2016 US ELECTION: Official Results Thread

[Dominus Atheos]

[Crossroads Inc.]

YIPPIE SKIPPIE ITS THE EVIL!!!
(so hoping someone gets the reference)

[Elheru Aran]

YIPPIE SKIPPIE ITS THE EVIL!!!
(so hoping someone gets the reference)

Man, nobody reads Sluggy anymore...

[Wild Zontargs]

Remember the African-American church in Mississippi that was burned, with "Vote Trump" painted on it, a week before the election? Yeah. An African-American member of the church did it.

Mississippi church member charged in 'Vote Trump' arson

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man arrested in the burning of an African-American church that was spray-painted with the words "Vote Trump" is a member of the congregation, the church's bishop said.

Andrew McClinton, 45, of Leland, Mississippi, was charged Wednesday with first degree arson of a place of worship, said Warren Strain, spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. McClinton is African-American.

McClinton was arrested in Greenville, where Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church was burned and vandalized Nov. 1, a week before the presidential election.

Hopewell Bishop Clarence Green said McClinton is a member of the church. Green said he didn't know about the arrest until he was called by The Associated Press.

"This is the first I have heard of it," said Green, who said he was attending to other church duties and didn't have time for a longer interview.

It was not immediately clear whether McClinton is represented by an attorney.

An investigation continues, but a state official said politics did not appear to be the reason for the fire.

"We do not believe it was politically motivated. There may have been some efforts to make it appear politically motivated," Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, who is also the state fire marshal, told AP.

Greenville is a Mississippi River port city of about 32,100 people, and about 78 percent of its residents are African-American. While it's not unusual for people of different racial backgrounds to work and eat lunch together, local residents say the congregations at most churches remain clearly identifiable by race.

Hopewell was founded in 1905 in the heart of an African-American neighborhood, and the congregation now has about 200 members. While some walls of the beige brick church survived the fire, the empty windows are boarded up and church leaders have said the structure will likely be razed. Rebuilding could take months.

After the fire, Hopewell congregants began worshipping in a chapel at predominantly white First Baptist Church of Greenville. The Hopewell bishop, Clarence Green, said last month the generosity of First Baptist demonstrates that "unlimited love" transcends social barriers. James Nichols, senior pastor at First Baptist, said the Hopewell members are welcome to stay as long as they need a home.

Greenville is in Washington County, a traditional Democratic stronghold in a solidly Republican state. In the Nov. 8 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump easily carried Mississippi, but Democrat Hillary Clinton received more than twice the vote of Trump in Washington County — 11,380 for Clinton to 5,244 for Trump.

[emphasis mine]

Arrest made in black Mississippi church burning

State law enforcement officials say a member of the Greenville church that was burned and vandalized with "Vote Trump" in spray paint is in custody for the Nov. 1 crime.

Greenville police on Wednesday arrested Andrew McClinton, 45, of Leland for setting Hopewell Baptist Church on fire and scrawling "Vote Trump" on the side in spray paint, according to Warren Strain with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. McClinton is charged with one count of first degree arson of a place of worship.



Strain said the investigation is ongoing and declined to comment further. A motive has not been released.

Hopewell Bishop Clarence Green could not immediately be reached for comment. However, Green told The Associated Press that McClinton is a member of the congregation.

McClinton, who authorities say lives approximately six miles from the church, is currently in the custody of the Washington County Detention Center awaiting an initial appearance in Greenville Municipal Court.

The fire quickly made national news as rumors and accusations swirled about it being a hate crime because Hopewell is a predominately black church. Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons, who last month called the fire a hate crime, previously vowed, "We will not rest until the culprit, be they male, female, black, white, Republican, or Democrat; is found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

He could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.

A GoFundMe page set up to raise funds for the church secured more than $200,000 in two days. The page has since been taken down.

The church was a total loss, according to Greenville Fire Chief Ruben Brown Sr.

Two weeks after the fire, Brown said samples taken from the fire tested negative for accelerant but investigators still believe the fire was arson.

"We don’t know if it was direct flame contact, contact with clothes or paper, but this here is an ongoing investigation and still remains to be an arson investigation,” Brown previously said.

Brown could not immediately be reached for comment.

Police Chief Delando Wilson previously told The Clarion-Ledger that a person of interest volunteered to be interviewed. It is not known if McClinton was the person of interest.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well that would certainly be a departure from how black churches typically get burned down in Mississippi. Also worth noting this:

It was not immediately clear whether McClinton is represented by an attorney.

That does seem pretty Mississippi-ish to me.

Needless to say I am going to see if they have actual evidence. Also, wtf is the insurance commissioner doing as a fire marshall?

[Raw Shark]

Got to give him some credit: Kind of chipper looking for a terrorist. At least the man has a sense of humor.

[Steel]

Aside from all the screeching and dogpiling, I just wanted to say...

The thing with proportional EC voting, I find, is that it either has the same reliability or representation problems we have with the current system (especially since gerrymandering is still a thing), or it's basically just adding an extra unneeded layer of complexity to just having a straight popular vote. Plus, there's still the whole thing I've pointed out in the other thread that the EC rewards a lack of voter participation, which is a pretty critical flaw in an ostensibly democratic system.

Now that would be interesting: adjust the number of EC votes by the voter turn-out. If total registered voter turn-out for the state is 58%, the state only gets 58% of its Electoral votes this time around. If they bump-up voter turn-out, they can get to cast more. States never actually lose their Electoral votes, they just have to be "silent", like their voter base (or "no confidence" votes.) This would have to be widely accepted (like Amendment-level accepted), so every state is held to it. Each state would have to take voter roll maintenance seriously, and work against voter suppression, since it would cost the state Electoral College votes to keep opposition from voting.

Appealing to the middle would force extremists to the periphery, and get "loyal opposition" government back to work.

I like this idea very much and I think it's elegant.

This wouldn't really help, as you don't need to suppress very many opposition voters to win a state. Parties willing to employ these tactics would much rather suppress and get (say) 90% of the EC votes than not suppress and let the opposition get 100% of the EC votes. It doesn't matter to them how many votes are lost from the total by suppressing, just that votes move from their opponent to them, and so the motivation remains the same.

[Khaat]

The bit about "no confidence" wasn't well-defined: if a state has 50+% "no confidence", the state Electoral College votes are in effect "no confidence", not "whoever has more of what little did vote". So less that 50% turn-out? No votes for anyone, the state goes [insert color of No Confidence]. Hawaii was close to this in the 2016 election.

The point is only the Democrats liberals/progressives have a "get out and vote, you assholes!" effort, except when the Republicans are concerned about a race - then they run a "We Just KNOW There's Voter Fraud!" orchestrated voter suppression effort.

For a democracy to work, the public has to want to get involved AND VOTE. No one should be rewarded for inspiring voters to stay home (or force them to stay at work.)

[Patroklos]

Well that would certainly be a departure from how black churches typically get burned down in Mississippi. Also worth noting this:

How do they typically get burned down?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well that would certainly be a departure from how black churches typically get burned down in Mississippi. Also worth noting this:

How do they typically get burned down?

Well, accidental fire is one way. The other culturally predominant way in Mississippi involves white racists burning down black churches. Numbers have been down since the 1990s, but it is still a thing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/na ... urches.htm

[Simon_Jester]

Aside from all the screeching and dogpiling, I just wanted to say...

Now that would be interesting: adjust the number of EC votes by the voter turn-out. If total registered voter turn-out for the state is 58%, the state only gets 58% of its Electoral votes this time around. If they bump-up voter turn-out, they can get to cast more. States never actually lose their Electoral votes, they just have to be "silent", like their voter base (or "no confidence" votes.) This would have to be widely accepted (like Amendment-level accepted), so every state is held to it. Each state would have to take voter roll maintenance seriously, and work against voter suppression, since it would cost the state Electoral College votes to keep opposition from voting.

Appealing to the middle would force extremists to the periphery, and get "loyal opposition" government back to work.

I like this idea very much and I think it's elegant.

This wouldn't really help, as you don't need to suppress very many opposition voters to win a state. Parties willing to employ these tactics would much rather suppress and get (say) 90% of the EC votes than not suppress and let the opposition get 100% of the EC votes. It doesn't matter to them how many votes are lost from the total by suppressing, just that votes move from their opponent to them, and so the motivation remains the same.

I'm not sure that such a strategy would actually work. Among other things, because it creates an arms race that one side can easily win by encouraging voter turnout in their own 'solid' states, rather than discouraging it in their solid states and in the swing states.

At the moment, there is a "race to the bottom" incentive for the Republicans- suppress voter turnout of everyone but their most supportive demographics (i.e. people who think Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim spy out to destroy America). There is theoretically a corresponding "race to the top" incentive for the Democrats, but it doesn't seem to be getting acted on. However, "race to the bottom" tends to beat "race to the top" in swing states where Republicans have the power in the state government, because it's a lot easier to deprive 100000 people of their votes than it is to go down to the grassroots level and give 100000 people their votes.

The strategy Khaat describes means that "race to the top" will nearly always beat "race to the bottom." If one party "races to the top" in their stronghold states, they get more electoral votes from those states and are rewarded- an advantage that could prove decisive in a closely contested election. If they race to the top while the other side races to the bottom, they're almost sure to win.

Under this system, successfully implementing a voter-suppression strategy across dozens of states would require a much higher level of coordination, and the ability to very accurately predict election results ahead of time. You'd have to know:

1) That your opponents aren't busy racing to the top and bulking up the electoral value of their stronghold states,
2) Which states are 'solid' for you, so that you know to raise voter turnout in those states,
3) Which states are 'swing' for you, so that you know to selectively depress voter turnout among opposition voters in those states, and
4) What the safe threshold is for raising voter turnout in states that are solid with something like a 57/43 majority in one election, but then flip in the next.

The bit about "no confidence" wasn't well-defined: if a state has 50+% "no confidence", the state Electoral College votes are in effect "no confidence", not "whoever has more of what little did vote". So less that 50% turn-out? No votes for anyone, the state goes [insert color of No Confidence]. Hawaii was close to this in the 2016 election.

The point is only the Democrats liberals/progressives have a "get out and vote, you assholes!" effort, except when the Republicans are concerned about a race - then they run a "We Just KNOW There's Voter Fraud!" orchestrated voter suppression effort.

For a democracy to work, the public has to want to get involved AND VOTE. No one should be rewarded for inspiring voters to stay home (or force them to stay at work.)

I'm sort of inclined to support this too. Having below 50% voter turnout being counted as 'abstention' would be an interesting change of pace.

[Flagg]

Wait, there is a specific crime against arson at a "place of worship"? Really? So the hucksters with all the nice looking shit get priority over a school aka something useful?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Wait, there is a specific crime against arson at a "place of worship"? Really? So the hucksters with all the nice looking shit get priority over a school aka something useful?

Yes there is. There is also a federal version. It was designed to more seriously punish the burning down of black churches in places like Mississippi by racist scum.

[Flagg]

Wait, there is a specific crime against arson at a "place of worship"? Really? So the hucksters with all the nice looking shit get priority over a school aka something useful?

Yes there is. There is also a federal version. It was designed to more seriously punish the burning down of black churches in places like Mississippi by racist scum.

Yeah, that makes sense, but hate crime laws should cover that now.

[jwl]

My church centre has actually been burned down in the past, but I don't think there should be a specific law against arson on religious buildings in my country. As Flagg said, racially (or religiously) motivated arson can go down under hate crime laws, although in our case I think the people were just drunk.

[FaxModem1]

It amazes me that Trump's pick for Labor Secretary is Andy Puzder, the Carl's Jr CEO who both dislikes employees having breaks and wants to have fully automated Carl's Jr restaurants..

I just don't see this going very well for the American worker.

[Borgholio]

It amazes me that Trump's pick for Labor Secretary is Andy Puzder, the Carl's Jr CEO who both dislikes employees having breaks and wants to have fully automated Carl's Jr restaurants..

I just don't see this going very well for the American worker.

He really seems to be just picking names out of a hat at this point. People who either have zero political experience or whose track records show their positions as being clearly 180 degrees from what Trump promised.

"I will make America Great Again by doing whatever I can to bring jobs back to this country! Now, let me pick someone for Labor Secretary that is an ultra-capitalist and only cares about workers if it's profitable to do so."

"I will make America Great Again by by helping to protect against potential future terrorist attacks! Now, let me pick someone for Director of National Intelligence who can't manage running a single corporation, and yet is expected to manage the largest and most complicated spy network in the world."

I could go on. As some Republicans have already said, "He's draining the swamp and filling it with Alligators."

[The Romulan Republic]

Oh, he's not picking names out of a hat.

He's picking rich men who will advance the interests of rich men.

[Raw Shark]

It amazes me that Trump's pick for Labor Secretary is Andy Puzder, the Carl's Jr CEO who both dislikes employees having breaks and wants to have fully automated Carl's Jr restaurants..

Yeah, the only way this could get funnier at this point is if the man's name was Pudzer. The fact that my girlfriend voted for Donny Jingles and thinks he will increase employment (like she needs it anyway, rich bitch) is a fucking joke that I will not laugh at.

I just don't see this going very well for the American worker.

That makes two of us.

[Crossroads Inc.]

So on the final day of the year, Trump puts out perhaps the single pettiest tweet ever...

"Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do, "Love!"

Stay classy Trump...

[Vendetta]

It amazes me that Trump's pick for Labor Secretary is Andy Puzder, the Carl's Jr CEO who both dislikes employees having breaks and wants to have fully automated Carl's Jr restaurants..

I just don't see this going very well for the American worker.

Why, at this point, does that amaze you?

Trump's appointments so far have all been based on finding the person most ideologically opposed to the existence of their own role and getting them to do it.

[Raw Shark]

Yeah, stay classy, Donny Jingles, is all I can say now. I will outlive your fuck-ups. Have fun being a disaster.

[The Romulan Republic]

Heh.

These days, when confronted with Trump, I'm often reminded of Percy Shelly's poem, "Ozymandias" (quoted from Wikipedia):

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

[FaxModem1]

It amazes me that Trump's pick for Labor Secretary is Andy Puzder, the Carl's Jr CEO who both dislikes employees having breaks and wants to have fully automated Carl's Jr restaurants..

I just don't see this going very well for the American worker.

Why, at this point, does that amaze you?

Trump's appointments so far have all been based on finding the person most ideologically opposed to the existence of their own role and getting them to do it.

It's a bit like witnessing a slow moving wreck, you know, logically, that it's happening, but there's still utter disbelief in your mind as you witness it happening.

[Flagg]

The irony of all of the morons who threw their vote away by voting third party or writing in Sanders because "Hillary is too close to Wall Street" now bitching about Trump's appointments shouldn't be lost on anyone, but of course it will be.