Gosh. I thought 33,000 was a lot of emails. It seems it’s ~650,000 emails. If I understand correctly, the FBI got their warrant.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/laptop-may-include-thousands-of-emails-linked-to-hillary-clintons-private-server-1477854957/
Open thread except for LENR, cold fusion: mostly political.
If this was a joint account – so to speak – does it include Weiner’s
j. ferguson,
Don’t know. I’m reading.
That’s a heck of a lot of email. I’m assuming it doesn’t include spam. If one has no spam filter, it 650,000 might be two weeks of email. 🙂
Without spam that would be a lot, 100 emails a day for 20 years.
It suggests that she was storing other peoples e-mails as well.
Another possibility is that the storage format split up messages into fragments.
So a long thread with lots of replies would become 10 or even 50.
Regardless of detail if this number is confirmed, I think it sinks the Clinton campaign.
SNL summed it up: The only reason you would have 33,000 e-mails is if you are saving them. So if you don’t have them all of sudden we can guess why.
MIkeN,
Yes. It suggest there are more than just her emails.
The job of looking through these is going to be super boring. Possibly punctuated by hilarity and/or excitement.
In what format are these e-mails likely to be? Are they stored on a computer or on Yahoo servers? humamabedin@yahoo.com doesn’t seem like an easy conduit for storing hundreds of e-mails let alone hundreds of thousands.
No idea. The article didn’t say. I’ve been assuming they are on the laptop, but perhaps they were on a server. Dunno.
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN22068.html
Huma is claiming that she has no idea how the e-mails got there, and she never uses the computer.
Is it possible that one of Anthony’s targets was actually targeting him?
Homeland had the exact same plot a few years ago.
Alternate explanation for Comey is that after seeing Justice Department tank his investigation, he sent the letter to ensure they couldn’t block him further.
According to Michael Isikoff:
I don’t think it was Comey’s decision to limit the search of Mills’s computer, or to destroy the computer. Now Justice Department can’t block without it being obvious.
MikeN,
It’s hard to believe that Huma would not kow 650,000 emails were on the laptop. Well… unless, at one time, for “convenience”, they set up their account to automatically download but not delete from a server. Then, she forgot about it entirely. Harried or scatty people might do that to get email while on vacation, a plane, during some sort of email interruption… and then forget to undo after the event. And then forget altogether.
But that’s a lotof email.
That’s an interesting theory for Comey’s motivation. Presumably history will tell. 🙂
I’m suggesting the computer with the e-mail is copies of things captured from Huma’s computer over some amount of time. So she doesn’t know about ANY e-mails on it. The original computer would have only a small amount, as they are routinely deleted.
Mike,
But how (in what way) are you suggesting they were “captured”? And by whom?
Someone has to set up a machine to “capture” emails. They don’t just start capturing them on their own.
we have a computer in the garage which is the final resting place of drives liberated in the course of increasing disk sizes in our laptops and switching to solid state drives. It has something like 3.5 TB. it runs linux and saves all incoming emails whether deleted from our other machines or not. They day job of this machine is as a CNC controller for the CNC mill and router.
so we had all the disk capacity and this is what it does when it isn’t doing something else. software catches up when it goes back to it’s night job.
It’s not impossible that this is how the Weiner machine was set up which would mean that it has things which were deleted on the machine that Huma read them on.
I thought their joint account was AOL not Yahoo. is that wrong?
I think I read Huma had four email accounts– but in context where I read it that meant email addresses. But I think language gets a bit confusing.
The thing is, with respect to a search, there is going to be
(a) an email address: That could be called “an account”.
(b) your ‘account’ on your “mail” software on your machine/laptop whatever. (I download email sent to my email accounts to my desktop where they are in the “mac mail”. Jim downloads on his lap top. Those things get called “accounts” sometimes– in the sense that I might have one and Jim might have one on the same machien.
(c) I can also look at the mail on my web-mail interface at the server. That’s an “account”.
Obvious, I could if I wanted set things up so mail from my email accounts is downloaded into Jim’s “mac mail”, or my laptop, or his lap top. Actually: anyone who knew my password, email address and various and settings could do this. (That’s why people should have secure passwords for email.)
Perhaps Huma and Anthony both set something up to download everything onto that laptop — possibly to his “mail” account on his laptop. If not marked as already delivered or something, Huma might still be getting it on her preferred device.
If she forgot it was downloading on ‘Anthony’s’ machine. Heck he might have forgotten. Then. It. Would. All. Be. There. . .
If the emails contained classified information, then the honorable Rep. “massive-photo-guy”…. err, former rep Weiner, should not have had access to them.
Lucia,
“Open thread except for LENR, cold fusion”
.
Thank you for small mercies.
SteveF,
Obviously not.
Likely even if they aren’t classified, Weiner having access to them was probably not what Hillary as Sec. State, or “Clinton Foundation” or as “running for president” would actually want. And I suspect Clinton wouldn’t want him to have access to any of her remotely inside information even before everyone knew his sexting proclivities and he experienced a political downfall.
Could not happen to nicer people.
Seriously, huma was paid by the state dept, the Clinton foundation, and teneo all at the same time. The ‘secret’ info is the alleged problem, and is also criminal, but the selling of influence is the point.
The fbi has an ongoing internal revolt, the fbi director is faced with substantial new, previously undisclosed and intentionally destroyed email info and it is really obvious that if comey didn’t disclose now, and his people go punlic, if I’m right, HE fries with or without Hillary if he doesn’t react – regardless of the stupid timing. He WAS 100% in the tank for her, now he cannot be.
It’s ugly but that’s how the puzzle fits together. Love to hear better versions but this is the only one which I can see driving such an extreme fbi decision.
I will try again from the laptop. I Phone’s can’t blog!
—
Could not happen to nicer people.
Seriously, Huma was paid by the state dept, the Clinton foundation, and Teneo all at the same time. The ‘secret’ government info is the alleged problem being investigated, and is also criminal, but the selling of influence is the point of a personal server.
The FBI has an ongoing internal revolt threatening Comey’s personal freedom. Hillary is the other concern for him — since he obviously protected her. The fbi director is currently faced with substantial new, previously undisclosed and intentionally destroyed email info and it is really obvious that if Comey didn’t disclose now, and the information comes out, he’s as guilty as Hillary.
Therefore, his own attempt to cover the problem in July with doubletalk has landed him in a spot where he is PART and parcel of the conspiracy. He will fry first—- with or without Hillary if he didn’t react. All he can do is claim the new revelations are ACTUAL revelations and prosecute. Comey was 100% in her camp. There is no question that his July decision was political and had nothing to do with evidence. Wiki has proven that simply through demonstrating that She destroyed significant evidence.
It’s ugly but that’s how the puzzle fits together. Love to hear better versions but this is the only one which I can see driving such an extreme fbi decision. Something big either exists in Huma’s email which shoots bullets and smokes or the previously smoking July bullet chucker is still sitting on the table.
Jeff Id,
“Seriously, Huma was paid by the state dept, the Clinton foundation, and teneo all at the same time.”
”
What, you think she wasn’t worth every penny… and much more? You must be prejudiced against women, you evil stinking pig!
Lucia, I am suggesting that it was set up by a spy who was pursued by Anthony Weiner.
SteveF, as part of Hillary’s talking points dump at the end of the first debate, she complained that Trump doesn’t think women should be paid the same as men if they don’t do as good a job. Now we find out Hillary expects them to work many jobs at once.
MikeN
Ahh… Ok. The “spy” theory seems fanciful, like something fiction. Which does not mean it can’t be true!
I’m leaning to something more mundane as my main theory. But I can’t say boring is any more likely.
“Open thread except for LENR, cold fusion: mostly political. ”
Aww,
Shame.
It’s all to late isn’t it? everyone’s voted.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/official-says-fbi-knew-weeks-newly-discovered-emails/
http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/yahoo-holds-key-to-fbi-probe-of-hillary-huma-emails/
Above the question was whether it was Yahoo or AOL
http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/yahoo-holds-key-to-fbi-probe-of-hillary-huma-emails/
Steve f,
You’ve been talking to my wife!
Go cubs! (3-1)
Also, Anthony Weiner is facing major jail time. Could he have just done a bulk download to protect himself?
MikeN,
I think the feds new about the yahoo.com email account and had looked at it. Supposedly, the 650,000 span years. So it seems unlikely Weiner could have downloaded the bulk of it after he got into legal sexting to a 15 yo trouble.
So I’m guessing no. Weiner did not download this to protect himself. Still… so many details are not firmed up.
lucia,
I see the Trib has come out in favor of Hillary stepping down.
DeWitt,
I googled and it looks like John Kass has come out in favor of Hillary stepping down. But he’s published on page 2, so very influential around here.
I suspect Hillary won’t listen though.
If Weiner had and selfies from Hillary in there, I hope they keep them secret……….
This is a hugely important issue and Clinton claims to have not talked to Abedin about the emails. Probably Clinton deflection. If she hasn’t directly talked with Abedin, she is doing so for strategic reasons. Undoubtedly, her aides have talked to Abedin or possibly an aide to Abedin. If Clinton was clean, she would want to get this stuff all out.
….
“The Hillary Clinton campaign on Sunday again urged the FBI to explain why it was revisiting the Clinton email investigation and said the Democratic presidential candidate has not talked to top aide Huma Abedin, on whose laptop the new emails were purportedly found — nearly three full days after the department announced the new probe.” http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/30/campaign-says-clinton-still-hasnt-talked-to-abedin-about-new-emails.html
JD
Also, on a separate matter, it looks like things are horrendous in Chicago. 10 people killed over the weekend. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-shootings-violence-20161029-story.html
Don’t forget the angle that Huma was playing Hillary the entire time as an agent for Iranians. They certainly benefited under the Obama/Clinton failed US policy toward Iran. Huma, with her deep, long term and….special….relationship with Ms. Clinton would certainly be a logical interesting choice. Ms. Clinton’s hubris and arrogance, not to mention personal behaviors, certainly makes this a possibility. Simply making certain the emails were dumped into an obscure unprotected computer would make things easy for her handlers.
The Clinton team should, when demanding to know exactly what is being re-examined, remember to be very careful what wishes for.
Why? If there is something wrong, then as a voter I would like to know about it. If there is nothing wrong, then I would also like to know about it.
Re: hunter (Comment #153841)
Do you have any support for your theorem of Abedin being an agent of Iranians, other than her parents being Muslim?
Well, since this an open thread, and since I have no idea what LENR is, I’ll just hoe in anyway. And I’m tetchy about Trump.
The thing that puzzles me and anyone who lives outside of the USA (the greatest country on earth, so fuck you New Zealand, why would anyone consider living in a loser country with universal free health care) is why a lying orange buffoon would get even a single vote.
And when the lying orange buffoon blames the rise of ISIS on Obama, when every fule kno (lMolesworth – look it up) that G Dub trashed a foreign country under false pretences. and left a power vacuum.
Well, it’s weird. To me, US politics seem pretty much “Darkness at Noonâ€. My party right or wrong. I used to like John McCain. I thought his concession speech when Obama was elected was one of the most gracious things I’d ever heard. And now, I think less of him, because he endorsed Trump after all the vile things Trump has said, but only unendorsed him at the last minute.
But, just curious, what exactly has Hillary done wrong?
Huma as an agent for the Iranians makes no sense. She is Sunni. She was raised in Saudi Arabia and her mother still lives there. There have been accusations (I have no idea if there is anything to them) that close relatives of hers are in the Muslim Brotherhood.
JD, Huma was on the plane when the story broke. The press never saw her leave the plane, and she is now holed up in New York.
Trumps attacks on Anthony Weiner gives him the Shockingly Prescient belt previously held by Bill Belichick.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/anthony-weiner-slams-donald-trumps-attacks-wife-absurd/story?id=33459696
Senator Harry Reid claims the FBI knows about Trumps ties to Russia Politicus quotes from his message to Comey:
Reid writes, “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity.â€
____________
Reid’s statement suggest the FBI has classified information on the subject. It could be damaging to Trump if Comey replies that he can’t release the information because it’s classified.
On twitter there were just so many people making allegations against Hillary, that eventually I couldn’t help it and started having a look. As far as I can see all the allegations are correct.
BUT … today I started wondering whether if I similarly looked “allegations against Trump” that I might end up thinking the same.
The answer is no.
I don’t particularly like Trump, if I was American and in an ideal world where it was just a choice of character, I’d go for someone else – but then again something like 99% of politicians aren’t people I want to vote for.
MikeN, Oliver –
I agree, Huma Abedin as agent for Iran make no sense. for the Muslim Brotherhood, though, could be…lots of flags raised on that. You could start here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2556
Max_OK,
The ridiculous thing about that is that if Harry Reid has information Harry Reid thinks the US public should know, and it’s legal to tell the US public, then Harry Reid should divulge the information.
Comey isn’t going to reply that he can’t divulge because it’s classified. Comey isn’t going to respond at all because Harry Reid is not the boss of Comey. Lynch is. And Reid could just as easily “Demand” Lynch divulge but he’s also not Lynch’s boss. They are all executive branch. If Reid wants something from the executive branch, he should demand the head of the executive branch give it to him. That would be Obama.
On “Huma is an Iranian Agent”: If she is, it was very careless and sloppy of her to forget the stuff on her husband’s laptop. She should have put all that crud on a thumbdrive, slipped the thumbdrive to Iran, and deleted the stuff on the lap top periodically.
If she were an agent, it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t have directed her to do just that.
Can a warrant to read the emails be granted without the seeker stating that they probably contain material specific to a specific crime? It can’t be because they think they’ll find a pony in there. No fishing trips allowed.
So for Comey to say that he doesn’t know if there is significance to this cache seems nonsense to me. If there isn’t something significant in there, what could have been the basis of his warrant?
Carrick, does this suggest to you, as it does to me that even if they haven’t actually read some of the material – which I think is incorrect (they have), they do have specific knowledge of at least something they will find.
If it turns out that there is nothing worth pursuing in Abedin’s emails we will then have witnessed a (dare I say it) ‘significant’ descent into the blessing of legally sanctioned snooping into the public’s correspondence.
So far, i haven’t read any discussion of what I’ve just suggested. It might be useful if one of the attorneys who read here could hold forth on what the minimum level of knowledge of contents of a cache of correspondence must be presented that a warrant be granted.
j ferguson,
My reading of the document I linked on the other thread is that the warrant has to specifically state what they are looking for and that’s the only thing they can look for.
It doesn’t mean they can’t see anything else in the course of looking– as as in meat world searches. But if the see ‘a trove’ of things they can tell does not fall under the warrant, they can’t continue through that. They need to request another warrant. Mind you: I’m pretty sure they can use what they legally did see as evidence for probable cause for a different crime. A judge would decide whether what they saw is probable cause of this other crime.
Presumably: They took the laptop (hardware) under the Weiner warrant. They were looking for child porn under the Weiner warrant. In the process they saw headers for 650,000 emails, that appear related to the possible crimes of perjury, mis-handling classified documents and so on. Their reason for looking at the headers was to determine if they were likely to contain child porn– but they were allowed to hunt for that. And in the process, say “Oh. We looked at the headers. That’s not likely to be child porn”. Which it’s not. So the Weiner warrant doesn’t let them actually look at those emails.
But nothing prevents them from submitting a request for a warrant for the other possible crimes. So they did. But they had to wait.
Why it took three weeks…. well there are theories. Those theories related to the person in charge of the Weiner investigation (McCabe) his wife and $$ infusions to the wife from “the Clinton side”. Whether that’s fanciful or not… dunno. Maybe 3 weeks is normal.
The three weeks might have been intended to be five which would have gotten us past the election. I suspect that there is distrust of Comey among the troops at FBI and they didn’t intend to tell him even this soon, but he found out. Maybe because they were working their way through the Abedin stuff and couldn’t handle the volume with the number of discrete staff members available. They would have had to explain why to request more people.
–
If I was at the switch and didn’t like the words ‘President Trump’ but also understood that what had been discovered might this time be prosecutable, I would prefer she be indicted after the election. This way she could abdicate and be replaced by Kaine in a process we’ve seen before. AND we wouldn’t chance a President Trump.
j ferguson
The troops may well have distrusted Comey. But your theory of what FBI agents itching to pursue the investigation would do doesn’t make sense.
Unless you think the ground troops motive was to insulate Huma, they would not start working through the 650,000 emails without a warrant. Working their way through those would create 4th amendment issues that would prevent them from being able to use it against those whose 4th amendment rights they were violating in the process. That would mean: Letting Huma off any hook she might be on.
If anything, Comey sending the letter to Congresse reduced the chance that someone at the FBI would go rogue, violate the 4th amendment and in the taint evidence to the point where it could not be used.
I still want Thor to hit both of them with lightening bolts. I have no idea whether I prefer Pence or Kaine. But I know I don’t like Trump or Clinton!
JFerguson, indicting a president-elect would be crazy. There is a body of legal analysis, that includes the opinion of Robert Bork, saying the president cannot be indicted. Also, the president cannot be impeached for actions prior to taking office.
So you have a very narrow window to seek an indictment. Now what if Hillary doesn’t step aside after being indicted?
There is a shorter time frame where the electors might defect and vote for Kaine(or another choice) in early December, but if it is not close to unanimous, the result would be President Trump.
MikeN,
I’m not sure that Hillary is off scot-free if elected. Nixon got elected too. What would have happened if he didn’t resign? I’m not sure. But I don’t think he went willing.
I’ll review.
Thinking about it some more, Hillary’s dropping out might be necessary. There is one elector in Washington who has said he will vote for Bernie. There are only a few maps where this would matter(Trump wins NC,FL,OH,IA, CO), though I assume in that case he would switch. What if there are other electors who would refuse to vote for her?
Oh. I see now, the fact that Nixon was already President might have made a difference there.
mark bofill: “Nixon got elected too. What would have happened if he didn’t resign? ”
He would have been impeached and probably convicted. That is why he resigned. As you point out, the crimes took place while he was president.
MikeN, thanks. I didn’t know a president couldn’t be indicted for actions preceding his/her presidency. Does this mean that a murderer could become president and would any indictment wait for the end of his/her term in office?
Lucia, obviously my earlier comment was based on my belief that these folks do read the stuff and then if they find something get a warrant to get permission to read them. I accept that this assumes criminality by the FBI. Maybe this is a very bad assumption on my part.
Pence and Kaine seem like honest adults. But I don’t see anything on the horizon which would put Pence in the driver seat.
Lucia: “Why it took three weeks …”
I am under the impression (perhaps mistaken) that the FBI needed approval from Justice to seek the subpoena, so maybe that is where the foot dragging took place.
Mike M.
In many stories, McCabe (FBI) team had found the emails October 3. But the FBI didn’t even put in the request for the warrant (not subpoena) by Thursday or Friday (Oct 27 or 28).
There is no subpoena issue because there is no grand jury. That’s another gripe some have. Whether the gripe is legit is a matter of debate and doesn’t have much to do with the “650 thousand”.
If one assumes the expectation was that McCabe would put in the request for the warrant, then there is some appearance of footdragging on the part of McCabe (who is FBI and whose wife happened to receive bit $$ donations to her campaign from Clinton-associated groups.) Whether there really was foot dragging on his part… dunno.
I don’t know who Comey would have thought tasked with submitting the request for the warrant. But the request was not submitted– something that, evidently Comey learned during a meeting.
Above, some are suggesting that Comey’s motivation for sending letter immediately after Justice and the FBI did come to agreement to request the warrant is to prevent foot dragging. (Whether this was “more” foot dragging or initiall… dunno.)
If Comey wasn’t the one tasked to submit the warrant during the meeting between the FBI and justice, it’s plausible to believe preventing the possibility of footdragging might be his motivation or at least part of it. But Comey didn’t say it was … so it’s speculation.
JFerguson, the president also cannot be indicted for actions in office. He could go to 5th avenue and shoot someone, and you would have to impeach and convict him before any indictment.
Note that this is only a legal opinion that could be ignored. That you cannot impeach is a stronger opinion dating back to the early 1800s.
Another theory is that the NYPD was involved in collecting evidence on Weiner, and the FBI would be wary of what they would do. Apocryphal story that they took down an agent after his team stormed into NYPD headquarters and walked off with a file.
j ferguson
I think some police officers might operate that way both because there are a lot of officers out there and some must be corrupt, and the risk of being caught is fairly low.
I suspect more often the police officers who do overstep warrants just get “confused” about what they can and can’t look at, and hope that they get away with it. Likely, more often than not, that works because the people they are going after are not legally expert, don’t have money for great lawyers, don’t have the press watching every move and so on.
I can be as big a cynic as anyone on this.
But I suspect the FBI officers would not “get confused” in this high profile case because– even those who might be willing to indulge in a bit of corruption– the risk of being caught is too high. That’s personally dangerous.
But beyond that, if their goal was to “get” someone on team Clinton, they know the action would tend to give the person they want to “get” a free pass.
OTOH: Foot dragging, miscommunication to stall things, taking a l_o_n_g time to make decisions, finding it difficult to schedule meetings with “relevant” personnel are options that are easier to implement. I’m sure plenty of people would indulge in that.
(BTW: I heard the ‘you are granted immunity- we destroy our laptops, laptops s’ have not been destroyed. But I haven’t seen repeat stories so I don’t know if that’s true.)
MIkeN,
Multiple agency involvement multiplies the potential for leaks and/or conflicting actions or views. If McCabe did want to squelch the discovery of the emails, and some NYPD rank and file know of their existance, that would make it harder for McCabe to … well…. squelch.
But we really don’t know. Pretty much all the discussion of motives by FBI are pure speculation. Worse, they are often speculation based on complete rumor. I for one have no idea whether NYPD rank and file knew of the existence of the files– or who might have. Nor whether the FBI/Justice team had “thought” someone was requesting a warrant, and if they were, who and so on. Likely we’ll know more by next November. Even then we’ll probably get conflicting stories. 🙂
Why would McCabe have a team that has the e-mails? He is assistant director. Likely there is another investigating unit that had them.
Also, there are several teams investigating the Clinton Foundation, according to Wall Street Journal. I didn’t know they were still operating in Little Rock.
From the latest Wikileaks, how well do you think this rule of Eric Schmidt’s was followed?
Its important that all the player in the campaign work at cost and there be no special interests in the financing structure. This means that all vendors work at cost and there is a separate auditing function to ensure no one is profiting unfairly from the campaign. All investments and conflicts of interest would have to be publicly disclosed. The rules of the audit should include caps on individual salaries and no investor profits from the campaign function. (For example, this rule would apply to me.)
MikeN,
Sorry. You are correct. NY investigators have the emails:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-30/fbi-scour-through-650000-emails-found-weiners-laptop
According to that timeline though:
1) McCabe is told of the emails way back when.
2) FBI officials want Weiner investigation to proceed and get a report back on meta-data of 650,000 emails — this is way back when.
3) Then, time passes, and early last week, when senior FBI officials met, the learned no one has filed for a warrant. and
4) Only after this later meeting does McCabe instruct FBI agents to find out if the emails might be relevant.
And so on. So the potential ‘heel dragging’ or ‘mixup’ or suspicion of same happens if after “2” senior officials (especially Comey) believes someone (here McCabe) was tasked with getting the warrant or at least establishing whether or not the warrant should be requested and either (a) that person doesn’t know it’s their job or (b) that person “omg” didn’t “realize” it was their job.
But it sounds like at least part of the delay was in someways “not normal”. Early on it was supposedly “agreed” that FBI agents would look at the meta-data to see if a warrant was established, but this order did not go out.
Of course, perhaps it was normal– or at least common enough. But if Comey thought it might be foot dragging,that could explain his preference for transparency with the public and congress. Or not. YMMV.
The issue of people getting around warrants to peek at the data, can they see the e-mail subject line? That should be enough. They could even use an automated program to list the subject lines, removing the 90% that are about yoga.
Being a selfish libertarian I am always thinking about an optimum outcome for an election given the predicted voter preferences – which are certainly not libertarian – that would minimize at least temporarily the growth of government. With neither Hillary nor the Donald having the least instincts for or leanings to libertarian positions I say a pox on both their houses with regards to recent discovers of their less than honest approaches to their personal and professional lives.
Trump’s ascendancy to political prominence if it were based on some populist revolt against the power elites in Washington would have some appeal to libertarians, but the messenger and the message are much too flawed to pass muster with me. In fact a Trump presidency would suffer from the MSM and intelligentsia using his boorish character to rally against any thoughts of an elitist power center in Washington of which they are very much a part. On the other hand, a Clinton presidency with her wounded like Nixon with Watergate around his neck might do better to keep front and center elitist Washington power with Clinton being the focus. Even an overly protective stance by the MSM and intelligentsia could be revealed if they have to defend a seriously wounded Clinton.
MikeN,
The subject line is part of the email header so should be visible without a warrant. Of course that assumes that the sender filled in the subject line and that it is representative of the contents of the email.
If Trump is elected and we get the expected massive recession when one of the many shoes drop, then we’ve only delayed the progressive takeover of the Supreme Court by four years. It’s not worth it in the long run.
I saw a comment on the relative size of crowds for Clinton and Trump the other day. Trump was reported to be drawing tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters. Hillary, not so much. I have no idea if this is true, though. But if it is, it seems to fly in the face of the polling results.
Size of the rallies is not necessarily indicative of who is leading in the whole state.
Hillary did get 10k at a rally with Michelle Obama in NC.
MikeN
I think it goes like this.
Suppose they were looking for child porn in Anthonys sexting. They could get on his computer. They could open outlook (or mac mail) At that point they’d see ‘subject’ lines, and at least “from”: no violation yet. They could look at the “sent” emails (if saved): they’d see “to” and subject lines. No violation yet.
Suppose the very top email — first one they read is “from: someone@clintonemail.com“. They may already have probable cause for a warrant because Huma was supposed to turn over ALL email that housed that stuff and she never named this computer. So… problem for Huma.
But at the same time, they probably ought not to *open* that email without a warrant because they should know it’s highly unlikely to relate to Anthony’s sexting.
If the opened a screen just chock-full of “from: someone@clintonemail.com” or “to:someone@email.com”, I’m pretty sure they have probable cause.
I’m sure the FBI will have scripts to try to triage the emails. Those discussing “yoga” and “email” may go to the bottom of the list. But since people do mix business with pleasure, I suspect they will even eventually look at yoga and wedding emails. (Or, well…. FBI agents may read those during lunch to have a laugh. At *this* point, who wouldn’t want to read Hillary’s yoga instructor explaining how she can refine her “downward facing dog” pose?)
My point is they should know whether what they have is explosive or minor just by looking at the headers.
DeWitt,
I suspect the size of the rallies stories are true. But I don’t know if it means much other than more people go to Trump rallies.
I’ve never gone to an individual candidate or party rally. I suspect this is true of most voters.
Trump is more entertaining than Hillary, and those people who like him really really like him. But that may not reflect greater popularity. If he were really popular, we’d see signs in yards.
Does anyone know what Foundry means related to the Clintons?
There are a series of e-mails between Christmas Eve and New Years with David Kendall trying to meet with Cheryl Mills and John Podesta, only face to face.
DeWitt,
“then we’ve only delayed the progressive takeover of the Supreme Court by four years. It’s not worth it in the long run.”
.
I disagree… first, I doubt Trump would cause a recession, nor cause an economic boom. But in any case, a replacement of Scalia with someone of similar views pushes it back about 4 years, but only if you assume a Democrat would definitely win in 2020, and no other (very elderly) justice dies/retires in the next few years. Both Ginsburg and Kennedy are past 80, and may not live 4 more years. Average life expectancy for women age 83 in the States is 7 years. Average life expectancy at 80 for males in the USA is 9 years. So both Ginsburg and Kennedy are at significant risk of death over the next 4 years.
.
In addition, Ginsburg’s recent odd behavior suggests her faculties may be failing, making her departure more likely. Even Breyer is no spring chicken (78+ YO). Were any of those three replaced with someone sharing Scalia’s views, a conservative court majority would likely last well beyond 4 years.
.
I will go out on a limb and make a prediction: If Hillary wins, gun sales are going to skyrocket…. her appointee, whoever that might be, would immediately reverse recent “right to bear” rulings, making the right to future gun purchases at best uncertain.
MikeN,
Depends on what you consider “explosive” vs “minor”.
They should be able to see whether what they have justifies a warrant in the “clinton email” case based “to/from”.
But that won’t tell them whether the email says,
“Dear Huma,
I feel like you are almost a daughter to me. And we both have such dreadful husbands. So… yeah. It’s true. Bill raped Juanita. It was going to be soooo embarrasing if it got out. I’m sure as a woman with a lousy husband you’ll understand. So of course I felt I had to up and pressured her into silence. What I did was…. [[ make up your own scheming story]]”
That might just have a “subject” like “Sorry to hear you’re blue.”
Or maybe they will have subjects like “Emergency. Bribe! Use Clout. But get it doen!”
And then say,
“Huma,
Can you shuffle my schedule and fit in a hair appointment and a pedicure? My highlights are looking so drab. Remind Jannie my hair dresser there will be a BIG tip if she wedges us in!
Hills”
That is not explosive either. However, I figure they look and see
FWD: RE: Benghazi weapons, or something like that, and Comey knows he is on safe ground sending a letter.
SteveF, suppose Trump wins with a 50-50 Senate. Might they push thru a Garland nomination in the two weeks before Jan 20?
MikeN,
Some subjects might be obviously explosive. You are correct.
Luica,
LOL
I doubt even Hillary is so dumb as to explicitly incriminate herself in writing. More likely are messages that show coordination (/collusion) between the Clinton Foundation soliciting ‘donations’ and Hillary’s activities at State. Those would be the kinds of messages that Hillary would want to scrub from the record, not yoga classes and hair appointments.
SteveF,
I’m pretty sure we aren’t going to get to see all of these. Which is on the one hand good because we really do need investigations to maintain some degree of privacy. But bad because… well… aren’t we all curious? 🙂
Mike N,
With a 50/50 Senate, the VP casts the deciding vote. They would wait until January for someone more like Scalia.
.
IMO, Merrick Garland is just Elena Kagan-lite; his decisions would be guided by the same ‘living Constitution’ philosophy shared by all the Court’s liberals….. that is: twist the plain meaning of the words in the document into meaning whatever the hell you want them to… to allow laws that ought to require an amendment, and to block laws which are plainly within the limits set by the Constitution.
Lucia,
” But bad because… well… aren’t we all curious?”
.
I am sure some people are, but honestly, I am not even the slightest bit curious about the Clinton’s private activities. “Private activities” does not include selling political influence.
MikeN: “suppose Trump wins with a 50-50 Senate. Might they push thru a Garland nomination in the two weeks before Jan 20?”
.
Supreme court nominees can be filibustered. So they would have to go to the “nuclear option” and change the Senate rules.
Heh. Donna Brazile is back in the spotlight. It appears more WikiLeaked evidence has come to light showing she shared questions in advance.
.
250K people discussing this on Twitter.
Mark,
The link to the Brazile thingie is missing.
Ok.. I’d seen the megan kelly interview. Seems CNN decided to cut ties with Donna Brazile
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/10/cnn-severs-ties-with-donna-brazile-230534
Mike M,
For sure they will, as will the Democrats if they gain control of the Senate: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/tim-kaine-nuclear-option-merrick-garland
.
People understand that unlike elections, Supreme Court appointees are ‘for ever’… or a reasonable approximation. The Court rulings the Republicans want to protect (the ones Democrats want to overturn) and the rulings Republicans want to overturn (the ones Democrats want to protect) are too important politically to not change Senate rules if that becomes needed.
SteveF, it doesn’t have to be incriminating. Any classified material would itself be an issue, though maybe not explosive as that’s been done already.
For SC, isn’t Biden VP until Jan 20, presiding for 2 weeks over the new Senate? They have already done the nuclear option a few times with subcabinet appointments, lower level judges, and one other time, so they could do it again. Especially if they get Ginsburg to retire at the same time.
I’m wondering if they would fear the backlash of Supreme Court nuclear option. Also, would the entire party support it? In 2018, they have candidates in Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, Indiana and other Republican states running.
Of COURSE Brazile was helping Hillary; it would be shocking if she wasn’t. On the left, results trump everything else… honesty, legality, and even simple decency always take a back seat to political ‘progress’.
Oh. Sorry. Thanks Lucia.
650,000 that’s a lot of yoga messages. What would someone do if they were running an illegal cash for quids operation? Hide the e-mails and the bookkeeping for sure, but destroying them would only be a last resort. Taking millions then having to say to the donor that the dog ate the quid might not be a great life saver. You might want some backup systems for the business. You can’t hide it on your friend Yuma’s laptop because everyone would know to look there. It has to be somewhere unexpected, like Trump’s laptop. No, that would be jumping the shark. How about on your friend’s loser husband’s laptop? And say the Russians did it. Yeah, that’s it, that’s the movie. What shall we do for the sequel?
Ledite,
I could never see all of the e-mail’s gone forever. Hillary would have to have kept a set to use to keep control of potential loose cannons . Same idea as Nixon. They are so similar.
MikeN,
“I’m wondering if they would fear the backlash of Supreme Court nuclear option.”
.
I very much doubt it. The Democrats know control of the Senate will almost certainly pass back to the Republicans in 2018, even if the Democrats gained outright control in 2016, no matter what they do now. If Hillary wins, and they control the Senate (even 50 + VP), they will not act on Garland, because they will have a two year window to replace Scalia and Ginsburg (and if they are lucky, Kennedy) with young leftists, setting up control of the Court by ‘progressives’ for decades to come.
.
In the (unlikely) event that the Democrats gain effective control of the Senate for 20 days and Trump wins the presidential election, you can safely bet they will push through Garland between January 1 and January 20…. then hope Ginsburg can outlast a Trump presidency. With Garland and Ginsburg both on the bench, the Court would reverse gun control rulings, allow campaign finance restrictions, allow broad restrictions on free speech, and more.
SteveF: “In the (unlikely) event that the Democrats gain effective control of the Senate for 20 days and Trump wins the presidential election, you can safely bet they will push through Garland between January 1 and January 20”.
.
I don’t doubt they would like to do that, but I am not sure they could pull it off, especially if the Senate is 50-50 and they are relying on Biden for control. The timeline would be tight since they would need both hearings and a floor vote. Even with the nuclear option invoked, the Republicans will do everything possible to slow things down. If they can delay until Jan. 20, Trump gets to withdraw Merrick, put forward his own nominee, and the Democrats will have no power to stop it, having removed from themselves the power to filibuster.
.
As MikeN points out, there are a number of Democrat Senators vulnerable in 2018. The party might be willing to sacrifice them, but the individuals holding those seats might not be so cooperative about falling on their swords. To back something as blatant as what you propose would surely be political suicide in a blue state.
Winston [New Zealand] “The thing that puzzles me and anyone who lives outside of the USA (the greatest country on earth, so fuck you New Zealand, why would anyone consider living in a loser country with universal free health care) is why a lying orange buffoon would get even a single vote.”
….
The short answer is that he is running against Hillary Clinton who is 100% dishonest and 100% corrupt. You can start with the $100,000 she stole from commodity investors in the 1970s. [She claims to have turned $1,000 into $100,000 in her first try while working with an investor who needed help from then governor Bill Clinton in Arkansas. What disproves the claim of being a genius investor is that, notwithstanding her predilection for money, she never did it again. The “investor” clearly allocated the good trades to her and the bad trades to other investors — or possibly, it was a blatant bribe where the investor took the losses] Having got away with that corrupt trick, she has continued on. Hamilton Jordan, a top aide to President Carter, once called her a grifter.
….
She and Bill have taken about $125,000,000 or $150,000,000 in disguised [though technically legal] bribes for speaking engagements. She was wrong about Iraq and Syria.
….
With typical Clinton arrogance, she put her official email records on a private server — thus, selfishly placing the lives of American operatives and friends at risk from hacking only for the purpose of protecting her political goals. She destroyed 33,000 emails while under a subpoena to maintain them. (Claims it was all a mistake caused by an employee) She is so computer illiterate and incompetent that she thought that wiping a computer meant wiping it with a cloth.
….
The list with respect to Clinton could go on and on. However, the simple thing is that she is a compulsive liar and if she ever speaks the truth, it is an accident. If she is elected, the damage to even the simplest functions of the federal government is likely to be enormous because everyone knows that she is 100% dishonest and no one with any honesty or integrity could survive in her administration.
….
Comparing Trump to Clinton, my evaluation is that there is a 90% chance that Trump will be a disaster (small chance he will grow in office), and a 100% chance that Clinton will be a disaster.
JD
Mike M,
I hope you are right, but I suspect falling on “their sword” would be acceptable to many Democrats in the Senate to keep Trump from installing someone like Scalia in his place, because I suspect those vulnerable Democrats know there is a very good chance they will lose in 2018, no matter how they vote now.
SteveF,
Neither Trump nor Clinton will cause a recession. A recession is baked in the cake already. The Fed has seen to that, not to mention Dodd-Frank and other misguided regulation. But when, not if, it happens, Trump and the Republicans would be blamed if he’s President and it would stick and affect elections for several cycles.
The Democrats and the MSM will still try to blame Republicans if Clinton is President, but I doubt it would resonate with most people. They would see a lousy recovery under Obama followed by a recession under Clinton. It might even break the meme that the economy does better under Democrats.
Any Scalia-like SC nominee by Trump will be borked by the Democrats. It will make Clarence Thomas’s nomination fight look like a church picnic.
MikeM, SteveF,
Also, with respect to pushing Garland through: Some Dems will figure the election is two years off. And if Trump is president lots of distractions will happen in two years.
If Trump wins, he may end up being so totally reviled that Democrats have no trouble winning seats in 2018. Whatever happens things between Jan 2016 and Nov 2018 will have a greater impact on the Nov. 2018 race than the Garland issue will.
lucia (Comment #153858)
October 31st, 2016 at 6:25 am
Max_OK,
The ridiculous thing about that is that if Harry Reid has information Harry Reid thinks the US public should know, and it’s legal to tell the US public, then Harry Reid should divulge the information.
Comey isn’t going to reply that he can’t divulge because it’s classified. Comey isn’t going to respond at all because Harry Reid is not the boss of Comey…
______
Comey refusing to respond could be interpreted negatively for Trump similar to the way the unreviewed e-mails can be interpreted negatively for Hillary.
Those Senators might be privately hoping Trump wins, because they know if it’s Hillary they are out. McCaskill is only there because she spent money to promote Todd Akin in the primary to run against her.
JD Ohio,
I think Trump is still able to discern when he is lying. That doesn’t make him not a liar, but it holds out for the possibility that he can get better at telling the truth.
Hillary I believe is beyond human rehab. In her pathology, there is no lying nor telling the truth, there’s just what needs to come out of her mouth to achieve whatever political project is pressing.
Andrew
DeWitt,
“Any Scalia-like SC nominee by Trump will be borked by the Democrats. It will make Clarence Thomas’s nomination fight look like a church picnic.”
.
They will go to the nuclear option. I doubt the Bork and Thomas fiascos will ever happen again if Senate control is in the hands of the President’s party. Civility and “careful deliberation” are long gone from the Senate.
Reid did this four years ago, saying that Romney was paying no taxes. When asked about this lie afterwards, he said we won didn’t we.
MikeN said “That is why he [Nixon] resigned. As you point out, the crimes took place while he was president.”
The reason Nixon resigned is the minority Republicans said they would also convict on the impeachment charges (alleged crime of obstruction of justice).
In 1998, the minority Senate Democrats said (by vote) that Clinton (proven crime – perjury – committed while President) would not be convicted.
Impeachment as a tool for removing a President, for crimes committed as President, became obsolete.
Max_OK
Perhaps someone would interpret Comey refusing to respond. But I think the main way it will be interpreted is “Yawn. No story.”
Comey saying nothing will pretty much get zero coverage.
Kan,
“In 1998, the minority Senate Democrats said (by vote) that Clinton (proven crime – perjury – committed while President) would not be convicted.”.
Sure, the people elected to the Senate have changed rather dramatically since 1973; much more partisan, much less thoughtful, much, much less principled. Short of conviction for murdering someone, there were not enough votes in the Senate to throw Clinton out of office in 1998. The more interesting question is what will happen when there are enough votes, but there have been no “high crimes and misdemeanors”…. based on the current lack of political compromise in the US Senate, I suspect the outcome would be as in the recent impeachment in Brazil: minimal “proven crimes”, but a lot of political opposition…. so the president was thrown out of office. Don’t get me wrong here, she was up to her neck in corruption, it just wasn’t proven.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-comey-or-not-trump-continues-to-narrow-gap-with-clinton/
But the cubs are going to win. They are, are, are!
Anthony Weiner Sends Apology Sext To Entire Clinton Campaign
http://www.theonion.com/article/anthony-weiner-sends-apology-sext-entire-clinton-c-54560
lucia (Comment #153957)
October 31st, 2016 at 1:03 pm
Comey saying nothing will pretty much get zero coverage.
_____
It will get coverage if Reid keeps making public statements about it. I am not sure he will, but we will see.
Luica,
Anything can happen, but the Cubbies are going to face some very good pitching in a hostile ball park. I would put their chances around 1 in 5; could happen, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
SteveF,
I’ve got my hands over my ears and I’m loudly saying “la, la, la, la” to drown that sort of negative thinking out.
Hah! Anthony Weiner still can’t stop sticking it into the mix. The dude is going to realize what he’s done someday and feel great remorse. Most like he’ll suicide in prison by shooting himself in the back of the head. Twice.
[Edit: I get that that was satire, BTW. 🙂 ]
mark bofill… It is the onion….
Oh, I’ll admit to it taking 15-20 seconds to register as satire, but I got it. 😉 It’s been a long strange trip this cycle.
mark,
Add ‘ with a bolt-action rifle’ and make it five times and you have what happened to an opponent of LBJ way back when. Or at least that’s the story. I think it was just in the back, though, not the back of the head.
lucia:
Saying nothing allows others to create a narrative without your input. Zero coverage does not equate to zero impact. I think Max_OK has gotten that right.
Currently, Comey’s getting boxed in over time with respect to the Hatch Act.
There are now three former AGs criticizing him releasing any information less than 60 days before the elections:
Alberto Gonzales (Bush, 2001-2005)
Michael Mukasey (Bush, 2007-2009)
Eric Holder (Obama, 2009-2015)
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/eric-holder-op-ed-rips-comey-letter/index.html
Plus Richard Painter, Bush’s ethics lawyer has filed a complaint with the FBI.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/30/george-w-bushs-ethics-lawyer-files-complaint-fbi-director-james-comey.html
Lucia, thanks for the link.
lool, the Onion on Weiner’s apology
Also got a chuckle reading the following comment on Comey’s letter.
“I knew there was more she was hiding! Or that she’s done nothing wrong. Whichever.â€
Niles Bennings
Lucia, that used to say Trump has a BETTER chance than the Cubs. Before Game 5 of course. Now they’ve both moved up.
The entire Bush team is supporting Hillary, with the exception of the one guy who still might run for office, George P in Texas.
Jennifer Rubin was saying this would have no impact on Hillary’s campaign.
I am wondering if they would have supported Hillary over Rubio.
Hillary could have just said there’s nothing to see here, and there would not be enough time for the FBI to say otherwise.
“Even Joe Walsh — the Trump-loving, musket-grabbing, race war-baiting former congressman — thinks FBI Director James Comey is being unfair to Hillary Clinton … “
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-loving-joe-walsh-comey-clinton-probe-unfair-article-1.2852226
Who doesn’t think Comey’s action is unfair to Hillary?
Pretty clear the Bush clan doesn’t want Trump elected. Same for Obama. I doubt Alberto ‘waterboard’ Gonzales, and Eric ‘contempt-of-Congress’ Holder will have much influence with the voters. Few people know who Mekasey is… AG’s tend to be known for the really, really bad stuff they do. Which is no surprise since they are mostly political hacks who’s job is to protect the president they serve.
Unless the email search warrant was sealed, which I doubt, it’s a public record. I don’t see how the DOJ or the FBI could ignore that fact and not issue some sort of statement.
MikeN: The real question is, if they had remained neutral or supported Trump, would they still have come out against Comey’s actions?
I can’t answer that. I would hope they would have (it’d be nice to have somebody in politics that is driven by principle rather than expediency).
The Cubs just need to win two games. That’s very doable.
But I think Trump’s chances frankly are very dim.
Trump has to run the table over states he has any mathematical chance of winning in, without having ever done any of the groundwork he needed to win there.
MAX_OK: “Who doesn’t think Comey’s action is unfair to Hillary?”
People who are neither Democrats or establishment elites.
MAX,
.
If that wasn’t rhetorical, I’ll say I don’t see why progressives ought to call that unfair. It was just leveling the playing field; making sure that the privileged established political elite don’t have an unfair advantage over those less fortunate. Hillary has had years in politics to hone her coverup skills, how is Trump supposed to compete with that. It was no less than political affirmative action, I tell you! Social Jeeuustice!
MikeN,
“Hillary could have just said there’s nothing to see here, and there would not be enough time for the FBI to say otherwise.”
.
Nobody would believe her. She could have Huma hold a news conference and tell everyone how the emails got on the laptop, and what is in them. But that could turn out badly if there turns out to be classified information on the pervert’s laptop.
DeWitt: From what I can tell, normal practice here would be to hold off asking for the search warrant until after the elections.
It’s completely not normal practice to ever disclose details about open investigations under any circumstances, and borderline bizarre that it occurred here.
Given how little is actually known about the emails, I really have to interpret Comey’s actions as ass-covering rather than driven by any higher principle.
No, seriously now. It’s not like Comey sat on that material for decades or anything, unlike some. Trump was doing quite well until he got hit with the tape and the accusations. Comey’s fair enough. It’s the way the cookie crumbles in politics these days.
Steve, lots of people appear to have believed Hillary’s story lies to date. What’s one more?
The number 650,000 would make it difficult to explain though, even if it is innocent. However, she could come up with an explanation for that as well. It really wouldn’t matter what came out after the election.
mark bofill, I don’t agree.
It’s absolutely not just the way the cookie crumbles. Government officials are not supposed to tamper with election outcomes. They are even forbidden from doing so within , by the Hatch act.
I don’t think that was really Comey’s intent (just ass-covering as I said above), but it’s had the practical effect of that.
Absolutely Carrick. Media’s not supposed to leak debate questions to candidates either, or blatantly support one side over the other. Given the state of politics today, it’s fair enough in my book.
[Edit: Are we talking about what’s legal or what’s fair? Not rhetorical.]
We can likely exclude spam as an option since clintonemail.com is running a spam filtering service. It may be that they weren’t using it at the time though.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2015/03/16/breaking-news-spam-filtering-service-had-access-to-clinton-classified-emails/
lucia (Comment #153960)
October 31st, 2016 at 1:09 pm
But the cubs are going to win. They are, are, are!
_____
I sure hope so.”CUBS” no longer means
Completely Useless By September.
MikeN:
Pretty sure that folds in all emails, not just Abedin’s. That’s almost certainly 99% junk emails which Yahoo is notoriously terrible about not filtering out.
The estimate I’ve seen is somewhere around 2000 emails total.
As to “believing Clinton’s lies”, I think none of her supporters believe her lies anymore than Republicans really believe the lies from Trump.
So, you’ve gotten me thinking Carrick (first time today. 🙂 ). I’ll clarify my statement:
I don’t think ‘fair’ has much entered into this election. I am disinclined to concern myself unduly about either side calling ‘foul’, because the game has been a veritable circus of fouls up to this point.
Now true – it doesn’t make the fouls ‘fair’. But I see nothing ‘fair’ about harping on the fouls of one side and ignoring the fouls on the other. In my view, one might as well accept all the fouls and accept that as the best approximation of ‘fair’ we are going to get.
MikeN:
Again these are my impressions from reading various sources (NYP, NYT and WaPo):
I’m pretty sure these emails included those from Abedin’s yahoo account as well as Weiner’s account. At least some of these are emails cc’d or forwarded from Clinton’s private server. The number of those I’ve seen is at least 1000, probably closer to 2000. What makes them interesting, as I understand it, is Abedin cc’d or forwarded the emails to her yahoo account so she could print them. I’d presume that made them “more interesting” but probably not “really interesting” (“really interesting”= stuff you don’t want to create a paper trail of).
But likely, mostly are junk emails.
Carrick, her strong supporters no, but that 48% of the public she will get on election day will have millions of people who are believing her lies.
“Who doesn’t think Comey’s action is unfair to Hillary?”
This is pretty absurd. Political cultures thrive on “unfair”, and have since the dawn of recorded history. Politics is about getting over on opponents.
Hillary’s political goons don’t really care about “unfair” so much, either.
Andrew
Mark Bofill:
I don’t care about “fair” honestly. I’m interested in legal, constitutional, as well as behavior by public officials that protect our democratic institutions.
MikeN:
We’re expecting something like 160 millions votes, so yeah, could be in the millions, and still be just a few percentage points.
My own take is “most don’t care if they are lies” as long as they come from your own party. That’s as true for Trump and Republicans as it is for Clinton and Democrats of course.
Put another way, many are actually more interested in which candidate will address their needs more than whether the candidate is personally corrupt. (That’s actually the strongest argument there is for voting for the otherwise totally risible Donald Trump, IMO.)
Carrick,
My apologies then, we were discussing two different things. Comey’s action may indeed be illegal.
My (completely unsubstantiated) guess is that 650K unique e-mails is way too high, and that Carrick’s (completely unsubstantiated) guess/rumor/whatever-you’d-like-to-call-it [edit: of around 2000] is way too low.
.
If the phone was being backed up daily or weekly that will account for a lot of duplicates. What will be interesting to find out is if Huma had admin rights to read Hillary’s e-mail account(s) – and then on which address(es) since she had more than one on clintonemail.com, or if they were all just mails sent to her.
Carrick, if there are a 1000 e-mails that she has forwarded, then she has probably committed perjury. She definitely said they were not on that laptop. She also said she sent things rarely.
However, where are you getting the number 1000-2000? Is it just an early report?
I’ve thought Yahoo is pretty good at filtering e-mails. If I proactively unsubscribe, then I get close to no spam.
MikeN,
I get on average about one ‘Termination of Service’ phishing email/day in my Yahoo mail box. They’re usually in the Spam folder, but not always. They usually have Yahoo in the from and also the subject line. If you put the cursor on the sender, though, it gives a completely different address. These people obviously don’t care enough to properly spoof their address.
I guess it’s like spam. You can always find someone dumb enough to respond.
Could Comey get a search warrant without going through the DOJ? (real question) If not, then the onus is on the DOJ, not Comey.
Obama.
mark bofill: “Comey’s action may indeed be illegal.”
.
I don’t how it would be illegal unless it was intended to influence the vote. But Comey passed up a much better chance to influence the vote last summer.
.
It is irregular. But so is what Comey did last summer. He could have effectively preempted Hillary’s campaign by recommending indictment. He chose not to do that and instead to provide an unusual level of disclosure and let the voters decide. Once he chose that route, I don’t think he had much choice with the latest discolsure.
MikeN:
Well, not just from forwarding to her yahoo account. But I agree that perjury is a big concern here. (They may uncover other things but my guess is the main focus here is whether she perjured herself.)
She forwarded them to her yahoo account (the FBI knows this). The emails get read on a device, like this laptop. Copies of the emails get stored on that device in the process. The question is—how were they downloaded?
Mail reading software (e.g., Mac Mail, Microsoft Outlook) can be configured to automatically download all new AND stored emails from your yahoo account.
I kind of wonder if Weiner did this at some point (either to spy on her, because he’s a weasel, or just to make it more convenient to print stuff off for her that she asked him to print off, or maybe he was just trying to “help” her preserve her emails).
I also don’t remember any discussion of the Hatch Act when Lawrence Walsh filed an indictment, which was later dismissed, of former Bush Secretary of Defense, Cap Weinberger and others, on the weekend before the 1992 election. The Democrats were cheering then. Goose, gander, sauce.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/white-house-james-comey-clinton-emails/
Sorry to all: My post about Huma and who she might be working for was *pure* speculation. It seems it would relatively easy to leave a mirror of an email account laying around unsecured where outsiders could easily hack in and siphon off the data. But then the axiom about not attributing to evil what incompetence can cover probably applies more accurately. But the signs of Huma and Hillary having an inappropriately close relationship is are pretty blatant: Huma double and triple dipping for income from conflicting sources, The bizarre “mini-me” way she would dress up like Hillary, how they would travel alone together, etc. The irony that Hillary would finally get some of what dems have dished out for decades is palpably sweet: Bill was elected in small part because of the indictment (groundless and tossed out) of Defense Sec. Weinberger days before the election. Which Clinton said was a great and important thing. How Obama was immensely helped in his long shot US Senate race by court sealed divorce records of his Republican opponent being released to the public. So no mercy. I hope that the FBI takes up Hillary on her demand to explain fully what they have found and why they are investigating.
Her hubris and arrogance is amazing.
TerryMN, well here’s one source (it just takes a few minutes to search for these by the way). This lists the number a “more than 1,000”.
MikeM:
The claim I’ve seen is it doesn’t require intent to violate the Hatch Act. I agree if Comey wanted to influence the election, he could have, e.g., recommended prosecution of Clinton last summer.
The question here for me isn’t whether this is fair to Clinton, but whether this is in the best interest of our democratic institutions.
DeWitt:
That sounds suspiciously like a tu quoque argument.
@ Mark Bofill regarding the democrat talking point that Director Comey’s actions may be illegal: hahahahahahahahahaha.
Uh, no.
His refusal to refer for an indictment, knowing she had destroyed evidence subsequent to a lawful subpoena, and to permit her perjury to Congress, and his decision to grant immunity to team Clinton members the way he did, and to allow team Clinton to control the pace, direction and scope of the investigation is certainly questionable, but complying with the law to advise the Congress of significant changes in a matter of concern to Congress is not illegal.
To the democrat talking heads pushing this idea:
Good luck and thanks for playing.
Again: Team Clinton is very likely going to deeply regret demanding to be told about the scope of the new investigation. She will be able to discuss terms of her pardon with president Trump, if Obama does not cover his tail by pardoning her first.
The Guardian says Comey may be the subject of a Hatch Act violation investigation.
A former ethics lawyer in George W Bush’s White House, Richard Painter, has filed an official complaint against Comey with the Office of Special Counsel.
“In general, OSC opens a case after receiving a complaint,†said spokesman Nick Schwellenbach, who would not comment specifically on Comey.
Should the OSC find Comey to have violated the Hatch Act, the relevant law determining any potential punishment for a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee – such as Comey – places authority for that decision with the president. Should Clinton win the presidency, she may find herself in a position to determine what the law calls “appropriate action†for an FBI director who is slated to serve until 2023.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/31/james-comey-fbi-hillary-clinton-hatch-act-election
______
It appears to be in Comey’s self-interest for the e-mail investigation to turn up something significant against Hillary. Being investigated for a Hatch Act violation looks like another reason for Comey to find some dirt on Hillary. The public would be right to question whether Comey can lead an unbiased investigation of the e-mails.
Carrick
I’m waiting to see how many are spam too.
This is what I’ve been wondering. I assume either Huma or Anthony configured Outlook (or mac mail) to download for some reason of convenience and then forgot all about it. That’s what makes the most sense to me.
I actually believe she “didn’t know” in the sense of “forgot all about it” because it was done in some sort of pinch. It was convenient for a while. Then it didn’t matter… then she forgot. Anthony’s machine just keeps downloading the stuff for years and neither of them ever thinks about it.
via lucia:
I don’t think he is either, but as I mentioned above, it’s not just a question of intent. The announcement is almost certainly is having that effect on the federal elections (even if it’s mostly down-ballot where it shows up).
Certainly Comey is in a very bad spot, here. I still think he’s a decent guy who’s been shoved into the middle of a very nasty mess.
lucia (Comment #154005)
October 31st, 2016 at 2:57 pm
Who doesn’t think Comey’s action is unfair to Hillary?
Obama.
_____
Where did Obama say he didn’t think it unfair?
Max_OK,
The dirt will be there. Hillary is too greedy and arrogant. Now that team Hillary and others are clamoring for it, I think the review, thanks to good filtering software, can do a good search and seek of interesting bits. I think the bits where Obama was involved may be the hidden surprise.
My bet is that by Thursday this toothpaste will be squeezed out of the tube.
Thanks all. I wasn’t trying to say I thought Comey’s actions illegal so much as I was trying to say that I really didn’t care.
Odd how no democrats were upset when Weinberger was indicted days prior to the election of 1992.
Poor, poor Hillary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aopdD9Cu-So
Carrick,
I think they won’t “get” him on Hatch. But I’m not going to claim to be an expert on Hatch.
Yes. The announcement is having an effect on the elections. But so did his testimony in July. So do lots of government actions of various sorts.
I’m pretty sure the Hatch act doesn’t have any “if done x days before the election”. It’s just general campaigning/endorsing etc. stuff. Obviously, the can’t make just doing your job illegal. I really think they’d have trouble prosecuting someone for doing something that isn’t actually “campaigning/ endorsing etc”. (But of course I could be wrong.) The examples I’ve read fell in the class. They weren’t “doing your job, but having the actions happen to affect the election.”
I get that Reno didn’t indict due to “policy”. But that’s not the same as “because of Hatch”.
lucia:
I think you are right—I think it’s DOJ policy and federal ethics rules which place time limits. The number I saw on CNN was 60-days, but I haven’t ferreted out where that number comes from.
I think that question does speak to the question of how significant a possible violation of the Hatch might be though:
If you are ignoring written policy from your department, which was crafted in part to keep you in compliance with a federal statute, violating that policy does signal indifference, at best, with respect to your statutory obligations. At the least you are legally exposing yourself by ignoring policy and other departmental guidance here.
Yep. I think it’s almost certain that Comey broke DOJ policy by sending his letter to Congress. From what I understand the about Hatch Act, the penalties from that are entirely civil in nature and are imposed by the president, so it may be a question of splitting hairs as to whether Comey just broke DOJ policies versus whether he violated the Hatch Act:
Comey could face repercussions for violating DOJ policies without requiring a finding of violating the Hatch Act.
hunter:
I think it’s okay to be bothered by both. I’d like to think we get slowly better with self-governance over time. Dredging up the mistakes of the past as an excuse for repeating them is pretty reprehensible behavior to me.
Carrick
A department policy can’t turn something that is not a statutory obligation into one. It’s entirely possible for policy to be stricter than statutory obligations. And if it is so and you know and understand the statute violating the department policy doesn’t show indifference to any actual statutory obligation.
Yes. But depending, the departmental policy might not have any force of law. It’s also not clear what the penalty might be– get fired? not get promoted?
Well… one is a statute. The other isn’t. I suspect the level of legal trouble might differ.
hunter (Comment #154017)
October 31st, 2016 at 3:15 pm
Max_OK,
The dirt will be there.
______
But if its old dirt, previously discovered dirt, what voters already know, it just looks like an attempt to remind them on the eve of the election and try to influence the vote.
Hunter: “because of the indictment (groundless and tossed out) of Defense Sec. Weinberger days before the election”
.
Weinberger was already under indictment several months before the last minute charge was added. The indictments were hardly groundless. One was tossed because the statute of limitations expired; he was never tried on the others because Bush preemptively pardoned him.
I read the act. It’s primarily designed to keep political appointees from using their federal office to advance the administration’s political objectives. If people claim Comey should be prosecuted under the Hatch act, then they need to show that Comey is motivated by a desire to advance Trump’s candidacy. It’s a stretch.
MikeN,
I think you alerted me to the protection that a president enjoys from indictment. It looks to me that the president-elect may not enjoy that protection and could be indicted all the way up to the inauguration.
Or am I wrong about this too?
I can hear it now:
Clinton: I have no idea why “those” emails were deleted, I would never have deleted them. You need to ask my lawyers why they did it.
I find it very strange they would let all those emails sit around on a laptop given the publicity. Those things are toxic. Maybe Weiner was holding them for leverage.
I’ve got another off-the-wall idea. NSA has everyone’s emails but doesn’t want it known – for obvious reasons. So they give the ‘pertinent’ trove to the FBI who with professional courtesy devise a ‘laundry’ to enable them to acquire them from a plausible source.
Who knows, maybe they even entrapped or Weiner, who could be counted to put his foot in it – so to speak.
If there are any classified e-mails on the Wiener laptop, then Wiener is a strong candidate for prison.
However, that would raise the sticky problem of why him and not Huma?
I cannot wait to hear (if the classified material is there and 650,000 there will be) how this puzzler gets resolved.
Tom Scharf,
“Clinton: I have no idea why “those†emails were deleted, I would never have deleted them.”
.
Of course. And if it means Huma and other ‘close advisers’ go down, that’s the price for the Clintons being in power. They are so profoundly corrupt that it beggars belief.
Lucia: “the departmental policy might not have any force of law. It’s also not clear what the penalty might be– get fired? not get promoted?”
If it is departmental policy only, it is not a law, and is merely a guideline. Within the department, you violate it at potentially the risk of your job. That is about it. If it is a policy, it can be changed at any time.
….
Also, interestingly, Obama said he had no problems with Comey’s integrity or actions per se. Can’t figure that out at all. Could potentially be viewed as throwing Clinton under the bus.
JD
JD Ohio: “Obama said he had no problems with Comey’s integrity or actions per se. Can’t figure that out at all.”
One theory is that Obama figures Comey is less dangerous than a special prosecutor. The others (like Lynch) are too compromised so if Comey is out, there would have to be a special prosecutor.
Report says Trump organization’s server used to communicate with Russia.
https://twitter.com/rebeccagberg?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
I think it was a Russian bank, but am not sure.
Funny back and forth between Mark Cuban and Giuliani. Giuliani pointed out that Clinton claimed not to know what “c” meant (confidential) and said she thought it was alphabetical. She also claimed not to remember her CIA briefing coming in and debriefing going out. Somewhat sad to see Cuban making excuses for Clinton.
See http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/19/rudy-giuliani-mark-cuban-hillary-clinton-emails-erin.cnn
JD
From CNBC
FBI Director James Comey argued privately that it was too close to Election Day for the United States government to name Russia as meddling in the U.S. election and ultimately ensured that the FBI’s name was not on the document that the U.S. government put out, a former bureau official tells CNBC.
The official said some government insiders are perplexed as to why Comey would have election timing concerns with the Russian disclosure but not with the Huma Abedin email discovery disclosure he made Friday.
n the end, the Department of Homeland Security and The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued the statement on Oct. 7, saying: “The U.S. intelligence community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations. … These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.”
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/31/fbis-comey-opposed-naming-russians-citing-election-timing-source.html
________
Was this what Reid was criticizing Comey about?
Re: JD Ohio (Comment #154036)
This is a distinction that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. For example, the State Department has “guidelines” concerning private email accounts, but a lot of people have been talking about Hillary Clinton’s apparent failure to comply with department guidelines as if they are automatically illegal acts.
Max_OK,
Yeah. I’m waiting for non-partisan computer types to translate that connection.
Meanwhile, as everyone is consumed by the emails, the polls seem to be changing substantially. The ABC poll, which showed Clinton ahead by about 10 points a week ago now shows Clinton only up by 1. I have read that it may have over sampled Democrat supporters previously and that the change isn’t that big. Either way, it shows the pollsters trying to help Clinton last week or that the race is close.
Here is what Pat Caddell, Jimmy Carter’s pollster stated about 2 months ago:
….
“Pat Caddell said the Reuters news service was guilty of an unprecedented act of professional malpractice after it announced Friday it has dropped the “Neither†option from their presidential campaign tracking polls and then went back and reconfigured previously released polls to present different results with a reinterpretation of the “Neither†responses in those polls.
“This comes as close as I have ever seen to cooking the results,†said the legendary pollster and political consultant. “I suppose you can get away with it in polling because there are no laws. But, if this was accounting, they would put them in jail.â€
JD
oliver: “people have been talking about Hillary Clinton’s apparent failure to comply with department guidelines as if they are automatically illegal acts.”
The illegal acts are the failure to secure classified material. That is not just a matter of the “guidelines” that Clinton completely ignored.
I am pretty sure that part of the purpose of the guidelines is to help people avoid breaking the law. If you end up breaking the law because you ignored the guidelines, you have no one but yourself to blame.
Oliver: “the State Department has “guidelines†concerning private email accounts, but a lot of people have been talking about Hillary Clinton’s apparent failure to comply with department guidelines as if they are automatically illegal acts.”
….
They aren’t automatically illegal. However, treating State Department communications as one’s own private property is extremely poor judgment and probably violates 18 USC Sec. 793 (f), which states:
“Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
….
This is very different than a policy. Notwithstanding that Comey didn’t make the recommendation to prosecute, which was his single decision, to me the statute does appear to be clearly violated. In any event, my main concern is the lack of judgment in putting official communications on a private server and in exposing Americans and American supporters to death and bodily harm by failing to protect national security interests. Whether she should be prosecuted is a minor secondary issue to me.
JD
Max_OK
BTW, when I say I’m waiting for non-partisan peeps to talk about the Trump-Rooosia DNS connection, I’m watching this guys tweets
https://twitter.com/ErrataRob
I’m hoping he sorts out and translates what it all means. He’s a geeky security sort who does speak non-geek English and hes voting Gary Johnson. So not biased toward Hillary or Trump.
I admit straight out that when people start talking about looking at connections machines make, I do not know the full range of what those connections could mean.
Re: Mike M. (Comment #154045)
Let me be clear here. I said that many people have lost sight of the distinction and have been speaking about “not following guidelines” and “not following laws” as if they are the same thing, even though they are not.
You are evidently not one of these people, so kudos to you.
The New York Times has an article on the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia connection
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html
“U.S. Officials Doubt Donald Trump Has Direct Link to Russia”
It’s mostly in that vein. It discusses Harry Reids demans for the FBI to divulge the existence of the investigation and so on. The main result seems to be “We’ve found bubkiss to connect Rooosia to Trump”. (There is some discussion of a former staffer.)
Oliver,
OK. I misunderstood you.
Another Halloween without the Great Pumpkin making an appearance. Sure thought I had the most sincere pumpkin patch this year…
Oh well.
Happy Halloween all.
Re: JD Ohio (Comment #154046)
I have to ask for clarification on this point. By “treating … as one’s own private property,” do you mean by keeping emails on a private server or something else? If just that, then it probably would not be a violation of the McCarran Act.
Again, I’d have to ask for clarification on how this determination was made.
Clearly, putting American lives at unnecessary risk is a huge no-no.
However, sticking with specifics, official communications and classified information are not synonymous, so we probably need to understand just how sensitive was the information that was “mishandled.†(It’s unlikely we will ever learn what was actually in those emails; this is problematic for us, the public, if we want to understand what actually transpired.)
Also, as is pretty widely known, there is significant precedent, e.g., previous Secretaries of State, for using private email accounts. Would you equally question all of their judgment as well?
SteveF, Republican Supreme Court appointees have not been reliably conservative as witnessed by Warren, Brennan, Blackmun, Burger, Souter and swing voters O’Connor and Kennedy. On the other hand, we have had reliably liberal appointees by Democrats since Kennedy made his first appointment in White who was not very liberal. Even conservative Roberts pulled Obama Care out of the fire.
The influence of the court will be significantly reduced if Congress refrains from increasing governments reach.
lucia (Comment #154048)
October 31st, 2016 at 7:15 pm
Max_OK
BTW, when I say I’m waiting for non-partisan peeps to talk about the Trump-Rooosia DNS connection, I’m watching this guys tweets
https://twitter.com/ErrataRob
____
I doubt anything negative about Trump will be found in the DNS connection.
Thanks for the link.
Oliver: “as is pretty widely known, there is significant precedent, e.g., previous Secretaries of State, for using private email accounts.”
The precedent is for very limited use of private accounts, I think only for communications going outside of State. There is no precedent for anything remotely like what Clinton did.
Max_OK
Max you’ve pared done the concern to “Russian disclosure”, but your (Reid’s) previous issue was supposedly Trum:
Now you write it this way:
Previously like this
In fact, the most recent NYT story says there is an issue with Russian but there is no connection to Trump (though they’ve looked).
SteveF and Lucia as a Cubs fan and seeing the post on the Cubs chances in Cleveland, I have to tell you that I was disappointed by the Cubs 4 and out against the Mets in the playoffs last year but not surprised since I saw a season long weakness of the young Cubs hitters swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. This problem will always be more apparent against better pitching as is seen in the playoffs and World Series. In the 2016 regular season I saw a major improvement in the young Cubs hitters laying off breaking pitches out of the strike zone and waiting for fast balls to hit. In the World Series I have seen a reversion to the old bad habits and the consequences. To anyone who has played the game at a higher level the problem is obvious and not all that difficult to improve. Even a poorer hitter knows when a pitch is breaking just from picking up the spin on the ball. Anyway my frustration reached its peak last night when I was summarily kicked out of my bedroom by the wife for yelling at the Cubs hitters on the TV.
Lucia, as an experienced instructor of young people I am curious how you would handle these young hitters. I know yelling is not the answer for the hitters but is most cathartic for me.
That there is no connection found to Trump is now all over twitter with links to stories in all sorts of venues –New York times link above. This hill below–
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/303705-us-officials-see-no-link-between-trump-and-russia-report
This can’t be what Reid was hoping for when he pressed on this.
Ken,
They can’t hear you through the tv. Yell away.
The tv shouldn’t be in the bedroom. It should be in a room where you are allowed to yell at it.
I remember during the Cold War that the hard right tended to blame many of our problems on the damn Communists – as in in the Soviet Union. Lately with the emails I hear more liberals railing against the damn Russians and all the problems they are causing us.
James Comey seems to fit this switch in a search for fall guys and in his case it happened overnight.
Re: Mike M. (Comment #154056)
My understanding is that Colin Powell used a private email account for general communication; he claimed that e-mails to his staff were generally sent to their .gov emails. If there is other information about this then I’d be interested in reading it.
There are two main issues with using private email accounts. The first is the one that has gotten the most public attention, which is the possible lack of security. However, the second one may have been more of a motivation for Powell, and later Clinton: that is, .gov emails are easily exposed to Federal record keeping requirements, investigations down the road, and the like.
lucia (Comment #154060)
Yeah, my wife tells me that all the time. I usually wonder around the house watching more than one TV and we just happened to both have the Cubs game on. I was in the process of telling and showing her the hitting problem when I lost it and started yelling at the TV. Again not exactly a teaching moment in my life except perhaps to reconfirm for the wife that she married a slightly crazy guy.
At my wife’s and my age bedrooms are for sleeping and watching TV.
oliver (Comment #154062)
Did Colin Powell set up a private server in his home? I do not think he did. Why do you think Hillary did? Also what Powell did or did not do would have nothing to do with the legality of what Clinton did.
Oliver,
Yes. But it’s worth knowing regulations evolved and the scale of use wsa different.
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/a-guide-to-clintons-emails/
Let’s look at when Powell used private email:
I don’t know when in 2005 the department policy was changed, but Powell used personal email for government business only prior to Jan 26, 2005 which is the very beginning of 2005. So it’s entirely possible that his use does not appear to have violated any policy in existence at the time. In contrast Hillary’s did violate policies in existence at the time she used her homebrew server.
Hillary Clinton’s use also vaults using a private account for government business to a higher level– what with not only using a private account, but one on her own server and creating accounts for others on her own server. Whether that’s better or worse can be debated, but the scale is larger and it’s certainly different.
That alone doesn’t seem to be illegal but what Powell did is not in the same category of behavior.
Re: Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #154064)
Is it relevant whether Colin Powell used a private server or gmail? If both are morally and legally equivalent, then I would tell you that there are fairly obvious reasons why a private server might be seen as preferable.
Also, I brought up Powell in relation to the question about judgment, not as a test for legality.
Oliver,
I think Powell was the first Secretary of State to use email. It was early days for that and, as Lucia points out, policies were not yet well established. He only used the personal account for limited purposes while also using the State system for almost all official business, in keeping with the guidelines that Hillary ignored.
.
“What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient.) So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers,†Powell wrote. “I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.â€
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/colin-powell-defends-personal-email-set-up-while-secretary-of-state/
.
Powell used good judgement, unlike Hillary.
Oliver: “I have to ask for clarification on this point. By “treating … as one’s own private property,†do you mean by keeping emails on a private server.” Yes, this was just my shorthand summary of what she did and was not meant as statutory interpretation — the statute itself seems very clear, with the only wiggle room being the term “gross negligence.”
….
Oliver: “so we probably need to understand just how sensitive was the information that was “mishandled.†Some very highly classified information was found on her server. For instance, “seven email chains contained “top secret†information and would not be released.” See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/04/how-did-top-secret-emails-end-up-on-hillary-clintons-server/ The confusion that has arisen (partly engendered by Clinton’s deceptions) is that highly classified information can be sent without being marked as such. For instance, if the President were to order a surprise military attack on a country, he may not take the time to mark it classified, but everyone would know that would be the case.
JD
Re: lucia (Comment #154065)
Some of what you are pointing out comes back to the distinction between departmental policy and law. Was it against departmental policy? It seems yes. But was it against the law?
Secondly, is it really such a step up in scale or level to have a private email server instead of using Yahoo or Gmail? It isn’t such a crazy thing for someone running a pretty standard linux machine. Now I am not saying that Hillary Clinton is a linux nerd who sets up her own server for fun, but it’s certainly not that surprising since she can pay said linux nerd to do the same. Given that you have your own server for whatever reasons (including ones that I mentioned in my previous post), doesn’t it logically follow to offer your confidantes accounts on the same server, for the very same reasons?
Also, please don’t take what I have been saying here as rooted in some need to defend Hillary Clinton. What I’m interested in here is the logic of the whole deal (and the reaction to it).
oliver,
There is a difference. If the government wants to get email from gmail, they can serve gmail a warrant without showing it to the target (Hillary or Powell.) They can order gmail to not destroy and gmail has no reason to decide what to “sift”.
A private server under Hillary’s control meant Hillary could decide to go through her own email, judge for herself what the didn’t need and then only send what she wanted. And that’s precisely what she did. Had her email been on gmail.com, Google, not the person being investigated, would be the one sending on the email.
So, there are legal-procedural issues that have to do with who gets served warrants, who decides what to delete after emails are demanded and so on. (I think procedural stuff is still a “legal” issue. Just not necessarily a criminal one.)
Oliver,
Hillary placed sensitive government documents at risk. That is against the law, as I explained previously (Comment #154049) and you pretended to agree with.
Re: Colin Powell. It mostly doesn’t matter what Powell did because he isn’t running for President. Obviously, Clinton’s judgment in this matter was horrendous. If Powell were running for President it would be fair game, although he disputes that any classified information was in his personal email. Additionally, we are only dealing with 2 messages sent to Powell’s account. See http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rice-aides-powell-also-got-classified-info-personal-emails-n511181
JD
Re: JD Ohio (Comment #154068)
Okay, just making sure.
Yes, that was the determination of the investigators. Keep in mind, however, that different agencies determine their own classifications, so the fact that the investigators found information that they would mark “Top Secret” doesn’t tell us a whole lot. (Again, it’s unfortunate in one sense that we can’t know enough about the information to make our own judgments, but then again it’s fortunate too!)
Information that is classified could come from a properly marked source, in which case someone should have been fully aware of its classification and kept it on a classified system. However, some such information might be improperly marked, which seems to be the case for at least some of the documents found on the Clinton server. In this case, a person could quite easily use or forward the information unknowingly.
A third possibility is the the information has not been classified at all by a particular agency, in which case it may come down to the persons who have the authority to designate classifications for that agency. Then there is a question of whether the authority (or persons seeing the material) should know that the material should be classified (or is improperly classified). However, this does not resolve a potential disagreement between agencies, i.e., one agency may think the material is not worthy of a particular classification, while another may feel it should be guarded with peoples lives!
I think it’s a terrible example. Hopefully orders to launch surprise attacks are handled over secure channels, without question, for obvious reasons,
Oliver
Merely using private email for some government business was not illegal then and appears not to be now. But for Powell, it was also not against policy; for Clinton it was.
Just setting up the server is not the legal issue.
Of course setting up your own private email servers is a step up in scale. Even if you think it’s not “crazy” to run a pretty standard linux machine it’s still a different scale from using a browser to open an email on Gmail.com– which my mother has done. I assure you my mom cannot run a linux machine.
Also: Hillary also was supporting email for others people (which is how her server was found.) That’s a different scale from getting an email from gmail. And even hiring the linux nerd to run your machine, vetting him to know whether he is familiar with security and so on is a different scale from visiting “gmail.com” and creating an email.
You seem to be conflating what you think is a natural next step or whether a step is “crazy” with whether or not the next step is a different scale. Whether or not it was ‘natural’ to give other people accounts on her server, it’s still a different scale to be their server provider and control the machine on which their messages get housed rather than just taking out an email on gmail.
Whether the difference in scale has a legal effect is a different question. But it is a different scale of behavior.
I’m not sure I know which arguments you are trying to identify the logic behind.
I think Hillary:
1) violated department policy by doing public business on her private email account.
2) I think she further violated by encouraging or facilitating others to do public business on her private email.
3) I think she put national security at risk because I sincerely doubt her staff were sufficiently responsible about security.
4) I think put herself in a position to oversee which emails she deemed public and which private and then she actually took advantage of that. (she deleted ~30,000 emails) That’s probably violating more than just policy.
5) I think she stored classified email on her private server. That’s violating statutes.
6) I think she lied copiously during the investigation into the nature and practices of her servers. (Edit– and if not lied, dissembled or evaded.)
My judgement is she is not fit to be president and I’m not voting for her.
As it happens, I’m also not voting for Comey for president. But that’s not something I’m going to be discussing much because he isn’t running.
Re: Mike M. (Comment #154071)
Sending email, even encrypted, places documents at some finite risk. Important questions are what are the permissible and legal thresholds for this risk.
Can we please stick with “discussion” and leave out the personal insinuations?
lucia (Comment #154057)
October 31st, 2016 at 8:21 pm
“In fact, the most recent NYT story says there is an issue with Russian but there is no connection to Trump (though they’ve looked).”
______
Lucia, the NYT story didn’t say “no connection.” It said none found so far.
“Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government.”
I don’t know whether “so far†means still looking or not.
Lucia, you said Max you’ve pared done the concern to “Russian disclosureâ€.
I’m not sure what you mean, but I get the impression you think if I quote a statement I believe whatever it says or suggests is true.
I frequently quote what I would like to be true, but hopefully I don’t confuse wishes with reality.
Oliver: “Yes, that was the determination of the investigators. Keep in mind, however, that different agencies determine their own classifications, so the fact that the investigators found information that they would mark “Top Secret†doesn’t tell us a whole lot.”
….I disagree with your ultimate conclusion that we don’t know whether classified information was on her server. She was Secretary of State. Some of her email had to be classified. We can nitpick over which ones, but to be a Secretary of State you have to deal in classified information. The investigator’s conclusions merely confirm that nothing weird in terms of security was going on with respect to her communications — to some extent she was dealing with classified information on her server. Additionally, 3 emails had the marking “c”, which refers to confidential. Clinton claimed to not understand what the “c” was.
JD
Carrick,
650,000 is more than 1,000 too – before you start invoking the “why-don’t-you-search-a-few-minutes” shtick, perhaps you can substantiate your 2,000 figure more closely than that. Who, besides you, ever guessed 2,000?
Re: lucia (Comment #154074)
Okay, I believe you. But given that a competent person can enable a mail server with only a few lines of effort, is this really a significant step up in scale?
And more important: is it really true that a private server is less secure than gmail? We know by construction that at least one private company has access to your gmail.
It is a different scale, but is it a significant step? See the above.
As I asked before, is it really such a step up, as in, a significant difference?
That would be one measure of whether a difference in scale is significant.
That’s certainly your right, and I have never questioned your right to vote as you see fit.
The logic I have been trying to identify is: what are claimed as the actual legal and moral violations associated with HRC’s emails, what has been the actual information behind those determinations, and are there consistent (and hence generally applicable) criteria for those determination?
I didn’t even bring that up.
Re: JD Ohio (Comment #154077)
This should be irrelevant. If classified information is being handled properly, there can be NO email on an unclassified server that is classified
Comey’s testimony indicated that 3 documents that were improperly marked contained (C) in the body, indicating Confidential (the lowest level of) classified information. Again we don’t know what improperly marked means, but properly marked means big colored CONFIDENTIAL markings all over the place. By contrast, a (C) in the middle of a document that is assumed unclassified could plausibly be interpreted as something else. I don’t expect you to buy that explanation, but it is what it is. Again, we have relatively limited information as to what actually happened, so it’s hard to tell who (directly) screwed up here, but TBH I’d like to know.
oliver,
Moral issues aside, there were several (I’m being kind here) e-mails that were classified (confidential, secret, top secret, and TS CI) found on her server. That’s illegal. There were also federal records, in the form of e-mail, that were deleted and so not preserved/turned over when she left the State Department. That is also illegal. That has been proven by the initial investigation. What else do you need?
Oliver
Yes. It’s a significant step up in scale. By competent person, you mean a person with special training. You may not think of it as special training, but many, many, many people cannot enable a mail server. They don’t know how to run a server. They know what lines to write. And this is a difference is scale.
I didn’t say it was. Some private servers could be more secure; some less secure.
Yes. Which creates a legal/procedural difference. That difference means the feds can send a warrant to gmail without you knowing about it. That difference would have prevented Hillary from being able to sift all her email before it was handed over to the investigation.
This doesn’t mean the info was more secure. It means that Hillary wasn’t a complete bottleneck who could impede investigations.
Both. Setting up your own server, hiring people and so on is a “significant step” beyond firing up a browser, picking an email name and opening an account on gmail.
Yes. It is significantly different.
The secretary of state storing sensitive material in non-secure locations is a moral problem. She had an obligation to hold that secure. She also has an obligation to know what sorts of things are sensitive even if they are not marked. This is both a legal and moral obligation.
The secretary of state taking it upon herself to be the sole arbiter of which of her emails are “public” and which “private” is a moral failing. She not only set herself up to do this, she ended up being her own judge and jury about which emails to hand over when they were requested.
But with respect to my judgement of her: I mostly am not worried about the “morals” or “ethics”. I merely think the way she handles stuff is a huge threat to national security. It is a huge threat the the rule of law– because she has shown herself more than willing to set herself outside normal boundaries, evading rules one would expect a secretary of state to comply with. And for that reason I think she is not fit to be president and especially not commander in chief.
No. But you hadn’t clarified which judgements about Hilary you were criticizing. And you’d brought up the idea that Powell did the same things. (He didn’t do the same things. But if he had my judgement would be he should be president– but he’s not running. So, not a big concern.)
So I wanted to clarify what my judgements were. I look at her setting up of the server, her responses when her emails were requested and so on through the lens of whether or not she is fit to be president. She’s not. If elected she’ll be a disaster.
(Trump isn’t either. I’m not voting for him either. If elected he’ll be a disaster also.)
Re: TerryMN (Comment #154081)
So here’s a question for you: Do you know/possess/store any information that has ever been deemed classified that you have not explicitly been given access to?
If you answered no, how would you know that?
The Federal Records Act requires “records” to be archived. Trivial everyday-type emails are exempted. If one determines differently that something is not a “record” vs. something that needs to be preserved, then is disagreement a prosecutable offense?
Oliver: “This should be irrelevant. If classified information is being handled properly, there can be NO email on an unclassified server that is classified”
….You have unwittingly hit on the problem. People make mistakes in their handling of information. It is the job of Clinton to minimize the expected mistakes. Instead, she increased the risk of security leaks by having her own server. Also, please listen to the Giuliani video that I linked above. The three “c”s were marked in a normal manner, and Clinton (although she claims not to remember the CIA briefings) was informed of how they were marked.
Also, the lack of markings on any document or email, if it is in fact classified, do not excuse the failure to handle it properly. For instance, “In all cases, it is the sensitivity of the information that determines classification. An unmarked, handwritten page can just as easily contain classified national security information as a document containing classification markings.” See https://www.archives.gov/isoo/faqs/identifying-handling-classified-records.html [Clinton tried to deflect from her responsibility for properly handling classified material by improperly disclaiming responsibility if it wasn’t marked as such.]
Unless you go in a markedly different direction, I have little to say about the most recent points you have made. They seem to be attempts to deflect from the obvious problems that Clinton caused. 1. She had no business setting up her private server and putting others at risk solely for her own personal advantage; 2. There was classified material on her server, no matter how much anyone might want to nitpick about individual emails. Seriously, could we have a functioning government if high officials could treat government records as their own and then choose to delete records without following standardized procedures.
JD
Oliver
I don’t think this is entirely true.
You mean no material that has already been marked classified should be on the unclassified server.
The secretary of state should know that some things she seems may be marked classified later. (Even people at much lower levels should be aware of this.)
As such, many documents she would deal with as secretary of state should not reside indefinitely on her unclassified server. Whether she violated a statue or not in doing so, this is such a gross level of carelessness that she should not be considered responsible with state security.
Hi Kenneth,
my wife and I were both yelling at a couple of the Cubs, swinging at low outside balls where in one case the tip of the bat didn’t reach the path of the ball.
Was it in Moneyball that it was suggested that it was good to have batters who got walked from time to time, they could recognize a ball when they saw one. AND they got on base.
Do you have an opinion on Madden? he seems very remote from the players. Teamwork also seems a little weak – too many contests on who is going to catch the fly. We don’t usually watch baseball during the season but will go to games in DC or Baltimore with son and d in l. We do watch play-offs ans Series unless we don’t like either team. I have to assume Cubs played better ball to get where they are now, but this is another thing I don’t know all that much about.
oliver,
I was an Army officer, and then via a job after I got out held a TS CI clearance because I was doing a lot of work for the DoD. I’ve had enough briefings to know that other than things stored in my brain, it is illegal for me to possess classified information, lest I be brought up on charges. If you include my brain, yeah, I “know/possess/store” classified info. If you exclude that but just consider any of my computers or paper files… No. Effing. Way. I had access to everything I learned, so not sure what your last part is about.
TerryMN (Comment #154087)
Shrug. So you’ve never read anything in a book or on the Internet that is technically classified, and you know that for a fact. That’s good.
Wikipedia regarding Clinton’s sever
“After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question contained classified information, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated an investigation regarding the origin and handling of classified emails on Clinton’s server. The FBI Report found that some of the emails originated in five other intelligence agencies. The FBI found that all classified emails on Clinton’s server were drafted on “unclassified systems,†meaning that they were stored and sent from unclassified servers, violating the same policies as those on Clinton’s personal server.”
_______
WHAT ! Five intelligence agencies broke the law with their servers. If that’s true, we need to know all those responsible, which could run into scores.
Oh, never mind, it says polices, not law.
Is Wikipedia correct on this?
On the recent “trump server connected to Rooosia ting on the internet”….
Debunking Trump’s “secret server”
http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/11/debunking-trumps-secret-server.html#.WBgYttwvr0N
JD Ohio (Comment #154084)
I said something right but it was unwitting? Thanks, I guess… 😉
Does that contradict anything I said earlier?
Max_OK,
I wouldn’t be surprised if wikipedia is right.
People with clearances working on “stuff” often try to write things that are not classified. But not everything goes by the derivative classifier or classifier to be inspected instantly. If the materials at least stays “inside” the government, read by only by others with clearances it ends up not so bad. Documents that are intended to be distributed then get reviewed by a classifier or derivative classifier before going out.
Now- mind you– the information was actually classified before the classifier noted it classified. And the person writing the document might not have known, or might have screwed up. And they may have screwed up in other ways. But it was only marked classified when it got reviewed.
But obviously, if people can screw up, they can do so on an unclassified server. And so material might have initially been created on unclassified servers.
But sending it out and storing on a private server makes the problem worse because it’s “on the outside”. That’s why a Secretary of State should know better than to create her own private server or systematically do government work on her own private server. (She shouldn’t do it on gmail or yahoo either.)
oliver,
Apples and oranges. I don’t possess or store any classified info. On, say – an e-mail server I set up, or my iPad, or my laptop, or my cell phone, or any of my Linux servers, or my Hadoop cluster, or in a file cabinet, or on photographs, or anywhere else on paper or digitally.
.
That is the bar, from what I’ve always been told. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, other than trying to spin things to make Hillary’s offenses look less illegal or just muddy the waters. It really is not a complicated issue if you replace “Hillary” with “Sergeant Jane Doe” and run the same analysis on the same facts.
Kenneth
No specific opinion. I just want the cubs to win. 🙂
Does anyone know, was Hillary’s email encrypted while on stored on her server?
I mean…. some people are required to encrypt their laptops. . .
TerryMN (Comment #154093)
You didn’t really answer my original question.
How do you know that NONE of your emails or books or whatever contain classified information that you are not supposed to know? That answer is that you don’t, other than by relying on markings, or comprehending this information and realizing, “this is probably not supposed to be out there.” So any improper, or lack of, markings are a real potential problem.
lucia (Comment #154095)
My understanding is no, it was not encrypted at all.
As I said in the other thread, the guideline is now to encrypt laptops, but I don’t know when that became a standard policy.
Funny John Kerry comments on the Presidential Race:
He said the candidates were making it difficult for him to carry out his foreign policy work for Barack Obama’s government.
Mr Kerry said: “When you sit down with some foreign minister in another country, or with the president or prime minister of another country, and you say, ‘Hey, we really want you to move more authoritatively towards democracy’, they look at you. They’re polite, but you can see the question in their head and in their eyes. And in their expressions. It’s hard.
“Or you run in and you say, ‘By the way, it’s really important you guys get your budget passed’, and I can see the quizzical look at us. So this is a difficult moment. http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/727309/john-kerry-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-embarrassing-humiliating
JD
Re: lucia (Comment #154082)
There is a difference in scale, but I am still unconvinced as to how significant it is.
The “special training†here could be as simple as Googling for “how to enable mail server†and following the directions. Now clearly the person hired to do it here was beyond that.
Nevertheless, it is an important question if the major problem with the private email server is exposure/lack of security.
There is a material difference here, which is that using a commercial email server would expose FOUO information to a private company.
Meanwhile, the obvious motivations include avoiding federal scrutiny, which I think we are all in agreement is a Bad motive (C. Powell included).
Absolutely.
Federal employees are told that “records†need to be forwarded/handed over/archived and everyday garbage can be deleted at some point. There is usually no arbiter except the employee on which is which. Before we get too deep into disagreement on this point, let me say plainly that it’s obvious for so many reasons that the right course of action would have been to err on the side of transparency.
I bought up the idea as a question about how consistently the criteria would be applied.
The thing is, we are likely going to end up with one or the other, so is seems that we are left with no choice but to weigh which alternative is likely to be less disastrous.
Oliver,
I was only a lowly Captain, and then an even lowlier (is that a word?) civilian contractor, but yes, I can tell with about 95% certainty what is classified and could generally guess the level without the markings.
.
I’d expect the Secretary of State to be around 99%, so her excuse about “I was relying on everyone else” is, to me, complete bullshit. You’re also still dodging the part about her storing it all on her own server. If you think that she mistook thousands of classified docs for unclassified, I suppose it helps you to trust in her integrity, but it doesn’t do much for trust in her competency.
There is no basis on which the Hatch Act is involved here, but rather was brought up by Harry Reid in an attempt to change the subject or worst as a strong arm tactic. I believe he was accusing the Republicans of these same tactics not so long ago when Comey was on his side. This is partisan rhetoric on both sides and unfortunately how the system works.
Re: TerryMN (Comment #154100)
What about the other 5%?
Honest question: Did you actually read every single email you received unclass and determine the “true” classification level it should have had before forwarding it?
Not at all. I have been talking about the relative reasons for her using own server vs. outside company (vs. .gov) email throughout, and I’m open to any analysis explaining the actual amount of risk incurred by using the private server. Again, let me be clear here: I am not excusing Hillary Clinton for using a private email server, what I am asking is what is the actual risk.
lucia (Comment #154092)
October 31st, 2016 at 10:37 pm
But sending it out and storing on a private server makes the problem worse because it’s “on the outsideâ€. That’s why a Secretary of State should know better than to create her own private server or systematically do government work on her own private server.
______
Lucia, it should make the problem worse, but I’m not sure In Hillary’s case it actually did.
The NYT in a July story said opinions differed on whether Hillary’s server had ever been hacked, but she would have been hacked had she followed the rules and held an account in the State Department’s official system.
“Mrs. Clinton’s best defense, and one she cannot utter in public, is that whatever the risks of keeping her own email server, that server was certainly no more vulnerable than the State Department’s. Had she held an unclassified account in the State Department’s official system, as the rules required, she certainly would have been hacked.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/us/hillary-clintons-email-was-probably-hacked-experts-say.html
Oliver, I don’t know that the risk can be quantified. I’m sure they didn’t hire idiots for their IT work so I think the whole “unsecured” angle of this is overblown.
.
The point is that there are laws in place that make the practice illegal, regardless of how secure the private server is, to receive/store/send classified information on one.
Madden knows baseball and he is a players manager. The Cubs have a very young team and Madden has not been afraid to use young players. How do you turn hitters around in a short period of time and particularly young ones? We shall see.
I love that defense that Hillary knew that her private server was more secure but that she cannot state that as a defense for apparently fear that it would alert others to a security weakness at State. Hillary becomes a sacrificial hero and at the same time very knowledgable about server security. What a gal and whoda thunk.
Oliver,
So, did we get beyond this question of yours then?
(Because that’s what I was replying to). I really don’t care about the moral part because I don’t find any federal politicians moral, but I think (?) we’ve established that what she did is illegal under current federal statutes. If you want to move on to risk, cool, but I’d rather resolve one at a time if that’s not the case.
I should add that I think the State Department comes across in the Hillary email fiasco as a bungling enterprise that is evidently willing to go a long way in attempting to cover up the bungling.
WSJ calls on Comey to resign
“FBI directors are supposed to be above politics, not in them. President Obama has the authority to fire Mr. Comey but will be hard-pressed to do so politically. That goes double if Mrs. Clinton is elected. Who knows what a President Trump would do.â€
http://www.wsj.com/articles/resign-mr-comey-1477955914
_____
Comey’s job is more secure now?
Oliver questions:
“…for her using own server vs. outside company (vs. .gov) email throughout…”
“…the actual amount of risk incurred by using the private server.”
1) Hillary Clinton used an external company (Platte River Networks). They had the server in the bathroom. The risk in this case is the security clearances of the employees of Platte River who have access to the server. Therefore the facility the server was in needed to have substantial physical access controls. In addition there needs to be security audits performed by outside agencies. None of these conditions were met by Platte River.
2) On a private server in your house, the same conditions must be met. Just because it is in your basement, does not mean you have a physically secure server. “When did you have the plumber in to fix that leak again?” “Was he ever alone?”
3) With a government server in the State Department these issues are handled. And that is why it is hard to read and send classified information – of which Hillary and friends could not be bothered with.
oliver (Comment #154053)
“treating State Department communications as one’s own private property is extremely poor judgment as putting American lives at unnecessary risk is a huge no-no.”
Very clear and incisive comment.
Seems you do know why she is in trouble after all.
–
Why is there no statement that “no evidence found that the Clinton’s campaign servers communicated with the Russians”, surely both should be checked and cleared?
Trump’s team should be asking this.
–
– Sorry about the cubs, Lucia however as Yogi said …..INOUTFLS
Re: angech (Comment #154112)
Looks like you misquoted me there.
Kenneth, Lucia,
Batters who are under pressure to generate runs tend to make more bad swings. The worst of the Cub’s at-bats have been when they were down and running out of innings. They face additional pressure, even early in the game, because they know Cleveland has some very tough relievers. If the Cub’s pitchers can keep Cleveland from scoring for 4 innings or so, then the Cub’s at-bats will probably be better.
.
An additional issue is the presence of the DH at the American league park. National league pitchers don’t face DHs most of the time, while American league pitchers do. I think this tends to inflate the performance of National league pitchers (on paper) at least a bit. I mean, there is a difference between facing someone like David Ortiz 4 or 5 times a game and facing the opposing pitcher 4 or 5 times. National league teams don’t have someone like a typical DH to step in during the World Series, and I think it shows.
WRT Hillary and her private server: She wanted control of all records and to be able to delete whatever records she wanted. That alone is damning. Combine that with Bill Clinton’s “speaking fees” of up to $700K an hour from foreign governments and corporations while Hillary was at State, the concurrent multi-million dollar contributions of many of those same foreign entities to the Clinton Foundation, and the self-dealing (AKA slush fund) nature of the foundation, and the picture of political corruption is complete. I find the Clinton’s corruption astounding. I find it even more astounding that they may well get away with if if Hillary gets elected.
Kerry via JD Ohio (Comment #154098): “When you sit down with some foreign minister in another country, or with the president or prime minister of another country, and you say, ‘Hey, we really want you to move more authoritatively towards democracy’, they look at you. They’re polite, but you can see the question in their head and in their eyes … Or you run in and you say, ‘By the way, it’s really important you guys get your budget passed’, and I can see the quizzical look at us.”
.
I’m guessing that the question in the foreign leader’s eyes is “Who is this dufus?”
From the NY Times via MAX_OK (Comment #154103): “Mrs. Clinton’s best defense, and one she cannot utter in public, is that whatever the risks of keeping her own email server, that server was certainly no more vulnerable than the State Department’s. Had she held an unclassified account in the State Department’s official system, as the rules required, she certainly would have been hacked.â€
.
This claim appears to be unsourced. In the unlikely event it is true, then Hillary knew that her department had a serious security problem and took no steps to correct it. She is clearly unfit to be president.
Max_OK
That looks like a rhetorical question.
If it’s a real one, I don’t know. But I’m not concerned with his job security. My previous impression was that Obama could fire him at will which is the situation most executive office appointees find themselves in. They take the jobs anyway.
oliver
I don’t either.
This says 2006
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/us_government_t.html
I’m trying to remember when Jim had to start encrypting his ANL laptop. It’s not one of those things that sticks in your mind, but really…. I really didn’t think it was required that long ago. (Maybe the article I linked means a particular agency.)
I don’t know if those are owned by the government in any case. National labs are organized in a weird way. They are operated by contractors. The Lab is “owned” by the government. The employees don’t work for the government; they are employed by the contractor. I don’t remember the status of all the equipment. I think most or all is government owned, not the contractor. If the contractor owned stuff, that would make transitions weird when contractors change, which they sometimes do.
edit– Memo: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/fy2006/m06-16.pdf
The bottom line is she has admitted to “making mistakes”. In the role she was working in and the type of “mistakes” she made, she committed felonies.
Period.
She did work on behalf of the US Government on an unsecured private server. Including Classified information. That is a felony. Period.
She lied to congress under oath. Felony. Period.
She destroyed documents that were under subpoena. Felony.
Period.
Now we know that not only were the government work product on an unsecured server, we now know that because of Hillary’s choices and unprofessional ignorant behavior, those emails were mirrored onto a completely unsecured private laptop in the hands of a known high profile nut job (pedophile?).
Look for Arrieta to have a command of his breaking pictches early. If not the Cubs are in trouble. Look for the Cubs to layoff the Tomlin breaking stuff and to be swinging at his fast balls. If they do not the Cubs are in trouble.
The World Series announcers were singing the praises of Tomlin in his first start, but he grooved some fast balls early at which the Cubs hitters did not offer and his breaking stuff was mainly off the plate. I do get annoyed when the announcers in a game, be it any sport, zero in on a player who appears to be having a great game or the team that is doing well and talk about that nearly exclusively and lose the thread of the game. What SteveF says about the flow of the game and how it can influence players decisions and performances is quite true and it is something that the announcers should try harder to capture. I get a kick (when it is not my team or player) there is sudden turn of fortunes of the team/players whose praises were being sung by the announcers and they have to gradually re-tune such that they do not look like fools turning on dime in their assessments.
As an aside, a good deal of Arrieta’s success last year in winning the Cy Young was that he was able to get hitters to offer at his breaking pitches that were off the plate. This year more batters challenged him to throw strikes and when his command was off a bit he paid the price.
Arrieta is a better pitcher than Tomlin but the Cleveland hitters are more patient than Cubs hitters so far in the series. I think I’ll know the (probable) outcome tonight after 3 or so innings.
“why a lying orange buffoon would get even a single vote.†Trump was below dead last on my list of Republican candidates. But he is the nominee. He isn’t a very good Republican, but he is will do some of the things that I believe need doing. Or he will allow a Republican Senate to do them.
I know that Clinton will do the wrong thing on every single issue. She has a lifetime of experience always doing the wrong thing. One need only look at her vaunted experience as Secretary of State, and look at every country she dealt with, before and after.
Why is this hard to understand?
@Carrick: “Given how little is actually known about the emails, I really have to interpret Comey’s actions as ass-covering rather than driven by any higher principle.”
Oh, no. It was driven by a very simple principle – the damage done by this course of action was less than the alternative. The alternative was a press conference by a couple of dozen furious FBI investigators who have had enough. Comey squelched them earlier, claiming that there was unanimous agreement with his conclusions, and this would have been too much.
What Comey did was damaging to the Clinton campaign, but not all that damaging, and any new investigation will be too late to affect the election. The alternative would have been devastating.
I get a big kick out the MSM making Comey the center of the the latest Hillary controversy. It appears the game plan is to talk about how “respected” members of the legal system are shocked, yes shocked I say about the unprecedented actions by Comey in this matter and no matter that those opinions might be partisan.
Contrast that with the Loretta lynch and Bill Clinton meeting on the tarmac. Why they were discussing grandkids. Nothing to see here and certainly no precedents so let us move on.
It appears that Loretta and Hillary have made honest mistakes in these matters while that of Comey (his second mistake not his first) is portrayed as at least somewhat devious and wrongheaded.
I hope Comey arranges to get Hillary’s started demand- to know what the new investigation is about- met.
And this election is nowhere *near* over.
Kenneth,
“It appears that Loretta and Hillary have made honest mistakes in these matters..”
.
Was that serious or tongue in cheek?
.
There is nothing honest about a clandestine (discovered only by pure chance) private meeting between Lynch and Bill Clinton while the FBI was investigating Hillary. It was SOP for the Clintons. This was no honest mistake, it was simple and willful corruption for Lynch to talk to Bill in private.
The big problem with criticizing Comey for “ass covering” is that it suggests that in this case, putting his ass on the line was somehow “better”. It’s not clear that’s the case; we need to look at what situation he would have faced if he’s not sent a letter:
1) He’d be accused of deceiving Congress and the american people. The former would result in being hauled in front of congress, and if someone claimed it was perjury, he’d be up on charges.
2) He’d have to defend that he thought he hadn’t deceived Congress. That would be a big problem if he disagreed and thought what he had done had amounted to deceiving Congress.
3) During hearings, he would have been asked if Lynch ordered him to act as he did– that is, deceive Congress. The answer would be “No.”
4) There’s no reason to believe Lynch who did not order him to say nothing would go out of her way to emphasize that her advice and opinion (aka, the “non-order”) had the force of order. She would probably just say she’d expressed an opinion, but it was up to him to decide for himself (which, evidently, it was.)
It’s all well and good to criticize someone for doing the wrong thing because they wanted to cover their ass. But in this case, I’m pretty sure Comey thinks it was his obligation to congress — and that’s true even if other disagree or think he was deluded. Of course he didn’t want to put his ass on the line to do something he thought wrong. So he didn’t put his ass on the line to do what he thought was wrong– which would have been keep important information concealed from voters and Congress.
Beyond that: If Lynch had thought it so important for this to be kept quiet, she could have ordered him to not write the letter. But she did not. Her not ordering him could be seen by many– including Comey– as her not wanting to put her ass on the line for this “principle”. Which either means she didn’t really think it was a “principle” or that she too wasn’t confident it applied in this case or what have you.
It’s certainly true that one can criticize Comey– and think whatever they like. But I think if they do they should criticize Lynch equally for not ordering him to not write it. If the sin is “covering your ass”, she is at least equally guilty of that as he is.
SteveF,
.
Pretty sure that was tongue in cheek.
.
But then again, I’m the guy who took the Onion Weiner thing seriously for several minutes longer than the rest of the world, so of course you’ll want some salt with my opinion. 🙂
I agree with MikeR. Comey traded off whether it was more likely he would be fired for releasing this information before or after the election. He probably correctly determined that both were career ending decisions, ha ha. I have sympathy for the guy.
I didn’t need any more reasons to dislike the media coverage of the campaign, but it sure seems the media takes up Clinton talking points with gusto. Why, Comey may have done something illegal, let’s talk about that!
My guess is they will find nothing new that is material. However there is not a person on this earth that would be surprised if they did, and whatever Clinton has to say about it is being taken with a monumental grain of salt. Clinton is already signalling she is willing to throw her long time aide under the bus.
I also find this recent revelation that CNN’s Brazielle (sp?) was leaking debate questions to the Clinton team to be a bit unsettling. Seems that nobody on team government seems to object. You only do that type of thing openly in email when you feel you are untouchable.
“And this election is nowhere *near* over.” Sigh – not sure about that. Clinton’s GOTV has already gotten millions of voters to vote early. Valid and otherwise.
Kenneth Fritsch, the Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton meeting on the tarmac was all over the press too. If they had intended to do something scurlious, it doesn’t seem plausible they’d have done it with so many cameras pointed at them. Which makes what Bill Clinton did, stupid.
What Comey did is …wrongheaded too. He overstepped his bounds back in July by editorializing. Because of that, he’s in an awkward position now and I think questions of his competency has just increased as a result of this.
Lucia: Yes, the FBI director can be fired by the president. Summarized here. I don’t anticipate him being fired, though the pressure for him to resign will likely increase.
MikeR:
Much more likely, the story would have been leaked to the press.
MikeR,
Me neither. I’ve been watching the polls. There are some indicators that Trump is on the rise : ABC tracking poll.
Where the heck is Trump really at in North Carolina? Politico says they are tied. I’ve seen polls claiming that both Trump and Hillary are ahead. Dunno.
Could Trump possibly be up in New Hampshire?
.
I’d expect Donna Brazile and the FBI to have some impact. How much and where, don’t know. Will these polls turn out to be outliers, don’t know. Is Trump’s momentum accelerating or have these issues already had what affect they will have, don’t know. What new surprises may be in store for us.
.
I’m still watching. My take is that Trump is at least approaching parity with Hillary. Whether or not he will make it or overtake her, and whether or not it will make a difference where it counts on the electoral map I think is still unclear.
Luica,
“If Lynch had thought it so important for this to be kept quiet, she could have ordered him to not write the letter.”
.
She could have, but I think that would be at enormous personal risk, especially considering that she has already be caught giving the Clintons special consideration (a clandestine meeting with Bill). If the newly discovered emails were later found to be damaging, then if (when!) she were to testify before Congress under oath, there would be lots of uncomfortable questions asked and opportunities for perjury. A Trump administration would be more than happy to provide Congress with internal DOJ documents, making her personal risk even greater.
” ‘The alternative was a press conference by a couple of dozen furious FBI investigators who have had enough.’
Much more likely, the story would have been leaked to the press.”
The story was leaked to the press. Conservative press has been carrying the story of furious FBI leakers for a year. No one paid any attention except hopeful conservatives. Me, I don’t even know if I trust the story. (According to the leaked stories) they know by now that they need to go public for anyone to listen to them.
Lucia: “I’m pretty sure Comey thinks it was his obligation to congress — and that’s true even if other disagree or think he was deluded.”
I think that is correct. People are questioning his motives, but the only theory that seems to be consistent with both his decision last summer and the recent one is that he is trying to do the right thing in a difficult set of circumstance.
mark bofill,
Hillary’s allies and surrogates are running a full court press in the four or five swing states Trump needs to get past 270. They don’t need to win all… they just need one state… and are probably going to spend $50 -$100 million in extra attack ads over the next 6 days in those states to make that happen. Here in Florida the ad deluge has already started. On Nov 9 Obama can start quashing the troublesome FBI investigation and issue whatever pardons he finds politically helpful. The only question in my mind is control of the Senate.
Oliver
She did expose information to a private company: Platte River. It might have been different if she knew how to write the lines of code to run her server, but she didn’t.
When the email passes through the government email, the employee doesn’t have complete power to delete things. Archives, backups etc are made by a different government employee (IT). This is not the case when one uses a private server.
Hillary put herself in a position to decide which “records” needed to be handed over after they were requested by the feds. This isn’t quite the same as someone deciding what’s drek from time to time to clear out their email.
I suspect the criteria just as consistently as anything else in criminal law and/or government policy. Of course it’s not going to be perfect. But that hardly clears Hillary, nor is it any reason why one can’t point out that her behavior wrt to the server was pretty outrageous on many counts. And the scale and significance is well beyond what Powell did and would be even if the same regulations have been in place when Powell used private email from time to time. But on top of that: Powells use does not seem to have violated regulations because these regulations didn’t exist back then.
I’m voting Johnson. Illinois electoral votes will go to Hillary pretty much no matter what. But I’m hoping 3rd party candidates get the % required to make it easier to appear on the ballot next time around.
This strikes me as the best course. Others can make other decisions.
SteveF,
.
The Senate is certainly an interesting question as well. I’ve been following that less closely but now that you remind me I’ll spend some time diving into that today.
.
But I certainly agree with you that Hillary holds the default advantage; she’s on the heights behind fortifications. If Trump’s momentum is indeed building, even given that it isn’t clear he’ll breach her walls. My personal / unsupported opinion is that as it stands right now she’ll still win.
I recently drove to Austin and back for the F1 race, about 2200 miles. I took different routes. On the way there, I was traveling on regular highways through small towns in east and central Texas. The dearth of Presidential campaign signs was remarkable. There were lots of signs for local candidates, though.
With this apparently low level of interest, I’m wondering how effective GOTV campaigns will be. It’s not at all clear that what worked for Obama in 2008 and 2012 will work anywhere near as well for Clinton in 2016.
Carrick
That’s what I think. And I think the leaked story would have happened within a few days — perhaps 3 or 4 max. The story, would have built and then we’d hear the story of whose computer (Weiner). Then we’d have the press conferences on “cover up” to “help Hillary”. And we’d hear 650,000 emails…. and so on. And if revealed that context where everything really would look like “they” were trying to protect Hillary, “We haven’t looked at them”, would have not been believed by anyone. The “November surprise” would be happening by now.
People who think that would have been better for Hillary are mistaken.
Yes. Comey’s announcement affected the election. But there is now way the fact that these emails were found wasn’t going to affect the election.
ikeR (Comment #154128)
Oh, no. It was driven by a very simple principle – the damage done by this course of action was less than the alternative. The alternative was a press conference by a couple of dozen furious FBI investigators who have had enough.
______
I read somewhere that lots of FBI agents are revolting and resignation letters are piling up. I’m skeptical. How do we know it’s true?
Kennet Fritsch: Contrast that with the Loretta lynch and Bill Clinton meeting on the tarmac. Why they were discussing grandkids. Nothing to see here and certainly no precedents so let us move on.
.
I don’t get it. If that’s all it was, it would be easy to avoid the meeting with bad optics. If it was to tell Bill they were going to back off on Hill, why bother, there was no need to inform him in advance. There must be something more behind this, probably sinister.
SteveF,
Bingo! Lynch did not order Comey when she could have done so if she considered is actions violations of policy. She didn’t wrote it because she in doing so, she would been putting her ass on the line.
Yep. Duckworth (DEM) may very well win the Illinois seat.
marc bofill,
“If Trump’s momentum is indeed building, even given that it isn’t clear he’ll breach her walls.”
His poll numbers look better. There is even a reasonable chance he will receive more votes than Hillary. I just don’t think he can win all the states he has to win to reach 270 in the electoral college, and he has little or no chance of making up for that by winning any states that are historically ‘safe’ for the Democrat.
.
The only thing that could make a difference is if there is a ‘Brexit effect’ influencing the polls, and Hillary’s support is actually lower by a few percentage points than the polls suggest (just as it was with Brexit polling). I watched the Brexit results coming in, and the incredulity of the pundits was amazing… even as the vote total showed clearly that the pre-referendum polls were wrong.
“I read somewhere that lots of FBI agents are revolting and resignation letters are piling up. I’m skeptical. How do we know it’s true?” Same for me. I don’t know if it’s true. I’ve been hearing these stories for a year now, and by now my reaction is always the same: If the FBI agents have real integrity, they will go public and take the consequences. If they don’t, as far as I’m concerned they don’t exist or might as well not exist.
I will add, though, that that isn’t evidence that the story isn’t true either. The Comey story makes much more sense to me if it is true. You can read all the other theories up above, and they’re all pretty thin. Comey could have waited, and should have.
On the other hand, if he is trying to stave off an internal revolt, it’s a lot easier to understand.
Carrick,
“He overstepped his bounds back in July by editorializing.”
.
Maybe. We don’t really know the circumstances under which he made that decision.
“Brexit…even as the vote total showed clearly that the pre-referendum polls were wrong.” Not so clear that it’s the same. A lot of pre-referendum Brexit polls showed things dead even. The pundits – and the betting markets! – just didn’t believe them.
SteveF,
Regarding the ‘Brexit effect’, yes. It’s an imponderable. I look at little things that might indicate a surprise upset. It could just as easily (more easily, perhaps) be wishful thinking on my part. I don’t know.
.
Here’s my electoral ‘best reasonable’ map for Trump. This depends on polls that I’m not sure of, particularly NH.
[Edit: Tell me if you see any obvious mistakes!] 🙂
Lucia: “Powells use does not seem to have violated regulations because these regulations didn’t exist back then.”
.
Powell may not even have violated the current rules. State Department guidelines permit employees to make limited use of non-State email systems. The reason appears to be that sticking strictly to the isolated State system can get in the way of people doing their jobs. So they allow outside systems when necessary provided that great care is used. Very different from what Hillary did.
.
I recall reading that the State email system is not part of the internet; if I am mistaken, perhaps someone more knowledgeable will correct me.
lucia (Comment #154149)
November 1st, 2016 at 9:32 am
Carrick
Much more likely, the story would have been leaked to the press.
That’s what I think. And I think the leaked story would have happened within a few days — perhaps 3 or 4 max.
______
Yes, the story might have been leaked, but unnamed sources lack the credibility of official letters to congress. If the story had been leaked, however, Comey would have been pressured to reply, and a “no comment” could have been interpreted negatively for Hillary, although not necessarily more so than the letter.
SteveF: “There is even a reasonable chance he will receive more votes than Hillary. I just don’t think he can win all the states he has to win to reach 270 in the electoral college”
.
The analysis at 538 indicates that a Trump electoral win combined with a popular vote loss is much more likely than the opposite. So if he wins the popular vote, he will almost certainly reach 270.
.
Don’t trust polls too much. At this point, the uncertainty in the polls is greater than the gap between the candidates.
MikeR: “Not so clear that it’s the same. A lot of pre-referendum Brexit polls showed things dead even. The pundits – and the betting markets! – just didn’t believe them.”
And a number of presidential polls show things dead even.
Interesting Podesta e-mail – was right around the time Hillary’s server came to light… https://www.wikileaks.com/podesta-emails/emailid/41841
By “right around the time” I mean, “the same day”… URL says 3/3 but article is dated 3/2
.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html?_r=0
Max_OK
Depends on what they can provide. A copy of the warrant would get people’s attention. So might a copy of a request for a warrant.
MikeR (Comment #154156)
November 1st, 2016 at 9:51 am
Comey could have waited, and should have.
On the other hand, if he is trying to stave off an internal revolt, it’s a lot easier to understand.
_____
But that theory doesn’t give FBI agents credit for having the sense to forsee Comey’s action would bring a sh*t storm of criticism down on the FBI from all directions and damage the public’s trust in their organization.
mikeR,
“Not so clear that it’s the same. A lot of pre-referendum Brexit polls showed things dead even.”
.
Well, here is an interesting story from the UK a couple of days before the Brexit vote: https://www.ft.com/content/6a63c2ca-2d80-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc
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Turned out the telephone interview polls showed a substantial advantage for ‘Stay’, but the on-line polls showed neither side had an advantage, and many more undecided. I note that most US polls are via telephone…. I have hung up on about 50 calls from pollsters in the last two months.
“But that theory doesn’t give FBI agents credit for having the sense to foresee Comey’s action would bring a sh*t storm of criticism down on the FBI from all directions and damage the public’s trust in their organization.” I don’t follow that. They may still be choosing the lesser of two evils. A public dissing of Comey by investigators who wanted to recommend indictment, when Comey said that it was unanimous not to, would do more than “damage the public’s trust”. It would cause an immediate incredible uproar, Comey’s immediate resignation, calls for a new true recommendation from the FBI, calls for a new investigation of whoever was involved in scuttling the investigation from above…
ucia (Comment #154167)
November 1st, 2016 at 10:27 am
Max_OK
but unnamed sources lack the credibility of official letters to congress
Depends on what they can provide. A copy of the warrant would get people’s attention. So might a copy of a request for a warrant.
_____
The warrant would have to provide as much information as the letter to be as damaging as the letter. I doubt the warrant does, but I haven’t seen it.
Whoever gave the media a copy of the warrant would be putting himself at risk if the FBI knew who had access. If caught, I don’t know what the penalty would be.
MikeR,
I also don’t follow Max_OKs comment.
First: If a request for a warrant was leaked by an “anonymous source” the public might not know it was leaked by someone in the FBI. It could be someone who worked in the courts. It could be a clerk in the justice department. In that case, there might be no immediate sh*t storm for the FBI.
But even if there was an immediate sh*t storm, some FBI agents might prefer the sh*t storm that came down for doing what they considered “right” rather than for doing what they considered “wrong”. And those same agents might believe that a sh*t storm would come down if the material was withheld — it would just come down a little later. The might prefer the storm happen sooner than later.
So some might perfectly well “forsee” the sh*t storm Max_OK warns of and still prefer that to alternatives. Which is merely to point out that they might not all weigh consequences and outcomes the same way Max_OK either thinks they would or wishes they would.
My guess is different FBI officers will exhibit a range of opinions. All you need is some to want to leak and to feel justified in leaking for a leak to occur.
Max_OK
I’m pretty sure the warrant would provide more information than the letter. The law requires warrants for searches of computers need to be tailored– that’s why they needed one to specifically grant permission to look through Huma’s emails and to be searching for whatever they are looking for (classified information, or whatever…).
So I’m pretty sure the warrant would state fairly precisely what was being searched for. If it did not, it would be useless to the FBI.
Carrick, yes you can find links to 1000 as the number of e-mails. However, the story seems to have increased the number with time. Do you have any source as to 1000-2000, that came after the 650,000? Even without a link, do you remember reading one?
Even if this were a Yahoo mirror, it would not explain 650,000 e-mails from Hillary and others, how these got to Yahoo. So it could be that this is an automatic storage of Yahoo e-mail, including spam over some number of years. We would have to know at what point was this download feature enabled in Yahoo, because the spam dies after 30 days.
JD, I wonder if someone joined Reuters this year that previously worked for NOAA.
MikeR (Comment #154170)
November 1st, 2016 at 10:36 am
“But that theory doesn’t give FBI agents credit for having the sense to foresee Comey’s action would bring a sh*t storm of criticism down on the FBI from all directions and damage the public’s trust in their organization.†I don’t follow that. They may still be choosing the lesser of two evils.
____
We don’t know if Comey’s staff wanted to be appeased, but if they did and considered their appeasement more important than the FBI’s reputation, they should all be fired.
JFerguson, there is no limitation on indicting a president-elect. However, I think it would still be impossible, because it is not just the indictment that you can’t do to a president, but arraignment and trial. You can’t impeach for acts prior to being president. You can’t indict and then say the trial is in four (or eight) years.
MikeN,
I think we don’t have any credible number of “real” emails yet. By time line, it seems to be this:
Lots of lowish numbers came out early (often in stories that sayd a “source” who “knew things” gave that number and also telling use they “knew” none were from Hillary).
Then sources said the FBI has not read the emails yet and didn’t know. (This seems to have been true.) This was accompanied by some hyperventillating.
Then the ~650,000 number — in more reliable place (WSJ, NYT) along with confirmation the FBI has not read them and they were getting a warrant.
The ~650,000 number seems firm, and the more reliable sources say the FBI is using software to filter through them. I haven’t seen these types of sources give an estimate of how many of the ~650,000 might be spam, personal, yoga and so on.
It may turn out that tons of the emails are spam. Or not. I don’t know. (Maybe I missed a report from the first sifting. Could happen.)
It’s very important to look at dates.
“The influence of the court will be significantly reduced if Congress refrains from increasing governments reach.”
Kenneth, what about when the Supreme Court invalidates state laws? They could refuse to throw out illegal acts by the executive branch that increase government’s reach.
How about if they mandate tax increases by the federal government, as has happened at the state level?
Yes Republican appointees are unreliable, but the Democrats are a certainty. Keep in mind that Kennedy was the one who expressed opposition to the individual mandate. All four Democrats were on board, and with a fifth vote, John Roberts’s ObamaCare compromise decision will be abandoned for one that says the government can mandate purchases. Technically the current compromise says the individual mandate cannot be expanded to the point that it is coercive.
MaxOK, that other intelligence agencies sent Hillary this e-mail, doesn’t make it a crime. If it was top level security, then yes it is and they should be hunted down. More likely there are items that are classified, but that are allowed to go thru regular e-mail. For example, all e-mails from Obama to Hillary are classified even if not labeled as such. This is where using the server matters. Now we have items that are classified at some level, but then end up in an insecure private server vs one that is presumed secure. The highly classified material is not allowed onto this secure server either.
As far as the State Department hacking is concerned, my opinion is that if Hillary didn’t set up her private server, the State Department never would have been hacked. I think hacking of her server served as the gateway to State Department, and later OPM.
One of the e-mails even had what someone’s password is.
lucia (Comment #154173)
November 1st, 2016 at 11:06 am
I’m pretty sure the warrant would provide more information than the letter.
_____
I would be interested in seeing the warrant if it provides more information than the letter. I haven’t found a copy. Has anyone ?
Max_OK
You seem to be assuming that not leaking was better for the FBI’s reputation than leaking. It’s not clear that’s true. Some might have wanted to leak because they thought great harm would come when the public discovered of that the FBI has acted to sway an election by hiding potentially adverse information (about Hillary) before the election.
I don’t think there would have been much of a reaction if it came out later that the FBI was investigating some e-mails. The only issue would be if there was something serious that was found.
If something serious is found now, then no one will really care that Comey acted as he did.
The problem starts with Comey should not have been making a public statement recommending no prosecution. He was put in this position because Lynch told everyone it’s up to the FBI, which happened after she met on a plane with Bill Clinton.
The precedent for future cases is horrible. Lawrence Walsh did this to George Bush, and Curt Weldon had his daughter’s house raided just weeks before the election, in both cases benefiting the Clintons.
MikeN (Comment #154180)
November 1st, 2016 at 11:37 am
As far as the State Department hacking is concerned, my opinion is that if Hillary didn’t set up her private server, the State Department never would have been hacked. I think hacking of her server served as the gateway to State Department, and later OPM.
____
The problem with your opinion is we know for sure the State Department’s system was hacked but we don’t know Hillary’s server was hacked.
lucia (Comment #154182)
November 1st, 2016 at 11:40 am
You seem to be assuming that not leaking was better for the FBI’s reputation than leaking.
____
I don’t need to assume the FBI’s reputation was damaged by Comey’s letter. It was.
Nor do I need to assume Comey’s staff was going to revolt, but were appeased by the letter. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I will assume they were not going to revolt.
SteveF (Comment #154132)
SteveF, do not you read the MSM and take that as your gospel. I was obviously giving my view of how the MSM was handling these situations – and in their very predictable. manner.
The dog that has either not barked, or barked very ambiguously is Obama. He could have demanded that Hillary stop slow walking the FBI. He could have told her to release all the emails up front. There is no way that the bizarre decision in July was made without Obama’s influence. Comey laid out a clear cut case of crime by Hillary, and ignored her destruction of government documents, perjury to Congress, destruction of evidence under subpoena, and then declined to proceed claiming, falsely, that no prosecutor would take the case.
There is no reasonable way that position was arrived at without intense pressure from someone with something to lose.
By the way, Bernie Sanders is officially the dumbest politico in America. If he had had the integrity to confront Hillary on the emails early he would have beaten her.
He was manipulated out of it by the DNC…which we now know was run / is run by and for team Clinton.
Gucifer stated clearly that he hacked the Clinton server.
And wikileaks is strongly implying they have the emails she deleted. And wikileaks seems to be claiming they are about ready to dump the emails Hillary wanted no one to see out in the public for everyone to see.
Hunter, I read somewhere that Guccifer told the FBI he made that up.
Max, that’s not the biggest problem with what I said. I take it as a certainty that Hillary’s server was hacked, because her server had(and has) weak security with a technical team that knows little, Sidney Blumenthal was hacked, and she would have been a target of very sophisticated hackers. When Bill Clinton was President, the Chinese were buying up property near the White House to assist them with hacking by stealing radio signals.
Oh? I don’t think worse of them. I think better of them.
You seem to be changing the subject. You wrote this.
And this seems to suggest that there is tension between what those wishing to be appeased would want and potential for reputational damage to the FBI. Now, while I bear in mind that you might think the set of those wishing to be appeased might be ‘the empty set’, it may not be. If the set is empty then there really was no point in your entertaining us with the notion the wishes of these non-people might somehow, if indulged, damage the FBI.
But if they do exist, possible that what would “appease” them is to have the FBI takes steps they the FBI needs to take to save its reputation as best as possible under the circumstances. And the might think the best step is for Comey to be straight with congress and the American people rather than keeping everyone in the dark.
Max_OK
You seem to be assuming that not leaking was better for the FBI’s reputation than leaking. It’s not clear that’s true. Some might have wanted to leak because they thought great harm would come when the public discovered of that the FBI has acted to sway an election by hiding potentially adverse information (about Hillary) before the election.
I am, btw, trying to find the warrant. I asked on twitter– which oddly may be the easiest way to find it if it’s public.
Carrick (Comment #154137)
Carrick, just for the record Clinton delayed his flight and the tarmac meeting was in an area for private plane flights. A local reporter received a tip about the meeting and said that the FBI personnel instructed no pictures, no photos and no cell phones. It was not exactly a public gathering.
Kenneth: I could imagine much less conspicuous ways of meeting than meeting in a plane on a tarmac.
As far as I know, there would have been no FBI people there, period. They aren’t exactly a security force. The “I” means “investigation.”
The details of your story doesn’t seem very credible to me.
Okay … I just learned something. The FBI is apparently responsible for protecting the AG. I had no idea.
Kenneth, Carrick, link to CNN on the subject.
and
Apparently the FBI guys were Lynch’s.
[Edit: Yep, Carrick beat me to the punch.]
Max_OK:
Given that the State Department hacking occurred with a cluster along with other hacks, it seems completely unnecessary to evoke an unproven hack Clinton’s private server for the security lapses at the State Department.
lucia (Comment #154190)
November 1st, 2016 at 12:15 pm
I don’t need to assume the FBI’s reputation was damaged by Comey’s letter. It was.
Oh? I don’t think worse of them. I think better of them.
___
Will you think better of the FBI if (a) the investigation turns up nothing that leads to an indictment but causes Hillary to lose the election, or (b) Comey had followed policy, the investigation eventually lead to a conviction of President Clinton and her replacement by Kaine?
Both are bad outcomes for Clinton. Which outcome do you think would be better for the FBI?
Personally, I think the FBI worrying overmuch about politics, or worrying that people will think they’re worrying overmuch about politics, is bad for the FBI.
But what the heck. We are acting as if the FBI is the virgin in the whorehouse or something. Truly magical, if they are, and kudos to them. If they aren’t, well. Not surprised. It’s in keeping with the rest of our Federal corruption.
What do people think of McCabe’s involvement? His wife has gotten many hundreds of thousands in her state Senate bid. He is #2 in the FBI and likely takes over if Hillary wins. I haven’t seen any accusations of inappropriate activity by McCabe.
Marc Bofill, New Hampshire is not looking as ridiciulous as a few weeks ago. However, if Trump wins New Hampshire then he is definitely winning that district in Maine for 270 votes. It is also possible that Maine as a whole is a more likely win for him than NH.
MikeN,
.
Truthfully I didn’t even look at Maine. Thanks, I’ll go dig.
[Edit: ah hah. There is this.]
MikeN,
Yeah, to be clear: It’s not my position that Trump is probably ahead in New Hampshire. I’d be surprised, actually. I’m honestly just wondering what the heck is going on in the polls. They seem to be in motion with a wide range of values, and Trump seems to be on the move up, and there seem to be explanations with the recent events that could reasonably account for it. Is there substance and will it be enough to make some difference. Don’t know.
I think Comey knows there is something big, and that’s why he sent the letter. If there was a possibility of nothing found in the e-mails, Comey would have kept quiet and not sent the letter, despite any obligations.
His statement to Congress was that if new evidence appears then he would reconsider the decision not to pursue an indictment, and that he would notify them of any changes. He could simply had said afterwards that he held off on notifying Congress because he did not wish to interfere with the election, or that he he did not wish to say anything before a preliminary review had been conducted as to what they had.
Marc, in 2012 that was the likeliest map, with Virginia in place of Iowa and Nevada. Michigan is also a possible target. Hillary seems to be most worried about Colorado and Wisconsin.
MikeN,
[Edit Re:Comey]
I can’t quite bring myself to say I think that. I suspect it. I know my bias and am not confident I can estimate the effect on my wishful thinking. This said, the slender suggestive branch to me is that Obama and others (Kerry I think) have made statements that seem to distance themselves or detach themselves from this.
But I have to admit it’s a signal below the noise threshold level for me.
MikeN,
[Edit: re state polls and electoral map]
And I go back and forth. I look at Colorado. One minute it seems reasonable, then a few hours later enough polls come in that I disqualify it. At the moment I’m keeping an eye on Pennsylvania; a few polls seem to indicate things may be tight there. Doubtless tomorrow I will have crossed off Pennsylvania and something else will look possible.
All I can say is, as it stands right now I believe Trump would [will] lose, and at this instant he appears to be moving up in the polls. Past that, it’s like trying to guess if a pitcher is going to strike out a batter. Who the heck knows!
Trump avoids paying taxes by borrowing other peoples money, losing it,and getting debt forgiven. He takes the tax loss but doesn’t report the forgiven debt as income. Read the linked article to see how this is done.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/politics/trump-taxes-loophole.html
mm. Are we going to start trading attack ads on the Blackboard? My answer, I hope not. I’m going to pass on that for now.
mark, if you are referring to my post, I didn’t know it was an “attack ad,” I thought it was a newspaper article. Regardless, up thread are numerous attacks on Hillary, so one on Trump is inappropriate only if the Blackboard is reserved for those who want to bash Hillary, which I don’t believe is the case or I wouldn’t be here.
Max_OK
Yes.
No.
I would think better of them if they did not misinform Congress.In this case, I think better of them for correcting misinformation. This is true regardless of what is in the emails, regardless of the outcome of the election and regardless of whether there is a conviction.
My opinion of the FBI is higher because they are being transparent in a situation where transparency is the correct move.
(a) is obviously better. That’s the one in which the FBI acts correctly and misleads the people least.
MikeN,
I think there is a very real possibility there is nothing significant in the emails. But Comey can’t know that. But since he’d given the American people and congress the investigation was closed, I think it was best for him to correct that impression when they were submitting a warrant.
Max_OK,
Trump is an acquisitive pig who definitely pushes the boundaries of the tax code, takes advantages of others and who may have broken tax laws. That article is on the tax issues– and it doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Max_OK, you are looking at a failed hit article. They did a big investigation of Trump’s taxes, and obviously found nothing real. Trump got some tax lawyers, who managed to save him some money by dealing sharply with the IRS. The IRS apparently felt it was good enough. The rest of us wish we could do the same.
In other news, a positive report on a Trump speech. Chris Cillizza doesn’t exactly like HRC, so this might not be surprising. And expectations for Trump are very, very low…
(Trump didn’t dry hump the podium for example.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/01/donald-trump-gave-a-very-very-good-speech-today-in-pennsylvania/#comments
lucia (Comment #154211)
(a) is obviously better. That’s the one in which the FBI acts correctly and misleads the people least
_____________
I thought you would choose (a), but I wasn’t sure.
Another possibility is my favorite.
By Friday Comey announces the review is finished and nothing significant was found.
Anti-Clinton e-mail dumps by Wikileaks during the week are ignored by a public distracted by the FBI investigation, and Comey’s decision ends up helping elect Hillary. Her foes are outraged, and Trump screams “rigged” and refuses to accept the results of the election.
Comey has stuck it to ’em again.
Max_OK,
Willful ignorance, which is exactly what you are practicing, is not an appealing trait. Hillary lied about her emails to Congress, Hillary caused destruction of items that had been asked for under subpoena. Hillary, without any outside review, decided what she would and would not turn over for lawful review.
If you did that you would be indicted for multiple felonies.
Your position makes you look really, really ignorant.
No one else gets to decide what to give over under a subpoena without negative consequences.
Hillary’s are coming.
Lucia, Comey can’t know there is nothing in the e-mails, but he can know there is something.
Given that, if he doesn’t know there is something, the better course of action is to not inform Congress. What if instead of 650,000 e-mails, there was one e-mail with header
From: Hillary@clintonemail.com
To: humamabedin@yahoo.com
Subject: Deletion
Date: Jan 18, 2015, 18:30:49 EST
Should Comey inform Congress that he was reopening the investigation?
Suppose a golf pro says I have a flash drive with Hillary’s e-mails on them, and I want immunity before I give them to you?
Should Comey inform Congress that he is reopening the case?
Max, this has been suspected about Trump and his taxes for some time. The suggestion given was that Trump formed a company in one of his kids names, which acquired the debt from the banks, and then he just never officially forgave the debt.
What we have here is Trump’s inventing a new loophole, similar to one that Congress closed.
Here is one problem I do see. Suppose I lose a billion dollars, that I have borrowed, then the banks forgive the debt. It makes sense that I should not get to use that loss to offset taxes, since the banks are doing the same. However, debt forgiven is treated as income. So now after losing a billion dollars of other people’s money, how do I pay taxes on a billion dollars?
Max, the possibility you give was suggested by Rush Limbaugh, and I posted it here. I didn’t think it likely because Wikileaks hasn’t posted anything that needs distracting.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #154186),
Just be careful not to bite your tongue.
The “Trump loophole” is likely legal, frequently used by those with resources to do so, and defensible.
If the NYT could get something on Trump by now, they would.
Instead we see them, like the sad James Carville, accusing republicans of espionage, criminal conspiracy and working aliens.
Reopen the X-Files!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGlmQrVGJIg
Anything but to deal with the reality that team Hillary messed up American foreign policy while they were busy fleecing the American people.
Max_OK
If it’s done by Friday and nothing is found, he should announce precisely that.
Out of curiosity, will the emails be ultimately subject to FOIA?
Lucia,
Would you think that evidence in a criminal investigation is ever subject to FOIA?
hunter (Comment #154217)
November 1st, 2016 at 3:14 pm
Max_OK,
Willful ignorance, which is exactly what you are practicing, is not an appealing trait. Hillary lied about her emails to Congress, Hillary caused destruction of items that had been asked for under subpoena.
______
None of my ignorance is willful.
I’ll bet you think Hillary is a lawbreaker because you never liked her to begin with.
I don’t think she is a lawbreaker because I have always liked her.
Fortunately, neither you or I get to decide who breaks the law, unless we are jury members in a Hillary trial, which would never happen if we told the truth during juror selection. I know I would be culled out because I would tell the truth. I don’t know about you.
“I’ll bet you think Hillary is a lawbreaker because you never liked her to begin with.” She is a lawbreaker because she has been caught breaking laws. The laws are public knowledge and the fact that she broke them is now public knowledge, even though she lied through her teeth about it for a year. So she is a lawbreaker.
The only thing left is that Comey recommended that she not be prosecuted, since (he says) they don’t usually prosecute unless it was intentional, and her lawbreaking (he says) was just incompetence and negligence. Even though negligence is on the books for those laws as being enough to prosecute, he says it’s not customary.
That’s all. Her felonies are public knowledge.
j ferguson,
I have no idea. That’s why I’m asking.
But there is another twist: if these are “work” emails, they might need to archived. Then it might be possible to FOIA all that were archived. Maybe?
Max_OK
This ain’t true. Everyone can ‘decide’ what they think about whether she broke the law for themselves. What they can’t due is convict her.
I’d tell the truth at jury selection.
“(Trump didn’t dry hump the podium for example.)”
Beneath you Carrick!
Actually, thanks Carrick and MAX_OK. I’ll take reaching the point where I lose my sense of humor about Donald Trump as a very bad sign, and having helped me identify that I was getting close, I appreciate your comments. 🙂
Trump is Trump. Oink Oink, warts and so on. It is what it is.
Go Cubbies!
MikeR, Comey said they didn’t have proof she did so with intent that could be successfully prosecuted. He didn’t say it was unintentional.
FOIA and freedom of information document is here:
https://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-guide-2004-edition-exemption-7
Lucia,
I think there is a very real possibility there is nothing significant in the emails. But Comey can’t know that
—
UMmmm. Lucia, of course Comey “can” know that. Like proof that a theory is dead, it only takes one single email for him to know that significant information exists. I also CAN know that if Trump makes the cut, Comey might go to jail as an accomplice for an excessively long time if he doesn’t admit to Hillary’s crimes now.
It’s very easy to find the smoking gun in an email if it exists. While we can intellectualize all day, Hillary sold influence for cash. She smashed her data devices, she bit-wiped her computer, she literally attempted to bribe the FBI to change early documents confidential status. This is not an actual question anymore. Comey has had weeks to dig into that computer with thousands of agents at his disposal. Even if only 3 people were assigned full time, he clearly CAN know if the emails were significant.
And for the typical step further I always do, I will state that he absolutely DOES know whether the emails are significant. That statement is different than whether the information is actually significant. He already threw in the towel and may be political enough to chuck Hillary to the wind even with insignificant emails.
On the balance, I don’t believe he would have changed direction and reopened the case, were they were NOT significant. However, the remote possibility exists. Comey does absolutely know quite a bit about these emails already, we shouldn’t even pretend that a computer held by the FBI hasn’t been dismantled vigorously in the first few hours, let alone weeks.
The woman was already a crook of the highest order. Comey’s department is in revolt with stacks of resignations on his desk unsigned. His own wife has pressured him to change direction because everyone knows the woman is 100% guilty of mishandling confidential information in a way that would send all of us to jail. The news of these facts is on the documented record if we don’t use CNN or FOX for a sole source.
The rest of us also understand that she sold Uranium en masse to Russia in exchange for millions to her charity and a half million directly to her husband for a speech.
Ugly beyond reckoning and not well fit for the typical prosaic pedantry of a climate blog.
Regarding BleachBit, I read that this was not used on the server, but only on a flash drive that was used to transfer the files.
JeffId
That’s my view. I don’t think Comey knows if they contain anythign significant. They may not; or they may. He doesn’t know (or at least didn’t as late as Sunday).
They’ve evidently got scripts going through to filter. So if something is there to be found, perhaps it could be found quickly. After all, it could be on the top of the pile. Or it could take time because it could be deeper. Verifying nothing tends to happen slowly because, by definition, you have to look through the whole pile.
Jeff Id,
Please tell us how you really feel!
“Comey’s department is in revolt with stacks of resignations on his desk unsigned. ”
I assume you can provide links to evidence of revolt and resignations.
mark bofill (Comment #154240)
November 1st, 2016 at 6:18 pm
Actually, thanks Carrick and MAX_OK.
_____
Mark, thank you.
lucia (Comment #154234)
November 1st, 2016 at 6:03 pm
Max_OK
I’d tell the truth at jury selection.
____
Good. Voir dire, and you are gone.
lucia (Comment #154241)
November 1st, 2016 at 6:20 pm
Go Cubbies!
____
Yes, something we agree on!
Go cubs!
7-0. Amazing!
Mark Bofill–yeah, we have to work to keep our sense of humor here.
Jeff ID:
I understand it’s complete Trumpskian nonsense.
“MikeR, Comey said they didn’t have proof she did so with intent that could be successfully prosecuted. He didn’t say it was unintentional.” If I’m understanding you correctly, that makes it worse. Still a felon.
Lucia: “That’s my view. I don’t think Comey knows if they contain anything significant”
….
I tend to disagree with this statement. I would speculate that he is roughly 85% certain that there is substantial evidence of wrongdoing — otherwise, he could have simply followed existing policy. There would be no reason to get involved in a huge hassle if he really didn’t think there was anything there. I don’t think he would write it if he only had a vague suspicion. I would also add that I don’t think he should have written it if he only had a vague suspicion.
….
My best guess as to what happened is that Clinton and her aides were questioned about their email practices and where their emails were stored. (These would be standard questions in a civil suit — no reason they wouldn’t be asked in this investigation) It is a reasonable guess that the large number of emails could directly contradict the testimony pertaining to either how emails were used or where they were stored. If that were the case, then Comey would have every reason to write the letter he did.
….
I previously posted comments by former US Attorney DiGenova where he stated that FBI agents were going to go public with their claims that Comey was stifling the investigation. Here is what he said, which if true, would explain everything that is going on: ““People are starting to talk. They’re calling their former friends outside the bureau asking for help. We were asked to day to provide legal representation to people inside the bureau and agreed to do so and to former agents who want to come forward and talk. Comey thought this was going to go away.â€
He explained, “It’s not. People inside the bureau are furious. They are embarrassed. They feel like they are being led by a hack but more than that that they think he’s a crook. They think he’s fundamentally dishonest. They have no confidence in him. The bureau inside right now is a mess.â€
He added, “The most important thing of all is that the agents have decided that they are going to talk.†See http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/17/exclusive-fbi-agents-say-comey-stood-in-the-way-of-clinton-email-investigation/
….
The one thing that gives Comey’s comments some credence is that he was specific in saying that he agreed to provide representation to FBI agents. Later on, he can in effect be called on that statement if nothing happens (either now or after the election).
JD
If the DOJ and FBI had followed normal procedures in this case, they wouldn’t have been in this mess.
Carrick, did you read the link you posted? We all know there’s no proof of quid pro quo. So what? Judges are forbidden to take bribes – period – for a good reason: the quid pro quo is automatic. The judge can’t judge correctly having taken a bribe, even if no official deal took place. How much more so when we have no way of knowing.
Contributions to the Clinton Foundation, and large payments for speeches, by anyone with business or potential business with the State Department, is corruption. If she were a judge it would be illegal. In any case it is completely immoral.
As with so many things the Clintons have done, the public evidence is enough to convict. Except that so many are busy ignoring it.
Scary… bases loaded Cleveland…. 🙁
Strike out. Yes!!!
At 7:34 meant to say DiGenova’s comments not Comeys (“The one thing that gives Comey’s comments some credence”)
JD
https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/hillary-r.-clinton-part-01-of-04
https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/hillary-r.-clinton-part-02-of-04
https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/hillary-r.-clinton-part-03-of-04
https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/hillary-r.-clinton-part-04-of-04
ore
More here
>If the DOJ and FBI had followed normal procedures in this case,
then Hillary’d be in jail.
They would have the problem that the President sent classified e-mail to her server.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/11/breaking-fbi-just-released-hillarys-email-investigation-online/estigation-online/
https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton
I’ve made my first casual pass through reading the material. Nothing caught my eye as astonishing. In no particular order, my observations include:
.
1. Clinton had her server and her devices.
2. Guccifer got into Blumenthal’s AOL. He did not appear to successfully hack Clinton’s server.
3. I thought I read something in there that implied somebody got in (hacked into Clinton’s server from TOR), but I’ll have to go back through it tomorrow to see if I was mistaken.
4. Abedin apparently routinely forwarded emails to some third party email system, to print them.
5. There was indeed a heck of a lot of classified, secret, and top secret information that flowed through there over the years.
.
Don’t know what to make of all that. Will need chewing.
Thanks Lucia!
Nite all.
(3.) I think somebody using Tor got into one of Bill’s aids accounts.
Heck of a lot of classified, secret, top secret. Hillary doesn’t seem very concerned about it.
Bottom of the 9th. Fingers crossed!
MikeR: Yes of course I read the link. Several things stood out:
1) The timeline is completely screwed up: The contributions to the foundation occur before Clinton or anybody else knows she would become Secretary of State. No possibility of a quid pro quo arrangment.
2) The Department of State did not have sole approval over the contract. It was one of nine US agencies that oversaw this corporate takeover.
3) The Secretary of State is a political appointee, working at the discretion of the President. The final call would be with him, not with her.
3) There was no export license issued. The uranium did not leave this country.
4) There there’s the issue with the nine people making contributions to the Clinton Foundation not remaining with the company. If you didn’t benefit from the US Goverment decision, hard to see how this would be quid pro quo, again.
Finally the version of events we’re discussing here is Donald Trump’s distorted version of the original source.
The problem isn’t that people are ignoring “it”. The problem is the lack of skepticism on your part for what amounts to preposterous theories that require an incredible level of governmental cooperation.
I do of course notice there are corruption problems with the Clintons. But I don’t think there’s any separation between them and Donald Trump.
Cubs Winnnnnn!!!!!
I hear fireworks to the south. (Probably at the Benedictine field.)
mark bofill: I think a lot of those emails were restrospectively classified. That’s a hot mess, as far as I ‘m concerned. I may be wrong about the timeline here, but it’s my understanding this mechanism is a creation of the Obama administration.
Legal scholars don’t seem particularly thrilled by it either.
Anyway, aren’t these just the PDFs from the early September release?
Carrick,
I don’t know if they were previously released. I just saw a link on twitter. It’s the first I’ve seen them (but then I haven’t generally hunted these down.)
The information doesn’t sound new or fresh. But for those wanting to see, those are there.
Carrick says – “The problem is the lack of skepticism on your part for what amounts to preposterous theories that require an incredible level of governmental cooperation. ”
At one time “the appearance of impropriety” was the threshold to get someone dumped.
Cubs had far more runs than needed. Here they are going into game 7. I thought I would never see it.
Lucia, here’s the link I used. Pretty sure they’re the same files.
Kan:
When would that have been?
Nixon had Watergate hanging over his head when he won by a landslide against McGovern.
(Sadly regardless of which candidate wins, there’s a non-zero possibility of history repeating itself.)
By the way–the FBI was investigating that case throughout the elections too. Their big announcement came on October 10, 1972 linking the break-in to Nixon’s reelection effort.
Well, I’ve been reading this thread with interest. Because there seem to be some intelligent people here. And as an outside observer, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason why anyone would vote for Trump is that the US voting public is not remotely concerned about the outside world, and it’s all about domestic politics. Whereas we, in the outside world, are scared absolutely shitless by the thought of an orange moron with his finger on the nuclear button. Hey, maybe he’ll press it just to impress some impressionable young girl.
Carrick,
The material on Clinton’s servers really isn’t in the category of material discussed at your link. It’s not material “released” to the public and then classified. It’s material being discussed among government officials and not intended to be shared.
It wasn’t stamped classified– because that’s not the first order or business when people are discussing what to do about a drone strike or Benghazi or so on. But it’s in the category of classified.
The document you link is discussing material actually released to the public that then gets marked classified. That’s an exercise of trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. And it’s different from government officials discussing things among themselves, but ignoring security.
lucia—I know it’s a different concern, but it’s still the retroactive classification mechanism that’s the issue here with those 125 emails.
People never really knowing when something they have, which is currently not marked as classified, will in some day in the future become classified. So what often is an overly conservative approach, where documents routinely get over-classifed, and documents don’t get the same distribution, just to cover one’s butt.
That’s not good either from a transparency on the part of the citizens wanting to understand how their government is making decisions (not necessairly you or me, think watchdog groups like JudicialWatch). It’s also not good because information that is sometimes critical is is not made available in a timely fashion to people who need it to operate the government (I’ve seen the consequences of that in a few cases, personally).
Winston: “Whereas we, in the outside world, are scared absolutely shitless by the thought of an orange moron with his finger on the nuclear button.”
….
Maybe you ought to be concerned about someone so stupid (Clinton) that she thinks that wiping a computer server means wiping it with a cloth. Clinton is totally incompetent with respect to computers and could not possibly intelligently manage the many computer security issues that a President is responsible for that would be linked to military actions. You might want to be concerned about someone so corrupt and callous that she would risk lives of American operatives or American foreign friends by placing her communications on a private server solely to advance her own political objectives. (For all we know she has killed 10 or 20 people by her actions — an unfriendly foreign government would not disclose any hack that it accomplished.)
….
Instead of buying into the superficial image of Clinton presented by the legacy press (and almost surely further simplified by the foreign legacy press), you may want to look into who Clinton really is. Whether something is true or not, is not even a consideration when Clinton speaks. Since there is so much extreme language used to describe the candidates, I hesitate to use the term “sociopath”, but there is much evidence it applies to Clinton. From dictionary.com the definition seems to fit Clinton: “a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.”
….
I would add that many Americans were not impressed when the European based Nobel Prize committee awarded the peace prize to Obama after 10 days in office.
JD
JD Ohio (Comment #154255)
November 1st, 2016 at 7:34 pm
Lucia: “That’s my view. I don’t think Comey knows if they contain anything significantâ€
….
“I tend to disagree with this statement. I would speculate that he is roughly 85% certain that there is substantial evidence of wrongdoing — otherwise, he could have simply followed existing policy.”
_____
JD, your 85% is an impressively precise degree of certainty. I can’t be so precise, but I’m about one-half certain you are wrong. I thought the agents were not supposed to read those e-mails prior to the warrant, and if they didn’t, how did they tell Comey what the e-mails revealed?
Carrick – 1989, Representative Jim Wright TX.
Carrick,
Sure. I agree it’s a problem.
But I’m less sympathetic with the situation for Clinton than … say.. researchers. Wrt to people actually working in the State department, it’s a reason why it really is better to stay on .gov emails when doing work involving… well… bombing people, war and so on.
It is different for people like you or my husband Jim were you could, hypothetically be doing research that as far as you know need not be classified, isn’t classified, and then later on, it could become so. In that sort of research activity, there no one getting killed, no troops being deployed … nothing very dramatic. As far as I know, this hasn’t caused any problems for Jim. But then I wouldn’t know… would I? (Jim’s agony’s seem to come from trying to get environmental approvals.)
Over classification is a problem. I don’t know that there is any reasons to suspect that is what’s happening with Clinton’s stuff.
Carrick: “lucia—I know it’s a different concern, but it’s still the retroactive classification mechanism that’s the issue here with those 125 emails.”
….
It is a very different concern dealing with the rights of ordinary citizens who received information that was considered unclassified at the time of receipt and is then retroactively classified. Has nothing to do with a Secretary of State who should know what is classified and is not (or at least be cautious enough to check if there is a real question). Instead Clinton just totally flouted the rules and tried to dishonestly excuse herself by saying that since emails weren’t marked as classified she had no obligation to secure and protect them even if they were.
….
For instance, some of the emails were classified as higher than top secret: “determined to be “top secret/SAP.†That designation is usually given to information about “special access programs†— often intelligence-gathering programs and other secret programs run by the Pentagon and the C.I.A. — that are among the government’s most closely guarded secrets.” There is zero excuse for not recognizing and securing these emails. See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/us/politics/hillary-clinton-email-said-to-include-material-exceeding-top-secret.html?_r=0
JD
MikeN (Comment #154220)
November 1st, 2016 at 3:53 pm
Max, the possibility you give was suggested by Rush Limbaugh, and I posted it here. I didn’t think it likely because Wikileaks hasn’t posted anything that needs distracting.
______
I read somewhere wikileaks will release phase III of its election stuff this week, but the linked site doesn’t mention the release. I suppose it will just be more of the DNC mails.
https://wikileaks.org/-News-.html
Winston (Comment #154277)
November 1st, 2016 at 10:05 pm
Well, I’ve been reading this thread with interest. Because there seem to be some intelligent people here.
______
Yes, and they are civil too.
Max “JD, your 85% is an impressively precise degree of certainty. I can’t be so precise, but I’m about one-half certain you are wrong. I thought the agents were not supposed to read those e-mails prior to the warrant, and if they didn’t, how did they tell Comey what the e-mails revealed?”
….
If Clinton and her aides were properly questioned, and they lied about the existence of emails,their email procedures or computers, then there is substantial wrongdoing in terms of perjury. Of course, I am assuming that Comey has half a brain and that he wouldn’t write the letter unless he had substantial evidence of wrongdoing. It is always possible that he is a total idiot as is the case with anyone in Washington.
To give an example. For instance, suppose Abedin stated she never sent or received emails to the CIA. Then suppose 1,000 emails from the CIA show up on her computer as well as 500 emails she sent to the CIA. She can explain 1 or 5 as a mistake, but not 500 or 1,000. I believe something like this has occurred. It is also possible that Weiner’s emails revealed wrongful conduct on the part of Clinton or her aides.
JD
So?
Top secret documents traceable back to Hilary, they all go?
Evidence of illegal money donations Hilary and Bill go?
Evidence of Ron’s conspiracy theory, police involved?
Or nothing new here, move on.
I would think that the missing e mails are there, dates and times approx when they were stored/made should be known even if the content was lost.
My feeling is they have found the missing e mails and some are tricky, that is why they were wiped in the first place.
JD Ohio (Comment #154287)
November 1st, 2016 at 11:39 pm.
“Of course, I am assuming that Comey has half a brain and that he wouldn’t write the letter unless he had substantial evidence of wrongdoing.”
_____
If he already had email evidence of wrongdoing he contradicted himself in the letter by saying the significance of the emails is yet to be determined. That would be fibbing, unless he thinks evidence of wrong doing is not significant.
JD you mentioned an example.
“To give an example. For instance, suppose Abedin stated she never sent or received emails to the CIA. Then suppose 1,000 emails from the CIA show up on her computer as well as 500 emails she sent to the CIA. She can explain 1 or 5 as a mistake, but not 500 or 1,000. I believe something like this has occurred.”
I doubt she would remember all 1,500, but if there were that many she should remember there were a lot. I think the FBI will be primarily interested in relevant emails they have not previously seen. If there aren’t any, the investigation shouldn’t take long.
Max, this is a mistake where you say Comey and the FBI can’t know what’s in the e-mails. They do not have a warrant to look at them, but they are allowed to look at the subject line. That might be enough to know there is something substantial there.
It’s OK, I heard Alan Dershowitz make the same mistake.
Carrick, these donors who had no idea she would become Secretary of State at the time of the donation, at the time they were donating, thought she would become President.
Does anyone remember any details when Bill Clinton was President involving deletion of e-mails? Any links? I think it was 1997 or 1998.
The FBI teams investigating the Clinton Foundation are not being allowed access to the Hillary Clinton e-mails that were acquired.
This author claims the warrant implies the existence of a grand jury. Is this true?
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/11/dont_be_fooled_hillarygate_probe_is_now_a_formal_federal_criminal_investigation.html
“The FBI teams investigating the Clinton Foundation are not being allowed access to the Hillary Clinton e-mails that were acquired.”
McCabe is the head guy on the Clinton Foundation investigation. McCabe has some conflict issues here, but hey, there is no video of him with the candlestick in the library in the Governors Mansion in Virginia at the same time as Mrs. McCabe and representatives from the Clinton Foundation.
From a CNN story:
Republican former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday slammed the FBI director’s recent actions in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server.
He called Comey’s actions an “error in judgment” and said he is “somewhat perplexed about what the director was trying to accomplish here.”
“You don’t comment on investigations because commenting on the investigation may jeopardize the investigation. And that’s the box that he’s put himself in, because people are now calling for more information — for release of the emails,” Gonzales told CNN’s John Berman and Kate Bolduan on “At This Hour.”
“If you delay the announcement, hopefully it’s not going to jeopardize an investigation, it’s not going to jeopardize the pursuit of justice, and voters will have the opportunity to vote on Election Day without information that may in fact be incomplete or untrue,” he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/eric-holder-op-ed-rips-comey-letter/
_______
I never thought about Comey’s action jeopardizing the investigation, and I’m not sure what Gonzales means. I suppose he could mean that the pressure to release the emails could hinder the FBI’s attempt to do a thorough investigative job.
MikeN (Comment #154290)
November 2nd, 2016 at 1:00 am
Max, this is a mistake where you say Comey and the FBI can’t know what’s in the e-mails. They do not have a warrant to look at them, but they are allowed to look at the subject line. That might be enough to know there is something substantial there.
_____
If the subject told you what’s in the email there would be no point in reading the email.
MikeN (Comment #154293)
November 2nd, 2016 at 1:32 am
This author claims the warrant implies the existence of a grand jury. Is this true?
http://www.americanthinker.com…..ation.html
______
Good question. It’s past my bedtime, but a fast read left me with the impression the author thinks this thing will be big, long-lasting, and far reaching.
Lucia,
The Cubbies have boosted their chances to almost 50%!
I would not like to have been the subject of Francona’s ire after that little league play in the outfield cost two runs (nearly followed by another just like it!). After the grand slam, Francona gave up on the game, saving his stronger relievers for tonight. Tonight should be a very good game. Will you be watching? 😉
Carrick, you are continuing to ignore the point of the Clinton Foundation issue. The claim of Clinton Cash was that there was a built-in quid pro quo in dealing with the Clintons, taken for granted, never really put in print: If you want to deal with us, why haven’t you made a substantial contribution to the Clinton Foundation? Don’t you think that Bill or Hillary Clinton would be a good speaker? Look at what good work we do at the Foundation!
That could happen years before somebody needs something, or years afterwards.
Again, this is why we don’t let judges take bribes. At all. Or if they do, they have to recuse themselves from cases involving anyone who gave them presents.
Personally, I don’t believe that some Russian businessmen would on their own ever have made a contribution to the Clinton Foundation. Or asked the Clintons to speak at a high price. It’s silly enough – in my mind – that trying to curry influence is by far the most likely explanation.
The whole setup is corrupt, and should be, maybe is, illegal. No one should be Secretary of State while being associated with the Clinton Foundation, given the way it works.
Generally, in all your comments here about Hillary Clinton, you seem to be demanding proof, when an overall picture is really more what is needed. We’ve all seen in the last year that not one single word she says can be trusted and that rules are for other people. We’ve seen in the Democratic Party generally that pretty much everything is for sale, and that the whole election has been one big frameup. We’ve seen that her vaunted foreign policy “experience” has been setting large parts of the world on fire. We’ve seen that she (and the whole political establishment there) uses the US Federal Government as a tool to despoil those she despises, pay off her supporters, and enrich her powerful supporters.
I don’t like Donald Trump one bit, but I want my country back.
I read a Thomas Friedman column from the NY Times, where he asks Trump voters to recognize that Hillary is not a terrible candidate, just one that bends the truth a little bit, like all politicians. The guy is delusional…. or incredibly stupid. It’s as if he is completely unaware of the self dealing, the pay-for-play, the vast personal wealth generated from nothing more than political influence, the pattern of bald faced lies, etc. If he represents main stream ‘progressive’ thinking, then the future for progressives is dim. He does mention that some people prefer to use the NY Times for wrapping up fish guts (as I frequently do), so he is at least aware that lots of people reject what the NY Times stands for. It would be prudent for him to think a bit about why that is…. like the fact that they employ lots of people like him….. but I am guessing he won’t.
“With Mrs. Clinton, as with Mr. Obama, a voter naturally struggles to understand what the overarching vision is. There isn’t one. They exist to deliver the wish-list of Democratic lobby groups for more power over the people of the United States. Period.” http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-becomes-the-unsafe-hand-1478042102
Max_OK,
Warrants don’t necessarily imply the existance of a grand jury. Also: there can be a grand jury for the Weiner investigation but not the Clinton-Emails.
I’m pretty sure that if there was a grand jury for the Clinton emails we’d know. I don’t think that could be a concealed thing. (Lawyers?)
Winston: “Whereas we, in the outside world, are scared absolutely shitless by the thought of an orange moron with his finger on the nuclear button. Hey, maybe he’ll press it just to impress some impressionable young girl.”
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I suppose that you must also be scared of the monsters under your bed. They are just as real as your characterization of Trump.
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Trump built a large, successful business. He staged a successful takeover of one of our two major parties. He has changed the parameters of political debate. Some moron.
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Trump has made hundreds of complex business deals involving investors, banks, contractors, and multiple levels of government in many different countries. It seems that he has never blown one up because of his alleged thin skin or lack of control.
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Unlike you, I never judge a person by his skin color.
SteveF: “The guy is delusional…. or incredibly stupid. It’s as if he is completely unaware of the self dealing, the pay-for-play, the vast personal wealth generated from nothing more than political influence, the pattern of bald faced lies, etc.”
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There is another possibility, namely, that all the wrongdoing you cite is just business as usual among the elites and that Clinton is only unusual in having gotten exposed. I think the Clinton’s are probably unusual in degree, but not in kind, from what goes on every day in our political establishment. So I am voting for Trump.
Winston, I basically agree with William F Buckley’s statement that he would rather be ruled by the top thousand names in the Boston phone book, than by the faculty of Harvard. I’d probably rather have a name chosen at random, but Trump is the choice I get.
Unlike all the nonsense that is being thrown around, I have absolutely no reason to think that he or any human being who isn’t mentally ill would start a nuclear war. Think a little how stupid that is, before you repeat it again. That kind of scare propaganda has been standard Democratic Party fare since I was a kid, back in Goldwater’s time.
SteveF
Yes. It used to be Salsa night. But the Willowbrook ballroom burned down on Friday.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/news/ct-sta-willowbrook-ballroom-loss-st-1101-20161031-story.html
(We had reservations for New Years Eve. Now we have to find a suitable substitute. I’m not sure there is one. Maybe Alhambra Palace, in which case it would be wise to find a hotel so we can stay late and drink a bit.)
Mike M.
I’m somewhat afraid of Trump. Not as much as Winston– but somewhat. Trump hasn’t been in office and so is unpredictable in office.
That said: I’m afraid of Hillary too. Clinton really reminds me of all the various Latin American strong men who have run their countries into the ground.
Mike R,
“They exist to deliver the wish-list of Democratic lobby groups for more power over the people of the United States. Period.â€
.
Ya well, they want the States to become more like Europe: ever growing tax take/redistribution, ever growing public control over individuals and businesses, sacrifice of individual liberties to the choices of those in political control.
Team Clinton, with the implicit enablement of Mr. Obama, has created a Tammany Hall-Evita Peron hybrid that has already damaged American national security by corrupting the Dept. of State. As documented in the wikileaks and other objective evidence, they have operated a huge multi-national pay to play scheme. They rigged at least the primary the debates by controlling at least some of the questions. They deliberately contrived to destroy evidence under Congressional subpoena. To give false testimony to Congress. To substantially mislead the public. Even now they push the nonsense that these emails are a “Comey problem”, and not a “Hillary problem”.
Hillary chose, against NSA and other legitimate advice, to have a private server. Hillary chose to put government documents on that server. Hillary chose what unvetted, unauthorized people to give those docs to. And as the latest problem proves, her choices were irresponsible, sense copies of the emails apparently resided for years on a completely unsecured computer device.
And look at Hillary’s track record: Is Libya better? Is Syria better? Are relations with Russia better? Is Iran better? She negotiated for exactly the TPP that the President wants to have passed. Yet she disavows the TPP. Nothing she did at Dept. of State got better, except the money under her control.
Lucia,
“Clinton really reminds me of all the various Latin American strong men who have run their countries into the ground.”
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The tendencies to lie/deceive/hide are the same, the insider corruption and personal enrichment is the same, ignoring rules and laws is the same. But fortunately, the States have stronger institutional structures than most Latin American countries. Those US institutions can withstand a lot more assaults like the Clintons make. But we should recognize that even strong institutions will eventually succumb to endless assault…. look at what has happened to free speech on Ivy League campuses. I for one don’t want that ‘culture of control’ to be instituted nationally…. and internationally. My guess is that for sure Hillary does. I find the intellectual arrogance of that at least as offensive as the money grubbing corruption.
“They rigged at least the primary the debates by controlling at least some of the questions.” Yeah, well, I’m tired of that sort of minimalist presentation. – I know it’s not your fault, but Carrick has been doing a lot of it. The correct _conclusion_ is, Presumably they rigged the entire primary and the election since, including all the debates that they had access to. Presumably they will cheat every way they can in the actual election as well. Which is what Trump has been saying and for which the media has been heaping him with scorn.
Lucia,
I too am somewhat afraid of Trump. There is an unsettling element of the unknown with him. He will make mistakes, some may be doozies. Just like Clinton will, or Obama has, or Bush did, and so on. But he is not going to start WWIII, as Winston seems to fear.
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But my biggest fear with Trump is that he may fail. My biggest fear with Clinton is that she will succeed.
MikeR:
Actually, you just brought it up. There isn’t anything you can point to with the Clinton Foundation (questions of self dealing) where Trump isn’t substantially worse.
Of course I demand proof! Any person capable of criticial thinking should be demanding just that.
In this election, with the Republicans having sold every single principle down the river that they supposedly stood for, you are on no good grounds here to lecture anybody about how the Democratic Party is behaving.
You seem to think I caucus with the Democrats—I don’t. I’ve never voted for Bill Clinton and I won’t be voting for HRC this election either.
But I won’t be voting for Donald Trump either. And I really can’t understand how any sane person could vote for him.
Carrick: “I won’t be voting for HRC this election either. But I won’t be voting for Donald Trump either. And I really can’t understand how any sane person could vote for him.”
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I think that is a silly attitude. The only way I can understand it is if you think that elections are about asking our opinion or determining our preferences. They are not. Elections serve one purpose: to make a decision. In this case the decision is a binary choice between Clinton and Trump. Responsible citizen will cast their votes accordingly. If you really think that a vote for Trump is insane, then the responsible thing to do is to vote for Clinton.
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p.s. – Of course, in some states the decision has, in effect, already been made, in which case other criteria might apply.
Carrick,
Are you at least fooling yourself with your faux analysis of this situation?
Hillary, while *in office* ran a second set of account: she sold Government favors for donations to her foundation. While on the government payroll, she decided to store her work product on a private unsecured server- and lied about it under oath.
Donna Brazille was just fired from CNN for corrupting the debates. Wikileaks shows team Clinton doing this more than a few times.
Trump is not my favorite guy. But he is not a kook who, say would through Khadafy out of power for no detectable rational reason, create horrible chaos, and flood southern Europe with refugees- but Hillary is that sort of kook.
Trump was not crazy enough to destabilize Syria in a half assed way causing the largest refugee crisis since WWII, and claim that was a success.
Trump did not set up a “foundation” to receive contributions for political favors.
But Hillary did.
Hillary voted for a war and then did not have the integrity to fight it to success. Not Trump.
Hillary is a failed and corrupt candidate.
MikeN:
They might have thought she’d be the more likely Democratic nominee. But technically, they had no idea whether she’d actually become president. Obviously she didn’t.
I’m taking it you can’t actually admit when the right wing is spreading an obvious lie.
Partisanship, regardless of which side does it, is not very pretty.
MikeM,
In my dreams:
1) Trump wins.
2) He has a massive heart attack quite soon thereafter.
3) Pence become president.
I have no idea if I actually “like” Pence. But I know I don’t like the effect Hillary or Kaine would have on SCOTUS. So, Hillary win then die is not my favorite. I prefer Trump win, then die.
Now, I have to admit this is gruesome. Also: I’m obviously not going to vote based on a “I hope the person I vote for dies” scenario. Because they probably aren’t going to promptly keel over.
But I think both HRC and Trump would be very, very bad– in different ways. I don’t want the effect a DEM president would have on SCOTUS. So,Trump to wins then dies quickly strikes me as the best possible outcome of this election.
Mike M:
Actually not an issue here. I’m in a state that is safely Trump (and if Trump loses here, he’s lost the election a long time ago), I do have a choice. And I will choose “neither of these bozos”.
Lucia,
We are of the same generation. Do you recall nearly exactly the same thing about who should actually be President when Reagan was running for his first term?
So much of what we know about Trump has been filtered by a media that has been documented to be dedicated to team Clinton that I believe it is reasonable to question the underlying assumption that the reported negatives about Trump are accurate.
Lucia:
In an ordinary year, I’d be a single-issue voter and would caucus with the Republicans this time.
Sadly, given how incapable Trump is of keeping his promises, we don’t really know what Trump would do.
We’re left with the certainty of what happens with HRC/Kaine versus the possibility that Trump won’t screw things up on this issue.
Given we’re likely going to have a Democrat majority in the Senate, Trump wouldn’t automatically be able to pick the nominee of his choice. He’d have to actually be able to compromise, and we’ve seen how good he is with that.
Plus the Republicans (that genius Ted Cruz) are already talking about four years of filibuster if Clinton is elected. That’s just a brilliant thing for the Republicans to endorse, when they don’t actually have a 50% chance of maintaining control of the Senate.
There is apparently a substantial change in the votes taking place and it appears to be negative to democrats across the board.
The next 6 days are going to be very interesting.
Lucia: “I have no idea if I actually “like†Pence. But I know I don’t like the effect Hillary or Kaine would have on SCOTUS.”
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If I could choose between the four of them, I’d take Pence, with SCOTUS high on the list of reasons. I am not as pessimistic as you are about Trump; he might be really bad or he might be good. But then, I am an optimist by nature.
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Clinton will be very bad and little could be done about it. If Trump is REALLY bad, there is the possibility of impeachment if the public turns on him. That would come from establishment Republicans teaming up with Democrats combined with a V.P. who is different enough that the change might seem worthwhile. But I hope it does not come to that.
hunter,
No. I was in France Aug 79-June 80. I didn’t pay much attention to elections after I got back. I remember the election, but I didn’t follow it in Yuge detail. I did not vote for Reagan. I didn’t like his stated views on abortion. I voted 3rd party that year.
Oddly, he didn’t turn out as badly on abortion — he pretty much did bupkiss. Others did do things– but that topic turned out not to be Reagan’s “thing”.
I think Trump is scarier than Reagan who was a governor. My general view is governors is the most appropriate relevant experience for President and the experience that gives voters the most information about the candidates positions, performance and so on. The larger the state, the better.
Of course I don’t support someone merely because he is a governor; I vote against those whose views I oppose. But, campaigning for governor and time in office as governor means the person is tested to some extent and so less unpredictable than most.
Note: Neither Hillary nor Trump have ever been governor. And no, first lady or governors wife does not count.
Hunter: “Do you recall nearly exactly the same thing about who should actually be President when Reagan was running for his first term?”
Excellent point. I recall that well along with the way some people were disappointed that Hinckly didn’t succeed. That is part of the reason that I am optimistic as well as apprehensive about the prospect of President Trump.
hunter, hope springs eternal.
I don’t see a huge shift yet, other than the tracking polls, which I view as junk with they are +6 for Trump today with the LaTimes or +13 for Clinton a few weeks ago.
There’s been one high-quality poll since Comey’s letter.
It suggests basically no significant effect from the letter in the presidential race. (As I said earlier, I’d predict some down-ballot effect.)
The bigger effect is a shift in undecided Republican voters…who seem to be “coming home” to Trump. That’s kind of a normal last minute shift. I think he’s gone from about 80% to 90% Republicans voting for him. Trump would have been completely screwed without it, but it’s not going to give him an election.
The bigger story is Florida. Based on exit poll numbers, 28% of early Republican voters voted for Clinton—that probably is the Cuban vote. If that number holds up, Trump’s lost Florida. If he can’t win Florida, he has no path to victory.
Edited: Here’s a better link.
More pro-Clinton nonsense from Carrick. That “exit poll” is not an exit poll.
Edit: The sample size was just over 300 people. That would give an error of over 10% on the spread.
Anyone who has worked where a code of conduct is part of the employment contract understands perfectly well what Hillary has done. Anyone who has hired a sales person and found out they were cutting side deals understands what team Clinton has engaged in. Anyone who was exposed to a corrupt Latin American regimes knows what Hillary is doing- Evita is not just a musical.
As to whether there is a trend: RCP’s no tossups map now has Clinton 273, Trump 265. A dead heat.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map_no_toss_ups_race_changes.html
Carrick,
The situation with the Senate is fluid, of course, but I’m not sure your characterization of ‘not a 50% chance’ is accurate. As of this morning, RCP shows this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/senate/2016_elections_senate_map_no_toss_ups.html
With the Republicans holding 51 seats. They wouldn’t filibuster anything if they hold 51 seats…. they would just vote everything Hillary proposes down, or more likely, not allow it to come to the floor. In this case, Hillary would probably continue Obama’s practice of executive orders to flout existing law. We might hope Hillary would be more willing to compromise than Obama (she is clearly less principled, so it might be easier for her to compromise), but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Lucia,
You missed some pretty intense deconstruction on Reagan if you were in France. Watching how team Clinton is trying to frame this as a “Comey problem” instead of a “HIllary’s chickens coming home to roost problem” reminds me that our democrat friends rely on Allinsky quite a bit.
Hillary really hurt the Mideast, really voted for war, and really seems clueless and dodges accountability in mind boggling ways. As President she would running scams that dwarf her “foundation”. She is a proven risk and failure. Trump is very unlikely to be anything close to as dangerous. And he may even be brilliant.
MikeM—Then call it an early voter poll.
It includes a sample of 300 people who had already voted. Obviously it isn’t definitive–but 30% of Republicans is a large number. A 10% spread gives that a statistical significance 99.8%.
I’m not cheerleading for Clinton—I’m looking at the numbers and interested in what they tell us about the current status of the polls.
This is a quantitative science blog (usually). We like to do that sort of thing here.
We’ll get more high-quality polls in a few days, and we’ll get a better idea of whether the dynamics of the race have changed, and whether the Comey letter has influenced it.
Edit: By the way I don’t put anywhere close to a 99.8% chance on those early voter numbers being reliable. I would expect representative sampling problems to dominate the true uncertainty. I was just pointing out the formal consequences of MikeM’s 10% number.
Well, ~I~ think there’s been a shift in the polls. Trump’s odds on Nate Silver’s 538 have gone from under 15% mid October to about 30% today, from about a 6 point lead to about 3.5.
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It’s still hard to know what’s really going on, but I’m pretty skeptical that something between a quarter and a third of Republican early voters in Florida went with Hillary. Certainly not consistent with the anecdotal reports I get from relatives down there in their nutty little Cuban exile community, nor would it be consistent with the expected / polled behavior of Republican voters elsewhere.
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All this being said, my optimistic Trump forecast still has him losing, Hillary 270 electoral votes to Trump 268. He’s got momentum but I’m doubtful it’s going to be enough.
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God save Madam President. God save us all.
Mike M,
The question is: where does Trump pick up the other 5 electoral college votes?
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I don’t see many opportunities for that, and team Clinton is pounding away with attack adds in all Trump’s must-win States, which are all very close. I saw 4 or 5 of those ads yesterday (Florida) while watching the World Series. Trump? Not a single ad. World series air time is too expensive for him. He is at an enormous disadvantage in funds for the last week of the campaign. I will be surprised if he manages to hold all his ‘must-wins’, even though he is slightly ahead in the polls now in those states.
Carrick: “but 30% of Republicans is a large number.”
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No, it isn’t. 311 early voters surveyed. Maybe 30% Republican, so about 93 early voting Republicans surveyed. 28% of that is about 26 people. Basing a headline on the responses of 26 people is a joke.
SteveF:
It depends on which model you prefer. 538 gives the DNC a 65.8% chance right now.
I’d (guesstimate) put the odds at closer to even with a small edge to the Democrats.
You are right about the point on filibuster of course (coffee is brewing, should get more awake soon).
My point is–it isn’t a good idea to talk about things like filibustering before the elections have even occurred.
hunter,
“And he may even be brilliant.”
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Have you listened to him talk much? Unless it is all a very good act by a brilliant person portraying a buffoon, he seems to me not brilliant at all. He is also horribly uninformed (in a factual sense) on lots of subjects. Of course, if it’s all an act, he can probably go into acting if his businesses don’t do well.
SteveF: “The question is: where does Trump pick up the other 5 electoral college votes?”
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Well, start with the “Clinton up” states. RCP has Clinton ahead by 2.4% in CO. Even VA and NH are probably within the error bonds. Or NM; Trump and Pence have both been here in the last few days and they are running TV ads, so they obviously think it is in play. Maybe they are expecting Republican Johnson voters to come home at the last minute. And if the poll weighting functions are off, MI and PA could still be possibilities. Especially if the polls are lagging behind a late shift to Trump.
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At this point, the only predictions that I give credence to are Yogi Berra’s. There are several to choose from.
SteveF,
I also think a Trump win is highly unlikely. But I am hoping for GOP to win downballot.
Or, as I said before:Trump wins, then dies.
I’m not buying that Trump will be ok because Reagan was ok. Sorry…. no. Trump is a pig. Sadly with think skin– so not even good for making old fashioned Hush Puppies. (Does that brand even exist anymore?)
(The shoes still exist http://www.hushpuppies.com/US/en/home )
Gonzales and so-called problem with investigations: ““You don’t comment on investigations because commenting on the investigation may jeopardize the investigation. And that’s the box that he’s put himself in, because people are now calling for more information — for release of the emails,â€
….
I don’t agree with this comment. The reason for not commenting on investigations is to catch people who know details of the crime that have not been made public or to prevent nutty people from confessing to a crime they didn’t commit. See http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2006/08/the_secrets_police_keep.html
Since the issue of Clinton’s emails has been public for a long time, and since the proof of any wrongdoing will be 95% found on computer trails, there is little reason to worry about some public details jeopardizing what is essentially a computer search. I think Gonzales is just carrying water for the Bushes. I would add that until we know what prompted Comey’s letter, it is far too early to pass judgment on whether the letter was justified or not.
JD
SteveF,
Trump does not sound brilliant for two reasons. One is that he is not trying to sound brilliant, he is trying to get his message across to ordinary people. He has been succeeding brilliantly. The other is that he is not practiced at the specialized politician skill of sounding like you are saying something even when you aren’t.
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That he often does not sound so well informed is a bit more troubling. But it is really hard to sound well informed while not sounding like a wonk (which Trump definitely avoids), especially if you have not polished up the standard politician’s BS skills. And he is well enough informed to have identified a number of issues that resonate with the public but that are news to the well-informed elites.
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I have no doubt that Trump lacks the depth of knowledge possessed by Clinton, Rubio, etc. But that is what staff are for. I remember that people said that Reagan was dumb and poorly informed, although they had to admit that Reagan was a smooth talker.
MikeM—there are plenty of reasons to hold your nose about this survey but a 30% of early voting Republicans voting for Clinton is, in my opinion, newsworthy. Especially since we have a model of sorts for it: Trump’s poorly thought out comments on Latinos.
What I would say is the real problem is I’d expect early voters to be a different demographic than all voters, so unless you can adjust your measurements to remove the potential bias of this, this number is of limited value.
I wouldn’t have brought it up, other than as a foil to hunter’s comments that he thought the polls were swinging Trump’s way (he is right about the tracking polls).
I managed to find the survey which I’ve placed here.
The fact that Rubio’s numbers are very good seems to reenforce the idea that Cubans aren’t exactly thrilled about Trump.
Luica,
“I also think a Trump win is highly unlikely.”
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I don’t think it is highly unlikely, because there is too much uncertainty in polling accuracy and voter turnout… especially with such odious candidates. My personal guess is that Trump has about a 20% chance, but that could easily change, depending mostly on what impact the continuing Clinton scandals have, and how much impact Hillary’s blitzkrieg of attack ads has in swing states; the blitzkrieg has only recently started in Florida.
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It will also depend on how much of his own money Trump is willing to spend on attack adds in the final days; my guess… not much, so Hillary’s ads will go mostly unanswered. The ads I have recently seen talk about nothing but how horrible/evil a person Trump is; I haven’t seen an issue oriented ad from Hillary for some time. I doubt attack ads change many minds, but they may make enough difference in turnout (fire up the base, discourage more moderate Trump voters from bothering) to make a difference.
JD Ohio—hope you’re sitting down, but I agree with virtually 100% of what you wrote there.
SteveF brought up Gonzales and waterboard. Just a reminder that Alberto was forced to resign himself. So, stones, meet glass houses.
On a separate topic, I think the main reason that Trump doesn’t sound particularly brilliant is because he isn’t particularly brilliant. Occam’s Razor.
Mike M,
“I remember that people said that Reagan was dumb and poorly informed.”
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Some may have said that, but it was very far from true. Agree with him or not, Reagan had given a great deal of thought to substantive issues, and had gradually changed from ‘left-wing’ Hollywood type (head of the screen actors’ union!) to a carefully reasoned conservative. He had served as governor of California, so by that time anyone who suggest he was ‘dumb and poorly informed’ was objecting to his political views, not his intellect.
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It is, of course, customary and normal for those on the left to dismiss anyone who does not share their politics as ‘dumb and poorly informed’; it has been that way since I was old enough to be aware of it… certainly 50+ years. But Ronald Reagan was neither of those things.
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Trump really is poorly informed on many substantive issues.
Max: “If he already had email evidence of wrongdoing he contradicted himself in the letter by saying the significance of the emails is yet to be determined.”
No, he seems to be saying he has found materials that are highly suspicious and that until he sees the actual emails and reviews all of the evidence he is withholding judgment.
JD
Since we’re on my favorite part (making predictions), I think a Trump victory is highly unlikely too…unless the FBI comes out in the next few days with a “smoking gun” on Clinton, I’d put his chances around 5%.
My “best numbers” right now would be 333 to 205 using the “create your own” map on RCP
As I’ve said before, I think Clinton actually has a bigger advantage than is showing up in the polling numbers, precisely because of her focus on getting out the vote (the ground game), something that’s been completely missing with the not-very-brilliantly run Trump campaign. I expect her to get 2-3% better than final the RNC average.
Her campaign has also been very good at focused advertising in battleground states. Where Trump has spent his energy with 10,000-20,000 person venues, Clinton’s been raising massive amounts of money for her political buy ads. 10,000 people see him. Maybe 500,000 people see her for the same effort level.
I’ve pointed out in the past that Mondale had crowds up to 100,000 in his campaign rallies. How did that turn out for him? [525 to 13 in electoral votes count].
It’s easy to fool yourselves about what are historically fairly modest crowd sizes, which you have to compare to the 130,000,000 or so people who will vote in this election.
None of this is an endorsement of Clinton let alone her policies–she just found the best people to run her campaign. Many of them, I understand, were part Obama’s electoral machine, and they are particularly good at what they do.
I’ve always believed good science makes for a better outcome.
I think an equally well run Trump campaign would have him at least 10% ahead in the polls. Of course that’d mean Donald Trump wasn’t Donald Trump. His campaign remains a reflection of who he is, and isn’t.
lucia (Comment #154310): Clinton really reminds me of all the various Latin American strong men who have run their countries into the ground.
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Bingo. Eva Peron, her associates and successors, right up to the newest ex-president of Argentina (also a woman).
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There is no shortage of banana republics in South and Central America. I’d say very sad, but it is much much worse than that. It just shows how high the stakes are in this election.
Carrick,
Among all the President’s political appointees, AGs tend to be the very worst hacks, who’s primary job it is to make sure the president is defended/protected from legal attack from any quarter. I can’t think of a truly principled AG since Watergate, and that may not be a coincidence. If there were any principled AGs, then they hid it well.
Lucia,
I don’t imagine you’ve got any interest in running Electoral College betting do you? Doesn’t have to be formal and require scripting. Why not open a thread where people can comment their wagers?
(none of this is rhetorical. First question looks sort of rhetorical because I’m trying to ask gingerly…)
Carrick,
“I think a Trump victory is highly unlikely too…unless the FBI comes out in the next few days with a “smoking gun†on Clinton, I’d put his chances around 5%.”
.
Humm… if you are really convinced of that, then you can make a lot of money placing suitable bets (find a legal venue, of course).
I think some of you Trump supporters (and it would appear that most of you are more anti-Clinton than pro-Trump) are not anticipating what a politically wounded Clinton as president could do favorably for your cause and what a Trump presidency could do detrimentally to your cause. Trump is not a good messenger for the cause and as president he would be faced by even more MSM scrutiny and the cause would be unfavorably linked to the unfavorable view of Trump. That is how the system works and if you do not believe it then you have not been paying attention.
Most polls currently have the electoral vote pretty much out of reach for Trump but he is (surprisingly to me) doing well with the popular vote or at least so in some polls. I am wondering what the MSM story would be if Hillary wins on the electoral vote but is very close on the popular vote or even loses it, since many in the MSM have been clamoring for a change to popular voting from the electoral college.
A wounded Clinton in victory without a Democrat majority in either the House or Senate would present a very different picture than one where she had a Democrat majority in the Senate or both the House and Senate. The only way to take political advantage of her wounded condition would be through both the House and the Senate. Once the election is over the cries of the MSM and ruling intelligentsia will be for a state of forgiveness and bipartisanship. You will probably even hear a liberal cry for the need for patriotism and bipartisanship to show those awful Russians we have a united Washington. In order for the Republicans to take advantage of Clinton’s weak political condition they would have to fight against this political instinct and stay focused on Clinton and all the baggage she has brought to the presidency in the same manner as the Democrats, the MSM and the ruling intelligentsia class would surely have done if Trump had won.
I loved to see politicians from both sides of the aisle squirm under public scrutiny so maybe my view is different than most of yours.
Carrick (Comment #154347):
“[T]he main reason that Trump doesn’t sound particularly brilliant is because he isn’t particularly brilliant. Occam’s Razor.”
Best line of the day.
Lucia,
Best of luck to your Cubs. May there be an end to their long wandering in the baseball desert.
SteveF:
Yes Reagan was very good at letting other people underestimate him. They though he was stupid and ill-informed and, when it served him, he let them think that. “Dumb like a fox.”
Reagan also was an incredible orator, who had the gift of bypassing Congress and speaking directly to the people—and the people would listen and make their opinions known. In spite of often dealing with a hostile Democratic party, he often got exactly what he was asking for from them.
Regarding Trump and how much he spends—since I’m making predictions, I predict it won’t be anything near $100,000,000. I predict closer to $1,000,000. I do think he has a lot of personal wealth, but I believe most of it is tied up in non-fungible assets.
Kenneth, before W was elected they leaked that they had plans to delegitimize the electoral college in case he won the popular vote and try to flip electors in his favor. A ridiculous proposal, but the liberals fell for it, and we saw lots of articles in the media defending the electoral college. Came in very handy with the election results, almost like they planned it.
A wounded Clinton will be defended by Democrats and the media completely. We’ve seen that story before. Trump will be attacked totally, including by his own party. You could give me 2-1 odds and I wouldn’t bet against Trump’s being impeached. I’m not going to be bothered by having presidents be put on notice.
Kenneth,
“I loved to see politicians from both sides of the aisle squirm under public scrutiny so maybe my view is different than most of yours.”
.
I share that love, at least for the most corrupt ones. I see the four most plausible outcomes as:
1) Hillary wins, and controls the Senate via the VP tie-breaker. This will be very bad for the Supreme Court, because the 50 + VP will invoke the nuclear option to get two young ‘progressives’ appointed to Scalia’s seat and Ginsburg’s seat. Every thing else will remain gridlocked.
2) Hillary wins and controls neither House nor Senate . This will be bad for the Supreme Court; Hillary will have to appoint someone like Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat. Everything else will remain gridlocked.
3) Hillary wins and controls both houses. This would be an utter catastrophe for the country. Ginsburg would retire and Hillary would appoint two young ‘progressives’ to the Supreme court, raise taxes, increase spending, and pass laws restricting gun ownership, freedom of speech, and political contributions, with a friendly Supreme Court to support her ‘interpretation’ of the Constitution.
4) Trump wins and controls both houses. The MSM would attack him constantly for his entire term in office. Congress would not agree to most of the things he wants to do. The Supreme Court would remain conservative for Trump’s term… unless Ginsburg dies, whereupon it would remain conservative for a decade or more.
Carrick, you think I am being partisan in not saying Republicans are lying about Clinton Foundation donations. I think you are being Stokesian in saying that donors had no idea she would be President. Why do donors expecting favors give to campaigns? Technically they have no idea the recipient will be president.
I think the effect of the FBI leak won’t be so much downballot as making Hillary irritable on the campaign trail. She was coasting before, but now I think the chance of another collapse is high.
I would however bet at 2-1 that Jill Stein gets more votes than Gary Johnson.
SteveF, I think you are overestimating how much support Trump gets from Congress. Democrats will vote no even on things they support to deny Trump victories. They did it with the Medicare drug spending, they will do it on trade and child care and even gun bans. The NeverTrump crowd isn’t going away, and will put pressure on Republicans to oppose.
MikeN (Comment #154360)
Your view that the some large donations to the Clinton Foundation were politically motivated I would think could be objectively tested by determining what other charitable foundations could have received these donations or did receive comparable size donations from the Clinton donor. I think I’ll write a letter to the NYT and the Washington Post and see if they can get investigative reporters onto that test straight away.
Kenneth,
“I think I’ll write a letter to the NYT and the Washington Post and see if they can get investigative reporters onto that test straight away.”
.
Good idea.
MikeN,
I said I think Congress will resist most of the things Trumps will want to do. Not sure how that is an overestimate of support.
SteveF,
I think you underestimate how much support Trump will get from Congress. He won’t get support if he tries to govern Obama style; but he won’t do that. He will make deals. Congresscritters do not vote on principle, they vote on interest; that means they are open to making deals (or, if you prefer, they are for sale). Trump will exploit that. In addition, Trump has a talent for speaking to the general public (but not as good Reagan), which gives him another tool with which to pressure Congress.
.
So with Trump and a Congress controlled by either party, we would see give and take with each branch holding the other in check. Reminds me of high school civics class. That would likely be a good thing with one obvious problem: If the Democrats control the Senate, the result would be Supreme Court appointees like Kennedy.
Mike M
No. He doesn’t. He attracted a core some of whom are enthusiastic. He hasn’t shown an ability to persuade the “general public”. He didn’t need to as a real estate developer and he hasn’t shown it on the campaign trail.
JD Ohio (Comment #154349)
November 2nd, 2016 at 10:50 am
Max: “If he already had email evidence of wrongdoing he contradicted himself in the letter by saying the significance of the emails is yet to be determined.â€
No, he seems to be saying he has found materials that are highly suspicious and that until he sees the actual emails and reviews all of the evidence he is withholding judgment.
JD
______
In the letter Comey said the FBI had found emails “that appear to be pertinent” to their investigation. The word “pertinent” means relevant.
He went on to say the FBI wants to review the emails to “determine if they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”
He closed the letter saying “the FBI can’t yet assess whether or not the materials may be significant.”
Something here confuses me. Even before the FBI got the warrant to read the emails I thought the agents could have identified classified emails just from the labels without reading contents, but a close reading of Comey’s letter suggests otherwise.
It seems reasonable if Huma was printing materials for Hillary to read, some could have been classified documents. There is also the possibility classified information was in some documents not labeled classified, and this could be one of the reasons the FBI wants to examine all materials in the trove that appear to be pertinent.
It’s possible all relevant emails have been reviewed previously by the FBI, but my guess is some new ones will be found and the investigation will concentrate on those.
SteveF, I read it wrong about Congress. George W Bush lost a race for Congress when his opponent attacked him as attending Harvard and Yale while he is just a local guy. Bush never had that problem again. I think Trump is deliberately choosing his words to reach the most people. Trying to produce visuals is also something he is doing. Look at how he talks about the ransom money can fill the debate hall.
Lucia, Trump after joining the race was polling in the teens. Then it went up to the 20s and stayed there until March when he moved up to the 30s, and then moved up to the low 40s in April. So he sold himself to more than a loyal core.
Max, Huma already explained the sending of documents for printing, saying it was occasional. That doesn’t explain 650,000 e-mails. The source of these is not from forwarding for printing.
Oh my, this should kill Trump’s chances.
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793437463377276928
Mike N
First: you are mistaking “polling” as in people will vote for him with ability to speak to the general public. He and Hillary are widely hated and/or disliked. Neither has shown themselves able to speak to the general public. Trumps unfavorability ratings approach 60%– and that includes some people who are going to vote for him.
Whether or not you like their politics, both Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were able to speak to the public. Neither Trump nor Hillary can.
Max
If course you can’t expect to identify classified emails from the label without reading the contents. Similarly, you can’t tell whether the contents inside a manilla envelope based on the stuff printed on the envelope. Sometimes someone *might* lable the envelope, but the label doesn’t apply itself. The subject line on an email doesn’t fill itself out and automatically add “Top Secret” to the “subject” based on the contents.
Yes. One of the reasons the FBI wants to see the emails is to determine whether they contain classified contents.
They evidently have a script to search for certain key terms to pull those up first in the search. They also have something in place to identify duplicates; so that should speed things up. But yes, they are trying to find certain types of things: new, classified and so on.
JD Ohio (Comment #154343)
November 2nd, 2016 at 10:16 am
Gonzales and so-called problem with investigations: ““You don’t comment on investigations because commenting on the investigation may jeopardize the investigation. And that’s the box that he’s put himself in, because people are now calling for more information — for release of the emails,â€
….
I don’t agree with this comment. The reason for not commenting on investigations is to catch people who know details of the crime that have not been made public or to prevent nutty people from confessing to a crime they didn’t commit.
____
JD, I may have initially misinterpreted what Gonzales means. He may mean the public wants a answer to the question Comey has raised about Clinton, and wants it before the election, but regardless of what the public wants, he can’t provide the answer until the investigation is complete, which may be after the election.
If Comey yields to the public’s demand for answers before the investigation is completed, the information could be incomplete and misleading, but Gonzales does not explain how it could jeopardize the investigation.
So far we haven’t heard more from Comey, and may not hear more until after the election unless the investigation is finished sooner. He made no promise about time.
Carrick, the early vote numbers probably just means the Hillary camp is doing a better job of turning out supporters.
It is based on 28% of 127 voters. What is the margin of error in that?
Trump is also winning the independent early voters in the same survey, statistically tied.
Among non-early vote Republicans, Hillary support is just 12%, while Trump is getting 18% of nonEV Dems. Also within margin of error I think.
Another issue is that Trump supporters won’t have long lines on Election Day, so they are less likely to vote early.
MikeN: I think the big issue is the margin of error associated with non-representative sampling. A 28% number probably works out roughly 95%, not including that issue.
I would not base a predicted handling and view by others of a Clinton presidency on how Obama was treated by the media and more importantly his opposition. Remember that Obama came in as somewhat of a Washington outsider and much more so than Hillary. He was going to unify the country as our first president of color. He was personable, polite, well spoken, physically trim and had a good sense of humor. He saw himself somewhat in the line of Reagan and I think others saw him in the same light. Those attributes I think protected him throughout his 8 year tenure and even during his presidential campaigns from his Republican opposition. That the race card could be applied in his case I think also kept the negative rhetoric down concerning Obama. As it turns out Obama was basically your typical hard line leftist who did things very much as would be expected from a polished politician that resides in Washington for any length of time. The example of his lying about Obama Care and arbitrarily changing the application of the law as it suited his political purposes was an example of politics at its worst. While I have seen other politicians do the same, the difference was that Obama in my view was let off the hook on this one rather easily.
Now Hillary in my view has none of these political attributes and while there may be some hesitancy to criticize her because of the sexist card it will be difficult to apply since most of Hillary’s problems are plainly because she is Hillary and not because she is a female. In my view Hillary comes across closer to the Nixon persona than other recent presidents and look how easy that made it to kick around Tricky Dick or at least so he thought.
There is another potential political development after the elections that might help Hillary and that is the looming civil war between Republicans. As much as I enjoy seeing politicians fight with one another it would be disappointing to see Hillary so easily get off the hook.
> A 28% number probably works out roughly 95%,
I was wondering before, what does this mean?
Normally it is 95% chance of being within the margin of error.
What is the margin of error on a sample size of 127?
MikeN,
The variance of a small number is the number itself. The standard deviation is then the square root (always assuming i.i.d.) or 11.2. 95% confidence would be plus or minus 2 σ or 22. 28% of 127 is 36, so one can say with better than 95% confidence that the number of Republican voters who voted for HRC is not zero, but the range is 14 to 58. Again, that assumes a representative sample that isn’t lying.
I would have to vehemently disagree with this statement. Trump picked-up the theme about the Washington outsider and took advantage of a large percentage of the public who were fed up with Washington and the so-called elites running things. That public saw him as their messenger, but Trump instead of staying on point about how he would change all that engaged in personality politics and talking about himself and using silly superlatives at every turn. Just as Hillary should be thankful for Trump being her opposition, Trump needed Hillary to have the support he currently has.
It is rather obvious that Trump changed his mind on several issues simply because he thought they were hot emotional issues with the voters. It is rather obvious that if one were looking for an example of a demagogue in current politics in the US Trump would be a perfect one. Do not get me wrong here for I think that a lot of our politicians have demagogue tendencies, it is just that Trump takes it a few bridges further. I think he makes politicians especially uncomfortable because he is like a caricature of the political class. If one good thing comes out of his candidacy it would be that caricature and one that hopefully the public can see in not only Trump but many other politicians.
Regarding a shift, here’s Nate Silver basically saying what I was saying earlier. Trump has doubled his chances over the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately it’s a video (hate it when they do that). He goes on to say we really don’t have the best data from some of Clinton’s firewall states like Pennsylvania and such.
Lucia: “He and Hillary are widely hated and/or disliked. Neither has shown themselves able to speak to the general public. Trumps unfavorability ratings approach 60%– and that includes some people who are going to vote for him.”
.
Reagan barely got half the vote against a deeply unpopular incumbent. Although the media did not like him, he did not have to contend with the drumbeat that we have seen against Trump. He had the support of his party and was not massively outspent. All things considered, Trump is doing well.
.
Although much is made of both candidates having unfavorabilities over 50%, that is rarely put in context. Unfavorability ratings of between 40% and 50% seem to be the norm. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/30/donald-trump-is-the-least-favorably-viewed-presidential-candidate-since-at-least-1992/
Note that the list only goes back 24 years. My guess is that, at the time, Reagan and Carter may have been the two most unfavorably viewed candidates ever other than Goldwater.
MikeN (Comment #154370)
November 2nd, 2016 at 1:26 pm
Max, Huma already explained the sending of documents for printing, saying it was occasional. That doesn’t explain 650,000 e-mails. The source of these is not from forwarding for printing.
____
Hillary was Secretary of State from from Jan. 21, 2009 to Feb.1, 2013, a period of about 1,470 days. If all 650,000 emails were from the period of her tenure, it works out to about 440 emails per day 7 days a week (correct me if my math is wrong).
I think 440 emails per day is a questionably large number for official business. A large proportion of the 650,00 may not be about official business. Also many could be from times other than Hillary’s tenure at State.
MikeN: “It is based on 28% of 127 voters. What is the margin of error in that?”
One standard deviation is +/- 4 percentage points. 95% confidence interval is about twice that. But that assumes a representative sample, which is unlikely since early voters self-select.
Edit: Dewitt is confused as to the use of which number goes where in the formulas.
MikeN…. I would consider my guesstimate of 95% “marginally” significant (2 sigma).
But that’s based just on statistical uncertainty. I think the real problem here is with sampling bias (how does the demographics of your sample compare to the demographics of the voting population).
If you have “N” samples, the standard deviation (“sigma”) = sqrt(N).
The relative uncertainty is sigma/N = sqrt(N)/N = 1/sqrt(N).
The percent uncertainty is 100/sqrt(N) percent.
So a sample size of 127 has an standard deviation of sqrt(127) = 11, with a percent error of 100/sqrt(127) = 9%. For comparison 100/sqrt(1000) = 3%.
As an example, if you have 30 Republicans out of 100 Republicans voting against Trump, sigma = 10, and the percent uncertainty = 10%. I you had 1000 samples, the percent uncertainty = 3%. You’d have no problem resolving 30% Republicans with just 100 Republicans, but you’d need 1000 Republicans to resolve 10% at the same level of statistical uncertainty.
Upthread, Mike M was worried about resolving just 26 people out of 93. For that case, the sigma = sqrt(93) = 9.6. So 26 is about 2.6 sigma or a 99% CL.
Statistical resolution isn’t the issue there, it’s interpreting what those early voter numbers mean.
Edit: MikeM: You might want to check your numbers again.
Kenneth,
.
I agree. In fact, there have been times I’ve thought they should put Trump’s picture in reference books under the heading ‘demagogue’. In fact I feel he is such a fine example of demagoguery in action that there have been moments where I suspected he studied his approach ahead of time and chose deliberately to proceed that way.
.
Or not. Maybe he’s just naturally a demagogue.
If we are going to toss formulas around, we might as well get them right. We have a sample of N=127 with 36 (28%) giving choice A (voted for Clinton) and 91 (72%) giving choice B (did not vote for Clinton). There is no uncertainty in those numbers. The question is to what extent the 28%/72% split would be representative of the whole population. The formula for that is
sigmaA = sigmaB = sqrt(N*pA*pB) = sqrt(127*0.28*0.72) = 5.0
5.0 is 4% of 127, so the one sigma uncertainty in the percentage is 4%.
Technically, the population probabilities should be used in the above formula, but it makes little difference to use the sample probabilities.
Edit: Carrick, you might want to buy a book on statistics.
After taking a couple weeks reading hardly any political coverage, I read everything the usual suspects had to say yesterday and then voted by mail. Unfortunately there wasn’t a “No President This Term” option. Being from FL means it might even be relevant. The I-4 corridor has seen many visits from the contenders for the throne.
I suppose I would mostly consider mine a protest vote more than anything, if only Cartman was running. Is it possible to vote for someone and hope they lose at the same time? Perhaps.
The woman who accuses Trump of raping her when she was 13-years old will hold a press conference today at 3 PM Pacific Time, the Huffington Post reports.
I don’t know what to make of this. I don’t recall her identifying herself previously or giving details.
MikeM, Try not be be childish.
The statistic I gave is the probability that “M” is different from 0 given N measurements, assuming the Poisson Distribution, which is standard for count data.
This is a standard introductory statistics concept.
I read what you wrote a couple of time and I still haven’t deciphered what test you’re trying to perform.
Carrick: “The statistic I gave is the probability that “M†is different from 0 given N measurements”
There are several problems with this. One is that no one is claiming that there are zero Republicans voting for Clinton. Another is that in the formula you are using, the correct quantity in the number of events, not the sample size. Yet another is that you are using the wrong formula since what is being considered is probabilities within a fixed sample size.
.
You wrote: “I read what you wrote a couple of time and I still haven’t deciphered what test you’re trying to perform.”
That would be because you know very little about statistics. As I clearly said, I was calculating the standard deviation, which is needed for both estimating error limits and doing the type of statistical test you were attempting.
.
So we have 36 people giving a particular response and a standard deviation of 5. That is different from zero by 7 standard deviations. No tables needed to decide that is statistically significant at any reasonable level. But I don’t think that is the question that MikeN asked.
This is relevant to several comments: “Early Voting a Poor Predictor of Final Results”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/11/02/early_voting_a_poor_predictor_of_final_results.html
jD
Mike M.
Perhaps you should get a new stat book.
The correct formula is sqrt(p*(1-p)/n)*z
the value of z depends on the confidence interval and is 1.96 for 95%
1.96*sqrt(0.28*0.72/127) = 0.078 or 7.8%, not 4%
Carrick’s estimate was a lot closer than yours.
Stupid thing won’t delete my stupid reply.
Call Hillary.
DeWitt (#154394) –
Your estimate (7.8% for 95% confidence interval) seems to be fairly close to Mike M., who gave (in #154388) 4% as the one-sigma interval.
Am I misinterpreting?
DeWitt: “Perhaps you should get a new stat book”
My stat books are old, but this stuff has not changed.
.
“The correct formula is sqrt(p*(1-p)/n)*z”
That is the formula I used, with z=1 for standard deviation and z=2 for 95% confidence.
.
“the value of z depends on the confidence interval and is 1.96 for 95%”
As I recall, z depends weakly on sample size. I used 2 for convenience.
.
“1.96*sqrt(0.28*0.72/127) = 0.078 or 7.8%, not 4%”
I wrote (Comment #154385): “One standard deviation is +/- 4 percentage points. 95% confidence interval is about twice that.” Glad to see that you agree with me.
.
“Carrick’s estimate was a lot closer than yours.”
Carrick got sigma = 11, which gives a confidence interval of 22.
Mike M:
Well yes, but significance relative to zero is a rather standard metric in detection theory.
You’re correct I should be using the number of measurement “M” rather than the sample population “N”.
I was just using a heuristic, but okay.
Generally we say the standard deviation of “what quantity”.
Probably I was wrong about you not having to be childish. It seems ingrained.
Another possibility besides everybody but you being stupid and ignorant is that you just might not be that clear in what you wrote. Food for thought.
DeWitt,
Your reply was not the least bit stupid and I was not the least bit offended by it.
Mike M.
Oh, but it was. Why, other than brain fade with age, I confused confidence interval with standard deviation is still beyond me. I should have tried edit and delete the text first.
Mark Bofill,
I really like the idea of calling delete key the Hillary.
DeWitt,
.
pfft. It’s a mistake I’d be proud to have made. I don’t work with statistics enough to remember any of it off the top of my head, frankly.
.
J,
.
Thank you. 🙂 [Although actually I meant call her on the phone, she’s a specialist in this sort of thing. But, close enough. ]
Teenage victim of Weiner blasts Comey in open letter.
BuzzFeed has published her letter. A few quotes follow:
“I am the 15-year-old (now 16) who was the victim of Anthony Weiner. I now add you to the list of people who have victimized me.â€
“Anthony Weiner is the abuser. Your letter helped that abuse to continue.â€
‘Why couldn’t your letter have waited until after the election, so I would not have to be the center of attention the last week of the election cycle?â€
“I can only assume that you saw an opportunity for political propaganda.â€
“It’s time that the FBI Director puts his victims’ rights above political views.â€
https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/heres-an-open-letter-to-james-comey?utm_term=.uu6WqYKxa#.br8EVG8px
________
The girl has a right to be angry with Comey and the FBI.
Heh.
[Edit: Wait. Not joking? …uhm. Oh. In that case,
Heh.]
That girl’s letter makes no sense.
Lead off home run.
Jim, “Holy Sh*t!”
Nice start for your Cubbies!
Max_OK,
Let her be angry; everyone has a right to their emotions. That doesn’t make Comey’s act wrong or inappropriate.
Did Comey or the FBI identify the girl? (real question) That would be wrong. But otherwise I don’t see how they did her any harm.
Mike M,
No, nobody (FBI or anyone else) has identified her except, apparently, Wiener to the reporter at Buzzfeed (according to the reporter). The open letter doesn’t identify her either. I can’t make any sense out of the letter, since she was not identified at all. Very strange.
Underneat the tag. Wow!
Another run?! Whoo hoo!
Home run!
Still nervous… but wow!
Me from the future just popped in and said Trump is going to win the election. He/me said the surprise is going to be that Hillary will win Nevada, but that Trump will win Florida, North Carolina, and pierce Hillary’s blue state firewall.
.
He/me didn’t say anything about the Cubs, unfortunately.
.
Only question that still nags. I’m not sure it was a he/me from this timeline or a parallel universe.
.
I guess I’ll have to wait another week to find out!
Lucia,
No need to be nervous…. the Cubbies chances are now >90%.
mark bofill,
It’s a parallel universe.
SteveF,
Before or after the Indians scored?
Lucia,
were 90%….
SteveF,
.
It could’a been this one. I mean granted, I [future me] looked awfully good for it to be this timeline in the future, but I still think it’s not utterly impossible…
.
~sigh~
.
yeah.
.
spoilsport. :p
Last game as a player and hits a homer. Go Ross!!!!
Both teams score on average a little more than 1.5 runs per 3 innings. 3 up with three to play is pretty safe.
Bret Baier is under the impression that an indictment is almost certain, although apparently this may happen months after the election.
I mention this in reference to the question of whether or not Comey & the FBI think they ‘know’ something about what they’re going to find.
.
I actually have no opinion on whether or not this is true. I linked it anyway so you the reader can decide.
Pretty safe… provided the Billy Goat is dead.
mark bofill,
May be true, but it won’t change the election outcome. My guess is Huma is the target: obvious perjury. Expect pardons for all those involved from Mr Obama.
Time for more Cubs runs!
uh oh.
Tied….
Wow, what a game. I don’t have a favorite, just wanted a 7 game series and close games. I’ve gotten my wish, good luck to both teams from here on out. 🙂
And now it’s raining….
Oh the pain….
Draamaaaaaa!
Lucia, I feel for you. Still want Indians to win.
JD
JD–
I know!
Have you seen the weather radar? That rains I saw? It stopped but storms are moving in.
BTW, this was posted two years ago:
I thnk Aroldis is a bit burnt/thrown out; hopefully he can find that extra gear.
Fox News is reporting that FBI leaks reveal there is 99% certainty of evidence that the Clinton private server was hacked be 5 foreign governments.
.
It only makes sense that if Podesta, Colin Powell, the DNC and various government systems have been hacked that some intelligence agency found Clinton’s relatively unprotected server over the six years it was active.
.
There is also leaks that there is a very large investigation of the Clinton Foundation heating up fed by the Weiner laptop, but even before that by other sources, some that are getting second interviews.
.
Trump needs to call for a special prosecutor and a pledge from Obama for no pardons.
Thought for a second it was over. Bet you lost your lunch for a second.
Yes. But now game delay. Oy. Worse weather is evidently moving in.
what could happen with the game? could they wait for hours? or interrupt the game and finish tomorrow?
just announced they’re going to start again at 12:15 EST
Man on base.
Looks like they have maybe an hour before the big front moves in.
7>6
Cubbies on the cusp!
Still nervous…. but optimistic.
Think you’ve got it. Congrats.
JD… this is the cubs…. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Well… two ahead. Might be enough.
TWo out….!
…and tying run at the plate. Eek
F.
Helluva game, no matter how it ends.
Cubs win!!!!
Congrats! Cubs
Wow, lol! A lifetime of waiting is over!
OMG! OMG!
Great series, great game, great win…. Say goodbye to the 108 y/o goat 🙂
I just gave up a couple of years my life to witness the biggest Cub win ever.
Congrats. One run separated the teams after 7 games. See you next year.
Amazing. Rematch next year would be great!
I vote David Ross MVP. His run kept them in the game.
CUBS CUBS CUBS ! Aren’t they great !
WOW, what a nail-biter !
The Cubs winning the Series coupled a Hillary victory next week will make November 2016
the best November for me ever.
The noise at my sisters must be unbelievable.
Usatoday onâ€What the Cubs lose if they winâ€
‘the Lovable Loser label that has defined and united their fan baseâ€
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/02/short-list-wednesday/93161368/
__________
Well, you can’t have everything.
Max_OK,
Well…. yeah… sure. 😉
lucia (Comment #154463)
November 2nd, 2016 at 10:58 pm
I vote David Ross MVP. His run kept them in the game.
_____
A clutch performer for sure.
What a sweet week for Chicago sports fans
Bears upset Packers
Cubs win Series.
That would be the Vikings. But who cares Cubs win Cubs win.
All around, must an amazing game. Seventh in series win in overtime? Looked like it might get rained out (in overtime)? Both teams long time shut outs from World Series? Just OMG!
Cubs winning is the first sign of the Apocalypse. It guarantees the ascendancy of Satan’s own Donald Trump to be the most powerful man in the world.
Lucia: time is not a variable in baseball… it’s called extra innings
Howard… Yeah. Extra innings. 🙂
Howard,
I think the Cubs win means Trump will win. But afterwards, Thor will strike him down with a lightening bolt.
Sorry, Kenneth. I got carried away. I just don’t like the Packers.
Max_OK,
Jim doesn’t like the Packers either. But with a last name like Liljegren, he grew up liking the Vikings. 🙂
Really thought Heyward would hit a JD Drew homerun. Cubs still were the better team and Francona’s hyper moves ran out.
https://twitter.com/natemcdermott/status/794041126630129664/photo/1
Carrick, your answers make no sense, and you should be thankful Lucia is distracted by the game to not see your answers. I asked about margin of error in a sample of size 127, and you tell me 99% certainty. It looks like you are reporting just the chance that at least one Republican voted for Hillary.
So Dewitt, MikeM, are you saying that margin of error(95%) is just 1/sqrt(n)? Surprised I never noticed that.
We’re still basking in the Cubs, Mike. Just FYI 🙂
Yea, for me it was just an intersquad Red Sox scrimmage.
Terry Francona, Theo Epstein, David Ross, John Lester, Mike Napoli
https://twitter.com/juddlegum/status/794042623967129600
lucia (Comment #154477)
November 2nd, 2016 at 11:43 pm
Max_OK,
Jim doesn’t like the Packers either. But with a last name like Liljegren, he grew up liking the Vikings. 🙂
____
The Vikings got off to impressive start and were #1 in power ratings for a few weeks.
Bradford was a terrific college QB at Oklahoma, and I hoped after years struggling as a pro QB he had final found his groove at Minn. The O-line just isn’t protecting him as well as it did early in the season.
Miike – good point!!
Max – hopefully the “resignation” of Norv Turner today will help the Vikings play calling. They still need huge help on the O line but the play selection hasn’t helped.
Post reports that Comey was aware of the e-mails weeks ago and demanded more before he reopened.
MikeN,
Carrick and I were confusing the statistics of counting events to determine rate instead of sampling a population. I further confused confidence interval with standard deviation.
If you’re looking at a rate, say radioactive decay, the precision goes up as the number of counts increases because the standard deviation is the square root of the number. Say you have 1,000 decays/second. If you count for one second, the standard deviation is 31.6 or 3.16% The 95% confidence interval would be plus or minus 1.96 times that, 62 counts or plus/minus 6.2%. If instead we count for 1,000 seconds, then the standard deviation is the square root of 1,000,000 = 1,000 or 0.1%.
Mike M. gave the correct formula for determining the likely sampling error for determining proportions. For a 50/50 distribution, the standard deviation of the probability is a maximum and equals sqrt(0.5*0.5/n) or sqrt(n*0.5*0.5) if you want the number. For n=1000, that’s 0.0158, or exactly half of sqrt(n). The 95% confidence would than be plus/minus 1.96 times that, 0.031 or 31.
Nixon goes to China!
Hell freezes over!
Donald Trump is Republican nominee!
Cubs win World Series!
Donald Trump is …….?!?!
.
You just never know.
Congrats to the Cubs.
Theo Epstein helped Boston break the curse of the bambino. Now he helped Chicago break their drought…. next Cleveland? Some other long suffering team? He is still young.
Is it too much to ask for an Indians player to point to the stands?
Mildly amusing apparent tweet from Nate Silver (now deleted?)
mark bofill –
Silver’s tweet is still there. From May 10.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/730251094614528000
“Cubs will win the World Series and, in exchange, President Trump will be elected 8 days later.” The Chicago Way.
Thanks Harold.
Parliament must now approve Brexit. I only hope they decide to not do so just to see what happens next. I wonder what Big Ben would look like up in flames?
“Cubs winning is the first sign of the Apocalypse. It guarantees the ascendancy of Satan’s own Donald Trump to be the most powerful man in the world.”
Actually it was Hillary who closely studied, and personally knew, Saul Allinsky, whose book “Rules for Radicals” is was inspired, according to the author, by Lucifer.
From Allinsky:
“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”
My speculation is that Obama/team Clinton’s attempt to cover up what she did at Dept. of State will fall apart before tomorrow afternoon.
Pesky documentary evidence.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-recordings-fueled-fbi-feud-in-clinton-probe-1478135518
Google the title if needed
DeWitt, MikeN, Mike M;
Mike M is correct of course.
Briefly, as I’ll show below, the $latex 1/\sqrt N$ margin of error that I gave before is the maximum relative margin of error in a survey result. However, it’s the margin of error for 2 standard deviations, not 1 standard deviation.
This $latex 1/\sqrt N$ is the commonly reported margin of error in survey results, and in margin of error calculators such as this one.
Assume a binomial distribution, N = size of sample, NP = size of population, M = number of responses (e.g., “Republican voters voting for Clinton”), so p = M/N is estimate of proportion, which yields the approximate formula
$latex sd(p) = \sqrt{p (1-p)/N}$,
The rule of thumb is, use this formula for $latex N\!P > 20 N$.
When p is estimated from the measurement, $latex sd(p)$ is called the “standard error.” (sd(p) is only the true standard deviation when you know and use the true value of p.)
The 95% confidence level (CL) is about 2* sd(p).
It is commonly calculated from this formula (which is also an approximation):
$latex \hbox{CL} = \hbox{erf}(z/\sqrt2)$,
where z is the number of standard deviations, and the erf function is the error function. For z = 2, this evaluates about to CL = 95.45%. If you use z = 1.96, CL evaluates to 95.00004%
It’s easy to see that maximum value of $latex sd(p)$ occurs when p = 1/2.
This gives:
$latex sd_{max}(p) = \sqrt{ 1/2 (1 – 1/2)/N} = 1/2 \sqrt N$.
So we see $latex 1/\sqrt N$ is just the maximum value of $latex 2 sd(p)$.
For p = 28% and N = 127, 2*sd(p) = 8.0% whereas $latex 1/\sqrt N$ = 8.9%.
So as long as you understand that $latex 1/\sqrt N$ refers to the 95% CL, the two formulas aren’t very far off.
As people have been drumming in, this is just the statistical error. It doesn’t fold in the uncertainty from non-representative sampling.
If you are looking at early voters, in my opinion, the only practical value is looking at the behavior in this election with that group compared to previous elections.
I’d wondered where & when the progressive counter attack to Donna Brazile and the FBI investigation would manifest. Maybe this was going to be it. [Child rape case jane doe press conference] Looks like it didn’t go off. From a strict marketing perspective, this might have served to blunt Trump’s momentum in the polls and made a difference Nov 8’th.
Instead, Donna Brazile CNN and Clinton Foundation Pay for Play are trending on Facebook.
Tom Scharf,
I think Parliament will proceed with Brexit, but slowly, as most MP’s hope for an excuse/reason to “redo” the referendum. Outright defiance seems unlikely to me. Politicians want many things (including, of course, plenty of money… see Hillary), but staying in office is usually top on the list; defying the referendum would lead to many (most?) Tory MP’s being promptly thrown out of office.
Carrick, Dems lost 400k to Reps in Fla over the last 4 years. This has got to mess up the comparisons.
What I really liked about the game last night was Chris Bryant coming home from first base on a single by Rizzo (he got to second on the throw home). I am sure most of you here are too young to remember that Enos “Country” Slaughter of the St. Louis Cardinals in game 7 of the Cardinal Red Sox world series of 1946 also scored from first on a single. That is a very rare feat. Another interesting detail is that Slaughter was 5 ft 9 in and built for speed while Bryant is 6 ft 5 in and a power hitter. Chris Bryant also scored on a very short fly ball to left field. Further evidence of the base running skills of another slugger was in Kyle Schwarber with a steal of second on Kluber – recovering leg injury and all. Anthony Rizzo is also a slugger who can run the bases well. I bring this item up because I recall the dark days of the Cubs not that long ago when it was rare to see a base runner go from first to third on a single.
I do have to admit that I was more than a bit upset when Madden pulled Kyle Hendricks in the 5th inning with a 4 run lead. I know it was the high hard fast ball for ball four after the umpire missed the strike out call on the previous pitch that probably made Madden think that Kyle was emotionally and perhaps physically spent. I also was yelling about him leaving Chapman in the game after the inning where he gave up the lead and additionally was not happy with him bringing a starter in Lester in relief. After the positive outcome I do have to give Madden credit for all season long managing through baseball moments and not over reacting to temporary setbacks. That is why he is paid big bucks to manage and I am not infrequently a candidate for the loony bin for yelling at the TV.
I have also asked for forgiveness from the baseball gods for uttering “maybe next year” after the Indians tied the game.
Kenneth,
Yes, there was some very good base running by the Cubs. But I think the biggest factor in the game’s outcome was the tired looking Cleveland pitchers. Not at all the same crew we saw earlier. Maybe they just couldn’t perform under great pressure, maybe they were burned out from too many innings, or maybe some of both.
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Most very successful managers (like Madden and Francona) seem a lot calmer than you might expect when things are not going their way. Of course, they make some questionable decisions, but they don’t seem to let the possibility of being second guessed interfere. They are usually playing the ‘long game’ more than most people would.
MikeN—yes many things change in four years. The change in early voting tells you something about how that change is influencing the election.
Trump energized new and huge numbers of primary voters. Many more than Hillary.
And the Obama/Clinton behavior as the coverup falls apart is only annoying those voters more. A lot more.
hunter–excuse me while I chuckle at that “huge numbers of primary voters”. Trump didn’t even win a majority of primary votes. That’s not “huge” compared to 130,000,000 people voting.
Mark Bofill, the counter attack on the FBI was more direct—the Democrats and their surrogates are going after Comey and the credibility of the FBI itself.
I think, more than the FBI announcement, the thing that’s changed the dynamic of this race are the rotten Obamacare numbers, which surprisingly even the liberal press has made no effort to whitewash.
If we end up voting Donald Trump in, I predict the “tipping point” will be votes for the US exit from the ACA and socialized medicine, sort of our version of “Brexit”
Carrick, laugh all you want. Your views are increasingly removed from reality.
Media is effectively burying the collapse of Obama’s failed ACA.
This election boils down to a failed and corrupt Secretary of State and her political machine vs. an eccentric outsider the failed Sec. of State is desperately trying to vilify.
With more inconvenient details on the Sec. of State coming soon, apparently.
TerryMN (Comment #154485)
November 3rd, 2016 at 12:28 am
Max – hopefully the “resignation†of Norv Turner today will help the Vikings play calling. They still need huge help on the O line but the play selection hasn’t helped.
_____
Norv Turner’s resignation is as bizarre as the Bradford trade. All reports I have read say Turner made the decision to resign by himself and the Vikings didn’t see it coming. He said it was in the team’s best interest, but I have seen no further explanation.
Carrick,
Could be Obamacare. Attribution is always a b*tch.
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I’m completely absorbed in the race and the polls. Nate Silver gives Trump a 35% chance at the moment. Trump had a heck of a day Tuesday; his odds increased by 6%. Will it continue?
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I doubt it. Looking back, it looks like Trump hits a ceiling around the high thirties / low forties. I think part of that is the nature of Nate Silver’s models, although I could be mistaken.
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How far will Trump’s chances rise. How substantial a difference will the powerful Democratic ground game make. Is there a hidden Trump vote, and if so how big is it. How will the undecided’s break, will they break at all or just stay home and in what numbers.
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This darn election needs to be over so I can get some work done!
🙂
I don’t think Carrick’s views are divorced from reality. I’m glad to hear them. Counterbalances my perspective some.
“the rotten Obamacare numbers”. Yeah, well. This was the liberal dream for my entire lifetime; you will pry that out of their cold dead hands. It cost them dear – on every legislative level in the country except for President, but they paid it gladly.
We’ll see if we can take it back in the end. We’ve come very close a couple of times (Scott Brown, Supreme Court…) If we can do that, the Democrats have destroyed their whole party for nothing at all.
Next time you try to force something down my throat, don’t be surprised if I spit it back at you.
Come now people. No spitting, that’s nasty.
[Edit: I’m hoping for a Trump win and a repeal of Obamacare as well. ]
hunter, numbers are just numbers. They represent reality.
And nobody has to vilify Donald Trump. He does that quite well himself. I think both candidates are nasty scum-bags and will happily vote for neither, so you don’t need to lecture me on the failings of your political adversary.
For kicks and future reference on who’s views are “increasingly removed from reality”, what is your prediction for the final electoral vote count?
As I said upstream, my “best” number is Clinton 333 to Trump 205.
Don’t worry, Mark. “You” was generic. Unless one of _you_ did do that, in which case I do mean you after all.
“what is your prediction for the final electoral vote count?”. On this I have to accept Nate Silver’s opinion: The states are not independent at all, they move together much more than people expect. That means that the range and standard deviation are big; a good prediction can be way way off. A 3% deviation in nationwide vote totals switches more than a dozen states.
SteveF (Comment #154503)
Pitchers when they get hit do look tired, but seriously you bring up a good point about the modern game of baseball being a matter of inches and mphs for pitchers. I am amazed at how well pitchers today can hit the corners with pitches and seldom pitch into the mid range of the strike zone. The announcers did a good job also describing how a tired arm can make a breaking pitch go more horizontal than vertical. Chapman is a fireballer who depends more on speed than movement on the fastball and the home run off him was on a 97 mph pitch as opposed to max which is over 100 mph.
With a good sinker ball pitcher of which there are fewer today than in times past the opposite could be the case where they could struggle early by pitching too hard and the ball would not sink as much and then as their arm tired the sinker would sink more and become a more effective pitch in producing ground balls.
As an aside I noticed that the world series and playoff announcers tend to get away from technical baseball discussions in favor of concentrating on personalities. I suppose this is because of the different make-up of the listening/viewing audience. I had the TV on mute with closed captioning so I did not have to listen to some non baseball related talk and I could more easily ignore the captions.
http://projectveritasaction.com/Ross
I thought this was interesting: an operation aimed straight at N. Carolina, a tipping-point state, and some very insulted black leaders. Is the Republican Party using it?
Mark, Trump has passed 50% in the NowCast after the convention. He has made a large jump in his position several times, yet the experts at 538 keep declaring him dead.
I suspect this was about the time Clinton camp was planning to release the Access Hollywood tape. If it had happened after Trump issued his denials and calling the women liars, he would be finished.
Perhaps we should credit the Bush family for Trump’s success again.
Here’s my map. I left New Hampshire blank.
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I don’t know which way New Hampshire is going to go. I’m guessing they end up near a 40/60 toss, trump/clinton. Assuming that:
Clinton 272 Trump 266. If Trump gets a break and wins that, clinton 268 Trump 270.
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I’m calling races that appear to be tied right now based on trends. Trump and Clinton are tied in Florida, but one of them is on the upswing and the other on the downswing. This is true of several battleground states. I think Trump takes them all.
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I think we see a Democratic majority in the Senate as well.
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This is my best guess right now. As new poll info comes in I may update my position.
Thanks MikeR.
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It wasn’t me! 🙂
mark bofill: I’m basing my attribution on the observation that Clinton’s numbers started moving south with the ACA “October Surprise” as well polling results which indicate only a very small influence from the FBI announcement, which occurred more than a week after the numbers started tightening.
Hopefully we’ll get exit poll questions that will look at the influence of these two factors on people’s voting decisions.
I think Trump he continues to have a problem with a “ceiling” of about 44-45%. And my feeling is there is still too much “seat of the pants” in terms of their decision making process in terms of where to campaign.
Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota—I think forget about it. There is a very strong #neverTrump contingency there.
At this point, he has to rely on momentum in Ohio and Florida (if he loses either, there is no path to victory). And he has to win Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina of course.
His best hope, IMO, would be Colorado or New Hampshire. If he had a robust get-out-the-vote program in CO in particular, he’d win the election outright (assuming he runs the table otherwise). He needed to have started that about 30 days ago though, or earlier, but that would be were I’d be focusing my energy were I him.
I think Trump had been talking down his chances of winning to the point where I think he was turning into his own negative political ad among his base. The FBI announcement has really energized his bloc. They think they will win, many of them are convinced by a landslide.
Dunno – saw WBUR poll today (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/) in New Hampshire, Trump ahead by 1. But 10% for Johnson! Whew: a lot of those have to be squishy voters who can’t stand either one. I really believe that come Election Day, if the polls look that close, a lot of them are going to feel that they’d better choose.
Carrick, that’s pretty much the way I see it too. I can’t quite make myself swallow Trump taking New Hampshire or Colorado. Those others you list – yAh. Nah. Not unless there really are A LOT more hidden Trump voters than I suspect.
Carrick, I think exit polls will be worthless. People will give whatever reason they think is safest to tell. I think Hillary is too weak, will not be something people will say, instead they will switch to a ‘fake because’.
I’ll say 333-205 Trump.
Huma only married Wiener in 2010. I wonder if she might testify.
She didn’t want to date Wiener, but Hillary said yes.
Bill performed the wedding.
Since then, Wiener’s been a disaster.
Now she’s facing jail time.
Might she be getting angry at them?
MikeN,
Yep. I could be wrong about the ceiling.
Oh, I don’t know about that. This isn’t Nate Silver declaring Trump dead, quite the opposite. Nate seems to favor the odds, whatever they are, according to his models.
MikeN, out of curiosity, which states are you giving Trump to get him to 333?
Here is my map.
Carrick, mark bofill, MikeN,
I have thought for a while the electoral college will be closer than most people guess.
.
But that could be very wrong if Hillary’s blanketing of TV markets in swing states with attack adds is more effective than I imagine it will be. Her ads are everywhere here in Florida, and 100% negative. Trump’s (many fewer!) ads are a mix of positive (I’ll do….) and attack. I don’t think his attack ads focus on Hillary’s weaknesses as well as her’s do on his weaknesses.
He will call it when it happens, but when Trump was down 7, they declared him little chance despite having seen it several times.
Nate Silver said Hillary finished off Trump at the third debate, and suggested disaster for the GOP downballot 3 days later.
Even worse was saying on Oct 12 that Trump has little chance after putting up this chart
http://i2.wp.com/espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/enten-oct-polls-11.png?quality=90&strip=all&w=575&ssl=1
It shows Trump’s deficit is smaller than the amount that Clinton lost in both of his elections.
SteveF,
.
I keep hearing that Trump is about to unload 25 mil in ads. Not sure if its actually happening. Either way I think it’s past time! I haven’t seen too many ads either way. But then again, here in Alabama; why would Hillary bother. For that matter, why would Trump.
SteveF, I am noticing lots of effective attack ads by Trump online, with Hillary none.
Carrick, I really picked my map targeting to reverse your number.
Sea of red except for Illinois, plus New Hampshire and Maine district.
Hillary wins Pennsylvania and that’s it.
SteveF, my electoral college map is based on (nearly) current state RCP averages together with a net +3% bonus for Clinton from political ads and her get out the vote ads. That factors in an increase in enthusiasm for her candidate together with a decrease in enthusiasm for her opponent. If you reduce it to 0%, she still wins, but by a thin margin.
Ok.. this make me cry
SteveF,
I suspect we see the same ads. Some of Hillary’s attack seem pretty good, especially with the kids watching a TV showing some of Trumps more astonishing performances.
Trump’s (or a PAC supporting Trump)’s stating that Hillary has been in Washington for the last 30 years and yet we have all these problems. And somehow implying that had she been effective none of them would have happened. Obviously she’s been feathering her own nest.
Aside from this being a bit of a reach, it’s logically too complicated.
I think there was one, not seen recently here, about her Benghazi problem and ending with her asking during her testimony “At this point, what difference does it make.” I assume they are showing the one where she’s going to put coal miners out of work.
There’s another one with some of the lies – it’s pretty good but I haven’t seen it recently.
Carrick, 538 has Ohio closer with less than 3 gap. Do you wish to update the prediction accordingly, especially with Kasich abandoning Trump there?
On the other hand, Trump would have to jump 2.6% uniformly to win the election.
JFerguson, I agree it seems like a bad idea, but Frank Luntz said it was Trump’s most effective attack in his focus groups.
Something I don’t think was possible before, but now you can cherry pick polls to get Trump to 283 electoral votes plus a tie in Colorado.
MikeN,
Yeah, there are wacky poll results out there. I’ve strolled around for hours with my cherry picking gloves and my cherry picking basket and my cherry picking hat. Filled a lot of baskets. 🙂
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What’s particularly tempting about some of the cherries in my view is the idea that Trump supporters might be more willing to identify in online / automated polls versus live calls. If you believe this, one can find all sorts of almost irresistibly tempting cherries over in Google Surveys, which ranks a B quality grade at Nate Silver’s 538. Wow look at that! Trump is carrying Pennsylvania! Heh.
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I wish. 🙂
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[Edit: Huh. Now that I look at it today, the only cherry left there seems to be Pennsylvania. I could’ve sworn last time I looked there were more Trump favorable results. Oh well, might have been my mistake I suppose, wouldn’t be the first and won’t be the last time.]
MikeN–my instinct is Trump will end up carrying Ohio, even without Kaisch. It’s pretty much ground zero for the middle-class white anger problem, so I don’t expect Clinton’s ground game to be particularly effective there.
No, I see what I did now. Some of the cherries at Google Surveys are attractive but not quite ripe. Take Michigan. Trump is within the 3.8 margin of error, really? (no, not really). Look at the trend – you’d think Trump would take Michigan by the 8’th.
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So on. Stuff like that.
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After picking all of these baskets, I went back to more conventional data. I’m sticking with Nate except for the margin cases, and bearing in mind that he’s showing now and not five (5) days from now.
Good lord, the last update was from a B+ poll (Suffolk Univ) showing a tie in New Hampshire. Mayyyybe, just maybe..
Pence announces the Republican replacement for the ACA. They should have done this in August.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/01/mike_pence_introduces_obamacare_replacement_plan.html
Could Trump have personally designed this? Note the ending when they put up the Hillary logo.
https://youtu.be/k-n102EAYPA
Will there be a CIA leak explaining the damage Hillary’s server has done to national security?
Russia’s Sputnik campaigns for Trump
It’s no secret Russian leader Putin wants Trump elected. He has no fear of Trump, but knows Hillary will stand up to him and protect America’s interest. Putin’s fear of Hillary is evident in his propaganda. “With Hillary as President we are looking at a nuclear war with Russia or China,” warns Russia’s government controlled Sputnik news service.
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201609161045362244-clinton-president-russia-war/
I’ve always thought it odd that all of our citizens are told to fear Trump for his unpredictable aggressive tendencies and at the same time that none of our enemies fear him.
Wikileaks says it wasn’t Russia.
Basically I agree with Putin. Trump has a generally non-interventionist attitude and I think that’s good.
But since Putin can probably blackmail Clinton he might be okay either way.
mark bofill—It’s an interesting paradox that our friends fear Trump but our enemies like the idea of him become our president. I suspect it’s not because our enemies expect “Trump to make America great again”.
(I figure it has more to do with their misguided belief that Trump will be non-intervenionalist, even after he’s promised to have a hair trigger.)
Max_OK,
RE: your claim about Hillary’s “toughness”- lololol,
Hillary’s past performance shows her as thoughtless, reckless, ineffective, dangerous, naïve, and of course corruptly self dealing. Tough? heh, thanks for the laugh.
“their misguided belief that Trump will be non-intervenionalist”.
I have a suspicion that Putin has a pretty good set of intelligence advisers, maybe better than yours. Perhaps his aren’t that impressed by Clinton’s scary ads. People don’t start wars in areas they don’t care that much about.
Recall that Bill Clinton was the one who began a war against Russia after the Soviet Union fell. Could be Putin is right about this one.
Putin suck-up Trump would be like putty in the Russian’s bloody hands. The KGB-trained cutthroat is smarter and more ruthless than Trump, and the orange clown will not be able to use bankruptcy laws and tax loopholes if he makes a deal that goes sour. The American public will be stuck with the consequences.
Carrick,
That’d explain it. 🙂
MAX_OK,
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But Hillary would be more like WWII Margaret Thatcher huh.
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Thanks. I’ll think about it.
I need to read up on my history (don’t remember Thatcher info well), but I don’t really think so. I don’t think Libya and Benghazi would have happened on her watch.
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Bottom line, I’m not impressed with Hillary’s performance as Secretary of State. I’m not expecting her to improve our foreign policy as President. I’ll take a chance on Trump.
Max_OK,
You mean like how we are stuck with the Crimea, Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Iran, N Korea, refugee crisis, Baltic States being intimidated, ISIS, and so much more thanks to Hillary’s brilliant foreign policy accomplishments?
You are pathetic.
MAX_OK,
Hillary couldn’t stand up to Obama, who really was putty in Putin’s hands (played him like a violin and a whole raft of other cliches). I wouldn’t expect any change in the current isolationist trend in current foreign policy under either Trump or Clinton. As mark bofill implied, HRC is not Margret Thatcher.
Hunter…
…Is my position blurring with somebody else’s in your mind?
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:p
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[Edit: I disapprove of the insults too. That sucks.]
mark bofill,
please accept my humble apology. Hopefully the typo correction will show up shortly. Thanks to Lucia that her site has limited editing powers……
No worries, why not edit out the personal insults while you’re at it!
What fun would this thread be without opposing viewpoints, I ask you.
Assuming that the email and Clinton Foundation stuff doesn’t go away and Clinton becomes President, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will actually be in charge, especially if the Democrats take control of the Senate.
If it is actually shown Hillary’s email server was accessed by foreign intelligence services, then Hillary is toast (on multiple levels). I have seen zero substantiation of the Fox News claim of five foreign services hacking into her system. Is there something I am missing?
mark bofill,
Oddly I tried to do both and only one edit was effective. then the edit window closed.
So I will apologize to Max_OK for the personal insult:
Max, I am so sorry I personalized my point about how wrong headed you are in defending Hillary.
It distracted from the partial list of foreign policy failures Hillary helped create as Sec. of State.
Another anti-Clinton and anti-American propaganda outlet is RT (originally Russia Today) a government sponsored TV and internet network aimed at audiences outside of Russia. Titles of some RT articles are
What does it take to bring Hillary Clinton to justice?
US guilty of ‘gross miscarriages of justice’ in order to justify Guantanamo – study
West should abandon hostile rhetoric & take effective measures to help Syrians


https://www.rt.com/politics/
SteveF, I think I read ‘sources in the FBI’. So nothing substantiated.
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Hunter, thank you sir.
hunter (Comment #154562)
Max, I am so sorry I personalized my point about how wrong headed you are in defending Hillary.
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Thank you hunter, but I’m not thin skinned.
It sounds like some folk are drinking heavily of the neo-McCarthy, blame Russia bs team Hillary is relying on.
Odd to see from a group that profited so nicely selling American uranium to Russia for such nice personal benefits and “donations”.
Max,
.
It’s not clear to me why I should care what RT says. I could guess at your argument (guessing you’re making an argument, I guess), but I’d prefer not to start jumping around answering what I guess you might mean.
.
~shrug~
hunter (Comment #154549)
November 3rd, 2016 at 2:30 pm
Max_OK,
RE: your claim about Hillary’s “toughnessâ€- lololol,
Hillary’s past performance shows her as thoughtless, reckless, ineffective, dangerous, naïve, and of course corruptly self dealing.
____
Nah, Hillary’s past performance shows she causes Republicans to fume and foam at the mouth, just as you demonstrate. That’t one reason I like her so much.
You will have to admit Hillary is diplomatic and highly persuasive. Here earlier today MikeN (Comment #154525) credited Hillary for persuading Huma to marry Wiener. That’s what I call PERSUASIVE ! We need a President with her talent.
ark bofill (Comment #154567)
November 3rd, 2016 at 3:57 pm
Max,
It’s not clear to me why I should care what RT says.
_____
Because you can go to RT and Sputnik to find anti-Hillary propaganda to supplement what you find at Breibart.
Heh. Thanks Max.
I may just hurl: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/magazine/when-hillary-and-donald-were-friends.html?_r=0
Here is the thing: Moral outrage against Trump by Hillary is utterly false. They are both wealthy, famous, and privileged; both are horrific liars. The only question is which hurts the country less over the next four years.
SteveF, I don’t know how they could conclude 5 intelligence services. Maybe NSA by monitoring traffic, but would FBI do it?
I guess China, Israel, Russia are locks, then who are the other two.
99% is a good number, given that Podesta’s password was ‘p@ssw0rd’
and Hillary’s IT team was less capable of identifying phishing e-mail than Podesta.
Even now, clintonemail.com is rated at a low level of security.
However, the damage does not require knowing with certainty. They won’t tell us, but the CIA had to act as if the server was hacked. Any e-mails that went thru her server, they would have had to acquire from NSA and go thru and assume that foreign governments had this e-mail. Any agents or programs identified, they then have to assume are blown and act accordingly.
This would be hilarious, and not altogether impossible either.
http://www.270towin.com/maps/borRA
Interesting day today. At McDonalds there were 4 white older veterans talking politics (at least 65), and they mentioned what an idiot Trump was. (although I sensed they would vote for him as opposed to Clinton). Attended a real estate investing seminar with very conservative people, and they mentioned that Trump was an idiot but that he was the least worst. (I expected to find some enthusiastic Trump supporters, but if they were there, they didn’t speak up.) Also, was surprised at how many of the investors were concerned more about the shrinking lower middle class as opposed to their own earnings.
Guess my circles simply don’t contain enthusiastic Trump supporters. Would also add that if the polls continue to show a consistent creep up for Trump, if I were Clinton, I would be very worried. I suspect that Democrats may be oversampled (based on very high Black turnout for Obama that probably won’t occur for Clinton) and that some Trump supporters may not be disclosing their preference for him. Very interesting week on tap.
JD
Kenneth, if you are saying Trump is a demagogue, then he is effective at public speaking.
MikeN,
.
I sort of see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure.
Wikipedia on Demagogue says:
.
I’m not particularly afraid of Trump trying to establish a dictatorship, pretty sure he wouldn’t get very far. But other than that I think he fits the bill.
.
Yet no-place in there is good public speaking identified as an essential attribute of a demagogue. I guess it’s sort of implied. I think he’s a good enough public speaker in the current circumstance, but I don’t know how much[/what sort of] mileage he’d get against anybody besides Hillary.
.
Anyway. Interesting point, thank you.
Say! I just saw a Hillary attack ad here in Huntsville! It was the one with a dad with girls, highlighting how he can’t stand the way Trump treats/talks abot women.
Pretty good attack ad.
Are you close to Florida? Could it be a mistake or is she overspending to target part of a state?
Might have been syndicated news.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/fbi-leaks-hillary-clinton-james-comey-donald-trump
“Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.”
As usual, I think it is their duty to speak on the record, whatever the consequences.
lucia (Comment #154533)
Thanks for the video, Lucia. As a guy, I of course did not cry, but something did get in my eyes and made them tear up a bit.
My grandfather, father and mother were Cubs fans. My mother became one late in her life when a heart condition slowed here down and she watched a lot of afternoon TV on WGN. She at first complained about the Cubs games preempting her programs until somebody ask her why she did not watch and become a fan and become one she did. Ryne Sandberg was her boy and in her eyes could do no wrong. I was almost shocked to learn how much she knew about the game of baseball.
I think Harry would have really enjoyed this year’s Cubs team and how they play the game.
“USA TODAY Sports talked to 35 players from seven NFL teams and found 14 players who said they plan to vote for Hillary Clinton and three who said they plan to vote for Trump. The rest said they are undecided or unwilling to say how they’ll vote.â€
I was surprised that among the players who voiced a preference, Hillary voters outnumber Trump voters by almost 5 to 1.
Some decided players gave reasons for their preferences. For details, go to
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2016/11/03/players-locker-room-election-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/93242972/
Jesus Max, I’m persuaded. Thank you. That’s the data I needed.
/sarc
MikeR (Comment #154580)
November 3rd, 2016 at 5:23 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/fbi-leaks-hillary-clinton-james-comey-donald-trump
As usual, I think it is their duty to speak on the record, whatever the consequences.
____
MikeR, your take on the guardian article is different than mine. I think it suggests an anti-Clinton cabal inside the FBI. The Bureau’s staff is supposed to be above politics not in politics. Maybe it’s time to clean house.
Quick update on the Lichtman model I had once mentioned here which has apparently had 30 years of success. With Gary Johnson now below 5% for nearly a week in the RCP average, this model now tilts towards Hillary.
Congrats to Cubs fans. I guess they weren’t badly run after all nor needed Trump’s help to make them great again.
SteveF, I do not believe that Hillary can be prosecuted for any of these potential crimes while serving as President. She will also control the Justice Department which is currently probably in bed for her and the Justice Department controls the FBI. There might be some political firings needed in order to provide continuing political cover for her. That might create some political baggage but she will have the NYT and WaPost there to defend her actions.
I think Comey’s decision to make announcements and statements about the FBI investigation when he did was to avoid a revolt in the FBI and perhaps even in the DOJ for his not pursuing harder a prosecution against Hillary. That would probably explain his first unusual move to explain in detail the FBI investigation as a means to placate some of the opposition within the agency. There is no one I have heard who is familiar with Comey’s political leanings to think he was doing this to influence the election for Trump. I think Comey thought he could make it through the chaos created by his hesitancy to prosecute a major party candidate with the first explanation. The interesting point that will eventually be leaked if not announced is what development made Comey come forward this late in the campaign. The Weiner emails may have just been an excuse and the underlying issue something very different than national security and that is being pushed against his wishes in the FBI or at least the wishes in the DOJ. If it were shown that Hillary used a private server so that the Clinton Foundation and her position at state could be coordinated and covered that would become a bigger problem than national security. I do not believe that Hillary is a complete idiot and that she was not aware of the State Department rules on security and further that she had a very good reason not to use government facilities. By her saying it was for the convenience of doing State Department work means either she thinks the public is naive in such matters or she thought it would never be revealed that she had a private server and had never thought of coming up with a better excuse if she were caught.
Comey, while not a staunch partisan politician, is very much a political animal as was evident from his testimony to congress. He knows what he is doing and also all the precedents involved and the trouble it could cause him. He is attempting, I think, to avoid an even a bigger problem. If things devolve into chaos he will probably resign.
I heard that Fox was getting inside information and have heard some there say that it is not certain that there were foreign hacks but very probable that there were. I think that the State Department is really not all that interested in national security other than to have rules in place that would allow them to go after a real spy or an underling as a show of authority and (false) concern mainly for the public’s benefit. I would also guess that they know that other nations are capable of hacking into our systems just as the US is capable of hacking into theirs. Since all this information and operations are secret, the vulnerabilities need not be exposed to a public who on knowing the truth would feel less secure. The total disregard for what Hillary did with her private server by the State Department and their going out of their way to defend her actions is a dead giveaway that security is not a major issue at State or at least at the higher levels.
That article is a classic example of how to spin the inputs such that there is more than one take away. The preferred one by the writer of the article is the one Max states. Notice that the information is provided by sources with apparently very different views on what motivates the cabal and sources that are not disclosed. There does appear to be agreement on there being some major disagreements within the agency on the handling of the Clinton case.
Until further notice and better evidence I will stick with my speculations and suppositions.
“I think it suggests an anti-Clinton cabal inside the FBI.” 100%. Only thing is… that cabal probably voted for Barack Obama. They hate Clinton because they have spent their lives trying to protect classified information, and she was Secretary of State and couldn’t have cared less, and because of her money and power they can’t do anything about it.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #154587)
November 3rd, 2016 at 7:13 pm
Notice that the information is provided by sources with apparently very different views on what motivates the cabal and sources that are not disclosed.
________________
Yes, there may be major disagreements unless the “sources” actually are just one individual or a few exaggerating the disagreements.
The investigator’s job is to find evidence of law breaking. Frustration may arise when investigators believe they have found compelling evidence on a suspect, but prosecutors say it’s insufficient for a case.The investigators may hold grudges against both the suspect and the prosecutors. This can lead to bias in any subsequent investigation of the same suspect and adversely affect the quality of the investigation. “We’ll get the !@#% this time !”
I would hope the FBI is not like that but I suspect it is.
Kenneth, I quoted the wrong part of your statement in my previous post. Below is what I intended:
“There does appear to be agreement on there being some major disagreements within the agency on the handling of the Clinton case.”
MikeR (Comment #154588)
November 3rd, 2016 at 7:39 pm
“I think it suggests an anti-Clinton cabal inside the FBI.†100%. Only thing is… that cabal probably voted for Barack Obama. They hate Clinton because….
_____
Doesn’t matter why anyone hates Clinton, if he hates her, he shouldn’t be assigned to investigate her.
“Doesn’t matter why anyone hates Clinton, if he hates her, he shouldn’t be assigned to investigate her.” So police shouldn’t be allowed to investigate crimes because they hate wrongdoers? Remember, the thing they hate about her is that she is guilty of serious crimes in their eyes, and their opinion of her guilt is a result of the investigation, not prior to it.
MikeR (Comment #154592)
November 3rd, 2016 at 9:04 pm
“ Remember, the thing they hate about her is that she is guilty of serious crimes in their eyes, and their opinion of her guilt is a result of the investigation, not prior to it.”
_____
Same investigation, but hate from previous failed efforts adversely affecting investigator objectivity in new efforts.
Yeah, the ads in Florida are out of control. There was literally 5 political commercials in a row during the last World Series game in Tampa. 4 for HRC, 1 for Trump. And 3 of 4 for HRC were the exact same commercial, within 3 minutes. Bizarre.
I can see the FBI being a bit partisan for the Republicans as the police’s relationship with the left is a bit….strained. Curiously the trend for respect for police is up this year, and most of the increase is from the Democrats. Of course Republican support was already above 80% so not much room for improvement.
Nov 9th can’t come soon enough. I’d like to make a prediction that the media’s obsession with race drops by a factor of two starting next week.
I would just repeat that there is a difference in who would be in positions of power in a Clinton or Trump administration. Trump is associated with people such as Mike Pence, Chris Christy, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich. If you prefer Tim Kaine, John Podesta, Loretta Lynch, and Bill Clinton, by all means vote Clinton.
The most interesting part of this is whether there are emails on Weiner’s laptop that Clinton deleted as being personal that turn out to be about the Clinton Foundation and its grifting schemes.
David Young,
Chris Christie.
Rudy Giuliani and
Newt Gingrich?
Yeah. Those are some heres. /facepalm
Um… sorry. No. They are scum. They can all go jump off Christie’s bridge as far as I’m concerned.
MikeR–
That doesn’t make it okay for a federal agency to engage in what amounts to oppo research for Trump.
“That doesn’t make it okay for a federal agency to engage in what amounts to oppo research for Trump.”
It does in my eyes. They are investigating serious crimes, crimes that they have always taken very seriously. No one asked the Democratic Party if it was a good idea to nominate someone under two different investigations by the FBI. No one asked Bernie Sanders to help Hillary Clinton cover it up by pretending it didn’t matter.
If it weren’t for pressure from the usual suspects higher up, Clinton and her crew would very possibly have been recommended for indictment. How’s that for oppo research? Note that Comey said that it was unanimous not to indict, that everyone at the FBI agreed, it was a no-brainer. This was the position all along by every liberal in the country – nothing really to see here except for some ravings by conservatives in the fever swamp. This remains the position of plenty of people today, including posters here.
It hasn’t been too much noted that the current news stories are saying that that was completely false. There are a significant number of FBI investigators who were and are furious by the no-indictment – and probably especially furious that Comey lied about their existence.
Carrick, you are calling Newt Gingrich scum because of a real messy divorce, on a list with Bill Clinton on the other side? :O
On the other hand, in terms of his actual qualifications, Gingrich was one of the most successful Republican politicians in recent memory. It was he who pushed through welfare reform, which Bill Clinton vetoed twice before he buckled. Now he and his wife boast about having passed it – to this day.
Carrick, Sounds like you should vote for Clinton then. 🙂
Those blaming the FBI for the problems team Clinton has created for themselves are indulging in transparently hypocritical whining.
And when the FBI turned out to the employer of Deepthroat, I don’t recall anyone asserting that it was inappropriate for the FBI to be providing information about high level corruption.
At the end of the day this is about a group of highly placed insiders who have created an international version of Tammany Hall. Team Clinton sought to make money and increase political power by selling access and favors. As all such scams, it is eventually found out.
That it is coming to light this close to the election is very good for America, and is entirely because team Clinton decided they thought they could bullshit their way past the facts of the case.
It takes a great deal intellectual dishonesty to pretend that the facts of the case are less important than the source of the facts.
Carrick’s list is bizarre and reflects the success of the Clinton manipulation of the issue.
Christie was exonerated from the bridge scandal.
He, unlike team Clinton, was forthright, transparent, and ran off those responsible for the bridge fiasco.
He, unlike Hillary, had an open ended *actual* press conference and answered all questions until reports ran out of questions to ask.
Giuliani was an extremely well respected US Attorney, an extremely effective Mayor, knows the legal issues regarding team Clinton cold, and has expressed strong opinions- based on facts. Only a partisan hack would call him scum.
Gingrich was an extremely successful Speaker of the House, a PhD historian, and a successful author. And he is scum?
Certainly you are not going to try the tired, tawdry Clinton trick of smearing the opposition for their personal lives while avoiding all accountability for their own. America is rejecting that bs in larger numbers by the day.
It is not an “anti-Clinton cabal” inside the FBI. It is an “anti-criminal cabal” in the FBI.
For fairness to everyone, I think Comey needs to issue a statement today, or at the absolute latest tomorrow. There needs to be time to check out any conclusions that he might reach.
JD
“I think Comey needs to issue a statement today, or at the absolute latest tomorrow.” What can he say? They’re just beginning an investigation. Took them months last time.
MikeR “What can he say? They’re just beginning an investigation. Took them months last time.”
He can say here are the emails we have reviewed this week. They support or refute Clinton in such and such way. If he can’t make any statement very soon, he shouldn’t have written the letter to Congress. It is very unfair, and prejudicial to say that someone is being investigated just prior to an election and not laying out what at least some of the substantial evidence is.
JD
Winston [New Zealand]: Trump and national security.
“The ex-head of the British Army rubbished claims Mr Trump’s bombastic interventions on foreign policy would undermine Nato and threaten security.
Instead, he insisted non-state actors like ISIS were the biggest danger facing the world and praised Mr Trump’s ‘instinct’ for working with Russian President Vladimir Putin to tackle the terror group.
Lord Richards claimed Hillary Clinton’s backing for a no-fly zone in Syria risked plunging America into direct conflict with the Russians for the first time ever.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3902066/Ex-British-Army-chief-Lord-Richards-endorses-DONALD-TRUMP-White-House-claims-make-world-safer-place.html
My point Winston is that Clinton has horrible judgment (Think Iraq and Syria) and that it is possible that Trump would actually be better in foreign and military affairs. Of course, I am not saying that Trump has a good record or experience — Am merely saying he may be less worse. Richards levels very, very serious criticisms against Clinton’s Syrian policies.
JD
It looks to me as if Trump’s momentum will not be quite sufficient to overcome Hillary’s lead. My bet is he ends between a point and a half to a [half] point below her in the popular vote.
He still might take the electoral college, I still think that’s going to be near to coin flipping odds.
JD Ohio: “I think Comey needs to issue a statement today, or at the absolute latest tomorrow.”
Comey has already been criticized pretty harshly for a pre-election hint that there is more smoke surrounding Clinton (or at least the Clinton team). If he issues a statement before the election saying something like “we have an email which contradicts Clinton’s sworn testimony”, he’ll be completely savaged.
JD Ohio (Comment #154606)
November 4th, 2016 at 10:05 am
If he can’t make any statement very soon, he shouldn’t have written the letter to Congress.
____
Comey could make one of the following statements before the election.
1. The FBI found something significant, and here are the details.
2.The FBI hasn’t found anything significant.
3. It’s against FBI policy to comment on investigations in progress.
My guess is if he hasn’t made an announcement by Monday, he won’t say anything until after the election.
Max OK: “Comey could make one of the following statements before the election.
1. The FBI found something significant, and here are the details. [I agree}
2.The FBI hasn’t found anything significant. [I would explain why]
3. It’s against FBI policy to comment on investigations in progress.” [disagree — he already decided not to follow this policy. He has to be consistent with what he started so close to the election]
JD
>My guess is if he hasn’t made an announcement by Monday, he won’t say anything until after the election.
That’s not exactly a bold guess.
4. They don’t know yet so can’t say anything yet.
“It looks to me as if Trump’s momentum will not be quite sufficient to overcome Hillary’s lead. My bet is he ends between a point and a half to a [half] point below her in the popular vote.” If you’re right, and he “ends up” a point below in the polls, he could still easily finish ahead in the actual election. Lot of fuzz in these polls. Say blacks don’t show up this time?
It is quite probable that we are not the only ones to anticipate a Comey statement. Obama or Lynch likely have made a clear directive of silence to Comey, with threat of dismissal.
.
The only thing worse than a Clinton investigation continuing after she got elected would be for the investigation to fold up because she got elected.
Mark Steyn posted this explanation for the e-mails.
http://www.steynonline.com/7586/a-grab-bag-of-the-ungrabbed
There are two ways of delivering info to the Blackberries. One can have a Blackberry server … would have set the Clintons back about $6,000.
The cheap route is to use “Desktop” synchronization.
…Hill decides to accept a meeting and it’s up to Huma to get it on the Blackberry Calendar. …
For obvious reasons, this cannot be synched on any systems at State, so at some point it was set up on a laptop that Huma kept at home…. The Blackberry typically synchs with Microsoft Outlook, which in turn synchs with the mail server in Hillary’s basement. You plug in the Blackberry and all the calendar and contact info sifts back and forth and you’re done. During that process, it also does the same process with the emails, which Huma may have been unaware of.
“Mark Steyn posted this explanation for the e-mails…” Yeah, I figured it was something like that – 600,000 emails is not a possible number for a single person, so this must be some kind of automated synching that ends up with everything on a network.
Obviously, not the kind of thing you allow with classified information. Truth is that it sounds like none of them really knew about it. Careless, is that the word they use now? (Instead of the more traditional “criminally negligent”.)
Those FBI folks better do a good job this time or they’re going to be pretty much out of a job. How can you have a job investigating and prosecuting people who violate the rules of classified material when this one got away scot free?
Wow. That’s going to leave a mark.
Bret Baier says his claim that an indictment was likely against Hillary was a mistake.
Yesterday by Frum:
RB,
Maybe it’s a good thing they don’t. 🙂 I get all my news from RT these days.
JD Ohio (Comment #154611)
November 4th, 2016 at 10:31 am
3. It’s against FBI policy to comment on investigations in progress.†[disagree — he already decided not to follow this policy. He has to be consistent with what he started so close to the election.
____
In the letter Comey said that the FBI would investigate the emails. At that time the investigation hadn’t started. Now that it’s underway, he could say the FBI doesn’t comment on investigations in progress without contradicting the letter. He might say that if pressured, whether he has answers or not.
If I had to guess, I would say Comey will not comment on the investigation before the election unless he is pressured. But it’s just a guess.
On (2) if he hasn’t found anything significant, the reason could be: “We have 650,000 emails, which is not heavily padded by spam, and ‘xxx,xxx’ of which do not appear to be near duplicates. Due to man-power limitations, we can only read through yy,yyy a day. After reading, a decision has to be made about further investigation” (Or whatever the numbers are.)
Obviously if the specific numbers associated with xxx,xxx suggest they’ve looked at nearly all of them, and found nothing significant, then most people will conclude Hillary is likely in the clear. If the specific number suggest this is slow going, not so much.
It might be nice to know the number of non-spam emails, and how many they can clear a day. We don’t– I can see lots of speculation above. But I really don’t know if the 650,000 has 640,000 spam mails in it, or if the 650,000 is emails whose to/from all correspond to clinton or .gov addresses.
Unless there is a separate spam folder in the source for forward e-mails, how would they be able to get a quick number for spam?
Indictment imminent isn’t possible without a grand jury. Other news sources have corroborated the detail about new e-mails being on the server.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/11/04/no-bret-baiers-multi-part-scoop-fbis-clinton-probes-hasnt-debunked/
I love
http://www.steynonline.com/7586/a-grab-bag-of-the-ungrabbed
Has this election hit peak weird yet? Sorry, but this sounds like The Onion:
lucia (Comment #154622)
November 4th, 2016 at 1:12 pm
It might be nice to know the number of non-spam emails, and how many they can clear a day.
______
I agree. Comey could make a progress report, hopefully giving some indication of when the investigation could be completed.
Yep. I sure hope that’s peak weird, ’cause I don’t think I can journey any further down the rabbit hole than that. [Edit: I know I don’t want to have even journeyed so far, but too late now…]
I’m surprised Trump hasn’t talked about Hillary’s seances with Eleanor Roosevelt.
Probably just bad polling, but the only other thing that could cause this is the Al Smith dinner.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/11/03/ibdtipp-trump-20-points-among-catholics/
MikeN
There are tons of spam filter algorithms out there. Russian brides. Hot Horny Housewives. Polite Nigerians with pots of money informing you of business opportunities.
I’m sure lots of people got this
My spam filter catches tons of stuff like that. (Some gets through.)
The released files of the FBI do indicate clinton’s email server did have a spam filter in front of it. But we don’t know how well it worked. I’m guessing Huma’s 650,000 aren’t all spam. But I don’t actually know that.
Mark Bofill,
Yeah. No one wants to go there…. But accusing Podesta & co of being involved in the occult — and a very weird version of the occult– is now a “thing”.
lucia (Comment #154625)
November 4th, 2016 at 1:29 pm
Has this election hit peak weird yet? Sorry, but this sounds like The Onion:
________
There is such a thing as “spirit cooking.” I looked it up.
“The origins of Spirit Cooking can be found in Cake of Light, a sacrament in the religion of Thelema which was founded by Aleister Crowley. The ingredients of the Cake of Light include honey, oil, menstrual blood and sperm.â€
“The consumption of the Cake of Light is a fulfillment of the sacred circle of the connection between Man and the Divine.â€
Source: https://www.everipedia.com/spirit-cooking-marina-abramovic/#ixzz4P4V45zBs
_____
This is several steps beyond eating raw fish.
It’s not going to play. The voters will treat it like a Loch Ness monster story. It’s just too bizarre.
Lucia, I keep forgetting that detail. The existence of the spam filter would mean that Huma would have none of these in her archive. Perhaps a download from Yahoo would include things in your spam folder, but a download from the Clinton e-mail server would not because it would have been filtered out before reaching the inbox.
To appear they would have to not be using that third party service while Secretary of State, have the in-house service set it up to still deliver to your inbox, and have the Blackberry download the spam folder to the computer.
Mark Bofill, if Trump had already talked about Hillary’s seances, then this would be a confirming detail. I wonder what nickname Trump would have used.
Trump is down 2 in a poll, say 51-49, with a 3% margin of error, then what is his chance of winning? Assuming fair sample, etc.
Max_OK,
These are your favorite folks- the leaders of the world.
MikeN,
I think right now the larger ‘stats’ questions are related to:
1) whether or not the sample is representative of ultimate voting pool.
2) whether people are telling the truth or lying to polsters.
3) whether polls results are reported “raw” or “corrected” and if the latter, how the polling company weighted. (Weighting is an attempt to deal with (1).
4) Whether or not people have really made up their minds.
I don’t think it’s worth quibbling about the type of sampling error that goes as 1/sqrt(N) where N is the sample size.
hunter (Comment #154637)
November 4th, 2016 at 2:05 pm
Max_OK,
These are your favorite folks- the leaders of the world.
____
Anyone who could eat that cake is a lot braver than me. I support the brave.
Steve McIntyre provides a timeline about the Clinton/Abedin emails:
https://climateaudit.org/2016/11/04/the-destruction-of-huma-abedins-emails-on-the-clinton-server-and-their-surprise-recoveryemails/
I hadn’t noticed this part:
Well, lots of lawyers involved, so “speaking carefully” is to be expected, I guess.
Lucia, I don’t know the formula, but see that the answer is 75%. I was comparing Trump’s win chances at 538 to their New Hampshire number. They are not exactly equal, but pretty close.
MikeN,
Regarding odds, I couldn’t tell you from my own computations (which frankly I wouldn’t trust anyway). If you want Nate Silver’s idea about it, looking at his graph
august 6 – about 4 point difference, about 75/25
sept 12 – about 3 point difference, about 66/33
july 25- about 2 point difference, about 60/40
But he will tell you point blank that he’s being conservative and favoring Trump’s chances, due to the … something.. uncertainty this cycle, maybe it was.
.
[Edit: And yup, New Hampshire was tracking Trump’s overall chances for awhile. Trump’s odds suffered a setback at 538 yesterday when Ipsos unloaded a whole bunch of long running polls, 2 week windows. You can see it in the updates. Wouldn’t expect the two week average to be all that favorable to Trump. ]
I just quickly read Steve Mc’s summary of the email issue. One thing I don’t like about what Clinton and Abedin did was having their lawyers search for the work-related emails. If you intended to be honest and responsible, a reliable clerk should have been able to search for the emails and then possibly turn them over to a lawyer to review what should have been a comparatively small number of emails where the issue of whether they were work-related or not was legitimately at issue.
What happens when a lawyer searches for emails is that the client can argue attorney client privilege with respect to what was searched for. [The type of search should be open to public scrutiny because Clinton placed all of her public records on a private server] This reflects very poorly on Clinton and Abedin in my view. Unfortunately, these are typical Clinton tactics.
JD
To put pretty pictures into my mind and quell the involuntary gagging I’m experiencing anytime I think too long about Spirit Dinners, I’m linking a breath of fresh air and sanity. The Blue Plate Cafe.
.
mmm mmm good. They’ll let you substitute dessert for one of the three vegetables if you order the Special you know. I highly recommend it.
The FBI could very easily say (could easily already have said!) how many emails were sent to or from Hillary’s personal server. But I very much doubt they will say anything more. I think Lynch would fire him on the spot if he provided any substantive information prior to the election. Of course, that 650,000 number came from somewhere, so it’s always possible additional information could be leaked… but it won’t be verified, even if true.
.
If the emails ended up on Weiner’s laptop because there was automatic mirroring of data, then that could be really bad for Hillary politically, especially when/if FOIA requests make them available to the public, since that would mean some or all of the deleted 33,000 messages about ‘yoga classes’ and ‘wedding plans’ will be available. Oh, and Clinton Foundation donors coordinated with Bill’s paid speaking engagements too. 😉
New Hampshire is still tracking his overall chances. It appears they are running the state polls independently and doing 10000 simulations. Florida, North Carolina, and Nevada are so close they keep flipping, maybe 5010-4990. Then they count up how many simulations produce 270 votes.
New Hampshire is currently Clinton +2, so about a 75% chance. This was an even higher chance yesterday, when it started dropping from +3.
So Trump has the 25% chance of winning in New Hampshire, + another 10% overall in other states where he is within 4, counteracting when he loses FL, NC, or NV(and OH, IA, AZ, etc)
MikeN,
.
Yes. I’d add the caveat that Nate gives you the picture as it stands right now AFFAIK. I like to project where we’ll be on the 8’th. Probably because the trends seem to favor my guy. 🙂 No, but even if they weren’t, I try to judge where we’ll be from 1. Where we are (+) 2. Our apparent direction and momentum.
.
I still believe it’s going to be close.
.
[Edit: the picture as it stands right now, or maybe a short while ago… Old data has weight over there I think.]
Mark, they have three separate models, the default one uses trends, while the third one is right now, the first one adds in history and economy. Until today, Trump did better in right now, while now the trend is better, though of course only a slight difference now.
I thought the three were Nowcast, polls, and polls plus. I didn’t think any of them projected based on trends.
But I’ll go look. I’d have a ‘C-‘ reliability rating if the Blackboard had ratings…
Mark, I’m assuming polls uses trends, how else can it be different from Nowcast?
MikeN,
.
Darn good question, to which I don’t have a good answer.
SteveF: Because there’s quite a bit of past history here, probably will make Clinton look bad regardless of what is on them.
If she’s totally innocent of malfeasance, then it’s going to make her look really stupid and inept at handling controversy for her withholding the emails.
And yes, I think jus the usual sort of legal exchanging of favors is a distinct possibility too—I think Clinton is extremely paranoid. Basing an arguing on her behaving rationally at any given point, is always a dangerous assumption.
And in case you’re wondering—I’m actually pulling for a full copy of Huma’s emails being on that computer and let the chips fall where they well. (I’m also pulling for hackers to steal and release all of Trump’s emails–that would be super amusing.)
Mark Bofill–NH is just four electoral votes (which I still think will come home to Clinton). The nail biter for you should be Florida, which looks to be drifting away from Trump. Without Florida, he’s no path to victory.
Carrick, New Hampshire was the state that was missing until now that gave him 270 votes instead of 260+. Obviously Florida is important, and so is Ohio and North Carolina and Arizona.
I actually put up a map where Trump loses NC, FL, VA, NV, and PA, and still wins, based on the idea that Clinton is winning the ground game and every targeted state, but slips up in states ignored.
Carrick,
I might be dead wrong, but I’m not sweating Florida or North Carolina. If I ~am~ wrong, Trump has no chance anyway, so no point stressing about it.
MikeN:
Yeah I know. My main issue with the new NH polls is I don’t trust poll swings that are this rapid, especially so late in the game. I suspect some of this is more of a poll participation effect rather than being a genuine shift in sentiment (that is, which days they are polling over, etc.)
Here are the current counts for early voting and mail in for Florida. Registered Republicans are slightly ahead by a few thousand out of two million. I wasn’t impressed with the earlier study you linked about massive numbers of Republicans voting for Hillary. Again, if I’m wrong, Trump’s lost anyway.
.
I read the early vote and close polling as Trump probably winning Florida.
I think that the two party system that we have in the US allows much of the corruption of politicians and incompetence of government in general to get short shrift because the system evolves into partisan defense of my gal and my guy. The more pervasive problems of government are there for all to see if the criticisms of partisan politics of the opponents are taken at face value and in the vein of more general problems that both parties create. Unfortunately the defense of the partisan side for my gal and my guy and the everlasting hope that my gal or my guy is all that is needed to fix the system means to me that the system will not be fixed and the two party system and its politicians will continue to play the game and the public.
Carrick,
“And in case you’re wondering—I’m actually pulling for a full copy of Huma’s emails being on that computer and let the chips fall where they well.”
.
Sure, but if that is the case, Huma may be very deep legal trouble, unless she can credibly claim to have really not been aware any email messages were on the laptop (plausible, but then really, really dumb). If the messages are a mirror of all Huma’s emails, then I think Hillary will be in considerable political trouble. Bill’s $50+ million in ‘speaking fees’, not to mention the hundreds of millions donated to the Clinton Foundation…. from lots of foreign governments and individuals… during Hillary’s tenure at State will look an awful lot like plain old vanilla corruption if it was all being coordinated with Hillary and her staff.
.
Here is my guess about why Comey announced the existence of the emails on Weiner’s laptop: He wanted to make sure they didn’t somehow ‘disappear’ or get ‘cleansed’ after the election was over… and he…. ahem…. ‘decides to retire’. Comey’s announcement ties the hands of Obama and Lynch and makes destruction of the emails politically impossible. His agents probably told him that there is evidence of corruption in the emails.
Steve F ” I think Lynch would fire him on the spot if he provided any substantive information prior to the election.”
….
I don’t know about that. It would probably look very bad for Clinton. In any event, the actual FBI directorship is probably small potatoes for Comey right now. He is playing big boy politics and is undoubtedly looking out for his future as a lawyer with a big-time law firm, large corporation, or some kind of big-time consulting role. No matter what he does, it will be difficult for him to continue on in the FBI.
JD
I think Comey could end up as attorney general under Trump.
Huma said everything was released, because she is not in possession of what’s on the Clinton server.
JD Ohio,
“It would probably look very bad for Clinton.”
.
There is nothing about this that is going to look good for Clinton. I still think Lynch would fire him instantly if he provided substantive information about the newly ‘recovered’ email messages.
MikeN,
“I think Comey could end up as attorney general under Trump.”
.
I think Comy has had his fill of the corruption. AG’s are the most unprincipled people within most administrations, and that doesn’t seem like Comey to me.
Steve, that’s a circular argument.
Mark Bofill, it would be a mistake to look at early voting numbers and compare it to 2012 because Florida Republicans got lots of conversions over the years. So we have gone from early voting Dems who were maybe voting Republican to early voting Reps who are voting Republican.
MikeN,
.
Sure. Still, all things being equal, I’d be more concerned if Hillary had a massive lead already or if Hillary was way ahead in the polls. As it is, I’m reasonably satisfied Trump will carry Florida. Not everything I think is based on data I’d care to argue.
mark bofill (Comment #154644)
November 4th, 2016 at 2:37 pm
To put pretty pictures into my mind and quell the involuntary gagging I’m experiencing anytime I think too long about Spirit Dinners, I’m linking a breath of fresh air and sanity. The Blue Plate Cafe.
____
Mike, as disgusting as it sounds, the Cake of Light, made from honey, oil, menstrual blood and sperm,is no more likely to make you ill than a meal at The Blue Plate Cafe. Having worked in food industries, I could tell you stories that would suppress your appetite if you would like to lose weight.
If I visit The Blue Plate Cafe, I will order biscuits and gravy.
Max,
Sure it is. It’s purely psychological, but it’d make me ill. It’s making me ill right now thinking about it.
~shudder~
I’m not dwelling on it anymore. Not blue plate tonight; the wife wanted Mezza Luna. We haven’t been there in awhile. Should be interesting.
SteveF (Comment #154662)
November 4th, 2016 at 4:18 pm
JD Ohio,
“It would probably look very bad for Clinton.â€
.
There is nothing about this that is going to look good for Clinton. I still think Lynch would fire him instantly if he provided substantive information about the newly ‘recovered’ email messages.
______
Yes, Comey’s fear of being fired is another reason we not hear more from him before the election, but not a likely reason. I think the more likely reason is he doesn’t want to say anything else that would affect the outcome of the election.
Kellyanne Conway on the “FBI indictment”
Bret Baier was a victim of Fox News politics, I suppose. (Edit: apparently not her exact words)
Cubs fan from Iowa holds on until final out before dying
He had only a few hours of life left. A touching story.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/04/cubs-fan-iowa-holds-until-final-out-before-dying/93290298/
Cuban not ‘kidding’ about Trump bribery risks
Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban says he was not kidding when he warned that Donald Trump could be bribed by foreign government.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/11/04/mark-cuban-trump-bribery/93300972/
______
Being a billionaire himself, Cuban knows how billionaires think. I fear Trump also lacks the strength to resist being tempted by sexy women, such as Russian spy Anna Vasil’yevna Chapman, shown in the linked youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcEeQtMxcgk
Max OK: “I think the more likely reason is he doesn’t want to say anything else that would affect the outcome of the election.”
….
If there is bad stuff, such as 10 felonies, it is right to make it public and affect the election. If this is nothing, Clinton deserves the benefit of being cleared. In any event, the highest interest here is having the public informed.
JD
Max OK: “Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban says he was not kidding when he warned that Donald Trump could be bribed by foreign government.”
….
And, he doesn’t think that Hillary or Bill will take bribes. Ridiculous comment by Cuban, particularly in light of Marc Rich.
JD
JD Ohio (Comment #154674)
November 4th, 2016 at 5:49 pm
Max OK: “Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban says he was not kidding when he warned that Donald Trump could be bribed by foreign government.â€
….
And, he doesn’t think that Hillary or Bill will take bribes. Ridiculous comment by Cuban, particularly in light of Marc Rich.
JD
_____
Cuban doesn’t hold Hillary responsible for her husband Bill’s decisions.
Cuban knows Bill isn’t on the ballot, anyway.
I don’t know about Cuban, but I wish Bill was on the ballot. He’s one of the best Presidents we have every had.
Right, Hillary is pure as morning snow. I’d compose something poetic to that effect, but I enjoyed my meal at Mezzaluna and don’t want to spoil my digestion.
.
Pumpkin squash appetizer, stuffed with lamb sausage, walnuts and crispy kale. Sausage & fennel pizza, and something like a chocolate creme brulee but without the blowtorched caramelized top for dessert. I might be fooling myself, but I’ll take Mezzaluna over Spirit Dinner any day.
RB, the supposed debunking of Bret Baier confirmed there is an investigation.
From Reuter’s News:
“Clinton’s charity confirms Qatar’s $1 million gift while she was at State Dept”.
BIll got a really nice “birthday gift”, Qatar got Hillary approving their weapons purchase and lifting of sanctions.
Cuban, the 911 truther freak, is full of schitt.
As typical.
Max_OK, You are very close to matching Cuban with your bizarre, counter factual ignorant spews.
mark bofill (Comment #154676)
November 4th, 2016 at 7:57 pm
I enjoyed my meal at Mezzaluna…
Pumpkin squash appetizer, stuffed with lamb sausage, walnuts and crispy kale…
___
Glad you enjoyed the meal. The menu is a little too effete for me. You probably would like those dainty cucumber sandwiches served at teas.
I like All-American food like hot dogs, hamburgers, macaroni & cheese, apple pie and watermelon.
On Mark’s dinner: I think everything but the pumpkin sounds good. I’m not a big fan of pumpkin.
hunter (Comment #154678)
November 4th, 2016 at 8:57 pm
From Reuter’s News:
“Clinton’s charity confirms Qatar’s $1 million gift while she was at State Deptâ€.
BIll got a really nice “birthday giftâ€, Qatar got Hillary approving their weapons purchase and lifting of sanctions.
____
What a terrific deal! Qatar (1) gives $1 million to charity and (2) buys arms in the U.S., creating jobs. The Clinton team is one of America’s greatest assets. I will be so glad to see them in the Whitehouse again.
I wonder if this is a bug at 538 or something else. Right now, they list Nevada, Florida, and NC all Republican, with Nevada +0.0. However, the map and snake have Nevada blue, with Florida and NC an almost invisible red.
The +0.0 means they got something like 5002 – 4998 Trump in their simulations.
They have a reputation for being neutral, but I wonder, if Trump gains a little more, will they rerun the simulations to show Clinton a victor, or just report too close to call?
The Wall Street Journal ran this story today
National Enquirer Shielded Donald Trump From Playboy Model’s Affair Allegation
“The company that owns the National Enquirer, a backer of Donald Trump, agreed to pay $150,000 to a former Playboy centerfold model for her story of an affair a decade ago with the Republican presidential nominee, but then didn’t publish it, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the matter.â€
“The tabloid-newspaper publisher reached an agreement in early August with Karen McDougal, the 1998 Playmate of the Year. American Media Inc., which owns the Enquirer, hasn’t published anything about what she has told friends was a consensual romantic relationship she had with Mr. Trump in 2006. At the time, Mr. Trump was married to his current wife, Melania.â€
Quashing stories that way is known in the tabloid world as “catch and kill.â€
_________
I haven’t been following the WSJ coverage of Trump, but I thought it usually supports Republican candidates.
I had never heard of “catch and kill.â€
Max, it used to be WSJ editorial page supports Republicans, though I think they hate Trump. and news pages were 2nd most liberal behind New York Times. There was a wall of separation between the two, with the editorial editor Bartley being paranoid about it.
Editorial page actually broke the story of Clinton’s rape.
However, it was bought out since then by Rupert Murdoch, so likely changed.
MikeN (Comment #154682)
November 4th, 2016 at 9:45 pm
I wonder if this is a bug at 538 or something else. Right now, they list Nevada, Florida, and NC all Republican, with Nevada +0.0. However, the map and snake have Nevada blue, with Florida and NC an almost invisible red.
______
Mike, they look pink to me. I don’t know whether we are looking at the same page.
Mine still shows that. Polls only has Nev +0.0, while nowcast is +.2
I’ve generally tried to see the Wikileaks e-mails in the most positive light rather than accept the spin placed on them However, I don’t see how to interpret this as anything other than Bernie was a handpicked opponent.
This isn’t in keeping w the agreement.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/47397#efmAAAAB2
I’m confused about the reliability of how Nate Silver calculates probabilities. Suppose Clinton is up by 1% in State X, giving her a 60% chance of winning; and even in State Y, giving her a 50% chance of winning. If one treats these as independent events (which I assume Silver does), then one can calculate her changes of winning both (30%), neither (20%), only X (30%) or only Y (20%).
However, as best I can tell, there is no reason to assume these are independent events. Undecideds in both states could break in the same direction because of news in the next few days or for common reasons. (Reagan’s optimism allegedly was an important factor with undecided voters in the close 1980 election.) There may be common errors in most polls estimating turnout, which could be Trump’s biggest weakness. IMO, it is much more likely that all of the states that currently appear to be dead even (say NC, NV, FL and perhaps NH) will go in the same direction rather than expected for a 1:4:6:4:1 distribution. In 2012, Obama swept the “battleground” states.
Does anyone else think that assuming independent events is a flawed method?
What kind of case could another 650,000 emails provide against Hillary Clinton?
With 20/20 hindsight, the government doesn’t prosecute people for mishandling secret documents – unless you intentionally give them to a foreign country, the press, or lie about your actions. Hillary Clinton probably knew this (and everything else the FBI knew) before they interviewed her and judged her statements to them truthfully. I’m not sure what could be found in additional emails that could change the decision not to prosecute for mishandling secret information.
There may be valuable evidence about corruption at the interface between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, but I don’t think Hillary would have personally recorded anything incriminating. Someone lower will need to be caught and testify against her. That isn’t likely. The Clinton’s partners in Whitewater went to jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury.
Her most vulnerable areas are: 1) Committing perjury in front of Congressional committees, a subject the DOJ didn’t permit the FBI to investigate until Congress officially complained this summer. Comey admitted that her statements to the FBI contradicted her testimony in front of Congress. Perhaps new emails will assist with a perjury case, but probably not fundamentally change it. Escaping perjury probably means twisting the meaning of her words to Congress. 2) Obstruction of justice. The reason for her private email server and wiping it clean was to prevent career attorneys from the State Department from deciding which of her emails would be turned over in response to a subpoena. Now there may be many more emails that should have been turned over, but I doubt Hillary will be found to be personally responsible for obstructing justice – unless someone in her inner circle testifies about what she told them to do.
So, my guess is that there may be some sensation information in these new emails, but they won’t get her indicted.
Frank,
If there was nothing incriminating in the original 30,000 e mails why did she delete them?
If there is incriminating material it should be in the emails now found .
Which one of your categories is the only mystery.
Max,
.
Merriam Webster thesaurus gives me among other things this for effete:
And All-American huh. [edited to remove rhetorical question]
.
There is hope for you yet my friend! Vote Trump, join the deplorables. You know deep down you are one of us!
.
I’m not giving up carrot cake though, no matter how effeminate anybody thinks it is. Just know that going in.
Frank,
No. I don’t think they are independent events. I’m skeptical that Nate thinks they are independent events. But I need coffee…
Frank
Your explanation of why independent events is pretty good.
Yes. Nate Silver. He’s the pollster not using independent events to estimate his probabilities of the outcome of the national election. That one of the reasons why his estimates for Trump’s likelyhood of winning is higher that most other people’s.
Generally speaking, the uncertainty in prediction is higher when you assume correlated events. For predicting election outcomes involving two candidates uncertainty means the probabilities of each winning are driven toward 50% rather than extreme values. So in this case, because Trump’s probability, p, is currently <50%, Silver's estimate is higher (that is closer to 50%) than that of other people predicting the race.
mark bofill (Comment #154692)
November 5th, 2016 at 7:06 am
Max,
I’m not giving up carrot cake though, no matter how effeminate anybody thinks it is. Just know that going in.
_____
I was just joshing you, Mark. To be truthful, there’s no kind of food I don’t like, if well prepared from quality ingredients. For health reasons, however, I try to limit my consumption of beef and pork. Too bad some of my favorites are loaded with nitrates.
Mark Bofill/Frank
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-why-our-model-is-more-bullish-than-others-on-trump/
Silver explains the reasons his polls are higher for Trump:
* High undecideds is correlated with ‘polling volatility’– that is unpredictability.
* Calibrates polling accuracy based on 1972 rather than later years. This means he is assuming greater uncertainty in the polling than some other people are.
* His models uses “fatter tails” than the normal distribution. (He uses a ‘t’ rather than a normal.) This estimates of greater uncertainty.
* Unlike some others, he does NOT use state outcomes as independent events.
Remember that any assumption that increases uncertainty in the final outcome for an election drives his estimates toward a 50%/50% coinflip. So, his estimate for Clinton are in the 80% instead of the 90% — that is if you don’t account for the “uncertainty” associated with pollingerrors, correlation between states, fat tails and so on, you increase your estimate of the “certainty” of the outcome.
But wrt to Frank’s comment:
1) I think one should not assume polling errors in states are uncorrelated.
2) Nate Silver does not assume that this is why
3) Nate Silver give lower probabilities of winning to Hillary and higher to Trump. (That is: his estimates are closer to a coinflip– as one would expect if he includes a larger number of contributions to uncertainty in his model.)
Max,
🙂 It’s all good, I was kidding too.
I used to think that. Then I sampled authentic iftar in Cairo on business. I think some foods can only be explained by invoking the ‘acquired taste’ explanation.
.
Lucia / Frank,
As usual I agree with you Lucia. I’m interested in what you’re saying but have nothing to add, except. Yup. If the state events were independent, Trump’s chances would be a lot lower. I’d be pretty confident he’d lose. As it stands, it looks like a coin toss of an imperfectly balanced coin.
Lucia,
I am more skeptical of polls (and polling methods) in this election year than some, and probably more so than Nate Silver. Part of the problem is the revolting choice….. lots of people are probably reluctant to voice support for one or the other, especially when that support does not line up with ‘local expectations/consensus’. In a normal election year, lawns in my (smallish) city would be covered with signs supporting one candidate or another…. this year they are hard to find. There are neither any bumper stickers around…. another oddity.
.
Truth is, if you are going to vote for either Hillary or Trump, it is something of an embarrassment for many people…. which makes a secret ballot particularly important this year. I suspect live telephone interview based polls may diverge from a secret ballot in this election year more than in most.
SteveF,
WRT to Silver: to create a model, he has to pin his estimate of polling accuracy to something. He can’t credibly say “I just pick the uncertainty I believe in. So he picked 1972– which results in more uncertainty than basing his polling uncertainty on later years. He explains why
He doesn’t go into what “declining response rates” can be the result of, but we do all know that low response rates can result in bias because the demographics of who responds could differ from that of who votes.
He doesn’t add the factor of “lying to pollsters” in there. When I bother to pick up the phone– which is when sorting laundry or such, I lie in very obvious ways– I tell them I was born in the late 1800s or no later than 1910. I then proceed to try to not give answers on their form. This seems to screw up their “system”. ( Really: refuse to say you are voting for ‘other’. Make up a name and keep repeating that. They seem to be required to keep asking and aren’t allowed to decide that if you said “Sally Hemmings” they can just call that “other”. You can do the same for the question of what political party you are in. Tell them “The Spirit Cooking Party” or whatever pop into your head. Yes. I know everyone who has or whose friend or family has had to work in telemarketing is appalled. But some of this stuff needs to stop. I do it for (a) polls, (b) obviously fake polls and (c) obvious phisching/slamming scams. )
Anyway, I suspect most people lie in more subtle ways. They just say “other”, name the other candidate or name a 3rd party candidate if that’s a choice.
People definitely lie about whether they are voting at all.
Oh– I should add, I think Silvers this
Partly accounts for the lying. I suspect people sometimes say “undecided” precisely because they don’t want to tell a pollster who they are voting for and they don’t like lying to a pollster. (As I mentioned, I have no problem lying to a pollster/telemarketer scammer and so on.)
Those “undecideds” aren’t necessarily uncorrelated from each other. They aren’t necessarily going to split the way the other people answering do.
mark bofill,
If you want more examples of… ahem… ‘acquired tastes’, try lutefisk (essentially, lye jellied rotten fish) or camel pie (tastes like what I imagine very tough mutton sautéed in cat urine would taste like) Really, in my global travels I have encounter lots of foods that I could only describe as ‘revolting and inedible’.
SteveF,
.
.
I haven’t looked at it in a methodical way, but there’s at least superficial evidence supporting this idea. Google Survey finds Trump ahead in Pennsylvania. It could be that people will admit to a machine what they will not admit to another person. OR it could just be that the poll is wrong. 🙂
.
I get the impression that people generally assume the hidden vote favors Trump. Google Surveys shows Hillary ahead in Iowa and Indiana, I think. Maybe it’s the same principle. OR it could just be that the poll is wrong.
.
I’m actually assuming Google Surveys does not involve a human calling on a telephone. I in fact have no evidence to support this assumption.
Does anybody happen to know the answer to this question:
When a poll posts as an update to Nate’s models, if that poll runs over a lengthy period of time (say Ispos Oct 20-Nov 3), does Nate’s model take that as a current data point? Or does it do something to smear the poll result out over time?
I’d like to believe his model takes it as current data, both because in observing what it does to Trump’s numbers it makes more sense, and because it’d like for it to be true since I think it’d improve Trump’s actual chances beyond what the model says. But I honestly don’t know.
SteveF,
One Christmas, Jim allowed the guy at Wikstrom to persuade him to buy Lutefisk. Not only was Lutefisk horrible, the car in which it was transported stank for a week.
This is food the uninitiated really has to be starving to eat.
On a different subject, apparently the Clinton Foundation has confirmed that it accepted a million dollar gift from Qatar without informing the State Department. This is old WikiLeaks news, but the Clinton Foundation confirming it part is new.
[Edit: Oh. The leabes. The leabes in my yard. They cannot stay, they must go. Must go now. Time for me to go do yard work!]
Lucia,
Another fave… authentic on-the-beach sun dried miniature shrimp, about 2 inches long, eaten whole (heads, tails, legs, shells) like crunchy popcorn. I was once forced to ride in a car transporting a Kg of this garbage for about 20 minutes in the late afternoon. I nearly vomited out the window, and could not bring myself to eat dinner that evening…. just the memory of the smell was enough to bring on a gag reflex.
Girl tries to eat live octopus
Octopus fights back
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brpqkBqlLbs
There are moments that test the strength of a marriage. After using the mower to chop all of the leaves in the yard into little bits of mostly nothing, I discovered my wife had quietly come behind me with the rake, digging all the stuff I didn’t get in the corners out all over the yard I’d already chopped.
:/
This was not one of those moments. But. It wasn’t exactly a high water [mark] moment either.
Mark,
Move to Florida…. no seasonal leaf nightmares. Other things continue to test any marriage, of course.
SteveF,
.
If we move from Alabama, we’ve agreed we’ll move to Florida. Not in the plans right now, but who knows. I like Florida. Besides which, it’d be neat to feel like my vote makes some small difference!
Frank, I was thinking that yesterday. The guess I posted about Nate Silver’s methodology looks wrong. He can’t be treating the states as independent and getting Trump at 35%.
This is because he has basically 50-50 in NEV, NC, and FLA, and a 25% chance in NH. So Trump’s chances of winning are 1/32 * his chances of winning OH, AZ, IA, etc.
There is no way his paths thru other states can give him another 30%, when he only has a 25% chance of winning NC and FL.
I knew a Brit who had worked all over the world – usually in places where there was a local dispute unfolding. He told me that Afghanistan cured him of the belief that whatever was the favorite food of the locals was probably delicious once you got used to it.
Anyone tried Durian in Thailand?
Mark, I see Dreamland has come to Huntsville. Do you know if it’s the same outfit a Decatur?
I’ve started reading about Nate’s model a little bit here.
.
My only comment so far:
and
Refreshing, isn’t it. 🙂
[Edit: Steven Mosher, don’t come here and kick my butt over this. I’m just kidding. mostly.]
J,
.
Dreamland! I don’t actually know much about them, but yes, Dreamland BQ’s can be found in Huntsville. I don’t know the answer to the question you ask though.
.
We’ve got a couple of places we prefer, Moe’s and Ted’s Barbecue. Ted’s is the best, strangely. It doesn’t look like it ought to be; it’s in a fast food looking place right smack in the middle of Huntsville Five Points. Sort of not where an unsuspecting visitor would think to find good BQ. Where’s the smoker?! Where’s the campy decor? (It’s themed ‘The Blues’, lots of B.B. King stuff and blue’s playing). But the food is awfully good!
The answer to the question I asked back here appears to be this:
So – sounds like his model is taking the age of the poll into account. But how does one determine the age of a poll that runs over a couple of weeks? I’ll keep reading.
[Update: I should have added this:
]
Something else worth knowing – the page I’m reading is about Senate race forecasts. So I doubt it’s likely to give insights about how state averages in the presidential race affect other state averages. Still, it might give some idea of the basics of Nate’s model.
Anonymous sources say …
Unnamed sources say …
Sources say …
Do all three mean the same thing? I used to think so, but now am unsure. Any thoughts on this
Mark, I would think they use dependence in the Senate races as well. The numbers were low 30% for Republican Senate Thursday, up to about even now.
MikeN, could be.
Max,
I’d imagine ‘anonymous’ and ‘unnamed’ mean more or less the same thing. ‘Sources’, not necessarily.
I’ve finally puzzled out what”s wrong with the Nate Silver poll updates on Nevada. The ones that have Hillary way ahead mostly have no Johnston in them.
Just when you thought we were past the Weiner jokes, right? But it’s true. Of the five updates that have [mostly] big numbers for Hillary, three of them have no Johnston.
My speculation is that there are those in the DOJ and FBI who would like to investigate the Clinton Foundation but are not given the tools to get beyond the initial looks and from which DOJ says: nothing there – move on.
Recall that when the IRS was under scrutiny for its denying tax exempt status to conservative applicants and shortly after Obama initially commented what bad thing it was and that it needed remedy, he changed his tune and said nothing improper occurred and it was time to move on. I think in this case as in the case of the Clinton issues that the politicians and government agencies see that the MSM is not going to pursue these problems and the voting public will as a result not be unduly riled. The Republicans would make the same calculations but have to factor in a more aggressive MSM in dealing with their problems.
Regarding Lucia (Comment #154696)
November 5th, 2016 at 7:53 am
Thank you very much for the link discussing the fact that 538’s model and other models don’t treat the outcomes of different states as independent events. “Assumption No. 4: State outcomes are highly correlated with one another, so polling errors in one state are likely to be replicated in other, similar states.”
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-why-our-model-is-more-bullish-than-others-on-trump/
I had been confused by bar graphs such as the one below (not from 538) showing the probability of various totals in the Electoral College.
http://election.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/autographics/EV_histogram_today.png
http://election.princeton.edu/todays-electoral-vote-histogram/
Nate Silver doesn’t tell us how he takes into account the non-independence (ie correlation) between different states. Without evidence of how well this methodology works, there is little reason to believe his current estimate of a 64% chance of a Clinton win in the EC is any more realistic than an 84% chance – or 94% chance – or 54% chance. Behind the veneer of statistics, there are probably a lot of uncertain parameters – just like in AOGCMs – that render the output quantitatively dubious. It is understandable why Nate Silver doesn’t disclose a lot of the details of his models.
mark bofill (Comment #154720)
November 5th, 2016 at 3:49 pm
Max,
I’d imagine ‘anonymous’ and ‘unnamed’ mean more or less the same thing. ‘Sources’, not necessarily.
________
Mark, that’s what I was thinking, and I didn’t interpret either ‘anonymous’ or ‘unnamed’ to mean the reporter did or did not know the source’ s identity. A distinction could matter in situations were the reporter could be held in contempt of court for not identifying a source.
I think “Sources say …” sounds funny. It’s stilted and tells you almost nothing. It could be interrupted to mean only two people or a lot of people.
Max,
.
JD Ohio or Lucia would probably know better than me, but my impression is that the press enjoys some protections or leniency in protecting sources… But I must admit I might’ve just made that up. I couldn’t tell you why I believe that.
I appear to be talking about shield laws. Seems there’s no Federal protection, but most (some? [most]) states have some.
Mediaite thought there was a KKK banner at the Cubs game, but this is good.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/nate-silver-goes-to-war-with-huffpost-writer-after-highly-critical-column/
According to Hugh Hewitt’s source, FBI didn’t need a warrant to search the e-mails.
http://www.hughhewitt.com/recently-retired-long-time-federal-prosecutor-old-hand/
And the lefty drones strike again! Thanks for sharing that (154727) MikeN. For some inexplicable reason it warmed my heart immensely to hear Nate Silver tell Ryan Grim that he has ‘**no fucking idea**’ what he’s talking about.
Give ’em Hell Nate! 🙂
Frank,
(a) it is true that Nate Silver has not provided us a full written description of how he accounts for independence (or for that mater how he creates his model.)
(b) he is estimating probabilities. You can either think those are reasonable or not.
(c) his estimate of probabilities will be tested soon enough: Next tuesday.
Look. He’s posting a probability based on his model. I’m not entirely sure what you are concerned about when you say “quantitatively dubious”. Either, over the long term his estimate will be unbiased with smaller uncertainties than other models or… not.
Chinese salty plums are an acquired taste. Not one of my Caucasian friends has ever taken to them. SteveF, you can buy little packets of dried shrimp (prawns) for cooking. I love them from the packet. My wife throws the packet out as soon as she finds one.
Mark, buy her some flowers quickly!
mark boffil
I don’t know any better than you on this. The law guys (e.g. JD) might. Depends on their area.
mark bofill,
I read what Grim wrote and he clearly has no clue what he’s talking about. Yes. Silver’s model may have issues– but Grim certainly doesn’t have a clue.
Thanks Lucia.
MikeN (Comment #154728)
November 5th, 2016 at 7:19 pm
According to Hugh Hewitt’s source, FBI didn’t need a warrant to search the e-mails.
http://www.hughhewitt.com/rece…..-old-hand/
_______
MikeN, I am skeptical of Hewitt’s thinking.
Hewitt suspects the FBI doesn’t like Hillary because the Clintons have been receiving donations from China in exchange for allowing sales of military related technology to China.
He says “Why work so hard to counter Chinese espionage efforts if the Dems are going to simply open the door and sell everything in exchange for campaign donations so they can stay in power?”
Max that is not relevant to the argument of if they need a warrant.
MikeN, I agree. Just because he ends his piece with some wacky stuff doesn’t necessarily mean everything he said is wrong.
Max, I don’t think the idea that Dems are willing to sell out the national interests in favor of self interest is wacky at all. I think it’s central to the reason for Trump support. He’s taking a pay cut and risking his fortune, health and reputation.
Ron,
I’m not convinced he’s taking a “pay cut”. I certainly don’t think he is risking his fortune. As for his health: I don’t think he’ll exercise any less while president. His reputation? We’ll he’s a pig. Fewer people would have know if he hadn’t run. But when a pig runs for office, more people will learn he is a pig.
There may be a risk to his fortune. If he is making more money by putting his name on buildings, and now that brand is worth less, then he could lose real estate deals, on top of the other deals he has lost.
If most of his income comes from properties he owns, he should be OK.
Lucia: ” We’ll he’s a pig. Fewer people would have know if he hadn’t run.”
.
I am not sure anyone’s reputation could survive full-court media press on top of opposition campaign ads without looking like an selfish, vile animal.
.
Certainly I agree he is running to gain power. The point is he had a lot to lose. His empire is mainly reliant upon his brand, which has taken a beating, quite predictably.
Trump is coming in on a “drain the swamp” reform ticket. I see it less likely anyone in the establishment would want to compromise themselves or the law to aid a misuse of power. With Clinton there is much more fear of consequences of her cabal for not complying with unethical commands as well as presumption of rewards for unquestioned loyalty.
.
Does anyone else agree that corruption, or suspicion of institutionally accepted corruption begets more corruption? (real)
.
Does anyone think a Trump administration would receive more media scrutiny than a Clinton one? I would. So the republic works with a Trump presidency but is dysfunctional with a Clinton one.
Ron,
.
I think that HRC will bring federal corruption to new heights. WikiLeaks is only a ‘nothing-burger’ to people who already understand how HRC operates. Pay the fee, kiss her ring, and enjoy her favor. She will appoint bureaucrats who will be loyal to her, and who will continue to bend [break] the rules for her and for her favored.
.
I think that the media has already demonstrated how they will treat HRC, and yes. I believe this is a negative for our country. The media should not carry water for the current government. It’s particularly bad in this case, considering how crooked Hillary really is. Far better to have the media actually doing their job holding Trump in check.
.
All this said, the world will not end. We survived eight (8) years of Barack Obama, and we will survive Madam President as well.
Ron Graf (Comment #154739)
November 6th, 2016 at 8:19 am
Max, I don’t think the idea that Dems are willing to sell out the national interests in favor of self interest is wacky at all.
_____
Some evidence would convince me this idea is more than just a figment of an overzealous imagination. Compelling evidence would convince me it’s not a wacky idea.
The main beneficiaries of sales to China are American exporting firms and their employees, not political parties. Laws limit these companies to exports not believed to compromise our national defense, including any technology that could be used for military purposes. Over time these laws change as technologies change and opinions change as to what compromises our national defense.
Ron,
While I’ve taken to heart some of your observations here and especially the succinct post at CA, I don’t buy that Trump’s problems are creations of the media (Medea?). He said all those things, in public, many of them enough to convince me, at least, that he had no business in the White House. A childish personality with a conspicuous disorder should never find itself at the helm, even one mediated by a lot of other likely more stable minds.
It really is tragic. I didn’t like any of the other Republican candidates with the exception of Jeb. I’m not sure Jeb is sensitive to the threats you refer to here and at CA so maybe he wouldn’t have been an ideal choice either, but he sure beats Nasty Woman all to hell.
You may be right on your last comment that system likely would work under Trump but will surely be disfunctional under H.
Nuts.
Max,
You don’t feel that the Clinton Foundation taking a million dollars from Qatar and not reporting it to the State Department (as Hillary promised she would) is evidence that the Clintons are willing to sell out the national interests in favor of self interest? Real question.
Ron Graf (Comment #154743)
November 6th, 2016 at 10:19 am
“Does anyone think a Trump administration would receive more media scrutiny than a Clinton one?”
_____
A Trump Administration might receive more media attention because (1) he’s a colorful clown who likes to call attention to himself, and (2) he promises to shake things up. In contrast, Clinton promises to be a president who would “stay the course,” which would mean less that’s new, and of course less news.
mark bofill (Comment #154748)
November 6th, 2016 at 10:36 am
Max,
Some evidence would convince me this idea is more than just a figment of an overzealous imagination.
You don’t feel that the Clinton Foundation taking a million dollars from Qatar.
____
Mark, the subject was China, but since you brought up Qatar, what do you see there that was against our national interest?
Max, I am not one who believes the liberal agenda is 100% bogus. I am a lukewarmer on history and politics as well as climate. But I will list a few liberal positions that smack of selling out the national interest for the sake of political power:
1) Supporting illegal immigration (open borders)
2) Offering free college or loan forgiveness
3) Obamacare and socialized medicine
4) Encouraging welfare, housing and food stamp dependency and legitimizing it as a cradle to grave lifestyle.
5) Support of teachers unions and government unions.
6) Wanting to tax only the rich with the claim that the middle class can gain and claiming it’s based on economic theory.
Lucia wrote about Nate Silver’s methodology: “I’m not entirely sure what you are concerned about when you say “quantitatively dubiousâ€. Either, over the long term his estimate will be unbiased with smaller uncertainties than other models or… not.”
If a model (such as Silver’s) treated the outcome in different states as independent events (no correlation), then the model would strongly favor Hillary. If the model assumes that all states will move in parallel in one direction or another (100% correlation), Hillary’s probability of winning the EC approaches 50%. Neither extreme seems appropriate for a model. It appears as if a correlation parameter is needed. How does one validate one’s selection of a correlation parameter?
I’ve also seen models (at 538?) where I could adjust the preference and turnout of various voting “blocks” such as white women and see which states shift in response to hypothetical changes in these voting blocks. If one’s model uses such voting blocks, how much correlation is there between the movement of various blocks?
Given the level of accuracy of polls (+/-3% at 95% ci?) and inconsistency between polls, it appears to be hard to quantify how correlated changes between states or “voting blocks” are. Nevertheless, Silver’s current estimate of a 64% chance of Hillary winning in the EC depends (dramatically) on how much correlation he has chosen. Trump has very little chance if states move independently.
Since Hillary will either win or lose in the Electoral College, the outcome of this experiment (ie the election) will be a discrete quantity, a win or a loss, not a percentage. If we could conduct enough experiments, we might be able determine that Hillary actually has an 80% chance of winning, because the correlation between states was lower than Silver used in his model. The inability to do such experiments is what distinguishes “real science” from “political science”. I suppose each poll represents an experiment, but there is a lot of noise in that data because different polls use different methodologies and each result poll is +/-3%.
Election models, climate models and economic models all appear to contain parameters whose values are uncertain and whose output varies widely with the choice of parameters. Unless we are told how the output (ECS, for example) varies as one samples all likely parameters, then we don’t know how to interpret a discrete output – an ECS or 3 K or a 64% chance of winning. This is what I meant by “quantitatively dubious”.
Max, when Bill Clinton was president, approval of technology transfers to China was removed from Department of Defense and placed under the Commerce Department, with lots of campaign contributions flowing from those now able to sell.
Ron Graf:”So the republic works with a Trump presidency but is dysfunctional with a Clinton one.”
I think that is probably right. Plus there is the fact that neither party in Congress will follow Trump blindly, so he will need to use all his deal making skills to get things through Congress. So the system is much more likely to work as designed with Trump in office, and the potential dangers of Trump are greatly reduced if the system works as designed.
Frank,
A small point: 3% is the minimum error based on the assumption that the sample of 1,000 people is representative of the electorate that will actually vote. That, IMO, is a big assumption. There are all sorts of problems that would lead to systematic error as well. For one, some members of the sample may not be telling the truth.
mark bofill: ” We survived eight (8) years of Barack Obama, and we will survive Madam President as well.”
I sure hope so, but I am not as confident as you, so I hope we do not conduct the experiment.
.
I am reminded of the story of the fellow who fell from the 80th floor and, as he passed the 40th floor, was heard to remark “so far, so good”.
j ferguson: “I don’t buy that Trump’s problems are creations of the media (Medea?). … It really is tragic. I didn’t like any of the other Republican candidates with the exception of Jeb … maybe he wouldn’t have been an ideal choice either, but he sure beats Nasty Woman all to hell.”
.
Sound like you don’t like anybody. I think that was part of Ron’s point: nobody can look good after a year or more of modern political scrutiny. Trump has gotten hit harder than most
Ron Graf (Comment #154751)
November 6th, 2016 at 11:09 am But I will list a few liberal positions that smack of selling out the national interest for the sake of political power:
1) Supporting illegal immigration (open borders)
2) Offering free college or loan forgiveness
3) Obamacare and socialized medicine
4) Encouraging welfare, housing and food stamp dependency and legitimizing it as a cradle to grave lifestyle.
5) Support of teachers unions and government unions.
6) Wanting to tax only the rich with the claim that the middle class can gain and claiming it’s based on economic theory.
_____
Ron, regarding your 6 issues, I will give my interpretation of the “liberal view” and then my own view.
1. I believe liberals have compassion for illegal immigrants who work in the U.S. but I don’t think they favor open borders. Personally, I fear expelling illegal immigrants would hurt our economy, creating shortages of workers in many jobs citizens don’t want, driving up prices for some goods and services.
IMO, open borders for people are practical only for countries that border other countries having similar standards of living. We could have open borders with Canada now, but with Mexico it would be in the distant future if ever. Open borders for trade, however, I do favor.
2. I guess liberals are for free college and college loan forgiveness. I think free tuition is a good idea. I might be for a little loan forgiveness.
3. Obamacare and socialized medicine. I believe liberals see medical care as a right and so do I. I like Canada’s system.
4. I doubt liberals want to encourage welfare and dependency. I know I don’t. I’m for encouraging people to work. I’m also for tax policies that assist those who can’t make enough to live on despite working.
5. I guess liberals support teacher and government worker unions. I don’t have an opinion on the subject.
6. I doubt liberals want to tax only the rich. I don’t believe enough revenue can be raised taxing only the rich.
DeWitt,
I came across this and thought you might find it interesting: http://www.edwardconard.com/ed-conard-at-mitt-romneys-2016-offsite-how-free-market-advocates-can-regain-control-of-the-gop/
DeWitt: “A small point: 3% is the minimum error based on the assumption that the sample of 1,000 people is representative of the electorate that will actually vote.”
.
Actually, I think it is 6%, at least if you mean a 95% confidence interval on the margin between the candidates. For two candidates, each with roughly 50% support, the error in the support for candidate A is 3% and the error in the support for candidate B is 3%. So the error in the difference is 6%, since the results for the two candidates should be almost perfectly anti-correlated.
.
Bottom line: The election is too close to call.
Max_OK,
I doubt Canada’s healthcare system will survive changing demographics, i.e. an aging population, any better than ours or pretty much any other developed country. Promises have been made that simply cannot be kept. There isn’t that much money.
Try talking to a Canadian with a chronic condition. The picture looks a bit bleaker. You can’t simply call up your doctor’s office and get a prescription renewed. You have to make an office visit with all that entails. And prescriptions are for a few months at best. That’s how doctors game the system that pays them too little for an office visit.
Quite a few Canadians come to the US for treatment that they either can’t get at all or can’t get in a timely fashion in Canada.
The British NHS has one of the poorest average cancer survival time in the developed world.
Single payer isn’t a panacea by any means. I would wager a lot of quatloos that institution of a single payer system in the US would, if anything, raise the amount spent on health care. Either that, or it would make a lot of people very unhappy.
Mike M.,
I don’t see how that’s right. The two probabilities aren’t independent. They have to add to one for a two candidate poll. Also if you’re looking at the percent error of the difference, it’s a whole lot larger than 6%. It’s undefined if the probability is exactly fifty percent.
This is what I was thinking about:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/upshot/when-you-hear-the-margin-of-error-is-plus-or-minus-3-percent-think-7-instead.html?_r=0
DeWitt: “I doubt Canada’s healthcare system will survive … There isn’t that much money.”
You went right to the key point. I lived in Canada for years, returning to the U.S. a couple years ago. Their system is good in some ways, not so good in others. But it is financially unsustainable. Change is politically impossible, so they muddle on and hope for the best. Someday the whole thing will implode.
Ron,
I doubt you could find many people of any political persuasion who think we should have open borders. I certainly don’t. That’s a classic straw man argument.
That being said, our current immigration system is broken. We keep out too many people we ought to be allowing in by the ridiculously small H-1B visa annual quota. We don’t have a guest worker program for people who don’t want to immigrate but would be willing to do seasonal work that Americans don’t want to do for wages that farmers, say, can afford to pay.
Mexico will soon be the tenth largest economy in the world. If we want to minimize illegal immigration, we need to encourage economic growth in Mexico. Throwing NAFTA under the bus would do exactly the opposite.
IMO, saying that we have to secure our borders before we can reform immigration would be exactly like saying that we had to stop all illegal importation and manufacture of alcohol before we could end Prohibition or that we had to have complete obedience to the 55MPH federal speed limit before we could change it. Immigration reform is a necessary step in securing our borders.
DeWitt: “I don’t see how that’s right. The two probabilities aren’t independent. They have to add to one for a two candidate poll”.
That is a good article you linked to. It seems I did not make myself clear. Say the poll shows A with 51% and B with 49%. The real numbers, using a 3% margin of error, could be anything from 48% A, 52% B to 54% A, 46% B. In other words, anything from B winning by 4% to A winning by 8%. The marging of error on A’s 2 percentage point lead, is +/- 6 percentage points.
M Bofill: You are right about the shield laws. Virtually all states give some protection to the press with respect to sources. However the protection is highly variable. I don’t know anymore than would be in the Wikipedia article.
JD
Dewitt, Canada spends a lower percentage of it’s GDP on health care than the U.S., so their aging population seems less likely than ours to be a strain on the economy. No surveys I’ve seen indicate Canadians are dissatisfied with their health care and would rather have the American system. The last time I checked, life expectancy of Canadians was slightly greater than life expectancy of Americans for both white and non-white populations.
SteveF,
I haven’t read the transcript or watched the video yet. The problem is wider than free market advocates regaining control of the Republican Party. Something has to be done about the Fed in particular and central bankers in general. They’ve wandered way off the reservation with zero and negative interest rate policies that clearly don’t achieve the intended results. That’s clear to anyone but central bankers anyway. Add punitive regulations like Dodd-Frank and you explain a whole lot of the slow recovery, decline in total employment and increase in income inequality since the Great Recession.
Now we have conditions that will likely result in an economic collapse that will make us look back on the Great Recession as if it were a church picnic. There are no more arrows in the Fed’s quiver. If Trump were President when that happens. it would be the end of the Republican Party as an effective political force nationally for at least a generation. Trump is no more equipped to deal with that situation than Clinton, although his proposed economic policy is not quite as bad as Clinton’s.
Dewitt, Hillary told one bank that she dreams of open borders and hemispheric free trade.
The Wall Street Journal publishes support for it regularly.
Dewitt almost every piece of immigration reform would make it more difficult to enforce the border, as it would encourage more illegal immigration.
Lucia, I take it you don’t agree with this financial analysis?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtsnk6R4ZnM
DeWitt,
“The problem is wider than free market advocates regaining control of the Republican Party.”
.
Yes, and the title of the talk is a little misleading. What he mostly addresses are what policies republicans need to advance to stop people like Trump from gaining widespread political support by improving economic growth and stopping the stagnation of wages for a large fraction of the voters.
Max_OK: “No surveys I’ve seen indicate Canadians are dissatisfied with their health care and would rather have the American system.”
.
Most Canadians are mostly satisfied with their system, but also have many concerns about its failings.
.
Having lived in Canada, I would say that for most people most of the time their system is better than ours. The system here is a mess and needs some big changes. But to emulate Canada would be a massive blunder. First, it is a dead end, nobody really knows how Canada is going to fund things in future and trying to make changes is a political third rail. Second, one reason that health care in the U.S. costs so much is that we pay for most medical advances. The fact that companies can charge U.S. consumers so much is the main thing that enables them to recover development costs. I don’t want to see us kill off advances in health care.
.
Canadians often come to the States to get treatment superior to what they can get in Canada. Sometimes, the government even pays for it. The opposite does not seem to happen.
Max_OK,
I don’t consider life expectancy to be a valid criterion for evaluating national health care systems. We spend more on health care in the US because we’re, on average, sicker than most other developed countries.
Let’s take one example: The incidence of diabetes (type 1 + type 2) in the US is 10.8%. That makes us look good compared to Mexico at 15.8% and the world leader. Mauritius, at 22.3, but not so good compared to the Czech Republic, Germany and Canada at 7.4% or the UK at 4.7%.
Type 2 diabetes is mainly caused by lifestyle choices, eating too much and exercising too little. It has little to do with the quality of the healthcare system, but does increase healthcare costs. That’s just one example of how we’re sicker than Canada and pretty much the rest of the developed world.
Opinion polls are also meaningless.
MikeN.,
I think you’re wrong about the effect of immigration reform, but I’m not going to press the issue as it’s unlikely you’ll change your mind.
Ron,
I dream about owning a Ferrari. That isn’t going to happen either.
Frank
One select the correlation parameter based on empirical evidence from past polls and past elections. I’m not sure what “validation” means– but empiricism is the practical and “scientific” method.
Yes. And Silver says he picks based on empirical evidence. That’s the soundest way.
He also does some sensitivity studies and he explains how many of the most important tuning parameter affect his estimate of the probability. (Correlation coefficients would be one of the tuning parameters.)
Of course. And for the time being, the most one can do is predict the outcome. Silver gives his odds.
I’m still not sure what you mean by “quantitatively dubious”. Silver is providing an estimate of the probability of a future outcome based on his assumption and models. It’s easy to “interpret” what he means. He means that, based on data he uses, and his modeling assumptions, the probability is 64% she will win. I’m not sure what is “dubious” about this.
Of course eventually she will win or lose. But that doesn’t make estimating the probability that she wins difficult to interpret or dubious. Or– at least I don’t see any difficulty, and I don’t see what is dubious about it.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #154764)
November 6th, 2016 at 1:35 p
“IMO, saying that we have to secure our borders before we can reform immigration would be exactly like saying that we had to stop all illegal importation and manufacture of alcohol before we could end Prohibition …”
______
DeWitt, thank you for making me laugh. Efforts to secure the Mexican borders should
slow the flow of illegal immigrants, but I haven’t seen estimates of how much slowing. A fence may not be as effective as many people think. Desperate people will dig under a fence. Where there’s a will there’s a way. A fence could be a screening devise, assuring that only the most ambitious come in.
That was MikeN, not Ron above. It wouldn’t let me edit.
To continue:
On the WSJ being in favor of open borders, cite please. I read it every day and don’t remember that. And for it to be a WSJ policy, you have to cite an editorial, not a column or an op-ed.
Here’s the reference I used for incidence of type 1 + 2 diabetes by country:
http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SH.STA.DIAB.ZS/rankings
MikeN.
Also, try and cite something more recent than 1984. I concede that the editorial board did say they were in favor of open borders then. But that was 32 years ago. Lots of things have changed since then.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #154775)
November 6th, 2016 at 2:08 pm
Max_OK,
I don’t consider life expectancy to be a valid criterion for evaluating national health care systems. We spend more on health care in the US because we’re, on average, sicker than most other developed countries.
_____
I have observed Europeans smoke more and drink more than we Americans, yet you say they are healthier than us. I guess that’s because Europeans have universal health care and we don’t. Wait, we have it now with Obamacare. It’s the world’s most expensive universal health care, but we Americans deserve the best.
Dewitt, I remember reading it around the mid 90s.
Here is something that brackets that.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB994028904620983237
Evidently, all the new emails have been reviewed and do not change the FBO’s conclusion.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbis-comey-says-new-emails-dont-change-conclusions-about-hillary-clinton-1478464650/
Reagan dreamed of open borders too.
From his 1989 farewell speech:
lucia,
Dog bites man. Given everything we think we know about Comey, it’s hardly a surprise.
DeWitt,
Next step: If these are FOIA-able, they will be FOIAed. (Not by me. But someone.)
I am very surprised Comey said anything more. I understand that this was limited to the investigation on the use of the private server, not any separate investigation into pay-for-play, the Clinton Foundation, and Bill’s $50+ million in speaking fees.
Lucia,
My guess is that there would be a very long delay in responding to an FOIA request, especially if Hillary wins on Tuesday…. I would not be surprised if the State Dept under Hillary simply refused to release many or all of the messages.
I’m sure the pushback on a FOIA request for 650,000 would be “Yuge”.
Regardless of the disappointment I sense, this was not well-played by Comey and there likely isn’t enough time to undo the damage done to the HRC campaign.
NBC’s Pete Williams seems to have been the designated FBI “leak” professional on this.
RB, Lucia,
Has there been an official statement, or only ‘leaks’?
Comey’s action makes no sense. So that people could check his conclusions, at the very latest, he should have released his conclusion Saturday morning. Neither the Clinton nor Trump supporters are going to have any time to validate the reasonableness of his conclusions. The emails should be made available to the public very quickly — by that I mean in the next several hours.
….
Would note that he didn’t say that he didn’t find emails inappropriately located on private servers. He simply came to the same conclusion: that Clinton acted very carelessly. Personally, if I had a 50/50 suspicion that there was something subtantially wrongful contained in the newly discovered emails, I wouldn’t have written the letter he wrote 8 days ago. It should have only been written if he had very strong suspicions of wrongful behavior — you shouldn’t interject yourself into an election this close to the voting date without strong suspicions of wrongful activity.
….
I would also add that when he concluded his investigation over the summer, it was about 2 hours after Clinton testified for about 3.5 hours. To handle the matter in that way was a total joke. If private attorneys were handling this matter, they would question Clinton and then check out the veracity of what she said. To just ask her questions (also without a transcript) and then not follow up is unprofessional.
JD
SteveF,
Comey sent an official letter.
RB (Comment #154792)
November 6th, 2016 at 4:37 pm
Regardless of the disappointment I sense, this was not well-played by Comey and there likely isn’t enough time to undo the damage done to the HRC campaign.
______
You could be right. On the other hand, Comey’s announcement of the investigation took attention from other Clinton news negatives of minor significance over the last 10 days and could detract from any negative news tomorrow. The net effect on the election is still to be determined.
I thought Comey wrong to begin with for announcing the investigation with the election so close, but I’m glad he at least somewhat vindicated himself today. If Clinton loses, her supporters can and will blame Comey, but imagine the outrage over a loss if today’s news had come after the election.
Pete Williams claims Trump talk of a ‘rigged’ system forced Comey to do what he did – psy ops success, I guess. Meanwhile, Kellyanne Conway earns her salary (on MSNBC)
I WANT MY VOTE BACK !
Actually, I don’t. I voted for nasty woman. But I wonder about the rights of other early voters who voted against Hillary based on Comey’s announcement of the investigation, and would now like to give their vote to Hillary. Is it possible in some places to retrieve the ballot and vote over?
Max: Get votes back comment.
….
I agree with your general sentiment and would limit early voting to roughly 2 weeks before the election. However, the Democrats want to make sure that they can make it as easy as possible for minimally interested voters to vote, and if there are any substantial issues as you describe [which I doubt], the fault lies mainly with the Democrats.
JD
RB (Comment #154792)
November 6th, 2016 at 4:37 pm
Regardless of the disappointment I sense, this was not well-played by Comey and there likely isn’t enough time to undo the damage done to the HRC campaign.
I suspect that Comey’s unexpected announcement was his effort to undo that damage that was done to Clinton. He no doubt was aware of the polling numbers. If there were nothing to these emails all along I would have to wonder what motivated Comey to make his announcement last week. With a lot of what government officiasl do one has to wonder how much is stupidity and incompetence and how much is politics.
Kenneth Fritsch,
If what is attributed to Pete Williams is true and as I indicated above, there is evidence to argue against what you said, though unlikely to change the minds of people with your views/biases. But the view you express is what I was referring to in that the damage likely cannot be undone before voting day for those on the fence. In theory, all this does is to take away the Trump campaign centerpiece. I say potentially because the truth has never inconvenienced Trump – he was using the FBI “indictment” story on the trail even after it was debunked, lied that Obama was “screaming” at a protester etc., to bring up just the last few days. He may still use Weiner’s laptop emails against Clinton.
When Comey investigation was announced, Trump :
Now :
He must be tired of winning so much.
Max_OK,
I worked the polls twice in Illinois. It was before “early voting”, but mail in absentee was permitted.
During polling the batch of absentee ballots was delivered. These were still sealed but you could identify the voter on the registration list.
After the polls were closed, we went to the mail in absentee ballots. We compared to the registration list. If that voter has voted that day, we destroyed the absentee ballot. If they voted, we opened the envelope and fed the ballot into the voting machine which read it. The ballots were machine readable just like the regular ones.
I don’t know what other places do. But there has to be a procedure in place to ensure registered voters don’t vote twice. This particular one meant a person who voted early could change their vote a late as election day.
I don’t know whether voters knew about this possibility. I also don’t know how “early voting” is accommodated.
Well at least we found out in this election that the political establishment and mainstream media really care about the plight of fly over country, at least during the times they weren’t calling everyone there racist xenophobic morons. I guess not even then either. The worst thing that can happen is that the left finds this to be a “winning” strategy and goes with this on steroids the next election. Or maybe that is the best thing than can happen?
It’s kind of hard to take when all the usual suspects in the national media lament on the polarization and cynicism as if they had nothing to do with it.
I just can’t see Trump winning this election. I think he will get thumped in the end (Electoral college wise).
Trump wasn’t exactly an ideal candidate and it is kind of surprising he will get more than 25% of the vote. If there ever was an election that could be defined as a “hold your nose and vote against the other side”, this would be it. Still, Trump by accident or design tapped into some very volatile frustration in the electorate, and it has little to do with all the alleged ‘isms. The sane version of this playbook will no doubt get tried more successfully next election, and I suspect HRC has about an 80% chance of being a one term President. She may not even make it past her own primary. But a lot of things can change in 4 years.
Tom Scharf,
It might be a little more depressing than that in that there may be a host of Trumps in waiting, one of whom could become President. There is this ex-Wallstreeter, now a journalist who’s been traveling around the country (that entire thread is worth checking out). He’s been doing a lot of stories about the twin realities in America today, i.e., the “new gilded age”. There is a lot of frustration and anger out there that is not going away.
JD Ohio (Comment #154800)
November 6th, 2016 at 6:29 pm
Max: Get votes back comment.
I agree with your general sentiment and would limit early voting to roughly 2 weeks before the election.
______
JD, thank you. Two weeks seems reasonable.
______________________________________
lucia (Comment #154804)
November 6th, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Max_OK,
I don’t know what other places do. But there has to be a procedure in place to ensure registered voters don’t vote twice. This particular one meant a person who voted early could change their vote a late as election day.
________
lucia, thank you. Hillary’s campaign should pursue the possibility, particularly in battleground States. Even if few people went to the trouble of re-voting, the news coverage could help her at the polls on Monday and Tuesday.
Max_OK,
I suspect suggesting people who voted early go in and vote again wouldn’t work very well. Many who voted early probably made their minds up long ago. Those who might change their minds because of Comey probably are waiting until Tuesday unless they really needed to vote early.
Beyond that, the rules might vary state to state and may differ for early voting vs. mail in. What I described was for mail in.
I’m not sure, but I suspect what happens with “early” is the voter goes to a designated polling place, the people working the polls flip through the registration book, do the whole signature/id thing, pull out the strip that shows you voted and you vote.
If you then try to vote later, the book of registered voters would indicate you already voted. So those running polls would have a book that shows you’ve already voted and wouldn’t give you a ballot.
This doesn’t work for mail in because those are accepted up to 14 days after election day. The county clerk can know a ballot was sent, but they can’t know one was submitted until it arrives in the mail. When it arrives, they if you voted by some other means. If you did, they toss the mail in ballot.
Random Election Thoughts:
1. Polling: Because comparatively so few people have landlines and the difficulty of questioning people by phone, most people feel that polling today is much less reliable than in the past. See http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/problems-presidential-polling-2020-solutions-article-1.2847826
In my mind, that is compounded by the fact that Trump did not become a candidate in a traditional manner, which makes it more difficult to develop an accurate polling sample.
2. I was very surprised either 4 or 8 years ago to discover that Obama took about 75% of the Asian vote. I was again surprised, in an unscientific sample to find out that all 3 Chinese men I have talked to intend to vote for Trump. Talked to 2 today after the conclusion of my girl’s Chinese school. Have really tried to stay away from discussing this election, and it was only an accident that it came up today.
JD
Re: JD Ohio (Comment #154813)
Why would that make you “very surprised”?
Sample size noted, of course, but it is surprising, at least according to the recently results of the National Asian American Survey.
With allowances for massive heterogeneity, Asian American voters probably tend to view themselves as nonwhite immigrants (or descendants thereof). I would be a lot more surprised if they were generally big Trump supporters.
RB,
Here he is in the Guardian (odd how the British press covers this election better in most cases). He is pretty much on target.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/03/trump-supporters-us-elections
What drives me crazy are content free accusations such as this “He has has come into these communities with white identity politics, a message that is both simple and loud: He will make America great again.” Really? This is the definition of white identity politics? There is obviously a lot of secret messages in Make America Great I must be missing. I just don’t see the dog whistles in a message of globalism has gone too far too fast and scaling it back might benefit some people that is somehow specifically appealing to white people. Maybe it polls that way.
Oliver: ” 2. I was very surprised either 4 or 8 years ago to discover that Obama took about 75% of the Asian vote.
Why would that make you “very surprisedâ€?”
The Democrats are very anti-small business, high tax, and generally blame problems in education on the lack of money instead of the lack of parental involvement. The Chinese emphasize family responsibility in all facets of their life, including education. Of course, the Chinese tend to be talented small business people, and the tendency of Democrats to regulate and burden small business would not generally play well with the Chinese. (On the other hand, many Chinese simply ignore the regulations and taxes. For instance, in Little China in downtown Los Angeles, if you pay for merchandise in cash, no sales tax is charged. [about 1 mile from the courthouse] In case, you don’t know, I have had 2 Chinese wives)
Too the extent you were talking about the image of Asians, their high voting percentages for Democrats were before Trump.
JD
Re: Tom Scharf (Comment #154815)
It is not the definition, but when Trump refers back to Industrialization and the post-WWII era, it certainly plays off the perception that America was greater back when the rights and opportunities for nonwhite people and women were strongly limited.
Re: JD Ohio (Comment #154816)
If you look at the way school districts work, then yes, lack of money in some places relative to others is a big problem in education.
I like to think that a lot of Americans have those values as well.
Chinese who live in China apparently tolerate a level of regulation that makes most of us Americans cringe.
Again, holds true for many Americans.
Not sure how relevant that is to anything. Certainly not to speaking as an expert on “The Chinese.”
Donald Trump is making himself looking a blithering idiot again. It’s not particularly hard for him to do. He’s a natural.
Of course you can review 650,000 emails. In much less than eight days. You use these things called “computer scripts”.
I think what would take longer is, if you found new emails, there’d be a process where the emails would have to go back to the originating agency for proper classification.
(The scuttlebutt of course is no new emails were actually found, that were not personal in nature.)
Carrick
I’m curious about the number that turned out to be about yoga routines or Chelsea’s wedding. But I suspect we aren’t going to get a report on that.
oliver,
America was arguably better then, at least for some communities. The desire to have a well paid blue collar working sector that just happened to occur during a time when there was more racism and sexism is an unfounded correlation made for the benefit of not engaging with the actual argument.
It is a lazy dismissal based on imagined group character flaws from a group that prides themselves on not doing exactly that. You do see the irony here, right?
The proper response is to argue that large scale blue collar jobs are gone mostly due to automation, not offshoring and illegal immigration. However some blue collar work could be recovered with different trade agreements or protectionist taxation. I don’t particularly favor those moves but I don’t make a logical starved leap that wanting this type of policy is based on racism and sexism. That is where a lot of the anger comes from.
oliver,
I think JD’s marriage to chinese american women is a little relevant to his being able to generalize a little more than some one else. Of course it doesn’t make him an expert on all Chinese. Even individual Chinese Americans aren’t experts in values held by Chinese Americans. But it does mean he has some exposure. I don’t know a huge number of Chinese, and none as family.
I have no idea how Chinese American’s are voting. I would note however, that “Asian” includes a much broader range than just Chinese or even East Asian. Indians, Pakistanis are categorized as Asians.
lucia, JD,
May I very respectfully point out that the claim that one knows about “the ___ [insert ethnic group here] because I have married 2 of them” comes across as practically the archetypal “white man among natives” statement.
Oliver: “If you look at the way school districts work, then yes, lack of money in some places relative to others is a big problem in education.”
JD response:This is a big point of disagreement between the Left and Right. Education spending has greatly increased over the last 60 or 70 years and the results are worse. For instance, Washington DC spends a large amount of money on its schools and has terrible results.
JD past post: “The Chinese emphasize family responsibility in all facets of their life, including education.”
Oliver response: “I like to think that a lot of Americans have those values as well.”
JD Response: Not even close. Family ties and family responsibilities to and from children and parents are much close in China than they are in the US. In China the out of wedlock birth rate is about 5.6%, much lower than the the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_(family_law)
…
I don’t claim to be an expert per se on China. I do think I know more than 95% of non-Chinese Americans because of frequent visits to China, my membership in a Chinese Church, my marriages, my two-half-Chinese children and my place on the board of a Chinese school. Why don’t you tell me about your knowledge and connections to China. Don’t intend to continue this discussion unless you demonstrate some real knowledge about China and the Chinese in the US.
JD
Tom Scharf (Comment #154821)
November 6th, 2016 at 10:28 pm
Coupled with pretty blatant racist and misogynistic statement and behavior, it is absolutely central to the argument. Back in the “good old days,” minorities and women had severely curtailed rights and opportunities. They were the good old days for white men, basically.
That is a plausible technical reason for the loss of large scale blue collar jobs, but it does not answer the incessant dog whistling, which basically claims that America will become great again by targeting immigrants, reinforcing discrimination, and reinstating norms that tolerate frankly disgusting misogynistic behavior.
Not in isolation, no, but in conjunction with the rest of the message, it is exactly what is being dangled.
Tom Scharf,
The racist dog whistles exist and are why somebody like the KKK endorses Trump. As Chris Arnade and others have written – the support has come in waves. Initially, with those economically disaffected, then those not affected personally but with ties to the community. Later, he co-opted the GOP voters on traditional party issues (guns, taxes, abortion, SCOTUS).
Re: JD Ohio (Comment #154824)
People are a lot more educated today than 60 or 70 years ago, so no, the results are not “worse” today.
Secondly, there is very obvious iniquity in the money that is available to different school districts. Citing increased education spending doesn’t address this problem in any way.
I see family ties and family responsibilities as core American values. Certainly they were core where I grew up. If you disagree, then let’s just agree to disagree.
This is a strange request. You have claimed to know about Chinese because you (claim to) have various connections to Chinese Americans. How does this prove any “real knowledge” about the viewpoint of any minority group?
Lucia: “I would note however, that “Asian†includes a much broader range than just Chinese or even East Asian. Indians, Pakistanis are categorized as Asians.”
I obviously agree with your comment and that is why I specifically mentioned Chinese. I believe there are more Indians in the US than Chinese but that the Chinese are the second largest group of Asians in the US. I am just raising semi-informed speculation about a not that much discussed group of ethnic voters from my interaction with one portion of that group.
JD
I’m married to a Chinese woman (actually born in Taiwan) and would backup everything JD has to say. I’ve also been through China and Japan several times, hosted middle school exchange students from Japan, and sent my daughter to Japan for the same. Family bonds tend to be very strong, a stronger than average work ethic, and a devotion to education that can border on obsession when compared to other community’s standards. This leads to better than average success. It’s not homogeneous but it is quite measurable and it’s unclear why anyone is even arguing about it.
Re: Tom Scharf (Comment #154829)
Interesting. Is she Taiwanese or Chinese?
oliver,
If you ask China, Taiwan and China are one and the same. I think I’m done with this engaging conversation.
Re: Tom Scharf (Comment #154832)
I didn’t ask what China says, I asked what your wife is.
Why done so soon, when you are the one who brought it up?
Oliver,
I suspect Tom thinks the detail about whether she is Taiwanese or Chinese isn’t relevant to his view that JD Ohio’s observations are largely correct.
lucia,
An awareness of the differences is one possible indication of whether having a Chinese (or Taiwanese) wife has resulted in some above-average understanding of Chinese American perspectives.
oliver,
It’s clear Tom is aware of the difference between Taiwanese and Chinese. If he was unaware of the difference, he wouldn’t have mentioned both China and Taiwan. We don’t need to know which is wife is to recognize that he is aware of the difference.
My guess is people who participate in blended Chinese-American families have a greater than average understanding of Chinese-American perspectives and also have a greater than average understanding of cultural differences. It doesn’t make them experts, but exposure and opportunity of observation does result in greater awareness and understanding than lack of exposure or observation. So I suspect their awareness is likely to be greater than average– but not necessarily expert, not necessarily unbiased, and not necessarily broad.
Of course even observing a family or even Chinese American in a local community is narrower than traveling around and meeting Chinese Americans in all parts of the country and over a full range of social classes. But it is more than nothing.
For what it’s worth, my best friend from high school lived in China for about a decade, working there. She has a wider understanding of Chinese- Chinese than I do. Even her exposure in China was limited by the where she worked (a university). But still, it’s going to be greater than average relative to other Americans.
Lucia, wikileaks revealed e-mail that said Chelsea’s wedding was paid for by the Clinton Foundation.
JD, Tom Scharf, Oliver,
The statistics are very clear: a culture which values personal responsibility, hard work, and education leads to better personal outcomes. It is also clear that some identifiable ethnic immigrant groups value those behaviors more than others, and so some ethnic groups do (on average) much better than others economically. This is true for many Asians, including Chinese, Japanese, and Indians. I have no doubt that these groups may suffer some discrimination, and some may think Trump is ‘anti-immigrant’, and so vote against him. But the data are very clear: personal responsibility, education, and a strong work ethic swamp whatever actual prejudice these groups may suffer. More concerning to me is organized official prejudice against these groups by selective universities and colleges, where far fewer highly qualified students of Asian descent are admitted than there ought to be based on qualifications…. I find this far more blatant discrimination than anything Trump talks about.
Re: lucia (Comment #154836)
That is not clear from what he said, which was:
“I’m married to a Chinese woman (actually born in Taiwan)…”
and, when asked,
“If you ask China, Taiwan and China are one and the same.
It’s quite possible that Tom was pointing out that his wife was actually born in Taiwan, which is part of China, instead of in the U.S. (i.e., she is not an “American-born Chinese”). This would be pointing out a completely different, but also important, distinction.
MikeN
Really?! That probably cost way more than the portrait of Trump purchased by the Trump foundation.
Do you have a link to the wikileaks that shows the foundation paid for her wedding?
Lucia here’s a link
What it actually says is “used resources”, which is different than “paid for”. What that means gets tricky of course.
“Paid for” sounds particularly unlikely.
Trump got away to some extent with the level of self-dealing that he did, because his foundation was not being audited.
The Clinton Foundation is fully audited, so I’m skeptical that the foundation made any cash payments for the wedding itself.
Trump’s done quite a bit of other self-dealing that just buying a couple of portraits though. (E.g., use it to help fund his campaign.)
Carrick
The Trump stuff is messy. That’s the way all the foundation self-dealing works. After all: when a politician is paid to speak, or their foundation is paid to speak, or their strong supporter is paid to speak, it can be disguised as “foundation work” even though it clearly benefits the politician as a politician. So, it’s hard to pin the behavior as “wrong”. And if the politician is invited to “speak” and gave a donation, the politician still benefited, but the “donated” speech is often also seen as not a “benefit” to the “person” who will claim they were acting privately or acting for the foundation– so not in the capacity of “politician” who is “campaigning”.
My view is the “mess” is intentional.
The thing with paying for a wedding– if done, there’s no “mess”, it’s obviously not allowed. There really isn’t anyway to even disguise paying for a private wedding as allowed.
That said: it’s not clear the foundation did pay for the wedding.
Carrick,
I agree that “used resources” is far more likely than “paid for”. Could be having staffers involved in organizing the event, or taking a private jet somewhere (ostensibly for Foundation business) but also using that trip to handle wedding related issues. These kinds of things are difficult to prove and usually fall in the gray area between what is obviously legitimate and what is obviously illegitimate. Not shocking, and especially not for the Clintons. In any case, I think Doug Band may not have a future working with Clinton Inc, no matter what happens in the election.
Oliver
“It’s quite possible that Tom was pointing out that his wife was actually born in Taiwan, which is part of China, instead of in the U.S. (i.e., she is not an “American-born Chineseâ€). ”
Huh, it is not part of China at the present…like it or lump it.
——————————-
“May I very respectfully point out that the claim that one knows about “the ___ [insert ethnic group here] because I have married 2 of them†comes across as practically the archetypal “white man among natives†statement.”
I find this comment not subtle and tiresome. Some of us were attracted to our Asian friends and spouses by their values–particularly in light of competing values here. And yes, we are aware of limitations even to our perceptions. Still, IMO your echoing the colonial ghost is a misguided cheap shot and not the only interpretation–a point well brought out in the ensuing responses by JD, Tom, and Lucia (even some exposure is a good thing). I do not feel guilty. Oliver, take your trope and bury it.
BTW your “May I very respectfully point out” reminds me the Southern US “I love him/her to death but…”. :o)
JD, Tom, Lucia — well written responses!
About half the cost of the wedding was for the venue, not owned by the Foundation, and catering which is doubtful to be handled by them. So if they didn’t pay, the resources used would be pretty small. Perhaps the Foundation paid for flights and other travel.
Maybe they used some staff to mail invitations.
For the record. My wife was born in Taiwan. Her parents were born in China and the family goes back who knows how many generations in northern China. Her parents, like many others, moved to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War / Chiang Kai-shek era.
The Chinese / Japanese cultural differences tend to be more constructive than destructive compared to other US based minorities as far as outcomes related to poverty, education, employment, median income, dual parent families, drug addiction, crime, and other measurements. This is borne out by statistics easily available to anyone. In my opinion one of the flaws in this culture is “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down” mentality which can make innovation suffer when individuality and risk taking is suppressed. I think that is beginning to change.
And if you think US politics is getting…ummmm….confrontational, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Taiwan parliament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ-hNVfTZqw
mwg,
“echoing the colonial ghost is a misguided cheap shot..”
.
Yup.
Tom Scharf
I love that video!!! Thanks! Taiwan is one vibrant place. Good, tough country and people. And the food… ;O)
Tom Scharf,
The challenges and threats facing Taiwan are existential… and people react accordingly. The more people who feel threatened in the States, the sharper the political disagreements will become.
Tom Scharf,
What? No Kung Fu?!!!!!
For what it’s worth, it’s been bad in the US in the past. No youtube video, but
This Senate floor caning wasn’t just a light tap about the shoulders or something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Brooks
I don’t know if Senators are allowed go carry canes onto the Senate floors these days. But clearly, they can be used quite aggressively.
I should say—I don’t think there is anything illegal per se, or unethical, about using foundation resources for personal use, either in Trump’s or Clinton’s case.
You do have to reimburse at a fair rate (I believe it’s a percentage of the annual costs of those resources). and that includes office space, equipment and salaries of course.
Carrick, no one is talking about it being done with reimbursements.
In that case, the issue would be if the foundation is buying things to make money for you.
I’ll give Clinton supporters this. The Clinton Foundation’s involvement in Chelsea’s wedding is pretty darn far down on the list of things that concern me about Hillary and her Foundation.
mwg,
That’s the way I see it.
After all JD Ohio and Tom Scharf might be playing Pinkerton to their own “Madame Butterfly”, thinking they understand local culture (and Butterfly herself) and deluding themselves. Or they could also be people who fell in love, married and interacted with those from a different ethnic group and culture and who can, in consequence, describe some values that differ in strength or intensity.
My friend who lived in China does report that it seemed to her that relative to American students, the Chinese students in China had a stronger tend to see their behavior as reflecting on the group and the groups on themselves. That might be an anecdotal observation that applies to the few groups she, and individual, did see. But it’s a data point which is rather larger than my experience which is none.
Cultural differences and value do exist. So I think it’s rather hard to try to impugn everyone who reports what they have observed. It’s certainly worth taking with a grain of salt– but one should take all anecdotal data with a grain of salt. But trying to impugn people for reporting what they have seen doesn’t seem right. Worse impugning their account because they gave information that lets listeners assess whether this account is anecdotal vs. systematic study/poll vs. “I heard from a friend who has a friend who has a friend” seems even less right.
I certainly wouldn’t suggest to my friend that her experience can’t really tell her anything because — in fact– she is a white American and so on. That said, if knowing the relative difference in valuing the “group” reputation vs. “individual” was important to me, I’d try to find other sources to determine whether her impression is accurate or not.
Re: mwg (Comment #154846)
Tom quite specifically replied that Taiwan is part of China if you ask China. I am taking no position either way, I was trying to figure out what he was trying to say in his immediately previous statement.
What I took issue with is not marrying people of Asian descent or even having Asian friends. It is the extra statement Tom made, that he is justified in making sweeping generalizations about “the Chinese” because he’s married two Chinese women.
It isn’t a trope to point out that using it the way Tom did is what echoes the colonial ghost .
It’s a way to point out that “What you just said comes across really badly,” while still indicating that I respect your right to say it.
Edit to previous: I should have said that it was JD, not Tom, who originally made the wide generalizations about “the Chinese” culminating in the “trope”-y comment.
Also: to Tom, thanks for clarifying what you meant.
mark bofill,
Chelsea’s wedding is also pretty far down on my list. That said: I tend to be pretty suspicious of family “foundations” especially when run by
(a) politicians, former politicians and aspiring politicians or
(b) people who need to deal with lots of politicians (in the way real estate moguls do– for zoning, loans, building permits of various sources etc.)
Mind you: when the lotto goes above $500,000, I buy a ticket. In the unlikely event I ever win the $500,000, my first move will be to consult lawyers and tax accounts to find out if I can set up a suitably named foundation that will permit me to do all sorts of things that permit long term ongoing benefits Jim, me, my siblings, his siblings and my niece and nephews. (He has no niece and nephews. Of course we’d talk about benefiting mom too, but she is 84 and retired. She’s in great health and tells us she is planning to make it to 107 yo. But I’m guessing I really wouldn’t need to think up anything tooo clever from a tax-shelter pov for her, but some thought would be required to shelter things appropriately for 20 year olds. I envision some sort of “cush jobs”.)
Oliver,
If your complaint is he may have been overgeneralizing from his individual experience, that’s fair enough. I think JD would admit that possibility too. But that’s not quite how that came off.
“Trope”-y or not, the fact is, information explaining the basis for his impression– which in this case happens to be personal experience that sprung from marriage– is actually useful. We know he’s not claiming his views are based on a study, or from wide exposure to every possible immigrant from China.
But it’s still not nothing. There were two wives– so at least two families. And it turns out there is sitting on school boards. We know from past things his family remains sufficiently “chinese” that his kids are fluent in chinese, spend summers in china and so on.
My uncle Peter knew more about Germans and German values that “most” americans because he was married to a German (aunt Lydia) whose family still lived in Germany. They and the kids traveled back and forth, and his kids were bilingual. I wouldn’t jump over him if he happened to mention his source for forming opinions about Germans and how their might differ from generic Americans was partly based on his having married a German. He might be mistaken– and the claim might be “trope”-y. But OTOH, it was information.
Sen. Al Franken: “We Will Have Hearings” About “Rogue Elements” Inside The FBI
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/06/franken_we_will_have_hearings_about_rogue_elements_inside_the_fbi.html
Leaks from inside the FBI are suspected. What are the penalties for leaking?
What other wrong doing would an investigation try to uncover?
Luica,
“So I think it’s rather hard to try to impugn everyone who reports what they have observed.”
.
Seems rather less hard for some than for others.
.
Here is another anecdotal data point: about 12 years ago, my company sold a laboratory instrument to a Chinese university (in Nanjing). I visited the university for a couple of days to set up the instrument and train the initial users, who were all graduate students. Most could read some English, but speaking/listening was non-existent, so one of my representatives in China worked as an interpreter during the training. The representative was not technically trained, though fluent in English and Chinese, and apparently there was some misunderstanding on the part of one of the grad students. A few weeks after the installation I received a telephone call from the office manager in China, informing me that the instrument had been misused and sustained considerable damage; I estimated the cost for repair at about $6,000. The manager told me it would be ‘best’ if I agreed to repair the instrument without charge, in spite of the misuse. When I asked why, he explained that if the repair cost $6,000, then the grad student might well commit suicide… and some of her group members would actually expect that. The rep may have been conning me, but I didn’t think so… he was a serious Dutchman I had known for a long time. So I did the repair under warranty.
Based on my experiences with Mrs. W., it is perfectly obvious that Brazil is Heaven and is populated by angels.
Only, she tells me this is not the case.
Mark, I brought it up as a joke because Lucia mentioned Hillary’s lie that her deleted e-mails were about yoga and Chelsea’s wedding.
MikeN,
.
Ah, thank you. The further I progress on through the years in this wild and wacky world of ours, the less I find my ability to differentiate what’s serious and what’s a joke reliable. 🙂
Joseph W,
“…perfectly obvious that Brazil is Heaven and is populated by angels. Only, she tells me this is not the case.”
.
And aside from my two Brazilian children, she is certainly right. 😉
.
Seriously, there is a great deal of crime, and even more political corruption. Many cities in Brazil have very high rates of violent crime, including murder. The state where my kids live has about 60 murders per 100,000 population per year, more than double the highest murder rate for any city in the USA (East St. Louis), and 15 times the average rate for the whole of the USA. Many places in Brazil are dangerous.
Oliver.
Your point on ‘part of China is taken.
You asked why JD was surprised. He told you and ended with “In case, you don’t know, I have had 2 Chinese wives”. He is providing relevant information on his perspective. As I noted earlier there are multiple interpretations. Perhaps you are programmed so that it comes across as practically the archetypal “white man among natives†statement. Meh, we are all wired to bundle thoughts/
My interpretation was simple: I know the type of experiences he draws on, I know the frustration that the fact even over decades one can not start to fathom so much of what shaped that person, and I know the loving bemusement one experiences every day in the relationship. Do not give me that canned ‘white man’ crap. It is lazy, cheap response and just flat out disrespectful.
It isn’t a trope to point out that using it the way Tom did is what echoes the colonial ghost It is if multiple legitimate interpretations are quite evident in context. It is a trope because it is used to dismiss other possible views with a wave of the hand.
I love you to death but… ;o)
RB, I think the polls indicated that even before Comey’s recent announcement that Clinton’s lead over Trump was the same it was before his announcement previous to this one, but that is something to which Comey might not have been reacting. The recent polls that would not have reactions to the latest Comey announcement had Clinton ahead by 4 percentage points over Trump. The polling data would indicate that in the end the Comey announcement had little or no effect on the election. That Comey is very much a political animal whether you believe Pete William’s speculative version of developments or mine is rather evident. By the way, as a speculator myself, I am curious to why if Williams has access to inside information his take on the Comey announcement previous to the recent one that it was motivated by Trump’s accusations of a rigged election would not have been thrown out there for public consummation at that time – or did I miss some speculation here.
RB, I think the current polls indicate that even before Comey’s recent announcement that Clinton’s lead over Trump was the same as it was before his announcement previous to this one, but that is something to which Comey would not have been reacting. The recent polls that would not have reactions to the latest Comey announcement have Clinton ahead by 4 percentage points over Trump. The polling data would indicate that in the end the Comey announcement had little or no effect on the election. That Comey is very much a political animal whether you believe Pete William’s speculative version of developments or mine is rather evident. By the way, as a speculator myself, I am curious to why, if Williams has access to inside information, his take on the Comey announcement previous to the recent one that it was motivated by Trump’s accusations of a rigged election would not have been thrown out there for public consummation at that time – or did I miss some speculation and the timing of it here.
If the bad character of the opposition is the driving force in this election then I would think that potential voters will defend and rationalize the actual or perceived faults of their originally favored choice more easily. Voting for the lesser of two evils will continue to maintain the two party system. Given the problems of the two party system, I can only hope for a divided government for four more years.
MikeN:
I am talking about it.
Not really. The foundation buys things they need. Sometimes the owner of the foundation leverages off of this.
If it is done legally, the foundation gets properly reimbursed, and it lowers the foundation’s operating costs, since it reduces the percentage of under-utilized resources in their inventory.
Carrick,
Of course, question with foundations can be “Did the foundation buy things they really need with the owner leveraging? Or did the foundation decide they “needed” something because the owner needed it?”
Mind you, the same can happen with businesses. Heck… even with faculty grants.
WRT to faculty: Jim’s graduate adviser…. rest his soul…. just happened to “need” video recording equipment for the “research” when his kids were little. The equipment was used during an investigation– but not in any way one might deem essential to the research. They were measuring dispersion of smoke and it was used to take some incidental films of the guys running the smoke generator. None of that film was used as data or analysis. But certainly anyone who already had a camera would have liked to have film as fiduciary. It’s quite likely a cost conscious or cost strapped researcher would have rented a camera for the 2 week field experiment. Or failing that, hunted around and borrowed one from another researcher who happened to have one– borrowing was not unknown at U of I. FWIW: Jim’s adviser was also notorious for “storing” equipment at his home. The property guys often got pretty unhappy with him and there were some episodes in which some major grumpiness ensued. So… well… did he “need” the equipment? Or not?
I’m sure similar things happen with foundations. And businesses. The IRS then has to try to figure out whether things were legit.
Of course, that’s why If I win $500,000 in the lotto, I’m going to look into setting up a foundation. 🙂
Tom Scharf (Comment #154806)
While I agree with you on the reality check that you make in this post, I have some major reservations about the populist movements that Trump and Sanders exposed in the US voting public. The populist movements both right and left seem to correctly point to an elitist establishment that the government in Washington benefits. Unfortunately like many such movements in history their remedies can be worse than the disease. For example, I do not see either side of this movement appear interested or concerned that the growing government at all levels is not sustainable with regards to the growing debt, unfunded liabilities and finding sources to eventually pay for all this debt without detrimentally affecting the economy. Both sides appear to have reservation about free trade that in my view could be legitimately applied to those trade agreements that are not really free but have many government stipulations and form a trading cartels. That is not, however, what these people appear to be against but rather are against free trade that might keep the government from protecting favored businesses and industries.
Demands for so-called government freebies from the leftist populists are problematic and symptomatic of groups that react more with emotion than thought as are the demands for restrictive immigration and giving up individual freedoms in the name of national security by those on the right.
The current intelligentsia and MSM who are part of the elite establishment will use the populist left to further their causes while at the same time speaking against the populist right on the grounds of the emotionalism of (that kind of) populism.
Unfortunately I see some otherwise deep thinkers on the libertarian side of these issues looking favorably on the rebellion of the populist movements based solely on having common opposition to the same general aspects of government.
Carrick, do you think Chelsea reimbursed the foundation for whatever resources were used? Do you think Trump did?
Of course it would be legal if you are reimbursing.
“Big Jule: Well, I used to be bad when I was a kid, but ever since then I’ve gone straight, as has been proved by my record: Thirty-three arrests and no convictions!”
lucia (Comment #154910)
Funny and appropriate. Wasn’t Big Jule from Cicero IL and a scout master?
Kenneth,
Indeed.
Weren’t populists responsible for the Seventeenth Amendment? Anything that was supposed to cure can’t possibly match the damage it’s done to federalism.
Voters voting their living daylights out in early voting, in Georgia (well, Fulton County), North Carolina, and Tennessee (Hamilton County). Possibly other places, haven’t looked yet.
Kenneth Fritsch,
Yes. Big Jule was from Cicero, Illinoiss. (“S” pronounced.)
Here’s a student production delivering the line I quoted. Second 55 . Nicely Nicely starts at 2:30.
They moved him from the original story, where his hometown is New York and his “Maw” lives on West Forty-Ninth Street near Eleventh Avenue. (And Lieutenant Brannigan lives in the same neighborhood and grew up with him.) Scroll to “hottest guy in the world” here.
(Oh, go on, do it, it’s a fun story.)
Big Jule clearly took high school physics
I think RB pointed out this guy, but here is an interesting analysis of why Trumpsters are willing to go high risk vs low risk with politicians from a day trader perspective. The short form is they have less to lose, and they really don’t care if elites lose anything, as this is really part of an upside.
https://medium.com/@Chris_arnade/trump-politics-and-option-pricing-or-why-trump-voters-are-not-idiots-1e364a4ed940#.coommlpk2
Oliver: “It isn’t a trope to point out that using it the way Tom [meant JD] did is what echoes the colonial ghost”
….
This is a really goofy and uninformed moralistic statement of political correctness. If Oliver had any knowledge of Chinese culture, he would realize that being married to a Chinese woman is a window into Chinese culture. Just in case, he thinks I was collecting trophy wives (only thing I can remotely understand that “colonialism” comment refers to) my first wife died of liver cancer after 7 years of marriage and my two children were born. I was married to my second wife for four years before we divorced. Both of my wives were doctors in China but not licensed in the U.S.
In addition to living with 2 Chinese women for 11 years (this is much more exposure than the stereotypical person who claims, for instance, that he understands Black people because he has a Black friend), I have attempted to make sure that my children (boy 15, girl 11) maintain their ties to their mother’s family in Wuhan, China as well as to China generally. This has involved: 1. Spending about $10,000 per year traveling to China and hiring tutors (about 10 over the years) to maintain my children’s Chinese. 2. Very complicated and difficult arrangements with my children’s Chinese relatives when my children visit China for roughly 6 weeks per summer. (My children’s relatives, as are many Chinese, are extremely protective of their nieces and nephews. They often prefer that my children just stay in their apartment all day long rather than doing something interesting with guides I have tried to hire to show my children around Wuhan — they don’t understand if my children get bored, they will stop coming as they get older.) 3. Helping Chinese friends with business and legal matters. I recently saved the husband of my interpreter approximately $300,000 by helping him avoid a real estate net/net deal which was a total dog. (The Chinese generally want to become friends first before they will do business with you, which can be very frustrating at times) 4. Setting up my son as a volunteer to teach English in Wuhan last summer. (which was also very time-consuming and stressful)
For those who haven’t visited China, here are some of the very surprising things that an American notices when he visits: 1. The typical Chinese toilet is simply a hole in the floor where water is occasionally flushed down. (Newer American style toilets have been gaining favor over the last 7 years, but they are still outnumbered by the older toilets) 2. Most public toilets in China require that you bring your own toilet paper. 3. Many urban Chinese blue collar people live in large apartment towers. I have never heard any loud noise in these towers. (If it was the US, there almost certainly would be lots of noise) 4. The retirement age for men in China is 60, but it is 50 for female blue-collar workers and 55 for white collar female workers. 5. In big cities, all of the large buildings are named both in Chinese and in English. 6. Although at the top, China is an authoritarian country, to the Chinese, traffic laws are more of a suggestion, rather than a directive. The traffic is so bad in China that I would never even consider driving there.
The point being that I know much more about China and Chinese Americans than the average American who has never visited China, but I am clearly not as knowledgeable as native Chinese or people who have studied China for years. The idea that by mentioning my Chinese connections and knowledge that I am somehow repeating or encouraging a colonial narrative is ridiculous. (In the context of this discussion, I have no idea what “trope” is referring to even though I Googled it.)
JD
JD Ohio,
“This is a really goofy and uninformed moralistic statement of political correctness.”
.
Better to just leave it at that. Those who refuse to see differences between people, and in particular, differences between identifiable groups of people, will always object to evidence of differences.. It is the fundamental ‘progressive’ thought…. right up there with endless rounds of ‘Kumbaya’ and other similar mindless idiocy. People are NOT identical. Identifiable groups of people are NOT identical. Leftists need to get over this…. but they never will; believing this tripe is exactly what makes them leftists…. and fools.
JD,
I introduse the term ‘trope’ in the sense of “a common or overused theme or device ” here:
mwg http://rankexploits.com/musings/2016/roughly-650000-emails/#comment-154846
November 7th, 2016 at 8:29 am
…
“May I very respectfully point out that the claim that one knows about “the ___ [insert ethnic group here] because I have married 2 of them†comes across as practically the archetypal “white man among natives†statement.â€
I find this comment not subtle and tiresome. …
…
Oliver, take your trope and bury it.
HTH
I admire and can appreciate the how and why of handling things with your children and Chinese ‘family’.
lucia:
I’m sure it happens, and I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with it (as long as the resource is really dual use), e.g., a plane that the foundation owners estimate they’ll have a use for 20% of the time. That would factor into what size of plane the foundation would be able to afford, for example.
😀
MikeN:
I would guess as a matter of course both of them typically reimburse when they use resources, but I suspect given the more strict tax status of Clinton’s Foundation, resources are controlled more carefully than with Trump.
Trump does some dumb things, like pay fines and buy self portraits for his golf courses, but I’m pretty sure much of what he does is legal, if a bit ethically challenged, including making political donations with his foundation, even when they pretty much amount to bribes.
Lucia: Thanks for discussing Silver’s methodology. I think I know how to define “quantitatively dubious” better: Can we put a confidence interval around Silver’s estimate of a 64% probability of a Clinton victory in the EC? How much does 64% change if we allow the correlation between states and other critical parameters to vary within a reasonable range?
SIlver’s methodology produces a central estimate and pdf for the EC vote, but a single value for the probability of winning. I’d like a confidence interval around the single value for the probability of winning.
I find it interesting to explore parallels between election models and AOGCMs. With climate models, we have initialization uncertainty and parameter uncertainty. In some, but not all, ways, initialization uncertainty seems analogous to the uncertainty associated with each state’s polls. In both cases, we also need to be concerned with parameter uncertainty. In climate science, Stainforth and others have SYSTEMATICALLY explored parameter uncertainty using ensembles with perturbed parameters, but the IPCC uses only an “ensemble of opportunity” for its projections. Therefore, their projections don’t properly take into account parameter uncertainty. They rely on expert judgment, not statistics, to characterize a projected range for future warming as “likely”.
As with individual AOGCM’s, Nate Silver’s model presumably has a fixed value for interstate or intergroup correlations and other phenomena. A new set of polls produces new initialization conditions, resulting in a 80%? probability of a Clinton victory in the EC last week and a 64% probability last time I looked. To get output that included “correlation uncertainty” in its confidence interval, Silver would need to explore a range of correlation values that are consistent observations from somewhere (previous elections? shifts in polls?).
So when I say quantitatively dubious, I complaining about getting a central estimate for the probability of a Clinton victory and no confidence interval about that central estimate. As with AOGCMs, I worry that the confidence interval is much wider that the model creator wants us to recognize.
JD Ohio (Comment #154945)
I didn’t point out that your comments could come across badly because of “uninformed…political correctness.†I pointed it out precisely because I am informed, and your comment came across badly.
The “colonialism†comment originated with mwg (Comment #154846).
I am sorry to hear that.
You clearly have the best intentions for your children and relatives abroad. However, what you posted was an explanation of what “the Chinese†think and want, qualified on the basis of having had 2 Chinese wives. Do you not understand how this might come across as repeating the archetypal “white male†narrative? (At best, you might call it “whitemansplaining.â€)
Suppose I’d said I was very surprised that “the women†strongly voted for Obama because “what women value” is A, B, and C, which Obama doesn’t really support, and, oh by the way, in case you didn’t know, I’m saying this because I’ve been married to 2 woman.
Would you really be surprised if someone else said, hey, that’s basically irrelevant to knowing “what women value,” and in fact it could come across as the stereotypical male sexist response?
Re: SteveF (Comment #154947)
SteveF,
It’s hard to believe you don’t see the astonishing self-contradiction in what you just wrote there.
I thought this was interesting over at 538:
This on what he calls ‘herding’.
This on the ‘File Drawer Problem’.
.
In fairness, he closes thus:
We will see tomorrow!
Sam Wang’s take on Silverman’s modeling efforts:
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/is-99-a-reasonable-probability/
Frank
I think no confidence interval can be provided in his estimate but that has nothing to do with whether it is “quantatively dubious”. The problem is this is a discrete outcome. The event outcome is either “Hillary wins” or “Trump wins”; it’s not “Hillary wins n electoral votes”. The probability already is our “confidence” in one of the events. You don’t put confidence intervals on confidence estimates.
Now if he were discussing the best estimate of the number of electoral votes she’s win, we could put a confidence interval on that. But the problem is: What people want to predict is whether she wins or does not. And that’s what he predict. So he gives a probability she wins. You can’t have a confidence interval on that estimate.
Silver does discuss thins things like “How much does 64% change if…” at his site.
Andrew Gelman has also discussed this and he said all the various probabilities we’ve seen aren’t really very different.
Honestly, I think you are worrying about this too much. The election is tomorrow. The probability will turn into an outcome by tomorrow night.
The LATimes pretty much has the same electoral map as me. (They give Clinton Maine District #2, which I’m giving to Trump.)
On the other hand, the so-called LATimes poll has Trump ahead by 5 points.
Either they have invented a whole new method of polling that is more accurate than any previous polls, or they are borderline insane.
Oliver: “You clearly have the best intentions for your children and relatives abroad. However, what you posted was an explanation of what “the Chinese†think and want, qualified on the basis of having had 2 Chinese wives. Do you not understand how this might come across as repeating the archetypal “white male†narrative? (At best, you might call it “whitemansplaining.â€)”
…..
Absolutely not. Most people in the U.S. have not visited China or have had close relations with many Chinese people. I wrote my comment to say I think I know a lot more than those people. Other people with more experience than me are welcome to challenge my points. Your comment is pure intolerant, political correctness. You still have not demonstrated any knowledge of China or the Chinese. Also, for that matter, to be technical, and approach this matter the way you have, you have made comments about the family values of Americans, and have not demonstrated any basis for those either.
Your women and Obama example is not pertinent because virtually all Americans know multiple women and Americans have experience in the US. To use the examples of several women doesn’t help anyone. However, using family examples from Chinese families helps many Americans who have limited exposure to Chinese people and Chinese culture.
JD
Carrick: “Either they have invented a whole new method of polling that is more accurate than any previous polls, or they are borderline insane.”
The polling methods used this year are much less accurate than those used in previous years because it is harder to interview people and because less people are being polled. Gallup decided not to poll for the Presidential election this year because it concluded that it could not accurately do so.
However, the one thing I noticed about Latimes poll was that it gave 20% of the Black vote to Trump, which I think is way off.
JD
I am sorry, Oliver, but it was your “white man among natives” that I was addressing. Can’t you even own up to your own language? That is pretty sorry. Enough said. My apologies Lucia.
Re: mwg (Comment #154963)
JD was confused about where the word “colonial†got brought up. You said yourself that you brought it up.
I have no problem owning up to my “white man among natives†comment. I said that JD’s comment sounded just like the archetypal version of that narrative. There is tremendous historical precedent for exactly those sorts of comments being made in very certain ways. If he did not mean those comments in those ways, then that would be easy to clarify, but instead he seems to be doubling down on his comments.
Some people use “political correctness†to signify an elaborate play in which people withhold comments that other people in the same group might call them on for being potentially offensive. It’s supposed to be about actually respecting people who might be affected or offended by those comments.
Oliver: ““Political correctness†is not just an elaborate play where people withhold comments that other people in the same group might call them on for being potentially offending. It’s about being actually having respect for the people who might be offended by those comments.”
….
My comments about the Chinese were positive. Who could be offended other than the political correctness police? You generalized about American values. Why do you have the right to generalize about American values from your experience, and I can’t generalize from my experiences about Chinese values. Also, if some people are hypersensitive, I don’t care that they are offended. In fact, in some cases, I would hope that they would be offended so that they can get out of their insular, uninformed shells.
….
Of course, you have sidetracked the issue of why you think Americans have strong family values comparable to the Chinese. (Your precise wording was: “I see family ties and family responsibilities as core American values. Certainly they were core where I grew up.”) You have still given no basis for your statement about Americans other than your own personal experience. On top of that you have demonstrated no knowledge of the Chinese. Yet you have challenged (sort of — by changing the issue into one of political correctness.)
JD
JD Ohio: I believe there was more to Gallup not running a presidential poll than thinking it might be especially inaccurate this go around. My guess is they aren’t ready to roll out their remachined poll yet.
Bt the LATimes is a real outlier. I honestly don’t think the other polls are that inaccurate.
But I guess we get to see tomorrow.
Carrick, if Chelsea were reimbursing, then Band would have no basis to complain.
I’m assuming the resources are being used for free.
JD, LA Times poll is not the only one showing Trump with close to 20% black vote.
I posted before that Romney would have needed 25% or more to win the election, but Trump can win with 20.
LA Times poll is at least consistent and useful for showing trends. The methodology is suspect with one particular Trump supporting black guy weighted 100x, worth several percent by himself.
MikeN:
Not necessarily. You just have an exchange in an email. It doesn’t mean very much by itself.
For example:
1) Band wouldn’t necessarily have first hand knowledge (he could just be mistaken). 2) He might be (legitimately) concerned with public perceptions—nobody’s accused Hillary Clinton of having very good optics about these sorts of things. 3) He might just have a beef with Chelsea and is just causing trouble.
I’m pretty sure we can reject your initial read that the Foundation paid for the wedding. That would be so entirely not audit proof.
Carrick, when were they audited?
Lucia, that is a general problem I have with polls. They are not reliable far away from an election. Near an election they are not useful.
MikeN: annually. These are required for public charities (organizations that receive their funding through solicited donations for example). Note that by NY state law, the audit reports are public records.
It turns out Trump’s foundation was required to be audited too.
MikeN – “They are not reliable far away from an election. Near an election they are not useful.”
I assume this is a personal anecdotal perspective, because it doesn’t match with any research I’ve seen. Polls – even a year out – contain useful information. They increase with accuracy the closer they are to the election.
You may wish to read some actual research on the subject. You might try The Timeline of Election Campaigns: A Comparative Perspective, Jennings & Wlezien, 2013 for instance. Fig. 7 on page 35 is relevant.
Carrick,
“Either they have invented a whole new method of polling that is more accurate than any previous polls”
Well, they are using a very different method. They recruit a panel, for the duration, and they ask a seventh of them every day in rotation. So it’s good for following shifts. But if the panel turns out to have a bias, they are stuck with it. There are specific issues:
1. Recruitment is hard (a big commitment) so they have to weight heavily to cover gaps, much more than normal polls would. Apparently they had just one young black (≤21) and had to upweight him 30 times. And he turned out to be a Trump supporter.
2. They also weight by party affiliation. Ths is now out of favor, because if you rely on asking, it’s very correlated with the voting intention you seek, so highly confounded. Their solution is to use the self-reported vote from last election. The problem there is that people tend to report voting for the winner (they may have forgotten who the other guy was). That causes people who really did vote for Obama to be down-weighted. I think that is the main cause of the Trump bias.
I don’t think they will do it again.
I found the 2012 100% vote for Obama across 59 voting districts (like precincts) in Philadelphia surprising. I can see that these districts would almost certainly have been almost or maybe entirely for Obama. I can’t believe that in the 100’s of thousands of folks in those districts not a single one messed up and voted for Romney.
I suppose if it had been rigged there would have been some Romney votes because anyone who thought about it would think it highly unlikely that there wouldn’t be any.
We knew someone who voted for Nixon in a Chicago precinct in 1960 which reported 100% for Kennedy. He did not screw it up either.
j ferguson: First it’s 59 divisions not districts.
Secondly, given nobody could find an example of a person who claimed to vote Republican in those divisions, I don’t see it as necessarily unbelievable, unless there was something ambiguous about the ballots. They didn’t like him and they made sure he wasn’t getting their vote.
Carrick, so there was no IRS audit, just accounting firm reports?
Maybe. Maybe not. It is email intended to be private and part of an ongoing conversation. We don’t know if:
1) Chelsea was not reimbursing and Band knew it.
2) Chelsea was reimbursing but Band thought or suspected she did not.
3) Chelsea was reimbursing, Band knew it but thought it could be cause an “optics” problem if the story got out.
Or…what.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was (1). Nor would I be surprised if it wasn’t a sort of borderline-questionable thing where people calculated reimbursement rates at what amounted to “ridiculously low” values. (These “market” values can be argued because often “resources” that are used aren’t sold or rented, so there is neither clear retail or wholesale market value to peg them to.)
Of course, as I said, should I ever hit it big and win $500,000 in the lotto, I’ll be looking to set up a foundation . . .
Carrick,
I was expecting a mistake, not a Romney voter. No mistakes in something people don’t do every day? I’m not alleging rigging by the way because for the reason I give above no-one would have left the results Romney-free.
I’ve spent most of the morning trying to remember the process where perfection would have been suspicious and mistakes or anomalies were introduced to make the results more plausible.
but alas…
Crazy continues: Shub (and internet) is retweeting idea that cross of st. Peter is “satanic” because Abramovic “spirit cooking” wears one. And what is evidence she wears Cross of St. Peter?
Want a closeup of that cross?
Oy.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v2nadn_59Mk/UcR_byxpg7I/AAAAAAABERc/WecbEfuZwLU/s1600/Marina-Abramovic-cross.jpg
Well, Winter is coming after all.
Valar morghulis.
Mark
I think if winter is coming, I need a Thor’s cross
https://www.amazon.com/Asgard-Viking-Pewter-Dragon-Pendant/dp/B006WM1GM6/ref=sr_1_75?ie=UTF8&qid=1478627655&sr=8-75&keywords=Thor+pendant
Lucia,
.
Nice. But watch out! People may start inviting you to Spirit Dinners.
mark
The menu at Spirit Dinner’s doesn’t sound too good.
I do like the idea of getting a Thor’s hammer; it would symbolize my desire that Thor strike down bad presidential candidates.
Lucia,
.
.
But none would be left! 🙂
.
I’m pretty sure I’m rationalizing here. I rationalize away the ‘badness’ of the … No you know what, never-mind. I can’t bring myself to say it. They’re bad.
.
It’s astonishing how a democratic system selects such candidates to lead us. I don’t quite know what that tells me, but I’m pretty sure it’s not telling me anything good. But this too shall pass.
I do like the idea of getting a Thor’s hammer; it would symbolize my desire that Thor strike down bad presidential candidates.
I thought it would symbolize, “Fimbulwinter is coming to America.”