StrangeSox Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 (edited) Recap of the 2016 election and how it was covered both pre- and post- election from Nate Silver, and a launching off point of a series of articles expanding on this topic. The Real Story Of 2016. What reporters — and lots of data geeks, too — missed about the election, and what they’re still getting wrong. Edited January 20, 2017 by StrangeSox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 Link's not working? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 These 8 years went by so fast, it's scary. Hope the next 4 go even faster. (I know 4 is less than 8 but you know what I mean) Thank you, President Obama. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Sacamano Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 (edited) My friend posted a status asking if Barrack Obama was the greatest President or a great President. Need a couple more options there, fella as the answer is "neither". Edited January 20, 2017 by soxfan2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quin Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:16 PM) My friend posted a status asking if Barrack Obama was the greatest President or a great President. Need a couple more options there, fella as the answer is "neither". No, the answer is "great President". He's in the second tier of presidents that follow the first tier of Washington, Lincoln and FDR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerksticks Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 02:42 PM) No, the answer is "great President". He's in the second tier of presidents that follow the first tier of Washington, Lincoln and FDR. Nobel Peace Prize Nelson Mandela Mother Teresa Medecins Sans Frontieres MLK Jr. Barack Obama Arguably a candidate for a 2nd peace prize for the humanitarian effort in Syria. 100s of thousands of lives saved. I say top tier for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 (edited) QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Jan 21, 2017 -> 02:46 AM) Nobel Peace Prize Nelson Mandela Mother Teresa Medecins Sans Frontieres MLK Jr. Barack Obama Arguably a candidate for a 2nd peace prize for the humanitarian effort in Syria. 100s of thousands of lives saved. I say top tier for sure. After Iraq and Afganistan and bin Laden and ISIS, how many American families were willing to send their sons to die in Syria? 1%? 2%? 3%? Would you have personally approved of a draft to send our sons and daughters to die in the desert? To fight Russia and ISIS simultaneously? Or just a conventional boots on the ground war without a draft? And for what? Democracy in Syria? In the end, mountains and rivers can be moved, but man's nature can not be moved. Sending more of our poor soldiers to die to protect the safety and security of the oligarchs and members of the Trump cabinet (other than Mattis and Kelly) is not worthy of such a blood sacrifice. We could pick apart Mother Teresa, Gandhi and MLK and find numerous personal flaws in any human being. Heck, Hoover spent 15 years trying to do that to Martin Luther King, Jr., and failed miserably in the end. But the main question remains, did they (choose any leader) make the world a better place or not? Were they selfish or unselfish, driven more out of concern for themselves or mankind...? Obama didn't deserve the first Nobel Prize, but like Jimmy Carter's work after leaving Washington...it wouldn't entirely shock me if he and Michelle earned a second on merit. Time will tell. Edited January 21, 2017 by caulfield12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 02:16 PM) My friend posted a status asking if Barrack Obama was the greatest President or a great President. Need a couple more options there, fella as the answer is "neither". You realize this is an old Colbert Report joke, he'd ask that of Democratic guests about President Bush. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 The U.S. Government has been challenging Texas's Voter ID law as a racist way to keep certain groups from voting. Yesterday the government asked for a 30 day delay to rethink their case. I'm sure this will also get mentioned the next time we hear about how Democrats should have turned out to vote. (For reference, getting one of these IDs when you live in a fairly urban area took about 2 hours during a business day, in addition to having all the required documents, etc.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Widespread Republican voter suppression efforts have not gotten the attention they should have these past few months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 21, 2017 -> 05:52 PM) Widespread Republican voter suppression efforts have not gotten the attention they should have these past few months. It's a good thing that a state like Wisconsin where there was a strong one put in place wasn't one of the states that swung the other way. Otherwise those complaints about how Democrats didn't turn out to save the Republicans from doing this might really sound tone deaf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 (edited) QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 21, 2017 -> 05:33 PM) It's a good thing that a state like Wisconsin where there was a strong one put in place wasn't one of the states that swung the other way. Otherwise those complaints about how Democrats didn't turn out to save the Republicans from doing this might really sound tone deaf. Melania is uniquely qualified to help drain the swamp in regards to this...on the plus side. Watching all those women at the march today was hard, knowing that if 38,873 had voted for Clinton instead of Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio...she would have won the electoral college 278-260 and the popular vote by a little shy of 3 million votes. http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-election...article/2005323 For America's future to largely be ruined by Florida (and the Supreme Court) in 2000 and less than 50,000 votes in three states that voted heavily for Obama is still tough to take. Or my home state of Iowa going by almost a 10% margin to Trump when Iowa was one of the three key factors in Obama winning the nomination in 2008. Edited January 21, 2017 by caulfield12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 09:42 PM) No, the answer is "great President". He's in the second tier of presidents that follow the first tier of Washington, Lincoln and FDR. How can anybody call Obama's eight years "great?" As far as Democrats, I think Carter and Clinton were WAY better. On the Republican side, Reagan was a great president IMO. Barack's reign was classy but he was ineffective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigSqwert Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 22, 2017 -> 09:26 AM) How can anybody call Obama's eight years "great?" As far as Democrats, I think Carter and Clinton were WAY better. On the Republican side, Reagan was a great president IMO. Barack's reign was classy but he was ineffective. Other than your gut feel, what measurable things do you attribute to a good presidency? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 22, 2017 -> 06:29 PM) Other than your gut feel, what measurable things do you attribute to a good presidency? The economy. Leadership ability. Being more than a figurehead. The economy. I am not criticizing Obama the person. He is the definition of class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigSqwert Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Haha! This is the best one yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigSqwert Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 22, 2017 -> 09:41 AM) The economy. Leadership ability. Being more than a figurehead. The economy. I am not criticizing Obama the person. He is the definition of class. What do you mean by economy? How many jobs were created since he came into office? Unemployment rate? GDP? Could you be anymore vague? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigSqwert Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 No, the women's march was not some sort of coastal elitist event that many conservatives would like you to believe. https://geographer.carto.com/viz/a229d5d2-e...680bf/embed_map Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) Who me? Biased? Insightful video series by the NY Times. Peanut butter, jelly and racism. Implicit bias vs. Racism, and how they're different. https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/1000000048...and-racism.html Carter was a brilliant man but terribly ineffective president. We can't retroactively give his presidency points because of his honesty, integrity, charitable work like Habitat for Humanity, or Sunday school sermons...or diplomatic efforts even. To me, his biggest accomplishment/credit lies in the area of Mideast Peace negotiations, but everything else was pretty much a disaster. His term led to 12 consecutive years of GOP leadership of the presidency, not easy to pull off after Watergate for the Dems. But perceived weakness or let's call it softness on crime/death penalty and the military is largely attributable to this era of leaders in the party, whether we want to admit it or not. It's why Clinton/Gore were able to rise to power a generation later as Southern DLC moderates. Edited January 23, 2017 by caulfield12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quin Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 22, 2017 -> 11:26 AM) How can anybody call Obama's eight years "great?" As far as Democrats, I think Carter and Clinton were WAY better. On the Republican side, Reagan was a great president IMO. Barack's reign was classy but he was ineffective. Well, we pay attention for starters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmags Posted January 23, 2017 Author Share Posted January 23, 2017 Are there betting markets where people put odds on whether Rubio will make a decision requiring integrity so I can always bet against it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigSqwert Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 It's pretty funny that an entire campaign and its supporters, who ran on ending PC culture, are offended by the language used during the march on Saturday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 Just an interesting article from 2012, in no way am I posting this because it might be relevant to current events Early Warnings: How American Journalists Reported the Rise of Hitler Trump isn't Hitler, but it's the story of how the rise of a fascist dictatorship lead by an unhinged demagogue rose to power and how that rise was covered and understood at the time. We're tilted far to close to some really dangerous, dark s*** taking power here and "it can't happen here!" is only true until it's wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quin Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 12:07 PM) It's pretty funny that an entire campaign and its supporters, who ran on ending PC culture, are offended by the language used during the march on Saturday. They've got their own - it's called Patriotically Correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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