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[Frumple]

I'll put two nonexistent internet quid on Vermin Supreme being the VP pick for both candidates.

[mainiac]

Vermin Supreme as VP appears about 1000 times more likely right now then it did six months ago.

[Shadowlord]

If we go by the proposed rules:

Let's presume that my guesses are:
1. Oprah (She's really, really rich, and also black, and a woman. Perfect for Trump to address his vulnerabilities. ... I don't actually know what her political positions are, though)
2. John Kerry is a better secretary of state than Hillary Clinton was
3. Susan Collins (maybe Hillary will pick her for reasons? Or Trump...)
4. Barbara Mikulski (Retiring from Senate in 2017, very progressive, 5 years older than Sanders, but doesn't look it)
5. Sarah Palin (crazy*... downside: not a winner)
6. Michelle Bachmann (even more crazy**)
7. Jesse Ventura (seems unlikely but Trump could surprise)
8. Cynthia McKinney (she may not be really, really, rich, but Trump might still like her... maybe. What appears to be a series of unforced errors resulted in her obtaining not-a-winner status)

How would you determine when to stop counting someone for negative points? Perhaps you can see the problem here. Maybe if you had to specify what party your choices were for, but some of those could be either, so what do you do then?

Of course, probably the trick to winning this contest, with those rules, is predicting the VP candidates for one of the third parties, and ignoring the Democrats and Republicans. In which case, I could guess:
1. Cheri Honkala (Jill Stein's VP candidate from 2012)

And then that's it because I have no clue about who Jill Stein might pick if she picked someone else. I looked at the wikipedia page for the Green Party's nominee from 2008, but it was like:

Other factors in her defeat were her controversial statements regarding Bush's involvement in 9/11,[20][28] her opposition to aid to Israel, a perceived support of Palestinian and Arab causes, and alleged antisemitism by her supporters.[29][30][31][32] and on the night before the primary election, McKinney's father stated on Atlanta television that "Jews have bought everybody ... J-E-W-S."[20]

So I added her to the first list, obviously.

* Not medically
** Maybe medically, I don't know, who can say?

[EnigmaticHat]

According to this article, the military and intelligence branches of the government are not happy about the prospect of a Trump presidency.  Its not just about anti-military things he's said in his past.  The military finds his kill-em-all thoughts on the middle east to be idiotic and individuals in the CIA are apparently afraid that he'll reinstitute "enhanced interrogation".  To the point where they might refuse or request a transfer if asked to waterboard someone.  This includes the head of the CIA saying he would refuse orders for waterboarding, despite being head of the National Counterterrorist Center under Bush and making pro-torture remarks then.

Tiny clean spot on the CIA's otherwise soiled record?

[Orange Wizard]

Is it time to start taking bets on how long it takes for Trump to be assassinated?

[Zangi]

According to this article, the military and intelligence branches of the government are not happy about the prospect of a Trump presidency.  Its not just about anti-military things he's said in his past.  The military finds his kill-em-all thoughts on the middle east to be idiotic and individuals in the CIA are apparently afraid that he'll reinstitute "enhanced interrogation".  To the point where they might refuse or request a transfer if asked to waterboard someone.  This includes the head of the CIA saying he would refuse orders for waterboarding, despite being head of the National Counterterrorist Center under Bush and making pro-torture remarks then.

Tiny clean spot on the CIA's otherwise soiled record?

Its ok when we do it under other people, but when Trump wants it?  Nope.

Awesome logic.

[mainiac]

We thought it was ethically gray but our bosses assured us it was okay.  Then our bosses blamed us for not saying no.  Now everyone agrees that it's bad but this guy wants us to start doing it again.  Nope.

[Reelya]

I had to do a report on media violence for college, was looking into the APA's (American Psychological Association) anti-game meta-analysis, and found out about the huge APA torture scandal. I'll review the details

Game research thingy: the APA put out an anti-video-game statement in 2005. After that they hand-picked a panel of seven (average age 62 years old) anti-game advocates (well 5 are publicly anti-game and the other two we don't know) to "review" the existing literature on the link between video games and crime, which was released around 2013. The "review" however included a stage where they voted on which papers to include in the result - and they just happened to not like any papers which found that games weren't linked to aggression, which was about 50% of the papers. The methodology and finding of this review was widely ridiculed by other prominent academics. It's not really that important, but their rapid anti-video game stance is interesting in light of the next bit.

APA Torture scandal: in 2005, the same year they started campaigning about the evils of vidya games, the APA also set up a torture ethics review panel. This panel all seemed to be people with contracts with the Pentagon. The panel removed the ethical constraints on APA members being involved in torture of prisoners. Meanwhile, the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association took a strong anti-torture stance, threatening to expel any member who worked with the Bush Administration. For legal reasons, Cheney/Rumsfeld needed professional medical oversight during torture, and only the APA with it's financial links to the Pentagon was willing to play ball. Not only that, but it's been discovered that the head of the APA's "ethics" committee had a personal contract with the Pentagon to train interrogators for Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. So basically, it's not much of a stretch to say that the APA's ethics committee was running a torture school for private profit.

Yeah, so most of the APA top people have already resigned or are under pressure to resign now, because of their secret collusion with Bush's War on Terror torture programs. The APA's rubber-stamp of a present medical professional probably won't be forthcoming a second time around.

[Sheb]

The American Psychological Associsation and the American Psychiatric Associations are two different bodies?

[Reelya]

Yeah and apparently the Psychological APA are mega-crooks compared to the Psychiatric APA.

EDIT: well, you can't really say any different about a medical organization where the head of their ethics committee ran his own private interrogator classes for Donald Rumsfeld:

Former federal prosecutor David Hoffman, who spearheaded the 542-page investigation, found that Behnke was an instrumental figure in more than a decade’s worth of institutional enablement by the APA of torture conducted by the CIA and US military. Hoffman concluded that Behnke, along with others, concealed close ties to colleagues in the military in order to maneuver the APA into softening its traditional rejections of torture – thereby enabling psychologists to participate – and suppressing internal dissent.

The association’s ethics director, Stephen Behnke, coordinated the group’s public policy statements on interrogations with a top military psychologist, the report said, and then received a Pentagon contract to help train interrogators while he was working at the association, without the knowledge of the association’s board. Mr. Behnke did not respond to a request for comment.

[mainiac]

Not only that, but it's been discovered that the head of the APA's "ethics" committee had a personal contract with the Pentagon to train interrogators for Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. So basically, it's not much of a stretch to say that the APA's ethics committee was running a torture school for private profit.

This sort of thinking is very, very dangerous.  The CIA has for decades been training people how to be effective interrogators.  The CIA has known for decades that torture is not an effective interrogation method.  The CIA has also been interested in training people to resist torture, (that's why they were so knowledge about waterboarding).  The psychology of interrogation is a science that can be used in ethical and unethical ways.  We know that most interrogations were not torture, not even a little bit.

If they were guilty of specific acts, they should be condemned for those specific acts.  If they were complicit accessories they should be condemned for that.  But to accuse people because they were in proximity to reprehensible acts is just fucking bad.  You aren't supposed to do that.

[Reelya]

Well, it's not really a stretch, since the official report states in black and white that the head of the APAs ethics committee was getting cash from the Pentagon to train interrogators (in secret payments, basically), after he'd maneuvered the organization to remove ethical constraints on their members assisting torture. Considering how the APA stacked the ethics review panel with pro-Pentagon people, I think it would be safe to assume that Ethics director Stephen Benhke also padded the Ethics Committee with like-minded people, who wouldn't get in the way of his private money-making. Those people likely were on the Pentagon payroll as well. 6 of the 10 members of the 2005 ethics review on torture had DoD links, that were know about. With that level of stacking it's probable that the remaining 4 would need to be people who could be assured not to blow the whistle on the whole thing. e.g. like-minded people who knew the score.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/14/apa-senior-officials-torture-report-cia
A number people have been forced to resign over this, not just the Ethics Committee chairman, but the APA's CEO, Deputy CEO and Communications Officer. All of those people were directly implicated in the preceding inquiry, along with the Ethics Committee guy. There were more currently-serving APA senior members who are also implicated in the report, e.g. the 2015 President of the APA (but they only serve a 1 year term each). There are also previous Presidents who were implicated.

[mainiac]

So going from 10% circumstantial evidence, 90% innuendo to 15% circumstantial evidence...  I really should just go back to not bothering

[Reelya]

So going from 10% circumstantial evidence, 90% innuendo to 15% circumstantial evidence...  I really should just go back to not bothering

What part is circumstantial? The head of the APA's ethics committee was being paid to train Guantanamo interrogators, and he was involved in a high-level action to stock the relevant committees with other pro-Pentagon people. This directly involved both the CEO, and deputy CEO of the APA, as well as a number of sitting presidents of the APA.

He was also directly involved in cover-ups with the Pentagon, after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. Since a lot of people close to him on this have been implicated as also being on the Pentagon payroll, it's not a big stretch to say that the people working under him would have been selected for being "friendly" to everything that was going on. The largest known DoD contract for APA members training interrogators for Guantanamo was worth $180 million, and those guys were deeply involved in designing torture methods (personally being involved in waterboarding etc). That was only possible because of the efforts of the Ethics Committee. There was big money riding on all this. APA President Joseph Matarazzo made a personal ruling that sleep deprivation isn't torture. He was then awarded ownership of a spin-off company created by the guys getting that $180 million dollar contract. So it wasn't just the Ethics Committee, you had high-level APA people across the board deeply involved in training Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib interrogators, and coming up with new ideas on "enhanced interrogation".

There's really not much need for innuendo here, and the known evidence is far stronger than mere "circumstantial" evidence. What I said before didn't actually go far enough, given the overall scope of this story.

This article goes into some of the different contracts involving senior APA members. This lists 4 cases (three of which I mentioned), but there are a total of 35 different ones in the report.
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2015/08/yes-americas-psychologists-abetted-torture-interrogations.html

[Loud Whispers]

Taiwanese animators deliver us unto humanity oh great memes