Senate The 2016 General Presidential Election

You don't really believe that grass eating mud hutter.

You could probably live like Yoda.

 

yeah, i think that's my bad. i wasn't actually trying to sell her to anyone but more expressing incredulity at the lengths people will go to to discredit her and how they will seemingly discount her entire candidacy based on one comment and how crazy that seems compared to the other two candidates.

 

It tries to. There's no guarantee it succeeds, or even that it goes after the right things. For some two decades, DNP was considered a powerful, valuable tool for weight loss. It is now completely banned for human consumption as one of the most deadly toxins known to modern science. You can't just make assumptions about efficacy or safety. It's worth looking.

 

I'm back! And I wish people would just, you know, not discuss polls without me. Very hurt to see this. SAD!

Right... the pu-pu platter (and Ghost-esque) round-up of things you all missed from me...

First...

Fun fact about Roanoke polls! Roanoke College ran a poll in that last week (ending 2/24 - 2/26) like everyone else did and their numbers came in lowest for Clinton (Clinton +17) and the actual result was Clinton +29. This beat the average of +21.2, but it beat Roanoke's numbers by a lot more. So, yes, pulling ads from VA is seeming like a good move at this point.

2) Polling for Trump, even at a national level, isn't moving appreciably in any way for Trump. So I've no idea where that nonsense is coming from. The LATimes/USC poll -- again, tracking poll and using new methodologies -- is a massive outlier compared to the others, which haven't dipped below +5 for a non-LATimes/USC poll until the beginning of August (for... the Reuters/IPSOS tracking poll).

In a 4-person race, none of the major tracking polls (ugh, tracking polls) have dipped below Clinton +4 since the end of the GOP Convention in the middle of July and even the Rasmussen (notoriously "skewed" ... towards Republicans) polls have Clinton leading by 2 points.

c) Hillary wrote a very powerful essay for Refinery29 on Women's Rights, and young women in particular.

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/08/120189/hillary-clinton-womens-rights-essay

I found it incredibly moving, and I'm not really even the target demo there...

IV) Back on polling, not only is the national and statewide race getting away from Trump, the Senate races are almost becoming a lost cause for the GOP. Theoretically "safe" seats are narrowing and still almost two and a half months to go.

Missouri has tightened to basically the margin of error (+/- 4.9) in a Blunt +5 race... whilst the Presidential race has narrowed to Trump +1 and governor going very, very blue (Koster +11).
Portman is holding steady just outside the margin or error in Ohio, and this is before Bernie Sanders (not a typo) starts campaigning there in September.
Iowa has Grassley dropped from +10 to +7 in the last week, and not holding SCOTUS hearings is beginning to take its toll.
And in NC, Ross has now taken a slim lead over a thought-to-be-safe Burr (who has been leading until now).

Even Rubio is starting to lose ground against possibly the worst candidate that the Democrats have fielded this year for Senate!

The Empire Strikes Back) Back on the ACA / Obamacare discussion, we've hit record lows with uninsured in the US:

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/17/obamacare-brings-record-low-for-us-health-uninsured-rate.html

The actual numbers are 6% additional insured (24 million people, rounded) from 2011 (15.1% uninsured to 9.1% uninsured). Even with the problems (more on that below) it's better than the alternative, imo. (the alternative being "nothing")

Tricia Helfer) Slate's written some articles on what's wrong with Obamacare:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_.../how_the_democrats_are_failing_obamacare.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/busin...acare_doomed_all_your_questions_answered.html

The first is more opinion, and the second is more Q&A, but even with the first, there's a passage that stands out:

As if that's somehow escaped the notice of the Democrats in both houses of Congress? I think I mentioned that my Congressman stopped by my building for a Q&A and he talking, specifically, about this... that for any bill, ANY piece of legislation, that is passed, there is typically a routine "maintenance" pass done on the legislation 3-6 months after the fact. Things like typos, dropped words, etc.

The Democrats can't even get that done because the GOP has promised to veto and/or amend everything that comes out of committee.

So... I don't know what to tell the writer. This seems like pretty easily acquired information?

 

dp4m : Mesa Back!

 

To the wide swath of the electorate that is casting about for an anti-Establishment candidate, your list of negatives looks much more like a list of positives.

 

It's of course absurd that not everybody is voting for the Green Party. People happily accept their impending doom while bickering over who is the more anti-science.
But a change would also be a problem. Because if more people understand it and start voting Green, Donald Trump becomes president.

 

So the Trump show on C4 tried so hard to be balanced. It tried to show aspects of Trump in as positive a light as possible and spoke to both the Old and Rich who like him and the poor and stupid who like him and to be honest he still came across as a horrible horrible bloke.

I think one commentator suggested that the rich and stupid alike are voting for him because he's their kind of bully.


The show spoke to his spokespeople and those helping his campaign and although there are reams and reams of state and national polls that have HRC leading, they are not believing it because they do their own polling and although they're not explaining how it's done or anything because it's a secret. Everything they secretly have shows Trump winning by a "YUGE" margin.



I fear for your nation I really do. This fear then makes me fear for the world too should this horrible man get into power.

Thankfully everything I read in this thread suggests that has a slim chance but between now and mid November I have access to lots of Gin and Rum so I'm OK.

 

Political and organizational policies are more often to cause 'gross ethical violations' than actual scientists - witness the mass starvation caused in Russia, for instance, by following a crackpot that came up with 'science' more in line with communist ideology.

Generally offered as a justification for cutting scientists out of policy considerations, especially in the Cold War era.
Science, unfortunately, often runs contrary to how people want things to be - and those people are generally the ones controlling access to policy.

 

And?

 

I'm sorry but science hasn't produced any ethical violations. Science is just a method of studying the world. Bad people in positions of political power have produced ethical violations.

 

For anyone who's interested, Jill Stein is appearing on the PBS NewsHour right now.

I don't understand what the impending doom is that you're referring to, when it's pretty much going to be 4 more years of what we've had.

I explicitly understand the impending doom that FatBurt is referring to in his post, however:

 

blackmyron Yeah science is amoral. It is just a methodology. People's ideologies are what drive ethical problems.

 

I've never been against human oversight of the process, but it absolutely shouldn't be a democracy nor should the green ideologues be directing.

 

That is factually incorrect. There was, for instance, nothing scientifically unsound about Japanese experimentation with chemical weapons on Chinese civilians. The Tuskegee study is the best description of the natural history of syphilis that we have or will likely ever have. It is also grossly unethical. To pretend that this outcome wasn't somehow consistent with science is fundamentally dishonest.

Scientists pursuing scientific questions using time-honored principles of the methodology have produced ethical violations. Period.

 

Well, she was not very impressive there IMHO. She seemed pretty nervous in the pressure cooker known as the NewsHour. Definitely no Ralph Nader.

She said some good things about military spending and standard but truthful things about money in politics, but some of what she said seemed pretty absurd. She said that the US shouldn't defend Europe if Russia invades it and thought that we could negotiate our way to peace with Kim Jung-un, and seemed to argue that most Bernie supporters have now moved over to Trump, and she argued that Trump and Hillary are essentially the same, a response which appeared to cause Judy Woodruff to physically repress expressing her disbelief.

 

Hi all. I have a rather uncomfortable post to make, but please bear with me. I'll try not to make it too long.

Very long story short: I discovered earlier this week that the poster Citizen_of_Valinor is a teenage family member who has been staying with us all summer. His parents are currently getting divorced, and he agree to let him live with us to get him away from the nastiness. He's eighteen, and a fellow Star Wars and Tolkien fan (along with baseball). I showed him the forums back in June, when he first came to live with us, and while he was intrigued, he didn't seem all that interested. As it turns out, he created an account awhile ago and has been trolling as a "conservative" from numerous devices at my house (computer, my iPad when I've been at work), along with his cell phone. I had no idea this was going on until the administration brought it to my attention. As it turns out, there have literally been times when we've answered each others' posts from different devices in different parts of the same house.

Needless to say, this has been very upsetting on a multiple levels, not the least of which is that someone I'm supposed to look after managed to fool all of you while lying to my wife and I. Without going into personal details, this is basically how he was dealing with his anger, and while I'm grateful he didn't resort to drugs or alcohol, trolling the Senate is not any more acceptable, and there are no excuses for his behavior.

With that in mind, I would like to offer a sincere apology to everyone in the Senate, along with Point Given, Ramza, and the entire administration. I can deal with being embarrassed, but as as parent of two boys, both 9 and 7, who are already addicted to their kindles and Minecraft, I've found myself questioning a lot of things. We were going to get my older child an iPhone in a year or two, and we are currently re-evaluating those plans. I have had a discussion with the individual in question and he understands how wrong his behavior was, but again, I offer this only as an explanation, and not an excuse.

To everyone here who has children and/or relatives that are using Internet-capable devices, I can only say: be mindful of what your kids are doing. This happened right under my nose, and I was clueless until confronted with it. I say this as someone who has twice been the victim of identity theft, along with my wife. We thought we had found the appropriate balance between respecting privacy and setting limits, and we were wrong. In terms of the content that was posted, I don't think he really believes what he wrote, but was just trying to "mess with people". Both my wife and I have spoken with him over how wrong that was. He may have been venting his anger, but that doesn't justify lying.

Again, I apologize to everyone here. You will not be seeing Citizen_of_Valinor again. To everyone, thank you in advance for your understanding. This has been quite a shocking week.

Peace,

V-03

 

Didn't see that one coming.

 

While that's shocking, I'm not even sure that makes the Top 10 this election season...

 

my 20 year old has been playing trump devil's advocate and messing with me ever since bernie lost. it's annoying even when it's only in person.

 

@Jabbadabbado

 

heels1785

Eight million to one person? Or an organization?

 

Wocky already covered this, but I really have to reiterate that there are "methods of studying the world" that are unethical regardless of political power. I mean, we didn't come up with the term "bioethics" in a world in which the scientific method hasn't resulted in any ethical violations. And the fact that some of the larger atrocities of medical or scientific ethical violations (Tuskegee and Unit 731) were accomplished as part of political systems doesn't mean that science is absolved of any wrongdoing either in those cases or in others that had smaller or no political involvement. The IRB process - which is what started this whole conversation - was established because scientists, political or apolitical, have a history of trampling over ethical concerns in the pursuit of knowledge. If "science hadn't produced any ethical violations" in the absence of people in political power, then we wouldn't even need IRBs at nonpolitical research universities and institutions.

 

To Jabba-wocky and Boba Nekhbet, I would add the ethical violations of licensed psychologists and medical doctors at sanctioned (and otherwise) torture facilities over the years and decades, including our own, like Abu Ghraib. Those "interrogations" were assisted and monitored by professionals, and they used scientific means of monitoring the proceedings. The same goes for other countries and places in the past.

 

Man, V-03, that's heavy.
But don't blame yourself; I certainly don't. I can't even blame the kid. Who knows how he feels right now?

Not sure I interacted with him but if I did i'm sure I enjoyed it so in my case: no harm done.

Peace, V-03!