What is the Deep State?

[Paul Brancato]

Thanks - I knew it was around that time. I’ll read. The reason I asked you about 9/11 is that your version, which is close, maybe exactly the same, to mine, seems very Deep State to me. Peter Dale Scott sure thinks so, and I’m pretty sure he coined the phrase.

[W. Niederhut]

24 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Thanks - I knew it was around that time. I’ll read. The reason I asked you about 9/11 is that your version, which is close, maybe exactly the same, to mine, seems very Deep State to me. Peter Dale Scott sure thinks so, and I’m pretty sure he coined the phrase.

Yes, and there are numerous parallels between 9/11 and the JFK assassination, as a number of historians/analysts have pointed out-- including Peter Dale Scott and Laurent Guyenot.

Among other parallels, both black ops were covered up by the M$M and sham Federal investigations.

Incidentally, George W. Bush had initially asked Henry Kissinger to chair the 9/11 Commission.  It was Kissinger who referred Dubya Bush to Condoleeza Rice's associate, Phillip Zelikow, to chair the 9/11 "investigation."

(Kissinger and his associate, L. Paul Bremer, were also two of the key M$M "experts" who promptly pinned the blame for 9/11 on Osama Bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" immediately after the 9/11 attacks.)

 

[Benjamin Cole]

10 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

This is certainly true. It was a crisis 10-15 years ago, but only the far left seemed to care. 

The date of that article is 2018. In other words, the NYT declared election security a "crisis" in 2018...and the topic became radioactive in 2020. 

[Benjamin Cole]

Paul (or anyone)

The Hill is a non-M$M website that does good work. 

Keep an open mind. 

Aaron Mate explains his POV, which seems very strong, that the FBI and Clinton campaign coordinated efforts to try to torpedo Trump pre-election. 

This is what I am talking about: The increasing coopting of mainstream political parties (ie, the Donks and the 'Phants) by the Deep State. 

This does not make Trump a nice guy. 

But if you are obsessed with Mr. Big Bad Orange...you are barking up a bonsai tree in a redwood forest.  

 

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Paul (or anyone)

The Hill is a non-M$M website that does good work. 

Keep an open mind. 

Aaron Mate explains his POV, which seems very strong, that the FBI and Clinton campaign coordinated efforts to try to torpedo Trump pre-election. 

This is what I am talking about: The increasing coopting of mainstream political parties (ie, the Donks and the 'Phants) by the Deep State. 

This does not make Trump a nice guy. 

But if you are obsessed with Mr. Big Bad Orange...you are barking up a bonsai tree in a redwood forest.  

 

Come on. I studied the 2016 election in excruciating detail and reported on this in a series of articles: From Obama Nation to Abomination. And it was 100% clear that if anyone "stole"an election in recent history, it was Trump. This was a man without scruples, who bragged about using his power and fame to get away with crimes. And this was a man whose main business for decades was built around rigged machines. And, thirdly, this was a man whose supposed "election" was the "luckiest" in history. Well, Trump, as a casino owner, doesn't believe in luck. And studying the results of the 2016 election in comparison to other elections led me to believe it wasn't luck at all, but something else. (FWIW, I wrote these articles as a response to the media's collective blaming of Hillary for the loss, well before "Russiagate" hit the fan.)

Here's an excerpt:

Having established that the Electoral College has got to go, we can now look at some other aspects of the election. First and foremost of these is that Donald Trump was incredibly lucky in doing as well as he did...suspiciously lucky, even...so much so in fact that if he'd been as lucky in one of his former casinos they'd have pulled him off the floor and interrogated him in a room with a one-way mirror.

Let's see if you agree...

Since delegates to the Electoral College are almost all divvied up on a winner-take-all basis, that is, where the winner of a state receives all the delegates from that state no matter how slim the margin of victory, we can approximate the "luck" involved in the election by looking at the numerical margin of victory for each state divided by the number of delegates rewarded for that state.

Here, then, are the states in order from the largest amount of over-votes per delegate in the 2016 election, to the smallest amount of over-votes per delegate. The abbreviation for each state is followed by the ranking of that state in population, as of the 2010 census. The subsequent numbers reflect the number of over-votes per delegate, that is, the number of votes over the number required to win in that state divided by the number of Electoral College delegates awarded for that victory. (Note: Bold states are states that voted for Clinton.)

1-10: DC (49) 90,036, MA (14,) 82,209, CA (1) 77,636, OK (28) 75,537, MD (19) 73,476, KY (26) 71,765, AL (23) 65,412, WV (38) 60,115, NY (3) 59,758, TN (17) 59,294,

11-20: ID (39) 54,823, MO (18) 53,244, AR (32) 50,730, LA (25) 49,811, IN (16) 47,651, IL (5) 47,236, WA (13) 43,414, NE (37) 42,293, ND (48) 41,012, KS (34) 40,669,

21-25: WY (51) 39,482, NJ (11) 39,024, SD (46) 36,754, MS (31) 35,931, HI (40) 34,511,

26-30: UT (33) 34,093, MT (44) 33,844, SC (24) 33,335, CT (29) 32,051, OR (27) 31,386,

31-40: VT (50) 27,735, OH (7) 24,825, IA (30) 24,552, TX (2) 21,241, RI (43) 17,996, DE (45) 16,825, VA (12) 16,310, AK (47) 15,644, CO (22) 15,154, GA (8) 13,196,

41-51: NM (36) 13,109, NC (10) 11,554, ME (41) 11,071, AZ (15) 8,294, NV (35) 4,534, MN (21) 4,477, FL (4) 3,893, WI (20) 2,275, PA (6) 2,215, NH (42) 684, MI (9) 669

While this at first might look like a healthy mix of good luck and bad luck for both candidates, a closer look reveals an amazing fact--the "luck" becomes incredibly one-sided once one takes account the population (and resulting delegate total) for these states.

First, note that 16 of the 25 most under-represented victories (that is, victories in states in the top 25 above) occurred in states voting for Trump. Well, this reinforces what has already been demonstrated--that the Electoral College hurts red states, too, and that it is just a matter of time until it costs the Republicans an election.

Now note that victories in 6 of the top 15 states by population (these fifteen representing roughly 2/3 of the over-all population) were under-represented in the Electoral College. Here they are in order from most under-represented to least: MA (14), CA (1), NY (3), IL (5), WA (13), NJ (11).

Incredibly, Clinton won ALL six of these states!

Now, look at the flip side--the 9 victories within the top 15 states by population that were over-represented in the Electoral College (that is, in the bottom 26 above). Here they are in order by most over-represented to least: MI (9), PA (6), FL (4), AZ (15), NC (10), GA (8), VA (12), TX (2), OH (7).  

Well, 8 of these 9 went to Trump.

If one were to think like Trump and classify the vote results for the fifteen most populous states as deals, based on the reward received divided by margin of victory, then, it would look like this...

Bad deals in order of badness, worst to not quite so bad: Clinton in Massachusetts, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, and New Jersey. No bad deals for Trump.

Good deals in order of goodness, best to not quite as good: Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia, Clinton in Virginia, and Trump in Ohio and Texas.

Now, one might be tempted to credit Trump with using his ground game to eek out victories in every close big state but one. But there's a problem with this: he was often frugal in his advertising and there's no evidence his campaigning in these states led to undecided voters suddenly changing their minds about him. So, it remains a mystery as to why, of the top 15 states by population, Clinton won the 6 biggest landslides and Trump won the 6 closest races. If one assumes there is no unseen bias as to whether Clinton or Trump would get the best (or worst) deal, then, these numbers are quite surprising. Clinton won 20 of 50 states, so the odds of her winning an individual state was .4. .4 to the sixth power comes out to .4 of a percentile, or .004--which translates into odds as 250 to one. And that's just the odds of Clinton picking up the six worst deals. Trump won 30 of 50 states so let's say his chances of winning an individual state was .6. .6 to the sixth power comes out to 4.6%, or 0.046. .004 x .046 comes out to 0.0001866. The odds of BOTH Clinton getting the 6 worst deals and Trump getting the 6 best deals are thereby around 5359 to 1. Well, it follows that an election as one-sided in its "luck" as this one comes around every 21,436 years or so.

When one realizes the magnitude of Trump's incredible "luck", moreover, it's hard not to consider the possibility Trump's "luck" was no coincidence...

and that some of the closest races won by Trump--the races representing the best deals for Trump--were actually stolen...

Edited June 4, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Benjamin Cole]

35 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Come on. I studied the 2016 election in excruciating detail and reported on this in a series of articles: From Obama Nation to Abomination. And it was 100% clear that if anyone "stole"an election in recent history, it was Trump. This was a man without scruples, who bragged about using his power and fame to get away with crimes. And this was a man whose main business for decades was built around rigged machines. And, thirdly, this was a man whose supposed "election" was the "luckiest" in history. Well, Trump, as a casino owner, doesn't believe in luck. And studying the results of the 2016 election in comparison to other elections led me to believe it wasn't luck at all, but something else. (FWIW, I wrote these articles as a response to the media's collective blaming of Hillary for the loss, well before "Russiagate" hit the fan.)

Here's an excerpt:

Having established that the Electoral College has got to go, we can now look at some other aspects of the election. First and foremost of these is that Donald Trump was incredibly lucky in doing as well as he did...suspiciously lucky, even...so much so in fact that if he'd been as lucky in one of his former casinos they'd have pulled him off the floor and interrogated him in a room with a one-way mirror.

Let's see if you agree...

Since delegates to the Electoral College are almost all divvied up on a winner-take-all basis, that is, where the winner of a state receives all the delegates from that state no matter how slim the margin of victory, we can approximate the "luck" involved in the election by looking at the numerical margin of victory for each state divided by the number of delegates rewarded for that state.

Here, then, are the states in order from the largest amount of over-votes per delegate in the 2016 election, to the smallest amount of over-votes per delegate. The abbreviation for each state is followed by the ranking of that state in population, as of the 2010 census. The subsequent numbers reflect the number of over-votes per delegate, that is, the number of votes over the number required to win in that state divided by the number of Electoral College delegates awarded for that victory. (Note: Bold states are states that voted for Clinton.)

1-10: DC (49) 90,036, MA (14,) 82,209, CA (1) 77,636, OK (28) 75,537, MD (19) 73,476, KY (26) 71,765, AL (23) 65,412, WV (38) 60,115, NY (3) 59,758, TN (17) 59,294,

11-20: ID (39) 54,823, MO (18) 53,244, AR (32) 50,730, LA (25) 49,811, IN (16) 47,651, IL (5) 47,236, WA (13) 43,414, NE (37) 42,293, ND (48) 41,012, KS (34) 40,669,

21-25: WY (51) 39,482, NJ (11) 39,024, SD (46) 36,754, MS (31) 35,931, HI (40) 34,511,

26-30: UT (33) 34,093, MT (44) 33,844, SC (24) 33,335, CT (29) 32,051, OR (27) 31,386,

31-40: VT (50) 27,735, OH (7) 24,825, IA (30) 24,552, TX (2) 21,241, RI (43) 17,996, DE (45) 16,825, VA (12) 16,310, AK (47) 15,644, CO (22) 15,154, GA (8) 13,196,

41-51: NM (36) 13,109, NC (10) 11,554, ME (41) 11,071, AZ (15) 8,294, NV (35) 4,534, MN (21) 4,477, FL (4) 3,893, WI (20) 2,275, PA (6) 2,215, NH (42) 684, MI (9) 669

While this at first might look like a healthy mix of good luck and bad luck for both candidates, a closer look reveals an amazing fact--the "luck" becomes incredibly one-sided once one takes account the population (and resulting delegate total) for these states.

First, note that 16 of the 25 most under-represented victories (that is, victories in states in the top 25 above) occurred in states voting for Trump. Well, this reinforces what has already been demonstrated--that the Electoral College hurts red states, too, and that it is just a matter of time until it costs the Republicans an election.

Now note that victories in 6 of the top 15 states by population (these fifteen representing roughly 2/3 of the over-all population) were under-represented in the Electoral College. Here they are in order from most under-represented to least: MA (14), CA (1), NY (3), IL (5), WA (13), NJ (11).

Incredibly, Clinton won ALL six of these states!

Now, look at the flip side--the 9 victories within the top 15 states by population that were over-represented in the Electoral College (that is, in the bottom 26 above). Here they are in order by most over-represented to least: MI (9), PA (6), FL (4), AZ (15), NC (10), GA (8), VA (12), TX (2), OH (7).  

Well, 8 of these 9 went to Trump.

If one were to think like Trump and classify the vote results for the fifteen most populous states as deals, based on the reward received divided by margin of victory, then, it would look like this...

Bad deals in order of badness, worst to not quite so bad: Clinton in Massachusetts, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, and New Jersey. No bad deals for Trump.

Good deals in order of goodness, best to not quite as good: Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia, Clinton in Virginia, and Trump in Ohio and Texas.

Now, one might be tempted to credit Trump with using his ground game to eek out victories in every close big state but one. But there's a problem with this: he was often frugal in his advertising and there's no evidence his campaigning in these states led to undecided voters suddenly changing their minds about him. So, it remains a mystery as to why, of the top 15 states by population, Clinton won the 6 biggest landslides and Trump won the 6 closest races. If one assumes there is no unseen bias as to whether Clinton or Trump would get the best (or worst) deal, then, these numbers are quite surprising. Clinton won 20 of 50 states, so the odds of her winning an individual state was .4. .4 to the sixth power comes out to .4 of a percentile, or .004--which translates into odds as 250 to one. And that's just the odds of Clinton picking up the six worst deals. Trump won 30 of 50 states so let's say his chances of winning an individual state was .6. .6 to the sixth power comes out to 4.6%, or 0.046. .004 x .046 comes out to 0.0001866. The odds of BOTH Clinton getting the 6 worst deals and Trump getting the 6 best deals are thereby around 5359 to 1. Well, it follows that an election as one-sided in its "luck" as this one comes around every 21,436 years or so.

When one realizes the magnitude of Trump's incredible "luck", moreover, it's hard not to consider the possibility Trump's "luck" was no coincidence...

and that some of the closest races won by Trump--the races representing the best deals for Trump--were actually stolen...

Pat S.--

If you want to have a discussion on the Electoral College, that is fine.

I agree with you, that Presidential elections should be determined by direct popular vote. Not only would direct popular vote be more fair and democratic, it would reduce incentives to gimmick votes in tight swing states (by either party). 

That said, you have not dealt with the unusual relations between the FBI and Clinton campaign operatives pre-election 2016, as outlined by Aaron Mate. 

This should concern all of us---the Deep State seems to have coopted both major political parties, and the M$M. The Sussman episode is a manifestation of a much deeper alliance--the tip of the iceberg. 

None of this makes Trump a nice guy. I am just pointing out the Donks and the 'Phants are part of the Deep State. 

To me, the red-blue kool-aid pissing contests are besides the point. 

 

 

 

[W. Niederhut]

       Excellent post, Pat.  I never bought the narrative about widespread Russian (GRU) hacking not altering vote tallies in critical swing states in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

       If I recall the numbers correctly, Trump unexpectedly won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania by a combined total of only 80,000 votes.   Highly suspicious.  The post-election spin in the M$M was that Hillary's lead in pre-election and exit polling in those critical swing states had been grossly flawed-- deserving of ridicule.  But an alternative explanation is that the vote tallies were altered by hackers.

     After the 2016 election, a professor in Wisconsin found evidence of an estimated 23,000 valid, uncounted votes in the Milwaukee metropolitan area alone.  Vote tallies in Democratic Detroit were also suspiciously low, as I recall.

     That 80,000 vote margin in WI, MI, and PA gave Trump the Electoral College win in an election that he lost by a full 2% of the popular vote.

     The Russian (GRU) hackers knew precisely where to concentrate their efforts.

Edited June 4, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

28 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

       Excellent post, Pat.  I never bought the narrative about widespread Russian (GRU) hacking not altering vote tallies in critical swing states in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

       If I recall the numbers correctly, Trump unexpectedly won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania by a combined total of only 80,000 votes.   Highly suspicious.  The post-election spin in the M$M was that Hillary's lead in pre-election and exit polling in those critical swing states had been grossly flawed-- deserving of ridicule.  But an alternative explanation is that the vote tallies were altered by hackers.

     After the 2016 election, a professor in Wisconsin found evidence of an estimated 23,000 valid, uncounted votes in the Milwaukee metropolitan area alone.  Vote tallies in Democratic Detroit were also suspiciously low, as I recall.

     That 80,000 vote margin in WI, MI, and PA gave Trump the Electoral College win in an election that he lost by a full 2% of the popular vote.

     The Russian (GRU) hackers knew precisely where to concentrate their efforts.

     "The Russian (GRU) hackers knew precisely where to concentrate their efforts."-W

If you believe Russian hacking tipped certain state vote totals in 2016...could not other agents also tip vote totals? Only Russian hackers have these skills?  

BTW, you have company. The NYT in 2018 reported that US election machinery was very hackable. A "crisis." 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/magazine/election-security-crisis-midterms.html

By 2020, such concerns at the NYT had totally evaporated! In two short years. 

So...are we sure the 2020 election was clean? Or...are we sure the red or the blues were the bad guys, aided by domestic subversives and foreign agents? 

This whole red v. blue pissing contest strikes as a diversion. A mug's game. 

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

     "The Russian (GRU) hackers knew precisely where to concentrate their efforts."-W

If you believe Russian hacking tipped certain state vote totals in 2016...could not other agents also tip vote totals? Only Russian hackers have these skills?  

BTW, you have company. The NYT in 2018 reported that US election machinery was very hackable. A "crisis." 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/magazine/election-security-crisis-midterms.html

By 2020, such concerns at the NYT had totally evaporated! In two short years. 

So...are we sure the 2020 election was clean? Or...are we sure the red or the blues were the bad guys, aided by domestic subversives and foreign agents? 

This whole red v. blue pissing contest strikes as a diversion. A mug's game. 

What you are describing is Apples and Oranges. Hillary won the 2016 election by a wide margin, only to lose in a suspicious manner to a known crook. Trump lost an election the polls and experts had pegged for Biden. There was no "surprise." There was no suspicious shift in the outcomes of any state. There were no anomalies like Biden winning all the close contests and Trump winning all the landslides in the biggest states. 

As far as the FBI, please... The FBI was so in the bag for Trump that Comey felt he had to announce a bs investigation into Hillary at the last minute. He could have done this on the sly but was concerned the NY FBI would tell Giuliani and he would tell the press and make it look like the FBI was out to get poor Donnie. 

[Benjamin Cole]

35 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

What you are describing is Apples and Oranges. Hillary won the 2016 election by a wide margin, only to lose in a suspicious manner to a known crook. Trump lost an election the polls and experts had pegged for Biden. There was no "surprise." There was no suspicious shift in the outcomes of any state. There were no anomalies like Biden winning all the close contests and Trump winning all the landslides in the biggest states. 

As far as the FBI, please... The FBI was so in the bag for Trump that Comey felt he had to announce a bs investigation into Hillary at the last minute. He could have done this on the sly but was concerned the NY FBI would tell Giuliani and he would tell the press and make it look like the FBI was out to get poor Donnie. 

Well, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one. 

But riddle me this: You suspect Trump, a political naif with hardly a campaign staff (and what he had was dubious) successfully gamed the US election system in 2016. 

So...you suspect no one else could game the system in 2020? (Or counter-gamed the system in 2016, for that matter). 

Wouldn't you think non-Trump, non-Russian operatives would have a far, far, far, far, far  deeper bench on campaign skullduggery? 

You mean a game-show host and some Russian-online-nerds, way under-financed, beat the Donks in 2016? 

Does that strike you as a reach? 

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Benjamin Cole

[Pat Speer]

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Well, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one. 

But riddle me this: You suspect Trump, a political naif with hardly a campaign staff (and what he had was dubious) successfully gamed the US election system in 2016. 

So...you suspect no one else could game the system in 2020? (Or counter-gamed the system in 2016, for that matter). 

Wouldn't you think non-Trump, non-Russian operatives would have a far, far, far, far, far  deeper bench on campaign skullduggery? 

You mean a game-show host and some Russian-online-nerds, way under-financed, beat the Donks in 2016? 

Does that strike you as a reach? 

 

Not at all. I've been paying attention to this stuff since the early 70's. And the Dems relax when they think they have the advantage. They think they have the demographics and are on the right side of history. The Republicans, on the other hand, know all too well they are a minority party and can only win through rabble-rousing, skullduggery and deception. Bush II pulled off a win (maybe) by playing the religion card and rallying the support of Catholic latinos. Trump opted to vilify latinos and did not have that option. The original story put forth after his "victory" by the supposedly left-wing media was that economically suppressed whites rallied around his xenophobic and populist demands. But the truth is that as many or more young person and/or racial minority rose up to vote against him as old white person rose up to vote for him. He lost the popular vote by a wide margin. And the close state races that helped him win were suspicious. This is far from the case with Biden, who won the popular vote by a large margin.

 

[W. Niederhut]

27 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Not at all. I've been paying attention to this stuff since the early 70's. And the Dems relax when they think they have the advantage. They think they have the demographics and are on the right side of history. The Republicans, on the other hand, know all too well they are a minority party and can only win through rabble-rousing, skullduggery and deception. Bush II pulled off a win (maybe) by playing the religion card and rallying the support of Catholic latinos. Trump opted to vilify latinos and did not have that option. The original story put forth after his "victory" by the supposedly left-wing media was that economically suppressed whites rallied around his xenophobic and populist demands. But the truth is that as many or more young person and/or racial minority rose up to vote against him as old white person rose up to vote for him. He lost the popular vote by a wide margin. And the close state races that helped him win were suspicious. This is far from the case with Biden, who won the popular vote by a large margin.

 

And, shockingly, 76% of Republicans in a new poll still believe Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election.

It's Orwellian.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/new-poll-whopping-76-of-republicans-say-biden-did-not-legitimately-win-the-election-as-jan-6-hearing-approaches/

June 4, 2022

 

[James DiEugenio]

Oh please Pat.

Are you completely unaware with how badly HRC ran that campaign.

And the Trump forces knew it. 

As explained in the book Shattered, she thought she had certain Northeast rust belt states in the bag.  Therefore she did not visit some of them as often as she should have, some she did not visit at all for the last two months.

The Trump campaign noticed this, just like any moron would.  They decided to counter it.  They actually visited some of those states, more than HRC did.  And in some instances, it was not even close.  And the other factor was this: Trump conned the public with his image as a change agent, that he was going to protect and restore American jobs.  That is what really put the kabosh on the HRC campaign.  And this is proven by the exit polls and post election focus groups.

That book actually notes that Bill Clinton did not agree with this strategy. He also did not agree with the media focused tactics.  He thought HRC should be doing more work in public to try and convince the people she really was a change agent. Bill was sidelined.

The polls did not all miss.  Three of them said Trump would win. And 538 said it was going to be closer than the MSM said it was.

HRC and Robbie Mook ran an uninspiring, insipid and lack luster campaign.  She just did not give people a real reason to vote for her.  And she had all the advantages over Trump, including almost twice as much money. Nobody took Trump seriously, including HRC.  In politics, that is always a big mistake. 

[Paul Brancato]

I recall exposes a decade or two ago about who owned the various voting machine makers. Seems to me there were reasons to suspect that these companies were knowingly making voting machines that were hackable, and no one knew better how to hack them than the manufacturers themselves. Why, W, do we need Russian hackers? Pat is right that Republicans have been fighting uphill against demographic shifts, and have never been averse to using dirty tricks, possibly including hacking machines, and most certainly using voter suppression techniques of several kinds, such as reducing polling places, and removing eligible voters from the voting rolls. The gutting of public education and the control of textbooks are also notable. And now we have a host of conspiracy theories like white replacement and critical race theory. 
Ben - wake up man. Finding out that the Clinton campaign sought to undermine the Trump campaign with opposition research is small potatoes by comparison. The myriad faults of the Democratic Party, a pet peeve of mine for my lifetime, are not the equivalent of the courting of racists and spreading their noxious ideas covertly and overtly. If you want to make the point that both parties join together in support of American Empire I have no dispute about that. But domestic policies are night and day between them, and Republicans are blocking many honorable Democratic initiatives. That is an undeniable fact.

[Paul Brancato]

3 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Oh please Pat.

Are you completely unaware with how badly HRC ran that campaign.

And the Trump forces knew it. 

As explained in the book Shattered, she thought she had certain Northeast rust belt states in the bag.  Therefore she did not visit some of them as often as she should have, some she did not visit at all for the last two months.

The Trump campaign noticed this, just like any moron would.  They decided to counter it.  They actually visited some of those states, more than HRC did.  And in some instances, it was not even close.  And the other factor was this: Trump conned the public with his image as a change agent, that he was going to protect and restore American jobs.  That is what really put the kabosh on the HRC campaign.  And this is proven by the exit polls and post election focus groups.

That book actually notes that Bill Clinton did not agree with this strategy. He also did not agree with the media focused tactics.  He thought HRC should be doing more work in public to try and convince the people she really was a change agent. Bill was sidelined.

The polls did not all miss.  Three of them said Trump would win. And 538 said it was going to be closer than the MSM said it was.

HRC and Robbie Mook ran an uninspiring, insipid and lack luster campaign.  She just did not give people a real reason to vote for her.  And she had all the advantages over Trump, including almost twice as much money. Nobody took Trump seriously, including HRC.  In politics, that is always a big mistake. 

Both And - That Ms. Clinton ran a poor campaign doesn’t mean that Republicans didn’t cheat their way to the White House.