Hillary Clinton

[Conan71]

Only about 47% of the people voting advocate his position as Pedophile in Chief.

But look at what a huge portion of that group claims to be.... Says some very bad things about morals and how many people are able to justify/rationalize that type of behavior!  While at exactly the same time attempting to demonize a man who, while I disagree with on several levels, has shown himself to be a decent, moral, truthful, and even amusing, family man who does appear to practice his Christian beliefs.   But he is half-black, so that is enough...

While I'm sure there are people with racist issues who voted for Trump you simply cannot lump all his voters into one group as a bunch of xenophobic racists with pedophiliac tendencies.  My mother voted for Trump.  I can say with no hesitation: she's not racist, not a pedophile, and is by far the most moral person in my life.  Many good people with certain political beliefs voted for Trump.  Many good people with certain political convictions voted for Clinton.

I believe we can all agree that in order to vote for either candidate, you had to overlook some serious flaws in character and a checkered past.  It's a shame we didn't end up with better candidates from the two dominant parties.

People had very real reasons for selecting Trump: Healthcare premiums are skyrocketing this next year amidst health insurers bailing on the exchanges.  Our national debt has nearly doubled in the last eight years to around $20 trillion. People believe many problems with crime and the aforementioned deficit has to do with flaccid immigration policy and failed trade agreements.

Trump spoke to those issues.  He also said a lot of stupid sh!t trying to make those points.  Individuals who count on others on social media or biased "news" providers for their political opinions did a masterful job of mangling that into racism or xenophobia.  The guy is a clumsy speaker and he's boorish.  Personally, I cannot stand the guy but I understand why people voted the way they did.  People now turn to the brand of media which more closely aligns with their own beliefs.  Liberals read or tune into Daily Koz, Huff-Po, Moveon, MSNBC etc.   Arch conservatives tune into or read Fox, Breitbart, or Drudge for their information.

Nowhere did the conservative media point out that annual deficits have been shrinking under Obama nor that much of the huge addition to our national debt in 2009 and 2010 was put in motion by his predecessor as a response to the huge recession which started before Obama took office.  Nowhere did the conservative media point out Obama's record on immigration and deportation has actually been more aggressive than previous presidents.

By the same token, the liberal media made no issue of Hillary Clinton helping to cover up her husband's own sexual predator tendencies nor all the people the Clintons stepped on to get to power.  They largely passed off her email issue as a non-starter (I honestly have no idea how big an issue this may or may not be nor whether it merits further investigation).  While Wikileaks was detailing questionable issues with the Clinton Family Foundation the liberal media wasn't covering it.

Casting dispersions on the people who elected our next president is no better than the supposed behavior of Trump name-calling either.  I didn't vote for the guy.  I have many close friends who did.  Amongst them, I honestly cannot think of a single one who has ever appeared overtly racist to me.  Some of those people who voted for him are very highly educated people with post graduate degrees, some are very successful business people, most I consider to be well-read on issues and knowing why they think the way they do.

Trump took a populist approach to the issues in his campaign rhetoric.  He tapped into an anger over issues long important to Republicans which had gone ignored for decades or only given lip service.  He largely shied away from getting pinned down on social issues like abortion and gay marriage which had become the litmus test for GOP candidates.  Instead, he drilled at the core of what GOP followers felt had been ignored for too long- fiscal sanity, broken immigration, and broken government filled with too many career politicians.  It is really that simple.

Before everyone assumes Roe V. Wade or that gay marriage will be overturned, there will be a return to slavery, or Muslims and Mexicans will face genocide in the U.S. remember Trump was a New York liberal.  Roe V. Wade is now 43 years or so in the past.  It's not going anywhere.  SCOTUS' ruling on gay marriage is not going anywhere.  All but 13 states at the time they made their ruling already recognized gay marriage.

He will get his reality check and I suspect his slate of first 100 days initiatives will look vastly different than what was promised, it is that way with every new president.  He said what he needed to get elected.  Let's at least be patient and see what really transpires before losing our collective sh!t.

[swake]

I give it about 90 days before Trump goes off the rails. And that's being really generous. He never could go more than three weeks during the campaign. He thinks winning the election was hard. Trump has zero idea what he has gotten himself into.

[Conan71]

Its a fine mind thank you. When people think differently than the masses, it often creates suspicion and criticism. I'm used to it.

So, you're making analysis of a party you didn't support, (you were Johnson iirc)  

You've done it for years in speaking about a Republican Party I'm assuming you've never belonged to.  What's your point again about me making an analysis of two parties I don't support?  I figure being somewhere in the middle makes me pretty objective on such things.

My basic point is, Democrats should quit whining that they were screwed by the EC.  If they would have presented a better candidate than HRC, the EC would have been completely irrelevant as a better candidate would not have struggled so much with the popular vote in the swing states.

If the narrative is that Americans are so gullible for electing such a bad man with such obviously poor character, what does that say about the person he beat?

[AquaMan]

You've done it for years in speaking about a Republican Party I'm assuming you've never belonged to.  What's your point again about me making an analysis of two parties I don't support?  I figure being somewhere in the middle makes me pretty objective on such things.

My basic point is, Democrats should quit whining that they were screwed by the EC.  If they would have presented a better candidate than HRC, the EC would have been completely irrelevant as a better candidate would not have struggled so much with the popular vote in the swing states.

If the narrative is that Americans are so gullible for electing such a bad man with such obviously poor character, what does that say about the person he beat?

It says a lot but you have to be able to hear to know what it says. And your point was not missed, it just isn't persuasive. We need to change or discard the electoral college. Immediately it becomes a stand your ground issue.

I've only found a few people on here worth staying and conversing with. You are one of those. I think you have potential to change Tulsa but no particular ambition to do so. Some rarely post and I understand why. Some are frequent and I wonder why? Maybe its because, like I do, they try and understand, not influence any more, just to understand. What I've found is that Tulsa is not very open to new thinking, new ideas, or anything that involves change. What they are into is debate and defensiveness. The fact that Tulsa elected a former football quarterback to the state senate rather than a smart teacher says it all for me. That's so high school.

I can go to other websites around the country or FB and find positive responses to my posts and people receptive to discourse without questioning motives. Here I can't seem to get anyone to hear anything. I've offered my services, my time, my business to this site with no real response. NOt taking it personal. Maybe I'm just slow to realize there is not a Steve constituency here. Anyway, I plan to be one of the ones that are infrequent.

You folks got it covered!

[saintnicster]

No, that is not what the Electoral College is.

Are we going to argue semantics? Ok, fine.  

EC 101

Each state is allocated a number of votes based on the total number of seats that the state has in the US Congress (Senate and HoR), with the exception of Washington, D.C, which has electoral votes but no representation.  

The number of HoR members was set to 435 back in 1913, with further additions clarifying how those were to be allocated (percentage of overall population), with logic guaranteeing every state a minimum of 1 representative. This makes things a bit fuzzy when it comes to number of constituents per representative, though it's up to the state government to draw these numbers as evenly as possible.

When voting for president in the November election, we are actually voting for the members of the Electoral college delegation for our state, usually based on a political party.  In most states (including Oklahoma), the party that wins the popular election gets the entire delegation, anywhere between 3 and 55 votes.

On December 19th, the electoral college will meet and cast their votes. Just because they were voted in for a specific party does not mean that they are guaranteed to vote for that party, but though there are some states with  laws against this.  The winners of the electoral college is sworn in as president and vice president on January 20th

************

Note, winning the popular election for most (maybe all) only involves having enough of a unified front to get "the most" votes in your state.  I counted 11 states where under 50 percent of the voting population determined the results for the other 50%+ of people.  I will concede that you aren't technically voting against someone, but with the sheer amount of "CROOKED HILARY" and #NeverTrump that was being slung from all sides, it's a data point that warrants consideration.

The weighted average of the states is just that.  You're taking the winning popular vote number at a state level, and assigning a value to set from the state's raw population number.

google's election search results into csv.  I calced everything beyond R-Count in excel

Look at it this way - Alabama is worth 9 electoral votes, won with 1,306,925 R votes, Washington is worth 12, winning at 1,207,943 D, Kentucky is allocating 8 votes with 1,202,942 R.  Practically speaking, a very similar number of people won the election in each state, yet Washington was worth more for less effort.

I'm not saying that this will work in my favor.  In fact, as the HoR and Senate's current layout suggests, the the opposite is likely to be true.  But adjusting the EC to more accurately represent the DIVERSE nature of the peoples in the states that make it up would would be a step in the right direction and could work as a step in the right direction to bringing more people into the election.  As mentioned above, how many people in califorina or other states stayed home because they were were basically guaranteed to be blue?  How many dems in Texas?  California's HoR representation is 39 democrats and 19 republicans, with Texas at 25 republican  and 11 democrats.   That's enough to shake things up and make everything a "swing state".

I have no idea what "Judy combining" means.

I posted from my phone, didn't catch an auto correct.

I agree with erfalf.  "Fair" or not, the electoral process was known by all the candidates beforehand.  Many people do not like the process.  Many people do not like the outcome of this particular election.

But, Hillary Clinton conceded yesterday.  Running for the presidency was her choice.  Since 1985, she has had nine opportunities to become president (by being elected to that particular office).  The electoral process has been established for a long time.  She went for the presidency in 2008 and lost.  She went for it in 2016 and lost.  If she is still around and feels up to the task, she can try again in 2020, which will be her tenth opportunity.

As far as I know, states have that option.  Electors are proportioned in Maine and in Nebraska.  But that doesn't mean all of the other states should be forced to change their current election procedures to something else simply because Maine and Nebraska have done so.

Yes she conceded. Yes, the system as it stands will see that Trump and Pence are in the white house.  

How about we look forward for once in our lifetimes, stop focusing on the now. Should we as a country manage to survive (like we did through Bush and Obama), what about in 2020?  Why do we need to have the exact same system in place?  The constitution evolves for good and bad, but you can't stop that.

Take a look at the rapid iteration of everything else in the world.  Figure out what needs to change, rather than cling onto the past because "it kinda works". Be willing to iterate on things.  Leave the kids and grandkids something to look forward to.

Rambly and at least 9 posts in between the time i started, but had to get it out.

[heironymouspasparagus]

While I'm sure there are people with racist issues who voted for Trump you simply cannot lump all his voters into one group as a bunch of xenophobic racists with pedophiliac tendencies.  My mother voted for Trump.  I can say with no hesitation: she's not racist, not a pedophile, and is by far the most moral person in my life.  Many good people with certain political beliefs voted for Trump.  Many good people with certain political convictions voted for Clinton.

I believe we can all agree that in order to vote for either candidate, you had to overlook some serious flaws in character and a checkered past.  It's a shame we didn't end up with better candidates from the two dominant parties.

People had very real reasons for selecting Trump: Healthcare premiums are skyrocketing this next year amidst health insurers bailing on the exchanges.  Our national debt has nearly doubled in the last eight years to around $20 trillion. People believe many problems with crime and the aforementioned deficit has to do with flaccid immigration policy and failed trade agreements.

Yep.  My Mom did too!  Sadly.  And there is much more to the astounding list of character flaws than just his pedophilia...and yet, 47% voted for him.  Oh, well, onward and upward!

As for health insurance - yeah, premiums are going up - just like they always have!!  At least since I have been in a corporate, W-2 job.  At huge multiples over the cost of everything else.  And it is being left to continue by the Congress that has been bought and paid for even more in the last 35 years.


On the debt - you continue to fall into the Faux News hyperbole - they take one data point and layer lie upon lie on top of it to excite those who are too lazy or too intellectually dishonest to look beyond their sound bite.  The debt is today almost $20 trillion.  That's from the 'debt clock' site I looked at a few minutes ago.

At the end of Bush's last fiscal year, the debt stood at $12 trillion.  Not doubled since then - it's about a 70% increase.  As opposed to the "God of Debt Increases" - just about every Republican.  Bush started at $5.9 trillion, took it to the $12 trillion mentioned.  More than doubled.  

And lets not forget that Bush's LAST increase in the debt was $1.9 trillion.  And the increases now are running about 25% of that...

Reagan took it from $997 billion to over $2.8 trillion - 280% increase in his 8 years, but somehow still revered as Republican "God" of finance.  Even with the massive tax increases he presided over during his term!   Hint; bigger than his much publicized tax cuts....

And let's get Billy Bob in just for good measure - $4.4 trillion up to $5.8 trillion.  About a 30% increase - since there were several years when the budget was running in the black.

So all those "problems" with the aforementioned debt are really just an artifact of the successful propaganda/lie machine that is being spewed by the RWRE.  An intentionally dishonest endeavor that has been much more successful than the other side's effort.  (And broadening from just national issues to state and local, especially successful in places like Oklahoma.)

As are problems of crime, which is well documented as having gone down for many, many years.  

Which brings us full circle back to the massive number of people - at least 47% and probably much higher - who are too lazy or too intellectually dishonest to look beyond the sound bite.  And that IS a discussion that goes around the circle of family and friends.


Debt history - as I have linked repeatedly;

https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

[heironymouspasparagus]

I give it about 90 days before Trump goes off the rails. And that's being really generous. He never could go more than three weeks during the campaign. He thinks winning the election was hard. Trump has zero idea what he has gotten himself into.

I think you are so far off with that - I expect 90 minutes, but will guess about two weeks.

[RecycleMichael]

I think wearing white pantsuits after Labor Day did her in.

[saintnicster]

Yes she conceded. Yes, the system as it stands will see that Trump and Pence are in the white house.  

How about we look forward for once in our lifetimes, stop focusing on the now. Should we as a country manage to survive (like we did through Bush and Obama), what about in 2020?  Why do we need to have the exact same system in place?  The constitution evolves for good and bad, but you can't stop that.

Take a look at the rapid iteration of everything else in the world.  Figure out what needs to change, rather than cling onto the past because "it kinda works". Be willing to iterate on things.  Leave the kids and grandkids something to look forward to.

Rambly and at least 9 posts in between the time i started, but had to get it out.

Forgot to mention - in this rapid 'testing', I would love to see the people demand the restructuring of the whole damn thing - position term limits, reduced term length on senate and president. Hell, throw in that warren buffett meme scaling pay based on GDP mixed in with constituency wage. Just a general housekeeping.  Require people to keep up with the politics, rather than this set-it/forget-it mentality.  But to accomplish _any_ change in structure would likely require nothing short of revolution.

[Conan71]

Yep.  My Mom did too!  Sadly.  And there is much more to the astounding list of character flaws than just his pedophilia...and yet, 47% voted for him.  Oh, well, onward and upward!

As for health insurance - yeah, premiums are going up - just like they always have!!  At least since I have been in a corporate, W-2 job.  At huge multiples over the cost of everything else.  And it is being left to continue by the Congress that has been bought and paid for even more in the last 35 years.


On the debt - you continue to fall into the Faux News hyperbole - they take one data point and layer lie upon lie on top of it to excite those who are too lazy or too intellectually dishonest to look beyond their sound bite.  The debt is today almost $20 trillion.  That's from the 'debt clock' site I looked at a few minutes ago.

At the end of Bush's last fiscal year, the debt stood at $12 trillion.  Not doubled since then - it's about a 70% increase.  As opposed to the "God of Debt Increases" - just about every Republican.  Bush started at $5.9 trillion, took it to the $12 trillion mentioned.  More than doubled.  

And lets not forget that Bush's LAST increase in the debt was $1.9 trillion.  And the increases now are running about 25% of that...

Reagan took it from $997 billion to over $2.8 trillion - 280% increase in his 8 years, but somehow still revered as Republican "God" of finance.  Even with the massive tax increases he presided over during his term!   Hint; bigger than his much publicized tax cuts....

And let's get Billy Bob in just for good measure - $4.4 trillion up to $5.8 trillion.  About a 30% increase - since there were several years when the budget was running in the black.

So all those "problems" with the aforementioned debt are really just an artifact of the successful propaganda/lie machine that is being spewed by the RWRE.  An intentionally dishonest endeavor that has been much more successful than the other side's effort.  (And broadening from just national issues to state and local, especially successful in places like Oklahoma.)

As are problems of crime, which is well documented as having gone down for many, many years.  

Which brings us full circle back to the massive number of people - at least 47% and probably much higher - who are too lazy or too intellectually dishonest to look beyond the sound bite.  And that IS a discussion that goes around the circle of family and friends.


Debt history - as I have linked repeatedly;

https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

And if you actually read beyond the last paragraph of mine you quoted, you would have seen my analysis on the debt and deficit which is clearly explained how it is perceived to the masses.  I don't watch Fox and my hyperbole meter wasn't going off when I re-read my post.  I simply stated how it is most people have the political beliefs they have these days. 

It takes far less research to make a poor decision these days then pre-internet and pre-24 hour news cycle. 

[Hoss]

In some ways, I wish it were mandated that if you were going run a 24/7 news outlet (like Fox, MSNBC, CNN etc) that it would remain a non-profit.

I know, pipe dream, but it would intrinsically get rid of of the notion that you're broadcasting news only for ratings.

I thought I saw this morning where some think tank estimated that Trump got about $1.6 billion (with a B) in free advertising during this election cycle.

That needs to stop.

[swake]

In some ways, I wish it were mandated that if you were going run a 24/7 news outlet (like Fox, MSNBC, CNN etc) that it would remain a non-profit.

I know, pipe dream, but it would intrinsically get rid of of the notion that you're broadcasting news only for ratings.

I thought I saw this morning where some think tank estimated that Trump got about $1.6 billion (with a B) in free advertising during this election cycle.

That needs to stop.

The fairness doctrine?

[Bamboo World]

I think wearing white pantsuits after Labor Day did her in.

lol

Yes, that was her ultimate mistake.  She knew the electoral system rules but forgot a very important fashion rule.

But she can run again in 2020, if she's able and willing.  By my count, she has missed seven opportunities since 1984 by not throwing her hat into the ring.

[rebound]

... But to accomplish _any_ change in structure would likely require nothing short of revolution.

Right there.  Had this same discussion with my daughter last night. She missed being able to vote by two months, but bunch of her friends did and a lot of them are up in arms about the EC now.  Simple put, the EC isn't going to change because it generally works, it at the core of the way we elect presidents, and there are reasons why it was done that way.  Gripe all you/we want, it isn't going to happen.

Per my earlier post though, I do think a movement could be made somehow to get all states to apportion their electors by vote percentage within the state.  That is already allowed, and a few do it this way now.  That alone would result in a much tighter match to popular vote, while also having the side affect of removing the concept of a wasted vote as every vote in every state would actually matter.

[swake]

The level of anger I am seeing from my college aged daughter and her friends is nothing short of stunning, even here in Oklahoma. The level of anger from my friends that live on the coasts is the same.

There is a massive generational and coastal/flyover divide.

The 1960s are brewing again.