Anything to declare? Arrested Australian hands over bag containing baby koala Guardian
Mary Keitany of Kenya Wins 3rd Straight New York City Marathon NYT
Crosstalk: How Models Reveal the Secrets of Biology Without Making the News The Wire
New Discovery Broadens VW Emissions-Cheating Crisis WSJ
Refugee Watch
Migrants rescued at sea must be sent back, says Berlin The Times
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg investigated in Germany for allowing hate speech UPI
Russia
Russia’s boom (farming) economy Politico
The closing of the liberal mind New Statesman
Brexit
Labour could block Brexit by voting against Article 50 over single market demands, Jeremy Corbyn says Independent
EU reconsiders financial market access rules FT. Don’t be deterred by the boring headline. The change is aimed at blocking US and post-Brexit UK firms.
Women who alleged rape and assault by Uber drivers end their lawsuits Ars Technica
Why Google, Facebook and Uber aren’t contributing to long-term innovation Independent
Guillotine Watch
The wealthiest Americans have a new attitude about homebuying — and it’s led to a crisis in the luxury market Business Insider
ETFs attract more than $3.2tn to pass hedge funds FT (David L)
After $195 million in talc verdicts, J&J strives to change court Reuters
Clinton Email Tar Baby
Chelsea’s husband allegedly used foundation ties to boost hedge fund Politico
9 days after roiling campaign, FBI says it won’t seek charges against Clinton WaPo
Why Hillary and Bill are the Mafia mobsters of US politics: She’s dodged a bullet. But in a brilliant dispatch, RICHARD LITTLEJOHN reveals US voters’ revulsion at stench of corruption that won’t go away… Daily Mail. Yes, I know it’s the Mail, and I certainly don’t agree with nor endorse everything in this article. But much of it merely summarizes information not otherwise being widely covered. And at least it’s trying to explain what’s turning voters off.
Poaching alert: 76 tigers dead this year Times of India
China
This is the beginning of the end of Hong Kong Guardian (MsExpat)
China bars Hong Kong lawmakers: Elected pro-independence can’t retake their oaths youtube (MsExpat) A primer in animated video!
How the China-US relationship evolved, and why it still matters SCMP
World currency markets brace for China reserve shock Ambrose Edwards-Pritchard’s latest.
Invasion of the troll armies: from Russian Trump supporters to Turkish state stooges Guardian
Global Warming
Climate Disruption’s Legacy: Megadroughts, Extinctions, Obituaries for Reefs Truthout
Climate change is intergenerational theft. That’s why my son is part of this story Guardian
Schools shut, construction work stopped in smoke house Delhi Times of India
DAPL
There Is Still Time to Stop the Injustice at Standing Rock The New Republic
Dakota Access Pipeline Builder Ignored Obama Admin Request to Halt Construction DeSmogBlog. I’m shocked, shocked, to learn that the pipeline company failed to comply with the Obama administration’s request that construction be “voluntarily” halted in a designated zone around Lake Oahe while additional consultations were undertaken with the tribes.
2016
Obamacare could be silent killer of Hillary’s historic journey to White House Times of India
Concerned About Voter Fraud, Rigged Election? Cyber Security Experts Weigh In On The Digital Safety Of Tuesday’s Vote International Business Times
The Secrets of the US Election: Julian Assange Talks to John Pilger Counterpunch
A Transit Strike In Philly Could Lower Turnout, Especially Among Black And Poor Voters FiveThirtyEight
Why the Election Is Close, and What Trump and Obama Have in Common NYT
The Art of Spin Jacobin
With Voting Rights Protections Gutted, Polling Places Shuttered on ‘Massive Scale’ Common Dreams
Nine Ways the U.S. Voting System Is Rigged But Not Against Donald Trump The Intercept
The Big Con: what is really at stake in this US election Guardian
This Election Has Disgraced the Entire Profession of Journalism NY Observer (Micael). Make sure you read through til the end, for details about the Clinton Foundation.
Journalists too easily charmed by power, access, and creamy risotto Columbia Journalism Review
The Senate’s A Toss-Up: A Race-By-Race Look FiveThirtyEight
A Certain Victory for Campaign Finance Reform Looms in Missouri Truthout
Hillary’s biggest secret: What will Bill do as first laddie? Politico. A very good question, if it comes to that.
What It’s Like Saving Lives on the Front Lines of Canada’s Opioid Crisis Vice
California’s prop 47: Has it helped African Americans? Al Jazeera
Antidote du Jour: 
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
245 comments
Comments are closed.
Does Disaster Capitalism really care who wins this election? It’s theater to divide and rule.
All those piles of loot “sitting on the sidelines” are just waiting to buy up more assets when the bubble pops. “Public/private partnerships,” more tolls on the highways, McDonalds in the parks, more people renting their houses back.
Anyone who wants a job and any kind of living standard better get in line, or head for the hills. Money rules.
We’re America. When did money ever not rule? But that doesn’t mean it’s only about money. Whatever happens the country will (probably) survive. The rest of the world?…..
Language grows and changes. Lessons from elsewhere:
“What is hygge? How the Danish lifestyle trend became a Word of the Year —
Though ‘Brexit’ may have been declared Collins Dictionary’s Word of the Year – the Danish lifestyle trend has also made a major splash in 2016
Though the announcement political terms ‘Brexit’ and ‘Trumpism’ had been named by Collins English Dictionary as the words of the year may have been entirely expected, it was more surprising to see the term ‘hygge’ crop up on the list.
For those not familiar, ‘hygge’ refers to the Danish lifestyle craze that’s seen something of an international hysteria of late; a concept roughly described as a feeling of comfort and contentment, as well as indulging in all the good things and people in your life. It’s one often connected to the idea that the Danes are the happiest people in the world, and that it’s ‘hygge’ that provides the secret to their success.
The craze has focused largely on the idea of making the ordinary special, or meaningful, through ritualising everyday activities such as making a cup of coffee or having dinner; that means putting technology to one side, and embracing simple practices such as lighting candles, purchasing flowers, or brewing real tea in china cups. “
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/what-is-hygge-collins-word-of-the-year-danish-lifestyle-trend-brexit-a7395206.html
Of course the rest of us, the “innovators” among us at least, don’t miss the significant chance to monetize and and debase the notion… http://hyggebakery.com/, and isn’t this just precious, dear? https://www.amara.com/luxpad/hygge/
Update your loungewear with onesies.
From Hygge (LA version):
Now I am not Danish, but I fear this reeks of cultural appropriation.
From Amara.com:
Have they passed their Series 7?
All down to hygge and very low gini coefficients.
But the thing is hygge doesn’t even seem to mean comfort in the U.S. sense which is very material even materialistic and it’s almost non-material in the original sense it seems.
Which came first – math or logic? Russell showed that logic came before math.
Which came first – power or money? I believe power came first. Money helps to entrench and augment power.
Seems to me that this is not a timeline dichotomy — what I read is that the two co-gestated and were birthed together — “Rosemary’s Baby,” and “Alien,” as exemplars?
I am thinking cavemen, or early neolithic societies – power but no money.
Meat as money?
Who gets the choicest cut and who gets the neck?
class in the clann
Supposedly in caveman societies prestige was based on how much you could give away (not how much you owned) so redistribution of wealth was built into their social structure.
Possible, but I haven’t met any cave dwellers. I’m old but not that old.
As late as the 1970’s, before civilized world educated those ‘primitive’ Stone Age people, Moka was practiced.
See Ongka’s Big Moka in Wikipedia.
I have seen Bill Clinton on TV. Does that count as nearly meeting one?
At least for some tribes in Papua New Guinea it is about how much you can give away.
But they are, uh, ‘primitive.’
It was a universal. Moka – Potlatch – men were esteemed for their gifts to lesser men, women, children and the elderly.
As to how they acquired such wealth? – pure barbarism.
Nobody challenged the generous alpha male. He rose to the top like cream.
There are parallels in this race, should someone be disposed to look with a less than jaundiced eye.
Worse is when they don’t even give away.
See also Robert Wright’s “Nonzero,” a description of distinct stages that societies seem to have gone through all over the world as they became more populous and more technologically advanced. The common factor seems to have been development of ways to increase non-zero-sum transactions.
Check out “potlatch” in Wiki — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch Doesn’t mean what one might think…
And of course there’s all the scholarship on money and debt and all that in David Graeber’s “Debt: The First 5,000 Years.”
The primary role of the ‘big man’ in parts of PNG is to provide for his clan, to give away the spoils of the hunt etc,. To maintain that position necessitates a level of ‘providing’ that benefits the group. Big man has to give way to emerging providers when age or ill health emerges and is awarded an honorific position as mage or spiritual medium. Lots of variation on that theme.
I think it is, Meat = Energy.
And Energy/Time = Power.
That is, Power rules.
LOL – very Thermodynamics
Where there’s awareness there is value, and where there is value………..
Monetize power? It compounds.
Though the leverage can/will work both directions.
Look out below.
No Russell did not. The logicist project failed. Both Russell and Whitehead accepted that it failed. Think incompleteness Theorem.
But we don’t have to give up.
Think of it this way. Cats know logic. But they haven’t yet mastered math.
Cat’s logic.
Syllogism for a cat.
Cat owners love adorable cats
I am an adorable.
Therefore, cat owners love me.
But they fail math way too often.
“You weighed 10 pounds last month.”
“And you have gained 1 pound in the last 30 days.”
“How much do you weigh now?”
“Meow.”
QED. Thus, logic is before math.
Math could be described as the process that facilitates quantization of the elements that constitute the subset of logic that lends itself to being quantified. Therefore math is a subset of logic.
I tried…
The Daily Mail article by Richard Littlejohn is beneath this site. You should delete it. Your caveat doesn’t justify its presence.
The onus is on you to say what is inaccurate about it. Handwaving is beneath the standards of this comment section.
I didn’t see anything new in it, but it’s a useful review.
The sidebar is really distracting, though.
It’s perfectly serious and an odd fit for the Daily Mail. I suspect they’re trying to move in on the territory the US MSM and the Guardian have abandoned – rather as the Guardian did after the Snowden revelations.
> I didn’t see anything new in it, but it’s a useful review.
Yes, “much of it merely summarizes information,” as Yves said.
Stuff like this is why I don’t bother much with this site anymore
And yet here you are. Bothering with this site. Right now.
I hope you find the happiness you seek. Elsewhere.
Twitter and Wikileaks are being DDoS’ed after the DNC dump last night.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/twitter-down-is-it-not-working-wikileaks-ddos-us-election-japan-a7402081.html
The Russians did it!
More seriously: seeing the Dems go in for such flagrant Red-baiting is sort of nostalgic, but unintentionally revealing. It’s an alarming measure of how corrupt they now are.
“Invasion of the troll armies: from Russian Trump supporters to Turkish state stooges Guardian”
No mention of the US or Correct the Record. Hard to believe this is the same newspaper that
published the Snowden leaks.
Having every memory device ground off of every circuit board in the place tends to focus editorial policies wonderfully.
On the disgraced profession of journalism: the legacy media committed suicide this time around. Alex Jones may be a repulsive turd, but he also now has more credibility as a journalist than the New York Times et al. Congratulations NYT et al on making Alex Jones relevant. That took quite a bit of work to accomplish, but somehow you did it.
(I only use Alex Jones as an example because he’s the worst “journalist” I could think of. But in a totally objective sense he is better at jounalism than the NYT right?)
I don’t know why people think journalism has become disgraced – I thought that uncritically printing the oppo research for a political campaign was the primary qualification for being a journalist.
Agreed. What this election has done is give us a real-time lesson in why Chomsky’s theory of the media & manufacturing consent are 100% correct.
The polling profession also helps to manufacturing consent.
We saw a couple of foreshocks.
Tomorrow, again, the Little People can defenestrate one more profession.
Tomorrow, the Little People can just say NO to the legacy media and Hillary.
If only people understood this is not an election, it’s a coup d’etat.
Coups 101 teaches that the very first thing you do is take over the TV and radio stations and start blaring your message 24/7. Check.
Not many coups come with a smooth-talking brother or a kindly grandmother at the top…so you can’t really blame people for not seeing it.
I wonder what
PravdaCNN will report after the election, I predict 50-100 days of gushing and feelgood, then maybe a transition to stories about new emojis or something to try and keep any kind of customer base. It will take a few years before the royalty deals for blaring in sports bars wind up but bartenders will eventually notice nobody’s watching.The circuses better be good.
And we can use tastier (forget about healthy) bread.
After the most recent #DNCLeak2 regarding CNN’s collusion with the DNC in the most blatant ways, it’s disgraceful that Wolf Blitzer still has a job there. But he has always been less than objective, especially on Mideast reporting — no surprise as he used to work for AIPAC.
And George Stephanopoulous having worked at the very top of WJC’s campaign — how are these people allowed to be “journalists” and cover the election?
As noted, HRC may win tomorrow but in doing so she has destroyed the DNC and the MSM. Good luck over the next 4 years, Madame President. There are a lot of really angry, disillusioned, and bitter voters and observers. And based on decades of Clinton Family behaviour, you and your team are simultaneously so corrupt and so incompetent there will be plenty more scandals down the road.
There is no ceiling she can’t smash.
Not sure Trump will be a strongman, but she is a strong woman.
With a “muscular” foreign policy. Ugh.
Xena …. but without beauty, nor charm, nor wisdom …….
“Hillary Lawless“
Ha Roger, thanks for the laugh!
with a rock for a head…
The argument seems weak. Are you finding suicide because NYT refused to criticize Clinton?
I look at it as the NYT publishes facts that are beneficial to the system they support and leave out pertinent facts and the reader is forced to wade through noise and is left uninformed. Alex Jones publishes facts that are beneficial to the system he supports and lies (alot, voluminously, angrily) and the reader is forced to wade through noise and is left uninformed.
Neither are legitimate.
Then, I’ll make it clear for you. The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico etc aren’t journalists in any sense of the word; they are sock puppets who actively collude with their clients to keep the American public un informed or misinformed.
As far as I know, Alex Jones hasn’t yet been exposed colluding with the a campaign to get an establishments friendly candidate elected. This should have permanently disbarred them from ever being taken seriously again, much like how Breitbart was disqualified for the fake stuff they put out.
I could list 20 items re Jones that would demonstrate that Jones is not a reliable source but would hope that isn’t necessary. My point is, none of them are legitimate for the same and differing reasons. Finding the NYT, WaPo etc illegitimate does not confer journalistic legitimacy to any other individual nor outlet.
Other comment is in moderation I guess. You are at the very least admitting that NYT is on par with Alex Jones. I will say that Alex Jones is better because he is running stories that the NYT has blackballed because they run contrary to the official narrative and/or offend the wrong people.
When JSM saw Seymour Hersh on Alex Jones earlier this year, promoting the quartet of stories he wrote for the London Review of Books there because he was suddenly blacklisted everywhere else, something flipped in a permanent sort of way. Remember, David Remnick, whose blurb is on Hersh’s book calling him ‘the greatest investigative reporter of our generation’ or whatever, declined to print those same stories.
The NYT is never going to turn readers on to anything anymore. Alex Jones may be 25% signal and 75% noise, but the NYT is 5% signal within predetermined parameters and 95% hypnosis.
I’d rather wade through the noise.
Obama warns public of twitter evidence indicating Agent Orange Trump is unstable, and if elected POTUS, may nuke SNL.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/obama-roasts-trump-over-report-that-he-had-his-twitter-account-taken-away/ar-AAjYT1W?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
Is it too early in the morning for popcorn?
If you do not vote Democrat you are a deplorable, racist loser and your candidate is a baby.
The policies that really matter…
I am rooting for these pompous, arrogant fools to suffer a loss tomorrow. They need to be checked and knocked down several pegs. I would also prefer that check to not be nuclear war with Russia.
Yep, I’m ambivalent about a Trump win, but have a visceral desire to see the Clintons, the DNC, their funders, and their followers get slapped down hard. I also think real change in the leftward direction would be easier to affect from under a Trump presidency than a Clinton presidency due to the turmoil that a Clinton loss will cause within the elite circles, though I aknowledge that sentiment is purely speculative.
I’m also afraid that a Clinton win in 2016 will mean a Cruz- or Ryan-type win in 2020. If we have a Trump win tomorrow, maybe there will be hope for 2020… of course, no matter who wins the work on the ground continues.
…the work on the ground continues.”
Exactly. Both legacy candidates need to be hounded for sure. However, I worry and predict the fickle liberals will elect Clinton and then cheer “hoorah” when she wins, only to recede into nothingness post election. Sort of like political fare-weather fans. And I do not blame the voter (at least I would put them last behind all the facets of a system designed to keep them stressed out and occupied). However on that note I wish they would not jump on the false morality, know it all bandwagon when they do appear.
…same “Go right, wide and long, on ‘set’ — Ready, Break!” play as with 0Bomba — I used to spend time at dkos, and suffered the slings and arrows in that “reality=based community” for pointing out, the day after the first “win,” all the stuff in 0Bomba’s campaign materials that presaged the killing of universal health care, the “look forward only,” “Clean Coal,” the growth of the War Department and MorWar, faux ‘transparency… Told, I was, to “What a wet blanket! Go. Away. This Siet (spelling as original) Is For Grown. Ups.”
Turns out that “holding 0Bomba’s feet to the fire” meant plumping up the cushions in his favorite chair, putting another log on the grate, massaging his insteps and perfect toes… Ooooohh, the image of Meteor Blades and Laura Clawson tenderly massaging Hillary’s feet just flew across my internal screen — can’t… extirpate… it… Too… late….
And they were a bunch of Hillary haters back then. plus ca change
I agree with you. Yes, the voter is last. Yes, the govt is corrupt and dysfunctional. Yes, the media reflects the interests of the 1%. Yes, it is time consuming to get facts. I wince on occasions when people do something like proudly declare they refuse to read the emails and then run around denying them, just creates more noise.
On the other hand, I predict 4 years of sneering and gloating not cheering.
That, and Clinton reaching across the aisle for TPP and the Grand Bargain, along with liberals and conservatives uniting against their real enemy, the left.
I think we are screwed either way, but that is one of the few possible silver linings. Depending. If Trump wins, there will be a scramble. They will get off if the “left” in all its myriad forms allow the obvious deflection of blame from the Clintons, their obvious corruption, and the broken state of the Democratic Party under their influence. Between the claims of Russian interference, and whining about the votes they were entitled to who didn’t show up or went third party, there is going to be a whole lot of finger pointing. Unless they are forced to acknowledge that Clinton was unelectable not even the bright spot of their destroyed influence will happen.
You are in the correct echo chamber then….
Carry on…
Did you know that Australia lost the home season’s first game of test cricket today to South Africa? This was probably the highlight of the 5 day game, and may have been the turning point in the match. Certainly one of the best run outs I’ve ever seen.
See? Even though this comment has nothing to do with the topic at hand, it is still much more interesting than little digs from the sidelines.
Though I do admit that using the word “visceral” left me open to criticism. I’ve done my research.
Dunno mate, by all means exploit that game to uplift yourself but some of us will exploit it the ‘Der Ruf’ journal way. So play on, play on with the battlefield games as so many like Trump & Clinton choose to do, but don’t miss the vital point that on that battlefield, we’re all really partners in a climate of failure. For if we don’t protect and enhance life on planet earth there will be but one loss for us all.
Our planet has taken millions of years to evolve, and if destroyed, is gone forever. As over 30 million people (and still counting…) have already done so, you too might like to make a moment for watching Before the Flood, which is still free to view here: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/before-the-flood/videos/before-the-flood/
There’s an incredibly emotional and uplifting moment in the film where a gentleman from NASA treats us all to the gravity of the situation. Though he has pure faith mankind will aspire to and play at the necessary and optimal level, due to poor health, he will be unable to see if the rest of us are truly able to.
In the US right now with the 2016 Presidential election, Americans have the unique possibility to not only make worldwide history wholly for themselves by voting for the Green Party, but to lead the rest of the world to that special level of play required of us all.
What makes you think I don’t understand or care about the environment? To be honest I found the assumptions embedded in your comment mildly insulting. The idea that the voting Green in 2016 will “lead the rest of the world to that special level of play required of us all” wrt to the environment is laughable, which is not to say that you shouldn’t vote for them if you want to.
How does test cricket differ from cricket?
http://iplgeek.com/the-formats-of-cricket-a-comparison/
I am compelled to state that my favorite format of cricket, by far, is test cricket. That link seems to be written by someone who favors T20, but it does give a good description of the different formats.
“Test” cricket refers to the (up to) five-day matches played between internationally representative sides. Five days for a game exceeds the more usual three-day format at sub-international level, giving the batsmen more time to play defensively while scoring thus making it harder for the bowlers to ‘winckle’ them out – hence it is the ultimate ‘test’ of both batsmen and bowlers.
Or so I believe.
It can also be the ultimate test of the patience of spectators.
Test cricket is the original international and classical form of cricket, 2 innings each side played over 5 days, normally 90 overs a day (6 balls in an over). It’s called Test cricket as your cricketing ability will be seriously tested over the 5 days. I love Test cricket esp when a fast bowler has got the ball ‘talking’ ie swinging all over the place bamboozling the batsmen, just like South Africa’s Radaba did to the Australian batting lineup.
50 over cricket and T20 (20 overs) are one day (one innings only) shortened versions of the game. 50 over cricket was introduced in the 1970s and T20 in the Naughties. 50 over and T20 is very biased in favour of the batsmen – flat pitches that do the bowlers no favour whatsoever.
That piece of fielding that integer linked to was one of the best run outs ever seen.
It is amazing.
Yes, I did know that. In Perth. And it was very, very hot there.
So please, everyone, vote for Jill Stein.
We need a Manhattan project for global warming and nobody else gives a darn.
Historically, right-wing Democrats are much better for the Left than right-wing Republicans, who make the Dems look good by default and produce a circle-the-wagons effect. Example 1, GWBush.
I think there’s a better chance of broad based criticism and resistance to the evils of a Trump presidency; and a better chance of alliances on economic issues that effect his supporters. We already know from the Obama years and the Clinton campaign that such a critique and resistance will not occur for a neolibcon corporatist authoritarian Democrat. I will vote for Stein for policy, for 5%, and to show solidarity with others voting for her.
Local Democrats (your neighbors) will be less irritating, but I don’t see anything in the Shrub years and the current Democratic Party to make me think Team Blue elites will be allies of any sort. Shrub’s SS privatization scheme was stopped by Republican voter outrage. Team Blue elites were open to discussion with Shrub. Trump isn’t part of the club, but the Clintons once weren’t either.
+1.
Dissent from the left will be shut down by a Hilliary admin – and fiercely – we’ve seen that through the campaign.
With Trump, there’s hope for a revitalized left and as a bonus,
less warz, no TPP, and best of all, a wet blanket on Clinton Inc.
> Dissent from the left will be shut down by a Hilliary admin – and fiercely
That Clinton will try to do that is IMNSHO baked in.
Whether she succeeds? That’s up to the left.
I do not want Trump to win to try and push the Democrats left in revenge for defeating Sanders, because they ignored this conclusion after Nader in 2000. Instead they stayed on the right. And a Trump win means a giant tax cut for the rich. However in the third debate Clinton refused to say whether she would shoot down a Russian plane over Syria, a Russian ally. Unless the policy is a bluff, she could cause World War III (think Cuban Missile Crisis). Whereas if Trump tries to use nukes, it’s not conventional like using a warplane over Syria. There’s a two-man rule, the defence secretary has to consent with his own launch code. Trump can be stopped from doing something apocalyptic, Clinton can’t. Unless she changes that policy by Tuesday, I much prefer Trump. (Who will be worse than her in every other way)
Hillary’s husband and VP have both fought for and passed huge tax cuts for the rich, so it’s not unique to Trump. I suppose one can take solace in the fact Hillary has named a post office.
Yes I love the sputtering when you ask someone to name a single solitary “accomplishment” from her 25 years in public service. Children’s legal defense in 1986…and…um…uh…she’s a woman!
To be fair to Clinton, she did get CHIP passed (as Senator, after her health care debacle as FLOTUS). However, the community health centers that Sanders extracted as his price for ObamaCare helped more people, so Sanders was the more effective legislator.
You realise of course, that if the pompous, arrogant fools suffer a loss tomorrow there will be a rapid increase in the body count (mainly suicides). Its the Arkansas way of eliminating trouble.
Here’s the deal: Donald Trump is going to get his ass kicked. Anyone who says otherwise is either a) afraid of jinxing it and/or making Hillary Clinton voters complacent (understandable); b) afraid of being wrong (Nate Silver); c) supporting Trump; or d) interested in making this a “horse race” for the sake of maintaining public interest (most of the television media, along with grotesque shitbags like Mark Halperin).
But this isn’t close, and never was. The evidence right there in front of you, if you care to notice. Donald Trump has never led in an aggregate of polls for any significant stretch of time. He hasn’t personally raised any money for his campaign in over a month. He lost all three debates. He’s made virtually no effort to get his voters to the polls, instead relying on a Republican party that is being badly outspent and reduced to waging repugnant (and likely illegal) voter-suppression efforts that—despite being successful in some small areas—will ultimately turn legions more voters against them.
Right on, bro!
Let’s Correct the Record.
oh, wait …
If that was a CTR, it isn’t very good. Mike is ignoring the media favoring Clinton yet basically admitting media corruption. Using turnout and then slipping in voter-suppression (reminding everyone Clinton’s campaign/DNC rigged the primary) and noting that Clinton never stops grifting.
Yesterday, media redemptions started. This is just a Clinton person getting a head start on the sneering and gloating. The sore-winnerdom is going to be rabid.
I’m still with Clinton by 10, but this is the stuff that makes me think it might be down to 6.
Sure, let’s just ignore the concrete evidence to the contrary. The Clintons and friends are campaigning like mad in New Hampshire because Trump is going to get his ass kicked. NEW HAMPSHIRE with four electoral college votes. That does not signal confidence on the state of this election by that well experienced campaign.
I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Neither do you. But if it makes you feel better to be positive that Trump is going to get his ass kicked have fun.
“I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Neither do you.” I agree Pat.
It’s a big country. I live in a very red part of an occasional swing state. According to the polls, HRC is going to win my state this year fairly comfortably, although you can’t tell that from where I live. At least since 2008, the map of the state after every statewide election shows some dots of blue surrounded by a sea of red. The Ds have won all but one of these elections. Obviously those blue dots must be voter rich areas.
The election bizarre, but maybe not that bizarre.
One lesson of recent years is organizing matters. In 2010 and 2014, nothing happened, and Democrats were given a beat down. 2010 was particularly shellacking. A “good ground” game is more than opening offices. People have to want to vote and volunteer.
As far as predictions, the Democratic efforts to win “moderate suburban Republicans” (fascists who don’t object to Bravo on their cable package) will be seen as a major waste when minority turnout is low. The bourgeois Clinton supporters will simply have not done the work the left use to do for the Democrats. The black misleadership class is weaker everyday as they age. Hispanics aren’t captured and are keenly aware of Democratic broken promises. Areas of strong Democrat support will drop from 80% turnout to 60% turnout due to both dissatisfaction and expectations the election is in the bag (no one I knew voted for Nixon).
Trump will do poorly with “deplorable” evangelicals as they aren’t quite as loyal to the GOP with a separate identity.
Once again, the lesson will be all elections are base elections, not about unicorn swing voters.
If turnout is really low for the legacy parties, any spread can happen, but if they are in line with bad Democratic candidates of years past, I expect a tight win for Hillary where the media seems very uncomfortable especially when the results show the favored suburban Republicans (fascists) voted Trump.
I have never predicted a Trump win. I have said Trump could win. The one thing I have predicted all along was this was going to be close. When certain people told me Clinton cannot lose, it was going to be a blow out, I laughed. I don’t think they have a clue how much of NY State is going to vote for Trump much less the so called swing states. And this was someone who actually recognized that the Democratic party has forsaken a huge portion of their tradition voters with their neoliberal support of the oligarchic policies leaving a significant portion of our population out in the cold without a roof and very thin coats.
Turn out matters. The insurance increases matter. Local employment matters. Growing dissatisfaction with our ongoing wars with the Mid East matter. Immigration matters. Children living at home matter. There are numerous things that matter. Fear also matters. And what will get people to the polls, decide how they mark their ballot, or if they stay home will be all over the place. What won’t be driving it will be enthusiasm.
The only way I don’t think it is going to be close is if there are major shenanigans with the vote, and I don’t mean by the Russians.
Well part of the “Trump might win” message IS probably to get voters not to vote 3rd party (whatever you do, don’t waste your vote on Jill Stein who might actually somewhat represent your positions. Trump might win this thing! Better be safe and vote for Hillary! Even if you have to hold your nose!)
You seem awfully confident.
(Yes, that was a double entendre)
So is Big Money.
The S&P is up around 1.5%.
The thing to remember though, is that it goes up and it goes down.
“the evidence is right in front of you”
You mean the evidence like 20,000 at a Trump rally and less than 500 at a Clinton rally? How about the proven skewed polls with Dems over represented? Change your meds, Mike, you have an extreme case of cognitive dissonance.
For good or ill, rally counts don’t translate directly into votes.
So money, “polls” and ground game will determine the ass-kickin’.
Luckily there are none of those pesky “issues” to consider, since that might throw a monkey wrench into the machine. But why should you be any different than all the other political operatives for whom the process is far more important than the people.
Kind of surprised you didn’t compare logos and find hers far superior.
e) a Russian or Russian agent.
Perhaps we should poll Chinese tourists pouring through our airports.
They are a) not concerned about jinxing anyone.
b) not afraid of being wrong (probably 50/50 here)
c) not supporting Trump (likely Xi supporters)
d) unless they are reporters, not in the maintaining public interest business.
e) not Russian.
Surely, some think no landslide defeat for Trump.
Um.
Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei said in New York on Wednesday that he is confused by how many Chinese people – both on the mainland and those that have emigrated to the United States – are fans of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2042714/dissident-artist-ai-weiwei-surprised-chinese-peoples
The more I think about the Democrat loyalist “ZOMG!! Putin!!!” talking point, the crazier it gets.
I mean, you had an avowed Socialist running in the Democrat Primary. Was the Putin talking point deployed? No. When was it deployed? Against an eccentric squillionaire and the head of the FBI.
The Russian red herring was deployed to cover the abject stupidity of Clinton and Podesta. Their willful negligence in positions of supreme sensitivity as state functionaries beggars belief. I guess if only ten percent of the Arkansas baggage is accurate, then such arrogance is to be expected.
I am still stunned that even Platte River IT and all the rest of the IT people around the Clintons and Podesta could have been so incredibly ignorant and supine. The Clintons live charmed lives but I do hope the charm evaporates while they are still living otherwise the USA might have the Mugabe curse upon it.
Reliable daily national poll that accurately predicted 2012 race has had T ahead for some time now:
http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/
Their sample size is small, but they do try replicate the tracking polls which are no longer done, largely due to cell phones. I do believe the LAT poll does present a closer to reality expectation of where voters are. The bulk of the polls look like 2008 Democratic expectations of generational shifts with the D and R spreads. The difference is the Democrats have been atrocious and demanded applause for a new serfdom between 2008 and 2016. If the majority of the polls revealed expectations of very low turnout (history making low), I could see that spread, but their spreads are eerily reminiscent of 2008 predictions about holding onto voters and gaining new voters while Republicans died off. Republicans are dying, but they’ve managed to go from a Southern rump party to in total control of all but 14 states and hold majorities in both Houses of Congress despite unfavorable demographics.
I think it’s madness to look at individual polls; it’s like following a stock picker because they have a hot hand. That’s why I like averages of lots of polls, as at RCP (which includes IBT, a Trump outlier, though not Los Angeles Times).
(And I don’t like Nate Silver, because he climbed into his own black box and started tinkering with outcomes. At least with RCP there’s a consistent methodology, so we can try to figure out a discount.)
I agree but would add the caveat that organizations that are shown to be in active collusion with the Hillary campaign should have their polls tossed out of the averages immediately.
Check the wikileaks email 26551 for an example of why this must be done.
Yes, Clinton consistently leads in most polls. However, some people may be embarrassed to reveal that they might vote for the outrageous Donald Trump; some of them might not even want to anonymously reveal this about themselves to a pollster. Yves had an insightful comment about this in August:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/links-8916.html
I guess we’ll know more on Wednesday.
If it is over, why is Hillary, Kaine, and Obama in Michigan today? Shouldn’t they be in a more “traditional” battleground state?
There was some quietly delusional thinking in 2014 predicting that Democrats would in the end come out and support the party in congressional races, because, ya know, just as some canvasser said around here recently, ‘Ever heard of Mitch McConnell?’
Didn’t keep them from being decimated at the polls.
> Donald Trump is going to get his ass kicked
Visiting from Kos? The triumphalist braggadocio is characteristic.
We also look with disfavor on copying the same comment into multiple threads (your Water Cooler version). I hate to deprive our readership of sport, but you really do need to adhere to site policies; see under “broken record.”
Re: Chelsea’s husband allegedly used foundation ties to boost hedge fund
Those poor Clintons. It’s amazing how, with all this dirty stuff going on around them, that they manage to retain their innocence. Of course, Chelsea is innocent of any wrongdoing that may or may not have been perpetrated by her husband. This apple, after all, did not fall far from the tree.
the yahoo home page this morning helpfully informed me that the clintons had been “cleared” by the fbi. yeah, right. they’ve carefully examined all those emails and determined there’s nothing to see here, folks.
The whole thing stinks. Starting with the tarmac meet and greet. How many emails did they actually find and “review”? It took a whole year last time.
There seems to be a consensus that Comey mentioned the Wiener emails to Congress because of internal FBI pressure to do the “right thing”. However, based on warrantless mental exercises, I think it is just as likely as that was all part of the plan, provided there is a plan. It fosters the environment for the establishment to cry “rigged” against a Trump victory. Or perhaps it is damage control for later. I don’t know. Either way the FBI looks completely delegitimized at this point.
But it is okay, nothing to see here. Clinton is just grossly incompetent and irresponsible. Phew! Don’t vote third party, or else!
Along w the 3 branches of gov’t, in which I no long have any faith, add to that the FBI. We are really in deep deep doodoo
What will happen to dissenting FBI agents?
What will they do?
“We’ll deal with that Wednesday.”
Don’t know much about computing? Simple sort and match function. Take about, oh, ten seconds for the bunch.
so the fbi lied last time, about how long it took?
The first emails provided by Clinton were on paper, as a form of obstruction. They were not digitally searchable.
how many were on paper? do you have a link for this? wiki referred to thumb drives being turned over i think.
You’ve heard of scanners?
That was a great film, but I don’t think the Clinton gang has engaged them yet. They are a bit more subtle than that.
p.s. I don’t remember where I read of boxes of printed emails being delivered, but it struck me as unsurprising, when the point is to make it difficult to access the results, by requiring the docs to be digitized and OCR’d, and possibly losing the digital checksums.
I enjoyed this line in the Daily Mail story: “Nothing much has ever stuck to the Clintons. But then again, mob boss John Gotti was called the Teflon Don and the FBI got him in the end.”
My thought when I heard it last night, was it is all the same with first being cleared – She was guilty but nobody important wants a trial to prove it. (And yes I watched Comey’s first press conference and frankly that is what was said.)
A trial. Can you imagine what that would look like?
While the clintons are the current designated ringmasters and their foundation the latest manifestation, the corruption in washington is so pervasive and firmly entrenched that pulling a single thread, on any pretext, would undoubtedly lead to an unraveling far beyond the initial scope of inquiry.
Hence the monolithic resistance to letting Trump, the outsider, anywhere near the seat of power.
As far as TPTB are concerned, no investigation, let alone a trial, can or will ever be allowed. It’s what makes Trump so “dangerous,” and clinton’s “election” an imperative. Any clinton foundation “investigation” is destined to be similarly dismissed.
The one bright spot I see is the 9/11 survivors lawsuit against saudi arabia. That one’s going to be fairly tricky to derail. And since we know that the saudis are everyone’s favorite “charitable” donater, clinton speech consumer and jihad enabler, the truth that so far seems maddeningly out of reach just might sneak in through the back door.
The one bright spot I see is the 9/11 survivors lawsuit against saudi arabia. That one’s going to be fairly tricky to derail.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that. This crooked cabal (HRC & Co) will do anything to protect their benefactors.
They are TOO BIG TO FAIL.
That is, one of the ‘systemically important institutions.’
Maybe the FBI hired the Flash to read through all of the 650,000 email messages, because he’s super fast. Some of us thought he was fictional, but I guess we know better now!
Edward Snowden
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_581fe27de4b0aac62485334d
but is the huffington post credible on this issue?
“Reports indicated that nearly every email on the laptop was a duplicate of messages the agency had already examined”. who reported this to the huffington post, and was snowden asked to comment regarding these reports as factual?
Not credible, says Wikileaks:
I have read than the late singer/songwriter John Denver’s son is a teacher in Durango CO public schools and has been for quite a few years despite having a substantial trust fund (managed by his mother for many years because apparently John was not good with money!) .
Wouldn’t it be nice if the children of some of these wealthy and powerful people followed suit and chose a reasonable profession that gave back something? And wouldn’t it be nice if some of them did not marry hedge fund managers or other Wall Streeters?
Such a lovely fantasy in this age.
But Chelsea assured us that she “tried to care about money, but couldn’t…” or some such tripe. Meanwhile the Clintons grifted $3M from their “charity” to pay for her obscenely expensive wedding.
Pavel
November 7, 2016 at 10:00 am
“tried to care about money, but couldn’t…” And I’m sure that is why all this about the Clintoon Foundation paying for Chelsea’s wedding is much ado about nothing – I’m sure it was just 50$ to tip the justice of the peace, a few friends and family standing around a public park, and a few six packs of Coors and some cocktail weenies (see Carolinian 9:17 am posting…. ) – I’m sure any remainder went to Haitian refugees….
For reference, here is the full mind-blowing Chelsea quote. Talk about being oblivious!
[My emphasis]
Daily News: Chelsea Clinton: I tried to care about money but couldn’t
In case anyone cares, here is a description of the bride’s wedding dress. Because HRC cares about the women and children! (When she is not bombing Libya or selling arms to the Saudis.)
All the Details on Chelsea Clinton’s Wedding Dress!
Honestly, has there ever been such a greedy, self-absorbed, oblivious family? Maybe the Borgias?
Other than the Names, how different is that from any other American’s marrying-off party on which parents spend as many zeroes as they can afford anyway?
Whoa, the Borgias were trashed by the next Pope, but later Popes and papal historians have found the Borgias to have been fairly good from avoiding military conflicts to protecting Jewish and Muslim refugees. Then there were reforms to the College of Cardinals and the Papal state and treasury.
Pavel
November 7, 2016 at 2:03 pm
Of course, I initially was being tongue in cheek. BUT it is incredible that someone can speak about themselves in that way and make such a statement (maybe its true – Chelsea doesn’t care about money…only what it can buy). One really has to wonder what happens to one’s own perception when one is surrounded by nothing but sycophants and toadies…
agreed.
lovely fantasy aside, only someone with a trust fund could afford to be a school teacher these days!
Lol. Almost. My daughter and son in law are both teachers.As are several nieces and nephews. It can be tough but not being highly materialistic certainly helps. And they all seem happier than many other of their age that I know because they are not trying to keep up with those damn Joneses …..
I didn’t have time to get to this, but IIRC:
1) One of the rationales for Clinton throwing away half her mail was that it was private; the examples given were “yoga lessons” and “Chelsea’s wedding.”
2) We now read — via Doug Band in Wikileaks, in a wonderful case of thieves falling out — that “Chelsea’s wedding” was in part paid for by looting the Clinton Foundation.
For the Clinton Dynasty, that’s a smoking gun; Chelsea will have a harder time running for the Senate if she’s seen to be as corrupt as her mother and father.
So, regardless of what else might be on the server, that would give Clinton good reason to wipe it “with a cloth,” or BleachBits, or whatever. Family comes first with the Lannisters.
The transit strike in Philly ended at three am last night. The representative on the radio this morning said the service would be back in full swing by tomorrow morning, or in roughly sixteen hours. It will probably only have minimal impact, the El will be in service as soon as tonight.
But Obamacare premiums are still going up (silently or not).
Well, this is kind of how Philadelphia feels right now being a swing state that will quickly be forgotten about after the election.
So, where was he “transported to” once they patched him up and figured out that he couldn’t pay the bill?
Two years after it dumped a homeless woman on skid row with no identification and wearing only paper pajamas, a Hawaiian Gardens hospital has agreed to pay $450,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles, the city attorney’s office announced.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-patient-dumping-20161025-snap-story.html
They dumped him on the next street in his hospital gown (the one that has openings in the front and back below the waist) to save fuel….
Such great hospital care we have.
ACA, not the emails, will be the story of November 9th.
“Our exit poll data showed jobs, the economy, and Healthcare were the top issues of voters.” -every msm outlet on Wednesday.
> Lake Oahu
Spell checker got you again, Jerri-Lynn.
Thanks– fixed it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve corrected that, only to have spell checker change it again. Sometimes those changes slip on by.
Why not turn it off? Something in the backstage — I don’t know whether WordPress or FireFox — puts red dots under typos. I mean, I don’t need a spellchecker because I don’t misssspell words.
;-)
S&P futures are up 1.35% in pre-open trading, after nine straight days of losses.
Contrarianism 101 told us it had to pop sometime this week.
Betting markets on the election have a Trump win trading in the low 20s. This is from one commentary by a Brandi Travis:
Well, I’m retired and living off a state pension plus the income from a stock portfolio I put together over a lifetime of saving out of my earned income, with its capital value my cushion against unexpected costs.
Over the election period the value of my share portfolio dropped by $100,000, the speed of the decline increasing according to the improving prospects of Trump winning and taking a major hit when Comey announced his ‘investigation’ into the emails last week. Yesterday, when Comey declared ‘nothing to see’ its value recovered by nearly $30,000 in a day’s trading. If Clinton wins I would anticipate a ‘relief recovery’ of perhaps another 2 -3%.
So forgive me if I hope Clinton wins – especially as I am not a USAian, don’t have a say in the matter and live far from the US so unless she starts WW3 the value of my hard-earned retirement cushion is the only dog I appear to have in this race.
(All values above are in NZ$.)
Hong Kong is over?
Having lived through half a dozen crisis from riots, mass bombings, and economic failures, Claudia Mo is quite premature to call this the end of Hong Kong. Ms. Mo isn’t the biggest sinner of her cohort of the old generation democrats in Hong Kong, but they were as just as much a factor in this blow up as Lufsig and Beijing. Nearly all these old camp democrats were lawyers and other professionals who owned multiple flats, and often made their fortunes through speculation in property markets. Their sole focus on “democracy” without doing anything effective to break the oligarchy’s monopoly on land supply, housing, foodstuffs, etc; laid the groundwork for the rise of the new independence radicals. China has finally forced Lufsig to crack down on the very cornerstone of the old democrats wealth by putting heavy stamp duty on rentals and resale of property by domestic speculators. So China is applying both the carrot and the stick with base of the separatist. It will be interesting to see where it all leads, but if anyone thinks the British established rule of law in Hong Kong, then they have not spent much time in Hong Kong’s courts, in which for 100 years the poor are like blacks in America, and the wealthy like Washington insiders. Any gains the people of Hong Kong got, were achieved in the streets, and not in the courts or in the legislature.
I was in HK for the end of the Umbrella Revolt, there watching as the leadership was carried away, too.
The tactics of the HK separatists/localists elected to the legislature this term strike me as one of two things: either A. they are very short-sighted, because if they had taken their oaths and then disrupted, it would have been harder to purge them and they could have been a thorn in the side of the LegCo or, B. this is exactly what they wanted and believe it will heighten tensions with Beijing to the point of a real uprising. I think HK looks nowhere near B, so it would have been far smarter to make the tactical decision for A. and then work to build public support against Beijing. Now they do not have that choice, and the PRC is going to continue to crush dissent.
I do agree though, that from afar it looks as if the localist/separatist HK parties don’t tread on left-wing ground about income redistribution at all. No discussion of class struggle or the rottenness of HK and the Chinese bureaucrats colluding against the HK working class.
Clinton aide says Foundation paid for Chelsea’s wedding, WikiLeaks emails show Fox News (sad times we live in when Fox actually reports news, what an election year!)
Nice to see the foundation paid for her wedding. Apparently this came about because Chelsea was being chatty with the Bush kids regarding these issues.
So HRC was right, the emails were about Chelsea’s wedding. Wonder who paid for the yoga lessons.
!
“Sounds to me like Clinton’s worried there’s something on the record somewhere. Hence the lawyerly parsing…” – Lambert
“The Big Con” is the must-read of the decade, in my mind, for the history lesson never taught—or at least for recounting the putsch to end the New Deal.
Last night I viewed ZERO DAYS, Twice. Why do the politicians and CEO’s laugh throughout their interviews? They don’t get that everything they think they own will vanish…Nitro Zeus is taking place everywhere NOW.
While Flint still lives in fear and without a permanent solution to their poisoned water problem, Nestle wants to up their stacks in the racket by pumping double the water.
Michigan residents deplore plan to let Nestlé pump water for next to nothing
I did not know these clowns were in my state until I saw this article. The Federal Government needs to put an end to water as a for profit commodity.
Ugh, *stakes*
Stacks, as in stacks of money, works too.
A sign that the tide is turning in America?
“Police officer fired for giving ‘fecal sandwich’ to homeless person —
The officer bragged about it to a colleague and was fired”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/san-antonio-matthew-luckhurst-fecal-sandwich-homeless-man-asleep-fired-a7400031.html
“We” presently and soon to be homeless are getting “fecal sandwiches” dropped on us every day by our Rulers and their grinning minions… “A piquant delight!” says Roadside Bob. “Food for thought!” offered Mary Underbridge.
Proverbs 17:5
Proverbs 17:5 is reasonable, whereas the verses of Ezekiel 4:12 through 4:15 are very strange.
+1
He was fired for not being funny, in the opinion of the laugh police.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fopvzf77b8
You can get away with a TON of shit while you’re a cop. Not being funny seems to be the only way you loose your job, saying nothing of prosecution and or jail.
Kill an unarmed man laying on the ground? No worries.
Bad joke? To the guillotine!
We still have SOME values, after all.
Someone used the link that Jerri-Lynn Scofield posted above and you’ve reposted to make a pretty good observation about the whole US system, I suppose a fecal sandwich is better than having 30 members of one’s extended family burned alive by a white phosphorus tipped hell-fire missile.
Pretty good twist on Sander’s recent statements about Trumpistas in the same comment section.
Shorter Columbia Journalism Review article: it really is all about the cocktail weenies.
And the Ken Silverstein NY Observer piece is excellent. Two press bashing articles in one Links. Thanks! One can never have enough.
Carolinian
November 7, 2016 at 9:17 am
I’m thinking leave out the “cocktail” – its weenies all the way down, literally and/or figuratively….
And I agree – we should have a daily media bashing.
media whores online used to do a good job of that.
Adding one more reason to vote against the duevilists. The dismal state of and price gouging on my phone and internet ‘service’. Verizon raised my internet rate from 59.00 to 79.00 this month without notice or reason. And even though it shouldn’t matter unless people get into more than multi-terror bytes of usage (if then). With my ‘high speed’ connection they say I somehow managed to use six gigs in the last month (total home internet and mobile combined).
We are being raked through the coals for terrible service across the board in this country.
I’m all for abolishing the death penalty but the monopolists inc. should be lined up and eliminated… as should the duevilists who perpetrate this sham.
Please do not encourage/legitimize them tomorrow.
they hook you on a special deal and then jack up the rates after a year. same thing happened to me.
The Philadelphia transit strike is over thank goodness so at least that should help McGinty ( no peach but ..) beat that uber right wing clown Toomey. He has been one of the worst senators ever for PA women and families and it IS PA – corruption central – so that is really saying something!! Of course Ricky Santorum holds the highest honor for that for all time…..
that should help McGinty…
Yes, replacing an empty suit with an empty skirt is always a sign of progress – to Democrats.
Nitpicking about history in “The Big Con” which is in part overgeneralized or inaccurate:
The absurd etymology offered for sadiron could have been corrected if the quoted author had simply consulted a good dictionary: sad in that context simply meant heavy.
The absence of electricity on farms was limiting, but not quite to the extent the article claims (no water pumps, no motors, no radio). There were windmills on many established farms to raise water, and often once pipe had been laid a pump by the kitchen sink. There were gasoline motors for those who could afford them, which could be used to power the agitator of a simple washing machine, and even before those there were primitive washing machines with hand cranks. There was often a stove in a wash house on which the water for laundry could be heated, rather than simply an inefficient open fire; laundry was still a huge chore, but not as primitive as the article suggests. And there were radios, with batteries jealously conserved by prudent housewives so that really valued programs could be heard.
Also, kerosene lamps are not bad when your eyes adjust.
If anyone wonders, I got my technological facts from assorted family and community reminiscences and historical museums. My criticisms don’t negate my appreciation of what is good in the article, but greater accuracy would have strengthened it.
My grandparents were those farmers – though in rural MS rather than TX – and my parents spent their early childhoods there. In conditions more or less as described. Which were plenty hard – though what they were used to. I have photos of my mother and her brothers in their “yard” – dirt – with their “house” – shack – in the backgound circa 1923 and I’m thankful that 30 years later (I was born in ’48) my own circumstances were significantly better. And kerosene lamps were a potential hazard BTW. My grandfather’s cabin burned down when my father was maybe 5 when one was broken.
Of course kerosene lamps were a hazard; so is faulty wiring. I’m sorry your grandfather’s cabin burned. My grandparents’ house didn’t, and my father did his high school correspondence courses by kerosene lamp. He was lucky to be able to take his lamp upstairs where it was a bit quieter, though much colder, while his younger siblings were downstairs with his parents.
certainly no worse than a Kindle for your eyes, or a computer screen for that matter
Cold reminds me of something else. Rich folks used anthracite in their stoves, poorer folks corn cobs, and the poorest dung, and it was said you could tell what people were burning by the smell of their clothes when you met. I believe my family was mostly in the corn-cob league, definitely for the wash house and probably for the kitchen; they may eventually have achieved the status of coal for the big dining room heating stove, but I’m not sure if that happened in that generation or not.
Back to the future?
Strange article. What exactly about this election, now in its final stages, is at stake here? I think this may be a problem of headline writing. The article is another screed against small-government conservatism, the Guardian editors just stuck a headline on it that made it pertinent to this election.
In any case, I found the article a little lacking.
I thought that this election was pretty clear on where people stand: there’s a huge contingent of Americans who believe in government solutions to certain problems. They were shut out at every opportunity. Heck, even Trumpers believe in some government solutions as long as they are on a national scale.
The Guardian is a trash newspaper with deadly stupid stories. It is simply a dead news group walking, a zombiesheet like so many others.
What was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution? Hans Rosling makes the case for the washing machine. With newly designed graphics from Gapminder, Rosling shows us the magic that pops up when economic growth and electricity turn a boring wash day into an intellectual day of reading.
just posted this at the Economic Populist:
15 Million Fracking Jobs at Risk; 12 Million Export Jobs Could Also Be Lost
Natural selection at work. The Hypothesis is that all human behaviors present themselves because that provide tat gene pool with an evolutionary advantage.
Africans from the East Africa, the Veldt, dominate long distance running. (Exhaustion hunting)
Africans for the Equatorial forests of West Africa dominate sprinting and jumping (specifically basketball). (Ambush hunting).
Caucasians dominate swimming (because they float, higher percentage of body fat).
Norther Europeans are more schedule and planning oriented than Southern. (Shorter growing seasons selected for anal retentiveness).
Women and men have large physiological differences, separate for sex and reproduction. Men have hunting behavior, women gathering and anti-predation behavior.
Young humans, boys and girls are different. ADD is a necessary condition for boys, who look after domestic animals and with ADD become food for predators.
Evolutionary advantage selects traits.
Re: Hong Kong. I wonder whether the rulers realize that cracking down in Hong Kong makes any kind of peaceful annexation of Taiwan impossible, at least for a generation. And of course with the passage of time, the residents of Taiwan will see themselves even less Chinese….
What interest does China have in Taiwan? It’s no longer masquerading at the UN as China. It has no relevant natural resources. Advanced manufacturing is easy to replicate for sufficiently advanced industries, so who cares if the Chinese break patent laws? Fisheries might be an issue.
China has been eyeing Taiwan for 70 years now. Beijing has no interest in Formosa. It’s mostly just old propaganda no one has forgotten to turnoff when a threat of a Chinese invasion was clearly not a threat. China didn’t enter the Korean War until MacArthur shot at them, and the theocracy in Tibet reached a point where their thuggish raiding needed to be ended if the Mao government was to maintain legitimacy.
I’m sure Beijing would love to get the U.S. out, but that’s not annexation.
And this is exactly the sort of reasoning that makes me worry about a war over Taiwan more than many other flashpoints. We tend to not believe that the Chinese are as invested in the Taiwan issue as they are. But there is a long standing belief on their part that any place where ethnic Chinese predominate, SHOULD be a part of China. At some level, we think that they’re bluffing. And they don’t really believe us when we talk about defending Taiwan from a forceful takeover. When both sides think that the other one is bluffing, there’s a good chance of somebody calling that bluff.
Millions in Taiwan believe Taiwan should be part of China, and many of these millions deem the ROC as the only legitimate government.
And, so, a decision is to be sorted out by the people of Taiwan.
The Taiwanese who want to be part of China are overwhelmingly the descendants of the 2 million or so uninvited guests who arrived with the KMT immediately after WWII. Repeated polls show a clear majority of Taiwanese want to maintain independence. In my experience most Taiwanese feel Taiwanese only, only the descendants of the more recent immigration wave feel any emotional attachment to China.
China has a lot of emotional investment in merging (or taking over) Taiwan – it is seen as non-negotiable part of China and has taken up a vastly disproportionate amount of its military and diplomatic resources over the years.
I believe they want ‘status quo.’
Not really sure if they want independence nor if they are prepared to pay the price. Thus, no referendum on independence, regardless of polls.
That is, staus quo over any move to declare independence.
My experience is only anecdotal, but my handful of Taiwanese friends do very much want independence and find it deeply frustrating that they are forced into a sort of limbo by the rest of the worlds failure to confront China on this. The boat has long since sailed, but it is strongly resented that collectively the US/China/Europe, etc., didn’t insist that China recognise Taiwanese independence as a basic requirement of opening up to trade in the immediate post-Mao years. They are just a bargaining chip between China and the US and they know it. They know that one day the US will require a big favour from China and the price will be to cast Taiwan adrift.
Yep, plus the CCP is selling an ideology that they have the best system. The longer Taiwan rejects the CCP in open polling and stays independent, the harder it is to keep selling the dictatorship of the party proletariat to its self and greater China.
Gee, “anyplace where ethnic Chinese predominate”, depending how you define “predominate” you could include Singapore, Malaysia, large swathes of Africa, parts of Vancouver…
I have heard that Bangkok is 50% Chinese descendants.
Yep and Chinese predominance rises and falls in Indonesia as in 1965 and simmering again in Jakarta this last week.
Chinese tourists have stopped showing up in Taiwan since one busfull of them were burned to death by a suicidal drive. The president of ROC failed to show up to pay last respects.
Since then, mayors of various cities have tried to make separate deals with China, bypassing Taibei, as restaurant/hotel workers and even pineapple growers have suffered.
In the meantime, Taiwan would like to buy weapons and/or technology from her protector.
Except, at any given time, there are like one million people (I think though the figure seems like a lot) from Taiwan living in China, either as factory owners or workers there, or studying.
Ironically, Taiwan (or at least the KMT there) has been eyeing China for close to 70 years, for the KMT believes there is only one China, and it should be the ROC. Now, the KMT is out of power, but it represents a good portion of people in Taiwan. So, it is not exclusively that China is eyeing Taiwan.
Personally, I believe China is eyeing all the imperial antiques at the Palace Museum in Taibei.
Independence or not, legally (I think), they belong to the people of China.
Almost everything in the Palace Museum in Taipei was looted from the mainland. Although to be fair, most of it would probably been destroyed had it stayed in China.
The Qing emperors looted those from rich families in Jiang Nan. It was not hard, after massacring Han Chinese in cities like Yangzhou (Yangzhou Massacre).
The KMT lost the civil war. They still see themselves as the legitimate government, and just as it did during WWII, when the treasures were shipped to Sichuan to keep them away from the Imperial Japanese Army, they took them with them to Taiwan when they retreated to that island.
Problem is Mao himself said Taiwan should be independent. Of course he said it when the KMT was running the mainland government as a ploy to create more internal revolts to weaken the KMT, but say it he did.
And what is often ignored is that when people talk about ‘Taiwan’, having belonged in the past to China (or Japan, or Portugal), they are really just talking about the narrow sliver of lowlands in the north and west. The great geographical bulk of Taiwan (the mountains and east and far south) was the home of the native Taiwanese ‘aboriginals’ who lived entirely under their own governance up until the early 20th Century.
Anything to declare? Arrested Australian hands over bag containing baby koala Guardian
DO NOT SMUGGLE KOALAs! But d*mn, it is so, so, so cute when you do!!!
re: The Big Con: what is really at stake in this US election
Interesting take on the effects of the New Deal and big government. Runs off the rails saying that the problems with the economy started with Bush. Without recognition that the slow decline started with Reagan, who basically as been reelected every four years since, finding a solution becomes impossible. Big government in itself has never been the solution. Reagan and his subsequent replacements did not shrink government, they simply made the task of government to remove protections for the general population. The author gushing over Clinton’s budget surpluses ignores issues like NAFTA, welfare reforms and tax code changes that enhanced the lives of the few at the expense of the many. HRC recent proposals reduce spending (ha!) by implementing the Grand Bargain are just more of Reagan for a new day.
Clearly the author is trying to imply that a vote for a R is bad and a vote for a D is good because Team D cares more. Might have been true during the New Deal but, contrary to the implications of the author, HRC has not intention of going down that path. There isn’t a Clinton Family Foundation donation big enough to make that happen.
The Big Con is in thinking that voting for HRC is the same as voting for FDR.
I’m pretty sure there might have been a candidate with something like the amount of corruption oriented baggage that HRC has but no one comes to mind.
A view from MilSpace:
http://www.duffelblog.com/2016/11/defense-industry-looking-forward-to-president-who-will-start-world-war-iii/
They do mean “CitiBank” I assume
From “Secrets of U.S. Elections:
I thought it was Jamie Dimon, Obummer loves him so much…
Obama didn’t come to love Dimon until JP Morgan made lobbying one of its top priorities, post crisis.
thank you–ugh. after Dimon effed over a bunch of people, Obamers cashed in
The author of the memo was Michael Froman, Rubin’s chief of staff at Treas, who followed Rubin to the Council on Foreign Relations, then Citi. Froman was a law school classmate of Obama’s, they both served on the Harvard Law Review and IIRC were in the same first year section.
Froman was involved early in the Obama campaign and was the person who introduced Obama to Rubin.
thanks for the clarification
I believe that list was tendered by one Michael Froman, who would shortly become the US Trade Representative with all the dotted-line policy power that entails under neoliberalism. Dimon may be the principal, but Froman is the agent. The representative, if you will.
what a tangled web, to my brain at least. Obama’s right–it’s a multi-level chess game. The ordinary citizen excluded, of course
This is an excellent critique of the news digest industry, and Vox in particular.
“People have good reason for not trusting fact-checkers and wonks. That is because they lie. And they torment people with those lies, by portraying disagreement as an irrational refusal to acknowledge objective empirical truth. They treat political disputes as questions of fact rather than value, and steadfastly refuse to acknowledge their own considerable biases. ”
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/11/explaining-it-all
Re Ken Silverstein’s account of the media’s ignominious role in this election:
As Noam Chomsky long ago explained in Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions, the “collusion” of big media with the Owners of this country is not a conspiracy of any kind, but simply the product of shared interests. After all, the Owners are, increasingly, the owners of big media (can you say ATT-Time-Warner?). Enterprises like The New York Times or CNN often engage real, working journalists (even if filtered by the corporate structure not to be the kind of Seymour Hersh or I.F. Stone who would threaten any real trouble), journalists who can be expected to at least sometimes report actual facts — when those facts don’t interfere with the story their employers are out to tell. Chomsky himself acknowledged the irony that he could quote facts reported by The New York Times to buttress his argument that their news coverage often entailed carrying water for government and the powers that be.
Think Russia Today. Of course they’re not going to subvert Russian government authority in any way, but they can be counted on to take a more even approach to facts that aren’t risky from their self-interested point of view — say, police violence in the United States. It’s the vaunted professional “neutrality” of American news organizations that one is always well advised to exercise some caution in accepting. And one need only get a load of The Intercept or Truthout these days, and their raft of anti-Trump stories, to realize that such caution should know no ideological bounds.
I believe Obama gave a speech recently in which he waxed nostalgic for the good old days when only three television networks were consistently, if not quite reliably, reporting the “truth” to the American people. If The New York Times is to be shunned for its partisan shenanigans, we can at least be thankful that they lay out the Owners’ agenda in a rather clear-cut fashion, without being able to staunch the flow of journalism from the more widely divergent interests being heard from nowadays on the Internet and elsewhere.
Thank you, Naked Capitalism.
Ben Hecht’s comedy The Front Page was probably a more honest account of the journalism of its era than show’s like Washington Week offer re present day,.Nobody back then worried too much that reporters were hacks and ambulance chasers and the newspapers often some shade of yellow. The problem today is that reporters offer themselves as lordly meritocrats performing a social purpose. Whereas who cares what Andrea Mitchell thinks about anything?
Vox-splaining how we got to the precipice:
Learning nothing and forgetting nothing – it’s not just for Bourbons anymore.
These people just don’t get it. The political system is clearly breaking down in this country, in large part because it is unresponsive to the needs of the population at-large. Maybe people no longer trust institutions because the institutions have failed them. It is extremely difficult for people embedded in those institutions (like the elite media) to recognize this fact. Mr. Klein and his ilk continue to ask the wrong questions. What does it say about them, that so many people are willing to turn to Trump?
Vox–splained
>>>>> Lloyd Grove used to be the person who would hold journalist accountable – who is that now and is there an opportunity for that in real time today?
>>>> I think that person, the degree to which they exist, is Ezra Klein. And we can do it with him today.
Per the article:
Political scientist Julia Azari has written the single most important sentence for understanding both Trump’s rise and this dangerous era in American politics: “The defining characteristic of our moment is that parties are weak while partisanship is strong.”
…
So here, then, is the key failure point in modern American politics, and observing it in action requires looking no further than the Republican Party: Voters’ dislike of their own party has broken the primary process, but fear of the opposition has guaranteed unified party support to the nominee. That means whoever manages to win a flawed competition dominated by the angriest, most terrified partisans ends within spitting distance of the presidency.
Party primaries were traditionally bulwarks against demagogues rising in American politics. Now they are the method by which they will rise.
Shorter Ezra Klein: the real problem is the gate-keepers are no longer able to perform their function. Blech…
By demagogues, little Ezra means the left. Pro-property, status-quo demagogues are the very stuff national media is made of as he ought to be reminded with every payment he receives, but those are “our demagogues” or something.
Weak parties sounds like a perfect opportunity to bring class interests back to the fore.
While “we” USians fret and fume over this faux Election thing, our imperial tax dollars are busy at work taking out little brown people Over There ™, Shock ‘n Aw, Shucks Edition:
“‘Intense US Bombing In Mosul Meant Strike Every 8 Minutes” — B-52s “capable” of carrying up to 70,000 pounds of bombs, along with a lot of other aircrews flying different “types,” getting flight and hazardous duty pay, and brownie points toward advancement and a wide assortment of really prestigious medals…
“The sheer volume of strikes sets the operation apart from others in the ongoing campaign against militants affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, according to Col. Daniel Manning, the deputy director of the Combined Air Operations Center.
“It’s a pretty intense bombing campaign if you think about each of these bombs are precision-guided weapons … so it’s a really high rate to be concentrated over one city over a prolonged period of time,” Manning told Military.com in a telephone interview Friday.
Since Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s Oct. 16 declaration of the beginning of the assault to recapture Mosul, whose population has dwindled to about 665,000 residents, the air coalition conducted more than 191 strikes through Nov. 1, employing over 1,352 weapons for operations, according to Air Forces Central Command spokeswoman Kiley Dougherty.
From the start of Operation Inherent Resolve in 2014, Dougherty said the coalition has struck Mosul with 1,239 targets, dropping 5,941 bombs.
“You tend to employ more weapons when the weather is better, and when you’re partner forces are on the move because when they’re on the move, they’re finding the enemy, forcing the enemy to reveal themselves, and we’re there to strike them,” Manning said.”
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/11/05/intense-us-bombing-in-mosul-meant-strike-every-8-minutes.html
Imagine that going on in downtown Philadelphia, up and down the Main Line…
Imagine that going on in D.C., up and down K Street.
I have many privileged friends from fancy colleges who have gone to NH to campaign for HRC. Acquaintances might be more accurate, as they are frequently sufficiently smug that I can only socialize with them in limited quantities. I know canvassing matters, and turnout is critical. But when I think of how I would feel if a privileged 20 something brat knocked on my door to tell me how stupid and racist and sexist and naive it is to have doubts about Clinton cause she’s obviously the second most amazing person in the world (After Michelle O., of course)…
Seems like this could backfire. I’m wanting to stay home just thinking about it, and my polling place is literally next door to my apartment – in OH.
pure anecdotal…but i hear that’s the story in MN. Young whipper-snappers canvassing on Bernie doors, getting ‘minnesota nice,’ but cold, blank, stares.
If only they would knock on my door….
The dominoes are falling!!! The dominoes are falling!!! The first round of the presidential election in Bulgaria was held yesterday, and the winner is the former chief of the BG Air Force, Gen. Rumen Radev. The polling shows that he should handily defeat his ruling party opponent in the run-off election next Sunday. Why is that important? First, Gen. Radev has completed US Air Force advanced courses, with outstanding fitness reports. Despite that, he campaigned on lifting the sanctions against Russia and ending the antagonistic policies and rhetoric instituted by the current President and the ruling party. Second, the Prime Minister has vowed to resign with his entire cabinet if Gen. Radev wins the election, which will remove the US-approved cabinet and particularly the handpicked foreign and defense ministers, Third, the voting result amount to a resounding rejection of the establishment and the status quo. Gen. Radev, while having been endorsed by the Socialists, is an independent candidate. Another independent candidate won 11% of the vote, and the combined nationalists/patriots parties gathered 15%. All told, about 60% of the votes were cast against the establishment, with the candidates of the ruling coalition gathering only 29% of the vote Interesting times everywhere.
The guys who grabbed all the marbles in Bulgaria after communism fell were all members of the Olympic weightlifting team, after all who was going to say “no you don’t own the national electricity company just because you say you do!” to them. So nice to see they may be on the way out.
200,000 people in the streets in Korea yesterday, the president with a 7% approval rating, all because of shady dealings and corruption. Sigh. What do they put in the water in these countries to get the people to give a single solitary d*mn about rampant political corruption
Well, the boys with the thick necks (wrestlers, boxers, weightlifters) were only the muscle, whose violence served to scare the population into leaving the country or to at least be incapable to offer any resistance. They worked for the polutburo and its children, who had undergone a miraculous overnight transformation from communists into free marketeers, democrats, and dissidents. This transformation was achieved with the tacit approval of the West, which was more interested in having new compliant clients in the East rather than real change. Besides, many of the children of the politburo and the nomenclatura were college mates with the children of the Western elites, so what was the harm in passing the power to them, eh? So the boys with the thick necks were allowed to terrorize the population to divert attention from the sham “transition” to a “free market democracy” in which the new masters were the same as the old masters, only this time they wouldn’t share the gains from the theft of state property with the population. In return these former athletes were allowed to run protection rackets, forcing the population to pay up to protect it from themselves. The current PM came up through these ranks, and he is simply a puppet on strings.
Funny you should mention the power companies. The state monopoly was broken up into appetizing chunks and then sold for a pittance to Western energy companies. The transmission lines were sold to Western European companies, most power plants were sold to US companies, NES and Entergy being the main ones. The electric bills now eat up such large portion of the incomes that the people went out on the streets, rioted, and several dozen self-immolated themselves from sheer hopelessness in the first half of 2013, which brought down the government. The Socialists came to power that year, but not to worry, America For Bulgaria Foundation and uncle Soros immediately paid up for a Megdan (the Bulgarian word for Maidan), the Megdan went on to camp out for a year without much to show for it, until John McCain paid a visit in June 2014. The Socialist government resigned three weeks later, new elections were held which brought the old, US-approved government to power, and everyone lived happily ever after. Until yesterday. I am pretty sure that Vicky Nuland has already preheated her oven, just in case she needs to bake some delicious freedumb and democracy cookies, and America For Bulgaria Foundation has already drafted the grants which will fuel the revolutionary fervor of the campers at Megdan 2017. So everything is under control in this best of all possible worlds.
http://www.tmz.com/2016/11/07/hillary-clinton-cancels-fireworks-election-night/
read between the lines however one wants to…..i’m just getting a kick out of citing TMZ as a legit relevant election news site.
re: The Closing of the Liberal Mind
Great essay. Important. My take away: If liberalism was once the vanguard to make life better for real people by brushing away the cobwebs of narrow and misapplied “appeals to authority”, it has since become an appeal to its own authority and neglected or ignored real peoples’ lives and the world in which real people live. I’d pull out some quotes, but there are so many good points it’s better to read the whole essay.
Thanks for this post.
How Models Reveal the Secrets of Biology. And Sarah Palin revealed the truth of evolution. Only a few ditzy, glib nitwits left… we should take samples while we can. It will prove that evolution eliminates the idiots because Sarah Palin is not the norm… all you have to do is read.
Thanks for the prop 47 piece. It is good to see it has made a difference. I appreciate that the hard work keeps going and it is frustrating that additional work needs to be done to get past those that do anything to get around laws.
I voted for the marijuana bill even though it was personally disappointing in the hopes that it will help others. I’ll be waiting to see the numbers on the results.
Clinton Email Tar Baby
Did anyone see this… by Willim Engdahl… days ago… Huma Abedin and her entire family have deep roots in the Muslim Brotherhood… how is this not important???
http://journal-neo.org/2016/11/04/the-real-huma-gate-crime-is-the-muslim-brotherhood/
” how is this not important???”
shhh. stop asking questions. It’s not like any other first-world country has a female president whose major policy decisions are sourced from a shady confidante.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-politics-idUSKBN1300AZ
oh wait.
o “This Election Has Disgraced the Entire Profession of Journalism | NY Observer” — Title has false attribution of agency, should read “The Entire Profession of Journalism Has Disgraced itself this Election”
o “A Transit Strike In Philly Could Lower Turnout, Especially Among Black And Poor Voters | FiveThirtyEight” — Already out of date, strike was settled today.
o “Hillary’s biggest secret: What will Bill do as first laddie? | Politico” — Why, he’ll be econo-czar. Because benefiting hugely from a historic asset-price bubble whose implosion landed in your successor’s lap makes one an economic genius! (Less officially, he will serve in the crucial role of WH intern screener, in which capacity he will act as a one-man rectifier of gender biases against wymyn in the workplace … especially against the kinds of barriers nubile willing young wymyn suffer from. Or as he might imagine it, “I’ll be happy to have you on my personal staff, my pretty.”).
Salt lake county has gone from hundreds of polling places to just 37 this year. This is where the majority of democrats in the state live.
From a facebook post I gather that west valley city only has two polling places. This is the second biggest city in Utah for population and is majority non-white.
>Russia’s boom (farming) economy Politico
“But it is wrong to attribute Russia’s agricultural boom to sanctions. Good land management and weather have played a far more significant role in turning Russia into the world’s biggest wheat exporter.”
Look at Politico trying to spin this.
Better management spurred by sanctions. Russia was already heading in a more self-reliant direction, but the sanctions forced them to supercharge their efforts. Yet again, the idea of threatening the worlds largest nation, with vast amounts of untapped resources and potential, with embargo is revealed to have been a terrible idea.
It made easier for the locals to stomach short term duress and switch to local brands too.
Foreign policy is usually just a scam to distract from incompetence of domestic leaders anyway. Sanctions were meant for the home crowds. Look how tough Obama is. You see that Mittens?!
The IBT article with various “security expert” comments about the possibility of a rigged election was horrifying. So many straw men, so little knowledge of how election fraud works.
Some of the things they chose to ignore or misrepresent–
–Multitude of proven fraud vectors are child’s play with corrupt insiders. These can involve hacking specific machines in carefully targeted areas, to the proven precision of Fraction Magic which allows easy, scalable access to tamper results across multiple precincts, counties, and states–a capacity which started being added to our central tabulating machines in 2001 and now may be on all or most of them.
–pretending that voting machines being airgapped is protection, which insiders are the vulnerability–and insiders can include election official staff, judges, voting machine vendors, IT contractors or subcontractors who work for the county/municipal election officials; ignoring the networks used to report results from central tabulators
–understating the important role played by local “fixers”, said role being a crucial part of a good ground game
–misrepresenting the value (to voters) of election machine “standards” which were long ago proven to be crap, together with “security safeguards” which are meaningless (e.g., the “test” run before & after elections that’s supposed to give us “confidence” that everything’s ok–even though it doesn’t reveal proven tampering)
–conflicts of interest that can make it difficult or impossible to get election fraud cases through the courts (e.g. substituting a judge to ensure the correct verdict)
–state & local laws that impede or forbid access to paper ballots when they do exist
–NOT A WORD was said about the importance of things any voter can do–such as requesting a timely Temporary Restraining Order to prevent election officials from deleting the ballot images created by most of the machines–even the paperless machines have a digital equivalent that could be useful, and of voters requesting to see those ballot images post-election–which could be a meaningful way for voters to confirm that their election results are trustworthy
–completely ignoring the Chain of Custody issues (whether relating to paper ballots or election records or vote cards/cartridges or voting machines) whether pre-election or post-election.
–ignoring how changing a relatively small number of votes can change an election, or by changing numbers by just a little in carefully selected locations
That’s off the top of my head, based on documented (videotaped!) examples of election fraud.
This was a dangerously bad article camoflaged as a good article. Many people know a little about some aspects of election fraud and this is used to set up straw men to show “this couldn’t happen” or “it couldn’t change an election result”.
Voting machine security people–even those with a lot of technical expertise–typically know next to nothing about the election systems side of fraud–how relationship works inside the system, who has access, how subcontracting impacts the system access, how ignorant most election officials are of the technology they supervise.
For more info, including YouTube videos and interviews, search for Fraction Magic, http://www.blackboxvoting.org, Hacking Democracy, Richard Hayes Phillips, John Brakey and others.
Elections should never be about “confidence” or “trust”. Rather, we need election systems that enable any voter to verify that their election results are correct.
Public access to all Ballot Images immediately after an election are one way to do this. This would be easy to do now.
Local publicly observed counts of paper ballots in all precincts on election night, double-checked by different parties, with local public posting/photographing of the results is another way. It’s a cost-effective, efficient proven process in locations where it’s used. (But it would have to be done in all precincts and not just some, to be able to check the central counting computer results.)