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Post by GBG on Jul 30, 2016 21:08:10 GMT -5
I read through the whole rant. Well-done and well-said. Trump is having a meltdown in recent days. I suspect that when post-convention polls settle out in next few days, Trump will be significantly behind HRC, though polls mean nothing until the final two weeks before 11/8. His latest transgression to insult the parents of the heroic Muslim soldier and to claim he has sacrificed too by "working hard" and "employing thousands" has been skewered by both Republicans and Democrats. He has shown no shame, no empathy, and no conscience. Watch that great Khan speech here.... www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/07/29/dnc-convention-khizr-khan-father-of-us-muslim-soldier-entire-speech-sot.cnn
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Post by jimijam28 on Jul 30, 2016 21:19:20 GMT -5
great longggggggggg post
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Post by JB on Jul 31, 2016 1:58:20 GMT -5
you're right, Libya is a North African country. and since we're being precise, it's Sunni, not Sufi. it's undoubtedly true there are long-standing grievances and tensions in the region that go back long before HRC was active in politics, she isn't responsible for the artificial borders of Sykes-Picot or the tribal nature of Libyan society, but when you take sides in a civil war and remove the regime by force, you're left with lawlessness, warlords and anarchy - not Jeffersonian democracy. this is the lesson Hillary refuses to learn since she wants to repeat the same failed policy of regime change in Syria. you mentioned Egypt during the Arab spring, though the situation if far from ideal today, if the US had opted for the Hillary model and armed protestors and bombed the dictatorship to smithereens, Egypt would be a bloodbath today. there's plenty the West can do to stabilize the region. ending their involvement in the Syria civil war is a big start. if it weren't for foreign interference in Syria (including the Russians/Iran), the war would have ended years ago. both the supporters of the rebels and allies of the Assad regime should play a big role in the reconstruction of Syria, something resembling the Marshall Plan needs to take place. the refugees need to come home. also, place Saudi Arabia on the state sponsors of terrorism. they have been using their oil wealth to export their backwards, violent interpretation of Islam (Wahhabism) for decades now. Wahhabism is the ideological foundation of ISIS, if we want secular and liberal values to succeed in the region, Saudia Arabia must be treated as a pariah, not a close ally. I won't offer a defense of Trump but your portrayal of Stein is way off. she never claimed to be some incorruptible saint. and she isn't alone in feeling that way considering both Clinton and Trump have terrible favorability ratings.
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Post by truch on Jul 31, 2016 2:21:58 GMT -5
Its nice to see some coherant and non partisan discussion about the election, anywhere else on the internet seems to be the exact opposite at the moment
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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Jul 31, 2016 11:47:09 GMT -5
Trump is having a meltdown in recent days. I've been hoping for Trump to collapse for months, but he's playing a tricky game, and it's easy to mistakenly think that what looks like a meltdown to me looks like a meltdown to his supporters. One thing to keep in mind is that politicians at this level are very smart. Hillary, Trump, Obama, Romney, Slick Willie, even GW Bush. What you see publicly is a persona -- Bush acted like a country bumpkin because he was selling the country on the idea of someone like them who understood their troubles and wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. Romney acted sophisticated because he wanted to sell the country the idea that he was smart enough to fix the messed up economy. But get them in a room privately, discussing a complex topic, and they'll both sound the same. So when they publicly sound crazy or stupid, you have to look deeper to see what they're trying to accomplish. So what is Trump doing? www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-us-politics-poor-whites/ gives some insight. He's selling himself as hope for people who have felt disempowered by everything from Affirmative Action ("I got passed over by a less-qualified minority") to political correctness ("I can't speak my mind because of thought-policing") to tax policies that favor outsourcing ("me and my brother both got laid off when the factory moved a bunch of jobs to Mexico"). The "take back our country" rhetoric and the talk about banging multiple beautiful women and the criticism of illegal immigrants isn't meant to impress you, it's meant to impress people in Ohio and Wisconsin and Iowa whose entire communities are struggling and who feel like they've been ignored for decades. From the article: "what elites see as blunders people back home see as someone who–finally–conducts themselves in a relatable way. He shoots from the hip; he’s not constantly afraid of offending someone; he’ll get angry about politics; he’ll call someone a liar or a fraud." He actually wants people to call him racist, because it makes him more relatable to people who feel like they've been unfairly called racist, told to check their privilege (when they're poor and from a broken family in some backwater town with no hope of moving up), and so on. He wants people to talk down to him the same way they talk down to people from Ashland KY (majority white), Lancaster PA (majority hispanic), and Mobile AL (majority black) -- to say he's brash and insensitive and doesn't talk the "right way". I never thought he'd make it this far, because I consistently underestimated how much he resonates with so much of the country. Something like 70% of the population thinks the country is on the "wrong track", and a lot of it has to do with things Trump rants about. And people are willing to put up with a surprising amount of disagreeable craziness if they feel like a guy "gets it" on one or two life-changingly important issues.
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Post by Number 1 Bonerrrrrr on Jul 31, 2016 12:51:20 GMT -5
I in part blame the fracturing of the media landscape for the Trump phenomenon. CNN is the closest thing we have to a non-partisan news network, and they are so sensationalist and ratings driven that they don't have time to report on things in a coherent way, they just bring on one Republican and one Democrat and have them yell at each other. Because Trump and the things he says are so unexpected in politics they feed on and magnify his every word. Meanwhile, Fox News and MSNBC report things with their own heavy ideological bent. Internet news has polarized to the point where if you are conservative or liberal, you have your own sites, blogs, etc you follow that merely reinforce your political and social beliefs. People are able to just chill in their ideological comfort zone and only be exposed to dissenting opinion once every 2 or 4 years.
I'm saddened by the thought that there doesn't appear to be any way to change this. I hope it isn't the case but I see things only becoming more polarized in the future. Even if the US ends up in some snafu of a war (which I think Trump is as likely to involve us in as Clinton) the majority of that President's supporters will remain ardent. Liberals and Conservatives will continue bickering with one another and not getting anything done while the major problems of our country continue to plague us.
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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Jul 31, 2016 13:27:33 GMT -5
Internet news has polarized to the point where if you are conservative or liberal, you have your own sites, blogs, etc you follow that merely reinforce your political and social beliefs. People are able to just chill in their ideological comfort zone and only be exposed to dissenting opinion once every 2 or 4 years.
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Post by altitudesickness on Jul 31, 2016 13:57:06 GMT -5
I don't really follow politics much, however, the fact that Trump is a realistic candidate for the the president of the united states makes me feel slightly better that we actually voted in the moron that is Tony Abbott. Not that much better to be honest, but a little bit better.
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Post by brick2 on Jul 31, 2016 14:33:51 GMT -5
I in part blame the fracturing of the media landscape for the Trump phenomenon. CNN is the closest thing we have to a non-partisan news network, and they are so sensationalist and ratings driven that they don't have time to report on things in a coherent way, they just bring on one Republican and one Democrat and have them yell at each other. Because Trump and the things he says are so unexpected in politics they feed on and magnify his every word. Meanwhile, Fox News and MSNBC report things with their own heavy ideological bent. Internet news has polarized to the point where if you are conservative or liberal, you have your own sites, blogs, etc you follow that merely reinforce your political and social beliefs. People are able to just chill in their ideological comfort zone and only be exposed to dissenting opinion once every 2 or 4 years. I'm saddened by the thought that there doesn't appear to be any way to change this. I hope it isn't the case but I see things only becoming more polarized in the future. Even if the US ends up in some snafu of a war (which I think Trump is as likely to involve us in as Clinton) the majority of that President's supporters will remain ardent. Liberals and Conservatives will continue bickering with one another and not getting anything done while the major problems of our country continue to plague us. Trump has played the media like a fiddle. Getting free exposure has been the cornerstone of his advertising strategy and they keep falling for it and falling for it. I was in Mexico recently and every morning CNN Latino or whatever it is (based in Miami) talked about Trump for 3/4 of the program and then they all wondered aloud, "how does he have so many supporters?" Even Megan Kelly of FOX admitted that they were a big part of why Trump was winning the primary. The media during this election has disgusted me. Not only are they responsible for Trump's advance, every other bit of breathing space was given to Clinton. On the Democratic side the deck was stacked for her since October. The only hope I have is seeing the level of distrust my teenage kids have in CNN, FOX, and MSNBC. I can't wait for the day when the next generation gravitates to alternative sources and cable news becomes obsolete.
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Post by Coach Sticky on Jul 31, 2016 15:22:51 GMT -5
That's it we have tooooooo many discussions in one thread, it's stupid... Finally someone posts a Mudiay video and breaks the trump s**t
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Post by rock on Jul 31, 2016 18:04:23 GMT -5
just creating a new thread so we have a place for the political discussions
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Post by blackhill on Jul 31, 2016 21:09:40 GMT -5
Ron Paul!
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Post by Number 1 Bonerrrrrr on Aug 1, 2016 15:21:10 GMT -5
Internet news has polarized to the point where if you are conservative or liberal, you have your own sites, blogs, etc you follow that merely reinforce your political and social beliefs. People are able to just chill in their ideological comfort zone and only be exposed to dissenting opinion once every 2 or 4 years. I like everything about this video except the suggestion that cat pictures on the internet are anything but great.
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Post by scooter on Aug 2, 2016 9:48:45 GMT -5
Hillary is a POS cuntsicle, for sure. I know that CLN went on to write that we should still elect Clinton because she at least would maintain the status quo, while Trump is a disaster candidate. Still, I think this comment is consistent with the caricature of Hillary Clinton -- a caricature that began forming out of sexism during the 1992 campaign when in response to an unsubstantiated attack by primary competitor Jerry Brown that Bill Clinton had improperly helped Hillary's law practice as governor of Arkansas, she responded, admittedly a bit tactlessly, that “I suppose I could have stayed home, baked cookies and had teas.” In return, she was bashed as not feminine, for not respecting "stay at home moms" etc. etc. etc. A very sexist criticism of Clinton had begun, and it formed the basis for a relatively unpopular image of her nationally. There is certainly reason to criticize Clinton and I have no problem with criticism being leveled at her. But the "POS cuntsicle" comment strikes me as 1) sexist, and 2) OK in degree of disdain or disgust for someone with no apparent redeeming qualities, like Trump, but not reasonable for a more complicated person whose life story is pretty clearly a mix of admirable efforts and public mistakes. So I'm going to come to Clinton's defense a bit. In her law school years at Yale (yes she is obviously very smart), she volunteered to take child abuse cases, she volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice to the poor, she helped with a project on the problems faced by migrant workers, and she wrote an oft-cited article "Children Under the Law" advocating for greater legal protections for children. She was then a staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund. After moving to Arkansas but before she married Bill, she directed a legal aid clinic at the law school at the Univ. of Arkansas and co-founded the first rape crisis center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. In the next few years, she co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and was named the first female national Chairman of the Legal Services Corporation. In Arkansas, she also was the first Chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, created to address gender bias in the legal profession. She started taking a lot of fire during the 1992 campaign, but still pushed to be the first First Lady to take on a difficult legislative agenda, heading up the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. When that effort failed in Congress, she partnered with Senators Kennedy and Hatch to pass the Children's Health Insurance Program. She also initiated the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which also passed Congress and was signed into law. I'm not going to get into her years as New York Senator (where she was quite popular and re-elected with 67% of the vote in 2006 in a state of 20 million), or as Secretary of State, a job which is difficult to evaluate. And in full disclosure, my sister-in-law worked in D.C. for many years (for a non-profit which depended largely on federal funding), had a few work-related encounters with Hillary Clinton, and found her to be less than charming. She voted for Sanders in the Virginia primary. I'm not under any illusion that Clinton is an ideal presidential candidate or one who doesn't deserve scrutiny and criticism. Like just about everyone, she is obviously a mix of the good and bad, and it's quite reasonable to think the Democrats could perhaps have nominated a better candidate. But, I do think that CLN's language is sexist, and I also don't think it reflects the positive aspects of Clinton's complicated past.
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Post by scooter on Aug 2, 2016 10:36:49 GMT -5
3) When it comes to the Supreme Court, both Hillary and Trump have similar records in terms of what they think makes a good judge. They're both likely to nominate pro-corporate, pro-choice, pro-big-government, pro-tax-the-middle-class-to-death types. Hillary is more likely to have a list of people she owes favors to, while Trump is more prone to being manipulated, but fundamentally there's a reason they've been close friends for decades. Gotta disagree with you there. Trump has no idea about judges, other than ones he doesn't like because he's dealt with them personally. If you asked him to describe an "Article III judge" he'd start bullshitting, having no idea what Article III is, or what it says about federal judges. I'm certain he has no familiarity whatever with the pool of potential federal judges, or potential appellate judges and Supreme Court Justices. He'd delegate this 100% to Republicans who were loyal to him, so his judicial appointments would basically be those chosen by Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie, and a few other Republican officeholders/staffers. And I'm not going to agree that Hillary Clinton would appoint as Supreme Court Justices "people she owes favors to." I think that's absurd. Bill Clinton's Supreme Court appointments -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- were judges on the D.C. Circuit and the First Circuit before their nomination to the Supreme Court. I'm sure Hillary's choices would be similar -- very well qualified federal judges with a liberal bent. 4) Net result: one of these two idiots is going to win in November, and I don't think it makes a big difference which one. Even though Trump is much more prone to stupid outbursts, it mostly won't matter. So my plan is to send a message to both parties by voting third party (Gary Johnson/Libertarian in this case), and hope that enough other people do it that both R and D think "man, we could've walked away with that election if only we hadn't nominated such a loser" instead of "well, we won, but we got the worst president since US Grant out of it" or "well, we lost, but it was close". I want there to be a high enough third-party turnout that both parties think "we have to move back toward the rational center" so that next election we can get like... Kasich vs Webb instead of Joker vs Two-Face. I think you are tilting at windmills on this third party "send a message" bit. Ross Perot got 19% of the popular vote in 1992. Did that "send a message," or change the course of US politics or change the parties on a going forward basis? No. Gore won the popular vote in 2000. Did that send a message to the Republicans or change anything about how their party operated, or its governing agenda? No. Once a presidential election is over, it's over. A third party vote will not "send a message" to the parties or change anything about how they operate, govern, or nominate in the future. A big loss for the Republicans is far more likely to send a message. On the heels of losing the popular vote in presidential elections in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2012, THAT would send a message to the Republican party about their "White People" party. The two-party system isn't going anywhere and a third party vote will not send any messages. And, I quite strongly disagree about "it mostly won't matter" in terms of the outcome of this election. Putting aside federal legislation and Executive Branch governance, it definitely will matter when it comes to judicial appointments including the Supreme Court. In case ya'll had forgotten, there is an open seat on the Supreme Court right now, and the sitting court is split 4-4 between Democratic and Republican appointments. Just filling that seat will move the Court one way or the other. And given that Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kennedy are all 80+, it is likely there will be at least one more appointment. So the next President will put a huge stamp on the direction of the Supreme Court (and the rest of the federal judiciary).
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Post by GBG on Aug 2, 2016 15:32:50 GMT -5
To be sure, HRC is caricatured and demonized in the minds of a large portion of the public, to the point that many otherwise reasonable thinkers would say it doesn't make a difference who wins this November. Of course, it makes a difference! So much so, that a sitting President today took the unprecedented step of declaring the candidate of the opposition party "unfit" for the office. And asking why GOP officials still endorse him while otherwise condemning everything he says.
Trump is an unstable, narcissist nut. HRC is a flawed candidate but has the bonifides to do the job of POTUS. That's a BIG difference.
False equivalency is a dangerous thing in this instance. America could go off the deep end if it elects Trump. Simple as that.
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Post by scooter on Aug 2, 2016 17:27:28 GMT -5
If you asked him to describe an "Article III judge" he'd start bullshitting, having no idea what Article III is, or what it says about federal judges. I'm certain he has no familiarity whatever with the pool of potential federal judges, or potential appellate judges and Supreme Court Justices. He'd delegate this 100% to Republicans who were loyal to him, so his judicial appointments would basically be those chosen by Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie, and a few other Republican officeholders/staffers. Might need to strike Christie off that list. Today, Christie distanced himself from Trump over the Khan controversy. The way this is going, Trump would have trouble even staffing an Executive Branch because he wouldn't appoint anyone who had not been a loyal lackey, and the ranks of loyal lackeys with high level government experience is rapidly dwindling. Trump's kids could wind up filling most of his cabinet.
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Post by jimijam28 on Aug 2, 2016 18:23:54 GMT -5
The Trump train is having a bad week. ,, Couldn't happen too a nicer guy lol
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Post by JB on Aug 14, 2016 15:12:27 GMT -5
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Post by GBG on Aug 14, 2016 15:32:04 GMT -5
That NYT OpEd has a lot of truth to it. Hillary is acceptable to many neocons and Wall Streeters. She's more hawkish than Obama. And she knows how to do the establishment's beltway bidding. Still, I hold out a sliver of hope that she won't blow up the world or ensnare us in another unnecessary war. The one thing about her is that throughout her life, she hasn't been consistently hawkish. In 1968, she converted from the GOP to become a Democrat and work for Eugene McCarthy's anti-war presidential campaign. She was an anti Vietnam War activist. That gives me hope that, maybe, Hillary won't do anything rash. Trump is the definition of rash and intemperate. He could destroy the world. Or our economy.
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