It is pretty ridiculous but it allows them to cling to the self-righteousness of we didn't lose the other side is just so stupid they are easily bought off by the Russians.

You do realize that meme is factually true?

I'm almost curious if the conservatives in the last few posts are just trying to show how ignorant of actual facts they are. It's a bit stunning, to be honest.

Hey look, I love apples, but I'd never fuck an avocado.

Those statements have just about as much relevance as yours do. As in, in the world of things being similar or related, they aren't.

Hey look, more made up equivalencies! Woooooooo! The Russians totally hacked Hillary's server, and she say's they didn't, but now she's blaming them after she was caught red handed. So we totally know her server was hacked by the russians, and now we know she lied and all those emails were the same emails she deleted about Bengazi. Wow, if she only would have come clean this all could have been avoided.

Got any other fantasies we can delve into today?

Not part of the D/R thing. Don't care about Trump either.

An independent ignorant then ;).

I have to agree there - I mean the Russian hacking is a huge story that should absolutely be taken seriously and investigated, but as a liberal I wouldn't say it's what lost us the election. There were candidate issues, messaging issues and other problems we need to be looking at for the future.

I'm confused.

Seems like everyone is always predicting that the president they didn't vote for will get assassinated. Then it never happens. Predictable part of election process.

According to every governmental and many private security folks, yes.



I'm not saying that. The first part can be true without the second part being true. Even if Clinton had won, it's still a big deal that Russia influenced the election.

I'll try to remember to send them a thank you card then.

Are you really that naive to think that the DNC's was easily hacked while Clinton's email server was impenetrable? I'm not.

Right!?

I know you believe yourself, but give us a break. You wouldn't have said shit or been remotely upset had Clinton won. Mostly, because facts are just facts...how it's presented is the important thing. The media would have glossed over it as "Republicans still bitter about the loss..."

This made me chuckle. Pot, meet kettle......

President Obama Says Donald Trump Should Choose Congress Over Using Executive Power : NPR

No need to remind us that you're an authoritarian stooge.

Some of us, though, actually believe in the ideals of our founding.

As far as he hacking is concerned, it is what it is. It's a part of the 2016 state of being. Yahoo has 1.5 billion accounts breached. Countless others. How then are we to protect RNC, DNC, government, candidate accounts from further leakage? The fact is, you really can't make it foolproof because you're dealing with people who make mistakes. All it takes is one.

Really, there's no defense against this, and I would assume we would absolutely do the same to influence an election were the shoes on the other foot. Isn't that we've done for decades?

Yeah, it's a scary proposition, but it's a sign of the times that things like this will happen and there's really not a darn thing we can do about it.

If anything, watch what you say when the transcript can be documented. If you're worried about something leaking, don't digitize it for all the world to see, because eventually, they probably will.

This is why the country is falling apart, we can't accept that people are honest about their motives. As long as we "know" what people's true intentions are, we'll never find any common ground.

Go back and look how I beat on Jill Stein for being a Russian stooge. I can assure you that similar Russian support of Clinton would have been disqualifying for me.

I think he forgot to type the word "not" in there somewhere.

Like I said, I know you believe yourself.

Congrats on your PhD in Psychology!

Yeah his line of thinking is always along some variation of "I know all politicians are corrupt. We all agree on that. But Republican politicians are worse. Why? Well I can't just say the reason is because it isn't the team I cheer for so how about...

A) Russians
B) Racism
C) Any other excuse"

I mean Hillary Clinton is the picture in the dictionary next to corrupt. But she isn't a "Russian stooge" so disregard.

Yep.

Maybe the dumbest post you've ever made on FOFC.

Hillary's State Department e-mails weren't leaked. John Podesta's private e-mails were leaked.

But I'm glad that you basically had no idea what this whole issue was about.

Summary of the last page of this thread:

"I am too stupid to discuss the merits of your argument, so I will attack your motives."

Not at all accurate. This is just another part of diplomatic relations. There's plenty we can do if the will to do it is there.

This will go down as one of Obama's biggest failures as it certainly seems like the Russians are going to pay little to no price for getting caught influencing the election.

It's not like Obama was really excessive in this area. Since 1968 only Gerald Ford and Bush Sr. issued less executive orders than Obama. I think the point is, probably not wise to challenge Franklin D Roosevelt's record of 3,522.

I don't think it mattered much either. I think pundits like to dissect these things too much.

It also seems like a way for party leaders to pass the buck for their mistakes. Blame this story or that story for the loss instead of the fact they pushed hard for an unlikable candidate who didn't create much excitement with the bases. The evil Russians cost them the election instead of pushing identity politics on a part of the country that doesn't give a shit about it.

And don't get me wrong, what Russia did is about as close as it gets to an act of war. It borders on treason to support what they did.

Do you mean something like giving weapons to Ukraine? I saw that pitched somewhere.

That seems pretty aggressive when last week people were freaking out about Trump just calling Taiwan. And China has hacked U.S. businesses and U.S. government agencies directly. It seems like provoking Russia would be riskier than provoking China.

But I think it's hard to have a strong opinion on this stuff. Obama knows, and Trump will soon know, far more about Russia and Putin and relevant international issues and military/terror threats than we ever will. That's why I'm pretty willing to give those in the know the benefit of the doubt on stuff like that (and it's pretty telling that Bush and Obama ended up having similar foreign policies).

I think there's a window for really tough sanctions with the U.S and western Europe. Putin is pulling this shit all throughout western democracies. If something isn't done and France ends up with pro-Russia Le Pen and Germany ends up with a more pro-Russia party, democracy in the west will be threatened unlike any time since WW2.

It'd be nice if western Europe was interested in something like that.

HOPEFULLY he will know. My concern is that he'll think he's too smart to heed any advice and just go with what he thinks he knows, rather than the intelligence community. Or he'll be influenced by those without cooler heads (Flynn) or those who are up for a little anarchy (Bannon). Or that there are financial interests in Russia that might color policy.

France and Germany ending up with far-right leaders would have more to do with the left leaders fucking things up than Putin's games.

How would that apply in either France or Germany's next elections? France's upcoming Presidential Election is between a right wing candidate (Fillon) and a far-right candidate (Le Pen) and Germany's Chancellor is center-right.

I wasn't speaking to the concept of how we can negotiate retribution against the Russians. I was speaking to the hacking of the accounts (on both sides) and leakage of data to the private or public entities that are wanting to influence elections. I don't think there's anything that we can do to prevent this. We can denounce Russia all we want (and I'm not advocating that we don't), but it's not going to solve the problem.

Yeah, it would be. Germany seems in, but that's about it.

National Front is supported monetarily by the Russians and the German government is raising the alarm about Russian influence. The Russians are involved with many Euro far-right nationalist parties.

With all this talk, it's still the people that go out and vote for these lunatics. Yes, the masses are easily swayed. But if they are easily swayed by a ruse from a foreign country, why can't they be swayed by the people we want to win? (Written from a left of center viewpoint)

It's just hard for me to get too up in arms about Russia's meddling when I know it was my friends and neighbors that went to the poll and voted for Trump. Not Vladimir Putin.

Those of us left of center just need to play the game better.

Isn't that what most posters are doing? I mean, posting inconsequential thoughts on an internet forum, and then (I assume) getting on with our day, seems like a pretty healthy/beneficial response.

I think that's starting to become a takeaway as many left leaning groups are saying we need to take lessons from the Tea Party in how to obstruct and win. Though that also means a direct repudiation of any attempts of political civility. So the question is how many folks are willing to cross that way.

I don't understand why people are getting so upset about liberals and some conservatives not wanting Russia or any other foreign entity influencing our elections. This shouldn't have happened but at this point it is going to be up to the Republicans in power to make sure it doesn't happen again. Just because it was against the Democrats this time doesn't mean that the Republicans won't be the target next time.

This also doesn't/won't make Trump's presidency illegitimate. He is allowed to govern as a conservative populist and should be able to implement his policies even if I do not agree with them. That is what winning an election looks like.

What we should be against is anything that steps out of line with how our country is supposed to run. We need to be against conflicts of interest that put the Trump family ahead of American needs. We need to push back on blatant lies that change the target of what the truth is. We need to fight back against our more fascist tendencies. But these things are true if Donald Trump is president or Kanye West is president in 2024.

Wait, what? The super-delegates had zero effect on the outcome.

It was an extremely close election, so everything mattered. Hillary lost because,

third terms for one party almost never happen
she ignored the upper midwest
the Russian hacks
Stein/Johnson voters
she isn't a good campaigner
Comey's letter
etc.

One hundred thousand votes in the right places changes the election. There isn't A reason she lost. Any number of changes could have resulted in a different outcome.

I'll never understand the thought that Clinton was a poor candidate, so it doesn't matter if the Russians influence the election.

As a candidate, I believe she thought it was a done deal she would be elected. I dont think she put in the work required. And example would be never setting foot in Wisconsin.
Thats why, IMO, she was a bad candidate.

Well, among other things, but those are more with her and not as a candidate.

It's easy to say that she should've paid attention to the midwest after the fact, but she didn't trail a single Wisconsin poll the whole election.

RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - Wisconsin: Trump vs. Clinton

Yes, if she had ignored Florida and North Carolina, but instead secured those three midwestern states, she would've been President. But you can only say that with the benefit of hindsight. That strategy made no sense at all with the data that was available.

And either way, that's a strategic error, not an "I don't want to work" error.

Lawyer: 'Appalled' by FBI warrant that shook Clinton



So you take this, add the email hacks and you've got a measurable shift in the result of the result of the election. For what? All because people desperately wanted to believe the mantra that she was finally going to get busted for doing something wrong, but in the end, nada, with the result being some intense fucking with the election system.

You're kidding, right? She had high unfavorable ratings as far back as 2008, before any leaked emails. It only got worse, esp. with all of the damage Sanders did. I think her unfavorable rating hit 53%, which would be historically high for a party's nominee (excepting Trump, of course). You cannot simply blame that away.

That's not what he said. He was saying he didn't understand that Clinton being a poor candidate meant that the Russian involvement doesn't matter.

So your blaming everyone and everything else but HRC? Go figure.

You realize that polls are very flawed right?
So these favorable and unfavorable ratings could be way off.

HRC did not do what she had to do. I am saying she didnt put in the work. Its obvious.

larry, you make my points exactly. She put in time in FL and NC and she lost both.
She believed polls that were severly flawed. A HUGE mistake.

HRC was disliked and lazy and counting on the fact that she was next in line and a woman.

She got crushed as a result.

Huh? I agree that she is a bad campaigner and made mistakes throughout the campaign. I was responding to the specific criticism of her decision to ignore Wisconsin.

My point is ALL the polls in Wisconsin were flawed. There wasn't a single one that showed her in danger. Even Trump didn't expect to win there, and he skipped over it on his final sprint through the midwest.

At some point you have to trust the polls. Otherwise, what are you supposed to do, just close your eyes and randomly pick a state to campaign in? She narrowly won states like Nevada, Colorado, and New Hampshire. She narrowly lost Florida, North Carolina, and the aforementioned midwest states.

You can say, after the campaign, that she should've campaigned in the states where she lost by the narrowest margins to get to 270, and should've ignored every other state, but that makes no sense during the campaign when picking states to focus on. Not a single person picked Wisconsin in my election contest - (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=91971) and you were one of the participants.

That has been a problem for the candidates. They believe the polls. These polls are polling smaller samples. And the candidates are ignoring the margin of error. Which is where the election fell. In the margin of error.

Trump went out and campaigned the crap out of states.
Clinton expected women and hispanics to carry her. And it cost her.
Lazy and ineffective.

The polls were pretty close to right, except in the rust belt and notably, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The national polls which showed 3-4% Clinton edge the weekend before the election are going to be almost spot on. North Carolina and Florida had tightened considerably. I think what a lot of data is showing is that there was a shift in the last two weeks and undecideds broke hard for Trump. You can pick any number of factors that had an influence, including Comey, the Podesta e-mails, Clinton's weird state visit schedule and strategy and Trump momentum.

In any case, it probably is time for both sides to move past the election but even Trump can't, as he seems to still be campaigning for something with his rallies and tweets about how big of a landslide it was.

And E-MAILS.

What Larry said.

Sorry for the confusing wording.

Thank you both for the clarification, I understand.

I have been reading quite a bit more post-election analyses and partially coming to some conclusions that there were fatal assumptions being made. What I have been keying on are those counties (quite a few of them exurbs, not rural) that flipped from solid Obama to narrow Trump. That's huge, imo, and those added up significantly.

I doubt I'd agree with much of his policy agenda, but Evan McMullin's twitter feed is spot on regarding the need for left and right pro-democracy forces coming together to combat the international nationalist movement led by Putin.

digamma, I am not seeing that big of a shift in those weeks. What I think happened were the silent Trump voters that had been rumored for some time. They finally started to come out of the woodworks but were brushed off. It was a real thing, more than any breakings.

How did super delegates screw over anyone? Hillary would've won with or without them

The Dems will need to come up with a young, charismatic person. Male or Female. Black, white, yellow, whatever.
They have the potential to unseat Trump in 2020. But throwing Biden up there would be a mistake, I think.
They need another Obama. Thats their wheelhouse and they forgot that this election.

Cory Booker or Tulsi Gabbard. I honestly don't think Trump will run again in 2020 regardless though.

Polls weren't really off. Showed she'd win the popular vote by 3 and she won it by 2.

Hollande has like 4% approval rating. That's the reason France is looking toward right-wing parties. And Merkel would be a moderate Democrat if she was running in this country.

Here are a couple of pieces from 538 on the late breaking Trump voter.

There's more evidence, too: Late-deciding voters broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA. pic.twitter.com/8r801ahDQO

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016

Voters Really Did Switch To Trump At The Last Minute | FiveThirtyEight

And also one that says the shy Trump voter probably wasn't a thing.

‘Shy’ Voters Probably Aren’t Why The Polls Missed Trump | FiveThirtyEight

I think it is hard to argue that if the election was held say October 20, pre-Comey, that Trump would have won. The last two weeks had a huge impact on the race.

I think its funny that everyone is blaming other things then the candidate. Maybe if she hadnt put those emails on a personal server she wouldnt have had the FBI sniffing around her.

When do the liberals realize that your candidate screwed up and its no ones fault but her own?

Exactly. Trump was solely responsible for the pickle he was in due to his words and actions. Hillary Clinton was in a pickle because of her words and actions.

They have no one to blame but themselves.

There's a difference between blame and stating things had an impact. In an election decided by a razor thin margin, many things had an impact that ultimately decided the outcome. Could Clinton have done things differently, particularly in the final two weeks? Absolutely. Did Trump do some things right in the final two weeks? Again, yes. Those answers can both be yes and there still be an acknowledgement that things beyond either candidates control had a measurable impact on the race.

Yesterday you didn't even fucking know what the e-mail scandal was even about.

This year had a much higher number of "undecideds" in the polling until late, indicating the general distaste for both candidates. Whoever mentioned the RCP average of Wisconsin where Hillary was NEVER BEHIND in the polling... go check that out. Yes, she was never behind, but there were still like 10% undecideds, which is much higher than usual. The Comey "reopening" of the investigation absolutely had an impact.

If the Dems had run a better candidate, would that have been a factor? No. But did Comey's statement sway enough voters to have an impact on the race? You bet. Fake news? Yes. How much of an impact? We'll probably never be able to get to that number, but one can make some common sense assumptions.

Even being a terrible candidate, Hillary probably wins if certain things don't break against her in the last 2 weeks. That's not "whining" or "blame". It's data analysis.

Everything's a con.

dola

Love this from Josh Barro.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-d...p-jobs-2016-12

Those are actually some really good ideas.

You realize that Fillon is a member of the CENTER-right party right?! One that was in power right before Hollande. This is not some far right candidate.

And just about EVERY center-right leader in Europe would be a moderate (at best) Democrat in this country. Cameron, Sarkozy, Merkel. All of them.

I hold skepticism that Republicans actually want to help workers. My impression has become that they want to help businesses, and then let businesses sort the rest out -- they can take care of workers as they see fit. Some do a good job of that. Many don't.

Dems don't need to sacrifice minorities to embrace a working class agenda. They should proudly run on the idea that anyone with a full time job should be able to support themselves and their family. In addition, in retirement you should be able to pay your bills and have medical care. Everything should revolve around that.

But that would require Dems to stand for something, so I don't expect it to happen and in four years they'll run as the party of not quite as bad as the GOP.

The last 2 posts are spot on.
I hope the businesses do the right thing.
And I agree with you, JP. But I also dont think a minimum wage job is one that a person should aspire to help them survive. Get an education. Be it college or trade school. Try and become a manager and not drop the fries in the grease all day.

I believe there is a bit of give me something for nothing with the whole $15 minimum wage thing.

"Get an education"

Only if it didn't leave you with crushing debt....

People need to be wiser with their education choices. It's fine to go to an expensive school, but be sure you're pursuing something that will return on that investments.

There's a lot of community colleges and trade schools that offer a great foundation for good paying jobs at a fraction of the price of some of the bigger schools.

The poor will always be with us.

That doesn't mean people can't make better choices, but a plan built on poor people shouldn't accept being poor isn't realistic. For any number of reasons, we will always have adults with families at the bottom of the income scale. The question is whether we say, fuck 'em or try to create policies that allow them basic human dignity and independence while recognizing that they aren't making the perfect choices.

Our President elect knows that better than anyone.

Trickle down economics don't work. It's not a rebublican/democrat thing it's an economic thing. When given freedom businesses do not have any history of looking out for anyone but themselves.

The point people are missing on the $15 minimum wage thing is that the goal is to provide a basic living to people and drive the stagnant middle class wages up as well. When middle class wages aren't moving the best way to get them moving upward is to raise the floor.

The problem with $15 is that businesses claim they cant afford it or they do something to not pay it. McDonalds is creating kiosks to take orders. There goes jobs.
In Seattle, the workers were asking for less hours because they were making too much money and it caused them to lose government benefits.

A minimum wage job is a job for a HS kid to learn how to work and make a little cash to spend. It is ot for a 25 year old mother of 3.

Unfortunately, middle class jobs have fled the country. And that is an issue. Maybe Trump fixes it. Maybe its too late for anyone to fix.

Minimum Wage was not created for teenagers and most people on it today are not teenagers.

Nothing is going to work overnight. What we can do is look at history and data and make the most informed decision we can based on that.

McDonald's and other places were going to shift to kiosks eventually anyway. At some point the technology was going to become cheap enough to do so and there's nothing that could be done about it. McDonald's is simply using the minimum wage thing as a scapegoat because it makes someone else look like the bad guy.

Relying more on technology also creates more jobs that use the education that some think solves all problems. It's sucks in the near term, but long term replacing minimum wage jobs with tech jobs is a good thing.

Question, tarcone. Who runs McDonald's at lunchtime on a school day?

I'd have to hike my prices at a minimum if I had to pay $15/hour for my employees. I've already explored the option of machines that dispense tasting/glasses of wine without having to use an employee. It would cost me thousands up front, but would save me quite a bit over the long run. I don't want to do that because nothing beats good customer service when you build a one-on-one relationship with a customer who comes to your place, but $15/hr would certainly adjust the balance of that equation.

Here's an example of the machines I'm talking about. These are home dispensing, but they have commercial options which have credit card integration, so it's basically a self-serve proposition.

Wineemotionâ„¢ | Commercial Wine Dispenser & Preservation

I'm sure the Germans really didn't want to admit that this guy slipped through the cracks.

Report: German police knew Berlin attack suspect would strike | Fox News

Bingo. Which is funny in a way, because they will become more like fancy Automats...

I've always felt $15/hour is a bit of an overreach. Start at $10 and move up from there.

This. I pay my staff $10/hr right now because I feel it's a fair wage and is around 20% higher than min. wage. Most businesses are going to pay people a fair wage if you let them. But the $15/hr idea would dump things on their head.

A manager, an asst manager and a few retired people, disabled people?

At least thats what it should be.

Citation, please.

Also, define fair.

Apparently $10/hr.

I'll leave that to the Democrats. They're generally the arbitor of what's "fair".

Fun map spin on the voting breakdown of this election.

I've always wondered what the objection was to indexing the minimum wage to inflation. If you think there should be a wage floor, not raising it while inflation happens means you are just eating away at the minimum wage. Anyway, I think I have read that if you index the min wage in 1968 for inflation it ends up at around $15 an hour.

If I didn't know better I'd say that cities have greater population density.

I'd be all for indexing it to inflation and agree if we'd have indexed it before we'd be at $15/hour. But I still think the best course would be getting it to $10/hour right now and then indexing it to inflation from there.

If cities where the cost of living is higher want to set their minimum wage at $15/hour, I'm fine with that.

The issue is that you simply can't get folks to agree to index it to inflation. Hence, for me $15 is fine because in inflation will wipe that down to 2006's $10 an hour in not all that long.

Now if you can agree to index it to inflation, I'd be more than fine with $10 an hour being the start... with the caveat that states can't tell local cities that they can't raise it higher (more of a suggestion than a law, because I'm not sure that can be enforced against the states anyways).

It's also important to remember that 15/hr folks will almost certainly settle for 10 or 12 and work from there. This is a beginning offer. If they start at 10/hr they'll have to settle for 8.50 or 9.