[barmar]

If trump gets elected, I can kind of imagine a "morning after" reaction like that of the Brexit, where the people who voted for him wake up and realize that they'd made a horrible mistake.

Note that the Brexit vote was not actually binding, although it doesn't seem like it will be ignored. But a presidential election is.

[shyams]

barmar, on 2016-July-04, 16:45, said:

If trump gets elected, I can kind of imagine a "morning after" reaction like that of the Brexit, where the people who voted for him wake up and realize that they'd made a horrible mistake.

Note that the Brexit vote was not actually binding, although it doesn't seem like it will be ignored. But a presidential election is.

Technically, even a Presidential "election" is not binding. It is not the people but the Electoral College who actually elect the President. If Trump is "elected", perhaps you will have a large scale electoral college defection that will stop him actually becoming President.

[mike777]

shyams, on 2016-July-04, 17:18, said:

Technically, even a Presidential "election" is not binding. It is not the people but the Electoral College who actually elect the President. If Trump is "elected", perhaps you will have a large scale electoral college defection that will stop him actually becoming President.

Now that is a novel idea. The electoral college can vote and elect whoever they want even someone who is not running. Now who should we get to appoint the members of the college?

[WellSpyder]

barmar, on 2016-July-04, 16:45, said:

If trump gets elected, I can kind of imagine a "morning after" reaction like that of the Brexit, where the people who voted for him wake up and realize that they'd made a horrible mistake.

I can certainly imagine some mourning after...

[shyams]

mike777, on 2016-July-04, 18:18, said:

Now that is a novel idea. The electoral college can vote and elect whoever they want even someone who is not running. Now who should we get to appoint the members of the college?

https://en.wikipedia...(United_States) -- How the electoral college works. And who gets to appoint the members (it is not you the people!!)

https://en.wikipedia...ithless_elector -- The concept of an electoral college member NOT voting for the candidate they were pledged to originally.

[billw55]

barmar, on 2016-July-04, 16:45, said:

If trump gets elected, I can kind of imagine a "morning after" reaction like that of the Brexit, where the people who voted for him wake up and realize that they'd made a horrible mistake.

I think you are giving them far too much credit.

Also, are there really a lot of "leave" voters regretting it? I see an astonishing media churn about how awful it supposedly is, but that doesn't mean the voters think so too.

[mike777]

Hillary not indicted.

538 has it 342-195 270 needed to win.


AZ only swing state Republicans are winning.

[PassedOut]

mike777, on 2016-July-05, 09:48, said:

Hillary not indicted.

I think that everyone paying attention knew that no indictment was forthcoming. Poor judgment is not a crime, but it's certainly not a positive characteristic either.

On the other hand, her opponent is in court for blatantly ripping off the gullible -- which seems to be his lifelong pursuit.

Not a particularly happy choice, but Clinton could turn out to be a good president. I don't see any chance of that happening with Trump. And, clearly, most folks agree with me on that.

[kenberg]

PassedOut, on 2016-July-05, 10:08, said:

I think that everyone paying attention knew that no indictment was forthcoming. Poor judgment is not a crime, but it's certainly not a positive characteristic either.

On the other hand, her opponent is in court for blatantly ripping off the gullible -- which seems to be his lifelong pursuit.

Not a particularly happy choice, but Clinton could turn out to be a good president. I don't see any chance of that happening with Trump. And, clearly, most folks agree with me on that.

I very much agree. With all of it. The thought that Trump could represent the USA at a meeting of heads of state is appalling.

[mike777]

PassedOut, on 2016-July-05, 10:08, said:

I think that everyone paying attention knew that no indictment was forthcoming. Poor judgment is not a crime, but it's certainly not a positive characteristic either.

On the other hand, her opponent is in court for blatantly ripping off the gullible -- which seems to be his lifelong pursuit.

Not a particularly happy choice, but Clinton could turn out to be a good president. I don't see any chance of that happening with Trump. And, clearly, most folks agree with me on that.

OK


I was one of those that did not know whether she met the standards of criminal activity regarding:
1) strict liability offense or
2) standard of recklessness

Clearly today the FBI has said no she did NOT meet those legal standards of measurement of criminal activity.

The FBI did say she was extremely careless but that does not mean criminally reckless or that she committed a strictly liable criminal offense.

As I mentioned as of this morning 538 shows a huge lead for Clinton.

[kenberg]

I did not think it was clear how it would go. But I rarely have any feel for such things. I did not know whether McDonnell would be convicted, I did not know his conviction would be overturned. In the case of HC, I did not know exactly what she did and I did not know exactly what the law says. The law often surprises me one way or the other.

I don't think this was a frivolous case. And I am skeptical of any claim that she did not know it was wrong. She just did it anyway. E-mail for God's sake. I wish she could just have normal human failings such as her husband did. Something with cigars and 23 year olds. I wish her well.

Anyway, I am glad this has come to an end. As mentioned, I plan to vote for Hillary. I do wish the Clintons would make it a little more comfortable to do so. Fortunately(?) the Republicans are making it very easy to do so.

I do think it is possible that HC could surprise us, or surprise me anyway, and be a very good president.

[mike777]

I can understand how you guys word your vote for Hillary. It reminds me of something I heard a few days ago. This guy said he believed Hillary was as good as she was going to be right now but thought if anyone could surprise us on the upside and improve it was Trump.


In any case it would be a huge shocker for Trump to be able to swing 80 electoral votes between early July and November
----------------------------


I note we have 4 options this cycle.
Hillary
The Donald
Third party
stay home.


We can make an educated guess that roughly 30-40% of eligible voters are going to stay home no matter what.
30% will vote for HIllary no matter what
30% will vote for the Donald no matter what.
That leaves a slender % of total eligible voters up for grabs

[mike777]

shyams, on 2016-July-05, 07:01, said:

https://en.wikipedia...(United_States) -- How the electoral college works. And who gets to appoint the members (it is not you the people!!)

https://en.wikipedia...ithless_elector -- The concept of an electoral college member NOT voting for the candidate they were pledged to originally.

Boris Johnson was born in NYC and as such is eligible to be PResident of the USA. He recently declined running for PM of the UK so he has plenty of free time.


Will the College turn to him? Coincidence? English plot?!

[PassedOut]

mike777, on 2016-July-05, 14:40, said:

It reminds me of something I heard a few days ago. This guy said he believed Hillary was as good as she was going to be right now but thought if anyone could surprise us on the upside and improve it was Trump.

This argument boils down to "Trump is so hopeless now that he has a lot of room to get better." I don't consider that a qualification for the presidency. He could improve quite a bit and still be an embarrassment to the country. More likely, if Trump were elected he'd consider it a mandate for incompetence and bluster and double down on both.

[Cyberyeti]

mike777, on 2016-July-05, 18:21, said:

Boris Johnson was born in NYC and as such is eligible to be PResident of the USA. He recently declined running for PM of the UK so he has plenty of free time.


Will the College turn to him? Coincidence? English plot?!

Except you also have to have lived in the US for 14 years, Boris managed about 3 months.

[barmar]

PassedOut, on 2016-July-05, 10:08, said:

I think that everyone paying attention knew that no indictment was forthcoming. Poor judgment is not a crime, but it's certainly not a positive characteristic either.

I'm a little surprised that the expectations of people trusted with handling highly sensitive information is so low. There are lots of other situations where poor judgement or recklessness is considered a crime. Maybe it's only a crime when it results in actual harm, like negligent homicide? So the FBI determined that it's possible that secrets could have been leaked, but since they can't show any actual leakage she's off the hook.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2016-July-06, 08:44, said:

I'm a little surprised that the expectations of people trusted with handling highly sensitive information is so low. There are lots of other situations where poor judgement or recklessness is considered a crime. Maybe it's only a crime when it results in actual harm, like negligent homicide? So the FBI determined that it's possible that secrets could have been leaked, but since they can't show any actual leakage she's off the hook.

Many see it your way:
A link. There is also this


I have not yet seen a formal statement from HC, maybe it got buried in what everyone else is saying. I suggest:

"I most seriously regret my actions and I apologize for them. No one but me is responsible for the impact this has had. I pledge to you that from this day forward I will do nothing that is so careless and irresponsible. The past cannot be changed, but I will learn from my mistakes."

Could happen. I won't hold my breath until it does happen.

And then she should follow through on this pledge.

Of course Trump is much much worse. I really would like to be able to say something more complimentary about the person I plan to vote for.

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on 2016-July-06, 09:27, said:

Of course Trump is much much worse. I really would like to be able to say something more complimentary about the person I plan to vote for.

Yes, it's a very bad time for the republicans to be nominating Trump.

[billw55]

I think I would call Clinton's private email server a serious error, but not a crime. Applying occam's razor, I mainly get the feeling of an old person who is not very tech savvy, particularly about security. Which is again not an ideal characterstic for a president. But not criminal either.

[kenberg]

billw55, on 2016-July-06, 09:47, said:

I think I would call Clinton's private email server a serious error, but not a crime. Applying occam's razor, I mainly get the feeling of an old person who is not very tech savvy, particularly about security. Which is again not an ideal characterstic for a president. But not criminal either.

Hey, watch out. I am an old person! Older than Hillary. Older than the Hil?

I was thinking of posting somewhere about such frustrations. I spent about three hours this morning with computer troubles and I am not sure that I am done yet. The easiest was with the printer. Becky's computer, for no known reason, stopped communicating with the printer. I got them, the printer and the computer, back on friendly terms again. Before that, I was trying to get TeXStudio to TeX a file. Not everyone knows what this means, but LaTeX is a language where you can type math stuff in a code and then TeX it to turn it into a nice looking pdf. It is working on most files but on one it not only won't work but freezes things up so that I have to go to the program manager to get things unstuck. Again I don't see what the issue is, but i suppose I will cope. After I got Becky's computer on friendly terms with the printer she asked if I could help with Flash. It's a long story but I managed, I think. Part of the problem there was that her program manager had stopped opening with ctrl-alt-delete. So first I had to get that going. The basic issue with Flash was that Firefox tries to protect us from possibly bad programs. I said Flash was trusted and then re-started the update. But now Flash got upset because it thought I was trying to do two updates at the same time. No no no. I had to close the original update, but there was no clear way to do this without opening the program manager and, as mentioned, it wouldn't open. Now it does.

I have won a skirmish with technology today, but I am not so sure about the war. The candidate who can help with this may get my vote.

Added: Which shows why Hillary should use the system provided to her. You really don't want someone handling sensitive data saying, when technology goes wrong, to say "Hmm, I wonder what will happen if I press this?" Young or old, we really don't want this.