Election 2016

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 1:50 am

The stupid thing is "the emails" fervor resulted in the leak of a bunch of emails to the public (considering the timing probably from the FBI rather than "the Russians" but whatever) that were actually of some minor public interest and did provide some documents confirming a few things Hillary, democrats, and even the bipartisan Washington consensus like to deny but are widely known and largely already well documented facts.

The emails however provided nothing surprising, new, criminal, election changing, or anything like the anti-Clinton conspiracy theorists kept hoping they would.

Berkserker · Post by **Berkserker** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 2:39 am

Even so, it's your ass if there's a classified information spillage and you don't follow correct procedure in the aftermath. Not your fault? Sure, okay. There's still a procedure that's involved and I will wager that it was not followed. Moreover we don't actually know about all the emails. If I recall correctly, an employee admitted to deleting 33,000 emails after receiving an immunity deal.

Trying to cover up spillage gets you hit with Obstruction at the least, unless you're Hillary Clinton.

So. We know there were some Schrodinger's Classified emails in the ones handed over to the FBI, and we can bet spillage procedures weren't followed. We don't know how many were in the deleted emails. We don't know if the contractor who deleted them had a security clearance, which opens up another avenue of potential spillage.

There's a lot that we just don't know and probably never will, however none of it points to proper handling of classified information.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 2:46 am

Berkserker wrote:Even so, it's your ass if there's a classified information spillage and you don't follow correct procedure in the aftermath. Not your fault? Sure, okay. There's still a procedure that's involved and I will wager that it was not followed. Moreover we don't actually know about all the emails. If I recall correctly, an employee admitted to deleting 33,000 emails after receiving an immunity deal.

Trying to cover up spillage gets you hit with Obstruction at the least, unless you're Hillary Clinton.

So. We know there were some Schrodinger's Classified emails in the ones handed over to the FBI, and we can bet spillage procedures weren't followed. We don't know how many were in the deleted emails. We don't know if the contractor who deleted them had a security clearance, which opens up another avenue of potential spillage.

There's a lot that we just don't know and probably never will, however none of it points to proper handling of classified information.

Again you are (still) completely wrong about everything.

1) The deleted emails were an archived set of personal emails that were already scheduled for deletion well prior, because that's what you do with personal emails.

2) The emails were never marked as classified, some of them had classified information in them, but since no one could possibly ever know everything that is classified at any time, and we have no idea what she did or didn't do regarding notifying people and following procedures (hint no part of the procedures involves notifying the Director of the FBI) we have no idea how many times Clinton should have or did even know there was classified information sent to her.

So we are right back to you making up baseless accusation based on how you totally know she's evil and bad again.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 3:36 am

Kaelik wrote:You are (still) an idiot. Aside from the fact that Trump has numerous ties to Russia is not at all about him being a terrible person, and entirely about national security, I'm really not underselling the emails thing at all.

Let's not forget that Hillary's ties to Russia also came up in the campaign. So really this has all been a masterful game of chess where both dice outcomes are "Putin's Agent" no matter how hard you spin the roulette wheel.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09 ... ation.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/hillarys- ... le/2004790
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-rele ... e-scrutiny

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 3:41 am

Berkserker wrote:Even so, it's your ass if there's a classified information spillage and you don't follow correct procedure in the aftermath. Not your fault? Sure, okay. There's still a procedure that's involved and I will wager that it was not followed. Moreover we don't actually know about all the emails. If I recall correctly, an employee admitted to deleting 33,000 emails after receiving an immunity deal.

Trying to cover up spillage gets you hit with Obstruction at the least, unless you're Hillary Clinton.

So. We know there were some Schrodinger's Classified emails in the ones handed over to the FBI, and we can bet spillage procedures weren't followed. We don't know how many were in the deleted emails. We don't know if the contractor who deleted them had a security clearance, which opens up another avenue of potential spillage.

There's a lot that we just don't know and probably never will, however none of it points to proper handling of classified information.

This is a sign of you having made up your mind to not like Clinton, regardless of proof (or not proof) to the contrary. Goalposts have been shifted.

I mean, your first argument was that Clinton totally sent or received classified emails on a private server. THEN you say "ok yeah, maybe that didn't happen, but she totally did this other less bad stuff!". But you AGAIN admit there's no actual proof for it. There's so much you don't know, but what you don't know, boy that stuff MUST be bad, right?

I mean, at least be honest about it. You're going to dislike Clinton no matter what reality says. You're going to agree with evidence that agrees with your worldview and you're going to disagree with evidence that disagrees with your worldview.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 3:50 am

My understanding is that a Nigerian banker attempted to enlist Clinton in a bizarre money laundering scheme predicated on the fact that Nigerian law requires that money belonging to people who died intestate be given to foreigners.

And also that Clinton is aware of a secret way to make thousands of dollars at home.

And Hillary might have some non-FDA approved penis-growing drugs that are guarenteed to give you six inches in six moths or your money back.

And Hillary might know one weird trick to make any woman sleep with you.

However, some people I know are fairly sure that the deleted emails contained communications between Hillary and the terrorists who attacked Benganzi, proving that she sold out the diplomats in exhange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.

The emails really did hurt her, mostly because most people don't have time to look at the issue in depth.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 4:47 am

Kaelik, you know this better than I and I would appreciate if you were willing to go line-by-line through questions Gowdy asked Comey. If it helps, I'm willing to act like OS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z8pnk2rvYo

I know Western Journalism is thinly-veiled conservative echo chamber news, but it's video of Comey. He says 2 things that stood out:

Clinton had emails marked classified
There were "thousands" of work-related emails

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 4:50 am

I mean, hyzmarca, we don't know any of this! However, NONE of it points to anything good for Clinton, right?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 5:26 am

So, during his press release Comey claimed he'd found three emails marked as classified. During his congressional testimony (which occurred under oath), he was forced to walk that claim way the fuck back. Ordinarily, a classifed email looks something like this:

Subject: (TS) So, how's the weather?

TOP SECRET

Classified by: A person.
Derived from: blah blah blah.
Declassify on: Blah blah blah.

(U) The U you see at the front of this paragraph indicates that this specific paragraph contains no classified information.

(C) The C you see at the front of this paragraph indicates that this specific paragraph contains classified information at the confidential level.

(S) The S you see at the front of this paragraph indicates that this specific paragraph contains classified information at the secret level.

(TS) The TS you see at the front of this paragarph indicates that this specific paragraph contains classified information at the top secret level.

TOP SECRET

So the summary is you need these things:

1) In the subject line, you should have a marker indicating the highest level of classified information contained in that email.

2) The email should open telling the reader the highest level of classified information contained in the email, as well as a blurb of info that can help you follow the bureaucratic papertrail to figure out where the classification designation originates from.

3) Each individual paragraph inside the email should tell you how sensitive the information in that specific paragraph is. So if you have a paragraph that contains no classified information, slap a U in front of it; if you have a paragraph that contains secret information, slap an S in front of it; etcetera, etcetera.

4) You should end by telling the reader yet again the highest level of classified information contained in the document.

Comey found three emails that looked like this:

Subject: So, how's the weather?

This is a paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

(C) This is a paragraph.

This is a paragraph.

You'll note that that email is not marked even remotely correctly. All of the important parts are missing and there's just a random ass C in front of one of the paragraphs. Now, when all this shit was going down the State Department came forward to say, "we have two of the three emails Comey is talking about in our system, and we know they were declassified at the time they were sent, because we are the owners of that information and were responsible for both classifying and declassifying it. The reason they have the hanging (C) is because the emails were written in advance and then declassified at the time of sending, and someone missed one of the paragraph headers when declassifying them."

Anyway, moving on, does everyone remember that mini-scandal about an FBI agent offering to declare that an email did not contain classified information in exchange for some favors? The existence of that scandal immediately made me doubt all of the FBI's findings. See, the FBI made it sound like their process was to turn over emails that might contain classified information to the relevant agencies and let those agencies make the final determination - the FBI's judgment about what was and wasn't classified did not factor in. The fact that there was an FBI agent in a position to make that offer means that was all bullshit and FBI agents were making calls about what information was and was not classified all along - the same FBI agents who would later go to the press to leak either misleading or outright false anti-Clinton propaganda to the media.

Basically every single one of the things I learned about the FBI investigation made me doubt it a little more, and by the end I could no longer credibly accept even its basic findings. They pretended there was a level of separation between their personal judgment and the findings of the investigation, and then over the coming months we a bunch of evidence that 1) no such separation ever existed, and 2) their personal judgment was "RAH! RAH! TRUMP!"

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 5:46 am

Berkserker wrote:A woman president isn't exciting because I, and at least some nonzero percentage of Republicans I'm sure, don't care what gender, race, religion, etc. the president is. I definitely don't want a president who'll almost certainly be dogged by scandal for the entire length of her time in office. That sort of presidency is only exciting for tabloid writers. The office of the presidency, meanwhile, is not and should not be just a vehicle of social change, some sort of combo spectacle/checklist that lets us be proud of ourselves because we voted in a woman, or a mixed-race candidate.

Do you really think the dems are ever going to have a president that ISN'T under a constant barrage of scandals? Not because the dems are anymore prone to it, but because the right wing propaganda machine is so prolific and effective. Ask any Trump supporter which of Hillary's policies they disagreed with and 90/100 times it's "She's the most corrupt criminal ever! Emails! Vince Foster! Benghazi" (in other words, no actual policy). Everything anyone had against Clinton was almost complete and utter hearsay that people took as gospel truth. Anything that came out against Trump was just "mainstream media lies", even with actual video evidence.

It could be that the left will spend the next four years hammering the Trump administration at every opportunity, but unless they manage to recruit a supremely talented character assassin I doubt anything will stick.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 6:41 am

...You Lost Me wrote:Kaelik, you know this better than I and I would appreciate if you were willing to go line-by-line through questions Gowdy asked Comey. If it helps, I'm willing to act like OS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z8pnk2rvYo

I know Western Journalism is thinly-veiled conservative echo chamber news, but it's video of Comey. He says 2 things that stood out:

Clinton had emails marked classified

There were "thousands" of work-related emails

1) As DSM laid out, and I did previously, those emails were not in fact, marked as classified (or at least not the ones the state department had) so in fact, the FBI was almost certainly totally wrong about that.

2) Clinton had her aides send work related emails to the State Department for Freedom of Information Requests. Later, Clinton hired some lawyers to run the emails and then send the work related emails on to the FBI, the FBI says that some of the work related emails that were not sent on to the state department for the FOI requests, almost like high powered law firms preparing for and FBI request have a better more thorough process for finding work related emails than Clinton's aides preparing for an FOI request. That doesn't mean she lied when she said she sent work related emails to the state department, if she did in fact ever say that, it just means that people paid twice as much who have specialized tools (for sorting discovery) focusing on a more important task are better at it.

3) There is apparently one conversation, total, across 7 email chains, initiated by other parties with her aides, that after her aides and some other party eventually talked it over, emailing it around, it was forwarded to her with some message, and she sent an email on said chains with her comments. That is, apparently, according to Comey, the only time she emailed classified information. (So probably 7-14 emails total, all about the same subject.) If you see a long conversation about a subject between your aides and someone else, it's pretty reasonable to believe that it isn't classified, especially if it about some dumb shitty subject that wasn't classified by the state department, and was classified by another department, and should never have been classified (a common thing that happens).

4) I honestly don't know or give a shit about how many devices she used or what they were. The point of that line of questions is to make it appear as if she was lying when she said that she decided to use her public server instead of the state.gov account for convenience, since the state.gov accounts require you to carry a second phone for just that stuff. Spoiler alert, as anyone with a special government second phone will tell you, it's a fucking hassle for no actual gain, which is why the government discontinued that mandatory separate phone shit since anyway. If she also used a laptop, or she bought a new blackberry at some point during her time as Secretary of State . . . who cares? Not me, and not anyone not trying for partisan hackery, she still obviously used the accounts for convenience.

5) No comment on whether the lawyers read the emails or not, does this even matter? If she actually said that, which I'm not sure she did, who cares, she wasn't allowed to control or interfere with the lawyers system of sorting in the first place, so if she was wrong about it who even cares?

6) Intent, from what I said above, you can see that the actual mishandled content is super fucking minor, it's literally one topic ever in 6 years. Wholly shit, that's kind of amazingly low. But this whole like "system designed before she was secretary of state, refused state.gov email" shit is nonsense, either you admit that she did the thing that was more convenient (use the email system she had been using since before gmail existed) so she didn't have to carry an extra phone, or you are a delusional partisan hack trying to make an insinuation that she wanted to carry out her secret plans to kill Americans with her terrorist friends using her personal email account, but if she had a state.gov account, she wouldn't have been able to use her still totally existing personal account to make those same arrangements.

7) There is no real double standard here, because, as you saw, someone who had 30k work related emails sifted to find one subject that was briefly mentioned in a context that would make it very believable that it was not classified probably isn't going to go to jail no matter who they are. And also no one makes up blatant lies about how emails that weren't marked as classified were totally marked as classified to sabotage privates in the army who email themselves information (a thing which probably happens literally every day, since duty schedules are probably classified, and someone wants to read them from home).

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 7:34 am

So Drumpf is giving his three eldest children control of his company in a "blind trust" AND making them advisers on the transition committee. Is there any potential consequence that can be levied for this behavior, and is there even a chance he would actually suffer such?

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 8:38 am

DSMatticus wrote: Basically every single one of the things I learned about the FBI investigation made me doubt it a little more, and by the end I could no longer credibly accept even its basic findings. They pretended there was a level of separation between their personal judgment and the findings of the investigation, and then over the coming months we a bunch of evidence that 1) no such separation ever existed, and 2) their personal judgment was "RAH! RAH! TRUMP!"

In case you already forgot it, 15 years ago the FBI was swearing that there totally were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the only solution was military invasion.

The FBI says whatever republicans tell them to say, news at 11.

Longes wrote: Let's not forget that Hillary's ties to Russia also came up in the campaign. So really this has all been a masterful game of chess where both dice outcomes are "Putin's Agent" no matter how hard you spin the roulette wheel.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09 ... ation.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/hillarys- ... le/2004790
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-rele ... e-scrutiny

Putin didn't leave anything to chance, the chess master was several steps ahead already in predicting the final result.

Clinton clearly failed to please Russia enough.

EDIT: Found something else interesting.
Muslim woman immigrant voted for Trump and proud of it.

TL/DR-She was sick of Clinton supporting the increase of islamic terrorists filled with hate glorious democratic rebels.

angelfromanotherpin · Sat Nov 12, 2016 11:29 am

virgil wrote:So Drumpf is giving his three eldest children control of his company in a "blind trust" AND making them advisers on the transition committee. Is there any potential consequence that can be levied for this behavior, and is there even a chance he would actually suffer such?

Potential, sure. Blatant conflict-of-interest behavior like that could be used as the basis for impeachment under 'conduct unbecoming' or whatever.

Even a chance? I could maybe see it happening if he made the congressional Reps mad enough. A lot is going to depend on the relationship that gets established there. Is Trump like Dubya, a clownish rubber stamp for his congress? Or is he able to bully them around with the threat of his mob? Maybe some sort of combination?

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 6:29 pm

Just going to put this out here - if the FBI was passing information about the investigation to Giuliani then he was both receiving and passing actual classified information.

Or remember that time a Republican revealed the identity of an American spy. I'm sure they must have been 'locked up'. Right?

Double standard?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 7:13 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:Or remember that time a Republican revealed the identity of an American spy. I'm sure they must have been 'locked up'. Right?

It's a little more technical than that. Libby was investigated for the Plame leaks, but he obstructed justice, perjured himself, and lied to the investigators. He was never actually convicted for leaking the information, but he was convicted for that, and given a jail term that he never served because Bush immediately commuted his jail term to nothing, leaving him with a fine and 2 year probation.

So I mean, yeah when a guy actually did intentionally commit a crime, he sort of got away with the crime because he obstructed justice to avoid it and got caught for that.

But yes compare the Fox News coverage or even the Times coverage of Libby, an actual convicted criminal, to Clinton, a person actually not guilty of any crime who at the absolute worst negligently revealed confidential information about one topic ever, and you can see a double standard.

And yes, Guiliania went on Fox news to brag about how he access to classified information, and is probably going to get a cabinet position as a reward for his actual intentional commission of multiple different crimes. But see, he's a republican, so it's okay, because unlike Clintons, republicans are actually above the law.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 3:55 am

The working class hard at working revolting against their corporate overlords by voting for trump. Or you know, not that.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 4:01 am

I would be curious to see that chart with race and/or ethnicity.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 5:18 am

Is that individual or household income? Makes a difference.

If it is household, a lot of people in the 50-100K range really do qualify as working class. That's 2 $15-23 an hour incomes added together (and that's assuming no second jobs or overtime), which certainly qualifies as working class.

Notably the 50-100K range is the largest block and the one with Trump's biggest margin. It's not an overwhelming advantage by any means, but if its much more exaggerated when you reduce to only White people as it almost certainly is, it is a significant one. That's a lot of economically insecure people (and if you're a household of more than one in the US making less than 100K you really aren't economically secure) voting for Trump. Possibly enough to represent his decisive margins in the Rustbelt.

Maybe it would be better to say that Trump won the 'upper working class.'

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 5:32 am

Here's the source; there're lots of charts: http://edition.cnn.com/election/results ... /president

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 6:38 am

Well, Trump voters think the economy is bad and getting worse and their kids will be worse off than them because there's too much government and the main thing they want is a big change right now.

Or, really, people who voted for Trump because they are Republicans will happily parrot all his talking points at exit polls. And they're Republicans because they're either comfortably self-sufficient and fuck the rest of you or are from anti-abortion Christian groups who also vote republican (and have high turnouts).

Mostly, people are very polarised around the whole Red/Blue thing and clearly don't really think about it all very much, just go with the lies.

But also, the email thing was bad for a bunch of people who voted Clinton anyway, so yes, it was probably the FBI guy who won the election for Trump, by getting Democrats to not put up with the hassle of voting. That's basically the one piece where (a large number of) Democrats agreed with a republican position. That was some superb propaganda. "The Democrat used emails." Only thing that stuck.

sendaz · Post by **sendaz** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:08 am

Kaelik wrote:The working class hard at working revolting against their corporate overlords by voting for trump. Or you know, not that.

But hasn't one of the big problems going into this election was so many polls were skewed because people don't tend to answer for various reasons.

Can't imagine it necessarily changed after the election, in fact many probably are avoiding answering this despite any promise of anonymity because it has been so divisive.

So the question is does that 24K who actually answered really represent the overall populace?

I would had said yes a few years ago as a knee jerk reaction, but now you have to really question who is filling in the questionnaires.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:16 am

sendaz wrote:
Kaelik wrote:The working class hard at working revolting against their corporate overlords by voting for trump. Or you know, not that.
But hasn't one of the big problems going into this election was so many polls were skewed because people don't tend to answer for various reasons.

Can't imagine it necessarily changed after the election, in fact many probably are avoiding answering this despite any promise of anonymity because it has been so divisive.

So the question is does that 24K who actually answered really represent the overall populace?

I would had said yes a few years ago as a knee jerk reaction, but now you have to really question who is filling in the questionnaires.

They are exit polls. The problem with the polls is that they can't accurately measure voter turnout, because you don't know if the person is really going to show up, it's not that polls badly sample people.

Although, specifically with income, there's a problem were people always claim to be making more than they are in the low income ranges in surveys or something.

But exit polls bypass the voter turnout problems by being accurate on who actually voted.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:42 am

sendaz wrote:But hasn't one of the big problems going into this election was so many polls were skewed because people don't tend to answer for various reasons.

What like the polls that all said that Sanders polled stronger than Clinton against all republican candidates including Trump by large margins? The ones we were told to ignore because of stupid complex rationalizations by people who proved themselves wrong in claiming Clinton was electable?

How about the polls that suggested Clinton was virtually the ONLY democratic candidate that could lose this election? Because people ignored those ones too?

How about the polls that told us that Clinton was the second most hated candidate in US history? Those "skewed" polls.

Look the fact is the fucking warning signs were there. The polls always polled at best close, and when anyone OTHER than Clinton was polled as a potential democratic candidate significantly better than that. We knew there was a potential for error, we knew from continued and recent experience how polling rarely catches the protest vote of a rebellious public by basically the margin it failed to catch, the result was a very predictable risk to anyone not living in the Clinton bubble. The warning signs were there "we" ignored them for no other reason than that the Clinton camp told us people might call Sanders a fucking socialist and that public hatred of Clinton was "baked in" and wouldn't turn around to bite them on the ass by surprise. Then she lost. Like the polls suggested she might. THE END.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 9:34 am

So, there's this concept called predictive power. It has its own wikipedia page, which kind of surprises me but probably shouldn't. It's the incredibly simple notion that models built off of knowns can make predictions about unknowns, and that once those unknowns later become knowns you can assess the accuracy of the model regarding its predictions about those unknowns - i.e. the predictive power of the model. Models with no predictive power are mathematically useless, by definition - they are no better at predicting the state of an unknown than random chance.

And it turns out that people have done the "poll the general election a year in advance" thing before. A lot. And it has almost zero predictive power, which is to say it's mathematically useless. You can ask people the questions, and you will get answers, and the answers you will get will be exactly as valuable as if you attempted to determine the results of the election by coin flip. If you are going to cite Sanders beating Clinton in general election polling during the primaries, you are genuinely giving people carte blanche to cite coin flips and bird entrails - they have basically equal predictive values. Even if you really, really, really, really like what the coin has to say, it's not making useful predictions. It's a fucking coin. It's non-evidence. And so is general election polling taken during the fucking primaries. Even if you really, really, really really like what those polls have to say, they're not making useful predictions. They have been tested mathematically and they do not correspond to election outcomes. It's non-evidence.

Now, it turns out that Clinton basically nailed the fundamentals of the election cycle. Hillary Clinton's internal polling largely matched the public polling, which is that she got big boosts off the Democratic Party Convention and her debate performances, and inbetween those big highlights things regressed towards a mean where she was ahead by 3-4 points. It wasn't until the FBI interfered that her polling collapsed, with big drops following the announcement that the investigation had reopened and again following the announcement that it had cleared her. It turns out just having the emails in the news was really, really bad, which is... not surprising.

There's a hypothetical world in which the FBI doesn't throw the election to Trump and Clinton wins in that world. There's a hypothetical world in which Sanders is the Democratic nominee and the FBI invents a bunch of bullshit out of nowhere to drag him through the mud and Trump wins in that world. There's a hypothetical world in which Sanders is the Democratic nominee and Sanders flubs the debates and never builds up the lead that Clinton did and Trump wins in that world. And sure, there's a hypothetical world in which Sanders is the Democratic nominee, nails the debates in order to emulate Clinton's lead, the FBI either doesn't intervene or nothing sticks, and Sanders wins in that world. And general election polling taken all the way back during the fucking primaries is mathematically - that is, as a matter of fact which is not up for debate - useless at predicting which of those hypothetical worlds would have come to pass.

tl;dr reading PL's posts is a waste of time, and just incase you didn't already know that here's more evidence.