Comey Firing and youtube videos

[swansont]

Yes.

They hacked the democrats, and not the Republicans.

 

 

Nope. Hacked both sides. Didn't release info on GOP.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-russians-stole-from-some-republican-1484084353-htmlstory.html

[dimreepr]

This is what I was alluding to.

The Blacks and Hispanics in Oakland have a 25% arrest rate each, as well as whites.

So their chances of being arrested if searched is 25%. No matter race.

Yet, they say they have a 6 times higher chance of being arrested if they're black, because of the general populations difference.

 

Think of it like this.

In the general population, 13% are African Americans.

In Okaland's population, 25% are African Americans.

When 1/4 of the African Americans are searched and found incriminated, rather then referencing to Oakland's population, they refer to the general population.

And that leads to the conclusion that African Americans are 6 times more likely to be arrested if searched in Oakland.

Now, can you see where that's flawed?

1/4 of any race inside of Oakland will be arrested if searched. Whites, Blacks, Hispanic, Asian, etc. Well, 1/4 of the searches they committed.

So they expect that the African Americans should make up 13% of Oakland's arrests, rather then the 25% that they do.

 

But if Africans did only make up 13%, wouldn't that mean they were less likely to be arrested, considering they consisted of 25% of Oakland's population?

Or am I wrong there?

 

Unless you can back this up, then yes you're wrong.

[swansont]

 

Also, I was researching on the voter turnout.

One of the major things, is that Republicans are trying to suppress black voters from turning out because they have criminal records.

 

 

 

Also just trying to suppress black voters, period. They admitted as much in North Carolina.

 

Voter ID laws had a big impact in Wisconsin, too

https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-suppressed-200000-votes-trump-won-by-23000/

 

And these laws impacted black voters

 

"In counties where African Americans make up less than 10% of the population AND there were no changes to voter ID laws, 2016 turnout was up +1.9% from 2012, but in similar <10% African American counties where ID laws changed to be strict, total turnout decreased by -0.7%. In counties where African Americans make up more than 40% of the population, however, 2016 turnout was down -2.2% from 2012 in states where ID laws did not change, but down -5 points in states where ID laws changed to be strict."

 

But simply saying the Republicans won because of Gerrymandering is false. They did not. They Gerrymandered, yes. But even if they didn't, you'd have to go out of your way to make weird county lines so that it wasn't unfair.

If all the support is in a city, where your vote counts less then in rural areas, you have to somehow split up the city to cover the rural areas.

 

 

 

You're supposed to have the votes count the same, at least within a state. So this is not strictly true. You don't have a city of 2 million people count as 1 district, and a rural area with 200,000 people count as another. Gerrymandering is a very real effect.

[Raider5678]

You're supposed to have the votes count the same, at least within a state. So this is not strictly true. You don't have a city of 2 million people count as 1 district, and a rural area with 200,000 people count as another. Gerrymandering is a very real effect.

It does.

But as shown by the study, not all votes are equal.

That rural area, if the people vote's there are worth 3.52 times more then the city's, then they only need 570,000 to equal the 2 million.

Regardless of gerrymandering. So when you start realizing that entire city is only in one county, then the majority of the democratic vote is in that county. Unless you split the city into multiple counties.

[dimreepr]

It does.

But as shown by the study, not all votes are equal.

That rural area, if the people vote's there are worth 3.52 times more then the city's, then they only need 570,000 to equal the 2 million.

Regardless of gerrymandering. So when you start realizing that entire city is only in one county, then the majority of the democratic vote is in that county. Unless you split the city into multiple counties.

 

Why do you think the concept has it's own word, if it could be disregarded?

[Raider5678]

 

Why do you think the concept has it's own word, if it could be disregarded?

Right.

But I didn't say gerrymandering did nothing, I'm saying at this current point in time, due to geographical political clustering, there is automatic gerrymandering. To which, I provided evidence.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Raider5678

[dimreepr]

Right.

But I didn't say gerrymandering did nothing, I'm saying at this current point in time, due to geographical political clustering, there is automatic gerrymandering. To which, I provided evidence.

 

You're not making sense.

[CharonY]

This is what I was alluding to.

The Blacks and Hispanics in Oakland have a 25% arrest rate each, as well as whites.

So their chances of being arrested if searched is 25%. No matter race.

Yet, they say they have a 6 times higher chance of being arrested if they're black, because of the general populations difference.

 

 

I still don't understand. Are talking about a hypothetical here? I.e. assuming that all groups are searched at the same frequency and then arrested? First of all, if you then say that the comparison to national data is flawed then you have the issue that over larger data sets local fluctuations will level out. The other issue is that you will have to look more fine grained into e.g. Oakland, as it is not clear whether there is the search rate corresponds to ethic distribution. However, looking at data e.g. New York it is apparently not the case.

In fact, a quick search turns up a number of studies that show that it is in fact not the case. For example not only are African Americans more often stopped, they are also four times more likely to be searched than white people although the searches do not result in more recovery.

 

 

 

When officers report being able to identify the race of the person before stopping them, the person stopped is much more likely to be African American (62 percent) than when officers couldn’t tell the race (48 percent).

African American men were more likely to be handcuffed during a stop (1 out of 4 times) than whites (1 out of 15 times), excluding arrests.

African American men were also more likely to be searched (1 in 5 times vs. 1 in 20 times for whites), though officers were no more likely to make a recovery from those searches.

African American men were more likely to be arrested after a stop by police –1 in every 6 vs. 1 in 14 for white men.

 

So quite frankly I do not know where you are going with your argument.

 

 

Edit: several crossposts

Edited May 12, 2017 by CharonY

[Phi for All]

But simply saying the Republicans won because of Gerrymandering is false.

 

Then you'll be glad to know I scoured the thread and found only one instance where someone said this:

 

But simply saying the Republicans won because of Gerrymandering is false.

[swansont]

It does.

But as shown by the study, not all votes are equal.

That rural area, if the people vote's there are worth 3.52 times more then the city's, then they only need 570,000 to equal the 2 million.

Regardless of gerrymandering. So when you start realizing that entire city is only in one county, then the majority of the democratic vote is in that county. Unless you split the city into multiple counties.

 

But that's not what you showed. You showed that one state's votes are worth more than in another state (Wyoming vs Texas) in a national election. I was talking about within a particular state. As your article and iNow's comment say, this is about the House (and local office), not the presidency. Gerrymandering does not occur at the national level, other than what's already built in by the electoral college.

Right.

But I didn't say gerrymandering did nothing, I'm saying at this current point in time, due to geographical political clustering, there is automatic gerrymandering. To which, I provided evidence.

 

A non-sequitur is not evidence. It's not even an argument.

[Phi for All]

Just so we don't have to (necessarily) split all this cross-talk off, I think all this extra suppression behavior is an effect of putting a wealthy businessperson into a political leadership position. The Republicans have pulled the voter ID crap before, are always gerrymandering when they get control, and still seem to actively believe "certain" people (besides those barred by existing law) shouldn't get the vote. I think the Dems cater to wealth as well, but at least they're inclusive about it.

 

It's always been obvious Trump cares only for increasing his own advantage in any way he can, like an extremist capitalist (somehow an acceptable extremism in the US?), but we're now seeing extremist capitalism wrt its effects on the People of the US. Our leaders aren't interested in our welfare, don't want us to be healthy if it costs them too much, and seem put out that we're unhappy financing their retirements. They seem to vote in support of a certain type of wealthy capitalist that thinks we should ditch socialist and communist economics altogether and force private ownership of everything.

 

Now we can add obstruction of justice to the list of things the Republicans think we should just "move past". Forget Russia, forget the pussy-grabbing, forget the sick weirdness. Forget Session's recusal, forget the wire-tapping claims, forget how Obama was treated as POTUS, forget the debt ceiling bullshit, forget how intensely shady and corrupt this whole administration has felt from Day One, and its almost constant efforts to confuse the truth, sow fear and doubt, and suppress dissent.

[Delta1212]

 

But that's not what you showed. You showed that one state's votes are worth more than in another state (Wyoming vs Texas) in a national election. I was talking about within a particular state. As your article and iNow's comment say, this is about the House (and local office), not the presidency. Gerrymandering does not occur at the national level, other than what's already built in by the electoral college.

 

 

A non-sequitur is not evidence. It's not even an argument.

 

Yes, I think there is some confusion going on over a lack of differentiating between gerrymandering and the in-built bias of the Constitution towards over-representing less populous states in the national government. This has a similar effect to gerrymandering, but is not actually the same thing.

 

Presidential elections and Senate elections cannot be gerrymandered. Gerrymandering as a practice tests on the way Congressional districts are drawn. Every ten years there is a census, and the state's all have to redraw their district lines to accommodate population shifts so that you have roughly the same number of people in each Congressional district.

 

In many states, the state legislature draws the districts, which gives the party in power on the state level a measure of control over how the state elects its Representatives to the House on the national level.

 

Let's say we have a hypothetical state that has to draw 10 districts. Let's also say that two parties are dominant in this state: The Birthday Party and the College Party.

 

Now, if the Birthday Party enjoys support from 60% of the state's residents, and the College Party 40%, a fair distribution of representatives would be 6 Birthday Party and 4 College Party representatives going to Congress to represent the state.

 

However, if the Birthday Party is in power on the state level, they could redraw the boundaries of the districts according to demographic information such that every district is made up of 60% Birthday Party members and 40% College Party members, resulting in the Birthday Party having all 10 available seats in Congress despite only getting 60% of the vote.

 

On the flip side, if the College Party manages to gain control of the state legislature and they get to redraw the map, they could could create 3 districts that are 95% Birthday Party supporters and 5% College Party members, and 7 districts that are 55% College Party and 45% Birthday Party, giving the College Party 7 out of 10 seats despite only getting 40% of the statewide vote, while the Birthday Party gets 3 out of 10 seats despite getting 60% of the vote.

 

 

These are both a bit extreme, as it is difficult to clump people quite as efficiently as that, but it illustrates the power of gerrymandering to allow a majority to suppress representation of a minority, or a minority to gain a representational advantage in spite of a majority opposition.

 

Both parties do this to one extent or another, however, there are two factors at work that imbalance the outcomes. One is that the number of states where gerrymandering is significant with Democrats in charge is comparatively smaller (although they do exist, see, for instance, Maryland), and additionally, the Republican Party launched an initiative in the run up to the 2010 census known as Operation REDMAP to gain control of as many state houses as possible with the intention of favorably redrawing the House districts to their advantage.

 

This has given the Republicans a durable majority in the House of Representatives ever since, even in elections where their overall vote totals were lower than that of the Democratic minority in the House.

[iNow]

Gosh... Those liberal leftie tree huggers are really coming out of the woodwork on this topic... Erm... Uh... I mean, even former Republican Secretary of State serving under Republican President George W. Bush is commenting about the importance of this issue and the way we approach it as citizens and patriots (airing tonight in about 45 minutes).

 

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/863139615020130305

https://www.facebook.com/newshour/videos/10155376490693675/

[Airbrush]

Does anyone have an opinion on the implications of the Comey Firing?

 

The dispute is exactly what happened at the "nice dinner" that Trump claims Comey wanted and Comey claims that Trump requested. Judge Jeanine asked Trump if he asked Comey for his loyalty as Comey associates claimed. Trump said that "NO" he did not ask Comey for his loyalty, but it's a good question to ask (meaning loyalty to the country not loyalty to Trump). Why would it be a good question for Trump to ask Comey if he is loyal to his country? Does he seem like a disloyal to the country kind of guy? That is absurd. In a "he said, he said" dispute, who has more credibility, Trump or Comey? It seems more likely Trump would ask Comey for loyalty to Trump. Trump thinks of himself as the Godfather.

 

And Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell, and the other republicans don't have anything to say about this, like "nothing to see here folks, let's move on to tax reform..."

 

The 2018 elections seem so far away, but it may take a democratic majority in the house for impeachment to happen.

Edited May 13, 2017 by Airbrush

[swansont]

Does anyone have an opinion on the implications of the Comey Firing?

 

The dispute is exactly what happened at the "nice dinner" that Trump claims Comey wanted and Comey claims that Trump requested. Judge Jeanine asked Trump if he asked Comey for his loyalty as Comey associates claimed. Trump said that "NO" he did not ask Comey for his loyalty, but it's a good question to ask (meaning loyalty to the country not loyalty to Trump). Why would it be a good question for Trump to ask Comey if he is loyal to his country? Does he seem like a disloyal to the country kind of guy? That is absurd. In a "he said, he said" dispute, who has more credibility, Trump or Comey? It seems more likely Trump would ask Comey for loyalty to Trump. Trump thinks of himself as the Godfather.

 

And Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell, and the other republicans don't have anything to say about this, like "nothing to see here folks, let's move on to tax reform..."

 

The 2018 elections seem so far away, but it may take a democratic majority in the house for impeachment to happen.

He fired him to stop the Russia probe. That's obstruction of justice.

 

Any public official who pledged loyalty to Trump has violated their oath to preserve/protect/defend the Constitution.

 

The GOP has thus far put party above country, and shown no indication that they will change. That's the opposite of patriotism. They may have gone too far to bail out now. I agree - it may take a Democratic congress to do anything about this.

[Ten oz]

Try to remember that gerrymandering affects more than just the presidential election. It also heavily affects congress, senate, and state governors, legislatures, and councils, too. We feel it most severely in the House.

The 48 members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, in their most recent respective elections dating back to 2012, collectively earned 78.4 million votes on their way to victory. Republicans, by contrast, won just 54.8 million votes—even though there are 52 of them. In other words, Senate Democrats have gotten more than 23.5 million more votes than Republicans. In a head-to-head election, that would amount to a crushing 59-41 margin in percentage terms.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/5/1617584/-We-re-the-popular-party-Senate-Democrats-won-over-23-million-more-votes-than-Republicans

[Delta1212]

The 48 members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, in their most recent respective elections dating back to 2012, collectively earned 78.4 million votes on their way to victory. Republicans, by contrast, won just 54.8 million voteseven though there are 52 of them. In other words, Senate Democrats have gotten more than 23.5 million more votes than Republicans. In a head-to-head election, that would amount to a crushing 59-41 margin in percentage terms.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/5/1617584/-We-re-the-popular-party-Senate-Democrats-won-over-23-million-more-votes-than-Republicans

See though, I have a hard time with just going by the straight numbers, and it's not an example of gerrymandering in any case.

 

First, those numbers compare Senators across three different elections including both midterms and Presidential elections. Those have variable rates of voter participation and you need to figure out a way to adequately account for that. It might very well still show the same basic result, but until that's taken care of, you're mixing apples and oranges together in one big bowl.

 

Second, the reason it isn't gerrymandering is that the Senate cannot be gerrymandered the way that it is set up. The "districts" are the states, and they can't be redrawn to advantage one party over another. However, there is a built-in bias in the Senate towards low-population states. The states that benefit most from there are mostly rural states far from the coats, which also tend to be current Republican strongholds.

[Ten oz]

See though, I have a hard time with just going by the straight numbers, and it's not an example of gerrymandering in any case.

 

First, those numbers compare Senators across three different elections including both midterms and Presidential elections. Those have variable rates of voter participation and you need to figure out a way to adequately account for that. It might very well still show the same basic result, but until that's taken care of, you're mixing apples and oranges together in one big bowl.

 

Second, the reason it isn't gerrymandering is that the Senate cannot be gerrymandered the way that it is set up. The "districts" are the states, and they can't be redrawn to advantage one party over another. However, there is a built-in bias in the Senate towards low-population states. The states that benefit most from there are mostly rural states far from the coats, which also tend to be current Republican strongholds.

I didn't call it gerrymandering. I just added to what iNow had posted. The system doesn't adequately to represent the will of voters for a variety of reasons. I understand the constitution was designed to protect the voices of smaller states but we have gotten to a point were those smaller states actually have disproportinate power and influence. Inthe Senate Democrats represent 35 million more constituents yet are the minority party. In my opinion that is evidence of a broken system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tn9v6Jq-fd0uT7FkwD757LMghX5jYUwlaeSgZbPgRUg/edit#gid=0

 

All the various problems are allowed to exist because they favor the group whichis most aggressive and vocal.It is a matter of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. There is a group in this country whom consider themselves to be the truer, more rightful, more authentic American patriots. The discrepancies favor them so they are tolerated/encouraged. Solutions aren't complicated. The system is gamed and those who are gaming it simply aren't shy or passive about it.