nevada.
Which means if you want to know for SURE who's going to control the senate, if the Dems take only 1 of those seats, you have to wait until the results come in from Nevada AND the presidential election....and the absolute earliest the NV results are coming in is 10pm EDT....but dont count on it cause thats when polls close and short of a blowout its going to take a while to count those votes.
So the only way your getting an early night for the senate is if Hillary wins the presidency early, AND the dems take both the MO and NH seats (thereby rending the NV seat kinda irrelevant since the VP breaks ties), and to be honest....I dont see this being the most likely outcome as I dont think the dems are taking the MO seat.
So there you have it, early sleepers.....the chances you wont have to stay up late tomorrow, and the "calls" that can signal you when its safe to sleep....or not as the case may be.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
The Second 2016 Presidential Debate Awards
So this is the second installment of the 2016 Presidential debate awards….and this time around its going to be a much smaller “show” mostly because this debate was not the flat out meltdown the last one was. Plus the fact that both candidates dodged most of the questions doesn’t give me much to work with…..and I need good zingers or moments to make this work.
Still, I do have a bit to work with, so here we go, once again the Awards are in the order the events happened at the debate.
We start with:
The “Casual racism” award
This happened in what was basically Trump’s opening remarks, right at the end when he said:
“But I want to do things that haven’t been done, including fixing and making our inner cities better for the African-American citizens that are so great and for the Latinos, Hispanics, and I looking forward to doing- It’s called make America great again.”
Cause, as we all know, only minorities live in the inner cities….in fact the two words are interchangeable, See later one Trump said this:
“Hillary is constantly talking about the inner cities of our country which are a disaster education-wise, job-wise, safety-wise, in every way possible. I’m going to help the African-Americans, I’m going to help the Latinos, Hispanics. I am going to help the inner cities. She has done a terrible job for the African-Americans.”
Later, he did it again:
"I would be a president for all of the people. African-Americans, the inner cities. Devastating what's happening to our inner cities. She’s been talking about for years. As usual, she talks about it, nothing happens. She doesn't get it done. Same with the Latino Americans. The Hispanic Americans. The same exact thing. They talk. They don't get it done. You go into the inner cities, it's 45% poverty. African-Americans now 45% poverty in the inner cities.”
The “Blame Canada” award.
So if you’ve ever seen the south park movie, you probably know that all violence and inappropriate are
Canada’s fault. The same idea is true for Trump….the fact he said he sexually assaults women is actually
ISIS’ fault:
“But this is locker room talk. You know, when we have a world where you have ISIS chopping off heads, where you have them, frankly, drowning people in steel cages, where you have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over and you have so many bad things happening, this is like medieval times. We haven’t seen anything likes this. The carnage all over the world and they look and they see, can you imagine the people that are frankly doing so well against us with ISIS and they look at our country and see what's going on. Yes, I am very embarrassed by it and I hate it, but it's locker room talk and it’s one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS. We are going to defeat ISIS. ISIS happened a number of years ago in a vacuum that was left because of bad judgment. And I will tell you, I will take care of ISIS. We need to get on to much more important and bigger things.”
Or maybe instead of being ISIS’s fault it was all Bill Clintons fault:
“That was locker room talk. I'm not proud of it. I am a person who has great respect for people, for my family, for the people of this country and certainly I am not proud of it, but that was something that happened. If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse. Mine are words and his was action. His words, what he has done to women. There’s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that has been so abusive to women. So you can say any way you want to say it, but Bill Clinton is abusive to women.”
And from there we move on to what a lot of people consider the most shocking moment of the debate:
The “Seig Heil” award.
This is for all those moments in which Donald Trump promised to imprison his political rivals if elected:
“But if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. Because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it. And we’re gonna have a special prosecutor. When I speak, I go out and speak, the people of this country are furious. In my opinion, the people that have been long time workers at the FBI are furious. There has never been anything like this where e-mails, and you get a subpoena. You get a subpoena, and after getting the subpoena you delete 33,000 e-mails and then you acid wash them or bleach them, as you would say. Very expensive process. So we’re gonna get a special prosecutor and we’re gonna look into it. Because you know what, people have been -- their lives have been destroyed for doing 1/5 of what you have done. And it’s a disgrace, and honestly, you oughta be ashamed of.
[…]
Clinton: Everything he just said is absolutely false, but I’m not surprised. In the first debate, I told people it would be impossible to be fact checking Donald all the time. I would never get to talk about anything I’d want to do and how we’re really, going to really, make lives better for people. So once again, go to Hillaryclinton.com. We have literally Trump - you can fact check him in real time. Last time at the first debate ,we had millions of people fact checking so I expect we will have millions more fact checking because, you know, it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.
Trump: Because you would be in jail.”Because jailing political rivals is totally something we do in democracies......and not you know other kinds of unspecified forms of government...
The “WHAT? HUH?” award
Now as you may recall, in the last debate there was this moment where Donald Trump seemed to forget what was going on…….well it happened again.
So here’s a question directed at Hillary Clinton
“Raddatz: And Secretary Clinton, I do want to follow-up on e-mails. You’ve said your handling of your e-mails was a mistake, you’ve disagreed with the FBI Director James Comey calling your handling of classified information “extremely careless”. The FBI said there were 110 classified e-mails which were exchanged, eight of which were top secret and it was possible hostile actors did gain access to those e-mails. You don't call that extremely careless?”
Now after Clinton replies, Trump replies….and then this happens:
“Anderson: We have a question here from Ken Karpowitz, it’s a question about health care.
Trump: I’d liked to know Anderson, Why aren't you bringing up the e-mails? I’d like to know.”
You know….the Email’s Trump literally JUST finished talking about…….unless he forgot already.
And by the way, this exchange kept going….
“Cooper: We brought up the e-mails.
Trump: No it hasn’t, it hasn’t and it hasn't been finished at all.
Cooper: Ken Karpowitz has a question.
Trump: One on three.”
So yea……not only does Trump apparently not remember the last question, any attempt to remind him results in him feeling victimized.
The “Say my name, say my name” award.
This goes to Donald Trump…..but to be honest it really should go to the entire republican party,
For a while now, Republicans have been pushing a rather insane notion that the words “radical Islamic terrorist” have some kind of magical powers….and that just saying them produces tangible results irregardless of any other actions.
Yet, every single time Republicans try to promote this idea, they say some of the most evasive sentences ever. For example as happened in the debate:
“To solve a problem you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least, say the name. She won't say the name and President Obama won't say the name. But the name is there. It's radical Islamic terror. And before you solve it, you have to say the name.”
See, under the very argument this sentence is supposed to pushing, every single instance of “the name” should be replaced with “radical islam” or “radical Islamic terror”
If saying “radical Islam” actually does make you tough and manly as the GOP claims, how come Trump didn’t say:
“To solve a problem you have to be able to state what the problem is, and the problem is radical Islamic terror. She won't say its radical Islamic terroism, and President Obama won't say radical Islamic terrorism. But it's radical Islamic terror. And if you cant call it radical Islamic terror, you cant fix.”
And while its true Trump is not exactly articulate……you can level this same issue and rewrite to pretty much any republican who tries to make this same point, and its pretty funny watching their own argument undercut itself.
Next up, we have a throwback to a popular 90’s tv show….
The “ITS MORPHING TIME!” award.
Again, like all the other awards, this one goes to Donald Trump, when asked about his Muslim ban
“Trump:[…] The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world. Hillary Clinton wants to allow --
Raddatz: Why did it morph into that. No answer the question. Would you please explain whether or not the Muslim ban still stands?
Trump: It is called extreme vetting. We are going to areas like Syria where they are coming in by the tens of thousands because of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wants wants to allow a 550% increase over Obama. People are coming into our country like we have no idea who they are, where they are from, what their feelings about our country is and she wants 550% more[…]“
I like how Trump makes it seem like the whole Muslim ban is sentient and may have changed on its own. Its now a completely independent organism that doesn’t answer to anyone.
Now of course we all know the real reason it “morphed”, is because Trump thinks “extreme vetting” sounds less racist, and he is trying to play to the non-white hood wearing crowd.
But hey, at least the one thing we can all be sure of….Donald Trump is totally running on White Ranger power…..
“If it looks like bullshit and smells like Bullshit….” Award.
This one actually goes to Hillary Clinton for this exchange:
Raddatz: Thank you Mr. Trump. I want to move on. This next question comes from the public through the bipartisan open debate coalition’s online forum where Americans submitted questions that generated millions of votes. This question involves WikiLeaks’ release of purported excerpts of Secretary Clinton’s paid speeches speeches, which she has refused to release. In one line in particular, in which you Secretary Clinton purportedly say, ‘You need both a public and private position on certain issues.’ So, two from Virginia asks: ‘is it okay for politicians to be two-faced? Is it acceptable for a politician to have have a private stance on issues?’ Secretary Clinton? Two minutes.
Clinton: Right. As I recall, that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln after having seen the wonderful Steven Spielberg movie called Lincoln. It was a master class watching president Lincoln get the congress to approve the 13th amendment. It was principled and it was strategic and I was making the point that it is hard, sometimes, to get the congress to do what you want to do. And you have to keep working at it and yes, president Lincoln was trying to convince some people, he used some arguments, convincing other people, he used other arguments. That was a great, I thought, a great display of presidential leadership.”
Ok…you know I never thought I’d say this…but I’m going to let Donald Trump handle this one:
“Trump: I think I should respond because, so ridiculous. Look, now she is blaming -- she got caught in a total lie. Her papers went out to all her friends at the banks, Goldman Sachs and everybody else. And she said things, WikiLeaks, that just came out. And she lied. Now she’s blaming the lie on the late great Abraham Lincoln. That’s when-okay, Honest Abe never lied. That’s the good thing.”
Yea…seriously that was one of the WORST and most awkard attempted deflection jobs I’ve seen any candidate do….”I don’t want to discuss my comments so lets talk about something kinda related…in this case, the history of another kinda sorta but not really related comment. And then she couldn’t even find anything currently relevant so instead she tried to explain a 150 year old joke……and didn’t even do that right *cringe*
The “WATDAFUQHESAY?” award.
This one goes to Donald Trump, later on in the same bit I actually credited him for in the last award:
“Maybe there is no hacking, but there is - now Russia - and the reason they blame Russia is they think they’re trying to tarnish me with Russia. I know nothing about Russia - I know about Russia, but I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. I don’t deal there, I have no businesses there, I have no loans from Russia. I have a very very great balance sheet. So great that when I did the old post office, on Pennsylvania Avenue, the United States government because of my balance sheet, which they actually know very well, chose me to do the old post office between the White House and Congress. They chose me to do the old post office - one of the primary things, in fact, perhaps the primary thing was balance sheet. But I have no loans with Russia. You could go to the United States government and they would probably tell you that because they know my sheet very well in order to get that development, I had to have - now the taxes are a very simple thing. As soon as I have - first of all, I pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.”
Lets break this down bit by bit….first there is no hacking…..except that there is.
Second, Trump doesn’t know anything about Russia, except he does, except he doesn’t.
Third there is some kind of correlation between the post office building and Trumps balance sheet….or maybe its 4 or 5 correlations, I’m not sure, I think the Trumpbot 5000 actually malfunctioned there and got caught in a programming loop.
Lastly, Trump totally has no business ties with Russia, and you ask the government if you don’t believe him….because after 15 years of audits they know his business’ really well…..I mean of course Donald Trump COULD always release his own tax returns….but presumably there are worse things than “paid no taxes” hidden in there….
next,
The“digging deeper just to throw it away” award:
Once again, this goes to Donald Trump for his taxes…..
“Cooper: Can you say how many years you have avoided paying personal federal income taxes?
Trump: No. but I pay tax and I pay federal tax too. But I have a write off, a lot of it is depreciation, which is a wonderful charge. I love depreciation.[…]”
So, yea we know its at LEAST 20 years….but Trump totally wont give a number…..meaning its probably much much much more than 20 years (which makes sense given the other 5 bankruptcies he had, if they worked the same way, probably extended that period from 20 years to “the rest of his natural life, and the first few decades of his unlife should he come back as a zombie”
The” Underneath the Bus” award.
This one, technically goes to Mike Pence for winding up underneath the bus his running mate threw him under with this exchange:
Raddatz: Mr. Trump, let me repeat the question. If you were president, what would you do about Syria and the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, and I want to remind you what your running mate said. He said provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength and that if Russia continues to be involved in airstrikes along with the Syrian government forces of Assad, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike the military targets of the Assad regime.
Trump: Okay. He and I haven't spoken, and I disagree.
Raddatz: You disagree with your running mate?
Trump: I disagree.
Translation: Fuck that guy……you think id actually have a coherent and consistent policy position? Hell I barely even know the man, totally don’t talk to him at all…..and hell given that he said his bit a week ago in the VP debate, and we still arnt on the same page, I basically pay no attention to that guy either.
And now the
award
And Trump picks up another one, after asking a question….and getting an answer in his debate
“Trump: […] Why do they have to say we are going to be attacking Mosul within the next four to six weeks, which is what they’re saying. How stupid is our country?
Raddatz: There are sometimes reasons the military does that. Psychological warfare.
Trump: I can't think of any.
Raddatz: It might be to get civilians out.
Trump: I can't think of any. […]
Raddatz gave Trump not 1 but 2 answers as to why the Military might warn people…despite that Trump still cant think of an answer.
“its 3am I must be lonely” award.
And Trump racks up another one with his attempted defense and deflection of a 3am tweet telling people to look at a non-existent sex tap.
“Cooper: Mr. Trump, let me follow-up with you. In 2008, you wrote in one of your books that the most important characteristic of a good leader is discipline. You said if a leader doesn't have it, quote he or she won't be one for long. In the days after the first debate, you sent out a series of tweets from 3:00 A.M. To 5:00 A.M. including one that told people to check out a sex tape. Is that the kind of discipline...
Trump: No it wasn't check out a sex tape. It was take a look at this person she build up to be this wonderful, uh, girl scout, who was no girl scout.
Cooper: You mentioned ‘‘sex tape.’
Trump: Just so you understand: When she said 3 o’clock in the morning, take a look at Benghazi. She said who is going to answer the call at 3 o’clock in the morning, guess what? She didn't answer. Because when ambassador Stevens -- she said she was awake of at 3:00 in the morning. And she also sent a tweet out at 3 o’clock in the morning, but I won’t mention that. But he said she will be awake, the famous thing ‘we’re going to answer the call at 3:00 in the morning”
So again, he didn’t say sex tape (even though the tweet specifies sex tape) and its all Hillary’s fault that anyone even cares what anyone does at 3am……or something. (hey cut me a break this is hard when one of the people talking doesnt use complete sentences)
The “George W. Bush Good Grammatically Skills” award
And again the winner is Donald Trump for making up a word, even later in his tweet defense.
“Between Facebook and Twitter, I have 25 million people. It's a very effective way of communication. So you can put it down, but it's an effective form of communication. I'm not unproud of it to be honest with you.”
I’m unnonperplexed as to what it means to be “unproud”. I suppose someone whos slightly less unstupid might have said ashamed….but that’s a guess at best based on the other context clues. Not to mention, Pride and Shame are opposites but there is a middle ground, I mean if your unpround and unashamed, you basically don’t give a fuck…..so maybe Trumps just saying he doesn’t give a fuck about it to be honest with you…….
And it wouldn’t be a Donald Trump presidential debate without our next award the
“Confused Word Salad” award
As you might have guessed from the lead-in, Donald Trump gets this one, for not being able to accept a compliment of all things.
First the question: “My question to both of you is, regardless of the current rhetoric, would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another?”
Then Hillary Clinton’s answer:
: Well, I certainly will, because I think that's a very fair and important question. Well, I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and devoted and I think that says a lot about Donald. I don't agree with nearly anything else he says or does, but I do respect that and think that is something that as a mother and a grandmother is very important to me."
And now the confusing word salad of Donald Trump:
“Well, I consider her statement about my children to be a very nice compliment. I don't know if it was meant to be a compliment, but it is a great... I'm proud of my children. They have done a wonderful job and they have been wonderful, wonderful kids. So I consider that a compliment.”
So, when the question is “can you give Donald Trump a compliment” and then Hillarys gives him a compliment…..Donald Trump is apparently not sure if it was actually a compliment…but he’s going to take it that way, which is awefully nice of him to debate the premise of the question for a several seconds, before accepting it as valid.
And then of course it was time for Trump to compliment Hillary….which brings us to our last award of the night
The “shooting yourself in the foot” award.
So this was Trump’s compliment of Clinton:
“I will say this about Hillary. She doesn't quit and she doesn't give up. I respect that. I tell it like it is. She is a fighter. I disagree with much of what she is fighting for, I do disagree with her judgment in many cases, but she does fights hard and doesn't quit and she doesn’t give up, and I consider that a very good trait.“
Now its actually a nice and sincere compliment, and on balance more in keeping with the spirit of the question than the one Clinton gave Trump…..so whats the problem?
Trump’s best argument so far this campaign, the one he was pushing when he was up in the polls, the one that did so well an entire section of the 3rd debate will be dedicated too it, was that Hillary was too weak, frail or sickly to have the stamina and health needed to be president.
Except per compliment trump…..shes actually a fighter and never quits……which should end most of the discussion about her physical and mental fitness to be president.
OOPS.
And here ends our second presidential debate award show….join us next week for the 3rd and final installment of the 2016 Presidential Debate Awards. (assuming Donald Trump doesnt throw a temper tantrum and skip the debate to go change his diaper and/or gets arrested for sexually assaulting everyone)
Still, I do have a bit to work with, so here we go, once again the Awards are in the order the events happened at the debate.
We start with:
The “Casual racism” award
This happened in what was basically Trump’s opening remarks, right at the end when he said:
“But I want to do things that haven’t been done, including fixing and making our inner cities better for the African-American citizens that are so great and for the Latinos, Hispanics, and I looking forward to doing- It’s called make America great again.”
Cause, as we all know, only minorities live in the inner cities….in fact the two words are interchangeable, See later one Trump said this:
“Hillary is constantly talking about the inner cities of our country which are a disaster education-wise, job-wise, safety-wise, in every way possible. I’m going to help the African-Americans, I’m going to help the Latinos, Hispanics. I am going to help the inner cities. She has done a terrible job for the African-Americans.”
Later, he did it again:
"I would be a president for all of the people. African-Americans, the inner cities. Devastating what's happening to our inner cities. She’s been talking about for years. As usual, she talks about it, nothing happens. She doesn't get it done. Same with the Latino Americans. The Hispanic Americans. The same exact thing. They talk. They don't get it done. You go into the inner cities, it's 45% poverty. African-Americans now 45% poverty in the inner cities.”
The “Blame Canada” award.
So if you’ve ever seen the south park movie, you probably know that all violence and inappropriate are
Canada’s fault. The same idea is true for Trump….the fact he said he sexually assaults women is actually
ISIS’ fault:
“But this is locker room talk. You know, when we have a world where you have ISIS chopping off heads, where you have them, frankly, drowning people in steel cages, where you have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over and you have so many bad things happening, this is like medieval times. We haven’t seen anything likes this. The carnage all over the world and they look and they see, can you imagine the people that are frankly doing so well against us with ISIS and they look at our country and see what's going on. Yes, I am very embarrassed by it and I hate it, but it's locker room talk and it’s one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS. We are going to defeat ISIS. ISIS happened a number of years ago in a vacuum that was left because of bad judgment. And I will tell you, I will take care of ISIS. We need to get on to much more important and bigger things.”
Or maybe instead of being ISIS’s fault it was all Bill Clintons fault:
“That was locker room talk. I'm not proud of it. I am a person who has great respect for people, for my family, for the people of this country and certainly I am not proud of it, but that was something that happened. If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse. Mine are words and his was action. His words, what he has done to women. There’s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that has been so abusive to women. So you can say any way you want to say it, but Bill Clinton is abusive to women.”
And from there we move on to what a lot of people consider the most shocking moment of the debate:
The “Seig Heil” award.
This is for all those moments in which Donald Trump promised to imprison his political rivals if elected:
“But if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. Because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it. And we’re gonna have a special prosecutor. When I speak, I go out and speak, the people of this country are furious. In my opinion, the people that have been long time workers at the FBI are furious. There has never been anything like this where e-mails, and you get a subpoena. You get a subpoena, and after getting the subpoena you delete 33,000 e-mails and then you acid wash them or bleach them, as you would say. Very expensive process. So we’re gonna get a special prosecutor and we’re gonna look into it. Because you know what, people have been -- their lives have been destroyed for doing 1/5 of what you have done. And it’s a disgrace, and honestly, you oughta be ashamed of.
[…]
Clinton: Everything he just said is absolutely false, but I’m not surprised. In the first debate, I told people it would be impossible to be fact checking Donald all the time. I would never get to talk about anything I’d want to do and how we’re really, going to really, make lives better for people. So once again, go to Hillaryclinton.com. We have literally Trump - you can fact check him in real time. Last time at the first debate ,we had millions of people fact checking so I expect we will have millions more fact checking because, you know, it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.
Trump: Because you would be in jail.”Because jailing political rivals is totally something we do in democracies......and not you know other kinds of unspecified forms of government...
The “WHAT? HUH?” award
Now as you may recall, in the last debate there was this moment where Donald Trump seemed to forget what was going on…….well it happened again.
So here’s a question directed at Hillary Clinton
“Raddatz: And Secretary Clinton, I do want to follow-up on e-mails. You’ve said your handling of your e-mails was a mistake, you’ve disagreed with the FBI Director James Comey calling your handling of classified information “extremely careless”. The FBI said there were 110 classified e-mails which were exchanged, eight of which were top secret and it was possible hostile actors did gain access to those e-mails. You don't call that extremely careless?”
Now after Clinton replies, Trump replies….and then this happens:
“Anderson: We have a question here from Ken Karpowitz, it’s a question about health care.
Trump: I’d liked to know Anderson, Why aren't you bringing up the e-mails? I’d like to know.”
You know….the Email’s Trump literally JUST finished talking about…….unless he forgot already.
And by the way, this exchange kept going….
“Cooper: We brought up the e-mails.
Trump: No it hasn’t, it hasn’t and it hasn't been finished at all.
Cooper: Ken Karpowitz has a question.
Trump: One on three.”
So yea……not only does Trump apparently not remember the last question, any attempt to remind him results in him feeling victimized.
The “Say my name, say my name” award.
This goes to Donald Trump…..but to be honest it really should go to the entire republican party,
For a while now, Republicans have been pushing a rather insane notion that the words “radical Islamic terrorist” have some kind of magical powers….and that just saying them produces tangible results irregardless of any other actions.
Yet, every single time Republicans try to promote this idea, they say some of the most evasive sentences ever. For example as happened in the debate:
“To solve a problem you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least, say the name. She won't say the name and President Obama won't say the name. But the name is there. It's radical Islamic terror. And before you solve it, you have to say the name.”
See, under the very argument this sentence is supposed to pushing, every single instance of “the name” should be replaced with “radical islam” or “radical Islamic terror”
If saying “radical Islam” actually does make you tough and manly as the GOP claims, how come Trump didn’t say:
“To solve a problem you have to be able to state what the problem is, and the problem is radical Islamic terror. She won't say its radical Islamic terroism, and President Obama won't say radical Islamic terrorism. But it's radical Islamic terror. And if you cant call it radical Islamic terror, you cant fix.”
And while its true Trump is not exactly articulate……you can level this same issue and rewrite to pretty much any republican who tries to make this same point, and its pretty funny watching their own argument undercut itself.
Next up, we have a throwback to a popular 90’s tv show….
The “ITS MORPHING TIME!” award.
Again, like all the other awards, this one goes to Donald Trump, when asked about his Muslim ban
“Trump:[…] The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world. Hillary Clinton wants to allow --
Raddatz: Why did it morph into that. No answer the question. Would you please explain whether or not the Muslim ban still stands?
Trump: It is called extreme vetting. We are going to areas like Syria where they are coming in by the tens of thousands because of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wants wants to allow a 550% increase over Obama. People are coming into our country like we have no idea who they are, where they are from, what their feelings about our country is and she wants 550% more[…]“
I like how Trump makes it seem like the whole Muslim ban is sentient and may have changed on its own. Its now a completely independent organism that doesn’t answer to anyone.
Now of course we all know the real reason it “morphed”, is because Trump thinks “extreme vetting” sounds less racist, and he is trying to play to the non-white hood wearing crowd.
But hey, at least the one thing we can all be sure of….Donald Trump is totally running on White Ranger power…..
“If it looks like bullshit and smells like Bullshit….” Award.
This one actually goes to Hillary Clinton for this exchange:
Raddatz: Thank you Mr. Trump. I want to move on. This next question comes from the public through the bipartisan open debate coalition’s online forum where Americans submitted questions that generated millions of votes. This question involves WikiLeaks’ release of purported excerpts of Secretary Clinton’s paid speeches speeches, which she has refused to release. In one line in particular, in which you Secretary Clinton purportedly say, ‘You need both a public and private position on certain issues.’ So, two from Virginia asks: ‘is it okay for politicians to be two-faced? Is it acceptable for a politician to have have a private stance on issues?’ Secretary Clinton? Two minutes.
Clinton: Right. As I recall, that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln after having seen the wonderful Steven Spielberg movie called Lincoln. It was a master class watching president Lincoln get the congress to approve the 13th amendment. It was principled and it was strategic and I was making the point that it is hard, sometimes, to get the congress to do what you want to do. And you have to keep working at it and yes, president Lincoln was trying to convince some people, he used some arguments, convincing other people, he used other arguments. That was a great, I thought, a great display of presidential leadership.”
Ok…you know I never thought I’d say this…but I’m going to let Donald Trump handle this one:
“Trump: I think I should respond because, so ridiculous. Look, now she is blaming -- she got caught in a total lie. Her papers went out to all her friends at the banks, Goldman Sachs and everybody else. And she said things, WikiLeaks, that just came out. And she lied. Now she’s blaming the lie on the late great Abraham Lincoln. That’s when-okay, Honest Abe never lied. That’s the good thing.”
Yea…seriously that was one of the WORST and most awkard attempted deflection jobs I’ve seen any candidate do….”I don’t want to discuss my comments so lets talk about something kinda related…in this case, the history of another kinda sorta but not really related comment. And then she couldn’t even find anything currently relevant so instead she tried to explain a 150 year old joke……and didn’t even do that right *cringe*
The “WATDAFUQHESAY?” award.
This one goes to Donald Trump, later on in the same bit I actually credited him for in the last award:
“Maybe there is no hacking, but there is - now Russia - and the reason they blame Russia is they think they’re trying to tarnish me with Russia. I know nothing about Russia - I know about Russia, but I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. I don’t deal there, I have no businesses there, I have no loans from Russia. I have a very very great balance sheet. So great that when I did the old post office, on Pennsylvania Avenue, the United States government because of my balance sheet, which they actually know very well, chose me to do the old post office between the White House and Congress. They chose me to do the old post office - one of the primary things, in fact, perhaps the primary thing was balance sheet. But I have no loans with Russia. You could go to the United States government and they would probably tell you that because they know my sheet very well in order to get that development, I had to have - now the taxes are a very simple thing. As soon as I have - first of all, I pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.”
Lets break this down bit by bit….first there is no hacking…..except that there is.
Second, Trump doesn’t know anything about Russia, except he does, except he doesn’t.
Third there is some kind of correlation between the post office building and Trumps balance sheet….or maybe its 4 or 5 correlations, I’m not sure, I think the Trumpbot 5000 actually malfunctioned there and got caught in a programming loop.
Lastly, Trump totally has no business ties with Russia, and you ask the government if you don’t believe him….because after 15 years of audits they know his business’ really well…..I mean of course Donald Trump COULD always release his own tax returns….but presumably there are worse things than “paid no taxes” hidden in there….
next,
The“digging deeper just to throw it away” award:
Once again, this goes to Donald Trump for his taxes…..
“Cooper: Can you say how many years you have avoided paying personal federal income taxes?
Trump: No. but I pay tax and I pay federal tax too. But I have a write off, a lot of it is depreciation, which is a wonderful charge. I love depreciation.[…]”
So, yea we know its at LEAST 20 years….but Trump totally wont give a number…..meaning its probably much much much more than 20 years (which makes sense given the other 5 bankruptcies he had, if they worked the same way, probably extended that period from 20 years to “the rest of his natural life, and the first few decades of his unlife should he come back as a zombie”
The” Underneath the Bus” award.
This one, technically goes to Mike Pence for winding up underneath the bus his running mate threw him under with this exchange:
Raddatz: Mr. Trump, let me repeat the question. If you were president, what would you do about Syria and the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, and I want to remind you what your running mate said. He said provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength and that if Russia continues to be involved in airstrikes along with the Syrian government forces of Assad, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike the military targets of the Assad regime.
Trump: Okay. He and I haven't spoken, and I disagree.
Raddatz: You disagree with your running mate?
Trump: I disagree.
Translation: Fuck that guy……you think id actually have a coherent and consistent policy position? Hell I barely even know the man, totally don’t talk to him at all…..and hell given that he said his bit a week ago in the VP debate, and we still arnt on the same page, I basically pay no attention to that guy either.
And now the
awardAnd Trump picks up another one, after asking a question….and getting an answer in his debate
“Trump: […] Why do they have to say we are going to be attacking Mosul within the next four to six weeks, which is what they’re saying. How stupid is our country?
Raddatz: There are sometimes reasons the military does that. Psychological warfare.
Trump: I can't think of any.
Raddatz: It might be to get civilians out.
Trump: I can't think of any. […]
Raddatz gave Trump not 1 but 2 answers as to why the Military might warn people…despite that Trump still cant think of an answer.
“its 3am I must be lonely” award.
And Trump racks up another one with his attempted defense and deflection of a 3am tweet telling people to look at a non-existent sex tap.
“Cooper: Mr. Trump, let me follow-up with you. In 2008, you wrote in one of your books that the most important characteristic of a good leader is discipline. You said if a leader doesn't have it, quote he or she won't be one for long. In the days after the first debate, you sent out a series of tweets from 3:00 A.M. To 5:00 A.M. including one that told people to check out a sex tape. Is that the kind of discipline...
Trump: No it wasn't check out a sex tape. It was take a look at this person she build up to be this wonderful, uh, girl scout, who was no girl scout.
Cooper: You mentioned ‘‘sex tape.’
Trump: Just so you understand: When she said 3 o’clock in the morning, take a look at Benghazi. She said who is going to answer the call at 3 o’clock in the morning, guess what? She didn't answer. Because when ambassador Stevens -- she said she was awake of at 3:00 in the morning. And she also sent a tweet out at 3 o’clock in the morning, but I won’t mention that. But he said she will be awake, the famous thing ‘we’re going to answer the call at 3:00 in the morning”
So again, he didn’t say sex tape (even though the tweet specifies sex tape) and its all Hillary’s fault that anyone even cares what anyone does at 3am……or something. (hey cut me a break this is hard when one of the people talking doesnt use complete sentences)
The “George W. Bush Good Grammatically Skills” award
And again the winner is Donald Trump for making up a word, even later in his tweet defense.
“Between Facebook and Twitter, I have 25 million people. It's a very effective way of communication. So you can put it down, but it's an effective form of communication. I'm not unproud of it to be honest with you.”
I’m unnonperplexed as to what it means to be “unproud”. I suppose someone whos slightly less unstupid might have said ashamed….but that’s a guess at best based on the other context clues. Not to mention, Pride and Shame are opposites but there is a middle ground, I mean if your unpround and unashamed, you basically don’t give a fuck…..so maybe Trumps just saying he doesn’t give a fuck about it to be honest with you…….
And it wouldn’t be a Donald Trump presidential debate without our next award the
“Confused Word Salad” award
As you might have guessed from the lead-in, Donald Trump gets this one, for not being able to accept a compliment of all things.
First the question: “My question to both of you is, regardless of the current rhetoric, would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another?”
Then Hillary Clinton’s answer:
: Well, I certainly will, because I think that's a very fair and important question. Well, I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and devoted and I think that says a lot about Donald. I don't agree with nearly anything else he says or does, but I do respect that and think that is something that as a mother and a grandmother is very important to me."
And now the confusing word salad of Donald Trump:
“Well, I consider her statement about my children to be a very nice compliment. I don't know if it was meant to be a compliment, but it is a great... I'm proud of my children. They have done a wonderful job and they have been wonderful, wonderful kids. So I consider that a compliment.”
So, when the question is “can you give Donald Trump a compliment” and then Hillarys gives him a compliment…..Donald Trump is apparently not sure if it was actually a compliment…but he’s going to take it that way, which is awefully nice of him to debate the premise of the question for a several seconds, before accepting it as valid.
And then of course it was time for Trump to compliment Hillary….which brings us to our last award of the night
The “shooting yourself in the foot” award.
So this was Trump’s compliment of Clinton:
“I will say this about Hillary. She doesn't quit and she doesn't give up. I respect that. I tell it like it is. She is a fighter. I disagree with much of what she is fighting for, I do disagree with her judgment in many cases, but she does fights hard and doesn't quit and she doesn’t give up, and I consider that a very good trait.“
Now its actually a nice and sincere compliment, and on balance more in keeping with the spirit of the question than the one Clinton gave Trump…..so whats the problem?
Trump’s best argument so far this campaign, the one he was pushing when he was up in the polls, the one that did so well an entire section of the 3rd debate will be dedicated too it, was that Hillary was too weak, frail or sickly to have the stamina and health needed to be president.
Except per compliment trump…..shes actually a fighter and never quits……which should end most of the discussion about her physical and mental fitness to be president.
OOPS.
And here ends our second presidential debate award show….join us next week for the 3rd and final installment of the 2016 Presidential Debate Awards. (assuming Donald Trump doesnt throw a temper tantrum and skip the debate to go change his diaper and/or gets arrested for sexually assaulting everyone)
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