Election 2016

[DSMatticus]

Money by its very definition exists to be circulated. If the money printed via QE is never added to the economy as a whole then what was the point for its printing?

The banks did not choose to deleverage because of QE. The banks were going to deleverage no matter what, because they were holding onto tons of toxic assets and the world economy was walking the razor's edge between collapse and stagnation. Without QE, in order to deleverage they would have had to pull pretend-money out of circulation - the M2 would have gone down, and we would have had deflation. But because of QE, they were able to deleverage by taking money that hadn't previously existed from the government and simply not 10-tupling it, leaving the M2 to continue growing, and we wound up with (slightly lower than desired) inflation.

And that is a net win, because deflation fucking sucks.

[Prak]

Because fucking up the world economy isn't illegal nor were almost all the steps leading up to it. You can only jail people for breaking laws.

Don't things like criminal recklessness/endangerment exist for that sort of "what you did isn't illegal, but it should be" situation?

[Josh_Kablack]

The problem is, you need to have some idea of the risk you're assuming. Part of the problem with the mortgage crisis is that people knew they were bad mortgages, but they were being rated as very secure, so lots of people were buying them, when they really should have been rated as junk bonds.

And with enough outcry and a large enough legal budget, some of the people at the ratings agencies could probably have been made to go to jail for fraud, or at least for criminal negligence. And the bankers who were most blatantly paying them off could have had to face down conspiracy and racketeering charges in court.

But that didn't happen.

[schpeelah]

Don't things like criminal recklessness/endangerment exist for that sort of "what you did isn't illegal, but it should be" situation?

In criminal law, recklessness (also called dolus eventualis or unchariness) is one of the four possible classes of mental state constituting mens rea (the Latin for "guilty mind"). To commit an offence of ordinary as opposed to strict liability, the prosecution must be able to prove both a mens rea and an actus reus; i.e., a person cannot be guilty of the offence for one's actions alone.

Reckless endangerment: A person commits the crime of reckless endangerment if the person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person.

So, not quite. Endangerment basically is what you're looking for, but applies to physical harm.

[MGuy]

I have to say this is all pretty bullshit. Even though I know there's been a bunch of deregulating I'm pretty fucking astonished that it's so difficult (or impossible) to even punish people when eventually fuck ups DO happen.

[Prak]

Don't things like criminal recklessness/endangerment exist for that sort of "what you did isn't illegal, but it should be" situation?

In criminal law, recklessness (also called dolus eventualis or unchariness) is one of the four possible classes of mental state constituting mens rea (the Latin for "guilty mind"). To commit an offence of ordinary as opposed to strict liability, the prosecution must be able to prove both a mens rea and an actus reus; i.e., a person cannot be guilty of the offence for one's actions alone.

Reckless endangerment: A person commits the crime of reckless endangerment if the person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person.

So, not quite. Endangerment basically is what you're looking for, but applies to physical harm.

So, question then for the legal professionals of the board- could a case be made to use endangerment for financial harm, even though it is typically used for physical?

[erik]

I don't know do you think a case could be made for financially murdering someone?

[Whipstitch]

I have to say this is all pretty bullshit. Even though I know there's been a bunch of deregulating I'm pretty fucking astonished that it's so difficult (or impossible) to even punish people when eventually fuck ups DO happen.

I don't know about "impossible" but I'm certainly not surprised by the idea that it is difficult. Chilling effects can be legitimately harmful and clear lines between malfeasance, malpractice and just plain old reasonable mistakes are desirable but hard to draw.

[Ancient History]

You foreclose on someone's house, you evict them, you garnish their wages and trash their credit rating - none of these is murder, even if the victim dies. It's just business.

[Chamomile]

So, Nevada. Were these people paid off by Trump or something? How does Clinton benefit from blatantly rigging a caucus when she's basically already got the nomination? Is she worried about an en masse superdelegate betrayal to the candidate losing the popular vote? Is she afraid Sanders will win the ~90% of remaining delegates he needs to pull ahead?

[erik]

So, Nevada. Were these people paid off by Trump or something? How does Clinton benefit from blatantly rigging a caucus when she's basically already got the nomination? Is she worried about an en masse superdelegate betrayal to the candidate losing the popular vote? Is she afraid Sanders will win the ~90% of remaining delegates he needs to pull ahead?

It's silly to suggest she had anything to do with it. It's a multiple tiers below her pay grade so to speak. What do people think she does with her entire day? Plot the shittiest low grade machinations in every single voting precinct? If she can successfully micromanage to that degree then she'd be the most capable presidential candidate ever imagined.

Mostly it sounds like establishment campaigns are better at following the establishment's rules than upstart outsider campaigns. This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.

[DSMatticus]

The Nevada caucus played out exactly like caucuses always do (i.e. an undemocratic battle whose chief weapons are misinformation, intimidation, and abusing control of procedure), except this time the Sanders' supporters lost and threw a fucking fit because despite doing the same thing to Clinton supporters in almost every other caucus state they are a bunch of authoritarian manchildren who don't fucking care (Sanders 2016!!1!). If the Sanders supporters had accepted being undemocratically outmaneuvered as Clinton supporters have been forced to time and time again (including in the same fucking state at the county-level caucuses when Sanders supporters undemocratically flipped Las Vegas), it wouldn't even be in the news. But they did throw a fit, because this class of Sanders' supporters are a bunch of hypocritical shitstains, and so this time we get media coverage of how terrible caucuses really are.

The real story of Nevada is that Hillary Clinton won the initial popular caucus vote, giving the state a projected 20-15 delegate split. Bernie Sanders supporters (without any coordination on the part of the formal Sanders' campaign) stole 2 delegates, making it 18-17. Clinton supporters (without any coordination on the part of the formal Clinton campaign) stole 2 delegates, making it 20-15 again. And this is isn't fair because "damnit we stole those delegates first! You can't just steal them back! It's not fair!" I want to punch everyone who whines about this in the balls. Every single person. I hate them all. They are scum. If you want to bitch about undemocratic, where the fuck were you in April when your team was the one doing it? Fuck you you fucking fair-weather friends of democracy.

EDIT: The fact is that this subset of Sanders supporters are going to keep finding excuses to throw fits. They have thrown a fit about every single thing up to this point. And caucuses naturally provide lots of ammunition for fit-throwing, because they are genuinely undemocratic steaming piles of shit. Until now, Sanders supporters have been winning the game of undemocracy and walking away from caucuses with more delegates than they deserved. But now that the shoe is on the other foot "OMG CAUCUSES ARE SUCH BULLSHIT I CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO DO THIS!" Fuck. Off.

[Username17]

No rules got changed and no votes were stolen. The first round of delegates are assigned in the original caucus and the second round at the state convention. In between there is a county convention that assigns convention voters and has a non binding presidential poll.

Sanders supporters pulled shenanigans involving emailing Clinton supporters the wrong convention dates and managed to steal the county convention, which allowed them to send more tickets to the state convention than they should have been entitled to based on their caucus vote share. If the people they gave tockets to had all shown up, they would have been able to steal two actual delegates from Hilary. They tried to do more than that, by attempting to push through new convention rules on the day of the convention, presumably with the goal of stealing more.

What actually happened was that despite or perhaps because of their earlier shenanigans a higher number of Hillary supporters actually used their tickets to show up to the convention. So when they tried to change the rules they were first told that you can't actually do that with a simple majority, and secondly that once they did the final head count they did not have a simple majority and couldn't steal any delegates at all.

And the end result is that the Sanders supporters failed in some really ugly attempts to strongarm votes and the state simply goes with the original result the people actually voted for in February. The Sanders campaign has zero legs to stand on complaining about Nevada. They tried to abuse the system and failed. That is the beginning and end of it. The Clintonists didn't steal anything. They simply showed up in sufficient numbers to certify the result the people of Nevada had already voted for.

-Username17 Trollman

[Chamomile]

No rules got changed

This video shows the chair of the Nevada convention passing a motion to change the rules. I guess maybe you're arguing that the rules were temporary and therefore no rules were permanently changed, but that's extremely misleading and we both know you're happy to lie for Jesus Hillary. A motion for a recount was ignored despite clear support from the convention. The convention was closed with a motion still on the floor. It's not just the procedure being anti-democratic to begin with. It's that the procedure was then ignored anyway.

Also: I didn't say that Clinton was directly involved or that Sanders (or his campaign) had never done anything like this. I asked how Clinton benefits, since whoever's job this actually is has been (you would think) acting with the intention of getting Hillary Clinton elected. But Clinton is already winning decisively, so the only person who could plausibly benefit is Trump, who might get slightly more popular in the general. So...What the Hell is the motivation, here? Even if Sanders is trying to steal some paltry amount of delegates, how is it to Clinton's benefit to steal them back when she doesn't need them anyway?

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Man, I fucking don't like Hillary but I pimp her shit to everyone now. I'd love to see Sanders win the primary by yanking a miracle of out of his wrinkled ass, but saying that Clinton is a horrible person for whatever primary shenanigans (if there were any at all) is dumb as fuck. We need Hilldawg to beat Trump, so I've been throwing the Sanders or Bust movement under the bus and I HAVE A FUCKING SANDERS SIGN IN MY FRONT YARD. I love Bernie and what he stands for, but I know Hillary has won and will do my best to convince the world Hillary is just swell.


Clinton should win by a landslide in every primary state, but I do hope us clear blue states throw some level of votes (assuming we're D registered) to the green party to show we won't bend over to the next centrist fuck our party gives us. If you're in a swing state please vote for Hillary, pretty fucking please.

[Username17]

Chamomile, the fact that a bunch of Sanders supporters and also you don't know what parliamentary procedure terms mean does not mean that there were shenanigans. It means that they and you are a fucking embarrassment. The rules of the meeting are temporary until they have been approved by the meeting. Every meeting has to approve its own temporary rules. Fucking Congress has to do that at the beginning of each new congressional term. The approval of the "Temporary Rules" doesn't mean that the rules were changed temporarily. It means the regular rules from previous meeting were rolled in.

If any rule was actually changed, the angry Sanders Redditers should be able to able to say what that rule actually was. None of them are able to do that because it doesn't exist. The rules for 2016 were the same in every way that mattered as the rules for 2012. All they have is some edited footage of people saying things that sound bad. But those things only sound bad if you've never watched CSPAN and don't know what words mean.

The only rules changes actually proposed were those ones from the stupid lawsuit brought by a small group of Sanders supporters. The lawsuit was thrown out of court and the rules changes were not adopted. The fucking end.

Cell phone footage taken from right next to some people shouting "Nay!" doesn't prove that the nays were louder than the ayes. But more importantly it doesn't matter if they were, because that is not how a voice vote works. This isn't Pee Wee's Playhouse, and screaming louder doesn't make your vote count more. There is a fucking headcount, so it's known that there are more people on one side of the room than the other. If there are no nays from the majority, and no abstentions, then the ayes have it. The fucking end.

The only real issue is that 58 Bernie supporters and 8 Hillary supporters showed up with delegate tickets to the Nevada Democratic Convention despite not being registered to vote as Democrats in Nevada. That does not strike me as an unreasonable demand for the Nevada Democratic party to make. And while seating the illegal delegates would have flipped it to Bernie, we wouldn't even be that close if team Sanders hadn't used dirty tricks to steal a couple hundred delegate tickets in the county convention. And it wouldn't have been close enough to matter if the extra couple hundred people they stole tickets for had shown up.

There is nothing to see here. A group of Sanders supporters tried to rules lawyer themselves a few pledged delegates that the actual election did not entitle them to. That did not work, and some of the convention attendees threw chaors and vandalized offices. Bernie Sanders should fucking apologize and tell his peeps to stop being such a bunch of dumb assholes before they pull this kind of shit in Philly and cause actual damage to the anti-Trump movement.

-Username17

[name_here]

No rules got changed

This video shows the chair of the Nevada convention passing a motion to change the rules. I guess maybe you're arguing that the rules were temporary and therefore no rules were permanently changed, but that's extremely misleading and we both know you're happy to lie for Jesus Hillary. A motion for a recount was ignored despite clear support from the convention. The convention was closed with a motion still on the floor. It's not just the procedure being anti-democratic to begin with. It's that the procedure was then ignored anyway.

Also: I didn't say that Clinton was directly involved or that Sanders (or his campaign) had never done anything like this. I asked how Clinton benefits, since whoever's job this actually is has been (you would think) acting with the intention of getting Hillary Clinton elected. But Clinton is already winning decisively, so the only person who could plausibly benefit is Trump, who might get slightly more popular in the general. So...What the Hell is the motivation, here? Even if Sanders is trying to steal some paltry amount of delegates, how is it to Clinton's benefit to steal them back when she doesn't need them anyway?

Okay, so what that video actually shows is a motion to approve the rules that had been set up in advance by the state party board passing because that's how conventions work. Team Sanders disputes the count, but since there were more eligible Hillary delegates they probably lost the vote. The motion for a recount apparently was for a report from the credentials committee, which has people from both teams in an even split and unanimously approved the count. The final motion, which was refused prior to adjourning because this was three hours past the scheduled end and the casino wanted them to leave, was, I shit you not, to count the votes of ineligible delegates because there were enough Sanders delegates who weren't registered democrats by the May 1 deadline or who hadn't submitted complete and correct personal information even after contacted and asked to correct it to swing the total.

In short, Frank pretty much has it. Sanders lost the first round of votes, managed to vote in more delegates in the second round of votes, but then fucked up assorted logistics and more Hillary delegates properly completed mandatory paperwork and actually showed up.

[DSMatticus]

No rules got changed

This video shows the chair of the Nevada convention passing a motion to change the rules. I guess maybe you're arguing that the rules were temporary and therefore no rules were permanently changed, but that's extremely misleading and we both know you're happy to lie for Jesus Hillary. A motion for a recount was ignored despite clear support from the convention. The convention was closed with a motion still on the floor. It's not just the procedure being anti-democratic to begin with. It's that the procedure was then ignored anyway.

Also: I didn't say that Clinton was directly involved or that Sanders (or his campaign) had never done anything like this. I asked how Clinton benefits, since whoever's job this actually is has been (you would think) acting with the intention of getting Hillary Clinton elected. But Clinton is already winning decisively, so the only person who could plausibly benefit is Trump, who might get slightly more popular in the general. So...What the Hell is the motivation, here? Even if Sanders is trying to steal some paltry amount of delegates, how is it to Clinton's benefit to steal them back when she doesn't need them anyway?

It is important to remember that corruption does not imply conspiracy. There isn't an annual cabal meeting for used car dealerships in which they discuss how to be bigger assholes. The system is built to incentivize assholeship, so they're all independently a bunch of assholes. If you think the Hillary Clinton campaign had anything to do with flipping two delegates you're a fucking idiot. If you think the Hillary Clinton campaign has perfect control of her supporters at every level of organization, you're a fucking idiot. That's just not how this shit works. But mostly, the shit you're bitching about is ultimately meaningless (and you're wrong). Hillary supporters had the majority and had control of the floor, and they were going to walk away the night's winners and the fact that Bernie supporters booed very loudly in this one youtube clip you found is not an indication of... anything. Just shut up. We don't let the people who can boo the loudest run the show. There's fucking votes, and there were more Clinton supporters than Sanders supporters, so they won the fucking votes. End of story.

The only interesting thing that happened at the Nevada state convention is that they chose to disqualify a bunch of participants who were not members of the Democratic party. That seems sensible at first glance - the people who attend these conventions are in a way acting as (temporary) officials of the party, and it makes no fucking sense to have officials within the Democratic primary not actually be Democrats. But it seems bullshit at second glance, because even if they are not Democrats they were chosen by Democratic voters to represent them, so fuck you respect the voters. And it seems corrupt at third glance, because it turns out that this disqualification hit more Sanders supporters than Clinton supporters. And the end result is that Clinton "won back" the two delegates she had stolen from her in April when she won Clark County's popular vote and then lost the county convention because delegate turnout was something like one-third. And the net result of Sanders supporters choosing to send not-Democrats to the Nevada state Democratic caucus is that they lost the two delegates they stole in the Clark County Democratic caucus. Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

And I guaran-fucking-tee you that shit like this has happened to Clinton supporters across the country because that is how caucuses work. It really is. They're shitty and corrupt and 90% backstabbing and 10% democracy. But we don't hear about that from the media, because it's not exciting to talk about how a candidate who's ahead by 300 delegates lost two to corrupt bullshit, but the Berniesphere shrieks like a pack of fucking banshees everytime their candidate loses even if he should have. I have exactly as much respect for the people booing in those clips as I do Republicans whining about voter fraud. They're both groups of undemocratic authoritarian shitstains and they can suck my dick. The lack of self-awareness it takes to walk into a caucus as a Sanders supporter and throw a fit because you lost two delegates that you stole earlier in the same state's caucus process is fucking disgusting.

[Username17]

OK, I was wrong about a thing. The 58 Bernie supporters who got tickets to be delegates and were declared ineligible includes people who didn't show up at all. So that includes people who never sent in their delegate packs or moved out of state.

64 Sanders supporters had their credentials questioned, and six of them appealed successfully. The number of those people who actually showed up was only 8. I can't tell whether that is 8 of the 64 or 8 of the 58, but I also don't care because whether it's 2 or 8 Sanders delegates being unseated for having quit the party after February, it's not enough to have made any difference.

I officially no longer give any fucks about the argument that non party Sanders supporters should have been seated.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

I think to me the big take home from this particular bit, and indeed most of the narrative for a while now has been hypocrasy.

When you were accusing Sanders supporters of this sort of stuff its was "how dare they!" but when it's clinton supporters its "what? no biggie, boo fucking hoo!"

And really that's been the narrative all along. The democratic primaries are messy, imperfect and sometimes a bit unfair. And every time the Sanders camp interacts with that Clinton supporters are screaming bloody murder and every time the Clinton camp does Clinton supporters are "Meh whatever, our guys are allowed to do that.".

And sure, there are Bernie supporters that do the same in reverse, but as an external observer... the Clinton supporters do it worse.

[Kaelik]

Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

I think to me the big take home from this particular bit, and indeed most of the narrative for a while now has been hypocrasy.

When you were accusing Sanders supporters of this sort of stuff its was "how dare they!" but when it's clinton supporters its "what? no biggie, boo fucking hoo!"

And really that's been the narrative all along. The democratic primaries are messy, imperfect and sometimes a bit unfair. And every time the Sanders camp interacts with that Clinton supporters are screaming bloody murder and every time the Clinton camp does Clinton supporters are "Meh whatever, our guys are allowed to do that.".

And sure, there are Bernie supporters that do the same in reverse, but as an external observer... the Clinton supporters do it worse.

When last I was on this forum, several days ago, as I recall, DSM was specifically calling Frank out for doing his crazy lies for Clinton thing where he claims that all of Sanders support from all the primaries was crazy republicans bombing.

While I certainly agree that Clinton supporters definitely are worse when it comes to lying about Sanders supporters all being monsters for no reason, it remains mostly true that some vocal minority of Sanders supporters will say something that is super mega incredibly dumb every time any issue at all comes up.

And without weighing in, there is still room I think, for DSM to have just been complaining about those assholes, and not specifically being a deluded crazy.

[Username17]

Dude. No.

First of all, you remember thw giant shit storm when team Sanders rigged the convention tickets in Nevada and gave themselves a couple hundred tickets even though they lost the actual caucus? Remember how Clinton supporters responded to that actual injustice by throwing chairs, vandalizing offices, and issuing death threats against rivals? No, you don't remember that, because that didn't happen!

Team Clinton is simply better behaved. Factually. In real life and on the internet. The tantrums thrown when team sanders pulls shenanigans are much smaller. Clinton supporters have simply done a lot less harassment of rivals. You can believe otherwise, but you are fucking wrong.

-Username17

[Grek]

I don't know who to trust here because everyone on both sides have lied out their asses on the forum in the past about what their candidate did or did not do. It seems like the Nevada convention was not rigged, but given that there are no unbiased sources on what happened, there's really no way for me to tell. So back for dismayed indifference wrt who wins the primary for me!

[Chamomile]

-words-

Okay, I need you and everyone else to take a look at the post you are failing to quote and start responding to that instead of your least favorite Sanders supporter on Facebook. Because here is the actual question I am asking:

So...What the Hell is the motivation, here?

Like, okay, sure, all caucuses are rife with deception and backstabbing and it isn't really news that the Nevada caucus was also that. I know that and also don't actually care, because the Nevada caucus is a tiny fraction of an already decided race. And I also do not care that Hillary Clinton probably did not personally get involved. I certainly don't care to go down the ponderously large list of comments that are clearly directed at pro-Sanders positions I never supported and point out that I never supported them.

My skin only skin in this game is that I would really rather that Trump not get elected, so what I care about is that someone decided to play hardball for Nevada, and that whoever it is presumably wants Hillary Clinton to get elected, and I do not see how this helps Hillary Clinton get elected. Did someone really think those two delegates would be the pivot on which the primary would turn?

[name_here]

No, you are a fucking idiot. Hillary won the Nevada convention because she had more eligible delegates at the convention. Sanders supporters got pissed off and rioted because they had more delegates total but like 1% of them were ineligible because they didn't file their paperwork on time and like half of them just didn't show up.