Seth Rich story resurfacing

[Grooveriding]

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fbi-involved-seth-rich-case-officials/story?id=47565705

FBI and other law enforcement officials are privately knocking down a conspiracy theory today, fueled by conservative commentators on Fox News, that seeks to divert attention from Russia’s involvement in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee last year by suggesting a DNC staffer was murdered to cover up his involvement in passing the information to WikiLeaks.

According to officials with knowledge of the matter, the FBI is not investigating the unsolved murder of Seth Rich last year in what agents have determined was “a possible attempted robbery” gone wrong. Asked about the possible connection between Rich and WikiLeaks, one official told ABC News that “the only place I've seen that is through the conspiracy theories online."

The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., continues to investigate his death as a homicide.

 

[fskimospy]

No, I'm partly saying this because that's what you've been doing. Pot meet kettle!

I absolutely have not been doing that. You're trying to conflate 538's model giving a relatively low probability to a second order result with Wang's model's total failure to predict the primary result. In baseball terms it's like saying because you gave a team a 1% chance of winning and I gave them a 30% chance of winning but only a 1% chance of winning on an inside the park home run that we are both equally wrong. We are not.

Silver was much more correct than Wang and his model performed better. Don't be so defensive, why is it hard to admit this?

Though, considering the unique outcome, it isn't that unreasonable to think his model isn't as bad as you think. I realize there were faults with Sam's, too, but he did in fact suggest an estimate upwards of 10% (on last day, he gave 7%, btw). Donnie was an unconventional candidate, so the assumptions with the pollsters were likely off with the uniqueness of this election. Because of that, a more conservative error margin would need to be chosen, since the pollsters are more likely to heavily favor one candidate.

Again, neither of those were his actual estimate so it doesn't count. The model poorly predicted the outcome and did so to one of the most extreme extents possible. It's hard to think of a worse result.

Maybe his model isn't that bad and this was a unique result! He will have 2020 to prove it. Right now though, it looks very bad.

i can't find the specific article I was thinking of, but this should do.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...ection-can-end-and-3-involve-clinton-winning/

That's from weeks before the election. Regardless this relates to my first point. In addition, this was at a time when people were trying to argue that CLINTON had an advantage in the electoral college. While his odds on the split might have been too low they were higher than anyone else's. In fact he gave Trump a better chance in winning that way than Wang did for Trump to win at all.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Anyone remember Seth Ritch?

 

[Maxima1]

I absolutely have not been doing that. You're trying to conflate 538's model giving a relatively low probability to a second order result with Wang's model's total failure to predict the primary result. In baseball terms it's like saying because you gave a team a 1% chance of winning and I gave them a 30% chance of winning but only a 1% chance of winning on an inside the park home run that we are both equally wrong. We are not.

Silver was much more correct than Wang and his model performed better. Don't be so defensive, why is it hard to admit this?

Why is it so hard for you to admit his model is crap? The distribution is laughable.

Again, neither of those were his actual estimate so it doesn't count. The model poorly predicted the outcome and did so to one of the most extreme extents possible. It's hard to think of a worse result.

You're being an idiot. Even if he didn't put the margin out there, it was a silly judgment of his.

Last day:

Median: Clinton 307 EV, Trump 231 EV. Meta-Margin: 2.2%. One-sigma range: Clinton 281-326 EV. The win probability is 93% using the revised assumption of polling error, +/- 1.1%.

Maybe his model isn't that bad and this was a unique result! He will have 2020 to prove it. Right now though, it looks very bad.

Right now, you look like a fanboy of his. No wonder he hedged. It's obvious fivethirtyeight has monetary considerations.

That's from weeks before the election. Regardless this relates to my first point. In addition, this was at a time when people were trying to argue that CLINTON had an advantage in the electoral college. While his odds on the split might have been too low they were higher than anyone else's. In fact he gave Trump a better chance in winning that way than Wang did for Trump to win at all.

It was 5% in total for EC win, but pop loss at that time. Going by proportion with ~10%, it should be around ~2% chance for a win with a pop loss of 2%

 

[fskimospy]

Why is it so hard for you to admit his model is crap? The distribution is laughable.

And yet it was closer to the outcome than anyone else's including the one you keep defending. You also ignored the substance of that paragraph, why? Silver predicted the actual outcome down to the percent and EV split than Wang did the election as a whole at that point in time. You're still trying to compare Wang's general prediction with a much more specific one. That is a bad argument.

So again, the day another model performs better than Silver's I would be happy to say so. So far that hasn't happened. You are getting more and more irrational as I've cornered you. Why? Why so defensive?

You're being an idiot. Even if he didn't put the margin out there, it was a silly judgment of his.

Do you not understand how models work? That was part of his model. I agree it was a silly judgment, but that's my whole point. His model turned out to be bad because he made bad decisions.

Last day:

Median: Clinton 307 EV, Trump 231 EV. Meta-Margin: 2.2%. One-sigma range: Clinton 281-326 EV. The win probability is 93% using the revised assumption of polling error, +/- 1.1%.

So his revised assumption put Trump's probability of victory at 1/4th of what Silver's model did, yet you defend Wang and call Silver's better performing model 'crap'. This is not logical, you're just unwilling to back down.

Right now, you look like a fanboy of his. No wonder he hedged. It's obvious fivethirtyeight has monetary considerations.

Declaring someone a 'fanboy' is the last refuge of someone who doesn't have any good arguments. I have no idea what 538's motivations were for tuning their model the way they did. All I know is that it was the most correct of the major quant models available. In the end that's all that matters.

It was 5% in total for EC win, but pop loss at that time. Going by proportion with ~10%, it should be around ~2% chance for a win with a pop loss of 2%

See above and my prior post.

 

[Maxima1]

And yet it was closer to the outcome than anyone else's including the one you keep defending. You also ignored the substance of that paragraph, why? Silver predicted the actual outcome down to the percent and EV split than Wang did the election as a whole at that point in time. You're still trying to compare Wang's general prediction with a much more specific one. That is a bad argument.

So again, the day another model performs better than Silver's I would be happy to say so. So far that hasn't happened. You are getting more and more irrational as I've cornered you. Why? Why so defensive?

"In baseball terms it's like saying because you gave a team a 1% chance of winning and I gave them a 30% chance of winning but only a 1% chance of winning on an inside the park home run that we are both equally wrong. We are not."

Uh, this is such a dumb argument. Someone giving 70%/30% indicates a weak predictor. Someone giving a more narrow prediction could still have the better model. How do you know the 5-10% didn't happen? We also know if the Comey letter didn't occur, Sam's model would have looked better, since Nate would have hedged a bit (probably similar to that distribution I showed on the earlier post).

Do you not understand how models work? That was part of his model. I agree it was a silly judgment, but that's my whole point. His model turned out to be bad because he made bad decisions.

There was no reason to choose the lower margin. It was evident on that post he had. Even his readers noticed this, and it was clear Sam was just doing this to try to stop people from focusing on the presidency. He added anyway, so I don't know why you're just being an idiot and saying it was 99%.

So his revised assumption put Trump's probability of victory at 1/4th of what Silver's model did, yet you defend Wang and call Silver's better performing model 'crap'. This is not logical, you're just unwilling to back down.

You are being a moron. By that logic, Trumpkins saying Trump would win are even more right. Again, no wonder Nate hedged because he'll be "right" no matter who wins.

Declaring someone a 'fanboy' is the last refuge of someone who doesn't have any good arguments. I have no idea what 538's motivations were for tuning their model the way they did. All I know is that it was the most correct of the major quant models available. In the end that's all that matters.

See above and my prior post.

Because you defend a model that clearly has issues. It had a completely laughable distribution and would change dramatically in an instant over trivial crap.

 

[Jhhnn]

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fbi-involved-seth-rich-case-officials/story?id=47565705

Just stop it. Stop posting on topic.

 

[fskimospy]

Uh, this is such a dumb argument. Someone giving 70%/30% indicates a weak predictor. Someone giving a more narrow prediction could still have the better model. How do you know the 5-10% didn't happen? We also know if the Comey letter didn't occur, Sam's model would have looked better, since Nate would have hedged a bit (probably similar to that distribution I showed on the earlier post).

This is nonsense as models are judged by their results. When the inputs have high variance a smart model incorporates that uncertainty, especially when the errors could be strongly correlated. This was another error on Wang's part, as he assumed the opposite. So not only were his parameters wrong, the model was also conceptually unsound in that way.

There was no reason to choose the lower margin. It was evident on that post he had. Even his readers noticed this, and it was clear Sam was just doing this to try to stop people from focusing on the presidency. He added anyway, so I don't know why you're just being an idiot and saying it was 99%.

How convenient. He made his model wrong strategically. There are not enough eye rolls.

You are being a moron. By that logic, Trumpkins saying Trump would win are even more right. Again, no wonder Nate hedged because he'll be "right" no matter who wins.

They didn't have a model so their projections aren't meaningful to this conversation. If variance is high, a good model hedges. If you understand statistics why would you make this argument?

Because you defend a model that clearly has issues. It had a completely laughable distribution and would change dramatically in an instant over trivial crap.

Silliness. I simply said the model was the best available, and the evidence shows that's right.

Simply put, 538's model predicted the election results more accurately and you know it. No amount of flailing will escape this simple fact. The idea that you prefer a demonstrably worse model is baffling.

For some reason you are emotionally invested in this and I don't know why. If Wang's model had performed better I would have no problem saying so and I would happily crown a new king. For some reason you're unable to do so the other way around.

 

[Vic]

Seth Rich's brother pleads with Hannity to stop spreading conspiracy theory

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/23/media/seth-rich-family-letter-hannity-fox-news/index.html

By Oliver Darcy May 23, 2017: 1:03 PM ET

The brother of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich wrote a letter on Tuesday to the executive producer of Sean Hannity's Fox News show pleading with him to find "decency and kindness" in his heart and stop spreading an unproven conspiracy theory about the unsolved murder.

"Think about how you would feel losing a son or brother. And while dealing with this, you had baseless accusations of your lost family member being part of a vast conspiracy," Aaron Rich wrote in the letter to "Hannity" executive producer Porter Berry, a copy of which was provided to CNN.

"As the family, we would hope to be the first people to learn about any such evidence and reasons for Seth's death," he added. "It is a travesty that you would prompt false conspiracy theories and other people's agendas rather than work with the family to learn the truth."

Rich was shot to death last July in the streets of Washington, DC. The Metropolitan Police Department continues to investigate the murder and police say there is evidence to suggest Rich was the victim of a botched robbery.

But for months, right-wing media outlets have floated unproven theories that Rich was the person who provided Wikileaks with thousands of internal DNC emails, and suggested his death was retribution for the supposed leak. No real evidence has been provided to support such claims.

The theory resurfaced with a vengeance last week, in part due to an incorrect Fox News story the outlet has yet to retract. Hannity and other Fox News personalities seized on the story and have pushed the discredited theory.

Brad Bauman, the Rich family spokesman, told CNN on Monday that Hannity had not reached out to the family. Hannity did, however, reach out over the weekend to invite Kim Dotcom, the Megaupload founder, on to his program.

Dotcom, who is currently in New Zealand fighting extradition to the U.S., where he is wanted on charges of copyright infringement and money laundering, has claimed to have evidence Rich leaked documents to Wikileaks. Dotcom has not replied to CNN's requests for comment, but said in a statement posted to his website Tuesday that he would be willing to work with authorities.

In his letter, Aaron Rich said that earlier this week he was emailed by someone claiming to be Dotcom. Aaron Rich said he asked the person to "have a discussion" with the family and law enforcement about any such evidence related to the case, but did not receive a response.

Aaron Rich's letter also noted that Dotcom has been accused in the past of fabricating documents. New Zealand's Serious Fraud Office said earlier this year that an email he claimed in 2014 proved a supposed conspiracy against him was not authentic, according to the New Zealand Herald.

"As such, we urge you to please, not provide a platform for a person who is known to have pushed false evidence in the past and not allow him to make a mistake like that here," Aaron Rich wrote. "Nobody wants to solve Seth's murder more than we do. However, providing a platform to spread potentially false, damaging information will cause us additional pain, suffering and sorrow. By airing this information, you will continue to emotionally hurt us."

"We appeal to your decency to not cause a grieving family more pain and suffering by allowing your platform to be used by someone to drag our family name through the mud," the letter concluded.

A representative for Fox News and Hannity did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Monday, multiple journalists at the network expressed frustration to CNN that Hannity and other on-air personalties at Fox News were being permitted to peddle the discredited theory.

"I'm disgusted by it," one Fox News employee said.

 

[zinfamous]

"We appeal to your decency to not cause a grieving family more pain and suffering by allowing your platform to be used by someone to drag our family name through the mud," the letter concluded.

yeah, good luck with that. LoL--this is a Network founded and created in the image of that shitburger, Roger Ailes. I want an official Hannity response like this: "Fuck your feelings!"

 

[Grooveriding]

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/23/media/fox-news-removes-seth-rich-story/index.html

Fox News on Tuesday removed from its site an inaccurate story that peddled a conspiracy theory about the murder of Democratic National Committee Staffer Seth Rich. The story had remained online for almost a week after CNN pointed out basic problems with its assertions.

"On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich," a statement on the Fox News website said. "The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed."

"We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted," the statement added.

Despicable degenerates. They do this garbage intentionally. They know it is too late and has taken hold in the minds of their degenerate followers who lap up these conspiracy theories.

 

[woolfe9998]

This entire Seth Rich theory is completely repugnant. No further comment is really necessary here.

 

[sandorski]

This entire Seth Rich theory is completely repugnant. No further comment is really necessary here.

Indeed. Especially when it was the Sandyhook kids that did the hacking.

 

[agent00f]

Look at this moron trying to convince me of what I already said. This whole thread started when I pointed out that 538 saying Hillary would win the primary proves absolutely NOTHING. They calculate a chance, and they will not be correct 100% of the time.

It's amazing that you are now arguing for my side and you don't even seem to realize it, you really are a stupid troll.

As dumb as the other conservatives pretend to be, even they know that you're too stupid to take seriously on anything.

 

[agent00f]

Why is it so hard for you to admit his model is crap? The distribution is laughable.





You're being an idiot. Even if he didn't put the margin out there, it was a silly judgment of his.

Last day:

Median: Clinton 307 EV, Trump 231 EV. Meta-Margin: 2.2%. One-sigma range: Clinton 281-326 EV. The win probability is 93% using the revised assumption of polling error, +/- 1.1%.




Right now, you look like a fanboy of his. No wonder he hedged. It's obvious fivethirtyeight has monetary considerations.




It was 5% in total for EC win, but pop loss at that time. Going by proportion with ~10%, it should be around ~2% chance for a win with a pop loss of 2%

Model results are based on available data; you're stupidly conflating that with the model. Considering learning something about the subject before making yourself look as proudly ignorant as Chiropteran.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/23/media/fox-news-removes-seth-rich-story/index.html



Despicable degenerates. They do this garbage intentionally. They know it is too late and has taken hold in the minds of their degenerate followers who lap up these conspiracy theories.

Really says something when a story is too shitty even for fox's standards. Evidently nothing is too low for trump degenerates though.

 

[Balt]

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/23/media/fox-news-removes-seth-rich-story/index.html

Despicable degenerates. They do this garbage intentionally. They know it is too late and has taken hold in the minds of their degenerate followers who lap up these conspiracy theories.

Fox News on Tuesday removed from its site an inaccurate story that peddled a conspiracy theory about the murder of Democratic National Committee Staffer Seth Rich. The story had remained online for almost a week after CNN pointed out basic problems with its assertions.

"On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich," a statement on the Fox News website said. "The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed."

"We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted," the statement added.

'High degree of editorial scrutiny'. Hilarious. Loosely translated, Fox is saying "We already spent all of our lawsuit money on Ailes and O'Reilly sexual harassment cases this year, so we're going to drop this particular conspiracy theory bullshit story even though it really fires up our viewers just the way we wanted it to."

 

[brycejones]

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/23/media/fox-news-removes-seth-rich-story/index.html



Despicable degenerates. They do this garbage intentionally. They know it is too late and has taken hold in the minds of their degenerate followers who lap up these conspiracy theories.

I'm sorry that is from the fake news network. So I won't be buying your fake news story about fake news.

 

[brycejones]

Indeed. Especially when it was the Sandyhook kids that did the hacking.

You forgot they were at the spirit cooking pizza parties.

 

[Grooveriding]

The alt-right degenerates forced the parents into having to do something they'd been saying they were not interested in doing; speaking publicly about their son. The degenerates score another notch on their belt of filth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...a_story.html?utm_term=.c673a361cee3&tid=sm_tw

We’re Seth Rich’s parents. Stop politicizing our son’s murder.

By Mary Rich and Joel Rich May 23 at 6:04 PM
The writers are the parents of Seth Rich, who was killed in the District in 2016.



Imagine living in a nightmare that you can never wake up from. Imagine having to face every single day knowing that your son was murdered. Imagine you had no answers — that no one has been brought to justice and there were few clues leading to the killer or killers. Imagine that every single day, with every phone call you hope that it’s the police, calling to tell you that there has been a break in the case.

Imagine that instead, every call that comes in is a reporter asking what you think of a series of lies or conspiracies about the death. That nightmare is what our family goes through every day.

Our beloved son Seth Rich was gunned down in the early hours of July 10, 2016, in his Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Bloomingdale. On the day he was murdered, Seth was excited about a new job he had been offered on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.


Seth had dedicated his life to public service, and he told us that he wanted to work on the campaign’s effort to expand voter participation because he loved our country dearly and believed deeply in the promise of democratic engagement. Seth had been walking around, calling friends, family and his girlfriend, pondering the broader picture of what the job change would mean. He wondered how he would pick up and move to New York City for four months, the strain that might put on his relationships, and how it would all affect the life he had built for himself in Washington.

The circumstances of what happened next are still unclear. We know that Seth was abruptly confronted on the street, that he had been on the phone and quickly ended the call. We also know that there were signs of a struggle, including a watchband torn when the assailants attempted to rip it off his wrist. Law-enforcement officials told us that Seth’s murder looked like a botched robbery attempt in which the assailants — after shooting our son — panicked, immediately ran and abandoned Seth’s personal belongings. We have seen no evidence, by any person at any time, that Seth’s murder had any connection to his job at the Democratic National Committee or his life in politics. Anyone who claims to have such evidence is either concealing it from us or lying.

Still, conservative news outlets and commentators continue, day after painful day, to peddle discredited conspiracy theories that Seth was killed after having provided WikiLeaks with emails from the DNC. Those theories, which some reporters have since retracted, are baseless, and they are unspeakably cruel.

We know that Seth’s personal email and his personal computer were both inspected by detectives early in the investigation and that the inspection revealed no evidence of any communications with anyone at WikiLeaks or anyone associated with WikiLeaks. Nor did that inspection reveal any evidence that Seth had leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks or to anyone else. Indeed, those who have suggested that Seth’s role as a data analyst at the DNC gave him access to a wide trove of emails are simply incorrect — Seth’s job was to develop analytical models to encourage voters to turn out to vote. He didn’t have access to DNC emails, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee emails, John Podesta’s emails or Hillary Clinton’s emails. That simply wasn’t his job.

Despite these facts, our family’s nightmare persists. Seth’s death has been turned into a political football. Every day we wake up to new headlines, new lies, new factual errors, new people approaching us to take advantage of us and Seth’s legacy. It just won’t stop. The amount of pain and anguish this has caused us is unbearable. With every conspiratorial flare-up, we are forced to relive Seth’s murder and a small piece of us dies as more of Seth’s memory is torn away from us.

To those who sincerely want to get to the bottom of Seth’s murder, we don’t hold this against you. We don’t think you are monsters, and we don’t think you are terrible people. We know that so many people out there really do care, don’t know what to think and are angry at the lack of answers.

We also know that many people are angry at our government and want to see justice done in some way, somehow. We are asking you to please consider our feelings and words. There are people who are using our beloved Seth’s memory and legacy for their own political goals, and they are using your outrage to perpetuate our nightmare. We ask those purveying falsehoods to give us peace, and to give law enforcement the time and space to do the investigation they need to solve our son’s murder.

 

[brycejones]

The alt-right degenerates forced the parents into having to do something they'd been saying they were not interested in doing; speaking publicly about their son. The degenerates score another notch on their belt of filth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...a_story.html?utm_term=.c673a361cee3&tid=sm_tw

Dude the parents are being threatened by the traitors to America who want the Obama back in the white house as dictator with Hillary as VP. All true Americans will be sent to the Walmart Jade Helm FEMA reeducation and relocation centers.

 

[OrByte]

From Aaron Rich's letter to Hannity:


"As such, we urge you to please, not provide a platform for a person who is known to have pushed false evidence in the past and not allow him to make a mistake like that here," Aaron Rich wrote. "Nobody wants to solve Seth's murder more than we do. However, providing a platform to spread potentially false, damaging information will cause us additional pain, suffering and sorrow. By airing this information, you will continue to emotionally hurt us."


Sounds like the Rich's are planning to sue, hopefully Fox News and Hannity.

Edit: and a big FU to the dumb people that continue to support Fox and Hannity while they peddle this type of bizarre bullshit. shame on you.

 

[agent00f]

From Aaron Rich's letter to Hannity:


"As such, we urge you to please, not provide a platform for a person who is known to have pushed false evidence in the past and not allow him to make a mistake like that here," Aaron Rich wrote. "Nobody wants to solve Seth's murder more than we do. However, providing a platform to spread potentially false, damaging information will cause us additional pain, suffering and sorrow. By airing this information, you will continue to emotionally hurt us."


Sounds like the Rich's are planning to sue, hopefully Fox News and Hannity.

Edit: and a big FU to the dumb people that continue to support Fox and Hannity while they peddle this type of bizarre bullshit. shame on you.

Degenerates know perfectly well why their behavior is so, which is why they'll probably start claiming the family is in on the conspiracy.

 

[xthetenth]

Degenerates know perfectly well why their behavior is so, which is why they'll probably start claiming the family is in on the conspiracy.

I'd say they know their behavior would be so if it weren't for some rationalization so they continually rationalize everything away.

 

[Maxima1]

Model results are based on available data; you're stupidly conflating that with the model. Considering learning something about the subject before making yourself look as proudly ignorant as Chiropteran.

Well duh, captain obvious. Just because it's using data available, it doesn't mean he even has a good model. A model could seem accurate or be able to align with past data, yet still be horribly wrong. He dumps in "stuff" but there's no proof it furthers predictive power. It could actually lessen it.

How convenient. He made his model wrong strategically. There are not enough eye rolls.

Yeah, how many eyerolls did you have over polls-plus, fanboy? lol

Simply put, 538's model predicted the election results more accurately and you know it. No amount of flailing will escape this simple fact. The idea that you prefer a demonstrably worse model is baffling.

For some reason you are emotionally invested in this and I don't know why. If Wang's model had performed better I would have no problem saying so and I would happily crown a new king. For some reason you're unable to do so the other way around.

You're the one who acts as if there's something special about one of them and vehemently defends the 538 model despite him getting several things completely wrong.

 

[agent00f]

Well duh, captain obvious. Just because it's using data available, it doesn't mean he even has a good model. A model could seem accurate or be able to align with past data, yet still be horribly wrong. He dumps in "stuff" but there's no proof it furthers predictive power. It could actually lessen it.

Yeah, how many eyerolls did you have over polls-plus, fanboy? lol

You're the one who acts as if there's something special about one of them and vehemently defends the 538 model despite him getting several things completely wrong.

You seem under the impression that you're competent enough at statistics to have any meaningful opinion on this.