Who Makes Policy Campaign 2016 Edition

If you purchase something – a few campaign buttons for example – from Hillary Clinton’s website there comes a point right after you enter your credit card information but before you click “ORDER” that the following information is shown to you:

“Contributions or gifts to Hillary Victory Fund are not tax deductible. The first $2,700/$5,000 from an individual/multicandidate committee (“PAC”) will be allocated to Hillary for America, designated for the primary election. The next $2,700/$5,000 from an individual/PAC will be allocated to Hillary for America, designated for the general election. For contributions made after the primary, the full amount of the contribution, up to $2,700/$5,000, will be designated to the general election. The next $33,400/$15,000 from an individual/PAC will be allocated to the Democratic National Committee. Additional amounts from an individual/PAC will be split equally among the Democratic state parties from these states up to $10,000/$5,000 per state party: AK, AR, CO, DE, FL, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WV, WI, and WY. A contributor may designate his or her contribution for a particular participant. The allocation formula above may change if following it would result in an excessive contribution. Federal law requires us to use our best efforts to collect and report the name, mailing address, occupation, and name of employer of individuals whose contributions exceed $200 in an election cycle. Contributions will be used in connection with a Federal election, may be spent on any activities of the participants as each committee determines in its sole discretion, and will not be earmarked for any particular candidate.”

Normally, this is just the type of fine print that I wouldn’t even bother trying to decipher, but our lesson on campaign financing last week left me  with a newfound sense of [over]confidence. It felt great to actually understand [some of] what was written!

The following point from her Frequently Asked Questions page also caught my eye as it is an example of how a campaign can strategically route the funds they receive as a way of legally surpassing the donation limits.

“If I have already donated the maximum amount to Hillary for America, can I purchase products from the shop?

Yes! The store is operated by the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint committee formed by Hillary for America, the Democratic National Committee and many State Democratic Parties. All store purchases count towards your legal limit for Hillary Victory Fund, and will be attributed to the other participating committees.”

 

Americans view of Russia is getting better in 2016 according to Gallup.

Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way and not footnote it at the end. The study sample size was 1,021 with a 60% minimum cell phone sample. The margin of error is 4% at p>0.05 (95% confidence level).

With the statistics in mind, when we break this down by age and party affiliation from 2015 to 2016 something interesting happens.

If you are under the age of 30 favorability increases 15% and 8% if you are over 55 years old. However, the 30-55 age group saw a fall in favorability for Russia of 4%, right at the margin of error. I am not sure there is anything interesting to glean from this.

But when we look at party identification something interesting does happen. For democrats, warm feelings toward Russia go up 3% which is within the margin of error so it could be that democrats have not changed. For republicans, however, the favorability toward Russia goes up a whopping 10%. This is interesting because I wonder if that increase could be a result of the GOP standard bearer, Donald Trump, talking so favorably about Russia while campaigning.

The other finding here is that Americans feel Russia is less of a threat in 2016 as compared to 2015 by 10% (from 49% to 39%). I wonder why this is with all the saber rattling and all of the issues with Russia and the US in regards to Syria. It would seem that as we circle the possibility of a second cold war with Russia that the perceived threat would stay the same or go up.

Okay, without sounding like a conspiracy nut I admit that I am one who already believes that most of what we do on our computers is being watched by someone (or multiple someone’s: Apple, Microsoft, the NSA in a bunker in the middle of Colorado).

However, a revision to Rule 41 of the Federal Court Rules is certainly going to make it easier. First, the rule allows the government to forum shop for a single judge to issue “cyber” warrants across multiple jurisdictions. So a government friendly judge in Arkansas can issue a warrant for a group of undefined computers in Arkansas and New York. I will let the linked article explain more cogently than I why that is bad but suffice it to say it limits oversight of the government and erodes our fourth-amendment rights protecting us from unreasonable search and seizure.

This also means that with one warrant the government can hack many computers. Presumably, if they find evidence leading them to another “connected” computer there is no need to get another warrant. Put this into perspective. The government gets a warrant to search Baruch College computers. You have a personal computer and you log onto the Baruch network while you are waiting for class. You are now a connected computer and subject to search on an unrelated search for information. Your personal privacy has been eroded and you would not even know or in some cases may not even get notice of the fact that the government was snooping on your computer.

What of public networks like NYC net, the public internet that you can log into on the streets of Manhattan. Because it’s a government network do we even have a right to privacy of our personal devices?

This rule change was approved by the Supreme Court and I am flabbergasted that it was allowed. The implications of allowing unfettered search and seizure and the erosion of our fourth-amendment rights and protections is unfathomable.

See the articles here:

So … Now the Government Wants to Hack Cybercrime Victims

The Feds Will Soon Be Able to Legally Hack Almost Anyone

When searching for recent polling date on climate change, I decided to immediately go to some trusted sources which we’ve seen numerous times in our course-Gallup and Pew Research. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t much recent data provided. Interestingly (at least to me) were the questions these polls asked.

This poll by Gallup focused on Us Concern about Global Warming and polled about perceived human contribution as well as perceived severity of climate change. Lastly they produced a poll that reflected the responses to the aforementioned questions by political party (because after all that’s what people really want to know).

Shortly after, this poll ran by Pew Research depicts global positions on climate change by asking a few different questions. Some of these questions were: What is your main climate change concern? and Which countries should bear the costs associated with climate change and emissions? The information garnered from this poll showed that countries that have the highest CO2 emissions actually are less concerned about climate change. Though this poll was set to depict Global concerns, they could not leave out the all too important U.S. partisan take on this issue. (See Image Below)

Now we are talking, a month later, Gallup realized what the people wanted and here is a poll solely based to show political divide on the climate change issue. Liberals largely believe that climate change is a global threat, while Conservatives largely believe that climate change is not a major concern and also that humans have very little fault in contributing to global warming.

For Fun: Trump now states climate change is a hoax, but he once supported it. Pandering to his base I suppose.

After the United States and Russia reached a Syrian ceasefire agreement last week, many held their breath to see if the agreement would hold. So far so good. Aside from some violations on both sides, the ceasefire as a whole appears to be holding. “The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Wednesday said no fatalities have occurred in Homs, Latakia, Hama, the Damascus suburbs, Idlib and the rest of the Syrian areas included in the deal that began Monday.”

One of the main reasons for the ceasefire was to help deliver humanitarian supplies to areas in need. The supplies have not been delivered yet but parties are hopeful that the deliveries can begin this week, “”The UN convoy from Turkey to eastern Aleppo is still in customs area on the border this morning because of lack of de facto assurances of safe passage by all parties.”

As you (might) know, the end of a presidential term in office, in particular, brings along with it quite a few pardons, more than a few in the past that have been quite controversial.  It seems that the ACLU and Amnesty International are going to push President Obama to grant a particularly controversial pardon.

These two organizations, well known for their work in civil liberties and human rights, are launching a campaign to get the president to pardon former NSA contractor Edward Snowden by the time he leaves office in January of 2017.  If you can recall, Mr. Snowden was the man who released details of mass phone and internet surveillance by his employers several years ago (he now lives essentially in exile in Russia, having fled there after his revelations).  A pardonsnowden.org website has been created, and social media accounts related to the campaign have also been set up.

Will there be any chance that Snowden would actually be pardoned by January 20th.  The chances appear to be slim to none.  The White House has reiterated what it has said on the matter in the past, that “Mr Snowden should face charges in the US because his leaks ‘damaged the United States’.

Anyone who has followed the actions of the Obama Administration knows that it is not one to go out of its way to court controversy.  Granting a pardon to a man that most in the establishment view as a traitor to the nation would be a surefire way to do so.

The 2016 U.S. election has shown the hostility the public feels towards free trade agreements. This hostility is having an effect on the Presidential race, along with some other important senate races. The hostility has become so intense that it has caught the attention of the rest of the world. The concern is so serious that during the G20 meeting in China, some nations announced new measures to improve the image of free trade. “In an effort to shore up public support for trade, the leaders promised ‘inclusive growth’ to spread the benefits to people who have been left behind by wrenching change. That reflects a recognition that economic strains are fueling political tensions and a growing clamor to raise barriers against foreign competition.” The economic significance of free trade is so important that the G20 members felt compelled to address what they view as an alarming worldwide populist movement against globalization. As a result, some of the G20 nations agreed to modifications to certain trade policies. “The governments pledged to avoid devaluing their currencies to boost exports. They called for cooperation to reduce tax avoidance. They appealed for stepped up aid for surging global numbers of refugees and their host countries.” All of this happened because they view the current image of free trade in the U.S. and in Europe as a serious threat to the world economy and its stability.

Much furor arose over the past weekend regarding comments Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made, saying that roughly half of Republican candidate Donald Trump’s supporters could be put in a “basket of deplorables”, citing their bigoted attitudes and highly questionable (to put it mildly) views about women and non-whites.  Mr. Trump, along with other Republicans, screamed and hollered over the remarks, accusing Mrs. Clinton of generalizing supporters of the unorthodox candidate and painting them in a negative light.

The question here, however, is this: Was Mrs. Clinton being unfair to certain Trump supporters in her characterization?  As shown in this piece by Vox, the polls seem to indicate otherwise.

Let’s look, for example, at a poll from Reuters and Ipsos conducted from June and July looking at broad views regarding Islam.  Here, 58 percent of Trump supporters held “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” views on the religion (compared to 24 percent of Clinton supporters).

Another Poll, from the Texas Politics Project, goes further, showing that 76 percent of Republicans support the idea of banning Muslims from entering the US.  This is in comparison to just 26 percent of Democrats.

When it comes to immigration, a poll from Fox News in July of 2015 asked voters about their opinions on Mr. Trump’s remarks during the launch of his campaign, referring to Hispanics as “criminals” and “rapists”.  About 70 percent of Republicans found the underlying meaning of the comments “acceptable”, aside from the wording that was used.

The polling presented in the Vox piece goes down the line, showing that quite significant numbers of Trump supporters hold other disturbing views when it comes to other groups such as blacks.  In total, a disturbing picture is illustrated before us, portraying an entire, significant chunk of supporters with disturbing views, all coalescing around the Republican candidate.  What does that tell us about the Trump campaign, and ultimately the state of our democratic system, that we have gotten to such a place.

538 has FL and OH leaning Trump in the Polls-plus for the first time in a long time.

Also, you should check out this WSJ graphic – it is extremely interesting to look at.

Sorry to disappoint but this is just another post about Climate Change.   On Monday, NASA released a statement saying that August 2016 tied with July 2016 for the warmest month ever recorded. This statement follows one released mid-year by NASA that announced that 2016 was on trend to be the hottest year since their modern record-keeping began in 1880. Now how does this all tie in with national security you may ask.

Read This.

Seems pretty important now, Doesn’t it?