The Next President of the United States

[MintTrav]

China's displeasure is starting to show.

First, it flew a long-range bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons over disputed areas of the South China Sea, which it hadn't done for over a year.

And now, the Global Times has published an opinion piece on Trump. It echoed the original Chinese line that Trump is just inexperienced but dropped in a few less-than-veiled threats, even mentioning Beijing offering "military assistance to US foes". The Global Times looks like a normal paper, and allows dissenting comments, but it is owned by the Chinese Communist Party and the views expressed are likely to reflect official thinking.

"With Trump's new remarks on Taiwan, many people marveled at Trump's commercial thinking and naivety for diplomacy.............Trump needs to learn to handle foreign affairs modestly, especially the China-US relationship. More importantly, a hard struggle against Trump is needed to let him know that China and other world powers cannot be easily taken advantage of. If Trump gave up the One China policy, publicly supported Taiwan independence and wantonly sold weapons to Taiwan, China would have no grounds to partner with Washington on international affairs and contain forces hostile to the US. In response to Trump's provocations, Beijing could offer support, even military assistance to US foes................In the meantime, it's very likely that Trump may not have put too much thought into it. He is no geopolitical maniac, but just has little experience in diplomacy. He doesn't understand how dangerous it can be when he involves the US in such an explosive game."

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1023185.shtml

[MintTrav]

Insight into Trump's dilemma over Secretary of State, not resolved until Robert Gates and Condoleezza Rice put Tillerson's name forward.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-wasnt-happy-with-his-state-department-finalists-then-he-heard-a-new-name/2016/12/13/0727658e-c161-11e6-8422-eac61c0ef74d_story.html

[TightEnd]

This New York Times piece on the Russian cyberattacks on the Clinton campaign is incredible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

A filing cabinet broken into in 1972 as part of the Watergate burglary sits beside a computer server that Russian hackers breached during the 2016 presidential campaign at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington.

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[TightEnd]

the washington post has created a tool to fact check Trump's tweets, a chrome extension

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/16/now-you-can-fact-check-trump

Click to see full-size image.

[Marky147]

Incred

[DaveShoelace]

In before somebody creates a Washington Post fact checker fact checker extension

[doubleup]

HE...............CAN'T...............EVEN...........SPELL!!!!!


It's unpresidented!

[MintTrav]

Asleep on the job. They should have done this 6-12 months ago. Even three months ago, it could be of some use.

[Karabiner]

HE...............CAN'T...............EVEN...........SPELL!!!!!


It's unpresidented!

Perhaps he meant that if he does something similar it will be "presidented".

[MintTrav]

Today is election day. At last, the electoral college will vote on who will be President.

And we will find out the result..................on 6 January.

This bonkers system favours rural States, to prevent the concerns of rural areas from being ignored, but the weighting is excessive - Wyoming gets a college vote for every 200k voters, while in California it takes 700k voters to get one. Another criticism is that all the votes for a State go to one candidate, so shading a larger State has a massively disproportionate effect. This wasn't the original intention, and Andrew Hamilton tried, too late, to amend the Constitution to stop it. Many people who live in safe States are, in effect, disenfranchised - meanwhile, candidates focus on the concerns of swing States, which happen to be much Whiter than the general population.

There have been various attempts to change the system and it nearly happened after the 1968 election, when Nixon won the popular vote by only 43.5% to 42.9% (there was a strong third candidate), but won the electoral college by a disproportionate 56% to 35.5%. There was strong support for change, but it was filibustered. Barbara Boxer has put the issue back on the agenda, though it seems unlikely she will succeed. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/41

This isn't the first or second time that the electoral college will result in the 'wrong' winner - it has happened several times before. At least Hillary will be spared Al Gore's experience. The outgoing Vice-President chairs the sitting to count the votes and declare a winner so, despite winning the popular vote, he had to preside over his own defeat, and ruled several objections out-of-order.

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percentages refer to popular vote

[MintTrav]

Do you fancy meeting the President on Inauguration Weekend?

Depending on the package chosen, for just $1m or $500k, you and your friends can not only meet him on 21 January (the day after Inauguration), but you will also get to go on a hunting trip with Donald Jr and Eric. There are also cheaper packages. For $250k, you don't meet Donald but you do meet the sons. Then there are cut-price packages from $100k all the way down to $25k, but it's not clear who you get to meet - probably Tiffany.

But don't get any funny ideas that this is a profit-making wheeze. Absolutely not. Profit-making operations have to pay tax. The tickets are being offered by a not-for-profit Foundation (of which Eric & Jr are Directors), from where it will be donated to unspecified conservation "charities".

After meeting the President, you will head off on your hunting trip, while he begins work on his objective of rooting out corruption in government.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3243183-Opening-Day-2017-Redacted.html

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/12/19/20564/donald-trumps-sons-behind-nonprofit-selling-access-president-elect

[rfgqqabc]

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http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article122593759.html

I went looking for a more UK based slant on the "redistricting process". Not in the mood to end up going further into the FPTP/AV sorta thing but if anyone has some good links I'll give them a save for reading at a later date.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/us-and-uk-redistricting-processes/

https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/104699/original/christmas.pdf

Going to post the pdf here as they both came from Cate Hall's twitter. Bit of a depressing view from the economist. I'm surprised nothing was mentioned about receiving gifts that the recipient doesn't know they wanted. I.e not all recipients are perfectly informed about what they want. There are also certain luxuries that people wouldn't choose to buy for themselves because it feels frivolous but they still enjoy them perhaps even more than the monetary value of the gift itself. Too much assumptions about humans being rational for me, but a fascinating article none the less. I wish it also looked into the value of giving rather than receiving.  I'm not sure how you could quantify that in a similar manner though.

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Where did Donald hear this?

Also, if anyone could help explain why the US chose not to veto the Israel UN resolution this time? How long will that last once Trump moves in? His team seem pretty pro-Israel but he has also claimed he will bring peace.

[Doobs]

Click to see full-size image.

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article122593759.html

I went looking for a more UK based slant on the "redistricting process". Not in the mood to end up going further into the FPTP/AV sorta thing but if anyone has some good links I'll give them a save for reading at a later date.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/us-and-uk-redistricting-processes/

https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/104699/original/christmas.pdf

Going to post the pdf here as they both came from Cate Hall's twitter. Bit of a depressing view from the economist. I'm surprised nothing was mentioned about receiving gifts that the recipient doesn't know they wanted. I.e not all recipients are perfectly informed about what they want. There are also certain luxuries that people wouldn't choose to buy for themselves because it feels frivolous but they still enjoy them perhaps even more than the monetary value of the gift itself. Too much assumptions about humans being rational for me, but a fascinating article none the less. I wish it also looked into the value of giving rather than receiving.  I'm not sure how you could quantify that in a similar manner though.

Click to see full-size image.

Where did Donald hear this?

Also, if anyone could help explain why the US chose not to veto the Israel UN resolution this time? How long will that last once Trump moves in? His team seem pretty pro-Israel but he has also claimed he will bring peace.

Donald just makes stuff up.  Seems a waste ot time looking for a source.

[PokerBroker]

Not sure if already posted but came across this and found it very interesting.

With all the limitations of a televised event and accompanying moderator, a producer telling him to move on even before an issue has been fully discussed, and in spite of the annoying American use of working class and middle class interchangeably, here’s evidence of how relatively easy it is to engage a working class audience with pro-working class arguments.

You can berate the working class for not voting the way you wanted them to. You can try and divine the meaning of polls and stats from your offices. Or we can organise for change and engage with our class from the bottom up.

This applies to all major political situations in the last year, not just America.

[TightEnd]

good until January 20th, anyway

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