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EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!

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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by Bluesqueak   » Tue Mar 13, 2018 6:45 am

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Annachie wrote:Bluesqueak.

Strangely, it was the leave side that was making outlandish promises about how much more money there'd be once Britain left.

Promises that even the pro Brexit politicians now admit were crap.


Strangely, the Remain side has a remarkably short memory about the outlandish promises they were making. Which we know were crap, because the only thing that actually came true was the pound tanking. Ironically, the tanking pound has led to the longest lasting manufacturing boom for years. As I said above, there was a lot of quoting the outliers in the various reports of the effects.

Yeah, the bus was one of those political tricks. Basically they put the gross figure on the side, and suggested that one place that money could have been spent was on the NHS. Then they watched the politicians on the other side fall into the trap by accusing them of lying and insisting that the net figure was 'only' £250 million per week.

For Mr and Ms Average Voter, £250 million a week is an awful lot of money. Tell them that the EU sends a lot of it back in grants, and they quite reasonably enquire why we shouldn't just cut out the middleman.

It was certainly playing dirty - but then, by that time the Remain side were playing pretty dirty as well. Did it 'fool' anyone? I'm sure you can find some people out there who still believe political slogans.

But when asked why they voted, people are pretty consistent. The Remainers, in general, voted on economic grounds - and that's the big mistake that was made throughout the campaign, and even afterwards. That's the big mistake I pointed out above, the 'voters vote with their pocketbooks myth'.

Because the Remain campaign were voting on economic grounds, they made the classic mistake of thinking that would influence the Leave side. But the Leavers, when asked, go for 'sovereignty' and 'control of immigration'. Generally, they were quite aware that leaving would be tough economically in the short term - but that was low down on their list of priorities.

Basically, Remain ran a bloody awful campaign, targeted at the things that would appeal to 'people like us'. They largely avoided positive reasons that the UK should stay in the EU. They never touched on the problems that a lot of people were genuinely concerned about - and they lost.

Dunno if you've read it, but Tim Shipman's All Out War is probably the definitive account of the Brexit campaign.

My own view?

I'm an expat brat. I've lived in the US, Spain, Romania, Germany ... I would call myself a proud European.

But I know a lot about how the European Union works, I have a fair idea of what they want (a united, federal Europe) and I don't think they're going to make it work. They went with currency union too early, they're too suspicious of mass democracy and too fond of bureaucratic government - and they either have to reform or die.

I would have preferred reform. I wanted to be able to vote Remain. But after Greece, I became convinced that that simply wasn't going to happen, that the EU has insulated itself too well from mass democracy and is suffering from 'true believer' syndrome about the wonderful federal future. They're going too fast, and they're losing people. The UK, with its different political system, different legal system, and different economic system, was simply the first place where the cracks got too big and the pressures too great.

So I ended up standing in a voting booth, my final decision being made on 'was I prepared to win?' Was I prepared to vote to Leave - and find I wasn't making a protest, I'd actually voted for the UK to leave the EU.

And I decided that, yes, I was.

The bus didn't influence me in the slightest. :)
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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by Annachie   » Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:52 am

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So hang on.

The stay side were making dire predictions of what would happen if Britain left, predictions that haven't come true yet?

Ever thought that they may not have come true yet because Britain hasn't left yet?
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You are so going to die. :p ~~~~ runsforcelery
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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by Bluesqueak   » Tue Mar 13, 2018 6:36 pm

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Annachie wrote:So hang on.

The stay side were making dire predictions of what would happen if Britain left, predictions that haven't come true yet?

Ever thought that they may not have come true yet because Britain hasn't left yet?


But if you go back and check, they weren't making predictions about what would happen when Britain left. They were making predictions about what would happen if Britain voted to leave. The mere act of voting to leave was supposed to send the economy into a panic stricken tailspin. Article 50 was supposed to be triggered immediately. Faisal Islam, over on Sky News, managed to pin David Cameron to saying he'd trigger it the very next day.

Of course, he resigned instead.

As I said, there is very much a memory problem about the ridiculous stuff that was being spouted - turning 'if we vote leave ' into 'when we invoke Article 50', then followed by 'when we've left' is one of them. That's because the outliers, the extreme predictions being touted as an inevitable outcome, may have represented some of the most embarrassing failures of economic prediction in post-war political history.

And yet, at the time, many people believed them. And voted to Remain because they believed them. And still wish to believe that those predictions will come true, pushing the date of Brexit induced disaster ever further into the future.

Once we leave, it'll probably be 'ever thought that we're still in transition?' ;)
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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by The E   » Wed Mar 14, 2018 9:07 am

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Bluesqueak wrote:To state the blatantly obvious- Trump is the fifth President to lose the popular vote but win the election. There's nothing odd about it; Presidential elections are set up in such a way that the big, populous states don't overwhelm the smaller, more rural ones.


I'm sorry, but a system where your place of residence gives your vote more or less weight is always going to be inherently weird.
That out of 45 Presidents, 5 were elected by exploiting this asymmetry doesn't make it any less weird, IMHO.

smr wrote:I just laughed at Revisitionist history. So call the prediction for Trump being reelected or going to jail and also call the 2018 election for Congress. (Republicans or Democrats Win).


And just to get back to sniping at smr for his blatant ignorance in matters political:
In a special election in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, the Democrats were able to secure a victory by the smallest of margins (with 100% of all precincts reporting, the Dems won with a 641 vote lead, or about 0.28%). Now, what's interesting here is that that district traditionally leans republican; historical data suggests a 21% lead for the GOP here. That the Dems were able to nullify that advantage to draw even is significant; What's even more significant is that this continues a trend set early on in the Trump presidency, with Democrats consistently overperforming in special elections. Special elections in Kansas, Montana, South Carolina and Alabama all showed the Dems getting a swing of over 15%; while not enough to secure a win in all cases, it is still evidence of a massive shift of votes.

As 538 points out, these results, while not authoritative by themselves, do serve as a predictor for the midterm elections. There is a better-than-average chance that the Democrats will make huge gains here.
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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by Annachie   » Wed Mar 14, 2018 4:53 pm

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If the swing stays firm.

They used to say that a week was a long time in politics, but that was before the internet.

Now, it's more like 5 minutes.
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You are so going to die. :p ~~~~ runsforcelery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
still not dead. :)
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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by gcomeau   » Wed Mar 14, 2018 5:06 pm

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Annachie wrote:If the swing stays firm.

They used to say that a week was a long time in politics, but that was before the internet.

Now, it's more like 5 minutes.


Yes, but if there is one constant in the current political climate it's that Trump can't go a day without pissing of and or embarrassing about 60% of the country.

So that swing has been holding steady, if not inching higher, for many months now.
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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by pappilon   » Thu Mar 15, 2018 4:45 am

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gcomeau wrote:
Annachie wrote:If the swing stays firm.

They used to say that a week was a long time in politics, but that was before the internet.

Now, it's more like 5 minutes.


Yes, but if there is one constant in the current political climate it's that Trump can't go a day without pissing of and or embarrassing about 60% of the country.

So that swing has been holding steady, if not inching higher, for many months now.


"Congress sucks, just not my congressman." :lol:

People love Trump, People hate Trump. Some who share the love of Trump obviously don't love All Things Trump. But those who hate Trump do hate All Things Trump.

I just wish there was some way that this district I live in could get rid of our illustrous (sic] representative whose Republican district spans almost half of the state.
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The imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.
Ursula K. LeGuinn

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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by smr   » Sat Mar 17, 2018 3:27 pm

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Hey I trade you one Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Houston, Texas) for your sick Republican and even throw in a case of Shiner Bock Beer. (Pretty Good Beer!) I woulld argue that would be a one-sided trade in the favor of Texas even with throwing in the beer!
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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by pappilon   » Sun Mar 18, 2018 4:20 am

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smr wrote:Hey I trade you one Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Houston, Texas) for your sick Republican and even throw in a case of Shiner Bock Beer. (Pretty Good Beer!) I woulld argue that would be a one-sided trade in the favor of Texas even with throwing in the beer!



Just to make it fair, how about I toss in a case of Black Butte Porter (probably nasty stuff but has more taste than IPA). Sending one more Democrat, no matter how colorful, won't make a drop in the Second District.
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The imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.
Ursula K. LeGuinn

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Re: EXTRY! EXTRY! IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT!
Post by gcomeau   » Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:19 pm

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Well, British journalists running an undercover investigation got the CEO of Cambridge Analytica on video bragging to what he thought was a potential client about the many and various ways they can interfere secretly in foreign elections, up to and including entrapping opponent politicians by, for instance, sending sex workers to their homes or offices and getting it on tape.

That would be the Cambridge Analytica also under the microscope for apparently acquiring by illegitimate means millions of Americans personal data from Facebook... while working for the Trump Campaign.... oh and did I mention Steve Bannon was one of their senior people?


(Trump only hires the *best* people.... any Trump supporters starting to wake up to the fact that when Trump says "best" he means "worst"... in the ethical sense?)
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