About 125 million people voted for president, out of a total population of about 324 million, so that's about 38.5% of the population that voted.
So, let's figure out how many metro areas (instead of cities) a candidate would need in order to receive the ~60 million votes that got them elected (assuming that 38.5% of the people in each metro area vote).
If someone is going to get 60 million votes, and only 38.5% of people vote, then they will need to talk to 155 million people. According to the list above, that means these metro areas:
New York-Newark metro Greater LA Chicago metro Washington/Baltimore San Francisco Bay area Boston metro Dallas-Ft. Worth Philadelphia metro Houston metro Miami metro Atlanta metro Detroit metro Seattle metro Phoenix metro Minneapolis-St. Paul Cleveland metro Denver metro San Diego metro Orlando metro Portland metro Tampa metro St. Louis metro
That's how many they need, 22 of them. And that assumes that *every voter* in all of those cities votes for the same candidate. Look at that list, do they all vote the same way?
And, what is this, the 19th century where you only hear a politician's views if you actually go to physically hear them talk?
California has CHOCK FULL of Illegal's who California allows to vote - ILLEGALLY VIOLATING federal law!
That would be pretty awful, if it were true. (By the way, is it possible to "legally violate" federal law? I mean, if you're violating federal law, that's always illegal, isn't it?)
Non U.S. Citizens are NOT allowed to vote. They DO NOT have the RIGHT!
Yes, everyone knows that, and California does not have the ability to change that, regardless of whatever fever dreams you're having.
If you still actually believe that "what really sunk her was all this innuendo", then here's an article by someone more involved than both of us. He thinks that we need to tear up and remake the Democratic party. The Democratic party failed all of us who don't believe that Trump would be a good president, but couldn't stomach voting for Clinton, and they absolutely failed anyone else calling themselves a Democrat.
You would think, but polls had Trump as the most disliked, and Clinton as right behind him. Regardless of the actual order, what's so amazing is that both of them are so disliked that this is the outcome. Trump is historically disliked, and people *still* refused to back Clinton over him. I'm one of them, I dislike Trump as a candidate more than I dislike Hillary, but even someone as awful as Trump cannot get me to vote for Hillary. I'm just not going to be guilted into voting for Hillary Clinton, fear and guilt is not the way to earn my vote. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
What exactly did the DNC do to "mak[e] sure that Hillary was the nominee"?
Did you miss the various email leaks which showed the DNC actively supporting the Clinton campaign, and looking for ways to attack or undermine Sanders? I'm talking about the leaks which caused the DNC chairperson, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, to step down from her position, did you miss those? I mean, from the very beginning the DNC was lined up behind Clinton. The senior leadership of the DNC worked for her in the past, she even chose a VP candidate who was previously the head of the DNC. It was a group effort to get her nominated, they made their bed and now they get to lie in it.
Here's something for starters: more debates. Obama vs. Clinton had over 20 debates (nearly 30, actually). Sanders vs. Clinton had fewer than 10. Sanders was asking for more, and a lot of people wanted to see more, so what do you think the reason was why the DNC decided not to schedule more debates? They knew their candidate had major integrity problems, they knew that Bernie was surging, and they wanted to make sure that her public exposure was limited and that Bernie's message didn't get the airtime that it needed to convince voters in those fair elections that he was the better choice.
Clinton is toxic politically, but no one at the DNC cared because of this enormous sense of entitlement that it was "her time". Now the Democrats are a party without a leader or any clear direction. Again, they made their bed, now they get to lie in it. It just sucks that they took everyone else with them. They put up the only conceivable candidate who could possibly lose to Donald Fucking Trump. They have to own that, it's not the fault of voters that they didn't want to vote for her. It's their fault for having no clue what voters actually want and just assuming that they'll get votes because she's a woman, or because their opponent is so bad, or because she's entitled to the oval office, or whatever other delusional reasons they thought would earn them votes.
Hillary Clinton lost the white woman vote by 10 points, to Donald "Grab 'Em By The Pussy" Trump. If that doesn't help you figure out that she was the wrong candidate then I don't know what will. It has nothing to do with "all this innuendo" and everything to do with whether or not people even like her at all.
There were plenty of polls during the primaries where people were polled about Trump vs. Clinton, and Trump vs. Sanders, and Sanders consistently performed better than Clinton. The defects that Clinton has don't translate to Bernie. He has his own set of political issues, but they aren't anything like the ones that affect Clinton. For example, people saw Bernie as honest and trustworthy. That in itself is a major difference.
Right, just like how Candidate Obama promised to reign in government surveillance. That worked out really well.
Once they get in office they do whatever the hell they want anyway, regardless of whatever they told people to get votes. Trump won't be any different. It's even possible that his ego is so gigantic that he's going to be legitimately concerned about his legacy and will actually make an effort to get positive things done. Crazier things have happened, I guess, but we'll see.
In the history of presidential polling anyway, which goes back into the 1800s some time. We can say that for certainty, then the question would be whether any previous candidate was more disliked. I'm not a history major or anything, but I doubt there's been an election ever like this one, when so many people went out to cast votes specifically against each candidate instead of voting for them.
It's also pretty amazing that Hillary Clinton, the second most disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling, could not beat Trump, the most disliked. Dislike for both of these people is so strong that she can't beat him, that's pretty amazing.
Add myself to the list of people who refused to vote for Hillary. She didn't lose my vote because she's a woman, she lost it because she's Hillary Clinton. I would have voted for Elizabeth Warren (or Sanders) without any hesitation, but the DNC was so hell-bent on making sure that Hillary was the nominee that they forgot to nominate someone who was capable of beating the most disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling. Hopefully by this point it will be blatantly obvious that voters do not want Hillary Clinton, and hopefully she will retire from politics and public life. She's earned it.
I, a white male small-el libertarian, voted for Jill Stein, and will get shit for it. Already have gotten shit for it.
You shouldn't get any shit at all, I doubt it's your fault that the DNC decided long ago to put up a candidate capable of losing to Donald Trump. Trump is the most disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling, and the Democrats nominated someone who could not beat him. Think about whether or not Elizabeth Warren, for example, would have had the same problems beating Trump. Or even Sanders, for that matter. The DNC decided long ago that Hillary was going to be the candidate, and now they get to reflect on whether or not they have any idea what voters actually want. It should be very obvious by this point that Hillary is not what voters want. Hillary did not even get a majority of white women voters, and that's against a candidate who is demonstrably sexist. The DNC and the media have some reflection to do.
I realize that Sanders has been in politics for a good part of his life, but calling a 12-person delegation to establish a sister city relationship a "honeymoon" is a little much even for him.
I am 100% convinced that Hillary wanted Donald as the (R) candidate, and the media set him up to win.
Hold on, when did "the media" push that Donald should be the candidate? From what I remember there was a lot of "is this really happening?" and not much "this should be the guy."
When you say "bags" of ballots, are you using a euphemism like "the internet is more like a truck"?
Anyway, it looks like out of 2,810,058 votes cast, that about 1700 were not counted the first time but were later found and counted. It wasn't just the city of Seattle either, 4 counties found more than 100 more votes. A few counties had fewer votes, and only 5 counties out of 39 had no change. Out of those 39 counties, 18 of them found more Republican votes overall, 8 found more Democratic votes overall, and 3 found more Libertarian votes overall. Even so, it sounds like you're blaming "The Dems" for that. The percent of change from the initial count to the recount was around 0.06% of the total votes cast. That seems like it's within the margin of error for any election, and is specifically why we have the recount process in place. If vote counting was always 100% accurate then we wouldn't need recounts, would we?
Look at the CIA fact book and look at the arable land percentage.
Wikipedia uses the CIA book as a source for this article. India is 3.287 million sq km, and a whopping 51.63% is cultivated. That's certainly one of the higher percentages, and gives them 1.535 million sq km of cultivated land. The US is 9.826 million sq km, but only 18.22% is cultivated. Even so, that gives us 1.669 million sq km of cultivated land, more than India. We're actually the only country with more cultivated land than India.
OK, I am going to attempt to use mature, bland language so that I don't give off the vibe that you're getting under my skin. I may decide to randomly capitalize words though.
No, this thread has nothing to do with WHO COMMUNICATED WITH WHOM other than correcting your claim that it was with HRC herself as a way of arguing that it wasn't a problem.
I did not claim that they contacted HRC herself. If you thought that was my claim, then you were mistaken. When I said that they were contacting a former secretary that included ANY OF HER REPRESENTATIVES ALSO. I never tried to specifically and explicitly claim that State was only sending communication directly to HRC's personal communication device of choice. I am sorry that I confused you about what I was claiming by not pointing out what I considered to be the obvious.
You don't see an issue with a campaign staff vetting official statements from the State Department.
You keep accusing me of misrepresenting your statements, there's no reason you need to start doing that with mine. Wait, no, I mean "I never said that, and you know it." I do see issues with campaign staff "vetting" official statements. What I don't see as a problem is if campaign staff, or the janitor at State, or me, or you, or any other person, corrects a factual mistake. Unless you've seen the other emails in the chain, I can't devise of a way to determine which is which in this case. State said "yes on your point re records - done below." Maybe the campaign staff were simply asking a question, and the person at State responded with "yes" and also decide to clarify some language. Maybe they DIDN'T EVEN REQUEST A CHANGE, they were just asking a question for clarification. I see you're getting good use of The Speculator, though.
But you've already said you don't think changes to official state department press releases made at the request of an ongoing political campaign are an issue.
See how you keep trying to claim the high ground while still doing the same thing you're accusing me of? Don't think I don't notice, Obfuscant. I know your games, I know why you picked that username. That's not what I said, and you know that. There are SOME changes which would be bad. There are SOME changes which are not bad. You claim that ANY change is bad. THAT is where we disagree. Don't act like I'm saying that there is NO CASE where a change is bad.
It's as if you are deliberately trying to avoid the actual issue to excuse what actually happened.
Is that what it's like? Are you assuming that I know what actually happened, and that I'm then trying to excuse it? Why, because of my undying devotion to HRC? Go ahead, scan my post history, see how many times her campaign has paid me for Correcting The Record.
I think the entire issue is that we don't know what happened, but that doesn't matter to people like you, up go the pitchforks. I'm tired of it, it's crap. How come there's all this smoke all over the place and no one has seen a fire? What's going on there? Are the people looking for the fire also creating the smoke? Is this the fire? Because this really doesn't look like a fire. This looks like a few words ("Yes on your point re records - done below.") which could easily have an explanation which does not change the MATERIAL FACTS OR SUBSTANCE of the email in ANY WAY. It could easily be much ado about nothing. Just like this conversation.
Clinton was corrupt before this email came out, and she's still corrupt after it. What exactly does this change? Why are people trying to focus our attention here?
I said nothing of the sort and you know it. YOU said that the State Department had sent email to the former Secretary of State before sending it to the NYT ("Because the "non-governmental person" is the former secretary"), and that is simply not true. None of the people you admit were contacted were HRC, they were ALL members of her CAMPAIGN STAFF.
Jesus Christ, you mean if I had specifically pointed out that they were communicating with her appointed representatives, instead of naturally assuming that you would understand that, then this entire idiotic thread could have been avoided?
Because ANY changes made based on requests from the campaign staff of an ongoing campaign is unethical. I don't know how much clearer that can be said.
Well, I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you.
"We're going to tell them that when you said on April 21st that you had no idea how this happened, you misspoke." "That's not correct, that conversation happened on the 20th."
I don't think that's unethical, regardless of how much you want to capitalize the word "any". I think that some changes would be unethical, especially if they distort or hide facts, but I'm pretty sure that no one knows what changes were requested. If only there was some sort of Information Act that could be used to get ahold of official communications like that in order to really get this witch hunt going. But, alas, we'll just have to sit here and speculate. We might as well assume the worst.
I think you've even agreed that there was something changed.
I'm just going off what I see in the primary sources (fucking crazy, I know!), which contains this line:
Yes on your point re records - done below.
So, what does that line mean? Well shit, you look like you're having so much fun speculating that I don't want to be left out. Let me try.
Hmm. OK, here's the statement from Clinton's press guy that he sent to the media:
Like Secretaries of State before her, she used her own email account when engaging with any Department officials. For government business, she emailed them on their Department accounts, with every expectation they would be retained. When the Department asked former Secretaries last year for help ensuring their emails were in fact retained, we immediately said yes.
OK. And, hmmmm.. ok, here's part of the response from State:
The State Department has long had access to a wide array of Secretary Clinton's records -- including emails between her and Department officials with state.gov accounts, as well as cables. Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation. In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the Department with emails spanning her time at the Department. After the State Department reviewed those emails, we produced about 300 emails responsive to recent requests from the Select Committee.
OK, let's fire up The Speculator. I'm going to draw a line from the campaign's statement, especially that last sentence, passing through the "shady" line from the email ("yes on your point re records"), down to that section from the statement by State. I'm going to speculate that the campaign asked State to say something about how they requested records (see how I matched up the actual word from the quote?) from the previous secretaries, so that the campaign could also say that they've been sending records to State, in line with that policy. And I think that both of these are probably factual statements, in so far as politicians define facts (obviously, not all of the emails were in fact sent, or else that Heather lawyer wouldn't even have a job). But hopefully there's more to this story than "she didn't send all of her emails", because we've known
Which members of Clinton's campaign staff have been Secretary of State?
So, let me try to understand what you're suggesting here. Are you trying to suggest that if the State Department has questions for Clinton, that John Kerry takes the time out of his day to personally call up Hillary Clinton and ask her some questions about a public statement that they're going to release about her? Is that what you think happens? Does John Kerry call up Clinton to make sure all of the facts are right in the statement they're about to release, or do you think that maybe the department and Clinton both have people working for them to handle that kind of thing? Do you think that Clinton is exceptional in the regard that she has people who help handle communications for her? Is she the only person who does that kind of thing? Is that why I need to be outraged?
It was unethical for SD to CHANGE THE MATERIAL IT SENT based on requests from CAMPAIGN STAFF of a current and active political campaign.
How the hell do you know that the changes were unethical? Fill me in!
We don't know what the change was
OK, that's exactly what I thought, you don't know. You're assuming there's some shady shit going on here. I hope you'll pardon me if I don't drop everything and organize a mob to put Clinton under civil arrest.
I mean, fuck man, both of us are reading the same email, right? I even linked you to the damn thing. Just copy and paste the goddamn parts which are the basis for your outrage and let's just skip straight to the chase, OK? The only outrage I'm able to feel right now is directed at you for apparently thinking that I should be outraged because some communications person at State sent an email to communications people working for Clinton about a statement they were going to make, the statement which you can read right in the goddamn email. Copy and paste, and hell bold the parts if you think I'm dense, and point out which part of that statement is problematic. Because, if nothing in the statement is problematic, then maybe whatever changes were requested aren't the Big Fucking Deal that you're trying to make them out to be.
Here, you know what? I'll save you the trouble and paste it right here so that you don't have to be bothered with clicking on the actual source document:
From the moment that the Select Committee was created, the State Department has been proactively and consistently engaged in responding to the Committee's many requests in a timely manner, providing more than 40,000 pages of documents, scheduling more than 20 transcribed interviews and participating in several briefings and each of the Committee's hearings.
The State Department has long had access to a wide array of Secretary Clinton’s records -- including emails between her and Department officials with state.gov accounts, as well as cables. Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation. In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the Department with emails spanning her time at the Department. After the State Department reviewed those emails, we produced about 300 emails responsive to recent requests from the Select Committee.
The Department is in the process of updating our records preservation policies to bring them in line with recent 2013 National Archives and Records Administration guidance. These steps include regularly archiving all of Secretary Kerry's emails to ensure that we are capturing all federal records.
Ooooooh, nevermind. I see why you're outraged. It's right here:
Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation.
You're pissed off because State contacted the forme
John Podesta's name does not appear on the list [wikipedia.org] of past secretaries of state. John Podesta's email.
How right you are. And State did not email John Podesta. That's also a fact. The press secretary from State (spokeswoman, whatever they call her) sent an email to Clinton's press secretary and others with her campaign. The topic was a response to a journalist, so it makes sense that the press secretaries are communicating. That is their job.
The people involved are Lauren Hickey, the person at State, who emailed Heather Samuelson, who is apparently a lawyer involved with determining which emails get released and which don't, plus Philippe Reines, an HRC senior advisor while she was at state and a current aide, and Nick Merill, the HRC traveling press secretary. Nick Merill forwarded the email to Jennifer Palmieri, HRC communications director, who forwarded it to Podesta. That's how it ended up with Podesta. I imagine that the purpose of State sending it to the people involved was because they wanted to verify or whatever with Clinton, and those are the people that the person at State would contact if they want to get in touch with HRC herself.
The problem comes when the campaign staffers to whom it was sent then ask for and are granted changes to the material before it is then actually released to the public.
What if the information that State was releasing was factually incorrect, vague, etc, and the campaign was seeking to correct or clarify? There doesn't automatically need to be some sort of malfeasance involved. If HRC had nothing to do with State then I'd say maybe there's something shady, but since she was the former secretary and they were being asked direct questions about her, it would make sense if the people at State were trying to check with her to make sure their statement is accurate. Again, I'd love for this to be a reason to string up HRC, but I'm not seeing it. On the list of reasons why I dislike her, I'll file this particular email somewhere in the low to mid hundreds.
It was because the material was sent to a political campaign and the campaign got it changed.
It's not "a political campaign", it's the former secretary. And, what did they change? She says there was a change "re records", look at that email that includes the response from State and see if you can find the part where they mention records which sounds shady. I'm not seeing it.
This whole thing is someone sitting in a field hearing a bunch of hooves behind them and jumping up shouting "I HEAR A ZEBRA!" and they turn around, and no, it's just a horse. So they sit down again and wait for the next hoof beats to once again jump up and assume there's a zebra nearby. It's not a zebra, it's just a horse. Maybe one day there will be a zebra, but this isn't it.
Guard 2: Looks like a drone, doesn't it? It's flying right at us, looks like it's got a package suspended from it. That would no doubt have some contraband in it, wouldn't it?
Guard 1: Well, should we alert the others?
Guard 2: No need. They can't fly over the prison, you see. There's a little bit right in there, which actually stops the thing from flying over any prison. Brilliant, isn't it?
Guard 1: Brilliant! But it looks like it just flew over the wall and into the yard, when is that bit supposed to kick in to stop it?
Guard 2: It did fly over the wall, didn't it? See if you can reach the warden on the radio.
Guard 1: What should I tell him?
Guard 2: Tell him that we're in the wrong place, apparently the prison got moved and we need to know where we're supposed to be.
Why is the State Department forwarding information to a non-governmental person before they release it to the public?
Because the "non-governmental person" is the former secretary which they were asked to comment about. That's only a guess though.
You don't see anything wrong with that?
I don't see an inherent problem with the State Department sending information to a "non-governmental person" before they release it to the public. I don't think the State Department has any obligation or duty to only contact people in the government and no one else. Some evidence which supports this theory of mine is that the State Department was in contact with a news organization also, which is also a "non-governmental person", and they were also giving that news organization the exact same information.
So, why is it so outrageous that State was in communication with the former secretary, but it's not outrageous that they were in communication with journalists? Both are "non-governmental persons", correct? So, help me understand the outrage. There are a lot of things that I detest about Clinton, so help me out here, help the hate flow through me. I already think she is the poster child for political corruption, so finish your thought about State not being able to contact people who aren't in the government and how the public trust was somehow shattered by them daring to contact the person who used to lead the damn department. Justify that +5 Insightful that other people think you deserve and point out what I'm missing about State contacting their former leaders.
Is it because she was campaigning? Would the proper response have been "we can't comment on the activity of the former secretary because she's engaged in an election campaign, but we'll be happy to tell you everything you want to know just right after the election." Because that would gone over so much better, right?
Slashdot Mirror
"A few cities"? Well, let's think about this.
About 125 million people voted for president, out of a total population of about 324 million, so that's about 38.5% of the population that voted.
So, let's figure out how many metro areas (instead of cities) a candidate would need in order to receive the ~60 million votes that got them elected (assuming that 38.5% of the people in each metro area vote).
If someone is going to get 60 million votes, and only 38.5% of people vote, then they will need to talk to 155 million people. According to the list above, that means these metro areas:
New York-Newark metro
Greater LA
Chicago metro
Washington/Baltimore
San Francisco Bay area
Boston metro
Dallas-Ft. Worth
Philadelphia metro
Houston metro
Miami metro
Atlanta metro
Detroit metro
Seattle metro
Phoenix metro
Minneapolis-St. Paul
Cleveland metro
Denver metro
San Diego metro
Orlando metro
Portland metro
Tampa metro
St. Louis metro
That's how many they need, 22 of them. And that assumes that *every voter* in all of those cities votes for the same candidate. Look at that list, do they all vote the same way?
And, what is this, the 19th century where you only hear a politician's views if you actually go to physically hear them talk?
Actually, in a popular vote, the 1 million people living in the city have the exact same voice as the 1 million people living in the country.
California has CHOCK FULL of Illegal's who California allows to vote - ILLEGALLY VIOLATING federal law!
That would be pretty awful, if it were true. (By the way, is it possible to "legally violate" federal law? I mean, if you're violating federal law, that's always illegal, isn't it?)
Non U.S. Citizens are NOT allowed to vote. They DO NOT have the RIGHT!
Yes, everyone knows that, and California does not have the ability to change that, regardless of whatever fever dreams you're having.
If you still actually believe that "what really sunk her was all this innuendo", then here's an article by someone more involved than both of us. He thinks that we need to tear up and remake the Democratic party. The Democratic party failed all of us who don't believe that Trump would be a good president, but couldn't stomach voting for Clinton, and they absolutely failed anyone else calling themselves a Democrat.
You would think, but polls had Trump as the most disliked, and Clinton as right behind him. Regardless of the actual order, what's so amazing is that both of them are so disliked that this is the outcome. Trump is historically disliked, and people *still* refused to back Clinton over him. I'm one of them, I dislike Trump as a candidate more than I dislike Hillary, but even someone as awful as Trump cannot get me to vote for Hillary. I'm just not going to be guilted into voting for Hillary Clinton, fear and guilt is not the way to earn my vote. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
What exactly did the DNC do to "mak[e] sure that Hillary was the nominee"?
Did you miss the various email leaks which showed the DNC actively supporting the Clinton campaign, and looking for ways to attack or undermine Sanders? I'm talking about the leaks which caused the DNC chairperson, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, to step down from her position, did you miss those? I mean, from the very beginning the DNC was lined up behind Clinton. The senior leadership of the DNC worked for her in the past, she even chose a VP candidate who was previously the head of the DNC. It was a group effort to get her nominated, they made their bed and now they get to lie in it.
Here's something for starters: more debates. Obama vs. Clinton had over 20 debates (nearly 30, actually). Sanders vs. Clinton had fewer than 10. Sanders was asking for more, and a lot of people wanted to see more, so what do you think the reason was why the DNC decided not to schedule more debates? They knew their candidate had major integrity problems, they knew that Bernie was surging, and they wanted to make sure that her public exposure was limited and that Bernie's message didn't get the airtime that it needed to convince voters in those fair elections that he was the better choice.
Clinton is toxic politically, but no one at the DNC cared because of this enormous sense of entitlement that it was "her time". Now the Democrats are a party without a leader or any clear direction. Again, they made their bed, now they get to lie in it. It just sucks that they took everyone else with them. They put up the only conceivable candidate who could possibly lose to Donald Fucking Trump. They have to own that, it's not the fault of voters that they didn't want to vote for her. It's their fault for having no clue what voters actually want and just assuming that they'll get votes because she's a woman, or because their opponent is so bad, or because she's entitled to the oval office, or whatever other delusional reasons they thought would earn them votes.
Hillary Clinton lost the white woman vote by 10 points, to Donald "Grab 'Em By The Pussy" Trump. If that doesn't help you figure out that she was the wrong candidate then I don't know what will. It has nothing to do with "all this innuendo" and everything to do with whether or not people even like her at all.
There were plenty of polls during the primaries where people were polled about Trump vs. Clinton, and Trump vs. Sanders, and Sanders consistently performed better than Clinton. The defects that Clinton has don't translate to Bernie. He has his own set of political issues, but they aren't anything like the ones that affect Clinton. For example, people saw Bernie as honest and trustworthy. That in itself is a major difference.
Right, just like how Candidate Obama promised to reign in government surveillance. That worked out really well.
Once they get in office they do whatever the hell they want anyway, regardless of whatever they told people to get votes. Trump won't be any different. It's even possible that his ego is so gigantic that he's going to be legitimately concerned about his legacy and will actually make an effort to get positive things done. Crazier things have happened, I guess, but we'll see.
In the history of presidential polling anyway, which goes back into the 1800s some time. We can say that for certainty, then the question would be whether any previous candidate was more disliked. I'm not a history major or anything, but I doubt there's been an election ever like this one, when so many people went out to cast votes specifically against each candidate instead of voting for them.
It's also pretty amazing that Hillary Clinton, the second most disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling, could not beat Trump, the most disliked. Dislike for both of these people is so strong that she can't beat him, that's pretty amazing.
Trump's sexism is mostly harmless. Stupid remarks, some prejudices, business as usual, offensive, annoying, but in the long run with no impact.
You know, you should probably ask the women on the receiving end of his sexism about whether or not it has no impact.
Add myself to the list of people who refused to vote for Hillary. She didn't lose my vote because she's a woman, she lost it because she's Hillary Clinton. I would have voted for Elizabeth Warren (or Sanders) without any hesitation, but the DNC was so hell-bent on making sure that Hillary was the nominee that they forgot to nominate someone who was capable of beating the most disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling. Hopefully by this point it will be blatantly obvious that voters do not want Hillary Clinton, and hopefully she will retire from politics and public life. She's earned it.
I, a white male small-el libertarian, voted for Jill Stein, and will get shit for it. Already have gotten shit for it.
You shouldn't get any shit at all, I doubt it's your fault that the DNC decided long ago to put up a candidate capable of losing to Donald Trump. Trump is the most disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling, and the Democrats nominated someone who could not beat him. Think about whether or not Elizabeth Warren, for example, would have had the same problems beating Trump. Or even Sanders, for that matter. The DNC decided long ago that Hillary was going to be the candidate, and now they get to reflect on whether or not they have any idea what voters actually want. It should be very obvious by this point that Hillary is not what voters want. Hillary did not even get a majority of white women voters, and that's against a candidate who is demonstrably sexist. The DNC and the media have some reflection to do.
He went to the USSR for his honeymoon.
I realize that Sanders has been in politics for a good part of his life, but calling a 12-person delegation to establish a sister city relationship a "honeymoon" is a little much even for him.
Yeah, that damn leftist asshole, releasing all of that information which is supposed to damage the leftist candidate. Damn leftists.
I am 100% convinced that Hillary wanted Donald as the (R) candidate, and the media set him up to win.
Hold on, when did "the media" push that Donald should be the candidate? From what I remember there was a lot of "is this really happening?" and not much "this should be the guy."
When you say "bags" of ballots, are you using a euphemism like "the internet is more like a truck"?
Anyway, it looks like out of 2,810,058 votes cast, that about 1700 were not counted the first time but were later found and counted. It wasn't just the city of Seattle either, 4 counties found more than 100 more votes. A few counties had fewer votes, and only 5 counties out of 39 had no change. Out of those 39 counties, 18 of them found more Republican votes overall, 8 found more Democratic votes overall, and 3 found more Libertarian votes overall. Even so, it sounds like you're blaming "The Dems" for that. The percent of change from the initial count to the recount was around 0.06% of the total votes cast. That seems like it's within the margin of error for any election, and is specifically why we have the recount process in place. If vote counting was always 100% accurate then we wouldn't need recounts, would we?
you slap your hand on their and hold it there
I mean, there are only 3 words between them. Did you really think those are 2 different words?
Look at the CIA fact book and look at the arable land percentage.
Wikipedia uses the CIA book as a source for this article. India is 3.287 million sq km, and a whopping 51.63% is cultivated. That's certainly one of the higher percentages, and gives them 1.535 million sq km of cultivated land. The US is 9.826 million sq km, but only 18.22% is cultivated. Even so, that gives us 1.669 million sq km of cultivated land, more than India. We're actually the only country with more cultivated land than India.
OK, I am going to attempt to use mature, bland language so that I don't give off the vibe that you're getting under my skin. I may decide to randomly capitalize words though.
No, this thread has nothing to do with WHO COMMUNICATED WITH WHOM other than correcting your claim that it was with HRC herself as a way of arguing that it wasn't a problem.
I did not claim that they contacted HRC herself. If you thought that was my claim, then you were mistaken. When I said that they were contacting a former secretary that included ANY OF HER REPRESENTATIVES ALSO. I never tried to specifically and explicitly claim that State was only sending communication directly to HRC's personal communication device of choice. I am sorry that I confused you about what I was claiming by not pointing out what I considered to be the obvious.
You don't see an issue with a campaign staff vetting official statements from the State Department.
You keep accusing me of misrepresenting your statements, there's no reason you need to start doing that with mine. Wait, no, I mean "I never said that, and you know it." I do see issues with campaign staff "vetting" official statements. What I don't see as a problem is if campaign staff, or the janitor at State, or me, or you, or any other person, corrects a factual mistake. Unless you've seen the other emails in the chain, I can't devise of a way to determine which is which in this case. State said "yes on your point re records - done below." Maybe the campaign staff were simply asking a question, and the person at State responded with "yes" and also decide to clarify some language. Maybe they DIDN'T EVEN REQUEST A CHANGE, they were just asking a question for clarification. I see you're getting good use of The Speculator, though.
But you've already said you don't think changes to official state department press releases made at the request of an ongoing political campaign are an issue.
See how you keep trying to claim the high ground while still doing the same thing you're accusing me of? Don't think I don't notice, Obfuscant. I know your games, I know why you picked that username. That's not what I said, and you know that. There are SOME changes which would be bad. There are SOME changes which are not bad. You claim that ANY change is bad. THAT is where we disagree. Don't act like I'm saying that there is NO CASE where a change is bad.
It's as if you are deliberately trying to avoid the actual issue to excuse what actually happened.
Is that what it's like? Are you assuming that I know what actually happened, and that I'm then trying to excuse it? Why, because of my undying devotion to HRC? Go ahead, scan my post history, see how many times her campaign has paid me for Correcting The Record.
I think the entire issue is that we don't know what happened, but that doesn't matter to people like you, up go the pitchforks. I'm tired of it, it's crap. How come there's all this smoke all over the place and no one has seen a fire? What's going on there? Are the people looking for the fire also creating the smoke? Is this the fire? Because this really doesn't look like a fire. This looks like a few words ("Yes on your point re records - done below.") which could easily have an explanation which does not change the MATERIAL FACTS OR SUBSTANCE of the email in ANY WAY. It could easily be much ado about nothing. Just like this conversation.
Clinton was corrupt before this email came out, and she's still corrupt after it. What exactly does this change? Why are people trying to focus our attention here?
I said nothing of the sort and you know it. YOU said that the State Department had sent email to the former Secretary of State before sending it to the NYT ("Because the "non-governmental person" is the former secretary"), and that is simply not true. None of the people you admit were contacted were HRC, they were ALL members of her CAMPAIGN STAFF.
Jesus Christ, you mean if I had specifically pointed out that they were communicating with her appointed representatives, instead of naturally assuming that you would understand that, then this entire idiotic thread could have been avoided?
Because ANY changes made based on requests from the campaign staff of an ongoing campaign is unethical. I don't know how much clearer that can be said.
Well, I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you.
"We're going to tell them that when you said on April 21st that you had no idea how this happened, you misspoke."
"That's not correct, that conversation happened on the 20th."
I don't think that's unethical, regardless of how much you want to capitalize the word "any". I think that some changes would be unethical, especially if they distort or hide facts, but I'm pretty sure that no one knows what changes were requested. If only there was some sort of Information Act that could be used to get ahold of official communications like that in order to really get this witch hunt going. But, alas, we'll just have to sit here and speculate. We might as well assume the worst.
I think you've even agreed that there was something changed.
I'm just going off what I see in the primary sources (fucking crazy, I know!), which contains this line:
Yes on your point re records - done below.
So, what does that line mean? Well shit, you look like you're having so much fun speculating that I don't want to be left out. Let me try.
Hmm. OK, here's the statement from Clinton's press guy that he sent to the media:
Like Secretaries of State before her, she used her own email account when engaging with any Department officials. For government business, she emailed them on their Department accounts, with every expectation they would be retained. When the Department asked former Secretaries last year for help ensuring their emails were in fact retained, we immediately said yes.
OK. And, hmmmm.. ok, here's part of the response from State:
The State Department has long had access to a wide array of Secretary Clinton's records -- including emails between her and Department officials with state.gov accounts, as well as cables. Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation. In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the Department with emails spanning her time at the Department. After the State Department reviewed those emails, we produced about 300 emails responsive to recent requests from the Select Committee.
OK, let's fire up The Speculator. I'm going to draw a line from the campaign's statement, especially that last sentence, passing through the "shady" line from the email ("yes on your point re records"), down to that section from the statement by State. I'm going to speculate that the campaign asked State to say something about how they requested records (see how I matched up the actual word from the quote?) from the previous secretaries, so that the campaign could also say that they've been sending records to State, in line with that policy. And I think that both of these are probably factual statements, in so far as politicians define facts (obviously, not all of the emails were in fact sent, or else that Heather lawyer wouldn't even have a job). But hopefully there's more to this story than "she didn't send all of her emails", because we've known
Which members of Clinton's campaign staff have been Secretary of State?
So, let me try to understand what you're suggesting here. Are you trying to suggest that if the State Department has questions for Clinton, that John Kerry takes the time out of his day to personally call up Hillary Clinton and ask her some questions about a public statement that they're going to release about her? Is that what you think happens? Does John Kerry call up Clinton to make sure all of the facts are right in the statement they're about to release, or do you think that maybe the department and Clinton both have people working for them to handle that kind of thing? Do you think that Clinton is exceptional in the regard that she has people who help handle communications for her? Is she the only person who does that kind of thing? Is that why I need to be outraged?
It was unethical for SD to CHANGE THE MATERIAL IT SENT based on requests from CAMPAIGN STAFF of a current and active political campaign.
How the hell do you know that the changes were unethical? Fill me in!
We don't know what the change was
OK, that's exactly what I thought, you don't know. You're assuming there's some shady shit going on here. I hope you'll pardon me if I don't drop everything and organize a mob to put Clinton under civil arrest.
I mean, fuck man, both of us are reading the same email, right? I even linked you to the damn thing. Just copy and paste the goddamn parts which are the basis for your outrage and let's just skip straight to the chase, OK? The only outrage I'm able to feel right now is directed at you for apparently thinking that I should be outraged because some communications person at State sent an email to communications people working for Clinton about a statement they were going to make, the statement which you can read right in the goddamn email. Copy and paste, and hell bold the parts if you think I'm dense, and point out which part of that statement is problematic. Because, if nothing in the statement is problematic, then maybe whatever changes were requested aren't the Big Fucking Deal that you're trying to make them out to be.
Here, you know what? I'll save you the trouble and paste it right here so that you don't have to be bothered with clicking on the actual source document:
From the moment that the Select Committee was created, the State Department has been proactively and consistently engaged in responding to the Committee's many requests in a timely manner, providing more than 40,000 pages of documents, scheduling more than 20 transcribed interviews and participating in several briefings and each of the Committee's hearings.
The State Department has long had access to a wide array of Secretary Clinton’s records -- including emails between her and Department officials with state.gov accounts, as well as cables. Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation. In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the Department with emails spanning her time at the Department. After the State Department reviewed those emails, we produced about 300 emails responsive to recent requests from the Select Committee.
The Department is in the process of updating our records preservation policies to bring them in line with recent 2013 National Archives and Records Administration guidance. These steps include regularly archiving all of Secretary Kerry's emails to ensure that we are capturing all federal records.
Ooooooh, nevermind. I see why you're outraged. It's right here:
Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation.
You're pissed off because State contacted the forme
John Podesta's name does not appear on the list [wikipedia.org] of past secretaries of state. John Podesta's email.
How right you are. And State did not email John Podesta. That's also a fact. The press secretary from State (spokeswoman, whatever they call her) sent an email to Clinton's press secretary and others with her campaign. The topic was a response to a journalist, so it makes sense that the press secretaries are communicating. That is their job.
Here is the email in question, since TFA helpfully decided to not link to it. Here is the list of released emails sorted chronologically by email date, set to page 126 centered around the start of March 2015, if you'd like to take a look for yourself. If more emails are released the page number might need to be changed, I took a while to look for that to make it easy for other people.
The people involved are Lauren Hickey, the person at State, who emailed Heather Samuelson, who is apparently a lawyer involved with determining which emails get released and which don't, plus Philippe Reines, an HRC senior advisor while she was at state and a current aide, and Nick Merill, the HRC traveling press secretary. Nick Merill forwarded the email to Jennifer Palmieri, HRC communications director, who forwarded it to Podesta. That's how it ended up with Podesta. I imagine that the purpose of State sending it to the people involved was because they wanted to verify or whatever with Clinton, and those are the people that the person at State would contact if they want to get in touch with HRC herself.
The problem comes when the campaign staffers to whom it was sent then ask for and are granted changes to the material before it is then actually released to the public.
What if the information that State was releasing was factually incorrect, vague, etc, and the campaign was seeking to correct or clarify? There doesn't automatically need to be some sort of malfeasance involved. If HRC had nothing to do with State then I'd say maybe there's something shady, but since she was the former secretary and they were being asked direct questions about her, it would make sense if the people at State were trying to check with her to make sure their statement is accurate. Again, I'd love for this to be a reason to string up HRC, but I'm not seeing it. On the list of reasons why I dislike her, I'll file this particular email somewhere in the low to mid hundreds.
It was because the material was sent to a political campaign and the campaign got it changed.
It's not "a political campaign", it's the former secretary. And, what did they change? She says there was a change "re records", look at that email that includes the response from State and see if you can find the part where they mention records which sounds shady. I'm not seeing it.
This whole thing is someone sitting in a field hearing a bunch of hooves behind them and jumping up shouting "I HEAR A ZEBRA!" and they turn around, and no, it's just a horse. So they sit down again and wait for the next hoof beats to once again jump up and assume there's a zebra nearby. It's not a zebra, it's just a horse. Maybe one day there will be a zebra, but this isn't it.
[2 Prison guards speaking, in British accents]
Guard 1: Wot's that then?
Guard 2: Looks like a drone, doesn't it? It's flying right at us, looks like it's got a package suspended from it. That would no doubt have some contraband in it, wouldn't it?
Guard 1: Well, should we alert the others?
Guard 2: No need. They can't fly over the prison, you see. There's a little bit right in there, which actually stops the thing from flying over any prison. Brilliant, isn't it?
Guard 1: Brilliant! But it looks like it just flew over the wall and into the yard, when is that bit supposed to kick in to stop it?
Guard 2: It did fly over the wall, didn't it? See if you can reach the warden on the radio.
Guard 1: What should I tell him?
Guard 2: Tell him that we're in the wrong place, apparently the prison got moved and we need to know where we're supposed to be.
-fin-
Why is the State Department forwarding information to a non-governmental person before they release it to the public?
Because the "non-governmental person" is the former secretary which they were asked to comment about. That's only a guess though.
You don't see anything wrong with that?
I don't see an inherent problem with the State Department sending information to a "non-governmental person" before they release it to the public. I don't think the State Department has any obligation or duty to only contact people in the government and no one else. Some evidence which supports this theory of mine is that the State Department was in contact with a news organization also, which is also a "non-governmental person", and they were also giving that news organization the exact same information.
So, why is it so outrageous that State was in communication with the former secretary, but it's not outrageous that they were in communication with journalists? Both are "non-governmental persons", correct? So, help me understand the outrage. There are a lot of things that I detest about Clinton, so help me out here, help the hate flow through me. I already think she is the poster child for political corruption, so finish your thought about State not being able to contact people who aren't in the government and how the public trust was somehow shattered by them daring to contact the person who used to lead the damn department. Justify that +5 Insightful that other people think you deserve and point out what I'm missing about State contacting their former leaders.
Is it because she was campaigning? Would the proper response have been "we can't comment on the activity of the former secretary because she's engaged in an election campaign, but we'll be happy to tell you everything you want to know just right after the election." Because that would gone over so much better, right?
*Former official, not formal. Damn subconscious autocorrect.