I’ve grown to dislike the data-driven life, and I agree with some of the criticisms of Robby Mook for falling too in love with some big data hocus pocus plan for the Hillary campaign. But the criticisms of the people (Nate Silver, Sam Wang, their UK counterparts) who who were wrong about Brexit and the 2016 presidential election have just gone too far. The vote on the Brexit was quite close, less than four points, and Hillary not only won the popular vote by 2 points but lost three states (which together would have given her the election) by less than one point. So I don’t see how any of this proves the data elite in their Accela corridor bubble are completely wrong about the power of right-wing populism.
There’s a lot of Le Pen can win stuff going around (I’m not surprised that Chris Arnade and Megan McArdle are rooting for her). Meanwhile, Macron’s lead is growing, to nearly 25 points in some recent polls.
After the 2016 election, there was a lot of talk that Sam Wang and Nate Silver had to shut up forever because they were wrong by a few points. Will the people claiming Le Pen can win shut up forever if Macron wins by 20+ points?
jeffreyw
No! Hope this helps!
Major Major Major Major
You spend too much time paying attention to these people.
Also, I can’t be the only one who keeps seeing ‘macaron’ when I see his name.
jeffreyw
The Yanks are coming! Damn you for that earworm.
Tim C.
And for what it’s worth, Nate was a lot less wrong than Sam. Nate predicted uncertainty and warned there was a real chance of it going Trump’s way. But yeah, I think the French are smarter than we are.
japa21
No again
Epicurus
I trust this question is purely rhetorical?
jheartney
Sam Wang was forecasting the overall chance of a Trump win as being extremely low. He also referred to people fretting over the possibility of a Trump winning as “ninnies.” I think the hit to his credibility was pretty well deserved; I certainly stopped reading him after the election.
? Martin
These things don’t happen in a vacuum. France is able to see what happened in the US, and that will shape their behavior. Just as many here were shocked that Trump could win, I think France is now under no such disillusion regarding Le Pen.
rikyrah
The margin by which Dolt45 won in those states……
3-4 times people who had been Voter Suppressed, if able to vote , wouldn’t have made it close for Hillary.
V-O-T-E-R-S-U-P-P-R-E-S-S-I-O-N
TenguPhule
@? Martin: France at least has a history of dealing with Fascist collaborators the right way.
Doug!
@Epicurus:
Yes it is
Major Major Major Major
@jheartney: Fortunately, he can always fall back on his career as a computational neuroscientist.
zhena gogolia
@jheartney:
The fact that he was giggling about it (“now I have to eat a bug! heeheehee”) on election night made me write him completely off my list of people to pay attention to.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: Their far leftists certainly aren’t learning from our (or their or the Germans’) examples. A lot of the supporters of the totally-not-a-communist communist candidate in the first round are sitting this one out.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: I was reading up to 25% abstention.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Elizabelle
@Major Major Major Major: I saw that. I’d like to punch those fuckeurs.
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: In the same Reuters article where I read that, which said that 25% was high, they noted that the first round had 22% abstention, so I guess the difference between high and normal there is 3 points.
hovercraft
No!
Obamacare will tank the economy, well not yet but soon, well it hasn’t really started yet, okay it’s only been one year, definitely next year……..
Cutting taxes on the rich and corporations will lead to 3-4% growth, just look at what Brownback and walker are doing, it will lead to an economic boom, well not yet, the democrats are sabotaging them, they didn’t cut enough……..
Removing the dictator will show strength and remove the threat once and for all, just look at Saddam, the Taliban, Gaddafi, if you just give it another Friedman unit it will turn out roses……
These people are never wrong even when though they are wrong almost all the damn time, they are still the sages, let anyone predicting that a democrat will win or is right be wrong and they must shut the fuck up for ever. These are the same people who said cutting deficits was the most important thing in the world which led to the stagnation in Europe that fed the discontent that is fueling Nationalism and fer/hatred of immigrants.
Chris
@TenguPhule:
Uh.
Kind of. Sometimes. Depending on the collaborator.
Yutsano
@Major Major Major Major: FWIW France doesn’t have compulsory voting.
Having said that, there’s no way the polling is THAT off. Macron is on his way to being the next President.
Jay C
Almost certainly not.
Next question?
Brachiator
I was listening to BBC analysis of the recent French presidential debate. The media described it as “vicious,” with Macron being criticized as “inauthentic,” overly cautious and reeking of associations with the corporate elite. Le Pen kept attacking him for being out of touch with the people, a corporatist tool, a part of the establishment and everything that was wrong with politics. Le Pen also peppered her attack with assaults, everything but “Lock Him Up!”
On the other hand, Le Pen came across as unprepared, kept referring to her notes, and had poor command of the facts.
All the pundits agreed that Macron was much more in command and was the winner of the debates.
But the previous candidates who all got shut out were part of the old political mainstream, and consistently ignored an angry, fearful citizenry that view them all as being out of touch. There is worry that Le Pen might yet benefit from a quiet, angry voter base that is keeping quiet about its true feelings. Some of the losing parties are encouraging people not to vote.
Sound familiar?
A lot of the background in France is similar to the US election
This is kinda irrelevant to the polling issues. One stat expert pointed out that the presidential election polling was correct when you consider the margin of error. But this ignores some of the problems. The LA Times poll, which consistently showed Trump ahead, was derided. But among other things, they included people who previously had not voted for a long time, which turned out to be a closer match to the electorate than other models.
And people (perhaps including the Clinton team) kept wanting the polls to predict a winner, without regard to analytical cautions. Polling ain’t prophecy, but people want it to be. And this applies to the upcoming French election as well as the past American one.
And fun, fun, fun, a British election soon, too. Here it’s looking good for May in June.
Bill E Pilgrim
It’s actually better if there’s any OMG she might win sentiment, to keep up the protest/warding off vote against that happening. That’s what the French do, very few of the 82% who voted for Chirac in the second round were Chirac supporters, the vast majority were a coalition of all kinds of supporters of others, voting to keep Le Pen out.
The whole idea of “run off” as a translation is kind of misleading. The second round is pretty much certain to happen in every election, no one has gotten 50% in the first round in a long time. So it’s also normal for the first round to get no one candidate a big percentage, you vote to make a statement in the first round, then for keeps in the second. That’s not usually what we’re talking about when we use run off in this country. Second round is really the best way to describe it.
Also, in support of what Doug says here, polls were pretty right on as far as predicting the first round, and they’ve got him 20 to 25% ahead for the second. No comparison to Brexit or Trump which were really pretty close to polls in the end, a few points off.
Tractarian
To be fair, as to the 2016 election, Silver (who gave Trump about a %30 chance) was far more accurate than Wang (who gave Trump something like a 2% chance). Wang seriously underestimated the likelihood that polls in swing states were all slightly off in the same direction – the correlated error problem.
EBT
@Brachiator: Her 17 vote lead might expand to 120.
Hunter Gathers
No matter what margin LePen loses by, her BFF, Lord SmallFingers, will take to Twitter to proclaim that either the vote was rigged or blame her loss on ‘Fake News’. Followed up by tweets about France will be destroyed by ISIS, Macron being ‘low energy’ and then probably something about how mean the press was to LePen. Then he’ll go to bed so he can not fuck his trophy whore wife.
Kryptik
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Pretty sure that’s the reason why Obama is celebrated there while we’re about to crucify him here, for daring to take money and/or Preznitting While Black. Pragmatism is dead here, only Freak Flags are allowed to fly here.
Roger Moore
Obviously not. They’ll say they were only claiming she could win, not that she definitely would, so you can’t hold it against them. Of course they’ll ignore that the data driven predictions were also only saying Hillary was likely to win, not that she was certain to win.
Doug R
Here in beautiful BC, we’re having an election on May 9. So far the left of centre NDP is ahead of the right wing “Liberal” (not affiliated with Trudeau’s federal Liberal party) by a few points.
But all the leading polls thought the NDP was gonna win in 2013, so it is not done yet.
TenguPhule
@Chris: Their record is still better then ours.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: MMMM! Macaron!
schrodingers_cat
They are always wrong and they never shut up.
Major Major Major Major
@Yutsano:
I know, I’m just confused by how ~25% can be really high!!! if 22% is unremarkable. I smell a narrative.
JMG
The abstention thing isn’t “Undecided.” It’s people who say they’ll vote abstain, which is a choice in French elections, in which you cast a blank ballot. So assume 25 percent abstention. In US terms, that works out to roughly 45 percent Macron, 25 percent abstain and 24 percent LePen. It’s just not counted that way. Only totals for actual candidates are counted, so the polls that show a 60-40 Macron lead are counting their respondents as the votes will be counted.
Chris
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
All though the 2016 election, I was thinking back to the 2002 electoral slogan: “Vote for the crook, not the fascist.” It’s honestly a huge part of what enraged me about the “Clinton corrupt!” nonsense, because it should not have made a goddamn bit of difference if she was corrupt – when the person across the aisle is a literal fascist, you don’t stop to ask whether the person you’re voting for once cheated on his taxes.
Jacques Chirac was corrupt, something that was proven when he was later convicted, but plenty of people already suspected at the time, in addition to be bring a fairly uninspiring center-rightist. He still won with 80% of the vote and higher-than-normal turnout, brought about by conservatives, liberals, socialists, extreme-leftists, and habitual nonvoters, all of whom understood that keeping a fascist out of the Elysée overrode the usual considerations.
That is what a healthy political system looks like. (And hopefully, it’s what we’ll see again this Sunday, though not by as big a margin which is a sad thing in and of itself). The fact that the American population was even debating between “crook” and “fascist” was already a massive moral fail.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Kryptik: Kirsten Gillibrand/Lewis Black 2020: Vote Against Trump You Fucking Idiots
@Chris: Also: Edwin Edwards vs. David Duke.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
And yet she’s acting like the private polling of her own party is saying something completely different.
She’s gone full Trump against the EU, avoiding the press as much as she can outside of scripted events and Corbyn has been getting under her skin at questions and it shows.
Its odd, to say the least.
Jay C
Well, despite the seeming chaos of their political structures, the French seem to be a pretty pragmatic bunch when it comes to national elections: Macron is at best, a mediocre candidate, but given the choice between something like a known quantity and an near-outright Fascist, they will (even if unenthusiastically) go with the right choice.
Of course, even an 80-20% loss by Le Pen would be spun as some sort of glorious “moral victory” by the usual suspects….
Gin & Tonic
I saw a chyron on one of the TV’s at the gym that Il Donaldo is publicly favoring Le Pen. Not surprising, I guess – racists and fascists stick together.
Roger Moore
@jheartney:
Dr. Wang is still doing some interesting stuff related to gerrymandering. My understanding is that he’s being used as an expert witness in anti-gerrymandering lawsuits that are set to come before the Supreme Court. His big thing is trying to define an objective standard to evaluate partisan gerrymandering that’s simple enough for judges to perform the tests themselves. As I understand it, the Supreme Court has expressed concern about partisan gerrymandering in the past but hasn’t done anything about it because they’ve been leery about a rule that’s either subjective (and thus invites endless appeals) or depends on competing expert witnesses. If he can actually convince the Court to adopt some kind of objective standard, it would be a big Biden deal.
Chris
@Hunter Gathers:
Does Lord Smallfingers even know who she is?
Major Major Major Major
@Tractarian: Wang also only used state polls, which are slow to respond to breaking news, slower even than regular polls. The regular polls were only starting to show the movement from the Comey letter by the election, the state polls had barely budged. Wang’s was also strongly reliant on priors and would be very unlikely to show a significant change in likelihood that late, particularly given the relative stability throughout the rest of the cycle, reacting to any polling changes at that point as likely aberrations.
Silver uses a student’s distribution with long tails, which cranks up the uncertainty because of unknown unknowns. Wang’s model was wrong based on strongly-held incorrect assumptions, whereas Silver’s was considerably less wrong based on the assumption that any model had a strong likelihood of being incorrect. (At least we think so, since Silver doesn’t release his model.) It’s interesting!
Yutsano
@Hunter Gathers:
There’s a picture of them at some reception in Australia and you could tell she did NOT want to be there. I have a feeling the Hairy Yam also has kompromat on her otherwise I have no idea why she’s staying with that thing.
Chris
@TenguPhule:
Well that I certainly won’t argue with.
TenguPhule
Trump’s MOAB stunt, a dud as predicted
Short version, Trump and his general lied through their teeth.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
Putin’s poodle pack.
Brachiator
@Chris:
Really? That Le Pen is a candidate at all is a massive fail. And the anger that led to her rise, and to the brushing aside of the usual suspects of the traditional candidates, is still problematic. And if Macron wins, without a real party behind him, how will he be able to govern?
JMG
My political perspective on France may be skewed because my main source of information comes from my daughter who lives in Bordeaux, which was Macron’s strongest city or department in the first round. Bordeaux is booming, largely through the efforts of its previous Mayor Juppe, who oversaw a major infrastructure and urban renewal effort in the ’00s. Juppe is a right winger in France. Here he’d be to the left of Bernie.
Chris
@Jay C:
I certainly hope so. I’ll do my part this Saturday, and it’ll be bigly enthusiastic.
While I’m usually skeptical about the whole “what if we had a parliamentary/multiparty system wouldn’t that be better?” school of thought, I do think that a big part of that pragmatism comes from the fact that France – most European nations in fact – doesn’t have a two-party system. The thing where no matter the circumstances, no matter who is nominated, any candidate who wins a primary can count on a minimum of 45% of the vote (used to be 40%) isn’t the thing over there that it is here.
Tom Levenson
I take second place to no one in my contempt for McArdle. But in the piece referenced in that thread she’s unequivocally anti-LePen. Unlike fascist-curious Ross Douthat, who really does want a more-Catholic-than-the-Pope return to authoritarian politics, and keeps explaining who LePen is misunderstood.
Chris
@Gin & Tonic:
Not all racists are fascists, but all fascists are racists.
TenguPhule
@Tom Levenson:
Yes you do. You can’t match my contempt for Mcgriddle.
EBT
@Yutsano: The Kompromat is called divorce. She does what he says or she and Barron get jack fucking shit.
Marcelo
@jheartney:
Sam Wang was so sure about Hillary winning (with 99% confidence) that he specifically said that if Trump won he would eat a bug. To his credit, he did eat a bug on CNN after the election.
Major Major Major Major
@JMG:
This is no longer true. Fascists and ethno-nationalists are the mainstream right in Europe now.
hovercraft
deleted
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
Or she signed a bad prenup. That’s also a possibility.
Chris
@Brachiator:
“That” was, of course, 2002, not 2017. As I say, it’s gotten worse since then.
The fact that the original Le Pen was a candidate wasn’t necessarily indicative of anything deeply wrong with the system. All it proved was that given an the oddities of the political system and a series of unusual events, the leader of a fascist minority party can make it to the second round… where he’ll be utterly destroyed as his unpopular and uninspiring candidate gets four times more votes than he does.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: And here.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Tom Levenson:
Just repeating that to commend you for its pith.
trnc
@schrodingers_cat:
Bingo!
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: Indeed.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Major Major Major Major:
FWIW, an article that has a run down. Also this.
SRW1
Somewhat related: Labour got its ass kicked in the UK local elections yesterday, the Lib-Dems stalled in their attempt to stile themselves as the main opposition party, and UKIP lost 130 of its 131 seats.
With that kind of a trend, there is every chance that in five weeks time Theresa May will have a larger majority in Westminster than Maggie T. ever had.
I doubt that will impress the EU and the Brexit negotiations will fail, because the success of the Tories is in part gonna be based on Kipper Brexiteers coming home to the conservatives. May’s gonna have a bunch of hardcore backbenchers that are gonna make her life difficult because the EU refused to negotiate in secret, which isn’t conducive to horse trading. And when the negotiations fail, that’s when the real fun begins for working class people in the UK.
Bailey
The national polls were pretty much spot on in 2016 so no reason to chastise.
People didn’t want to hear what Nate was saying about the election — that it was volatile and there was a not insignificant chance Trump could win. The polls got cloudier in mid-late October because that’s when the late breakers were making up their minds, which is normal. The late decision makers broke significantly higher for Trump than Clinton.
NPR just published a round up of polling study of the 2016 election. What they additionally found is that there is not strong evidence that the Comey letter effected these late breaking voters since they started breaking well before the letter was made public.
What did probably effect state polls being off:
1. Not correctly accounting for education of voters and what party they’d support.
2. Turnout. In areas that Obama lost in ’12, turnout spiked and went for Trump in ’16. In areas that Obama won in ’12, turnout also increased but at a lower degree and didn’t correlate with Clinton votes.
What probably didn’t effect state polls being off:
1. Voters too embarrassed to admit they were voting Trump. No evidence for that.
2. People that didn’t respond to polls.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
This is shocking he lied?
About 21,700,000 results (1.22 seconds) this is what I get when I google Twitler lie in the first 100 days.
President Trump’s first 100 days: The fact check tally – Washington Post
4 days ago – In 100 days, President Trump made 488 false or misleading claims. … The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been chaotic and … But those numbers obscure the fact that the pace and volume of the president’s misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up. …. The story must be told.
Fact-Checking President Trump Through His First 100 Days – The New …
5 days ago – In his first 100 days in office, President Trump has falsely boasted of attracting the … claim per day on 91 of his first 99 days (Saturday is Day 100). …. “It costs sometimes $2.5 billion on average, actually, to come up with a new product.” … Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave …
Report: Trump made 488 false or misleading claims in his first 100 …
4 days ago – Report: Trump made 488 false or misleading claims in his first 100 days in office … (On six of those days, the president golfed at a Trump property.) … these statements has created a weird challenge: They just can’t keep up with …. AHCA: Donald Trump celebrated Obamacare repeal by lying about what the …
My favorite comment is from this guy who was grading the Shitgibbon in the LA Times Grade the President feature:
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
There was a BBC news story, with video, back in April, which clearly pointed out that the bomb not only did not disrupt any fighting, it caused a new outpouring of new fighters from the surrounding hills and valleys. You can see that the geography of the region makes it hard for Trump’s folly to have been effective.
Trump wanted to drop the bomb because it was big, and he likes big things. I half expect some general to start painting bombs and missiles gold. Trump will love that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: Dig the crazy Belgians, man.
Major Major Major Major
@Bailey: thank you for gracing us with your thoughtful presence again.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Including what they did in Congo?
hovercraft
@Tom Levenson:
Assumes facts not in evidence. My case of loathing her is pretty virulent, in fact I’m sure it’s highly contagions and incurable.
Bailey
@Major Major Major Major:
Majorx4 – you’re welcome!
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: He wants us all to start drinking Irish coffee right now. That’s all I am think ing when I see his name.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: WTF?
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: Sam Wang has an op ed in today’s LA Times.
Can math stop partisan gerrymandering?
Ends with a plea to Justice Kennedy.
This fall, the USSC will look at 2 gerrymandering cases, out of Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah. To accompany the pie.
Chris
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Good lord, is the turnout in France really that high? That’s awesome. I remember voter non-participation being something that was brought up in my civics class in high school – with a gentle vibe of “don’t be like those guys, please.” Glad to hear so many people listened to the teacher.
TenguPhule
@Bailey: And this pertains to anything in this thread…how?
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus: Reference to child sex/rape accusations made against UN peacekeepers.
Yarrow
@Yutsano:
I think she’s scared to leave him because she might lose her son.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
How unfortunate for him that every time he looks at his fingers or in his pant all he sees are tiny things, the poor dear. I’d feel sorry for him if only he wasn’t taking out his inadequacies on the entire planet.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
How much will the newly appointed Justice affect what Kennedy may want?
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: No, it is a reference to Belgium’s appalling colonial history in Africa. I just am not sure how it is relevant to my comment on the percentage of Belgians who vote.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
if it gets him to ride one out of the bay doors I’m all for it.
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus: Really? I’d heard they were one of the groups under investigation though.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
Actually I think she’s referring to what they did to Congo when it was their colony. Belgian Congo, they were a very brutal colonial power.
The Belgian Congo is often cited as one of the most brutal and exploitative colonial regimes in modern history. It stands as an extreme example of…
ETA: Sorry link was broken.
Try this :Belgium Confronts Its Heart of Darkness; Unsavory Colonial Behavior …
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjzrdzmsdnTAhVqwlQKHWUcBNkQFghEMAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2002%2F09%2F21%2Farts%2Fbelgium-confronts-its-heart-darkness-unsavory-colonial-behavior-congo-will-be.html&usg=AFQjCNGMe3BeIjLqfGr4v8d0_D8S5Op71A
Sep 21, 2002 – Belgium Confronts Its Heart of Darkness; Unsavory Colonial Behavior in the Congo Will Be Tackled by a New Study. By ALAN RIDING SEPT.
Brachiator
@Bailey:
*Sigh* You are just wrong here. Out of your depth. And your spelling is bad.
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
Perhaps you missed the OP where Doug suggests that piling on the likes of Nate Silver, et al, is wrong and counterproductive?
Everything I wrote was in support of that.
If this is too much for you, perhaps you’re not qualified to participate in this thread.
Tom Levenson
To all youse ladles and jellyspoons claiming to exceed my contempt for McArdle. Naaaah. White hot hate of a thousand suns and all that. And I have the in excess of 100,000 words of blogging here and at Inverse Square to prove it.
I won’t say I’m alone in first place — but second place to anyone. Not a chance.
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: They may well be, but I am certain that my take on s_c’s comment was correct. In addition, even if your take is right, what does that have do with my comment?
Bailey
@Brachiator:
*Sigh.* How is it that I’M wrong when I’m pulling directly from NPR and their reporting on an extensive polling review? Did you not make the effort to click through to the report?
matt
No – right wingers who are wrong are ‘heroes in error’ and they get promoted.
Sorry.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tom Levenson: I got your back on your first place claim. Even DougJ must yield to you on this.
Citizen_X
@Chris: There was one Melanchon supporter who was complaining that “Now we have to choose between a fascist and a capitalist!” If that’s such a difficult choice for anyone, I don’t want to hear from them.
Doug!
@Tom Levenson:
I agree, I think you hate her more than I do.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
He shouldn’t affect the balance on the Supreme Court much, since he’s replacing Scalia. It’s unclear if and how much he might be able to influence anyone with his arguments.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Actually I was referring to their escapades during the colonial era.
@Omnes Omnibus: You said you dig the Belgians, it was a repartee to that. Not that I think you approve of Belgian actions in Congo.
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen_X: Leftier-than-thou purity ponies are too stupid for words.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: Sh*t we have leftists arguing that neo-liberal and fascists are roughly equal. People apparently don’t get what fascism actually is.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Yes, and I said in the context of being amazed at the percentage of Belgians who vote.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
In Milwaukee County, turnout was down by 41,000, and the county clerk said it was because of Wisconsin’s voter ID law.
Trump won WI by 22,000 votes.
They win by preventing Democrats from voting.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: Those aren’t leftier-than-thou purity ponies though, they’re honest-to-god communists. Say what you will about the tenets…
Chris
@Citizen_X:
Easy choice.
Brachiator
@Bailey:
There are better analyses than NPR’s. What you pulled is largely wrong. And I was distracted by your misuse of “effect” for “affect.”
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: That was a bit further back in the past then the UN Peacekeeper rape/child prostitute scandal that took place in the same area. Obscure reference is obscure.
Yarrow
One thing that has been interesting to watch with the French elections is the number of Twitter trolls and bots that are supposedly American heartland Christian grandmas that went from supporting Trump to being big supporters of Le Pen. Some of them even started out as Brexit supporters! It’s just amazing how many of those heartland grandmas are so interested in politics in other countries and seem to come down on whatever side Putin is supporting.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
To paraphrase many protest signs I’ve seen, I can’t believe we’re at the point where people are actually debating “is fascism really the worst that could happen?”
Bailey
@Brachiator:
Apparently you’re still distracted because it is just NPR’s reporting, not their analysis. The analysis was performed by a whole panel of polling experts, which, again, you could discover if you actually clicked through instead of relying on lazy attacks. Do you have some sort of insight or evidence that this expert coalition commissioned specifically has missed?
Weaselone
@SatanicPanic:
All the while not knowing what a neoliberal actually is and incorrectly labeling the fascist’s opponent as one.
Bill E Pilgrim
I think we should just let Belgians vote in our elections. Instead of us I mean. They do seem to like doing it.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: That percentage is certainly admirable.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
It seems to me that the French Communist Party is more or less an official form of leftier-than-thou purity ponyism.
TenguPhule
@Bailey: It looks more like you’re trying to rehash the 2016 election. Again. Doug! already said it better then you tried to.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule: BTW, a more comprehensive BBC story on the failure of MOAB. “The Mother of All Bombs: How badly did it hurt IS in Afghanistan?”
Again, I like that the reporter was actually on the ground, not filing a report from a comfortable hotel lounge.
And little details which give you an idea of how dug in IS really was, and how they shrugged off the bomb drop.
narya
Part of the reason I actually give credit to Nate Silver: at one point, he said that Lord Smallgloves’ chance of winning was the same chance of a NFL field-goal kicker missing a kick from the X yardline (I forget the exact number of yards), and I thought, “Whoa, I’ve seen that happen RECENTLY. We’re fucked.”
hovercraft
Via GOS
The run-off election in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District is going to be tight—an every-vote-matters situation. On the one hand you have high Democratic enthusiasm and an appealing candidate, while on the other hand you have a strongly Republican district. But Jon Ossoff and Democrats have just gotten two pieces of good news, about where the race stands right now and about how they can organize over the next two weeks.
A new poll from Gerstein Bocian Agne (a Democratic pollster) shows Ossoff strong on two fronts. First, he leads Karen Handel 50 to 48. Second, Ossoff’s supporters are more enthusiastic: “1-in-5 Handel voters are less certain about their support for her” and may be less likely to turn out and vote. And while the House’s Trumpcare vote—and Handel’s support for it—may help motivate the intense Republican base, it’s not likely to help with independents and even some less extremist Republican voters.
Democrats are also getting an opportunity to translate some of that enthusiasm into new voters. Georgia had said that no one could register after March 20 and vote in the June 20 run-off, but a federal judge ordered the state to re-open registration until May 21 after civil rights groups filed suit. In an election where every vote will matter and where there’s a lot more excitement for Ossoff, it’s possible that registering some new voters could make a difference.
Can you chip in $1 to help Jon Ossoff win this thing?
bemused
It seems that few rightwingers have a come to Jesus-empathy moment when health, mental addiction issues directly affect their families. Reading Eric Boehlert’s twitter about, iirc, NJ Rep MacArthur whose mother died from cancer when he was young, had no health insurance and lost a daughter to cancer that cost $1 million. Yet he not only voted for the bill but helped get it passed.
I’ll never understand how one can do that…..
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
Well, at least you are finally coming around to the conclusion that my post was very topical after all. However, what Doug did not have was a report, literally released today, which augmented what he was saying. Why you are offended by this I’ll leave to you to explain to the class.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
I remember when we had American reporters who used to do that. Wish we still had some.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris: Yeah it’s a different world. That international participation chart is pretty eye-opening though, interesting how low some countries are, Switzerland for example.
Europe to an American is a strange mixture of things that feel astonishingly progressive and then the opposite. I usually resist any attempt at equating or measuring, e.g. this guy in the US would be on the left, etc., it’s mostly unmappable.
Women couldn’t vote in Switzerland until the nineteen seventies, for example.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: I mean, it basically just makes a big bang, right? It doesn’t do anything that a handful of slightly smaller bombs can’t.
TenguPhule
@Bailey: Doug! related the polling to how it would then pertain to France’s elections.
You on the other hand, just posted yet another rehash of a 2016 election autopsy, With a little dig against Nate’s analysis about Comey.
So again, what are you doing here?
Weaselone
@TenguPhule:
Reporters? Or reporters that cover things from the ground?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: Old Labour in Britain could be stunningly regressive on social issues. Catering to the WWC as it were. As you suggest, it is hard to draw direct parallels to the US.
TenguPhule
@bemused:
He doesn’t believe he should be the only one to suffer “God’s wrath”.
Misery loves company.
TenguPhule
@Weaselone: Both.
Brachiator
@Bailey:
I have less of a beef with NPR than most others here. I deride your selection and what you think you got from it. I have already read some of the work that the NPR report cites. Some I agree with, others I don’t. And I have my own views on the use and misuse of polling.
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: Trolling. SATSQ
Weaselone
@TenguPhule:
I think Richard Engel still gets sent into conflict zones. He’s pretty much the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
Patricia Kayden
YAY. That’s some good news for this week. No matter what Macron does, he’s better than a damn Nazi. I watched a debate between Macron and Le Pen on France24. Awful. Worse than our debates because they were pretty much talking over each other for the entire time. Le Pen’s lies were met by Macron calling her a liar to her face, which was enjoyable at least.
Omnes Omnibus
@Patricia Kayden: At one point, he said to her, and I roughly translate, “The country matters little to you. You have no plan for it except one that means living under fear and lies.”
Ridnik Chrome
The thing that will make the difference in France is that, unlike the US and the UK, they don’t have Rupert Murdoch all up in their media…
The Moar You Know
WRT to Silver and his UK counterparts, I agree. With regards to Sam Wang, I don’t. He said, point blank, that Hillary was going to win and that it was not possible for Trump to. Nate started sounding the alarm bells about a week before the election. I laughed him off, because of what Sam was saying.
Won’t make that mistake twice.
No, you know goddamn well what will happen, they’ll start claiming the election was rigged.
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
Perhaps you should re-read the entirety of his first paragraph again? Here, I’ll point it out to you since reading is evidently not fundamental with you:
As you will see from my post, I quite agreed with Doug and then further showed why Nate, et al, were perceived as incorrect, when actually Nate was as accurate as he could be given the fluidity of the state polls and what was actually a competitive race.
But if you re-read Doug’s paragraph, should we assume he is “relitigating the race?” This is apparently a trigger for you, so I’m wondering if it set you off?
Doug then went on to say:
Aside from the fact that this is, in your opinion, re-litigating the election, Doug appears to me to be supporting Nate, et al. As do I. Do you disagree with this?
Question: during the election, were you one of those people who freaked out on Nate and decided he was wrong because his analysis showed a creeping likelihood of a Trump win? There were lots of those types.
I pointed out that Doug’s point about not throwing Nate, et al, overboard was quite correct. And added evidence to back that up. I realize evidence is not your strong suit, but even you should be able to connect a few dots, yes?
Re: Comey, it is not unreasonable to me that a far more substantial study of polls would be able to better pinpoint when Clinton stalled out in the polls and when Trump began to catch up. Nate’s analysis was far less comprehensive than this appears to be. But then again, I doubt you’ve clicked through the links I’ve provided to see that for yourself.
Talking about politics. What are you doing? Auditioning to be hall room monitor?
Patricia Kayden
I’m sure this has already been mentioned here, but the list of pre-existing conditions which are not covered by TrumpCare is huge. It includes so many medical conditions that it makes you ask what is actually covered. Apparently, erectile dysfunction is not on the list, however. I guess Republicans have to protect men’s ability to get boners.
Thank goodness, this monstrosity can be stopped by Democratic Senators if enough Republican Senators come to their senses. I hope Republican Senators are hearing from angry voters and that their phone lines are blowing up. This must be stopped.
bemused
@TenguPhule:
I’d wager winning takes precedence over just about everything with most Republicans. It’s only few in recent years that I recall reading about R legislators that actually began to support causes and bills that would help prevent others from experiencing the pain they themselves went through. A handful.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
You’re a brave one. I didn’t bother to watch. I don’t need to; the FN versus anyone is unacceptable to me, and the fact that they’re one of the options pretty much seals my vote.
@Ridnik Chrome:
The more I think about it, the more I think that Newscorp and its Radio Rwanda effect is the biggest contributor to how totally fucked the U.S. political scene has become. The worst billionaire influence in our politics isn’t the Koch brothers after all, it’s Rupert Murdoch.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
What do you mean, we have “in beds” who are embedded with our troops and they tell us exactly what the military wants them to tell us, “remain calm, all is well,remain calm”. Do you mean there’s a different model where reporters go out and gather their own reports and don’t simply behave as if they’re stenographer? Unpossible!
Bailey
@Brachiator:
So perhaps you can concede that your initial, lazy and childish, reaction of “*Sigh*, you’re wrong” was a bit off the mark?
Feel free to agree with whatever you want but your personal feeling about polls does not present a stronger argument than a comprehensive study of polls. At least it is not persuasive to anyone beyond yourself.
TenguPhule
Stupidity is indeed contagious.
And naturally, she listened.
Cacti
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m guessing that has something to do with Le Pen’s tanking numbers.
Trump has a 13% favorability rating in France.
Ridnik Chrome
@Patricia Kayden:
In other words, we’re screwed.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
It was almost purpose built for Trump. Big, flashy, more noise than anything else. Guaranteed to attract attention and get people talking.
But it had the predicted “shock and awe” effect. Not on IS. On lazy reporters and pundits, and the media, and idiot citizens. Who was it, Brian Williams, who gushed about beautiful missiles when Trump OKd the weak attack on the Syrian air field? And here, Trump supporters called the local talk radio stations and beamed with pride about the “new sheriff in town” who was going to let the generals win, not like that traitor Obama.
TenguPhule
@Bailey: I had asked the questions in actual good faith, but your responses have been full of logical fallacies. You seem to be double downing on them with each new post.
Perhaps you need to reconsider your hostilities?
And please keep in mind who’s telling you this.
hovercraft
@Weaselone:
Yes he does still go out, that’s why he lives in Turkey, but I think like so many other reporters who’ve spent a lot of time on the front lines with the military he is very hawkish. He’s not as blindly militaristic as say McGrumpy Grandpa, but even though he reports about the various nuances and complexities, he always seems to come down on the side of stronger more decisive intervention. That was his major criticism of Obama, he needed to act decisively and with more strength, while at the same time reporting that there were no people to ally ourselves with in the Syrian civil war, not in the numbers that would have been necessary. I thin the same thing happened to Lara Logan she became more hawkish the longer she was there. Or maybe they were always hawks and I just didn’t know it?
TenguPhule
@Patricia Kayden:
Being a Republican Senator/House Member. Other then that, nothing else.
Patricia Kayden
@Omnes Omnibus: He pushed back the best he could. I thought she had the nerve to call him out for what she referred to as “Islamic” support given that she is supported by literal Nazis and Skinheads. She’s something else given her Father’s out and out extremism.
Hopefully she won’t be able to escape the connections between Nazi denialism and her party.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
I know, sounds too fantastic to be true. Yet it was, once upon a time.
Bailey
@TenguPhule:
No, you didn’t. I gave you extensive answers and you refused to consider. That’s on you.
You will probably need to find a better definition of hostilities. And a mirror.
Someone who chastised me for not being on topic and then posted an article about Somali immigrants that are anti-vax? I’m sure you’ll explain to me the topicality of that given how important you feel it is to hew the line of conversation. Does it have something to do with the efficacy of polling? Or elections in France?
Patricia Kayden
@TenguPhule: To be honest I was shocked that so many medical conditions were on the list. Couldn’t believe how brazen Republicans are with their b.s. In any other civilized country, this bill would be their death knell.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Not just that, he quoted Leonard Cohen: “I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons”. That is of course from First We Take Manhattan, a song from the viewpoint of a revolutionary terrorist.
cat
@Major Major Major Major: The 538 model uses secret sauce too. Either direct inputs of similarity between states or data mined similarity. AFAIK None of them do Monte Carlo, MC, simulations of voting. Both PEC and 636 only do MC of electoral votes.
Gin & Tonic
Are Bailey and BiP brothers or something?
SatanicPanic
People, please stop feeding Bailey. His dumb responses make threads hard to read.
Patricia Kayden
@Ridnik Chrome: Not really. The House may remain in Republican hands no matter what they do because of gerrymandering but I don’t think the same thing is true for Senators. I assume Republican Senators are more vulnerable and thus more reasonable. But who knows? You may be right since we are talking about Republicans after all.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic: Sorry, the big red button that said “do not push” was just there out in the open behind the locked and boarded up door.
jl
Silver gave a reasonable estimate of odds of a Clinton win so he is OK.
Wang promised to eat a bug if he was wrong. So if he had to endure a lobster dinner he is OK.
Their estimates were as accurate as possible, too bad the election was very very close in 4 critical states, which swung the electoral college.
I think the pollsters are OK. If it is true that Mook and other campaign operatives put too much faith in the pollsters, public and private, then that is a real problem and big problem with disastrous consequences.
TenguPhule
@Patricia Kayden:
Assumptions, where does that lead to?
bemused
@SatanicPanic:
Kicking sand all over the other kids in the sandbox playing well together is what trolls do.
Patricia Kayden
@Chris:
Me too. That’s how I feel about Republicans. Republicans versus anyone is unacceptable to me so Democrats pretty much have my vote wrapped up. There are no “moderate” Republicans anymore so there is no choice.
Patricia Kayden
@TenguPhule: Nothing because my assumptions don’t mean that people shouldn’t be calling their Senators and expressing their vehement opposition to the AHCA. There is no justification for complacency until the AHCA is stabbed through its heart and burnt on the stake.
Brachiator
@Bailey:
Nope.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: republican senators are well positioned for 2018. Dems might still lose seats if there were a wave. Gerrymandered house seats are very very susceptible to a wave though, by their nature they have margins that are only safe in normal times.
Mnemosyne
I’ll try to re-post this in the next new thread, but it helped me:
How to Stay Sane If Trump Is Driving You Insane
Short version of this advice from a therapist: accept that things suck, mourn the fact that they suck, and then take an action to make them suck less. Repeat.
Bailey
@Brachiator:
Alright. Feel free to fly the flag of “gut instincts” and “impervious to facts and analysis.” Very Republican.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
Speaking as someone who rarely if ever engages the trolls: as long as they’re not banned, they will continue to derail many threads.
SatanicPanic
@Patricia Kayden: It’s not impossible that some will flip. During the GWB admin I wouldn’t have guessed that Jim Jeffords was going to, but he did.
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: they’d go away if nobody talked to them.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
Yeah. I’d like to hope that France never gets to the point where white nationalists have engulfed half of the political spectrum. We’ll see what happens next – the utter collapse of the center-left and center-right parties is going to make for some interesting reshuffling in the next few years.
? Martin
I’m pessimistic on the AHCA. It’s something that the GOP Senate should largely despise, but that would hold true for many of the things they’ve agreed to since Trump was elected.
The House has really put them in a tough spot. If they pass it, they all live and die together but at least there will be a few Republican voters that are pleased. If they fail to pass it, then it’ll just be weeks more of analysis of what they were willing to do to voters, pissing them off, and on top of that, failing to actually deliver on anything. There’s zero voters to win over in that case. And if they pass it, you can count on none of them being able to run for President, well, ever.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: LGM finally banned that one butthead, thankfully. It was getting ridiculous.
Stan
@Chris:
C’est vrai.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
And speaking again as someone who rarely if ever talks to them: this is the online equivalent of “just say no to drugs” or abstinence only education. Nice idea; not really how human nature works.
On a large enough scale, this gives you IMDb, where lack of moderation destroyed the comments sections so completely that they simply ended up shutting them down.
? Martin
@SatanicPanic: I think Collins is close to leaving the GOP. She’s actually been siding with the Democrats on the intelligence committee, and she’s far and away the outlier when it comes to her voting pattern since Trump was elected. King proves that an independent can win in Maine.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
I know it’s important and necessary so that we can get a true picture of what’s going on in a war zone. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 16 fucking years and people have absolutely no idea what is actually going on in our names. So yes we should have reporters on the round to bring us the truth, my concern is that what happened to Michael Ware will happen to others.
The thing is that we never got to see this aspect of the war, CNN and all the other networks chose to show us the sanitized version of war, we saw the video game aspect, blowing shit up, victories, he;; for most of it we weren’t even allowed to show caskets coming home. So yes we need to get back to good old fashioned independent coverage, but then on the back end we need editors and producers to give what they get back from the front to us straight, not sanitized.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
That was a happy event. They’re somewhat better about it over there.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Major Major Major Major:
Maybe we should call him Lord Smallbombs.
sharl
@jl: This February piece by David Auerbach included a fairly detailed description of the use and misuse of the Clinton campaign’s “Ada” data analysis system. I have no expertise in this sort of thing, but the author’s analysis of where things went wrong in this aspect of the campaign (in the “Rust Belt” states) made a lot of sense to me.
Chris
@hovercraft:
After seeing what real-time coverage of the war did for their propaganda efforts, the U.S. military and a lot of people in politics did everything they could to ensure that that would not happen again. Hence, ever since the Gulf War, the 24-hour news coverage that gives us less information than ever.
Yutsano
@Bill E Pilgrim:
To wit: abortion is actually restricted a LOT more in Europe than it is in the US or Canada.
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: what I like about here is how you can install the troll filter and block them out yourself. Obviously not a perfect solution, but Cole doesn’t want to censor people, so…
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: I hope so, but I hate to get my hopes up when “moderate” is a word attached to “Republican”. If she did flip though it would be a good time to do it.
hovercraft
@? Martin:
I’ll believe it when it happens, for over eight years I’ve been told that this time she’s negotiating/operating in good faith, this time she’s going to stand on principle, do the right thing, and every single time she falls in line and votes with her party. If she finally does stand up to them I’ll applaud her until then she’s just Lucy with the football, and I’m no Charlie Brown.
TenguPhule
@? Martin:
That rumor has been floating since 1999.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
I agree that most Americans probably need to see it. I will not, because I still have nightmares from Holocaust documentaries I saw 20 years ago. Just reading the descriptions will give me more than a few sleepless nights.
hovercraft
@Gin & Tonic:
I already told you I am BiP, and in no way related to this other person.
GregB
@hovercraft:
I have been watching the 1970’s series about WWII, The World at War and it is quite stunning how much terribly graphic footage was shown.
We don’t really see such stark footage from American media anymore.
randy khan
@jl:
Even the “Clinton blew it” stories say that, essentially, they saw the polling and other analytics turning in the three cursed states and acted on that information. The theory of most of those stories is that they shouldn’t have trusted the analytics in the first place because reasons. These stories generally ignore that the analytics served the campaign very well in other states, like Virginia and Iowa, where they pulled resources because they concluded Virginia was won and Iowa was lost, and that the analytics accurately portrayed what was happening in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: You are so right. Looks like Dems will have 23 seats up for grab while Republicans will only have 8 seats to win/lose. I’m hoping that those 8 seats will be enough to keep Republicans in check though since if they lose enough of those 8, the power in the Senate could shift back to the Democrats.
hovercraft
@Chris:
I know, that’s why the military was so eager to have the reporters embedded, they get to control their movements and what they see. “journalists” and their publishers/networks as seems to be the SOP these days traded access for independent journalism.
@Mnemosyne:
I agree, I wouldn’t watch, but I’ve read other accounts from less jingoistic sources than most of our media.
ThresherK
@hovercraft: “Invisible Girl” will fall in line should her vote actually be a tipping point.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
It is true, in general, that the Republicans are well positioned in the Senate for 2018, but only because they have just 8 seats up. That gives them an advantage in a regular year, but not necessarily in a wave election. It’s worth noting, in particular, that in 2006 the Dems faced a bad map, and wouldn’t have taken control of the Senate if they hadn’t taken every seat that was seriously contested.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Sure. But to borrow from what was being said this morning at the LGM threads, that only does so much good when half or more of a thread is either pie or people responding to the pie.
Yutsano
@Patricia Kayden: One of those 8 Republicans is Dean Heller. There is a LOT of evidence he’s a dead man walking in Nevada.
jonas
This annoys me too, especially since Silver in particular was raising flags in the last couple of weeks of the campaign about how close things were going to be (even though he still projected Hillary winning). Wang was more cocky, I think offering to eat a hat or something if Hillary lost.
I think Le Pen will lose quite decisively. Most French voters are aware than their entire country would simply implode if someone as insane as MLP were elected and she started pushing to quit the EU, etc. Macron has the advantage of being 1. sane 2. young and charismatic and 3. a political outsider/independent. He’s worked in government, but not as an elected politician.
hovercraft
@GregB:
As @Chris said, as far as the military is concerned one of the biggest reasons the public turned against Vietnam was because of the footage that was beamed into everyone’s homes every night.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t think so because Ukrainian nazis have been invoked zero times. However, we had a “new” troll a couple days back practically drenched in the BiP aroma (eau de borscht).
Tom Levenson
@Omnes Omnibus: @Doug!: ;-)
Many a winter’s night have I kept myself warm with sweet, sweet, hate of the divine Ms M.
SatanicPanic
@randy khan: We shouldn’t assume Democrats can’t win seats they’re already occupying
Yutsano
@Tom Levenson: Y u take away Bette Midler’s rightful title?
hovercraft
I just saw this from yesterday. Michelle is actually doing what she said she’d do, unlike that new “champion” for women in the White House now.
Michelle Obama Responds to Trump
Erica Gonzales,Harper’s Bazaar Thu, May 4 10:56 AM PDT .
Michelle Obama will continue to support girls’ education, with or without the White House’s support.
On Monday morning, CNN reported that the Trump administration was cutting her Let Girls Learn initiative, but later that night, a representative from the State Department stated that “there have been no changes to the program.”
But Michelle Obama declared today that she’ll still advocate for young women to go to school, despite the program’s uncertain future.
“Barack & I will continue to champion the issues close to our hearts, including girls ed,” she tweeted today, ahead of unveiling plans for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
The former FLOTUS’ tweet arrives two days after CNN obtained a White House memo stating Let Girls Learn will “cease operation immediately.” An email from the agency’s acting director to the Peace Corps read, “Moving forward, we will not continue to use the ‘Let Girls Learn’ brand or maintain a stand-alone program.”
However, that night, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert assured the program would remain unchanged. “The Administration supports policies and programs to empower adolescent girls, including efforts to educate them through the completion of secondary school. We are committed to empowering women and girls around the world and are continuing to examine the best ways to do so,” she said.
After the back and forth reports this week, the status of Let Girls Learn remains confusing. Even Michelle Obama’s Chief of Staff, Tina Tchen, isn’t sure what’s coming next.
“I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can confirm the confusion, since I’m like you, I really only know what’s getting publicly reported or available,” Tchen told BAZAAR.com.
“But I will say, if they’re not going to do Let Girls Learn, I think it’s a missed opportunity and disappointing,” she added. “If they’re going to continue it, we’d be delighted, because it’s an issue that needs a lot of work and advocacy on it, and I’m hopeful that can continue.”
The former first couple launched Let Girls Learn in 2015 to help young women in underprivileged countries pursue their education. In the fall of 2016, they bolstered financial support for the organization with over $5 million private sector commitments hoping to ensure that the organization would continue after Obama’s presidency.
“We had about a hundred companies and NGOs that made commitments to advance the issue, to make a lot of progress at not a lot of cost to the U.S. government,” Tchen revealed.
The former first lady has allies in her ongoing support for girls’ education. In addition to those who criticized the White House’s decision to remove Let Girls Learn, the Peace Corps and United States Agency for International Development (both of which participated in the program) also stated they’ll continue to empower girls around the world.
trollhattan
With Ailes gone Shep Smith seems to be feeling his oats. Did not know he was a son of Mississippi.
schrodingers_cat
This is what I have been listening to,Aarambh hai prachand* (Grand beginning), a fight song from Gulaal** (2009), a movie about dirty politics, Indian style by Anurag Kashyap.
* Currently appropriated by BJP and RSS to the chagrin of the composer and the recording artist for their election rallies. In the movie its supposed to be more of an ironic repudiation of the rah rah machismo of a warrior caste that desperately is trying to regain its lost glory.
Gulaal==red powder used in Holi and other religious festivals.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: I must have missed that one.
GregG
@SatanicPanic:
I had to explain to a wingnut friend that his use of the term femi-Naziwas despicable.
He was once publicly dressed down for calling a woman a girl.
I told him a Nazi would have machine gunned him to death in a ditch.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
If Heller might be in trouble, I should look into volunteering in Nevada next fall. They’re turning blue and can probably use some extra help.
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: the filter here blocks responses too, so you’d just see people *talking about it not by name* like us. Hey, I mean, I agree with you.
hovercraft
@randy khan:
This is almost a month old, but that also means it was before TRyancare became more real.
Maybe Senate Democrats Aren’t in Such Bad Shape for 2018
By Ed Kilgore
Chris
@jonas:
I also think, while Euroskepticism is strong everywhere, Britain had a particularly virulent strain of it that isn’t there in France.
As a related point… can I just thank whoever it was who asked me who I was voting for two weeks ago in the first round, when I still wasn’t totally sure? Turns out that simply laying out the options for people helps clear the mind and go “yeah, I’m going for that one.”
(Funny thing about living in America and being much more in tune with American politics is that when I do come back to French politics, I’m like “wait, I’m supposed to make a choice that isn’t binary, black-and-white, Empire-versus-Rebellion? I don’t think I even remember how to do that!”)
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic: As the saying goes, you didn’t miss
mucha damn thing. Other than possibly flashbacks.Seanly
@hovercraft:
I should stop feeling bad when I see those pictures of Brooks or Douthat or whoever and thinking they should be ground into chum. I already don’t feel bad about thinking that when I see pictures of the all white male power klaverns aka Congress & the President laughing it up over dooming 10% of the US.
Yutsano
@hovercraft: I’d bet money that Heller number is lower now. After the last recess town halls where he put his foot in his mouth over and over (not the best decision to defend the Hairy Yam in Vegas) he’s REALLY unpopular from the last readings I saw. Not to mention his likely opponent is the popular House member from the Las Vegas district which is solid blue. Pretty sure he’s going to be sweating a lot of bullets.
LurkerNoLonger
I said something similar to this yesterday. They will never stop fucking up and making decent people angry.
ETA: Woops! That was supposed to be a reply to @hovercraft
Tom Levenson
@Yutsano: You’re right. I meant to refer to her as the divine Ms. MM. Apologies to all.
Yarrow
@Tom Levenson: In what way is she divine? Seems like an inaccurate adjective.
Another Scott
@hovercraft: Even with the “bloodbath” last November, we should remember that we picked up 2 Senators and 7-ish Representatives.
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
I’m curious how much impact the recent debate and plagiarism business will have on the French election.
Patricia Kayden
@trollhattan: Wonder why Shep is at Fox News in the first place. Every so often, one of his comments goes viral and he always sounds sensible and nice.
Elizabelle
OT. How bittersweet. NY Times. Florida University to Award Posthumous Degree to Trayvon Martin
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
Scratching my head ever since first encountering him, he seems so out of place at Fox, what with committing acts of journalism and voicing opinions that don’t fall within the canon. I’d happily swap him for probably half the chattering heads at CNN but ironically I think he has a more effective platform right where he is.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: Suspect he is sheerly window dressing. Without Shep Smith, who could people point to at Fox as a serious newsperson, in earth orbit?
Yutsano
@Patricia Kayden: Ersatz “balance”. It gives the illusion that they can at least represent “the other side” at least a bit. Yes it’s a weasel* thing to do but what do you expect from these assholes?
*With all due respect to the genus Mustelidae.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: He is the token journalist over there.
les
@? Martin:
Seriously? That would not be bad. I’ve seen her wring her dainty hands and then vote straight Yurtle for so long, I’ve stopped paying attention.
msdc
@Chris:
Agreed. It’s essentially impossible to get an entire readership to ignore a troll, and frankly that responsibility shouldn’t fall on them. Sometimes the front-pagers have to step in.
Omnes Omnibus
@msdc: Cole has a set of guidelines for banning. Bailey makes sure that he does not violate any of them. Adam banned Bailey last night and Bailey contacted him and convinced Adam that he should not be out. I think Adam has the heaviest banning hand of any of FPers – heavier than I would have if I had the keys. IMO, Bailey is here to troll but valid arguments can be made the other way.
randy khan
@SatanicPanic:
Absolutely. While obviously some seats are more vulnerable than others, the Dems in them all have won at least once.
Jay C
@Yarrow:
Well, a very common response to McMegan’s portentious opinionating is the phrase “Oh My God!!”
Does that count?
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: Do you think that he may have been using snark?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Rapist muppet tricks
msdc
@Omnes Omnibus: I understand that Cole has a particular set of guidelines, but I think they’re far too restrictive. Consistently derailing threads, especially with false or misleading comments, can be just as toxic to discussion as overt racism or harassment.
“But he’s a very careful troll” is not reason enough to keep someone around once they reach that point.
Omnes Omnibus
@msdc: Email Cole about it.
J R in WV
@Bailey:
Nate’s numbers and discussion scared me so much I had to stop reading him. But then when it actually happened, I was somewhat prepared for the horror of it. So now I’m about over it, and able to rationally process what it happening.