All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Malvolio]

He initiates quite a few himself. I remember when he sued Bill Maher for something he said as a joke when he was on the Tonight show with Jay Leno. This was when Trump brought up the birther stuff with Obama and had offered $5 million dollars for Obama to show his birth certificate. Bill Maher joked that he would give Trump $5 million if he could prove that he is not "“the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan", which was an obvious joke about his hair, etc. So Trump sent Maher a copy of his birth certificate and then filed a suit when Maher ignored him and didn't pay him the 5 million. Trump eventually withdrew the suit voluntarily and to this day Maher continues to put up a picture of an orangutan when he mentions Trump on his show. As the link notes, Maher could actually sue Trump for starting a frivolous lawsuit if he chose to do so since it's obvious that a intermingling of the species producing a child is impossible.

He has a long history of suing at the drop of a hat.


An early one involved the use of the Trump name:



I would think that the defendants had a strong case since the Donald's true family name is Drumph and his grandfather changed it to Trump.

Of the 3500 or so lawsuits he's been involved in, he or one of his companies has been the plaintiff 1,900 times.

All right. I can admit when I'm wrong. I would like to know, however, how many of these lawsuits Trump has any chance of winning.

[Tami]

She'll get enough with New Jersey alone, but I think you're right that California will be close.

2016 Primary Forecasts

According to our latest polls-plus forecast, Hillary Clinton has a 91%

It will be close, but she still has the lead. CA is the last State to be recorded on Tuesday, if she does well everywhere else, that might give her a slight boost. Curious to see how the Islands vote this weekend.

[Tami]

Checking on the data, and something happened on or around September 7th, 2015, to bring the Poll results in much closer between Clinton and Sanders. I can't figure out what though.

[Kirby101]

2016 Primary Forecasts



It will be close, but she still has the lead. CA is the last State to be recorded on Tuesday, if she does well everywhere else, that might give her a slight boost. Curious to see how the Islands vote this weekend.

It doesn't matter who wins the vote, since the Dem Primaries apportion the results, GOP is winner take all. So even if she lost NJ and CA by a small margin, she gets enough delegates to win the nomination.

[Malvolio]

Exactly. The Dems changed it from winner take all to apportioned in 2008. Hillary's people acted like it was still winner take all, so they didn't campaign that much in states they knew they would win, Obama campaigned for every last vote, so he made it close enough even in states that he lost to win enough delegates to win the nomination.

[Tami]

It doesn't matter who wins the vote, since the Dem Primaries apportion the results, GOP is winner take all. So even if she lost NJ and CA by a small margin, she gets enough delegates to win the nomination.

It will matter in regards to Sanders. A state win for him, even though he loses the primary, could make him more aggressive come the Convention. Coudl make his followers more aggressive. He's not going to give up easily, not until the last state has voted against him.

[Mister Mets]

As for the California Primary. The race is tight and it looks like whoever wins, it will be by less than 5%, which means, no matter what, Hillary gets enough delegates to secure the nomination. I like Bernie, but he lost a good fight.

An issue with delegate counts is that pledged superdelegates is a meaningless metric. They can change their mind at any point.

They're probably not going to, but this is for reasons most are unwilling to articulate because they don't want to piss off Bernie Sanders supporters (IE- They don't think Sanders is fit to be President, they think socialism is misguided and if Hillary Clinton dropped out tomorrow, they would back someone other than Sanders).

[Kirby101]

It will matter in regards to Sanders. A state win for him, even though he loses the primary, could make him more aggressive come the Convention. Coudl make his followers more aggressive. He's not going to give up easily, not until the last state has voted against him.

[jeanvaljean]

The problem with these polls is the internal numbers. We don't know how they weight the Dem/GOP/Ind voter ratio, and the sample sizes are significant but there is still a large margin of error. And it is still early.

And, of course, the indisputable fact that this election is different from all the others.
I posted the story a few pages back from Nate Silver about how all the states with more than 25% blacks and Latinos had underestimated Clinton's performance in the polling. And that was against Sanders, who is more oblivious on racial issues than anything else. Now the pollsters have to guess how minority turnout will be affected by the GOP candidate being a racist and fascist. They definitely should not weight their polls based on the same turnout model as last time.

[jeanvaljean]

She'll get enough with New Jersey alone, but I think you're right that California will be close.

I disagree, I think the polls that have her ahead by at least 10 points are correct, not the closer ones. Cali has a huge Hispanic electorate, and many pollsters underestimated those so far in most states.

[jeanvaljean]

OK. I never paid much attention to people saying RCP has a right wing bias and is sometimes trying to doctor the poll averages, but I find it suspicious that they did not include the Reuters/Ipsos poll with Clinton's huge lead in today's updates.

[Lax]

Sources: https://board.freedomainradio.com/to...ers-true-news/

[Tami]

Delegate Update: The latest count in the Democratic race

THE TOTAL

Clinton: 2,316

Sanders: 1,547

Clinton needs 67 delegates to reach the 2,383 needed to win.

Sanders needs 836 delegates to clinch the nomination.

OUTSTANDING

These are the pledged delegates to be chosen in upcoming races and the superdelegates who have yet to commit to either Clinton or Sanders.

Pledged: 781

Superdelegates: 121

Excluding Super Delegates, Clinton could, in theory, clinch the nomination if she won 79% of the remaining Pledged Delegates.
Sanders would need 113%, which is impossible.

Clinton isn't going to get 79%, but she should average somewhere between 50% and 70%, probably closer to 60%.

[Kirby101]

Delegate Update: The latest count in the Democratic race

There is no way for Sanders to win that many delegates in these last primaries. None, he has lost.

I don't mind that he hasn't given in yet, because his progressive voice is important, but after Tuesday, he needs to concede.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Honestly there are, I think, 67 delegates in play this weekend in PR and Virgin Islands. Hillary will win most of those. If a few supers flip the networks could declare her the presumptive nominee this weekend.