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ORIGINAL: bounty44

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ORIGINAL: epiphiny43

Speaking of methodology, someone posting a link to any of the current articles on the growing disconnect between most polls and actual elections would have brought some light to the usual mud slinging by 'selective bias' partisans. One article stated as few as 1% of contactees on telephone polls responded to the series of questions. Growing numbers of Americans have cell phones which are often 'unavailable' for different reasons to pollers,and most land line owners simply won't cooperate anymore. I don't, calls are always at meal times or manage to be in the middle of caring for pets, etc. Bad surveys make for bad results. If the contacts don't accurately represent the larger body supposedly sampled, it's whatever the flawed methodology throws up. All sorts of mischief is resulting, including mass misleading of much of the electorate about both facts and trends nationally.

your points about problems with telephone polling are valid ones, but to be mortal ones, you have to make the argument that only people with landlines, or reachable numbers, or who are willing to talk, or whatever, are themselves more representative of one side as opposed to the other.

to put it more plainly in this case---a superficial critic would be saying most people who have published landline numbers, who are also willing to talk, are also against comey's conclusion. its not that that argument couldn't be made, but on the surface, there is no discernible connection between the two.

on the whole, despite their shortcomings, polls, especially when taken in aggregate or repeatedly over time, are predictive of outcomes.

if there are recent articles highlighting where that is not the case "most" of the time (as you've mentioned above), ive not seen them. you are welcome to send me a message with those findings.

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ORIGINAL: xBullx

Im an old perve I guess... I keep popping back in to see if her ass has been bloodied yet...

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IT says a lot about our relationship with Hillary Clinton that she seems well on her way to becoming Madam President because she’s not getting indicted. [as well as the integrity of the comrades]

If she were still at the State Department, she could be getting fired for being, as the F.B.I. director told Congress, “extremely careless” with top-secret information. Instead, she’s on a glide path to a big promotion.

And that’s the corkscrew way things go with the Clintons, who are staying true to their reputation as the Tom and Daisy Buchanan of American politics. Their vast carelessness drags down everyone around them, but they persevere, and even thrive.

In a mere 11 days, arrogant, selfish actions by the Clintons contaminated three of the purest brands in Washington — Barack Obama, James Comey and Loretta Lynch — and jeopardized the futures of Hillary’s most loyal aides. [of course I don't buy into the author's branding of Obama as "pure"---are you kidding??]

It’s quaint, looking back at her appointment as secretary of state, how Obama tried to get Hillary without the shadiness. (Which is what we all want, of course.)

But in the end, Hillary’s goo got on Obama anyhow. On Tuesday, after Comey managed to make both Democrats and Republicans angry by indicting Clinton politically but not legally, Barry and Hillary flew to Charlotte, N.C., for their first joint campaign appearance.

Obama was left in the awkward position of vouching for Hillary’s “steady judgment” to run an angry, violent, jittery nation on the very day that his F.B.I. director lambasted her errant judgment on circumventing the State Department email system, making it clear that she had been lying to the American public for the last 16 months...

Hillary had already compromised the president, who feels he needs her to cement his legacy. Obama angered F.B.I. agents when he was interviewed on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last fall and undermined the bureau’s investigation by exonerating Hillary before the F.B.I. was done with its work, saying pre-emptively, “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.” [oh but he's "pure" though?]

Hillary willfully put herself above the rules — again — and a president, campaign and party are all left twisting themselves into pretzels defending her. [note that this is Maureen dowd speaking---maybe she's a closet nutsucker??]

The fallout from the email scandal has clouded the futures of longtime Hillary aides Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, who were also deemed extremely careless by Comey for their handling of classified information. The Times reported that they could face tough questions as they seek security clearances for diplomatic or national security posts. (Not to mention remiss in not pushing back on Clinton about the private server.)

“You’ve got a situation here where the woman who would be in charge of setting national security policy as president has been deemed by the F.B.I. unsuitable to safeguard and handle classified information,” Bill Savarino, a Washington lawyer specializing in security clearances, told the Times. [maybe he's a nutsucker though?]...

what should disturb Obama, who bypassed his own vice president to lay out the red carpet for Hillary, is that the email transgression is not a one off. It’s part of a long pattern of ethical slipping and sliding, obsessive secrecy and paranoia, and collateral damage.

Comey’s verdict that Hillary was “negligent” was met with sighs rather than shock. We know who Hillary and Bill are now. We’ve been held hostage to their predilections and braided intrigues for a long time. (On the Hill, Comey refused to confirm or deny that he’s investigating the Clinton Foundation, with its unseemly tangle of donors and people doing business with State.)

We’re resigned to the Clintons focusing on their viability and disregarding the consequences of their heedless actions on others. They’re always offering a Faustian deal. This year’s election bargain: Put up with our iniquities or get Trump’s short fingers on the nuclear button.

The Clintons work hard but don’t play by the rules. Imagine them in the White House with the benefit of low expectations.

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Discussions about ethical issues, not to mention attempts to encourage ethical behavior, are constantly derailed by the invocation of common misstatements of ethical principles. Some of these are honest misconceptions, some are intentional distortions, some are self-serving rationalizations, and some, upon examination, simply make no sense at all.

1. The Golden Rationalization, or "Everybody does it"

This rationalization has been used to excuse ethical misconduct since the beginning of civilization. It is based on the flawed assumption that the ethical nature of an act is somehow improved by the number of people who do it, and if "everybody does it," then it is implicitly all right for you to do it as well: cheat on tests, commit adultery, lie under oath, use illegal drugs, persecute Jews, lynch blacks. Of course, people who use this "reasoning" usually don't believe that what they are doing is right because "everybody does it." They usually are arguing that they shouldn't be singled out for condemnation if "everybody else" isn't.

Since most people will admit that principles of right and wrong are not determined by polls, those who try to use this fallacy are really admitting misconduct. The simple answer to them is that even assuming they are correct, when more people engage in an action that is admittedly unethical, more harm results. An individual is still responsible for his or her part of the harm.

If someone really is making the argument that an action is no longer unethical because so many people do it, then that person is either in dire need of ethical instruction, or an idiot.

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9. Argument From Silence

An argument from silence is the incorrect assumption that someone’s silence indicates their guilt, or an admission that they’re wrong. Such as:

Person X: Batman would easily kill Darth Vader, and here is a comprehensive list of reasons why …

Person Y: You’re wrong and I’m not going to address any of your points.

Person X: Screw this; I’m going to play Halo.

Person Y: Can’t take losing? Ha ha, I win!

Someone refusing to address an issue isn’t them admitting that they’re wrong, any more than someone refusing to eat means that they’re
full. If you offered someone a sweaty plate of rotted meat and they said “no thanks,” would you assume that person was simply not hungry?

It’s the same with arguments online. Some people seem to think that someone refusing to address their points any more means that they’ve won the argument. In reality, it’s far more likely that they’ve simply grown tired of seeing the words, “in the extended universe” [or nutsucker] written down.

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8. Appealing To Ridicule

This is the act of presenting an opponent’s view in an overly simplified way, as to make it appear ridiculous to an outside observer. It allows you to mock their position without actually addressing them. Like:

Person X: I really think people should consider educating children about sex.

Person Y: Oh, you want someone to walk into a room full of children and start waving a penis around and for those children to take it seriously? Yeah, good luck with that.

As you can see in the example, by making the opponent’s position out to be a joke, you don’t actually need to address any of the deeper issues. This is a common tactic with some people, since it’s easier to call someone a blimpfart than it is to research the issue.

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3. In-Group Favoritism

In-group favoritism is when you place a greater amount of weight on the opinions and views of your peers, than those of others, simply because you don’t like them or their peers:

Person X: I think we need to discuss the issue of healthcare.

Person Y: Wait, aren’t you Republican?

Person X: Well, yes, but I just want a frank discussion.

Person Y: Screw you then, you don’t know anything!

The thing is though, your in-group can vary wildly, as can the hostility that group displays to outsiders. If you want to see the ultimate example of this, check out Stormfront, a white supremacist forum that we’re not linking to because they don’t deserve the traffic. Basically, you’ve got a bunch of people, who all think they’re of a superior race, all feeding off of each others’ energy, without any outside criticism whatsoever. The second that view is challenged, it’s met with more hostility and poor spelling than someone beating a dyslexic person with a dictionary.

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Young people don’t merely dislike Hillary Clinton – they want her behind bars – at least according to a new PPP poll.

40 percent of Millennials want her jailed, while just 39 percent oppose it (21 percent not sure). Overall, 36 percent favor putting her in prison and 51 percent oppose. Millennials are also the only age demographic where a majority does not oppose jailing Clinton.

No wonder attendees of both the Republican and Democratic National conventions were shouting "Lock her up!" these past two weeks.

The survey, released on Friday after both parties cleaned up the confetti they dropped in Cleveland and Philadelphia, also asked participants whether or not Clinton had ties to Lucifer. Eighteen percent said yes.

Clinton’s favorability did improve by 9 points, according to PPP, but she’s still underwater by six.

Yet, that doesn't mean people are thrilled with her opponent Donald Trump. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said they have an "unfavorable" view of the GOP nominee and 51 percent said he cannot be trusted with classified information related to our national security.

What's more, despite dealing with her own trust issues, Clinton is ahead of Trump by five points in the general election.

Due to the unpopularity of both candidates, it's perhaps no great surprise that 5 percent of voters said they'd pull the lever for the late Harambe the gorilla.

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Two weeks ago, we wrote an in-depth piece chronicling the ways in which Hillary Clinton continues to lie shamelessly about her national security-compromising email scandal -- even after sustaining clear-cut, comprehensive rebukes from the FBI and State Department Inspector General. She can't stop, won't stop, lying. Appearing on Fox News Sunday [oh no comrades, fox news!] with Chris Wallace yesterday, the Democratic nominee once again butchered the truth again and again, recycling mendacious talking points that have been conclusively disproven:

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“Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”

The FBI director absolutely did not say that her email answers have been "truthful." In fact, he systematically dismantled her excuses and lies in his press conference early last month, later calling her conduct "the definition of negligence." And when Trey Gowdy walked Comey through her various claims during Congressional testimony (in pursuit of an important point about Clinton's criminal intent), the Bureau's top man candidly exposed each one as invalid:

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The Washington Post's fact-checker reviewed Clinton's Sunday morning performance and awarded her a full complement of 'Four Pinocchios.' Their conclusion:

As we have seen repeatedly in Clinton’s explanations of the email controversy, she relies on excessively technical and legalistic answers to explain her actions. While Comey did say there was no evidence she lied to the FBI, that is not the same as saying she told the truth to the American public–which was the point of Wallace’s question. Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements. And although Comey did say many emails were retroactively classified, he also said that there were some emails that were already classified that should not have been sent on an unclassified, private server. That’s the uncomfortable truth that Clinton has trouble admitting. Four Pinocchios.

Hillary Clinton appears to be enjoying a post-convention polling bounce, as we predicted she would. That does not change the fact that American voters deeply distrust her. Her untrustworthiness scores in two recent polls were stratospheric: 67 percent (CBS News) and 68 percent (CNN). I'll leave you with Hillary's campaign manager following his boss's lead and lying his ass off about the emails on MSNBC this morning: [video at the site]

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Earlier this week we learned the FBI found an additional 15,000 emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to turn over to the State Department during their criminal investigation of her private server use. We've known for more than a year she deleted 30,000 emails her attorneys deemed "personal business," which many speculate included information about the relationship between her official office and the Clinton Foundation.

Last month, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised to release additional and damning information surrounding Clinton's personal email use and said the Democrat presidential candidate should be "worried" about what's coming. Now, Assange is following up on that promise and warning about an October surprise that will "absolutely" come before the presidential election.

"We're working around the clock. We have received a lot of material because of American election process and the major DNC revelation which has now led the resignation of five top officials in the DNC, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz," Assange told Fox News' Megyn Kelly. "It's a complex business what we do. We have to assess the voracity. We have a perfect ten year record so far in never gets it wrong and we want to keep that reputation, understand how things should be formatted, what media we should be involved in, what is the best way to stage it out? Do we accumulate everything and essentially publish all in one batch or do we smaller batches?"

"People involved in that election [U.S. presidential election] have a right to understand who it is they are electing," Assange continued. "We have a lot of page of material, thousands of pages...it's a variety of different types of documents from different types of institutions associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles that are quite interesting and some that are entertaining."

Hacked emails from the DNC were published by Wikileaks just days before the convention kicked on in Philadelphia. Assange didn't give detail about exactly when the next dump will come, but the timing will certainly be deliberate.

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When FBI Director James Comey announced in July criminal charges would not be brought against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for storing and transmitting top secret, classified information on a number of different private servers, this is the argument he made regarding intent:

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Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.

Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.

Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent.

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

But according to former prosecutor and House Oversight Committee member Trey Gowdy, who has seen the notes taken during an interview conducted by the FBI with Clinton about her private email servers, agents didn't ask the former Secretary and current Democrat presidential nominee about intent at all.

"Remember James Comey said she was not indicted because he didn't have sufficient evidence on the issue of intent? I didn't see any questions on the issue of intent. There's no question she handled them [classified emails] negligently or extremely carelessly, he said he didn't go forward with charges specifically because he didn't have criminal intent. I didn't see any questions on that," Gowdy said on Fox News Thursday morning.

How can the FBI prove or disprove intent if they never asked about it?

Gowdy also argued the FBI interview notes should be released to the public. At this point the FBI is refusing to do so.

It should also be noted the mishandling of classified information doesn't require intent for prosecution.

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We’ve known this for some time, but there’s more information being unearthed that shows how Hillary Clinton’s State Department became just another arm of the Clinton Foundation. First, Clinton said at her confirmation hearing that no special treatment would be granted to Clinton Foundations donors. She said this under oath. Yet, more than half of the people she met outside of government gave money to the Clinton Foundation while she was secretary of state, according to the Associated Press. These funds were delivered either personally, through their companies, or other groups associated with these individuals. The publication added that 85 donors doled out nearly $160 million:


More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.

At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton's help with a visa problem; and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm's corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.

The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors.

ABC News cited the emails Judicial Watch released, noting that they appear to go against the pledge Clinton took regarding how donors would be treated should the Senate confirm her to be President Obama’s top diplomat.

Katie wrote about the contents of these emails, where top aide Huma Abedin was seen as the middle person between the donor, the Clinton Foundation, and the former first lady:

"In more than a dozen email exchanges, Abedin provided expedited, direct access to Clinton for donors who had contributed from $25,000 to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In many instances, Clinton Foundation top executive Doug Band, who worked with the Foundation throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure at State, coordinated closely with Abedin. In Abedin’s June deposition to Judicial Watch, she conceded that part of her job at the State Department was taking care of 'Clinton family matters.’...

Now, the question is will the White House be ground zero to cash in these favors? Clinton has lied about her private email arrangement when she served as secretary of state; why should we believe that they would stop accepting donations from corporate and foreign interests? Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, who is in no way a hard-core conservative, noted that these ethical issues are bigger than Team Clinton thinks at present. It may not cost her the election (right now, she’s winning big), but it could sink her presidency.

Given the sticky dynamics of Clinton and the foundation, it should give some pause about whether the interests of the United States would be best served under Clinton...

And if you think these concerns will dissipate should she become president, I think that’s a gross miscalculation, just like how her campaign completely misjudged the staying power of her email fiasco that succeeded in defining her as untrustworthy.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

"Ethics Fallacies, Myths, Distortions and Rationalizations"
"Top 10 Argument Techniques (That Ruin Arguments For Everyone)
enjoy the frothing...

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

"Ethics Fallacies, Myths, Distortions and Rationalizations"
"Top 10 Argument Techniques (That Ruin Arguments For Everyone)
enjoy the frothing...

Fallacies, myths and disortions wrapped in factless rationalizations are all that the nutsuckers have been engaging in for 84 pages. Turns out, not any truth to this propaganda.
The only argument techniques (their entire top 10) that nutsuckers engage in is propaganda, falsehoods, appeal to ignorance, innuendo, and impugnation.

Enjoy the pantshitting and the felchgobbling you so dearly and greedily lick up.