Re: Decision 2016
 

But that's what I said above: I've seen transitions in administrations before. This one is different, for all the reasons I listed above. He has complained about the New York Times and other media outlets repeatedly since winning the election, without once acknowledging and decrying the hate crimes being committed in his name across the country. Yes, I saw the 60 Minutes bit. He did not acknowledge the fact that there are hate crimes being committed, or that they are being committed in his name. And the "hail Trump" convention has been since then, and he was quiet about that.

He's doing it differently, and the way he's doing it *should* be alarming to some people. If it's not alarming to everybody, that's cool. Just stay alert. But *some* people should be troubled by his deep (and largely unknown) financial dealings with foreign powers. It's ok to be troubled.

I'm not sitting here panicking or anything. I've slept better since the election than I did before it, because at least the outcome is known. As Swamper said, he could be the worst ever. Well, it wasn't my choice, but it was a choice made. Now I will hope that he is also correct that we will survive him just fine.

I'm pointing out reasons to be concerned. You are welcome to feel the same, or not feel the same, and point out where you think I'm wrong, as you have. Nothing wrong with conversation.

We're going in circles on your "Armageddon fatigue" line. I am aware of the parable of the boy who cried wolf. On the other hand, unlike the boy who cried wolf, I'm not trying to deceive anybody. I'm only pointing out the incidents that seem serious. It just so happens that that's been most days this week. :)

I get what you're saying. I have friends who seem to be upset every day. I tell them to pace themselves because it's going to be 4 years of this stuff. It's better to flag the things without expressing outrage, I think. So I will try to do that. Or I will just keep my mouth shut.

I think it's pretty likely that Swamper's speculation that he will be the worst President ever is well-founded. But he is where he is, and that's out of my hands. "Until the day God deigns to reveal the future to man, the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: 'wait' and 'hope.'" ~ Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo.

Re: Decision 2016
 

Just taking a moment to look at this quickly.

There's a big difference between these two cases. First off the Clinton foundation is a non profit corporation dedicated to philanthropic efforts around the world. Hillary Clinton was, but no longer is, a board member for the organization. Her husband and daughter still are I believe partially in charge of the organization. But none of them have ever received any amount of money from the foundation. The foundation has been given very high ratings from organizations who check to ensure that a charity actually funnels a healthy percentage of its funds to philanthropic efforts instead of the pocketbooks of those running it. All around the Clitnon Foundation by any objective sense is not trying to earn money to make people rich but is actually a charitable organization.

Trump on the other hand runs a business empire that gives him enormous profit. (Exactly how much is quite unknown, but very conservatively we are in the millions of dollars range per year). He stands to actually make personal profit from his business dealings that will benefit him in the long term, far after he is out of the office of the presidency. Furthermore, he is still very much in charge of and active in his business's dealings.

Therefore a president Clinton who isn't a board member of her charitable foundation would have what conflicts of interest? I suppose her husband and daughter could still communicate with her and then she could attempt to get funds for her organization, but it wouldn't even personally benefit her.

President Trump on the other hand has legitimate conflicts of interest. He stands to make significant personal gains that may conflict with the interests of his constituents. His job is to make decisions that will benefit Americans, yet at times he may have a conflict of interest where he would stand to personally benefit. This is a legitimate conflict of interest that we have a right to be concerned about, which is why president Trump should be handing over his business empire to a blind trust for the next 4 or 8 years while he is supposed to be doing his job as president. The fact that he and his children do not seem to understand why this is so is troubling.

For these reasons this is why I'm concerned about the conflict of interest that president Trump has and why nobody has really been talking about any conflict of interests for Hillary Clinton. It just wasn't a concern for Clinton mostly due to her not having anything to personally gain through her foundations, therefore no conflict of interest would emerge. For President Trump it very much is still a concern.

Not a sky is falling type concern either. In most things it probably won't matter. But it still is troubling to me that he doesn't seem concerned by it as it shows a lack of judgement and decision making that I think does not bode well for his time in office.

Re: Decision 2016
 

What do y'all think about the Democrat's trying to decide how to respond to the Trump presidency? Unless I'm mistaken, it seems like there's two train of thoughts: either don't work with Trump on anything, or just work with him on things they agree on and obstruct everything else. What do y'all think the right choice is?

Re: Decision 2016
 

It's interest, btw, Raider, that you bring up the old Clinton Foundation argument. After all, there *would* be handwringing if she had won and had private meetings with major international donors; there *would* be handwringing if she had won and stayed on the board and routinely dealt with foreign powers who were giving to her Foundation. And that business is a charitable one, with open books! He's running a vast business with unknown ties to foreign powers, both known and unknown.

You are guessing that Clinton might have immediately embroiled herself in a conflict of interest if she'd won. I'm guessing not, but it doesn't matter, because we'll never get to know. She didn't win; he won. Now he has to deal with a real conflict of interest problem. But hey! As you guys say, it's now out of my hands.

edit: @Swamper Surely there is temptation to be outrageously obstructionist. The refusal to move on a nominee to the Supreme Court defied the Senate's constitutional obligation, and set a new standard for intransigence in (what used to be) the more genteel chamber. But they won't get to do much, other than try to keep the important things in the news. Which is an important service, notwithstanding the complaints about the media. We'll see what happens.

As to the media, Raider, try me. Find some source showing me a liberal bias. Some academic paper somewhere, or something. You don't have to if you don't want to; we've moved on in the conversation. But it's something that some people seem to take for granted, and I just want to see some evidence. I am saying that that particular emperor has no clothes, and I await evidence to the contrary.

As for the one link you posted, an opinion piece complaining about 11 negative pieces against Trump vs. none against Clinton in a one or two day period, that's not evidence about anything other than what the news was that day. There was a *mountain* of coverage of Clinton's emails, the writer's narrow complaint notwithstanding. If Trump had stories in the preceding week involving (1) groping women, (2) declining to release his taxes, (3) behaving like a thin-skinned narcissist on Twitter, and so on, should the newspaper kill all those stories, just because Clinton didn't have as many negative items in the previous week? No. The news is the news. It should be independent from politics, and what your article suggests - that the political implications of news should be weighed before reporting - is precisely what I think we all agree should not be the case.

So you're right, I don't accept that link. Not because of its conclusion, but because of its reasoning. Let me see something with some kind of analysis based on data or a study or something. I genuinely don't know if it's out there, and I challenge you (or anyone wishing to press the point) that your premise that the news has a liberal bias is unsupported. Surprise me.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I just want them to try and govern well. For the most part that means they should try and work with the Republicans to pass legislation that will help the country out.

Specifically, I wan them to block any attempts to repeal Obamacare outright. But I absolutely want the democrats to work with the republicans on passing some simple fixes to that bill. It will not take that much effort to fix the problems that have arose thus far. I'm not at all opposed to having the Democrats compromise and give the Republicans some real leeway to edit and replace parts of that bill either. Anything that just actually helps people get affordable health care. That's what will actually help people.

For supreme court justices and other appointments I want them to be fair. Obviously Trump will try appointing some fairly conservative people. I want the Democrats to review those people and make sure they are qualified. Block them if they aren't, but otherwise appoint them.

Basically I just want them to actually govern with the Republicans. I don't want to see them become the party of obstructionism that the Republicans have been for the past few years. I don't want to see the government get shut down or a refusal to appoint someone until the next election. I don't want these things to be the new normal in the way our government works.

If this means the Republicans actually wind up governing well and passing legislation that helps people and makes things better, and the Republicans stay in power, well great. Because things are apparently getting better. If the Republicans try their best to pass some good legislation and it just doesn't work well, fine then hopefully the voters will speak up in the 2018 midterms.

I don't want to see continued hyper partisanship where the minority leaders of the house and senate outright say their number one goal is to stop the president's agenda. I thought it was awful when the Republicans said and did that during the Obama era, I would find it equally awful for the democrats to do that during the Trump era. We have to be the change we want to see in the world and all that.

So that's what I'd hope for. We shall see what happens.

Re: Decision 2016
 

A concern I would have is that people will be so mistrusing of the mainstream media, that they will be relying on news created/reported from people writing it from their basement with no journalistic experience or ethics.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...?tid=a_inl-amp

Re: Decision 2016
 

Well, I guess people churning out completely fake news is a problem, but completely outlawing that causes way worse problems. People need to use just a little bit of a critical thinking when they read.

I don't think "fake news" was a widespread enough problem to merit any real concern. Misleading interpretations of news, from mainstream and alt media, are way worse.

Re: Decision 2016
 

If you're on Facebook, vegie, I suspect you don't get it on your feed.

http://l2.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/65...44d9a6f443da38

You and I might not be circulating fake news, but *somebody* is. Lots of somebodies, even.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I have seen enough crap circulated on my Facebook page because some friends either "share" or "like" a story, meme or whatever. So I have seen several fake stories for sure. I will research them and find out that it was bogus. Heck, I've even seen my friend say, "I don't know if this is real or not, but I wouldn't doubt it."

So stories are getting spread around like crazy through all sorts of social media outlets and because it's "on the Internet", a lot of people just believe it and don't bother to do any research, especially if the story kind of lines up with their biases.

I would say that it works both ways and people on both the left and right end up perpetrating or being victims of it.

Re: Decision 2016
 

I've debunked so many incorrect facebook shares in the last 6 months. It's been about an even split of debunking incorrect liberal and conservative stories for me, but then, I have a lot more liberal friends on facebook so what I see is skewed.

All of this, all of this.

The relative level of concern about the Clinton Foundation over the course of the campaign was really pretty amazing. All people ever really came up with was that the access the donors had to the Clintons "raised concerns", despite no credible evidence of any sort of quid pro quo on any issue. And really, the idea that giving money to a highly rated charity was a means of bribery was always a bit of a stretch.

Meanwhile, Trump has obvious and actual meaningful conflicts of interest. The true extent is hard to know because his financials are more opaque than any president in modern history.

And then there's the Trump Foundation, which actually admitted to self-dealing. Then there's the Pam Bondi scandal, where the Trump Charitable foundation was caught making a donation to the campaign fund of the attorney general of Florida while she was considering whether to join a lawsuit against Trump university. Then they tried to cover it up. They ended up admitting wrongdoing and paying a fine.

This is a more clear case of corruption than anything ever raised about Hillary Clinton, by a country mile. And it got, what, 1% of the coverage of "troubling" donations to the Clinton Foundation? But yeah, the media was really in the tank for Hillary. :roll:

Re: Decision 2016
 

Statistically, the fake news stories - stories invented by people trying to get clicks, as opposed to misunderstandings or misinterpretation of real news - were pro-Trump. Read this link, demonstrating the point, from the notoriously political magaizine "PC World." Which, I assure you, does not stand for "politically correct."

I was reflecting again on the accusation of "armageddon fatigue," and I realized that it was comical, in a way. After all, I've read about non-scandals from Travelgate through Benghazi and the Clinton Foundation. It's been a steady stream of almost-scandals, as dok just explained above, coming from the other direction. Now I point out *real* scandals - instead of a personal foundation that could, theoretically be corrupt, though there's no demonstration that it is, we have a real corrupt foundation, being used for things like paying off politicans and personal debts - I'm the one who is perpetrating an armageddon fatigue.

Well, like I said, I'm feeling pretty calm. And nobody *here* has been noisemaking about the non-scandals from the right, so I'm not pointing fingers. But it's interesting.

And now I move on.

Re: Decision 2016
 

So I know I commented on this right when it happened, but I just wanted to follow up on it as a lesson to everyone in the future. Millions of ballots get counted in the days and weeks after an election. Counting raw votes or trying to judge turnout the day after an election is folly.

Clinton now has over 2 million more votes than Trump and has a little over 64 million votes. The discussion about exactly what did occur will be sure to continue as more data comes in and more time is had to break down the results, but I think this is just a useful point to remember that vote counting isn't an instantaneous thing.


As for the fact that Clinton is now by up over 2 million votes and has around a 1.5 percentage points lead over Trump....well that does continue to frustrate me. I understand the electoral college is how things work in our country and that Trump is the legitimate president....

but I think it's ridiculous that in a representative democracy the person with less votes actually wins. No other election in our country works like that. If Senator Johnson gets the most total votes he wins the election. We don't like decide who won each of the 72 counties and award them points based on those county's populations to determine who won. We just count the vote.

I realize there probably is no real way that this system changes and that it is a rare occurrence that the person who wins the popular vote doesn't win the electoral college, but still. It just seems positively silly to me to say that my vote (in WI) is much more meaningful than anyone's vote in California, while a person in say Ohio has their vote matter even more. All our votes should be equal--and the only way to do that is to just make it a straight out popular vote. Else we continue to essentially say certain Americans votes are meaningful and important while the rest are not.

Unfortunately I just do not know a way to get this all changed...but it just seems silly to me that it is still around.