POTUS 2016 General Election Discussion Thread

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Dutch

I think it helps HRC's confidence for those situations. But not all world leaders are as wonky as Trump.

Oh, I totally get that. I'm not saying debating with Trump helps build a skill set to deal with China or Russia or our allies or the vast majority of domestic issues. Overall, I'm in agreement that normally these debates don't really show much in terms of "ability to govern well." I'm saying that debating with Trump *might* exercise some muscles that one uses to deal with the unpredictability of a natural disaster , terrorist act, or North Korea.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

No you don't.

You don't suspect that.

You know it with a great degree of certainty, same as any other realistic person does.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by Dutch

The right is simply unwilling to let go of the notion (and I agree with not letting it go) that the inner city crisis is based on corporations leaving the USA because of bad trade deals and also unwilling to budge on the notion that criminals deserve the focus instead of the cops. The stats obviously back that up but we haven't been willing to have that discussion yet. Clinton will continue to push the "Its the cops, stupid" agenda for the next four years.

I'd love to hear the stats that back up that the inner city "crisis" is due to the fact that we aren't focusing on curbing crime/criminals and the correlation that it is caused by corporations leaving the USA. Do we need to double down on the world leading incarceration rate?

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Oh, I totally get that. I'm not saying debating with Trump helps build a skill set to deal with China or Russia or our allies or the vast majority of domestic issues. Overall, I'm in agreement that normally these debates don't really show much in terms of "ability to govern well." I'm saying that debating with Trump *might* exercise some muscles that one uses to deal with the unpredictability of a natural disaster , terrorist act, or North Korea.

Yep. I'm with ya.

[digamma]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

No president has ever made a crisis decision solo on the fly. That's what a cabinet is for. Given the two candidates, the more we know about who they would select for their cabinet is FAR more important to me than the actual candidates at this point. If they pick people they can run over, I'd be far more worried about that candidate.

If this is your criteria, then your votes in the mock polls make absolutely no sense. I mean, unless you're just into nepotism.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Butter

I'd love to hear the stats that back up that the inner city "crisis" is due to the fact that we aren't focusing on curbing crime/criminals and the correlation that it is caused by corporations leaving the USA. Do we need to double down on the world leading incarceration rate?

No jobs equals more poor people. More poor equal more crime. At least, more of the violent crime that we don't like.

The incarceration rate is a product of crime, not a creator of it. It's a double-edged sword. We NEED these communities to be safe and we need the violent criminals (that we've created in these communities removed). But it's not a linear solution. We need to bring our jobs back, we need to give them to OUR current citizens in need, and we need to remove the criminals. If we do those three things, the inner city communities can actually progress. Most corporations would rather move their business to Mexico than to Detroit. That's got to stop.

[jbergey22]

If Trump were elected and didnt get his way, what would he do? If NATO says no about negotiations is he going to remove us from NATO? If China wants no part of the Middle East or S Korea is he going to start shit with China? Trump thinks he is able to "negotiate" every single problem in the world and it is scary. HRC made a point about diplomacy, agreements that have been in place for years, and what would you do about it Donald. Trump is a loose cannon.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Some of these are really good.

The Funniest Internet Reactions To Monday Night’s Presidential Debates

That was pretty funny. I especially like the one from Jerry Springer. "Hillary Clinton belongs in the White House, Domald Trump belongs on my show"

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Trump is a loose cannon.

And that's part of his appeal (though I'd argue that it's a relatively small part).

[albionmoonlight]

I popped over to PredictIt to see the odds of Trump skipping a debate. The No on "he will attend all three debates" is actually at ~20%, so my idea of trying to get a longshot value play there has already been priced into the market.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Ehhhh...other than maybe 9/11, I'm having a hard time thinking of a time when a crucial crisis decision has had to be made with a serious time crunch where 2 minutes vs. 30 minutes mattered.

Not even 9/11: The Friday Cover: ‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky’ – The strange, harrowing journey of Air Force One on 9/11, told by the people who were on board. - POLITICO Magazine

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Not even 9/11: The Friday Cover: ‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky’ – The strange, harrowing journey of Air Force One on 9/11, told by the people who were on board. - POLITICO Magazine

I read that piece a couple of weeks ago, and iirc, the decision to authorize planes to be shot down was made pretty quickly (Bush agreed to it during a brief phone conversation, I think). I was specifically thinking of that decision when I included 9/11. A narrow window of time *could* have been a difference-maker there.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Dutch

We need to bring our jobs back

Eh? The unemployment rate is at 5% at current. The labor force participation rate is at 63%, yes, but at its highest (in the late 90s) it was at 67%. And the country has been 'greying' quite a bit (labor force participation counts anyone over 16 who isn't incarcerated or in military service):



Sooo... jobs seem pretty ok.

That doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory, of course. Income inequality is a big gulf, but lack of jobs isn't actually a thing.

[molson]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Isn't stop and frisk unconstitutional? I'm all for being tougher on crime but he keeps talking about instilling something that is unconstitutional.

A lot of people in the media reporting on this don't understand this issue. Stopping and frisking without reasonable suspicion has been unconstitutional for many, many, decades. We didn't need any new cases telling us that.

But when lawyers, law enforcement officers, and courts say "stop and frisk", they're talking about stopping and frisking within the framework of Terry v. Ohio. It's constitutional to stop and frisk someone upon reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot (the stop) and that the suspect may be armed and dangerous (the frisk). It's a very low standard of suspicion. And the tricky thing is, many of the factors which can add up to a finding of reasonable suspicion are things that disproportionately impact minorities - being in a high-crime neighborhood, gang affiliation, known prior criminal record, loitering in urban areas without an apparent purpose, etc. So when agencies in diverse cities like New York get really aggressive with their Terry stops, they're going to disproportionately be dealing with minorities, even assuming no intentional racial bias.

Terry v. Ohio is still the law, it's still constitutional. Cops can stop and frisk in that framework everywhere, even New York. But the NYPD got slapped down by a federal district court because their internal policy that governed their own Terry stops was held to be racially discriminatory.

But police departments can still aggressively use stop and frisk policies within the Terry framework. Depending on the tolerance of their state judges on a case-by-case basis, and then federal district judges when it comes to constitutional challenges to any policies they have. And there's a PR component. If a community wants their officers to lay off a bit on Terry, they should, even if they have a legal power to use it more aggressively.

I have no idea what Trump means though. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he thinks that officers in heavy-crime areas should use Terry more aggressively. A lot of New Yorkers feel that way, some see that police approach as part of the reason for New York's dramatic reduction in crime since the early 90s.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Donald Trump

As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said, we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t know if we know it was Russia who broke into the DNC.

She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. It could also be China, it could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. You don’t know who broke into DNC, but what did we learn? We learn that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. By Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Look what happened to her. But Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of. Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don’t know, because the truth is, under President Obama we’ve lost control of things that we used to have control over. We came in with an internet, we came up with the internet.

And I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the internet, they’re beating us at our own game. ISIS. So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a, it is a huge problem.

I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing, but that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester, and certainly cyber is one of them.

.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

That doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory, of course. Income inequality is a big gulf, but lack of jobs isn't actually a thing.

Median income also took a big jump: Real Median Household Income in the United States - FRED - St. Louis Fed

[molson]

I don't usually watch debates, I know enough about these candidates to make my voting decision, but I was interested to see how Clinton looked and sounded health-wise and what tone she was going to use v. Trump. I thought she looked and sounded great. And I really like the tone she went with - she wasn't unnecessarily hostile, but she also didn't seem to give him a lot of deference and respect just for being there, like the Republican candidates mostly did.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by molson

but she also didn't seem to give him a lot of deference and respect just for being there, like the Republican candidates mostly did.

I think that the right professor could teach an entire semester on game theory using only the 2016 GOP Primary as his example.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by molson

If a community wants their officers to lay off a bit on Terry, they should, even if they have a legal power to use it more aggressively.

A wrinkle with that statement likely lies in the definition of "community".

Is that defined as "a jurisdiction"? Is New York City really "New York City" ... or is it dozens or hundreds (thousands?) of neighborhoods, all with different oxen to be perceived as gored?

Same question holds true (surprisingly so I suspect for those who've never lived in micro-population areas) a long way down the size scale.

I've had this specific conversation with more than one LEO over the years. Everybody aside from outright criminals themselves wants lower crime in theory. The theory starts to break down when the likelihood that some relative/friend/associate is the bad guy rises.

The most memorable of those conversations was probably with a small-town police chief, a black guy who came from the very streets that he had to try to police decades later. "Everybody is glad to see me ... until I come to arrest their nephew. And around here, everybody is somebody's nephew".

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by digamma

If this is your criteria, then your votes in the mock polls make absolutely no sense. I mean, unless you're just into nepotism.

I think his kids (assuming that actually happens) are far more level-headed than their father is.

I have been teetering between Johnson and Trump this whole time. I'm still not sure who I'll cast my vote for, but thus far have felt Trump is the better option of the two because of this criteria. I have concerns what Johnson's cabinet would look like moreso than Trump.

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Originally Posted by Donald Trump
As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said, we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t know if we know it was Russia who broke into the DNC.

She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. It could also be China, it could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. You don’t know who broke into DNC, but what did we learn? We learn that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. By Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Look what happened to her. But Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of. Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don’t know, because the truth is, under President Obama we’ve lost control of things that we used to have control over. We came in with an internet, we came up with the internet.

And I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the internet, they’re beating us at our own game. ISIS. So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a, it is a huge problem.

I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing, but that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester, and certainly cyber is one of them.

Fact check: Tim Berners-Lee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by AlexB

Fact check: Tim Berners-Lee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tim Berners-Lee....paraphrasing from the link..."created HTTP and was the first to use it over... the internet". I think credit more likely goes to the US/U.K. team that developed TCP/IP (ARPANET) which I was always told was the symbolic beginning of this endeavor.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Tim Berners-Lee....paraphrasing from the link..."created HTTP and was the first to use it over... the internet". I think credit more likely goes to the US/U.K. team that developed TCP/IP (ARPANET) which I was always told was the symbolic beginning of this endeavor.

And do we all know the internet-history significance of this:

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by AlexB

Fact check: Tim Berners-Lee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am far more concerned that anyone would look at that crazy, rambling, near-unintelligible mess of a quote and respond by being bothered to fact-check some tiny sliver of teh crazy contained therein.

[digamma]

Originally Posted by Donald Trump

As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said, we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t know if we know it was Russia who broke into the DNC.

She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. It could also be China, it could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. You don’t know who broke into DNC, but what did we learn? We learn that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. By Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Look what happened to her. But Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of. Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don’t know, because the truth is, under President Obama we’ve lost control of things that we used to have control over. We came in with an internet, we came up with the internet.

And I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the internet, they’re beating us at our own game. ISIS. So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a, it is a huge problem.

I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing, but that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester, and certainly cyber is one of them.

Fact check: Appears to be true.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by digamma

Fact check: Appears to be true.

Have we seen the birth certificate? Or a DNA test proving he's Donald's son? I'm gonna need to see both before I believe it's true. Why doesn’t he show Baron's birth certificate last night? I want to see his birth certificate, he could actually be a 400 lbs hacker from Russia or China pretending to be Trump's son as a cover. We just don't know. What can we do to get to the bottom of this?

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by digamma

Fact check: Appears to be true.

Good point. I got nothing.

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I am far more concerned that anyone would look at that crazy, rambling, near-unintelligible mess of a quote and respond by being bothered to fact-check some tiny sliver of teh crazy contained therein.

That's the difference between a Brit reading it and an American. Trump may be a crazy megalomaniac, and the wall might be a terrible idea, but trying to claim a British invention as American is just going too far

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by molson

I don't usually watch debates, I know enough about these candidates to make my voting decision, but I was interested to see how Clinton looked and sounded health-wise and what tone she was going to use v. Trump. I thought she looked and sounded great. And I really like the tone she went with - she wasn't unnecessarily hostile, but she also didn't seem to give him a lot of deference and respect just for being there, like the Republican candidates mostly did.

She came out a little feistier than I expected to the point she looked like the bully for the first segment and Trump was actually being more polite initially. If she just saw the direction it was going later and laid off that tact good for her... but if that was a designed strategy to set a tone and get Trump going bravo to her team.

No question who won the debate - those birther and CYBER responses were brutal. But I doubt any minds were changed last night - the moderator will obviously fact check him more, but Holt started to go after Trump harder in the latter half enough that Trump supporters and the anti-Hillary base can focus their energy on that. (He is misogynistic in some ways, but quoting Trump saying Hillary didn't "look" Presidential and asking if that was because of bigotry was the one that stood out to me. On the flip side the Clinton Foundation was something I expected to be brought up & defended.) And anyone ignorant enough to be undecided heading into last night will have forgotten all about it by the time debates 2 & 3 come around. Weirdly Trump's biggest missteps were when being forced to defend his own record. I thought he should have kept hammering the "she's had 30 years to do something" line, and missed the glaring opportunity to bring that cyber security question back to Clinton's email server.

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by Trump

I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable.

please tell me he didn't say this.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

please tell me he didn't say this.

He absolutely did. And it was terrific.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

please tell me he didn't say this.

That entire segment is verbatim as far as I can tell.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Somebody help me out here, maybe I'm missing something

Old debate viewership record (Reagan v Carter 80) was about 81 million viewers (80.6)

Last night currently getting 80.9 million viewers (over 12 networks) with PBS still pending, and online viewing not included.

1980 U.S. Population 226,545,000 (rounded off)
Current population estimate 322,762,000

Am I crazy to think that even with a bump for online & such, this isn't really that impressive an audience?

[Logan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Somebody help me out here, maybe I'm missing something

Old debate viewership record (Reagan v Carter 80) was about 81 million viewers (80.6)

Last night currently getting 80.9 million viewers (over 12 networks) with PBS still pending, and online viewing not included.

1980 U.S. Population 226,545,000 (rounded off)
Current population estimate 322,762,000

Am I crazy to think that even with a bump for online & such, this isn't really that impressive an audience?

It approached Super Bowl-level numbers. Of course it's impressive especially given where we are as far as TV viewing habits.

[cartman]

A lot more competition for the eyeballs today versus 36 years ago.

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Maybe we need outsiders to become air traffic controllers. Surely, total ignorance is the way to go with a complicated job like that. Outsiders using common sense would obviously do a better job than people who have trained for the job for years. Right?

Because, no one has ever hired an outsider. Nope. Only experienced people ever get hired for things. This is why college grads cant find jobs. No experience.
But wait. Maybe experience in aspects would be ok? Like , maybe someone who knows something about economics? No? Maybe someone who knows how to negotiate?

i dont know. Maybe the dirtiest politician to ever run is a better choice.

[ISiddiqui]

That'd all be great if Trump did actually know something about economics or how to negotiate - well, I guess aside from negotiating his multiple bankruptcies.

And how many right out of college grads do you know that get hired as CEOs?

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by tarcone

i dont know. Maybe the dirtiest politician to ever run is a better choice.

You need to read more history. Hillary wouldn't crack the top 100.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

That'd all be great if Trump did actually know something about economics or how to negotiate - well, I guess aside from negotiating his multiple bankruptcies.

And how many right out of college grads do you know that get hired as CEOs?

I'd be fine hiring Trump as an unpaid intern.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by cartman

A lot more competition for the eyeballs today versus 36 years ago.

A lot more interest in ... the process ... then vs now seems also fair.

On the one hand I'm happy that it appears that there was no shortage of people who recognized the irrelevancy of last night's affair.

On the other hand, well, that's kind of ... depressing.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Logan

It approached Super Bowl-level numbers.

Not exactly, maybe even simply not really.

Avg last SB was around 112m, with a total audience of 167m

Last night will end up around 82m avg (apples to apples TV audience afaik), and that should end up a long way short of the total audience even when you factor in online.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Because, no one has ever hired an outsider. Nope. Only experienced people ever get hired for things. This is why college grads cant find jobs. No experience.
But wait. Maybe experience in aspects would be ok? Like , maybe someone who knows something about economics? No? Maybe someone who knows how to negotiate?

i dont know. Maybe the dirtiest politician to ever run is a better choice.

You could argue that Trump knows how to run a business.

THE UNITED STATES IS NOT A FUCKING BUSINESS.

[Ben E Lou]

Hmmmm.....now I'm curious: how is "online" viewership defined?

In my office, I have two TVs that do not have cable, but a Roku is attached to one, and a Roku stick to the other. I also have two external monitors attached to my laptop. We do have TWC, but only on the main big TV in the den. We use Rokus on the other three TVs in the house.

So when I watch TV and I'm not in the den (as was the case for the debate....I was at my desk) I might do one of four things:

1. Go to Roku, use the "Watch TWC" app there. That app allows me to watch 100% of the live content that I could watch if the TV were actually connected to cable.
2. Go to video2.timewarnercable.com on my computer and watch TWC through my computer instead of my TV.
3. Use the TV with the Roku stick and do just like in option #1.
4. Use an iPad or iPhone and use Watch TWC.

Am I an "online" viewer, since technically in all four cases I'm streaming, or am I a "TV" viewer, since in all four cases I'm using Time Warner's stuff and not a web site, per se.

Worth noting if it makes a difference: the only place that you can use video2.timewarnercable.com and get all channels is when connected to the home network (and *maybe* other TWC networks..not sure about that). I can't take my laptop to Starbucks and use that link. If I do that, I can only view a few local channels.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Not exactly, maybe even simply not really.

Avg last SB was around 112m, with a total audience of 167m

Last night will end up around 82m avg (apples to apples TV audience afaik), and that should end up a long way short of the total audience even when you factor in online.

It put up numbers right up with the average viewership of Super Bowls from the early to mid 2000s. Instead of watching 22 guys at a time playing to win the championship trophy of the most popular sport in the country, that many people watched two people the majority of the country hates stand on a stage for an hour and a half on a Monday night.

How much larger would that number have to be to be considered "impressive" in your eyes?

[nol]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I was thinking that I'd love to see a Republican like, say, Paul Ryan and HRC have a serious policy-wonk debate in last night's format of having some space to reply back and forth. That was one thing that frustrated me last night: there was *ample* room for not just the 2-minute response, but for genuine back and forth on issues. But it was wasted with that pair up there. I suspect it'd bore most of the country to tears, though.

If there's one take-home point from the primaries, it's that most of the GOP base doesn't really care that much about trickle-down economics or limited government or family values, so yeah that would be incredibly boring.

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

You need to read more history. Hillary wouldn't crack the top 100.

I will disagree with this.

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by Butter

You could argue that Trump knows how to run a business.

THE UNITED STATES IS NOT A FUCKING BUSINESS.

No, its not.

But I bet Trump is more willing to bring in cabinet members who are leadrs in the various areas of government. While HRC is more likely to bring in a bunch of yes-men and women.

She isnt winning the presidency to let other people tell her what to do.

[tarcone]

Our local Fox station has Trump winning 61-33

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Logan

It put up numbers right up with the average viewership of Super Bowls from the early to mid 2000s. Instead of watching 22 guys at a time playing to win the championship trophy of the most popular sport in the country, that many people watched two people the majority of the country hates stand on a stage for an hour and a half on a Monday night.

How much larger would that number have to be to be considered "impressive" in your eyes?

It's not the raw number I'm taking a bit of issue with being too overwhelmed by, it's the percentage (i.e. the overall rating).

Reagan/Carter drew over 1/3rd of the country
Last night drew give or take 1/4th.

Picking an "early to mid 200s" SB, 2002 drew a little over 30% of the nation's population in an avg quarter hour (never mind cume, or total audience)

30 someodd years later, with the growth in population, yes the debate should outdraw Reagan/Carter. That it did so by a relatively narrow margin is what leaves me less than impressed. It's a nice sized audience, but it's not some massive "OMG the NUMBERZ" kind of figure either. That's all I was saying.

It was supposedly the most made-for-tv scenario possible ... and it eeked out a record. Can you imagine how bad the numbers would have been for two utterly dry candidates?

[JPhillips]

lol

When has Trump not hired yes men?