What is the sound of one hand clapping?
In Obama’s 11 dimensional chokehold?
In the rarified air of Clinton’s crony friends?
With a neocon boot on the neck of humanity for all eternity?
Would Budda heed rufus’ call to not blow things up politically? To walk down the rufus’ garden path? To go quietly into that dark night?
An appeal to reason that necessarily produces an unreasonable outcome is an intellectual quagmire. One designed to lure the unwary and suffocate dissent in the muck of their own ignorance and fear.
Budda would let the chips fall where they may. Or as the song says: let the motherf*cker burn.”
I am with Budda. I will not be swayed from voting my conscience by propagandists and manipulators with their own agenda. We’ve seen what that leads to: more of the same bullsh*t.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 11 2016 5:58 utc | 103

AN EXPOSE ON HOW AND WHY AMERICAN POLLSTERS ARE FALSIFYING ELECTION POLLS
http://averybgoodman.com/myblog/2016/08/10/how-and-why-american-pollsters-are-falsifying-election-polls/

Posted by: crone | Aug 11 2016 6:45 utc | 105

105: jfl: “The entire system has to be brought down and a new one constructed by all of us.”
Sounds crazy.

Posted by: From The Hague | Aug 11 2016 10:01 utc | 107

The latest chapter in Clinton email/corruption saga seems to be a non-story as far as MSM coverage is concerned.
#PayToPlay: Hillary Clinton faces corruption scandal after links between donors & State Dept exposed
https://www.rt.com/usa/355447-clinton-emails-state-department-foundation/
A number of emails that the former first lady failed to turn over to the US government, but were released after a Freedom of Information Act request, show donors and associates of the Clinton Foundation and its Global Initiative seemingly having special access inside the State Department.
snip
“No wonder Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts and Congress,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “They show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law.”
But The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.

Posted by: pantaraxia | Aug 11 2016 11:15 utc | 109

@107 x
Julian Assange: Ecuador to allow Swedish prosecutors to interview WikiLeaks founder in embassy, your link got botched as posted.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 11 2016 11:20 utc | 111

Apologies, this comment was entered erroneously in the “War on Syria” Post
Paul Craig Roberts is rightfully disgusted with the blatant propaganda
The Stench of Raw Propaganda
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/08/10/the-stench-of-raw-propaganda-paul-craig-roberts/
[..] On August 10 Satter told NPR’s audience that Washington’s hope to bring peace to Syria would fail unless Washington understood that the Russian government had no humanitarian feelings and did not care about the loss of human life. What Washington needs to do, said Satter, was to make sure that Putin and his henchmen understood that they would be held accountable as war criminals.
I should be hardened by now, but it never fails to astonish me that agents for the elite are willing to tell the most blatant and transparant lies. Perhaps this is because they know that the media and their fellow bought-and-paid-for “experts” will not challenge them on their statements.[.]
Reuters Got It. Reuters read PCR:
CNN (now dubbed the clinton news network) has been called out over reporting the Trump (campaign) had been twice questioned by the SS over his hint to “assassinate Clinton” remarks:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-secretservice-idUSKCN10L29W
[.} A federal official on Wednesday said the U.S. Secret Service had not formally spoken with Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign regarding his suggestion a day earlier that gun rights activists could stop Democratic rival Hillary Clinton from curtailing their access to firearms.
Following Trump’s comment at a rally on Tuesday in which he suggested that gun rights activists could stop Clinton from appointing liberal anti-gun justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal official familiar with the matter told Reuters that there had been no formal conversations between the Secret Service and the Trump campaign.”
Earlier CNN had reported that there had been multiple conversations between the campaign and the agency.
~ ~ ~ ~
the msm wonders why readership and viewership continues to decline.

Posted by: likklemore | Aug 11 2016 11:25 utc | 113

in re 102 —
But an appeal to the irrational that produces unreasonable conditions is somewhat less of a moral dilemna, no?
I continue to urge folks to vote their consciences.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 11 2016 11:45 utc | 115

Here’s some news you can use. Monmouth University finds that a Majority of Americans view Donald Trump as a threat to their way of life.

A majority of American voters view a Donald Trump presidency as a personal threat to their way of life.
That’s according to a recently-released Monmouth University poll, in which 54 percent of respondents said they’re frightened of the idea of the outspoken billionaire in the White House.
The poll of more than 800 registered voters asked which of six options made them feel the most threatened. The only option that came back with a higher percentage than Trump was radical Islamic extremism, which topped the list at 61 percent.

So President D**khead Donald is not quite as bad as being murdered and your widow raped. Sounds about right.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 11 2016 11:58 utc | 117

the msm wonders why readership and viewership continues to decline.
Posted by: likklemore | Aug 11, 2016 7:25:48 AM | 112
100%. TPTB forgot to download the update to their formula, and so they have lost a massive lever. You can’t hoodwink when no one is watching hahaha. This is why you see this unprecedented ‘All In On Clinton’
I believe CNNs average age of viewership is around 58, but have seen reports going back a couple of years that the average age of the CNN news watchers is 65.
I hope the MSM is getting handsomely paid by Clinton…it may be the last big payday they get.
The average age of Fox News viewers in primetime, the hours that draw the highest ad rates and so are the ones that matter, is 68 — a group that advertisers don’t pay to reach. In the world of cable news, marketers really only pay for viewers in the 25-54 age range. That means a good chunk of Fox News’ audience is worth little to nothing.
recode.net/2016/7/21/12251654/roger-ailes-fox-news-big-problem

Posted by: MadMax2 | Aug 11 2016 12:20 utc | 119

@115 x ‘Still, the US could do with a female president …’
I could go for Cynthia McKinney. Good write-in choice.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 11 2016 12:48 utc | 121

I think that the story in NY Post is sloppy. They claim that Marc Rich traded with everybody and influenced everybody. It is a bit hard to believe that he was such a central figure, and yet had to live among bitterness, humiliation and the squalor of exile in the refuge of poor hicks that is Switzerland (OK, perhaps not in squalor, Switzerland is as picture pretty and elegant as they go, and the social life is inferior to none, so perhaps there were no humiliations either, but still, the exile is always bitter).
It would be more accurate to suppose that there is a number of powerful groups that have to deal with billions of dollars (each). Even parking the money is problematic if some “do-gooders” will declare them “ill-gotten”. So the powerful groups have to make deals and get assorted permits or “acts of tolerance”. If the facts in the story are mostly correct, they suggest that Rich was an intermediary and Clinton’s joined the intermediary business. To a degree this is reassuring: while pretending to be a vengeful bitch, Clinton is also a part of the milieu where everybody deals with everybody, with some haggling, of course. So I would bet that she is not a monomaniacal vengeful bitch.
I could not understand the uranium thingy: in the global scheme of things, the Wyoming holdings of Uranium One were very minor. But according to a comprehensive story in NYT, this was a part of “cornering uranium market” by Rosatom. Putin and Medvedev (back when Medvedev was a president) concocted a plan that Russia would become the world top builder and operator of atomic power plants. Because there are many places with uranium ore and the nuclear energy is expanding very slowly if at all, the extraction and processing industries offer rather thin profits. But in the grandiose Rosatom vision, there would be tens and eventually hundreds of new nuclear power stations that would need uranium fuel, so securing the supply was important for them. USA more or less gave up on the industry, so there was no much reason to oppose.
So some time before 2008 a plucky businessman from Western Canada started to buy uranium properties all over the word. Number one uranium producer is Kazakhstan, and there this is a state owned industry with foreign partnership. It seems that the Westinghouse partnerships were sold to the Canadian (they could be worth a multiple of the entire US production, Kazakhstan produces more than 10 times as USA). Then the Canadian purchased Australian uranium holdings from a South African mining company, and it is worth to note that Australia has larger uranium deposits than Kazakhstan. During the buying spree the name of company became Uranium One, and it was not bragging! And a mine in Wyoming became one of the holdings as well. So far, it looks like Anglo-Saxons bent on world domination, as they should.
But then Uranium One developed “financial difficulties”. Uranium prices went down. But is it a mystery why they had generous financing to begin with! Someone had to predict that Uranium One would get a white knight, none other than Rosatom. Being a foreign company from a country that was not exactly friendly, permits were needed in Australia and Canada, South Africa and Kazakhstan probably being more friendly to Russia. And American permit for a “measly mine” was needed too. The Canadian owners of Uranium One (Russian intermediaries in effect) and Russians spared no expense to ingratiate themselves with Clintons (it was also a honeymoon of the “Medvedev reset”), American permit was duly secured, Australians and Canadians followed the suit (I presume). Note that the main American company that could object, Westinghouse, got the money and did not mind.
In other words, Clintons help lubricating some deals that can be artificially snagged, and the big players appreciate that. They are also relatively modest folks: think what Trump would need to make it worth his while? And he has a bad reputation as a holder of verbal bargains.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 11 2016 13:25 utc | 123

@123: “You have to love Trump ,the way he exposes all the 3 dollar bills for what they are,notably right here.
Obomba and the Hell bitch created ISIS!”
Partially correct. The whole truth, is, that the USA, and their minions, have always backed extremists of every stripe to achieve hegemony around the globe. ISIS is just the latest incarnation of these mercenaries.

Posted by: ben | Aug 11 2016 14:22 utc | 125

Born-again Christians using Salafist jihadists.
Ban Religion!

Posted by: From The Hague | Aug 11 2016 15:38 utc | 127

b, I think you’re wrong on this one. The problem is that Trump assists the media mightily in keeping negative attention on himself. The election is devolving into SCARY TRUMP vs. [Taboo/uncovered/unknown] Clinton. Instead of what it could easily have been ‘unknown/outofnowhere’ Trump vs. WARMONGER/LIAR CLINTON.
Trump is not the pathological/fascist corporate media construction, but he’s definitely a narcissist. He seems to revel in the attention even though it is now largely negative.
Yes, his avid supporters will show up at the polls, but the dullard lemming middle class, religious blacks, and chumps addled in corporate media fear outnumber them. A Trump that actually wanted to win, which is what I was hoping for, could’ve beaten the 1%/warmonger/corporate globalist coalition. But no, sadly it looks like Trump wants attention — he thinks this is a reality TV and ‘look at my ratings!’ — more than he wants to win. Sure, there’s still time to turn things around, but I don’t think Trump will, because he seems not to want to change his ‘no apologies’ off-the-cuff approach.

Posted by: fairleft | Aug 11 2016 15:48 utc | 129

Personally I believe Hitlary is around 15%, Trump around 60%. ProPeace at 73.
Been following elections/votes of many kinds for a long time, we do that here (CH.) (Still working on Brexit.) I am certain Trump can win on the numbers now, but future events?, etc. The recent polls are *gobeshite, codswallop* .. Brexit has upped my Brit slang.
No solid analysis is possible at present, because media and poll fraud/manipulation, plus obfuscation, aka not doing the pertinent studies or polls, and the new political landscape that many can’t get their heads around or *pretend* to ignore. In any case what the voters want won’t be taken into account.
Trump (60% supporters is not fanciful though I would peg lower) with the rest of the vote scattering, to abstention (always neglected), to alternatives, write-ins (“I like XYZ”), etc. What is left for Killary is not enough. The Dems know this. See hysteria anger rage and lashing out. It is last-ditch-do or die.
What remains is vote manipulation (and all techniques have been implemented by Dems in the primaries) but for a Pres. election it is more difficult. Diebold or the new versions etc. Possibly, one can overcome a 2-5?% oppo without outcry… In any case the atmosphere is so volatile that now anything can happen.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 11 2016 15:57 utc | 131

MadMax2@118 – RE: U.S. Cable news viewership demographics
“…I believe CNNs average age of viewership is around 58, but have seen reports going back a couple of years that the average age of the CNN news watchers is 65…”
From The Wrap:

In total day, CNN’s median viewer age was 61 compared to 67 for Fox. But in primetime the difference was starker; CNN’s average was 59 while Fox News averaged 68.
MSNBC ranked second in both categories with a median age of 63 during the day and in primetime.
The advertiser-coveted demo is 25-54, leaving CNN’s audience closest to that segment.

As expected, an older (in advertising demo terms) crowd is likely to watch cable news throughout the entire day, but CNN’s viewership average age during prime decreases from 61 to 58 while Fox increases by a year from 67 to 68. The Wrap numbers are from 2015. Demos for everyone will show a drop in average age of viewership during an election year.
In terms of the advertising, the percentage of most-sought-after 25-54 crowd is surprisingly small. Here’s July’s Nielson numbers as published by CNN. The most-sought-after 24-54 demographic only represents around a third of the total viewers. In the table, P+2 means total individual viewers as opposed to total number of households (two or more people viewing gives a higher P+2 than Nielson’s usual household measure).
So despite CNN’s dramatic rise in the 25-54 demo for their prime-time news, they only just matched Fox’s 680,000 viewers in this category (they’re tied for first). Even more interesting is Fox nearly doubled the number of viewers in this category from last July while CNN almost tripled theirs.
Elections mean big advertising revenue for the networks, and they’re happy to oblige with whatever sensationalism and scandal they can dig up. One wonders if the editors at CNN truly hate Clinton or if they’re simply tapping into the otherwise apathetic 25-54 demo and giving 400,000 of them exactly what they want.
If CNN could have tripled it’s 25-54 demo by promoting Batman for president, they would have done that. News whores’ loyalty is ultimately to their advertiser pimps, not to their audience johns. Come to think of it, I see a lot less new car/auto insurance commercials and a lot more pharmaceutical commercials targeted towards seniors. I wonder how much of that is driving younger viewers away with the perception of cable news being mostly for ‘older people’. Prime advertising demo could swing towards the 54+ crowd on pharmaceutical advertising alone. And I cannot emphasize how irritating it is in general for any age group to watch.
What’s surprising to me is that – prior to elections – cable news only had a prime-time 25-54 audience of a few hundred thousand. Consider that there are over 100 million U.S. households with a television. Suspicions confirmed: I guess cable news really does suck.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 11 2016 17:44 utc | 133

…
Trump makes insinuations all of the time. He’s doing it again with his diatribes about Obama founding ISIS. It doesn’t make any sense in any literal way and so all we can do is ponder what he is alluding to. When you use vague allusions frequently this is what you get – a lot of people drawing the worst interpretation and then mocking you for it. Turning around and blaming “Hilary-bots” is stupid. Trump is being sloppy and deserves to be lambasted.
Posted by: Kronosaurus | Aug 11, 2016 4:47:08 PM | 134
“It doesn’t make any sense in any literal way and so all we can do is ponder what he is alluding to.”???
That’s a joke, right?
AmeriKKKa created IsUS just as surely as it created Al CIA duh, the only difference being that IsUS was created in a joint exercise with Israel. If I were in your position, I’d be spending a bit more time planning my escape from Israel, and less on smearing Trump, for when Trump provides the evidence for his claim.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 12 2016 2:29 utc | 135

…
He’s alienated women, the young, the educated and minorities. That leaves him conflicted mainstream Repubs and stupid, angry old white guys – which the GOP itself used to recognize as a dying demographic. So sure, a landslide. Just maybe not for The D**ckhead.
Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 12, 2016 12:42:41 AM | 136
How can you be so certain that Trump is dead in the water, but still hyperventilating like a panic merchant? And isn’t it a bit of a stretch to cite the opinion of “50 of their national securities hacks” as noteworthy when there’s an established, and proud, US tradition of routinely ignoring them?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 12 2016 5:56 utc | 137

@Noirette | Aug 11, 2016 11:57:04 AM | 131 I agree with you.
I think it’s important for the US people to come out on the streets and do their own private polling, recorded with cell phones, sanitized for ids, published later on the Internet.
That could be the best counteroffensive against the current flood of outrageous BS by the MSM.

Posted by: ProPeace | Aug 12 2016 11:28 utc | 139

Here’s a good reason why the fantasies offered here about the “real” state of the race are bull… um, incorrect.
There are actually reasons why the numbers are not adding up.
It seems that Donald Trump’s Missteps Risk Putting a Ceiling Over His Support in Swing States that he needs to win if he actually wants to be elected.
Looking at Pennsylvania, one of the rustiest of the Rust Belt states, you have this little problem.

Mr. Trump’s troubles are perhaps most pronounced in Pennsylvania, which he has targeted for victory in November even though the state has gone Democratic in the last six presidential elections. He is running strong in the traditionally conservative western part of the state….
But to win, pollsters say, Mr. Trump would need to beat Mrs. Clinton here in the Philadelphia suburbs, where President Obama defeated Mitt Romney in 2012 by about nine percentage points. (Mr. Obama carried the state by about five points.) Yet Mrs. Clinton holds a wide lead in those suburbs, 52 percent to 26 percent, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist College poll published on Wednesday.
“There is absolutely no way Trump wins Pennsylvania unless he can broaden his appeal significantly and overcome his huge deficit in the suburbs,” said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin & Marshall College poll and a longtime analyst of Pennsylvania politics. “He does well with white working-class voters, but there simply aren’t enough of them in Pennsylvania to win. And he can’t stick with his political message for more than five minutes.”

Lacking the advantage of being a continent away, this seems right to me. I lived in western Pennsylvania for most of the 90’s, and grew up and now reside in the Delaware Valley. I see far more Obama than Trump stickers on I-295.
Oddly enough, even The Donald seems to have caught on. Well, not entirely. Donald Trump Laments Sliding Polls While Maintaining His Provocative Approach.

In an interview with CNBC, he acknowledged the possibility that he could lose, but insisted that he would stick with his unorthodox campaign style.
“At the end, it’s either going to work or I’m going to, you know, I’m going to have a very, very nice long vacation,” said Mr. Trump, who has rarely before conceded the possibility of defeat.

And so he’s called for a meeting today with the RNC, in the hopes of getting the wrecked train back on the track.

“They want to patch up a rift that just keeps unfolding,” one source said. “They finally realize they need the RNC for their campaign because, let’s face it, there is no campaign.”

Why can’t I get this bit of Apocalypse Now out of my head? Especially around 6:50, when Capt. Willard tells the boat “There is no fucking C.O.” at Do Nang Bridge. It’s like The Donald’s reputation, really. Every day it gets shot up, and everyday his grunts and sappers rebuild the thing. Pointlessly, ’cause they lose in the end.
So not surprisingly, Trump Supporters’ Excuses For His Poll Numbers Are Getting Increasingly Weird. See if you spot your own on the list, mates.
Meanwhile, you know where he accused Mrs. Clinton of founding ISIS? And then reiterated the claim when Hewitt tried to lead him to walk it back? Well, apparently someone or something got to him, ‘cause it is now just like the rest of calls for brutality and mayhem, just “sarcasm.”
Here’s a noteworthy piece from Crooks and Liars, documenting Chris Cuomo taking apart Rudy Giuliani.

“He’s saying my coverage is rigged,” Cuomo observed. “Do you think my coverage is rigged?”
“I think a lot of coverage is rigged,” Giuliani replied.
“How is it rigged?” Cuomo shot back. “This comes out of his mouth and you have to apologize for it.”
“I’m telling you he didn’t say words of violence!” Giuliani said. “You say things in a lot of ways.”

Especially when you have “the very best words.” And who ya gonna trust, Mr. Noun Verb 9/11 or your own lyin’ ears?
Comments are very interesting, too.

Doggiebreath > Turk • 21 hours ago
The funny thing is that his supporters always say, “He means what he says…” Riiight.
rpannier > Doggiebreath • 10 hours ago
Il Douche Supporter: Trump says what he means
Question: So the comment about 2nd Amendment and Clinton
Il Douche Supporter: He didn’t mean that…

Yeah, The Donald. Speaking truth to power – when convenient. Words coming out of his… whatever.
And for deep background, from The Daily Banter. Both sides don’t do it. Call for insurrection, that is.
And even more bad stuff ‘bout the Green “alternative.” From their dysfunctional Houston convention, this report in Truthout asks, to get Beyond a Protest Party: What Will It Take for the Green Party to Start Winning?

The convention’s workshops and meetings were marked by a lackadaisical non-seriousness and New Age-style deficit of credibility.
A haphazard meeting of the party’s national committee on Friday seemed to exemplify some of the core defects resulting from the party leaders’ lack of discipline….
[T]he lack of focus on building the party’s infrastructure only serves to compound a feeling of mass demoralization…. [W]hile I still identify with the values the Stein-Baraka ticket represents, seeing the Green Party’s political impotence close up only magnifies my discouragement about electoral politics, including third-party politics.
….[T]he Greens’ nomination of Stein at the top of their ticket serves largely the same purpose as it did when they nominated her in 2012 — a symbolic one.

Like I keep saying, dreary, moralistic politics, poor organization. But still, sure to sweep to power with a supportive Congress and state governments in November….

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 13 2016 2:19 utc | 141

PB at 142 —
No, it sounds idiotic and is totally unjustified.
Note the appeal to “the sheriffs.” There is a belief in some far-right circles that county sheriffs are the only legal law enforcement. The Malheur Malcontents appealed to the local sheriffs, unsuccessfully, of course.
In Pennsylvania, state and local police do the law enforcement, and sheriffs run the county jails and service the courts. Same here in New Jersey.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 13 2016 4:07 utc | 143

As a denizen of central Pennsylvania for 30 years, I never heard of sheriffs, although we have offices like “protonotary” and “recorder of deeds” who are elected and thus you can see their front-yard signs. I should go for a ride and see what the current signs are, if any.
We are discussing here if it is better to vote for a candidate that is actually intelligent, has sensible if imperfect program for most areas pertaining to daily life of citizens and residents, and with pretty awful, although conventional, ideas about foreign policy. And another candidate who seems so stupid or deranged that it is hard to tell if he is lying or simply prattling, who is also extremely talkative and in the myriad of statements made on record made some sensible statements on foreign policy. I would be less happy about the first one leading in the polls if the second was at least reliable on the good pieces. Which he is not. Take ISIS brouhaha. One can make intelligent case that the reckless policies of the Administration led to the rise of ISIS, but this is not what Trump did. In fact, pressed for details, he offered one: Obama withdrew troops from Iraq. I do not believe that Obama could keep troops in Iraq, as the government refused to extend the permission, and if those troops could do much good, given how little local support they had. He did not mention the massive program of dumping weapons into the hands of all able-bodied individuals “fighting for freedom in Syria”, with the result that the best organized and most ruthless emerged on top of a very well armed pile. And I just have read that Trump was for “surgical removal” of Kaddafi before he was against.
The latest suggest that Trump can commit as idiotic and amoral acts as Clinton, except that being an idiot he could have trouble getting sufficient international cooperation, and perhaps he would change his mind and deny that he ever thought about it. Idiocy could actually reduce harm inflicted by American foreign policy, but then again, an instruction to shoot Ruskies when they approach too closely, something Trump advocated, is incredibly dangerous. Domestically, Trump would be reliably awful.
The scenario I am hoping for is that Clinton will win, but the third party vote will be sufficiently high to deprive the Establishment of confidence in continuing their idiocies. “The mainstream” barely made it through the primaries, and then barely through the general election (what if Trump were not a complete idiot?), this is a near death experience that can foster actual change.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 13 2016 12:58 utc | 145

|With respect to those commentators leaving brilliantly written opinions above, I suspect another approach might be considered:
First, moral voting is not effective in obtaining results other than some inconsequential footnote to history; Ralph Nader and subsequent presidential want-to-have beens are fine examples of ineffectual voting. It should be obvious only effectual voting ever rises to political power; only in Disney make believe is power gained otherwise, usually by (scripted) magic legerdemain.
Second, the country finds itself with two of the most unacceptable candidates it could dredge up from the political netherworlds. Effective voting is the only way choice can be exercised, that choice depends entirely upon the self interests of the voter – obscured by several generations of self-fiction marketing aided by diminished capacity to critically function as rational beings. One or the other candidate WILL be elected, that result IS guaranteed. One candidate appears with full complement of ideological self travellers having high degree of governance skills and organised to assume power immediately. The other candidate, if his ghostwriter’s recent ‘exposé’ in The New Yorker of 25 July 2016 is to be believed, there is no there there (ego and not much else). As usual in two party controlled societies, the supporters of one PLUS the detractors of the other comprise a voting block, the voting block aggregating the most votes in each electoral district controls the electoral college and obtains the election. One candidate has the organisation to do this, the other doesn’t, but that goes with that candidate’s complete lack of political experience.
The third point – which of these will be most easily removed from office for malfeasance or political high crimes and misdemeanours? The one with already existing political structure, or the one without the full political support of their party? Removal from office is the only recourse the public can look forward to to recant their beliefs, so scant are the options. Pick carefully in your deliberations the VP candidate as well, your future may depend on your voting wisdom in the privacy of the poll. Yours is not an enviable choice.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Aug 13 2016 20:59 utc | 147

FTB @147:

First, moral voting is not effective in obtaining results

Yes, that is generally true, but …
IF Trump wins and the Greens do sufficiently well to have cost the Democrats the election, then the Greens may have the moral high ground to act as the effective opposition to Trump.
At the same time, the shame of the Democratic Party to have acted so UNdemocratically in support of such a flawed candidate taints the Party itself as an irredeemable failure.
The election of Trump could (rightly) mean the end of a corrupt Democratic Party. And “moral voting” for the Greens helps to do that.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 15 2016 13:28 utc | 149

@ 150 Addendum
The only numbers that count in any election are: a) the number of qualified voters registered and b) the number of valid ballots cast. This provides information as to what percent or what fraction of the electorate exercised their franchise (and conversely that percentage or fraction which did not). No other manipulation of factors holds significant meaning.
Where I reside, for local and regional elections the ballot table holds ballots for twenty plus political parties having candidates participating in the poll. Only those few receiving sufficient effective ballots will appear on whatever governing council, therefore they received effective votes, the others, not so much – vanity votes if you will. That is what like voting in U.S. elections reduces to – vanity voting, and only counts in the fraction of the electorate participating.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Aug 15 2016 16:55 utc | 151

|@ 152
There you go again with your tinsel halo. Not much with reading comprehension as well. End if response.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Aug 16 2016 3:01 utc | 153

in re 153
Glad to see you’re proudly sporting the hash mark of Unjustified Amoral Superiority Syndrome.

This above all- to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!
Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3

I follow my own conscience not for the non-existent sky people or the fleeting approbation of my contemporaries, but to avoid doing things, the real-world consequences of which I might later regret.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 17 2016 0:09 utc | 155