Week 44

Models do not work [for prediction] as the latest election result proves.

Which "models" are you talking about?

The one I used, called Time for Change model did well. If you fed it the June data (the creator of the model, Abramovitz, always takes June numbers to predict November), Bama's net popularity is at 5%, gdp growth 2.5%, then the result is

conf = results.conf_int()
pred = [1., 2.5, 5., 1]
print np.dot(pred, conf), np.dot(pred, results.params)

[ 44.23 53.92] 49% of popular vote for Democrats, a likely loss for Hillary. After two terms ppl tend to change the party in power, only very general variables matter, such as overall economy, a very general popularity, itsy, bitsy, tiny, little policy positions do not. GDP growth was okay, but Bam was not too popular, at least not at Reagan, Bill C. levels. It was basically time for change.

I repeat, this was not an issue of "models",  polling models might have problems, not all models.  

James Baker

[Answering a question "Are America and its institutions strong enough to survive any shock, even one as seismic as Donald Trump in the White House?"] 

“Yes,” declares Baker, emphatically.

I Agree

At the worst case he'll turn it over to Pence (experienced politician), or get this guy... Hasish? Kasish? .. or whatever the f--k his name is, the governor of Ohio. I believe he was asked to have a key role in a Chump administration but he refused. Smart move, he wanted to wait and see. Now they can get him, give him key post like Treasury or something, and he and Pence will run the show. 

There was also the huge possibility that Trump used all this womenizing, racism, bigotry talk mostly for show, underneath it all he is a centrist. We knew that. But he presented us with a jackass, a facade, and as a political commentator I was obliged to slap the shit out that facade. We'll see how things turn out now. I am not pessimistic. Baker is right. 

Columbia to sign a new FARC deal without a second referandum

Now you are getting it

That's what should have happened from the start because the officials did all that work, with hair-splitting detail,  weighing frickin pros and cons and more cons - for what? Only to have it overturned by some asshole sitting at home scratching his balls  from a region which never experienced FARC terrorism first hand?

I will drain the swamp [meaning ending lobbyist influence in Washington] once elected.

Candidates say these things but do not follow through

In fact I remember a moment during one Bill C. - Bush I debate when both candidates were asked about lobbying, and Bush I replied that  "it is a necessary part of the legislative process". Bill said something along the lines of "draining the swamp" too, back in 1992. It would be interesting to see what happened afterwards when Bill became president, probably not much changed. Why the lobbyist bashing then? During the election Bill was the challenger and he was trying to reinforce the "time for change" message; he already had the advantegous position, Reps had lost the incumbency adv, Bush I's popularity was not good. All Bill had to do was fighting the Rep slander machine (not easy), and project a general aura of change. The anti-lobbyist comment was simply "the opposite of what the other guy said".

Question

Is lobbying important? 

It is

Bush I was right - in representative systems power is concentrated, and that concentrated power needs to be lobbied similarly in a concentrated way, by interest groups. Guy on the street doesn't know shit about issues anyway, even educated people do not, they'll pick couple of people they are in general agreement with as their thought leader, and adopt his / her other ideas. It has always been this way.

Then, people who want to cause change in policy need to get better at lobbying, and seek to join forces with others who might share their agenda.

Note: On the environment, do liberals think about allying themselves with evangelicals for instance? They might be open to the idea you know, protecting God's creation all that. Was this considered, or did liberals reject such allegiance out-of-hand because they see evangelicals as "bunch of root suckin backward sheep-like people who treat their people with leeches when they get sick"? Some incorrect predispositions might be hindering effective action. 

Obama

[Sometime after his election, paraphrasing, on higher taxes] The American people settled the issue [with his election, meaning they said yes to high taxes]. 

Not true

Now Trump is elected, so.. did the "American People" vote for less taxes? Did they vote for the wall? No. 

People do not care about individual policies. It would be a mistake to assign fuzzy meaning to general election results. The system ensures parties regularly get the fuck out (a great thing), good policies can only extend a run a little - that's all. If taxes are raised and they have an adverse effect on the economy the broad parameter GDP growth is effected, and the Prez's party might lose the election. The effect is indirect. 

But there is more: I remember at the time Bam's comment rubbed off the Congressional Republicans in the wrong way, so not only the analysis was mistaken, he also failed to connect with people he was going to work with. 

Presidents, as being the singular person(s), are elected with a lot fanfare, with intense focus placed on them, because only one person will get the job and mass-media's celebrity chasing instincts work well with that. But they tend to get lost in the moment and practice all this high-and-mighty, "I'll do this, that" rhetoric forgetting the Presidency is one power center out of many in Washington. The fanfare can get extreme, and I know for fact that even though they might not say so, the people in the Congress resent the executive for this. They are "the many" (especially the House), and they must endure more electoral hardship to get elected, and then to keep the job. Some complain about the quality of the people in Congress, but imagine an educated, able-professional with some political skills campaigning for the job, and having the contend with that 5 second attack ad that'll target their spouse, children without a Prez election level war-chest to do anything about it. 

So the first lesson for the Prez is to "bottle it". Obama might be forgiven that he was all young and stupid at the time, but this kind of fanfare, and rhetoric adds up. Presidents need to adopt the rhetoric that is suitable for the congressional relations from day one. They should not talk over congressional leaders, and try to communicate through media: they will balk and shut you down. Do your thing privately.

Some Presidents might want to fix this, and adapt a tone for it, but even the "unification rhetoric" itself might backfire. Dubya tried that, "I am a uniter, not a divider", etc.. Then the election is over, Dubya is like "okay let's do some unifyin' here" which came across as "I will unify you". There was bunch of hoopla, the congressional leaders knew it,  they did not want to be so "publicly unified", they balked.

"But then the congress will pay the price for standing against being unified, hindering the President". Not necessarily. Reps gave Clinton a hard time, and they again, have the majority. 

If Sanders was the Democratic candidate, he'd have won.

Probably not

Democrats' chances hinged on Obama, and his popularity was not stellar.. Reagan had enough mojo to eek out one more term for the Republicans (Bush I), but Dems this time around, did not. No big deal though, we can't expect that kind of performance from every president. But if the media "really" wants to dig in to this question "why o-why, why the loss!?", then look at why Bam's popularity is not through the roof. There are logical reasons for this: The Middle East is on fire, the "real" unemployment is still high, Obamacare is an over-engineered pile of shit. You can keep going.

Newsweek

[It was] Hillary Clinton's election to lose.

Incorrect

It was Trump's to lose.

I hear the question "how did Trump win?" a lot. A more important question is "how did he win the Republican primaries?" because whoever won the primaries would have the non-Democratic advantage.

Here are some clues: take a look at how Chump picked a fight on Twitter with Jon Stewart for example. He had his ass handed to him, but he tried nonetheless. Or even before that his fight with Obama on the birth certificate. Obama is obviously the liberal-in-chief so a prime target.

He made these public moves because he wanted to present a fighter to the conservatives. Why is this important for them? Well, a lot of the ultra-religious, pious people are seen by the rest as dimwitted, slow people without ideas. They are dismissed out-of-hand for the simple reason for being who they are. Now here is the guy who is picking fights, on their side, with "the rest" and seemingly inflicts some pain. For the intellectually dismissed, that is a major boon. That's how he became "their guy". It's crass, and stupid, but that's is how it works. Within this context Chump's marital issues, "lewd" talk was unimportant. He was "their guy", he had "converted" to their cause even,  married with children now, the past behind him, so on paper he was okay.

Ideally you'd want to see a smart overachiever like Mitt to be "their guy", but Mitt had a bad slot (2012, not a year for Republicans).

Question

Why did Jon Stewart not see he was being used and simply dismiss Trump?

Yeah well..

Everybody has their job... You slap a comedian, he won't sit back, and they will usually go nuclear. We cannot, should not expect too much "situational awareness" in terms of politics from comedians, even political characters in media.  I'll give another example: After Obama's election in 2008, the Republican party immediately appointed a black guy to head the party - Michael Steele, supposedly to improve the party's image. He was saying things like "heeey baby, what's up?", on TV interviews, trying to be cool and failing, miserably. But that was exactly why he was appointed to that job - the Rep psyop team saw there was a "cool black" in the White House, so they decided to counter that with "square black". Comedians kept making fun of Steele of course,  doing Rep psyop team's jobs for them.

This is how these f--kers think. Outsider commentators usually don't stand a chance against any of this.

Comment

If the president was elected through popular vote, Trump would have lost.

You don't play football within the rules of volleyball

If the rules required maximum popular vote win for Presidential election, Republicans would change their strategies accordingly. This is a great example of comparing apples and oranges.

Popular vote favors Dems these days because they tend to win in big populous states, big cities. Reps do well in rural areas. When Reps can stitch together enough of these states, and maybe win a big populous state, they are in good shape. The reverse is true for Dems.

Question

How did Reps win Florida with so many Hispanics?

A guess..

It's odd how it all worked out. The anti-immigration, anti-Mexico talk would have hurt in California, but that state is already lost to Republicans, so no major harm there. But cross-the-border-anti-Hispanic talk could maybe help  in Florida, in Miami even, you know a city built by Castro hating Cubans who fled his dipshit regime. At the same time Bam is doing the tango in Havana. I don't know.. just a guess.

Note: I was / am for the mending of ties with Cuba.

Question

Did Hillary have no chance of winning?

You'd need an obnoxiously good campaigner for a Democratic win

.. at the levels of Dubya backed up by Rove, or a Bill Clinton. It is simply unrealistic to expect that from Hillary.

By the way Bill C. won when Democrats had a major advantage.

But the gold medal  goes to Reps for 2000, that election was won when Reps had a major disadvantage. Even te TfC model shows a big win for Dems, with tiny little chance for Reps. For Reps to win everything that could go wrong had to go wrong for Dems, everything that could go right for Reps had to go right for Reps which is exactly what happened. After a little bit of shady dealin', and stealin',  Republicans won. That campaign needs to be taught at schools. It was a major, major feat. W could well be one of the worst Presidents of modern times, but he was a great salesman.

Of course Bernie Sanders could have beaten Donald Trump

He could, if he ran as an independent

.. not as a Democrat. The essential part of the US system and its electorate is people voting based on party, deciding on what to do with the incumbent. Sanders chose to stay with the Dems, but then you are in the incumbent party, this brings along with it certain problems.

Sanders himself was at pains with this, you could see it during the campaign, on how to position himself within the Democrats. In the beginning he was saying Obamacare sucked ass, -he helped write it, so he knew what he was talking about (great line BTW)-. He could say these in the beginning, but near the end, he avoided this talk, because Bam was popular with "the base", and Sanders was trying to get the nomination of his party.

If he ran as an independent all of these restrictions would be removed - tacticallly speaking he could make a big show during the primaries that he was being treated unfairly, blah blah, and kick off his seperate campaign. He did not do these things, because, I guess he is a loyal guy, and in US insititutions still matter a lot.

In any case, if he were running as an independent, then he would be running against the incumbent, and enjoy the same mathematical advantage Trump benefited from.

Comment

Hillary's team made the mistake of [fill in the blanks]

They did great

They ran a good campaign and gave Trump's team hell. Transport her and her team back to 2008 they would have won. A sock puppet would have won on the Dem side for 2008 if it got the nomination. Transport Trump to 2012, he would have lost.

Question

Why did Hillary not get the 2008 Dem nomination?

It was too early for another Clinton

Imagine the situation - if she were nominated, and won the general election (she most likely would) the presidents, chronologically, would be Bush - Clinton - Bush - Clinton. It was not her time.

Hillary

FBI cost me this election

She can make that case now

.. because FBI stuck its nose where it doesn't belong. Whether it's true or not, FBI's actions created this situation, it was highly inappropriate. Oh BTW we know how FBI bullied Jacob Applebaum, uprooted the man's life (he fled to Berlin). I believe there are alota self-righteous idiots in this insititution who think they live in a Chuck Norris movie. Are these cops or neighborhood thugs ?

Question

What issue is most potentially troubling in a Trump presidency?

Climate change, and what happens to the Paris agreement

Question

What did Obama do well while in office?

The Paris Agreement

News

Protests against Trump are on their fifth day

It was an ugly campaign

.. no doubt about it. It would be naive to expect there would not be any backlash against the rhetoric in the campaign trail.

At the Munich Security Conference Core Group meeting here last week, Chinese officials and experts delivered a clear and unequivocal message to the visiting Westerners: China will not take any steps against Pyongyang that might increase the chance of a confrontation with the North Korean regime or encourage regime change on China’s border.

Who says anything about regime change?

It is enough to change the head of the regime. In summary, someone needs to calm these effers down, their current trajectory is no good for anyone. If China  wants to project power and influence, they can start with their next-door neighbor. That's all we are saying.

First step, invasion. Topple the Kim family. Then you install some lackey, some motherflocker like Tung (Hong-Kong), some square, I-ll-do-as-you-say, brass tax, gray suit, boring, thick-headed son of a bitch, but that's okay. Trough this guy China  gradually transforms N. Korea to be a functioning market based economy, at the very least a mini-China, close to China. Korean unification would be better, but China-controlled N. Korea is more preferable than today's N. Korea.

D. Chump

Everytime they [FED] lower the interest rates, the cartel [he means OPEC ..] raises the oil prices.

Err, no

Rate cut can cause dollar depreciation, oil is priced in dollars, cheaper dollar -> more expensive oil. Why does this jackass keeps seeing neferious plots everywhere? See economist Taylor's comment. Here are some other factors in play.

NYT

Someday the British court ruling on Brexit may be studied as a milestone in parliamentary democracy [..] On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the High Court unanimously ruled that since Parliament voted in 1972 to join the predecessor of the E.U., the government cannot withdraw from the union without Parliament’s approval, even though 51.9 percent of voters backed a departure in a June 23 referendum. [..] A mantra of the Leave campaigners was that Britain has ceded too much authority to Brussels, and that the British Parliament needed to “take back control” over British affairs. The court’s ruling follows this logic — that only Parliament has the power to alter British law and therefore only it can choose to leave the bloc [..]

Although there will be an appeal, the lower court’s decision already underscores what the Brexit process and other populist movements in Europe and the United States have demonstrated: that elected officials in representative democracies abrogate their responsibility for tough decisions at their own peril, and at peril to their country. Britain’s Supreme Court may come to a different interpretation of legal precedent, but the political lesson is not likely to change.

Yes

Even though referendums seem democratic at first sight, there are few problems with them. At its core, a referendum is a question posed to the public, they are asked, and they answer. However, the governing party defines what that question is, and they choose the time for the question to be asked, which usually means a time most suitable for their needs. They tend not to ask a question which they know will receive a negative answer. In this case referendum is a charade. Another scenario is governing party defines question, chooses time, but botches it up so badly which becomes a huge issue in governance (see Columbia FARC deal, or Brexit). Only in a third scenario an enlightened question is asked without tactical timing, and it is general and detailed enough the public can answer, and they answer good. But one out of three scenarios ain't too great.

Question

If public views are a mere reflection of the thought leaders, what use is there for the press, whistleblowers, etc?

Because all thought leaders should see all relevant information

The more of them know, the better they can inform the rest. Also all thought leaders should be able to have the chance to influence all of the public.

Surely the whole decision making process is not entirely one-way street - there is a complicated song-and-dance between consumers of ideas and the generators of it, but in the direction of  the public ->  thought leaders, it is mostly about hearing about the grievances, not fully-formed ideas. It's like a doctor and her patient - the patient might say "my ass hurts, I believe I have a problem in my asshole" the doctor can diagnose "you have an ear infection". It is important to hear the complaint, but not necessarily the self-diagnosis.

This is of course the situation in the context of today's representative setup - different schemes are possible, but they most likely will not require the ruling elite, or the thought leaders - at least not in the capacity they are being utilized today. I say let's use the current system properly for as long as possible.

Russian Businessman

“Unfortunately, westerners don’t understand that Putin is a reflection of the Russian person,” he says. “Westerners for some reason think there’s some kind of Russian society here that wants something else, and that Putin is preventing this and, if he’s not here any more, then something will change. But this is not the case.” [echoing the old argument that people get the ruler they deserve]

You don't get it honcho

The point of the elite based system is that you should get better than what you deserve. Americans deserve Dubya, or JFK, but they were blessed with Reagan, Clinton, or Abraham frickin Lincoln, not to mention all of the the founders. If the random jackass off the street gets the top job, what's the point of having that top job?

Among the few that got [the US election prediction] right was a new industry player using a different method, South African firm Brandseye, which analyzes social media posts. With offices in Capetown and Johannesburg, Brandseye took an entirely different approach from traditional polling.

The data-miner pays people around the world to sift through social media for relevant posts, a process known as crowd-sourcing, and then uses a computer algorithm to rate consumer sentiment about products or politicians. Its method pointed to a Trump victory. It also correctly called Britain's Brexit vote.

Nice

Yeah - calling people up for voting prefs is too old school. I like what these guys do.

Question

Fine - if electoral college was changed so the President is elected through popular vote, Reps and Dems would change their strategies, and they'd keep on winning the same number of times perhaps, from both sides. But, which method would be better for democratic representation?

Actually, electoral college could still be fine

At first sight more people having more weight seems better, but there is the danger smaller states being squeezed out of the representation completely if US were to go "full-pop". Like..  South Dakota. Who lives there? Noone. All they have is a man and his dog. These people send representatives to the Congress and there is noone left to live in the state. Seriously. But now SD is represented by 3 votes in the electoral college. Not too bad for them.

If some mean to say "we want more populous states like California to be listened to more than the rest", or "we don't want our state to be influenced in the wrong way by others", fine, I understand that too. Secession! Cal-exit baby! Kal-ee-fornia!

So now I am listening to country music to understand country folk.

♩ ♪ I gotta thank mama for the cookin' ♫ ♩ ♪  Daddy for the whuppin' ♫ ♪ ♫ The Devil for the trouble that I get into ♪ ♫

Best title:

All My Ex's Live In Texas