Ole Larry O’Connor at Hot Air is all het up and having a bad day:
He concludes: “Hillary posts pages of documented Trump lies” and holds a conference call with members of the media detailing the same theme and within 48 hours major publications print articles following along with Hillary’s prescribed narrative.
Yup, total coincidence.”
And there you have it. Rather than being concerned about the fact that Donald Trump’s past is so full of toxic lies it could be an EPA Superfund site, he’s upset that Trump is a victim of the media (a notion which is in and of itself utter nonsense).
Priorities!
ET
I think that the screw is turning for Trump. Don’t know if this will ultimately mean anything in the end though.
waspuppet
Because when right-wing conspiracy theories are puke-funneled from RNC emails and Drudge’s site to the front page of the New York Times in less than 24 hours, that’s just responsive, quality journalism that takes the concerns of Real Americans seriously.
randy khan
When before a debate one side argues that there shouldn’t be fact checking, that’s a tell. (Not to mention that it validates all of those stories.)
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Well, can you really blame him? The mean press is victimizing poor Donald Trump. The guy is only telling us what a lot of us want to hear, after all, and then these self important reporters get all pissy about whether it’s “true” or not. Talking about whether things are “true” or “lies” is nothing but liberal elitism. Real Americans don’t care whether things they believe are “true” or not. If it feels true, it is.
BGinCHI
I predict a dutiful Chuck Todd comment later today: “Let’s set aside whether the lies were actually lies, and whether there were a lot of them….”
Steve M.
I am shocked, shocked, that campaign reporters are taking their cues from the campaigns they cover! This has never happened before in the history of American politics!
Patricia Kayden
So even if Secretary Clinton is coordinating stories with the media (which she is not), isn’t the issue whether or not Trump has repeatedly lied and what this constant lying says about his character and demeanor? Lying is not a quality anyone wants in the President, except Rightwingers who actually want Trump to lie during the debates.
RaflW
Lets face it. George Orwell wrote owner’s manuals, not fiction.
NorthLeft12
Of course it’s not a coincidence, dumbass! There is this little debate tonight and every media outlet wants to build this thing up and ensure the maximum publicity and readership. They have been developing this “Deadbeat Donald is a LIAR!” story for awhile and saving it for just the right moment.
And guess what? That moment is right now.
BTW, the fact that the articles are completely accurate is of no concern to the RWNJs who are whining pathetically. Its the optics, you know.
Emma
Living in the last days of an empire ain’t no fun.
Major Major Major Major
@randy khan: my favorite electoral tell is where one side thinks there shouldn’t be voting. Same side, of course.
MattF
You’re suggesting that introspection may not be the most reliable source of political truth? Shame on you!
RaflW
@Patricia Kayden (and Hot Air et al.): Clinton released that list to shame the media, not coordinate with them.
Oatler.
Although your world wonders me,
with your majestic and superior cackling hen
Your people I do not understand,
so to you I shall put a Trump
dmsilev
@Emma: The circuses aren’t bad, but could we at least get some decent bread to go with?
NorthLeft12
From the article;
HA HA HA HA +infinity. It’s a narrative doncha know. And Deadbeat Junior does not want his loathsome father’s tax records released because it will interfere with their narrative. Okay, one of these narratives is actually true, the second [yes that one of course] is not, because the factual data in Trump’s tax records will completely contradict his image as a billionaire, successful businessman, American patriot, tax paying philanthropist.
The Dangerman
Which reminds me, I gotta pick out the movie to go watch tonight; Scully, I think. Maybe 8 Days A Week, I hear it’s fun and Ron Howard is consistently good.
Not enough alcohol or aspirin in the house to listen to Trump tonight. I think Trump gets trounced; I just don’t think his Cat5 shitstorm act will fly in this forum. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he screams “rigged” and this is the only debate he does.
ETA: I could see him walking off the stage tonight; what is it, 90 minutes, which means he has to go roughly 45 without a teleprompter. I don’t think he can say “wall” or “radical Islam” over and over again for 45.
Roger Moore
When you can’t argue with the facts, criticize the source.
Elizabelle
People are paying attention, whether the rightwing jackholes want them to, or not. Merriam Webster site right now: “trending” (the top word searches):
Where did sophomoric show up recently, in a big way? Maybe one of the big NYTimes endorsements/non-endorsements? (Have not read them, word for word, yet.)
amk
playingintimidating the refs. the same old rethugs bs for decades.Major Major Major Major
@The Dangerman: I have a movie in the book I’m writing called Damn That Ape! that a narrator is about to see. Maybe you could see that and tell me how it is.
Bobby Thomson
cough Judicial Watch
TaMara (HFG)
Thanks, my morning needed that….so tired of the Trump needs to not meltdown and he’s a winner, Hillary has to be smart, funny, not shrill and trustworthy and she won’t lose (the implicit fact being she can’t win the debate tonight).
...now I try to be amused
I get the impression that media people are genuinely spooked by the possibility of Trump winning despite his many disqualifications — a possibility they helped create — so they will shoot the racehorse for the good of the country.
Josie
@The Dangerman:
Bingo. I have been binge watching “Longmire” since I cut the cable cord and will continue to do so tonight. Then I will catch up on BJ later. Less stress and lower blood pressure. Actually I think Hillary will be fine. She has seen worse than this and survived.
JMG
@The Dangerman: No, he’ll finish. He’ll just do the usual talking points backed up with word salad. A fact-free approach to argument is really easy.
catclub
@Bobby Thomson:
The GOP hates equal treatment. so unfair.
catclub
@…now I try to be amused: agreed. Or I could just quote your entire post.
Tokyokie
Let me see if I get this: Trump lies audaciously and continuously throughout his campaign, the major news media either laugh it off or ignore it, and when the Clinton campaign compiles an accounting of said mistruths and the aforementioned news media finally publicize them, we’re supposed to believe that the aggrieved party is the liar? Larry O’Connor needs to take a few weeks to play Clue. He might even have time to ponder how to spend the money the Trump campaign agreed to pay him, which should be deposited any day now.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
Are you sure it isn’t “Serial Apeist”?
Major Major Major Major
@Tokyokie:
Well, these are the people who think bringing Ms. Flowers on is a way to make Hillary look bad.
sigaba
Trump campaign is really clear on this point: it’s not a lie if Trump doesn’t know what the truth actually is.
rachel
The timing was absolutely not a coincidence. That stunt Trump pulled to get free advertising from the media was a slap in the face that woke them all up at once.
Mai.naem.mobile
Hopefully Trump will be doing ads for Depends after tonight. ‘When you know you’re going to poop in your pants,depend on Depends’
donnah
My spirit is fortified after seeing the West Wing cast here in a rally in Dayton yesterday, so I will watch the debates as long as I’m able. All potentially damaging articles that can be thrown at my TV will be stowed away. And I’ll watch Stephen Colbert afterwards, so I can sleep.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: not as sure as I was before you said that. It’s a family novel! With cuss words and death.
Elmo
@Josie: Co-sign. My lovely wife has completely 100% had it with politics, and I can’t stand to watch debates anyway because that level of tension and outrage is just too unpleasant. So we will be binge-re-watching “Sherlock,” starting from episode one. They’re long, so just two episodes is usually all the TV time we have in an evening.
(Of course I will be surreptitiously checking my phone for updates from the jackals here. But honey doesn’t have to know that.)
nonynony
@Elmo: As a friend told me – there’s no debate here. There is a candidate that is acceptable and a candidate that just is not. There’s not point to watching the debate because there is almost literally nothing either of them can say that will switch my vote at this point.
I suppose Clinton could start saying she was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, and that would shift my vote to “weeping openly while drinking heavily.” But since I have a better chance of winning the lottery than of that happening I really think I can skip it.
chopper
@sigaba:
the costanza rule in full effect.
low-tech cyclist
I guess conservatives don’t care about whether the stories are accurate.
They got themselves here by their increasing disregard for the truth over the past couple of decades, and now they’ve got a candidate who pays no attention whatsoever to what is true and what isn’t.
And now that the press has caught on to this and is actually doing stories about it, they’re upset at the press.
Yeah, it’s a shame that Hillary’s campaign had to give them a push in the right direction, but are they reporting something that’s true and accurate and important? Absolutely.
And after a lack of conservative objections to years of negative stories about Hillary and Benghazi, emails, and the Clinton Foundation that were all pushed by Judicial Watch and other right-wing groups, and all proved to be meaningless nothingburgers – well, they’ve got zero right to complain.
Worthless whiners.
rikyrah
But, if Ferret Head isn’t lying…that means his mouth isn’t open.
Facts are stubborn things.
Patricia Kayden
@The Dangerman: And he cannot say “Crooked Hillary” or “Pocahontas” over and over again for a straight 45 minutes either. He has to speak in more than just sound bites. I just don’t see him holding up well. Contrast that to Secretary Clinton answering withering questions at the 11 hour Benghazi hearing with poise and class. She’ll be fine. He’ll probably meltdown. Looking forward to reading all about it tomorrow.
Citizen_X
@Emma:
Alternate formulation: Peak Wingnut is actually pretty fucking terrifying.
Patricia Kayden
@RaflW: Good for Secretary Clinton. Smart move just before the first debate.
eclare
@chopper: Ah yes, the Costanza rule…
Major Major Major Major
Jim Newell at Slate has a pretty good summation:
No link, on phone
randy khan
@sigaba:
I was pondering this morning whether Clinton has ginned up a point about how it’s not clear if it’s worse if The Donald is lying or if he has no idea that what he’s saying isn’t true. That would seem like it would be handy tonight.
NR
And yet, more voters think Trump is honest and trustworthy than Hillary Clinton. They are tied in Colorado and Pennsylvania.
Hillary Clinton is the worst major-party nominee for president in at least the last fifty years, end of story.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah, it sure is.
MattF
@Patricia Kayden: If he melts down, it won’t be onstage, unfortunately– too much of a coward. Most likely a day or two after, once he’s completely sure that Hilz is really and truly not in the room with him any more.
Judge Crater
The real question is, do all the lies really matter? And the depressing answer is that, to the vast majority of Trump supporters, they don’t.
America is lost…only a political savant like Hunter S. Thompson could chronicle this election accurately. “Fear and loathing” – Donald Trump’s America.
bystander
@BGinCHI:
“Trump appeared to have the temperament to be POTUS just as Reagan did against Carter. Hillary was overprepared and reminded you of the National Honor Society girl who sat next to you in Junior English with her hand raised all the time. Icky.”
schrodinger's cat
Eagerly awaiting NR’s sockpuppet Bailey to show up.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: Bailey’s EmoLex score is all wrong for that.
bystander
I watched MSNBC for as long as I could. It was all about how the optics will weigh out. Not one mention of comparing policies or the history of racism, religious bigotry and fraud that one candidate represents.
rikyrah
If Facts Don’t Matter, Presidential Debates Are Just a Reality Show
by David Atkins
September 25, 2016 3:09 PM
Janet Brown, the executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates has declared that the debates should be a fact-check-free zone:
This is terrible on many levels. Debates are supposed to illustrate how the candidates would respond to a variety of policy challenges. Those challenges depend on having a shared set of facts: a 10% unemployment rate would create a very different policy environment from a 5% unemployment. If each candidate is claiming different unemployment statistics, you don’t have a debate. You have a noisy argument that sheds a lot of heat and no light. It’s a useless exercise.
Moreover, the example she gave is frankly bizarre. It’s one thing to dispute, say, models of economic growth or the efficacy of various foreign policy approaches. But the unemployment rate? That has a single reliable source: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is literally the only legitimate source for unemployment numbers. There is a small debate within economic circles as to whether the BLS unemployment statistics appropriately reflect the reality of economic pain within the country, in terms of not counting people who stopped looking for work or potentially ignoring too many of the underemployed. Some people use a U6 model for unemployment rather than a U3 model. But the starting point for any reasonable discussion of the unemployment rate is the official BLS number.
If one candidate says that unemployment is at 5% and the other candidate says it’s much higher, it’s absolutely the job of a moderator to inform the public that the official BLS statistics support one candidate’s assertion. The candidate trying to claim an alternate reality should then be pressed to say why they disbelieve the BLS, proving either that they’re a conspiracy monger, or potentially that they have a sophisticated critique of the government’s economic model–which would certainly be an interesting and informative conversation, but one that can only happen in the context of a single, authoritative factual source acknowledged by both candidates.
trollhattan
@NR:
Michael Dukakis and Willard Romney on conference line #3 for you, presuming you can figure out how to operate the phone this time.
Moran.
scav
The very fact that stuff gets published in newspapers is enough to disprove their veracity to the eyes of some. The only stuff so evidently true as to not need verification are said by “some people” (no longer even so localized as cab drivers or “those in the know”) and delivered in a comforting word salad of tangets and non-sequitors that is in itself the authenticity mark of having no narrative.
Waldo
@…now I try to be amused:
The very real prospect of spending four years as the scapegoats for Trump’s inevitable failures is suddenly dawning on these clowns. In other words, sh1t’s getting real.
BGinCHI
@bystander: I think they understand that if Hillary wins, she is going to put them where they belong.
At least Donald will humor them while he’s treating them like shit.
dmsilev
@trollhattan: Not to mention George McGovern. Or Barry Goldwater if we’re allowed to stretch to 52 years.
Major Major Major Major
@BGinCHI: until he throws them in prison.
nonynony
@NR:
I am still waiting for your argument/evidence that she is worse than Mondale or Dukakis. Let alone Bob Dole, Jimmy Carter (who actually managed to win despite being a terrible candidate who couldn’t unite his party), or McGovern. You keep spouting this off but you don’t actually say anything to justify it.
Trump will get 45% of the vote. It’s baked in. The fact that she isn’t blowing him out of the water is no indication of her as a candidate – it’s that Republicans have gone insane. On top of that her performance this year is right in line with where Obama’s performance was in 2012 right before his first debate with Romney.
So cut it out. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Or more likely you’re just here to piss people off and depress people.
joel hanes
@Oatler.:
“Never hear … surf music … again”
NR
@trollhattan: Dukakis was solidly behind Bush in the polls in late September, moran.
Here’s Nate Silver:
If you want to keep denying reality when it’s staring you in the face, that’s on you.
Elizabelle
@donnah: Thank you for reminding me about Colbert. Will have to catch it.
Debate on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, C-Span and the cable jackals. 9:00 p Eastern.
Davis X. Machina
So long as when he says “I hate the same people you hate”, he’s telling the truth, none of the rest matters.
scav
Has the usual suspects melted down about the nefarious Google and its terrible terrible un-‘merkan behavior in not only advising people to register to vote but doing so in multiple languages!?! Like many, I’m going Interwebs lite or at least limited today so I’m not peeking or asking anyone to endanger themselves, but maybe someone brave or unlucky already noticed.
eric
@dmsilev: well, in a country that fetishes military service, being a POW (war hero) and losing to Barack Hussein Obama (a point Obama made at the WHCD) is pretty high up there on the shitty candidate list. Particulary when you add in Palin and suspending his campaign — that guy was a shitty candidate of epic proportions.
ETA: and LOVED by the Press
NR
@nonynony:
She’s losing to Donald Trump.
Elizabelle
I would ask that everyone just ignore NR and Bailey. Don’t let them highjack.
Don’t correct them. They feed on attention, and will just come back at you.
Goddamn ignore them.
BGinCHI
@Major Major Major Major: They’re already in prison.
JMG
It is noteworthy that to Republicans (and one troll) a tie means “we’re winning” and to all too many Democrats it equals “we’re losing.” Nate Silver, lest we forget, is a Democrat.
amk
@Elizabelle: Yup. It’s going to be trollfest today. Best to let them soil their pants on their own.
NR
@Elizabelle: Burying your head in the sand, always a good strategy.
NR
@JMG: Did you miss this part of what Nate said?
hilts
@bystander:
That’s torture. Chris Matthews is one of the most repulsive and nauseating personalities on cable, Mark Halperin is the high priest of false equivalence, and Morning Joe is a supersized putrid streaming pile of excrement. CNN is no better with their cavalcade of Trump stooges like Lewandowksi, Jeffrey Lord, et al
Waldo
@Davis X. Machina: Yep. That’s the whole Trump campaign in a nutshell.
JMG
@NR: Trends can and do change, even for Nate. Last week, he had Clinton making a small gain based on some better polls for her. This weekend’s polls changed his trend.
nonynony
@NR: She’s not losing. You are panicking about day-to-day polling. She’s consistently up in the polling averages and has been pretty much the entire race.
Donald Trump will get somewhere between McCain’s support and Romney’s support this election. Accept it – it literally does not matter who is in the Republican slot once the primaries are done ANY Republican will get that level of support. The fact that Donald Trump is uniquely horrible just indicates that Republicans are uniquely horrible at this point in history. That person will get 45% of the vote no matter what. And Clinton is on track to beat it if you stop looking at the noisy day to day polls and look at the polling averages.
She knows what she’s doing. You need to stop shitposting just to shitpost. Or go take a walk if you’re actually a Democrat and really are in Democratic panic mode.
raven
Maxine Waters is taking Trumps ass to the woodshed.
craigie
Whatever you do, don’t click the link and read the comments. It’s an upside down, parallel universe over there.
Brachiator
Yawn. This is of course a lie. But even posters here talked about wishing that the media would do more with Clinton’s “oppo research.” So the cynical game that is being played here is the notion that the timely dropping of lies and smears is part of the political game. You know, like the thousands of dumbass stories about why Trump is doomed simply because he refuses to pivot.
But again, the larger point is that the lies DO NOT originate with Hillary. But the sad fact is that there are conservative dopes who see only what they want to see, and who actively reject the truth and reality so that they can exist comfortably with their denial.
I got no time for these stooges, who are probably getting their “rigged election fantasies” all in order in case Trump loses.
gwangung
@JMG: Actually, not sure I know what to make of the polls in general. It’s fairly consistent Trump does about the same with white men as Romney, while Clinton does much better with white women than Obama. Yet the margins are smaller. Not making sense to me.
Major Major Major Major
@gwangung: it’s the likely voter screens. GOTV! Or, you know, sit around with your thumb up your ass and shit your pants in disgust and fear like NR. Which is kind of impressive when you think about it.
craigie
This is why we are going to hell
dmsilev
Oh, Wikipedia, did that truly need three separate citations?
(I was checking to see if my memory was correct about Trump never having done a one-on-one debate. That is indeed true; the last couple of primary debates had Trump, Kasich, Cruz, and Rubio. Tonight’s dynamic will be very different.)
Iowa Old Lady
It wouldn’t bother me at all if the Clinton campaign did feed those stories to the media and the media ran with them. Why not? They’re true. If she has to do her own fact checking, this is as good a way as any.
Shell
Maybe one of my Mothers pain pills and a shot of apple brandy might get thru the first hour but….
Its beyond pointless complaining about the medias circus-like hype of all this…but Jaysus!
chopper
@trollhattan:
“this is the worst phone in the entire history of phones!”
catclub
@Major Major Major Major:
I have high hopes for the difference between the GOP and Clinton GOTV organizations to heavily favor Clinton relative to polling.
(also this comment should boost my emolex score. Godel has nothing on BJ)
gwangung
@Major Major Major Major: Some really screwed up LV screens, then. Would really have to jimmy them to overweight white males so much. I’ve been fairly convinced that the models are out to lunch when it comes to non-whites (might go down a smidge from 2012, but very unlikely to go to 2004 or 2000 unless there’s widespread voter suppression), but hadn’t thought it was being applied to white women.
NorthLeft12
@NR: The level of denial on the conservative side is beyond belief. They will never credit Sec. Clinton with anything. This is a continuation of their strategy versus Two Time President Obama. They will belittle any achievements or try and paint them as failures. They will repeat every vile and vicious rumour or lie that they have made up about her, and they will relentlessly attack her character. Just like they have been doing for over twenty years.
I’ll say this again, they recognized her as a future foe to be reckoned with from the nineties, and have been smearing her non-stop to deny her this opportunity. They hate her because they fear her, and they will be absolutely insane when she triumphs over them. Again.
chopper
@nonynony:
clinton should be blowing trump out of the water because republicans should be non-insane. people who think it’s hilz’s fault that she can’t magically change the latter are idiots.
The Dangerman
@shomi:
I think it’s bigger than the MSM; their masters, the PTB’s, have no interest in a Trump Presidency; want to see the markets take a complete dump? Elect Trump. No, the long knives will come out (or may be coming out) for the Orange One.
Major Major Major Major
@gwangung: they’ve got minority turnout at pre-Obama levels.
Jeffro
@nonynony:
That’s a great point (about ‘Republicans being both uniquely horrible’ and that any R will get 45% of the vote). Personally, I think Trump will end up just a smidge below McCain’s performance in 2008.
Pogonip
@dmsilev: The circuses are terrible! Reality TV is awful at best.
The bread, on the other hand, ain’t bad.
hilts
Perfect summation of how the villagers will play the expectations game:
Insiders: The heat is on Hillary, Politico
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: dude, its over almost four months worth of comments. One comment ain’t changing shit :)
Maybe after the debate I’ll score all participants against their record!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@NR:
Michael Dukakis and John Kerry would like a word with you. As would Mitt Romney and Donald fucking Trump, for God’s sake.
NR
@nonynony:
Again, her trend lines are horrible. Polls that had her up 8-10 points a month ago now have her tied or up 1-2 points at most. You can’t look at polls like that and say “She’s still ahead so everything’s fine!” The trends are proof that it’s not.
Calouste
@NR:
Nate Silver said in November that Trump had less chance to win the primary than other candidates, despite having led in most national, New Hampshire, and Iowa polls since he got into the race in July. Talking about denying reality when it’s staring you in the face…
I don’t think Silver is up to the Dick Morris level of “always wrong” forecasting yet, but it is not through lack of effort. Those pages don’t click themselves, you know.
NorthLeft12
Had a back and forth with a Trumpie about Hillary’s “scandals”, and he eventually trotted out the old trope “where there is smoke, there is fire.” I asked him if he ever considered who was actually blowing that smoke, and that it was all coming from the same Republican/conservative sources. I asked him to consider whether there was/is a self interest in those promoting this misinformation and whether he is being conned.
NOTE: He will never admit to being conned by his conservafriends.
tobie
So in Cecil County, Maryland–which along with Garrett Country represent the sewer pits of the state–Trump billboards and yard signs are everywhere. The folks in this poor, white, uneducated, and heavily subsidized country are psyched for DJT. But the question for me is how many of these folks are *new* voters. They didn’t love Romney, he didn’t reflect their id, but they voted for him. I’m sure some new voters will turn up on election but don’t know if that will be enough to tip things. Trump’s strategy has always been to turn out the white male working class vote. How many of these voters has the RNC in recent years missed?
chopper
@Calouste:
Sam Wang says this is the most stable presidential race in more than 60 years, and that hilz has been ahead the entire time. but where’s the fun in that? SET THE SOFA ON FIRE
waysel
@Elizabelle: I would ask that everyone just ignore NR and Bailey. Don’t let them highjack.
Don’t correct them. They feed on attention, and will just come back at you.
Goddamn ignore them. YES!
Major Major Major Major
@Calouste: Silver at least admitted fault re Trump in the primaries. But lord knows, man, that guy sucks.
Calouste
You could reply to that with “So what about Donald Trump being accused of raping a 13 year old girl?” Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right?
Betty Cracker
@NR: Sweet banjo-strumming, tap-dancing Christ, could you give it a fucking rest already? What is the point of your constant, relentless negativity? Do you realize how transparently situational (and therefore worthless) your childish gloating is, since you only bob to the surface to predict doom and woe when Clinton is even or down in a specific polling cycle and then disappear when she’s up in the polls?
Your prognostications and pronouncements are not only worthless, they’re counterproductive if you actually give a shit about the issues you claim to support. For the ten thousandth time, your preferred primary candidate lost the fucking primary, okay? All the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments you’ve engaged in since then haven’t changed that fact one jot — and they never will!
Move the fuck on, for the love of FSM!
randy khan
@waysel: [sarcasm]You’re no fun.[/sarcasm]
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
He’s a right wing ratfucker.
Brachiator
@NR:
OMG!! OMG!!! OMG!!!
Her trend lines are horrible! If only this were meaningful. Unfortunately, it’s not.
Let’s talk about something more timely. Like how Obama is terrible because he failed to get the public option passed in 2008.
rachel
@Major Major Major Major
Do they? that seems a bit unrealistic given that:
a) the vote-supression measures taken against them have mostly been overruled.
b) Obama is campaigning for Hillary.
c) Trump has done everything humanly possible to piss them off–to the extent that some eligible resident aliens are taking US citizenship so they can vote against him.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: “who said anything about Bernie? I’m talking about Hillary’s weakness! Also as a teenager I cut myself just so I could prove that I still felt anything at all!” -NR
@rachel: Yes, they do. And even without unskewing their screens Hillary has a decent lead.
Calouste
So I have a theory about third-party numbers in this year’s polling. Polling response numbers are abysmal, around 8% or so. Lot’s of people don’t answer numbers they don’t recognize, or just hang up on a pollster. Third party voters, and specially the newly converted, tend to be more fanatic than major party voters, and probably more likely to take the effort to respond to polls, thereby artificially inflating their numbers. Thoughts?
Matt McIrvin
@NorthLeft12:
The thing is, Donald Trump is surrounded by so much smoke you can barely see him.
gwangung
@rachel: Not to mention that the population of non-white voters has grown larger with respect to white voters. And that it’s been a trend since the 1990s.
Plenty of cause to give side-eye to polls that revert to 2004 levels.
Timurid
@Cacti:
Then he’s really bad at ratfucking.
The correct approach would be ‘She’s gonna win by 20%, nothing to worry about, don’t need to vote/donate/volunteer, giving Stein’s Johnson a little tug won’t hurt anything, etc.’
sigaba
@Major Major Major Major: I have no idea what NR does with his free time but from all I’ve read he might as well be a perl script.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Major Major Major Major:
“And I post a lot of nihilist memes because I’m a deep thinker”.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@BGinCHI:
“,.. instead, let us examine what it means when Trump says he is a black, lesbian woman, who led Seal Team Six when they shot Ben Ladin and holds Obama personably responsible for not being in the Whitehouse on 911.”
“Yes, yes, good point Chuck. How do we feel when Trump tells us this and the optics when Hilary claims Trump is lying? That’s the take away here.”
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: NR is beneath contempt and for the good of humanity should remain there.
gene108
@gwangung:
I assume they expect lower African-American turn-out, with Obama not on the ticket. Only thing I can think of to account for the difference.
Major Major Major Major
@sigaba: all the cool troll bots nowadays are Node.
So yes. Perl.
MattF
@Calouste: Conventional wisdom is that about half the people who say they’re voting third-party actually do so.
FlipYrWhig
@Calouste: Probably to a degree, but I keep thinking it’s chiefly a way to say “neither, fuck both of them” without admitting to being “undecided” because “undecided” seems like an admission of ignorance, like the way that people when interviewed about made-up nonsense will pretend to know what you’re asking them about.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: “but this presidential election is different!”
-every pundit ever
JR in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
And now we have a useful application of all the work you and Roger Moore did – comparing individuals to see if their brains are the same!
Thanks Major^4, thanks Roger!
I’ve noticed similarities between my scores and other folks, perhaps a tool to order charts by degree of similarity would be fun? See who’s close to your emo profile!
What does it mean that my normalized scores are all lower than 0.1 ??
Blueskies
@rachel:
I think you’re being optimistic, but sure, why not? ;)
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: I think that polls on election eve fairly accurately represent the third-party share. Polls that are taken earlier than that often overestimate it, though. The minor candidates tend to fade in the home stretch.
schrodinger's cat
Fuck Trump and his bitches in the MSM. Here is something uplifting, Cat man from Aleppo doing ceiling cat’s work!
gene108
@rachel:
I agree it’s unrealistic to think minorities African-Americans will not turn-out. They and other minorities, who have been paying the least bit of attention, know that behind Trump’s kind and smiling veneer are many thousands of white supremacists, who are looking to bring their racist dreams into reality.
All it will take is filling the open SCOTUS seat with a right-wing judge, the DoJ turning the other way when Republican controlled states start chipping away at Civil Rights, and gutting the Voting Rights Act.
piratedan
idly wonders if during the debate that if Clinton mentions that she was exonerated in regards to Benghazi, The Clinton Foundation or e-mails if the media will “push back” on that. I’d almost give odds that if anyone did, it would be Andrea Mitchell.
Major Major Major Major
@JR in WV: it means you’re within 10% of the mean commenter, an example of which is in the top part of the page. The standard deviation isn’t included in that though, I forget what it is.
NR
@Calouste: Silver got the primary wrong because he ignored what the polling data was telling him. You know, like people here are doing now.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: In what alternate reality can Trump be described as smiling and kind? Whenever I see him, he is either sneering or yelling. He never smiles, he smirks.
p.a.
I’m not sure tRumpf will get even the popular vote rMoney got because of 3rd parties. Also I doubt there will be a massive uptick in racist turnout because of tRump; so he’s blatant! The previous elections were thoroughly dog-whistled, and it’s not like Barry Bamz wasn’t/isn’t blackity black enough to motivate those people to slither to the polls.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Live by the news cycle, die by the news cycle.
NR
@Betty Cracker: The point is to point out how wrong the “Clinton’s going to win, nothing to worry about!” crowd is. She’s a horrible candidate and if she does win (looking less and less likely at this point), it’ll be way closer than it should have been.
JR in WV
@waysel:
I’m with ya! Trying to not care what idjts think about anything. Surprisingly difficult!!
? Martin
I think the media has snapped out of their ‘this is entertaining’ mode. Young Conor on Trump’s cruelty.
It may be too late for this turn to have any effect – they made him look like the most interesting thing in this country for the better part of a year now.
Kay
@? Martin:
Ugh. I wish. I just heard some of them on Michigan public radio- chortling away at how Trump is “nontraditional”
It’s a game to them.
NR
@Betty Cracker: And by the way, Clinton had a couple of decent polls too. Florida Chamber of Commerce poll had her up 3 in Florida. And the Loras poll had her tied in Iowa, which is a way better result than most other Iowa polls. So I hope they’re right.
Pogonip
@Calouste: That the percentage of people who will answer a call from a number they don’t recognize probably is up in the 90’s overall. However, the need to deliver a finished product to whoever commissioned the survey means “likely voters” come heavily from lists of registered voters. These people are interested in politics, like to be polled, and get called so often they often do recognize the pollster’s number. Which will often be local as big polls tend to get subcontracted out to smaller outfits.
Second, everybody please calm down. The two things the entire Village appears to agree on are 1). Donald Trump is Not Our Kind Dear 2) he is an unknown quantity regarding the Middle East. Even if he got 100% of the votes he will not be permitted to become president. If the Deep State feels that rigging the voting machines is too obvious, there’s always the electoral college, or they could let him take office and then impeach him two weeks later. So chill out and enjoy the show.
Betty Cracker
@NR: Oh bullshit. There’s not “crowd” here who says there’s “nothing to worry about.” I do believe Clinton is going to win (and, unlike you, am willing to put my money where my mouth is), but of course we should not be complacent and should work our asses off to make sure she gets elected, and I can’t think of a single commenter, much less a “crowd,” who says otherwise. So your alleged premise for your uniquely unattractive strategy of simultaneous gloating and whining is a steaming load of crap. I think I’ll have to go with “bitter leftier-than-thou scold who hopes for a bad outcome so he/she can feel pointlessly vindicated” theory.
Elmo
So the Facebook ad-placement algorithm is apparently reading my mind about this election, because this was a prominently featured ad this morning…
Kay
@NR:
“Should of been” doesn’t mean anything. It’s a hypothetical. What is the point of hitting it over and over before the election is even over?
Clinton won the primary. She got more votes and she got more delegates. All the other scenarios are imaginary.
I ended up thinking Bernie was a weak candidate. Those horrible campaign people he hired seemed to roll right over him. He couldn’t run his own campaign. He kept deferring to others.
Barbara
@rikyrah: Janet Brown, like so many others, checks her bottom line, and finds that her livelihood and/or influence depends on having both sides agree to debates sponsored by the organization that she is a part of. Basically, for too many people in public life, if grift is what it takes to keep their lights burning bright, then grift is what it is. No low life job that requires actual hard work for them.
ETA: Previously Brown was the Press Secretary to John Danforth (R-MO), U.S. Senate.
The picture all of a sudden gets clearer.
Press Secretary
Kay
@NR:
When is a third term ever a sure thing? The opposite had always been true. The incumbent Party has the hill to climb to stay in power.
Major Major Major Major
@JR in WV: ..The standard deviation is 11.6% so you’re within it.
NotMax
Merely posting a pic of the words HOT AIR would have been sufficient.
schrodinger's cat
Do not respond to the Negative Republican troll. He is either paid to spread the negativity or it is his hobby.
Pogonip
@Elmo: I don’t use Facebook but the new improved Balloon Juice has figured out we order from Amazon every so often (my apologies to the serfs there). This is OK with me. I’d much rather see the Amazon ad than that poor soul with the painfully swollen face.
Matt McIrvin
@Pogonip:
No. If you believe The Conspiracy will take out Donald Trump somehow even if he wins the votes, you are more delusional than a Trumpist.
The Electoral College is not a deliberative body that actually meets. The only instances in which they’ve voted faithlessly have been the odd protest vote or accident, and I don’t see any reason to believe that won’t happen again.
sukabi
@NR: no, that would be drumpf. Hillary’s negatives are largely the result of 30+ years of propaganda and empty scandal chasing by the media. If drumpf had the same scrutiny over the last 5 years (his birther years) as Clinton, he would have never made it to the primaries.
Calouste
@Kay: People seem to have forgotten about Sanders that his campaign manager, Tad Devine, worked for Putin crony Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine at the same time as Paul Manafort, Trump’s (now former) campaign manager.
rikyrah
Trump Is So Awful Even the Rich are Voting Against Their Own Interests
by David Atkins
September 25, 2016 7:00 AM
Hillary Clinton has had a pretty good week, all things considered. Clinton’s appearance on Between Two Ferns was widely watched and well received, humanizing her in a millennial-friendly setting. She has refocused her campaign to be less about Trump’s weaknesses than on her agenda to improve Americans’ lives. Both of these should help shore up her weakness with millennial voters.
Another big help, if she can stay focused on it and get the press to cover it in more depth, is her proposal to increase the estate tax to 65%. It’s the sort of economic populist approach that the country needs, and that the voters Clinton needs to turn out will appreciate.
It could, in theory, come at the expense of the very wealthy and their adherents. But so far, Clinton is doing just fine on those fronts–in fact, for the first time in decades high-income voters are favoring the Democrat to enter the Oval Office:
schrodinger's cat
If MSM bots think that people who are going to be affected by Trump’s Make America White Again campaign are not paying attention, they are wrong.
My friends kid who is 9, knows that Trump is calling children like him anchor babies, and he was the loudest Trump critic when we had lunch with their family. So much so, that his father had to shush him from being too loud.
Kay
I heard some Trump spokesperson on the radio insisting that Trump should be “respected”
I wondered when the demands to show fealty to the authoritarian Right would start. Someone should tell Donald Trump respect is earned. Sending paid hacks out to order us to respect this pampered, privileged dope and his gross family it isn’t how that works.
schrodinger's cat
I ar in moderation, so I am trying again.
If MSM bots think that people who are going to be affected by Trump’s Make America White Again campaign are not paying attention, they are wrong.
My friends’ kid who is 9, knows that Trump is calling children like him anchor babies, and he was the loudest Trump critic when we had lunch with their family. So much so, that his father had to shush him from being too loud
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker:
Thank you — this to the power of this in an infinite series of this.
Botsplainer
@rikyrah:
“Hard working white farmers, small business owners deeply affected…”
Pogonip
You know, I was explaining to a Trump supporter my theory that he would not be allowed to become president, as stated above, and she said “If we ALL vote, they can’t hide that.”. I thought it over and I believe she’s mistaken–seems to me if you can rig one voting machine you can rig a whole bunch, especially if they’re all programmed out of a central Mothership set-up. However, it’s an interesting question. Can you computer mavens weigh in on it?
BR
Everyone who comments here needs to sign up for a volunteer shift. Are you going to be commenting here during the debate? Then you need to sign up for a volunteer event. Any event. Type your zipcode in, sign up, show up.
Everyone here needs to have signed up by the time of the debate.
Eric U.
I haven’t been drinking, mostly in an effort to lose weight. But I have plenty of beer handy
negative 1
@gene108: You’ve cited reasons they’d vote for HRC, which is correct, but voter turnout is more correlated with enthusiasm. Hence, I don’t think it’s a bad assumption that they won’t be as enthused to vote for HRC than they would the first African American president ever. That’s not a knock, it just seems like a pretty likely statement.
Also, the republican vote suppression is better than it was in 2008 and 2012, so unfortunately, yeah I expect turnout to be lower.
BR
@Pogonip:
It could be rigged but probably won’t be.
But setting that aside, I think the better response to the Trumpers is to stoke their conspiracy fears that Trump is actually in on the conspiracy. “Oh, I thought it was obvious he was in on it.” When they ask what it is, change the subject or say “Oh, it seems pretty obvious what game he’s playing with his supporters.”
FlipYrWhig
Re: polls, I just keep thinking that something is super fucked-up in the “likely voters” piece of the number crunching. The polls in demographic terms are devastating for Trump. It feels like there’s some oddity in these models of who counts as a likely voter, to the extent that Clinton has to be absolutely _whupping_ Trump among voters being scored as non-likely.
JR in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
That makes perfect sense, I should have realized that the charts were variations from the median… duh! thanks.
These charts are interesting! Second and third look…
Pogonip
@schrodinger’s cat: Dad should let the kid blare–he may have a future in cable TV!
Mine used to have an annoying habit of waiting until we were right on top of a turn or exit and then yelling “MOM TURN HERE!”. Finally I said “Bill, don’t BLARE!”. And ever since, whenever I yell across the yard at a neighbor I can count on hearing “Mom, don’t blare.”
hilts
@Betty Cracker:
Your takedown is a beautiful work of art!
Matt McIrvin
@Pogonip: We don’t have one election system–we have thousands of them, and many of them don’t use voting machines and have paper trails. There are electronic tabulators, but a really wonky, surprising result would probably trigger pressure for a recount.
I think it would be extremely hard for a nationwide conspiracy to really rig the vote against an obvious winner. What hackers could do with a concerted attack is muddy the waters. Take down systems, erase totals, sow doubt.
Uncle Cosmo
@NR: You sound like someone in dire need of learning how to operate a shotgun trigger with your big toe while the muzzle’s in your mouth. The lessons probably ought to include how to load the thing, since you’re clearly too stupid to figure it out on your own,
negative 1
@Botsplainer: Or she could favor allowing people to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. One stroke of a pen gets the older millenial vote and most of GenX…
Pogonip
@Matt McIrvin: @schrodinger’s cat: Dad should let the kid blare–he may have a future in cable TV!
Mine used to have an annoying habit of waiting until we were right on top of a turn or exit and then yelling “MOM TURN HERE!”. Finally I said “Bill, don’t BLARE!”. And ever since, whenever I yell across the yard at a neighbor I can count on hearing “Mom, don’t blare.”
sukabi
@Calouste: silver might be wishing he’d never taken the red pill (NYT) having to constantly produce “content” doesn’t leave an awful lot of time for thoughtful analysis. Crap in crap out skews your percentages and kills your brand.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
Compared to the racists, who are his supporters, he’s like some kind of moderating influence. Those folks are not even trying to pretend they want to support African-Americans, the way Trump does by going to a black church in Detroit.
It’s rather scary, what’s lying beneath the surface of the GOP and Trump’s campaign.
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1: I saw a thing saying that she’d suspend student loan payments on day 1.
gwangung
@FlipYrWhig: We;’ve been discussing this. LV models are really wonky. For example, Reuters/Ipsos (A- for Nate) has black female turnout at 61% when in 2012 it was 74% and they’ve been the most loyal voters for Dems this Century.
Pogonip
@Matt McIrvin: That’s my point. From their viewpoint a faithless vote would be a protest vote, rescuing the nation from an unsuitable president.
negative 1
@Major Major Major Major: Yes but that’s only as you refinance. No amount of refinancing gets you out of 6 figure debt with no job, and nothing short of death can stop FAFSA. They make credit card companies look amateur.
Pogonip
@Matt McIrvin: That may be what happened w/Bush Jr. when the guy who ran the Diebold Co. promised to deliver Ohio for Bush (and may well have). I lived in Ohio at the time and was surprised Mr. Diebold would be so frank. Nobody else was. I guess I was young and naive.
schrodinger's cat
@Pogonip: This was in public, at a restaurant in a quaint New England town, where shall we say that my friends’ son was the only one who could pass for an anchor baby.
Denali
@Martin,
There is no doubt in my mind that he is cruel. The invitation to Gennifer Flowers is the tell.
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1:
So not quite what I remember, but there it is. And I could imagine her just extending that and extending that until Congress does something.
JMG
Somebody on twitter revealed the following fact, one that knocked my socks off. As of today, there have been almost exactly half as many swing state polls published as there were on this date in 2012, 56 to 111. Since all the best known predictive models use state polls as their most important data, all of them are flying with one eye closed. Best just to say, “race is close” and be done with it.
negative 1
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, I stealth edited that after I found what you were talking about. The poorer you are the more f^&ked you are by your larger student loans. Bankruptcy should discharge them, just like any other unsecured debt. But it won’t. Instead you’ll have a generation of kids that will be paying a mortgage-level amount before buying a house, starting a family, etc. Unless of course they were lucky enough to have rich parents that paid on their behalf. This is why although refinancing is wonderful, it isn’t even close to enough.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Wonder if there is a way to score a predictive algorithm of Chuck Todd “both sides” aphorisms. We could have a betting routine and predictions, and whomever gets closest can be the winner and not pay.
Gelfling 545
@Betty Cracker: well, then, I guess s/he has accomplished what s/he set out to do here, i.e. be a pain in the ass.
Lurking Canadian
@FlipYrWhig: Somebody (either here or at LGM) recently referenced a study in which the same polling data was provided to five different pollsters and they all came up with different predictions. I guess the skill of poll aggregators like Wang and Silver is to try to tease the underlying real data out of the polls, but it certainly looks like the “Likely voter” screens are doing a lot of heavy lifting.
They seem to be convinced either that everybody who isn’t a white man will stay home, or that there is a huge crowd of white men who weren’t quite racist enough to vote AGAINST THE BLACK MAN but who are nonetheless racist enough to vote for Trump.
Major Major Major Major
@negative 1: The bankruptcy thing is never ever gonna happen, or else every single 21-year-old will, upon graduating, declare bankruptcy. They’re not buying houses in the next seven years anyway. And then private student loans go away. Not that this is necessarily a bad consequence, but it is a consequence.
catclub
@rikyrah:
Actually, I suspect they are voting against Trump and the GOP. That is NOT the same as voting against their interests.
hilts
@rikyrah:
h/t Trump is Shunned by Top Executives, Wall Street Journal
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I don’t understand this take either. I’ve never been more motivated to vote in my life, and that includes my enthusiasm for Obama.
Brachiator
@JMG:
State polls cost money. News organizations are not as rich as they used to be, and are becoming poorer every year.
JR in WV
@negative 1:
But what about lowering their interest rates to a point below the current Fed intrabank rate? Right now that would be really close to zero, and since lenders get to borrow at that rate, why should they be making a profit off of a federal support program?
NR
@gwangung: This question has an easy answer: Hillary Clinton is a horrible candidate who inspires no one. She will not get the same turnout that Obama did among core Democratic voters, and the polls have consistently shown this.
JR in WV
@catclub:
I’ve always been astounded by support for Republicans from wealthy and management people. All the data, from stock market returns to jobs growth and payroll, from blue collar workers to the white-shoe lawyers and hedge fund managers, proves that the economy is better for everyone under Democratic administrations than under Republican administrations.
This is true across the board, but also, ans just as important, true for every individual administration. All Democratic administrations are better than all Republican administrations.
Even the Obama administration, under fire from a congress dedicated to seeing that he was a one-term president, if they had to inflict severe harm on the nation in order to do that. Of course, after inflicting all the harm they could, Obama was still re-elected to a second term, where he did still more to improve the nation.
In spite of Mitch McConnell’s economic and political treason to the nation !!
ETA: all you need to prove this is an almanac with a section on financial data charted by date, and another section with political data by date. IIRC even Jimmy Carter’s administration did pretty well in this regard compared to Republicans in general. My memory is pretty generalized now, so specifics get fuzzy, so I could be wrong on Carter… But overall, Dems outdo Repugnants by a lot!
chopper
@JR in WV:
NR: This question has an easy answer: Hillary Clinton is a horrible candidate who inspires no one.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Yes, middle aged white women, the core voters of the Democratic Party, sure hate Hillary Clinton.
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: that made me sniffle, the bit about “since all my friends have left the country, the cats have become my friends”. I mean….it’s uplifiting, but it’s also sad as hell to think about the place that guy is in right now.