FWIS3

Read this:

https://twitter.com/JM_Underwood/status ... 6098735104

Sorry it's on Twitter, I can't find it anywhere else.

Short version, people from the far-right "Golden Dawn" party are attacking a refugee camp, and trying to injure and kill the people there - using large rocks, Molotov cocktails, etc. Units of Greek police are there protecting the assailants, not the refugees.

You might want to save those images BTW. If things go the way I expect them to, Twitter may start censoring stuff like this.

Google far-right Greece, story comes up, from last Friday in "The Guardian" (you've linked to the paper enough).

Yeah, hate to say it, but Golden Dawn has been pulling this kind of shit for a LONG time now. Far right nationalist parties have been on the rise for years now in Europe.

Doing with direct assistance from police, though?

Gullible Jones wrote:Doing with direct assistance from police, though?

Unfortunately fascists and/or populists tend to be very pro law enforcement. And their message can resonate with certain types of personalities in government and law enforcement. By their very nature many people in public service are conservative. Not so much politically but in general.

Mind you. I don't condone what you are saying was reported. But, 6 months ago no one was really thinking Trump could get elected. Apparently, the fascist next door was a real thing.

SciFiFisher wrote:Mind you. I don't condone what you are saying was reported. But, 6 months ago no one was really thinking Trump could get elected. Apparently, the fascist next door was a real thing.

I know two Australians, at the least, that were convinced Trump was going to get elected, but no one wanted to hear it.

lol

SciFi Chick wrote:

SciFiFisher wrote:Mind you. I don't condone what you are saying was reported. But, 6 months ago no one was really thinking Trump could get elected. Apparently, the fascist next door was a real thing.

I know two Australians, at the least, that were convinced Trump was going to get elected, but no one wanted to hear it.

I honestly thought the polls were not nearly as honest as a lot of people did. I knew Trump was not going to win the popular vote. I knew it was not going to be a landslide for Hillary. I really did not expect the Electoral votes to go the way they did.

It's not impossible. But, it is highly improbable. Apparently the last time we had anything close to this was 146 years ago when Hays won the electoral vote. And that was the result of some back room horse trading with the guy who won the popular vote.

I have a plan.
To counter the most obnoxious candidate the Republicans can come up with, we'll put up one of the most unpopular candidates in history. One that has huge negative opinions around her. Regardless of the truth or not about those opinions. We'll favor her over other candidates, we'll ignore that she can't draw in the independent vote while other people flying the Democratic flag can, and then we'll wonder why we lost, and blame it on the Republicans because they are a bunch of racist assholes because surely it could't be us that misread public opinion even though people have been screaming it for what seems to be forever.

As I see it, and I know a lot of people will hate me stating this, is that the DNC and many Democrats didn't want the Democratic party to win. They wanted Hillary to win. It's accepted fact that if the voter turn out is low, the Republicans gain advantage. So why the hell would anyone want to put up one of the most universally hated and lowest rated politicians up against Trump. If the goal was to not let Trump win, the DNC and the Democratic party failed to read the mood of the nation. That failure lead to the election of Trump. A steaming dog turd could have gained close to equal votes against Trump. The Democrats put up Hillary. It's a very similar thing that happened in Australia. The nation wanted the Liberals out. The Labour party put up the most unpopular candidate for decades because the party felt it was right but failed to understand the populations concerns. The public didn't want Beasly. As a result, the Liberals won. It wasn't a case of the Liberals winning, it was that Labour lost. They were so damned sure that everyone hated the Liberals so much that they could go business as usual and win. They were wrong. So was the DNC and so were the Democrats.
What astounds me is that superdelegates were formed to prevent the nomination of an un-electable candidate and they completely failed in that role making the situation even worse than if they weren't there. It looked like a rigged system. Regardless of if it was or wasn't, that's what it looked like and when the emails came out to show that the DNC was supporting Hillary (an many suspected) when they were meant to be impartial, the independents lost all respect for the Democrats and knew she was the establishment choice and the public did not want establishment politicians. Trump being the Republican candidate was proof of that.
The only question left to answer is if the voter backlash was against Hillary, the DNC/Democratic party or against the establishment. If the former the USA might have some hope next election if they put up a popular candidate. If the latter, they have seriously fucked up by not being in touch with the average concerns of the population. That will take far longer to rebuild.

Too drunk and tired to continue but hey, if I wasn't drunk, I wouldn't even write what I did. I know it's that unpopular so I censor myself now.

vendic wrote:The only question left to answer is if the voter backlash was against Hillary, the DNC/Democratic party or against the establishment. If the former the USA might have some hope next election if they put up a popular candidate. If the latter, they have seriously fucked up by not being in touch with the average concerns of the population. That will take far longer to rebuild.

If you look at the popular vote Hillary won by 2 million votes. If you were listening to the polls no one was admitting that they were going to vote or had voted for Trump. So, the talking heads were almost right. Almost every single presidential election in the U.S. the popular vote and the electoral vote have pretty much been in lock step. What is even more interesting is if you look at all the ELIGIBLE voters Trump only received 28% of the total votes.

I have two theories that explain why Trump won. One is related to the polling. While people were more than willing to say they were angry,afraid, and fed up. Many of them were not comfortable saying "I am a racist because I fear that my children will wind up in extreme poverty. Or whatever the context was". No one was going to publicly say they hated other people because they were Islamic, black, or Asian. But, there were OK with voting that way because no one else would know.

The second theory is really pretty simple. The Democrats focused the last few years on getting out the vote, reaching out to minorities, and expanding their base. The Republicans meanwhile decided to that the best way to win elections was by Gerrymandering. Look at most of the states legislatures. Look at the three states that swung the electoral college for Trump. They have gerrymandering written all over them. Literally, the Republicans gerrymandered the Presidential election.

A third theory is still pending final resolution. It seems that there are a lot of claims circulating that there appear to be some irregularities in the voting. Especially in the three or four key states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and etc. Certain IT experts are actually suggesting to the Hillary campaign that they should ask for a manual recount in those states. They are claiming that they think the election was rigged. Funny how Trump, who is one of the biggest crooks in the country, kept claiming the election was rigged. He may have been right. After all, if he helped rig it he would know.

Hillary's campaign has indicated that they will not request the recount. Jill Stein OTOH has indicated that she is trying to raise the funds to file the request.

lol

no, roflmaolol

She won by 2 million votes against the most vile scum put forth in a nation of 300 million.
Lassie would have creamed it in had she been the Democratic hopeful.

The claim that she almost won (isolating the popular vote) against the most hated scumbag around isn't really that compelling, anyone could have done that. It just shows that the wrong candidate was put forth. There is no way around this mistake. If the Democrats wanted to win, they shouldn't have put up Hillary. You don't defeat the most unpopular guy around by putting up the most unpopular girl around to challenge him. Lesson not learned.

vendic wrote:lol

no, roflmaolol

She won by 2 million votes against the most vile scum put forth in a nation of 300 million.
Lassie would have creamed it in had she been the Democratic hopeful.

The claim that she almost won (isolating the popular vote) against the most hated scumbag around isn't really that compelling, anyone could have done that. It just shows that the wrong candidate was put forth. There is no way around this mistake. If the Democrats wanted to win, they shouldn't have put up Hillary. You don't defeat the most unpopular guy around by putting up the most unpopular girl around to challenge him. Lesson not learned.

There are approx. 225 million eligible voters. Of those who actually voted for the president the projection is that approx. 60% turned out for this election. Which means that approx. 135 million people voted. Trump has approx. 46% of that. Or approx. 62.1 million. Figuring approx. 350 million people in the U.S. it means 18% of the total population in the U.S. chose Trump for president.

Hillary was the victim of a multi year smear campaign. Which the GOP and the Mad Hatter Tea Party admitted to. Yes, she had a ton of baggage. Yes, she was reviled for being a typical politician. But, being reviled for being a typical politician has not stopped 90% of the other candidates from being elected.

But, when you look at those numbers you have to admit that the Gerrymandering theory has a lot going for it.

I'm going to go with the gerrymandering theory. I know vendic is convinced that Sanders would have handily won. I'm not. Not anymore. Not with all the racists that feel entitled to spew their hate as a result of Trump winning. While I'd love to believe that Jewish Socialist could have beat Trump, there is NO WAY to know that. And now that Hillary Clinton got more votes than any white President in the history of the country, I'm going to say she wasn't quite as hated as we have been led to believe. We'll see what sober vendic has to say to that.

SFC wrote:And now that Hillary Clinton got more votes than any white President in the history of the country, I'm going to say she wasn't quite as hated as we have been led to believe. We'll see what sober vendic has to say to that.

She got more popular votes than any other presidential candidate who did not become President.
With regards to the number of people that voted, that is a bad way of analysing anything and is the result of bias and spin. As the population increases the number of votes does too. So it becomes easier and easier to lose by the biggest absolute number even if the percentage is dropping.

Things need to be looked at as a percentage. She didn't get the majority of the popular vote (over 50%). The last three Presidents all won with a majority of the popular vote (i.e. over 50%). She got around 47%. That's not a great figure. That's a bad figure. It is even worse when factoring that she was against Trump.

Bottom line: she didn't even get 50% of the popular vote which many other Presidents did and she failed to get that while being put up against one of the most vile opponents in history.
The Hillary and Democrat camps can spin figures that are irrelevant all they like. There is no way however to spin the raw data played out in percentage figures and they are that she did badly against an opponent that she should have creamed.

If you look here and sort by the popular vote percentage, you'll see that Trump won against Clinton with 46% of the votes cast. Clinton had about 47%. That's close. Very close. The majority of Presidents won by having over 50% and if we slotted in Hillary into that list (pretending she'd won) she would be sitting very near the bottom of the pile. That is no way a good thing, regardless of how many Democratic spin doctors twist it around to make it look like she did awesome.

The last three presidential elections were over 50% for the winner but not the last three elections where there was no incumbent, which is an important distinction. Obama did well against Mccain but George W Bush had fewer votes than Al Gore and Bill Clinton defeated George Bush with way lower than 50% because of the candidacy of Ross Perot. Hillary Clinton has about a 1.5% vote margin over Trump at last count. That's not insignificant.

Gullible Jones wrote:Doing with direct assistance from police, though?

I hate to say it, but yes. It's definitely happened in Hungary for example.