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 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
I never said he had a "mandate", I said his ideas were put up to a national referendum, and he won.

If you want to think that the Dems don't need to change their platform, go ahead and double down, but don't say I didn't warn you.

NOTE: bowing out of the conversation now...30K awaits

Well you are still wrong. It wasn't a referendum.

I agree with jasper... it pretty much WAS a referendum.

Trump won despite having to overcome the early Establishment GOP, #NeverTrumpers, Democrats and the Fully Armed and Operational Media Guard™.

The people voting for him either don't care for his faults, cheered him on or simply voting 'not-Clinton'.

Actually, didn't he lose the "referendum" by a few million?

Popular vote doesn't matter.

EC vote matters... that's the referendum.

Trumpo has as much 'power' as Obama did on '08 and Reagan in '84.

 whembly wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
I never said he had a "mandate", I said his ideas were put up to a national referendum, and he won.

If you want to think that the Dems don't need to change their platform, go ahead and double down, but don't say I didn't warn you.

NOTE: bowing out of the conversation now...30K awaits

Well you are still wrong. It wasn't a referendum.

I agree with jasper... it pretty much WAS a referendum.

Trump won despite having to overcome the early Establishment GOP, #NeverTrumpers, Democrats and the Fully Armed and Operational Media Guard™.

The people voting for him either don't care for his faults, cheered him on or simply voting 'not-Clinton'.

Actually, didn't he lose the "referendum" by a few million?

Popular vote doesn't matter.

EC vote matters... that's the referendum.

Trumpo has as much 'power' as Obama did on '08 and Reagan in '84.

Your'e missing the joke Whem'. Referendum's are generally decided by popular vote (and sometimes with a specific number, such as 60% or something). And also the point, referendums are to gauge popular support, not the bizarre per-state support that the EC judges.

Now, besides the joke, I do have to point out, that he did not, in fact, win a single referendum, he won an election.

A referendum (plural referendums, see below) is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to vote on a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new law. In some countries it is synonymous with a plebiscite or a vote on a ballot question.

...and I'm merely pointing out that the Popular vote wasn't the name of the game, so it's foolhardy to assume that we'd get the same outcome under such system.

So, it's pointless to claim there's a mandate/no-mandate in a presidential election.

But, yeah, you're right it isn't technically a referendum.

Has anyone even considered that the Democrats actually lost some support, rather than they just decided to stay home because they thought it was in the bag.

Over all turnout was depressed on both sides, which doesn't generally happen when people have changed sides but does happen when people don't bother voting. More meaningful data comes out later this year (get ready for the drama no matter the outcome!).

One things for sure, we can't trust what polls tell us anymore.

Why not? The Polls actually reflected generally the popular vote outcome within the margin of error. The thing they missed was something that polling isn't strictly designed to detect.

 whembly wrote:
...and I'm merely pointing out that the Popular vote wasn't the name of the game, so it's foolhardy to assume that we'd get the same outcome under such system.

So, it's pointless to claim there's a mandate/no-mandate in a presidential election.

But, yeah, you're right it isn't technically a referendum.

That was sort of the point.

As far as mandates go, I think the only time a president had a clear "mandate" in recent memorywas Obama's first term (massive EC and popular vote difference, plus a democratic sweep of house and senate). I don't think Either Bush v.2 or Clinton could really claim a mandate for any of their terms (although that didn't stop them claiming one). I think you'd have to look back to Reagan for a mandate of that scale. And Trump certainly doesn't, with one of the closest elections in history.

 LordofHats wrote:
Why not? The Polls actually reflected generally the popular vote outcome within the margin of error. The thing they missed was something that polling isn't strictly designed to detect.

Trying to sell a narrative hear friend-o, take your facts and thinkin' elsewhere. We don't cotton to such things around these parts.

Looks like there's still some feud between the Sanders/Warren wing and the Clintonites:
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/democrat-retreat-tensions-234866

Some are looking to trying to work with the Trump administration and others are wanting obstructionisms at all costs.

I'll tell ya what... there's this fear from Trump voters, that if the Democrats learns to "Trump-speak", they'll be able to get some favorable concessions.

 jasper76 wrote:
Is anyone exercised about Mitch McConnell shutting down Elizabeth Warren in her speech against the Sessions appointment? I can't escape this issue on news and social media. #NeverthelessShePersisted and so forth.

It was a stunt. There are clear rules that state clearly that you can't say what she said. They had other Democratic senators come and read out parts of the letter, but they knowingly left out the parts that broke senate rules. This left it for Warren for come out, break the rules, get warned, do it again and get silenced, and leave the Democrats saying ‘oh but everyone read from the letter and it was only when a woman spoke that she got silenced’.

It’s just political theatre. Democrats are trying but all they can manage is silly bits of symbolism. Republicans changed the game years ago, now theatre demands actual substance, like refusing to hold a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. Still, they’re trying, bless their cotton socks.

It did sort of backfire. I wish people would just let people speak and hear them out. Everybody's trying to shut everybody up these days. What happened to "I disagree with what you're saying, but I'd die for your right to say it"?

Different places have different rules. If I stand up at a wedding and say the dress makes the bride look fat and then keep saying it after people asked me to stop, no-one would think twice when I got booted from the venue. But if that bride is a celebrity and I wrote in a tabloid the next about the wedding, and comment that the bride looked fat, then I can’t be silenced.

There are strict rules for how you behave in the senate. Walk outside the doors and say whatever you want, but inside you follow the rules as they are.

 sebster wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Is anyone exercised about Mitch McConnell shutting down Elizabeth Warren in her speech against the Sessions appointment? I can't escape this issue on news and social media. #NeverthelessShePersisted and so forth.

It was a stunt. There are clear rules that state clearly that you can't say what she said. They had other Democratic senators come and read out parts of the letter, but they knowingly left out the parts that broke senate rules. This left it for Warren for come out, break the rules, get warned, do it again and get silenced, and leave the Democrats saying ‘oh but everyone read from the letter and it was only when a woman spoke that she got silenced’.

It’s just political theatre. Democrats are trying but all they can manage is silly bits of symbolism. Republicans changed the game years ago, now theatre demands actual substance, like refusing to hold a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. Still, they’re trying, bless their cotton socks.

It did sort of backfire. I wish people would just let people speak and hear them out. Everybody's trying to shut everybody up these days. What happened to "I disagree with what you're saying, but I'd die for your right to say it"?

Different places have different rules. If I stand up at a wedding and say the dress makes the bride look fat and then keep saying it after people asked me to stop, no-one would think twice when I got booted from the venue. But if that bride is a celebrity and I wrote in a tabloid the next about the wedding, and comment that the bride looked fat, then I can’t be silenced.

There are strict rules for how you behave in the senate. Walk outside the doors and say whatever you want, but inside you follow the rules as they are.

Eh... there is a double standard seb.

Cruz reading Green Eggs and Ham clearly breaks the same decorum rules and yet, they let him do it.

These kinds of rules are really at the mercy of the majority party enforcing it...

Back when Kennedy was in office, the GOP used to call these rules the "Protect Kennedy From Making Him Look Bad".

 cuda1179 wrote:
You'd be surprised how many people think that is an actual Palin quote. It's not, it came from an SNL skit staring Tina Fey. Now, I'm not trying to fanboy Palin (she's and idiot), but aim for something real.

Tina Fey's line wasn't created out of nothing. It came from an actual Palin quote, in which she was trying to establish that she had insight in to Putin and foreign affairs issues with Russia; “They’re our next-door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia, from land, here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”

When asked in a later interview by Katie Couric how proximity to Russia gave insight, Palin said “Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of . . . . It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send out those to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia…”

Which is an unbelievable stream of dribble. It reads like something Trump would say, except possibly Palin was closer to using whole sentences.

Fey didn't make up Palin's ridiculous position, she just distilled it down in to a shorter, pithier format.


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 jmurph wrote:
Does anyone else think that maybe the best course for the Dems is to let Trump have what he wants in the cabinet positions? Seriously, just stand aside and say hey, it's on you buddy. Want a billionaire donor for ed secretary? A disgraced hack who couldn't even fill her term as governor for ambassador to our northern neighbor? Whatever. You guys have the votes.

Nah, because when it all turns to gak you don't want Republicans able to say they supported Trump just as much as Republicans have. Republicans dodged a bullet on Iraq because so many Democrats got suckered in, so Republicans were able to point to Clinton etc and say they voted for it, therefore they owned it just as much as the party that conceived the idea, developed the reasons, built the 'evidence' to justify it.

And in other news, Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, said Monday that the administration will continue using the term "fake news" until the media understands that their "monumental desire" to attack the President is wrong. Because screw accountability.

If I was reading a book and I came across a character called Sebastian Gorka I would probably stop reading that book. That name sounds like a very tired writer on a tight deadline just through letters at the page.


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 whembly wrote:
Eh... there is a double standard seb.

Cruz reading Green Eggs and Ham clearly breaks the same decorum rules and yet, they let him do it.

These kinds of rules are really at the mercy of the majority party enforcing it...

Fair point. Such rules being enforced by line votes makes them political. They should be up to either speaker (but in your system the speaker is partisan) or an independent committee. Without such, it might be best to just not have these rules.

However, the rules are what they are, and Warren knew exactly what was going to happen. And she did it precisely to provoke that reaction. It's like a protester looking to get arrested by the police, to 'prove' the oppression of the system.


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 jasper76 wrote:
The pre-Trump Republicans did the same thing to themselves with their staunch opposition to Obama. They came across as dysfunctional and hyperventilating. This in part I believe is responsible for Trumps success in defeating the GOP at the presidential level.

Honestly I think the Dems that are willing to work with Republicans will be the ones that will gain the most national admiration, if they even want it, and I think the staunch oppositionists are misreading the tea leaves.

That makes sense, but working with Trump and the Republicans on some issues means identifying some issues where Trump makes some sense. I can't think of one.

Take infrastructure for instance. Democrats tried to get infrastructure spending through the senate for 8 years. Trump won and said he wanted a big infrastructure program. Democrats said they'd work to make that happen, provided it was direct spending and not a tax break program. Trump is holding fast to his tax break scheme. So Democrats oppose.

As a case to consider, I think Elizabeth Warren is impressing her progressive base and giving them exactly what they want, but I think she is hurting her presidential aspirations (assuming she runs).

She's building her national brand. Putting herself at the front of the list of people who fought against Trump.

It doesn't help the Democrats overall, but it certainly helps Warren's positioning.


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 Frazzled wrote:
Edit: Trump tweets about his daughter's fashion line being dropped.
http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/donald-trump-us-president-says-without-travel-ban-america-can-never-be-safe-and-secure/news-story/5ee2b193f95b2e5e8e42a421338c70ea
That has interesting permutations about his own properties, to whit "don't give me money and you will pay?"

Before this the most significant parts of Trump's economic policy was P&R meet and greets with CEOs (generally to take credit for business decisions made years before Trump even ran for president), and to sue a newspaper for hurting his wife’s once in a lifetime chance to make some cash on this whole presidency thing. Now to that you can add publically attacking a retail outlet for no longer selling his daughters stuff.

Meanwhile, in terms of an economic policy, there’s almost nothing. He’s rolling back some environmental and worker’s protections, but that’s just small stuff at the edges. There is absolutely nothing out there on fostering growth, encouraging investment, nothing. Not even a broad level paper of the kind of stuff he’d like to do.

People might like to say that its still early, but Obama had his stimulus bill before congress by now. Bush had released his economic agenda outlining his full set of reforms with a planned timeline. Trump has nothing.

Because of weakness in the global economy, especially Europe, the US is facing an interest rate that is likely to drive up the dollar considerably. That will kill competitiveness, especially in manufacturing. I haven’t heard Trump post one thing that suggests he’s even heard of this issue, let alone understood it or been briefed on how it might be addressed.

It’s confirming my suspicion through the campaign that Trump simply doesn’t understand the scope of the US presidency, the scale that it operates on. His understanding is entirely personal, it deals with people who are for him, and should be rewarded, or people who are against him, and should be punished. The idea that he might be responsible for a national economy that made up of more than 300 million people who work and consume and who don't have and won't ever have any kind of personal relationship with Trump is a concept I suspect he can’t understand.


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Prestor Jon wrote:
Is the right wing making that argument? I'm not hearing it made on the radio or on the websites I peruse.

The alternative would be, as you agreed, that the Devos appointment showed favouritism and the corrupting influence of donations, and then 50/52 Republican senators voting for her anyway.

Outside of that, your description of Devos' appointment, and Clinton's fundraising creating an appearance of impropriety were bang on. No disagreement there at all.

And I certainly agree with your point about Clinton flaunting the rules. That wasn't just a Hillary thing though, it was the big issue of Bill Clinton's presidency too. Because the Clinton's knew they were right, they think nothing of ignoring the substance of an ethics rule, or bending their way around a procedure. Of course, government has those rules because lots of people think they are right but aren't, process and accountability matters.


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 LordofHats wrote:
But to make that claim you'd have to include the popularity of his other EOs in the infographic

Something I suspect Trump isn't so keen on including

 LordofHats wrote:

Why not? The Polls actually reflected generally the popular vote outcome within the margin of error. The thing they missed was something that polling isn't strictly designed to detect.

Exit polling, yes..... it was the predictive polling which we saw as being quite inaccurate.

 whembly wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
I never said he had a "mandate", I said his ideas were put up to a national referendum, and he won.

If you want to think that the Dems don't need to change their platform, go ahead and double down, but don't say I didn't warn you.

NOTE: bowing out of the conversation now...30K awaits

Well you are still wrong. It wasn't a referendum.

I agree with jasper... it pretty much WAS a referendum.

...

You are completely wrong. A referendum is a particular form of national vote. The election was not a referendum.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
it was the predictive polling which we saw as being quite inaccurate.

Trump's win was not only within margin of error for most polls, but the final outcome actually reflected that 'extreme.' That's why margin of error exists.

The predictive polling turned out wrong not because it didn't see the final outcome but because it pegged the outcome as unlikely, which we can't really hold against them given the massive doubt hedged against Trump from day one. Subsequent observations have pinpointed errors in polling methodology that should not have been overlooked, but there was nothing all that inaccurate about the predictive polls. The outcome we got was within the predictions being made in the final weeks. It's actually a decent testament to the accuracy of these things that they can manage to hold true even when the presumed unlikely outcomes occur.

If a poll says there's a 84% chance Clinton will win, and Trump wins, that doesn't inherently mean the poll was inaccurate; 16% chance is a chance. Similarly, just because a model takes a wound but passes it's 6+ armor doesn't mean the model actually had a 2+ all along.

Even then those predictions are based on polls based on who people intend to vote for. Most of the polls leading into election day were showing something along the lines of HRC 47 v DT 44 +/- 3, which placed Trump winning inside the standard margins of error for opinion polls. Throw in lower than expected voter turn out in some places, much higher than expected turn out in others, and the general difficulty of predicting the electoral college, and it's not surprising we got the upset.

 jasper76 wrote:
I'm just concerned with results at this point. Am I going to be able to keep more of my money,

Asking that question in isolation of everyone else's tax burden is not sensible. Ultimately the US spends something north of $3 trillion, so it is going to have to generate revenue of something around $3 trillion. That money has to come from somewhere. Or not, if you're happy to just let the deficit grow at an ever faster rate. And if you're ideologically committed to having the rich pay less, and there's nothing to tax from the poor, and it's political suicide to increase taxes on the middle, that means the only thing we'll see is a tax cut.

Which means, of course, yet another spike in deficits. And I'm going to go out on a limb and predict all the Republicans who were so concerned about debt when Obama came to power will suddenly be happy to slash government revenue with no concern at all for debt growth.

and above all will the tax code be SIMPLE? I shouldn't need to pay H&R Block to decipher the tax code for me when I'm just a middle-class Joe with some managed investments.

Democrats tried a bunch of measures for simplified tax codes. Each of them got beaten rather soundly by lobbying money, with big bucks coming from H&R Block. The simplification we might see will be the removal of some business write offs, which will be offered up as a fig leaf over a massive cut to the corporate tax rate.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If a poll says there's a 84% chance Clinton will win, and Trump wins, that doesn't inherently mean the poll was inaccurate; 16% chance is a chance. Similarly, just because a model takes a wound but passes it's 6+ armor doesn't mean the model actually had a 2+ all along.

I would say that means the poll is inaccurate. We're not talking about a random event dice roll here.

Just because it fell within the margin of error doesn't mean it's accurate, having a huge margin of error is a sign of inaccuracy If I tell a client I can't manufacture something within +/- 20% and end up being 18% out, falling within my error estimate doesn't magically make 18% off an accurate result

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If a poll says there's a 84% chance Clinton will win, and Trump wins, that doesn't inherently mean the poll was inaccurate; 16% chance is a chance. Similarly, just because a model takes a wound but passes it's 6+ armor doesn't mean the model actually had a 2+ all along.

I would say that means the poll is inaccurate. We're not talking about a random event dice roll here.

Just because it fell within the margin of error doesn't mean it's accurate, having a huge margin of error is a sign of inaccuracy If I tell a client I can't manufacture something within +/- 20% and end up being 18% out, falling within my error estimate doesn't magically make 18% off an accurate result

 whembly wrote:
I can't imagine how much compliance costs corporations pays...

There's an ease of business survey* published every few years that ranks countries on how good a place they are for business. Corruption, security etc all get mentioned. So does taxes and the cost of compliance with taxes. The US does great on taxes, because after write-offs you pay bugger all company tax. But they rank among the worst for the cost of compliance, because not only does it cost a stupid amount to get the expertise to set up your tax affairs, it also costs a lot to do all the stupid stuff that is done only to get the tax write off.

It's the worst of both worlds, companies still pay a lot, and government doesn't even get that money.



*That may or may not be its name...

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I would say that means the poll is inaccurate. We're not talking about a random event dice roll here.

Then you don't understand how probability/statistics math works.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
would say that means the poll is inaccurate. We're not talking about a random event dice roll here.

If you roll a dice and I tell you you have a 1/2 chance of getting a number less than or equal to three, my prediction is not inaccurate because you rolled a 5.

Basic numbers here. +/- 3 is pretty common in political and sociological stats because experience tells us these things are not as straightforward as a dice roll.It really has more to do with people not understanding statistics than the polling being 'inaccurate.' Saying 47 v 44 +/-3 is not "The election will be 47 to 44 unless I'm wrong and it's 44 v 47" its "the election will fall within a range of 44-50 v 41-47" and that turned out to be not that far off from what we got considering that such polls are really only gauging the popular vote and not the electoral college which is where Trump won. We calculate margins of error because we know that outcomes aren't going to be so exact.

It's not a pollsters fault people reading their statements can't read their statements intelligently. Trump winning was within the bounds of statistical predictions we were seeing leading up to election day.


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The real mistake naturally is all the bookies who paid out winnings on Clinton 3 months before November who probably regret doing so (but then again, maybe they made more money that way ) XD

 LordofHats wrote:
If you roll a dice and I tell you you have a 1/2 chance of getting a number less than or equal to three, my prediction is not inaccurate because you rolled a 5.

You largely missed my point. If you can't determine the outcome with any certainty, then any guess you make is inaccurate. By saying you have a 50% chance of rolling a 4+ is simply indicative of you not being able to accurately predict the outcome. It's not an accurate prediction, it's a statement of the odds and it might be an accurate statement of the odds***, saying "a number between 1 and 6 will come up" is an accurate prediction.

****When looking at a poll there's no way to determine if you have an accurate statement of the odds because when it comes to a poll you can't determine accuracy like you can with a dice roll. With a die roll you can roll it 10,000 times and determine that the chance of a 6 arising is 16.67%, or you can guess from the physical properties of a die.

For example if I said you had a 90% chance of rolling a 6 and you failed, I could just say it was still within the margin of error.

But in any case it's largely a semantic argument so I'll leave it there.


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 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I would say that means the poll is inaccurate. We're not talking about a random event dice roll here.

Then you don't understand how probability/statistics math works.

Bro I maths so hard it'd make your head spin.

But you guys clearly missed my point so whatever. I obviously didn't convey it terribly well.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
You largely missed my point.

Your point is rather pointless. It's simply not how numbers work.

If you can't determine the outcome with any certainty, then any guess you make is inaccurate.

Polling is not done to make predictions in certainty. That's why statistician calculate drift and error.

By saying you have a 50% chance of rolling a 4+ is simply indicative of you not being able to accurately predict the outcome.

By that logic there is no point in ever math hammering, because a 6+ armor save is equally unpredictable as a 4+, but we both know that isn't true. You can predict outcomes. It doesn't mean your prediction is 100% right, but then only a fool would trying to be 100% correct in guessing the future.

"a number between 1 and 6 will come up" is an accurate prediction.

Now you're just splitting hairs. "All possible outcomes are possible" is a worthless prediction. 44-50 vs 41-47 might have range, but it's a range that is useful in gauging outcomes and in this manner polling results were not wholly inaccurate. The big thing they missed was the declining responses of prospective Trump voters who became less interested in taking part in polling, and even then the popular vote outcomes were pretty accurately predicted.

When looking at a poll there's no way to determine if you have an accurate statement of the odds because when it comes to a poll you can't determine accuracy like you can with a dice roll.

Now you're just being obtuse. If I ask 2000 people who they intend to vote for, I have a decent guess at who those 2000 people will pick as a winner. If I ask 2000 people 10 times in 50 different states, I can start making a prediction about who will win an election, and that prediction will have more certainty than a dice roll because the answer to the question "who do you intend to vote for" is not chaos.

But in any case it's largely a semantic argument so I'll leave it there.

It's really not. It's such a basic conceptualization of randomness a guy who sucks at math (me) can follow it, which is a pretty good way of saying this is extremely basic.

 whembly wrote:
bs. When gak had to get done, they all played ball... see the Omnibus funding bills every fething year.

It's only when gak gets partisan... Obama and Democrats were never that enthused to actually work with their counter-parts.

Thus, the GOP became the stick on the mud in order to mitigate Obama/Democrats progressive agenda.

Recognising that Republicans did the absolute bare minimum needed enough to keep government in operation isn't even spin, it's make believe. It's like complaining to a teacher about failing grade, oh sure my son didn't hand in the assignment and got 2/100 on the test, but his attendance met the minimum standard to not be declared a truant, so you should pass him.

Fact is the Republicans committed to a strategy of obstructionism from day one. We have Republicans themselves talking about their strategy that they'd kill Obama's campaign promise of bi-partisanship by simply refusing to take part. They organised protesters at town hall meeting for healthcare reform before Democrats even knew what their healthcare reform was going to be - they were committed to obstructionism before they even knew what they were going to obstruct.

You need to face up to the reality of what your political party is. From there you can own it or walk away, but pretending it ain't so does no-one any favours.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
With a die roll you can roll it 10,000 times and determine that the chance of a 6 arising is 16.67%, or you can guess from the physical properties of a die.

You can do this with election predictions too. We have vast amounts of historical data on things like poll error margins, and we can apply that error margin to current polling data and feed it into a computer simulation. Run the simulation an arbitrarily large number of times, applying a random die roll, based on the historical trends, to the poll data for each precinct/state (depending on the level of accuracy you want) for each run. If one candidate wins 90% of the runs you can assume that 90% is a pretty good approximation of their chances of winning. But if they end up losing the election a 90/10 random die roll coming up on the 10% side is not the kind of incredibly rare event where you have to question your model.

 whembly wrote:
Sure... DeVos is such a horrible candidate....

God forbid you'd want an agency head to has championed school choice

"Championed school choice"... are you just copying off the Republican press releases now?

Because when you say that, realise what you mean is that you're talking about school vouchers, which aren't without merit, but have about as much to do with choice as a falling out of a plane has a choice of parachutes.

The real issue is that throughout her hearing, DeVos stunk. Horribly, comically just stunk. When asked for performance figures for on-line charter schools, she rattled off a bunch of figures for various on-line schools, each impressively over 90%+. Problem is her figures were utterly, completely wrong. Per the actual figures, none of the schools she quoted had graduation above 60%. It turns out the source of her figures was the school itself, that she just happened to have been an owner of until a couple of years ago.

That's why DeVos sucks. Her knowledge of the actual education industry is close to zero. Her knowledge is based entirely around being a cheerleader for charter schools. This also drives her entire reason for being in the position - to push kids in to charter schools.

 Peregrine wrote:
[

You can do this with election predictions too. We have vast amounts of historical data on things like poll error margins, and we can apply that error margin to current polling data and feed it into a computer simulation. Run the simulation an arbitrarily large number of times, applying a random die roll, based on the historical trends, to the poll data for each precinct/state (depending on the level of accuracy you want) for each run. If one candidate wins 90% of the runs you can assume that 90% is a pretty good approximation of their chances of winning. But if they end up losing the election a 90/10 random die roll coming up on the 10% side is not the kind of incredibly rare event where you have to question your model.

It really just comes down to the foolishness of thinking that just because we can't know the outcome of 1 given dice roll with certainty means we can't know the outcome of 100 dice rolls.

If I roll one dice I know it has a 16% chance of any 1 of 6 outcomes. 33% chance for a a number greater than four. 50% for a number less than four. The given roll itself could be 1 of6 different things. But then we move past the silliness of acting like voting is a dice roll and we get to the reality that if I roll 2000 D2s in a random number generator I know that statistically I'm going to get around 1000 1s and 1000 2s. Voting is much simpler than that because people don't make voting decisions based on the infinite whims of the universe (well technically they do in the sense that any given human decision is universally insignificant que some H.P. Lovecraft stuff). The biggest issue with polling is generating good samples that are representative of the whole voting population. People don't vote like dice, and with nearly 60 years of political polling data behind us we have the means of gauging how good a sample is.

SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

In exercise POTUS, on twitter. All caps are from the original. President All Caps.

The situation in France is pretty bad on a number of respect (we are getting the banana republic version of “State of Emergency”, the one that stays on for decades), but even if things take a turn for the worse, even if we elect Marine Le Pen in the upcoming election, at least we'll still be way above the US. Also if it gets too bad I'll just leave for Switzerland, which hopefully won't turn stupid anytime soon .

well there's a compelling argument.

Up next how the healing of the sick and feeding of the 5 thousand actually show strong support for the 2nd amendment.

 reds8n wrote:
Up next how the healing of the sick and feeding of the 5 thousand actually show strong support for the 2nd amendment.

Nah, it'll be about how the healing of the sick and feeding of the five thousand mean that gay marriage is evil and all the filthy sinners will burn in hell unless they repent. AFA can't let that go.