''Every seat in the theater in LA filled up so Bernie went outside to talk to the people ... ''

[Gothmog]

536. Who cares?

Whataboutism does not work in the real world. Attempts to deflect blame are amusing. I posted two studies that show that sanders is the reason why trump is POTUS. Ignoring these facts will not make them go away nor will pointing fingers at other causes.

I am focusing on issues that can be addressed in the future

1. Voter suppression. GOP voter suppression cost Clinton Wisconsin https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/

Neil Albrecht, Milwaukee’s election director, believes that the voter ID law and other changes passed by the Republican Legislature contributed significantly to lower turnout. Albrecht is 55 but seems younger, with bookish tortoise-frame glasses and salt-and-pepper stubble. (“I looked 12 until I became an election administrator,” he joked.) At his office in City Hall with views of the Milwaukee River, Albrecht showed me a color-coded map of the city’s districts, pointing out the ones where turnout had declined the most, including Anthony’s. Next to his desk was a poster that listed “Acceptable Forms of Photo ID.”

“I would estimate that 25 to 35 percent of the 41,000 decrease in voters, or somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 voters, likely did not vote due to the photo ID requirement,” he said later. “It is very probable that between the photo ID law and the changes to voter registration, enough people were prevented from voting to have changed the outcome of the presidential election in Wisconsin.”

A post-election study by Priorities USA, a Democratic super-PAC that supported Clinton, found that in 2016, turnout decreased by 1.7 percent in the three states that adopted stricter voter ID laws but increased by 1.3 percent in states where ID laws did not change. Wisconsin’s turnout dropped 3.3 percent. If Wisconsin had seen the same turnout increase as states whose laws stayed the same, “we estimate that over 200,000 more voters would have voted in Wisconsin in 2016,” the study said. These “lost voters”—those who voted in 2012 and 2014 but not 2016—”skewed more African American and more Democrat” than the overall voting population. Some academics criticized the study’s methodology, but its conclusions were consistent with a report from the Government Accountability Office, which found that strict voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee had decreased turnout by roughly 2 to 3 percent, with the largest drops among black, young, and new voters.

I was part of the Clinton Victory Counsel program and nearly went to Wisconsin but ended up running the statewide voter protection hotline in Texas and the poll watcher program in Harris County. Harris County turned blue and one of the poll watchers who I trained in 2012 was elected to the office in charge of voter registration. This cycle we focus on getting rid on the teabagger who runs elections.

BTW, the courts are still considering the Wisconsin voter id law http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99266 In Texas we have largely gutted the voter id law but have to fight to make sure that voters get to vote.

2. Russia. I will let Mueller handle this but there is ample evidence that russia helped elect trump. http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/26/media/facebook-russia-ads/index.html

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr, a Republican, told reporters Tuesday that the use of Facebook and other social media platforms by Russian-linked accounts appears to be about creating chaos on both ends of the political spectrum, not necessarily collusion between the Trump camp and Russian officials.

"Listen, I've said I don't think this is about collusion. Facebook is a company that most advertisers rely on Facebook's information to determine what the target is," Burr told reporters. "I think clearly there was an effort to bring some chaos to groups on the right and the left, so there's nothing that, at least preliminary, would lean toward one candidate versus the other. I think there was equal money sent trying to create some type of chaos on both sides of the political or ideological spectrum. We'll find more as we go in."

I note that the idiots on JPR fell for a ton of russian fake news. There were a ton of thread on pizzagate on JPR for a while. Sanders supporters were targeted by Russia and judging from the studies posted above with great effect

Link to tweet

Again, sanders supporters were easily fooled by russian fake news and the studies cited above show this cost the election

Link to tweet

3. Comey. Nate Silver has done some good work that shows that Comey cost Clinton the election https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which said the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton’s lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the Electoral College.

4. Sanders and Stein voters. The studies cited above show that sanders cost the election. BTW, i was a delegate to the national convention. Sanders was not working hard for Clinton and in fact refused to try to stop his delegates from dong such things as booing Congressman John Lewis. These disruptions hurt the unity that one normally gets from a convention. For example, in 2008, Clinton conceded before the Texas state convention. In 2016 sanders waited until just before the convention and cause a ton of disruption. I was at the convention and sanders refusal to do his best to help Clinton was a factor.

I will continue working in the real world to deal with as many issues as possible. We had a full war room for both the primary and the primary run off for voter protection issues.

I am glad that ballot access laws should keep sanders from running again.