I am going to dial back the extent of this. I keep hoping that someone will contact me saying that they will take it on if we can find funding for it, but nobody has.
Tuesday’s paper included a front-page story about Planned Parenthood which begins
Planned Parenthood officials are scrambling to prepare for the likelihood that Congress next year will cut off more than a half-billion dollars in federal funding to the group, fulfilling the wishes of abortion foes who are planning an aggressive push to roll back abortion rights under President-elect Donald Trump.
The headline is “Planned Parenthood ready for abortion war.” That sounds like a fund-raising appeal for Planned Parenthood, and I am sure that the group was very happy to see the story on the front page. But it is not news.
The newspaper had the Russian hack story on the front page every day except Friday and Sunday, but with nothing new to report. This seems to be the story around which Democrats who want to re-litigate the election are coalescing. But I do not see where they are headed. Citizens who cast ballots for Trump are not raising their hands to say they want to change their votes. Congress cannot impeach Putin. Even if Trump were to be impeached and removed from office, all the people next in line are Republicans.
If the Russian hacking story does not pan out as another Watergate, what do you think that the Post will do? (a) eat humble pie; or (b) keep trying to promote other scandals, trying to find The Big One that brings Trump down?
Through Thursday, the paper continued to attack Trump’s cabinet picks in news stories, especially on page one. They are (gasp!) businessmen. They are too friendly to energy producers. And they got their world view from Ayn Rand. For the Post and its sympathetic readers, the incoming Administration is just one outrage after another. However, Friday there was nothing either on the Russian hacking story or the Trump cabinet. (There was a fair story on the appointment of an ambassador to Israel who has supported settlements.)
They Post continued to run op-eds (by E. J. Dionne, for example) asking the electoral college to reverse the election result. No one who favors this seems to want to talk about what the response might be from the other side, either in the short run or in the long run.
On Sunday, the attempt to overturn the election in the Electoral College received lead-story front-page coverage. The story jumps to page 18, where there is another analysis, by Aaron Blake, that finally speaks to what might happen if Trump were not chosen.
But the fact remains that the electoral college, if it were to deprive Trump of the presidency, would risk massive public backlash and a potential constitutional crisis. It would also be doing something even many non-Trump voters aren’t comfortable with.
My guess is that if it were Republicans trying to overturn an election this way, we would be hearing a lot more about the adverse consequences. In addition, we would be reading about the nuttiness of the people behind the attempt.
And if Hillary Clinton has expressed an opinion about whether she wants this effort to take place or not, I have not seen it. That seems odd.
I can’t think of a swifter way to end the electoral system which has reached it’s past due date. Imagine elections that actually had to appeal to all voters. Recounts would be hard though.
It would be extremely hard and the reality is Blue & Red states really do have different voting goals. Blue states bend over backwards to get votes as California voters can turn in the mail on election day and we were counting votes three weeks later. Red states are looking to make voting harder for their voters.
“Imagine elections that actually had to appeal to all voters”
Quite the opposite, absent the electoral college you only have to appeal to 50.1% of the voters. If you can get the western seaboard and the eastern seaboard to vote for you by promising to nuke everything in between, you can win.
Personally, I’d be fine with eliminating the electoral college if it went hand in hand with a major decentralization of government from federal to state and local.
The electoral college exists to guarantee geographical representation at the expense of ideological representation, that has to be kept in mind; those two are invariably at each other’s expense. With a pure popular vote, 51% of the country could effectively get permanent 100% representation in the federal government (if we assume a few slight revisions in senate rules).
So I think small states have the right to demand two things concomitant with ending the electoral college: 1) decentralization of government, and 2) Greater right of secession.
Because 46.6% is so superior? The price of avoiding a plurality candidate being a minority candidate is an extremely high price to pay.
Arnold, I know these types of posts are a lot of work, but I, for one, like them!
I prefer the shorter version.
I’m calling it: No Russian hacking. Everyone can replace 70% of the news with me. The trouble is figuring out which 70%.
Did you say funding?
C’mon, it is obvious John Podesta’s emails were hacked as Wikileaks released a number of his emails including the HRC Goldman Sach speeches. (In reality most hacked e-mails revealed very little.) And the US investigators can trace these hacks fairly easily. It is not wise for Republicans to deny these realities.
1) CIA leaks suggested Republicans were hacked as well and the Russians did not use this information.
2) Hacking is a serious issue in general.
3) Give it 3 years and now China’s hacking Trump’s administration! Without investigations and reviews, this might simply be accepted norms for elections.
Wikileaks says it wasn’t state Russians. Why would they lie?
Again, Republicans had nothing to tell. They did not corrupt their primary. Everybody went ape $#!+ in public over their version of Bernie being allowed to win.
Assange is the guy who knows everything gets out. Why would he lie?
C’mon, when was the Democratic Primary EVER close? The Democratic Party assistance did nothing. HRC led the polls over Sanders by ~10% pretty much after November 2015 and she won by ~10% of the delegates. Sure Bernie did well in the first two states and got creamed in the fourth primary in South Carolina because HRC was popular with Southern African-American voters. And then HRC took the huge delegate lead on March 1 with minority heavy Southern states. Bernie Sanders lost because he failed to win the minority voters which is a significant portion of the Democratic Party.
I didn’t say they had to cheat. Just that they did cheat.
Remember when Paul Krugman’s lips were moving about the Nevada convention?
If there wasn’t lying, he would not have been commenting.
I could ask why cheat if they were so good, but I think the answer is they are stupid.
I never said HRC was good but the Primary was never in question. Watching HRC campaign, she spent too much trying to run out the clock which worked in the primary where a lot of voters knew little of Sanders.
Did the Russians hack the CIA leaks?
Just a little joke.
I like this short version and hope you keep it up. It seems most of the task can be accomplished by going through the “imagine what they’d say were the parties reversed” thought experiment.
If electors decided to follow the popular vote, I expect Democrats could live with that. What they wouldn’t want to live with is capriciousness.
No, they’d be fine with it NOW. Which is the definition if capriciousness.
There is no popular vote. People vote and campaign strategically based on the actual rules, not the pretend rules…except for Hillary who didn’t want to win the swing states.
If we went with letting California decide all President elections it would take exactly once for everything to rebalance. We have a 2 party system.
Adjusting the vote for turnout would only increase Hillary’s win by another few million. The red states would go to extraordinary lengths to prevent electors from doing so though, appointing party officials if need be to prevent this. Power is never yielded unconditionally.
Noooo.
People didn’t turn our for Hillary because she was a terrible candidate.
Do you really believe the stuff you say?
“Adjusting the vote for turnout would only increase Hillary’s win by another few million.”
Why? I suspect you don’t understand what he is saying.
You are assuming there are more Texas Democrats that don’t vote because there’s no point than California Republicans who don’t vote because there’s no point (or vote third party because there’s no point). Maybe, but maybe not.
Remember, we’re not talking about increasing voter turnout uniformly; we’re talking about increasing it specifically among people discouraged from voting because of the inevitable political affiliation of their state; two different things, and two different effects.
You are making the presumption that uncompetitive races discourage loser voting turnout more than it discourages winner voting turn out. This is almost certainly false. Having your vote count for more increases turnout as we can see from swing states and voter concentration only accentuates lower turnout.
People simply won’t let California liberals rum the country.
A lot of these articles simply appear to be creating ‘NEWS’ in a quiet news period. (Holidays and this is weird period of a President and incoming President. I remember the flurry of nonsense of Bush/Obama in 2008.) They are looking for news items as opposed to important news. In reality these stories are under the bridge stuff.
1) A better model of the Russian hacking is becomes Russianghazi for Democrats for the next year(s). It simply becomes the event all bad things are blamed and it is impossible to defend. It was hacking in private servers by a foreigner. Like HRC e-mails, it simply becomes the event the culture makes pokes holes in the Trump administration. Notice the SNL sketch here.
2) Outside of Kate on SNL, HRC is not making any real arguments on the electors and the media is building up a nothingburger event. Remember the Republican delegates at the convention? (Admittingly, Obama might be telling HRC to stay out.)
3) Yes Planned Parenthood is pulling a standard PR blitz and is nothing new. However, I disagree with you on abortion rights. I don’t think Trump really against abortion rights but a lot of conservatives (~20% religious ones, including his VP) think this is the most important issue in the nation. Trump leaves himself open for a possible Primary run if he does make headway on this issue.
4) Trump’s cabinet is really focused on Ayn Rand very successful business people. Unlike other liberals, This might be a good thing in a lot of ways and this team now has to take business success to running government where they might change their goals.
5) For all the news, I would say Trump’s reaction to China taking the submarine drone the most interesting. Right now, China seems to appreciate Obama’s past 8 years of under-reacting to their nation while the Trump administration and China do not interact well. Since he is not President, we don’t know how this plays out.
There was a fair story on the appointment of an ambassador to Israel who has supported settlements
Again so what? He is an ambassador and how much impact on policy do ambassadors have anyway. Really why do we act like Israel wants a two state solution. Every action by Israel indicates Palestine is part of Israel and at this point I don’t see how Palestine can be economically viable being separate from Israel.
“A lot of these articles simply appear to be creating ‘NEWS’ in a quiet news period.”
Fake news again. Very sad that this disinformation is being allowed to spread. Somebody ought to Do Something.
In general, I thought the explosion of fake news was exaggerated as well but these are ‘true’ but exaggerated news stories. The Russian hacking, the 2% of population calling for the electoral college to change votes, and his cabinets appointees are news but it appears to be overstated in significance. I thought the China drone capture should be bigger and Trump’s response should be bigger but even that appears to have no long term effect.
Another way of looking at, many Obama supporters really disliked the conservative media reaction to his Presidency in 2009. It was not Obama supported poor policies but he was going to fundamentally change the nature of the United States! And Trump campaign was fairly simplified that the last 30 years the US has become hell on earth and Immigrants are taking over. And now with the coming Trump administration, now the shoe is on the other foot and by March 2017 he won’t have Obama & HRC to kick around.
I agree, actually. I was just trying to have some fun at the expense of what I see as a certain amount of hysteria among media types about some dumb stuff getting passed around Facebook.
The problem is that people just accept Trump is just more racist Hitler.
The bigger lie wins.
As long as the legacy news is on your side, their fake news is the real news.
For anyone with a sufficient intelligence level, sufficient background in the issues the US media “reports” on, and sufficient time to spend on it, this sort of exercise is like shooting fish in a barrel. At this late date, the notion that doing this is going to influence anyone to look at the MSM more skeptically is rather naïve.
It is also naïve to think that this exercise has any hope of inducing the WaPo or any other MSM outlet to change its ways. You might as well try to persuade Sean Hannity to view Trump more skeptically.
I cannot comprehend the idea of every American not being appalled at the efforts of a foreign to affect our elections. Meanwhile, I am certain that the results of this election should, and will stand. But that should make no difference regarding the Russians’ actions. This type of reaction by the winners is beyond scary for the future of the US.
Course, since in the opinion of the majority who read this blog believe the market will take care of this problem, maybe I am overreacting.
Because it isn’t true. Now?
I can’t believe you guys actually believe this nonsense. But I also don’t believe you are bald-faced liars. So I’m in a tough spot.
Because the hackers leaked WHISTLEBLOWER emails. The emails uncovered serious wrongdoing. Therefore the whistleblower exception is in play.
Half the people arent upset because thw hacking worked for them. HAHA. Just kidding, that is ridiculous.
Here is another reason nobody but irrational democrats care: the notion that e-mails revealing crooked Hillary to be crooked really moved the needle is a total hallucination.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154681238001/the-wikileaks-persuasion-you-missed
These E-mails your 13 year old son could have “hacked” had basically nothing in them we didn’t already assume or know. And nobody thinks you need Russians to get e-mails. Assange was so embarrassed by their lack if actual content that he canceled one of his shows.
If you want people to get worked up, have an actual story, like that the leaker is a Russian asset (funny how nobody is concerned about that- actual espionage. This is proof the hacking story is horse manure.) or that they actually hacked something like voting machines or changed the content of the e-mails that nobody ever disputed.
Otherwise you are just doing jazz hands.
All true. And you’d need a heart of stone not to laugh at “jazz hands.” Or “up twinkles.”
” This type of reaction by the winners is beyond scary for the future of the US.”
Um, why? Why would they ever admit that foreigners helped them win, even if they know it to be true? I would in fact question their competence if they came out and said ‘yeah, we would’ve lost if it weren’t for the Russians, lucky us, eh?’
And generally the ethos among congressional Republicans has, indeed, been ‘this is a serious problem, we need more information so we can act accordingly.’ That is the right attitude (even if it’s in their self-interest to be skeptical). Making vague threats against a nuclear power is not the right attitude.
I find this ironic though: Trump answers a phone call which is seen to acknowledge the self-determination of a democratic country and ally; Dems pan him for threatening our fragile relationship with China. Dems then proceed to engage in angry belligerent rhetoric about Russia, with Obama at the helm promising ambiguous revenge for this cyber atrocity. What ever happened to putting pragmatic realism before principles?
I have Posted the following thoughts three times on WAPO’s website re their recent article “In last-shot bid, thousands urge electoral college to block Trump at Monday vote”. All three times it disappeared almost immediately. Is any one else experiencing this?
It’s an incredibly Stupid story, pushed by a news media and a Democratic party that have used up any good will the American people ever had for them. They now know that they must continue this panicked “wolf, wolf” cry every day for the next 8 years in a desperate attempt to discredit Donald Trump and prevent him from accomplishing anything positive for America. It’s the only way they will ever see another Democrat in the White House for decades.
You claim that “thousands” of Americans want to promote a coup d’état through an ill-advised warping of the legal functioning of the Electoral College. The truth is that Millions of Americans want the mainstream media and the Democratic party, along with assorted Republicrats to just shut up and go to bed! You committed practical suicide with your assumptions about how easily Americans are deceived. Stop all the whining and yowling from the grave. America is done with you until and unless you go back to your roots and start serving the purposes for which you came into being. The only thing we want to hear from you is “We’re sorry and will try to make it up to you”. Otherwise get lost!
Your “Russian Influence” shtick is laughable, since you know full well that all this so called hacking by the Russians (or whoever) took place on the watch of an incompetent Democratic boob who’s duty was to protect his country (America for the purposes of this issue)from just this kind of underhandedness from outsiders. At least it served the purpose of revealing just how rotten and self-serving not only an old established political party has become, but in the process revealed the sickness that has debilitated the fourth estate.
Well, it is mildly abrasive.
I think there are important questions you’re not addressing: are there facts in the story? Are the given facts true?
Those two questions are the first test a news source has to pass. “Fake news” stories typically fail one or both of those tests.
After those questions are passed you can start to address the analysis layer which is much more likely to hold bias.
I would be more comfortable if you linked to the stories you’re reviewing and/or provided more quotes. It’s hard to check your work when you don’t even link back to the stories or answer the most important questions I laid out above.
This is a paper. Does the paper provide links.
Actually, facts are less than worthless if there is obvious bias.
I guess you could treat them as separate, but why? I guess one reason is they will just learn to go back to hiding their bias.
But the whole point was to deal with their bias.
A paper is already supposed to provide facts that are reasonably true. Unless you are another paper, how can you dispute facts?
It’s so funny when you try the tone that we are either nor getting it or we are the biased ones.
You believed the CIA. You believed an anonymous leaker who leaked the CIA “conclusion.” You believed The Washington Post about it. OMFG.
The “news” is all a confidence game now.