It's that time again...
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It's that time again...
Well that was an interesting race. The conservative primaries were insane and they trotted out all their old school crazy and we all laughed at their barely cloaked bigotry and gaffes and lip service crankery. eventually of course the backers pushed through the vaguely least wingnutty one that had a ghost of a chance at winning. But its not like they were going to bet Hillary "snoozer" Clinton who breezed right through the comparatively most boringest primary. Though those were some super weird general election shenanigans as they tried to plant FUD on her like always. I like how yet again Nate silver called it but conservatives were in denial. See you all in 2020
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Save that post for 18 months from now.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Lol
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
Who does Nate Silver predict will win the Republican primaries?
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
I'm pretty sure its way too soon for that; his models require a lot of polls.
Anyone there's no contest in my mind who to mentally support when it comes to the issues; between the USSC nominations, the Iran nuclear deal, healthcare, entitlements, foreign policy, etc; there's not a single reason for me to remotely consider wanting a Republican candidate over Hillary.
Whenever the Republicans occasionally support something sane my response is usually "stopped clock is right twice a day" which annoys my conservative thread but its true. Their ideology outside of a few minor and obviously trivial technology related issues is so backwards, reactionary, and regressive that I'd have to be a maddeningly blind narrow minded single issue voter for that ONE issue to outweigh the harm to millions of people.
Mental hypothetical support, but my friend is half American and can technically vote. So its relevant in our discussions.
And Hillary, while more Hawkish than Obama, is going to be less Hawkish than the GOP.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
the republican playbook will respond to Hilary's generally hawkish centrism with the proclamation that it is, as anything the Democratic Party does or is, the most far left liberal thing ever.
The resultant revisionary declarations will shift how they define the nebulous "middle" and more importantly shift how far out their definitions and declarations of conservatism are.
Which may be super hilarious, so.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Like another two dozen people have joined the GOP Primary with even more slated to join in the next few months.
I think they're figuring: what the hell, it's already a circus and anything could happen, why not try? And with all the money flying around, why not indeed?
I wonder when the last time was that this many candidates of any real prominence announced for a primary.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
Meanwhile over on the Democrat side of things we just twiddle our thumbs with Hillary and Crazy Ol' Bernie.
"And that's why we runnin' for a third term!" "No we're not." "Oh...well who the hell said that?!"
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
just sticky my post to the top of the forum until after the election
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: Meanwhile over on the Democrat side of things we just twiddle our thumbs with Hillary and Crazy Ol' Bernie.
"And that's why we runnin' for a third term!" "No we're not." "Oh...well who the hell said that?!"
Don't forget O'Malley! He just when official!
He has no chance. I figure he's running either for a cabinet position or to raise his profile for the next election cycle.
Posted by Men's Rights Forever (Member # 13269) on :
What's curious is the reluctance to address how disastrous and embarrassing the Iraq war has been for the U.S by both parties. In retrospect, Saddam's regime, which, despite being horrendous in some ways, was secular and protective of Christians, seems like a godsend compared to the chaos and ugliness Saddam's removal has unleashed on that region. Somehow or other the people who urged the country towards that disastrous war are still confident and 95% of the Republican contenders are groveling in front of Zionist billionaires who for some reason or other appear eager about the U.S being endlessly hostile to countries Israel doesn't like.
Anyway, Chris Mathews has been on fire the past few weeks and has been calling out Neocon shamelessness.
Also: Please stop calling me Clive I don't know who that is.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
clive pretends he's not clive take a shot
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
It is worth noting that the Iraq War has been going on for 12 years now. After your CBO's estimates of a long-term cost of 2.4 trillion and between 100,000 as documented by leaked US logs to 500,000 excess deaths as recorded by peer-reviewed medical journals, it is worth asking how you got here and what safeguards are being put in place to make sure that another huge mistake, arguably the worst in modern US foreign policy doesn't happen again.
Instead, it seems like you'll be electing Hilary Clinton who is pretty straightforward in her support of the war in the first place.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
there are better answers given more complete potentials for change but my legitimate and serious answer is to say the first step is "no more Republican presidents"
barring some dramatic change in the habits of both our primary parties and a serious period of unlikely soul searching with the current establishment republicans, this is a Good Idea
Posted by Men's Rights Forever (Member # 13269) on :
Here is Chris Mathews again going on a rant against the NeoCons. This was a few months earlier and the context is Rand Paul announcing he's running and a so called "Foundation for Secure and Prosperous America" running ads against him scare-mongering about his stance on the Iran deal. Mathews says there's "piggish money" behind the Neocons. Them balls.
I'll be voting for Bernie in the primaries as things stand.
I might even campaign for him when the time comes.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
I'm sorry, if a bit off topic.
We had a discussion in class (I'm doing my MAm after three years break after BA) recently and one of the students said that 99% of black Americans voted for Obama both in 2008 and 2012. I checked wiki, and it's actually 95% and 93% respectively, but it's still high. I can't help but think that black people voted for Obama JUST because he is black. Is this assumption correct? By comparison, white Americans in 2012 voted 59% for Romney.
I mean, there is no 95% in democracy. 95% is something that happens in Belarus or in North Korea.
Is it because black poeple are/feel so oppressed, that they chose a black president? Or because it was a historic event? And if so, why only black considered it to be historic?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Black americans already have a strong propensity towards voting Democratic and the populist message that Obama was working on in the elections already gets a lot of play along the comorbid and associated socioeconomic factors that black americans have to deal with at a disproportionately high level. Also, for most of this lifetime of black voters, Democratic policies were infinitely more favorable to them and the Democratic party has afforded them more representation overall.
If Obama had been white you still would have seen a severe majority vote for him among blacks. But the opportunity to have the first black president in American history doubtlessly pushed that up some, though to what degree is super debatable. 10 percent perhaps? I don't know.
It's not like the racial issue was all that was going to keep them from voting for McCain or Romney, obviously.
Posted by tertiaryadjunct (Member # 12989) on :
In 2000, 90% of blacks voted for Gore. In 2004, 88% of blacks voted for Kerry. Even back in the 80's, Mondale got 91% of the black vote.
Perhaps it is clear to the black community that the Republican party does not care about them - or worse yet, actively works to hurt them. They haven't forgotten the Republican party's Southern Strategy:
quote:You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
93%/95% is barely a few points higher than the usual. Obama being black certainly didn't hurt (wouldn't you be ecstatic to finally be able to vote for someone one who might actually understand your community for once?) but it wasn't a particularly significant impact on those numbers IMO.
[ May 30, 2015, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: tertiaryadjunct ]
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Yeah, it's worth it for people to pay attention to what Atwater is saying there — he's basically describing pretty perfectly how the Republican party adopted a pretty clear and consistent strategy of dogwhistling messages to a racist base, that continued handily through to Reagan.
It is, unsurprisingly, still prominent in a way targeted against blacks today. It's easy to catch a whiff of it in 90% of conversations the right is having about "thugs" or food stamps and the evermortal Welfare Queens mythology.
Long story short though is that the black community largely just has absolutely no faith that conservatives are anything but antagonistic to them and they vote accordingly.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Truth be told the same would likely have happened long since with the poorer voters as well, given how often GOP interests occur against their own interests, but the GOP has coopted and in some cases genuinely believes in a variety of 'values' issues that keep things split for them.
Szymon, your questions while it's worthwhile to ask them, I wonder what your response would be if I were to point out that historically white Americans have voted nearly 100% for white men, and to speak of it in a way that suggests some racism or fault on those voters parts...would you accept such a 'question' as inoffensive? Or the suggestion that somehow the results were fraudulent?
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
I know several black people who voted for McCain in 2008 (he was very popular with the military voters) and then turned around and voted for Obama in 2012. After the events of the past several years, I'll be absolutely shocked if a Republican candidate takes more than 5% of the black vote.
To answer your question, Szymon: if the race came down between, say, Ben Carson vs. Hilary Clinton, do you think 95% of black voters - or even a *majority* of black voters - would vote Republican? I would argue the demographics would not shift dramatically.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
well, it's fairly new ground to cover so it's not exactly the same.
the primary issue is that people adopted dogwhistle rhetoric for a race into dogwhistle rhetoric against Obama specifically.
and they did so strongly enough that at least as of a year ago Republicans who thought Obama is a U.S. born citizen are a minority. as far as I know this is even still the case. as absurd as it is to contemplate.
at any rate conservatives like to traffic two patently delusional narratives about minority voting amongst themselves: the first is that only 'race loyalty' accounts for why blacks wouldn't vote against Obama (this is offensive on multiple levels but whatev) and the second is that hispanic voters are "naturally conservative" and would come right back over to the republican platform once they stop being so unreasonable towards the GOP for their zealous use of hispanics as cultural bogeymen.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Szymon, your questions while it's worthwhile to ask them, I wonder what your response would be if I were to point out that historically white Americans have voted nearly 100% for white men, and to speak of it in a way that suggests some racism or fault on those voters parts...would you accept such a 'question' as inoffensive? Or the suggestion that somehow the results were fraudulent?
If I were to answer a question: "Why did white people always vote 99% for a white candidate (in the US)?" Because of historical reasons, I guess, the establishment was always white, there probably were few black candidates in the first place, black people didn't even have a right to vote 70 years ago, same situation as with women, society as a whole needs to learn blah blah blah.
When I heard about that 99%, and then confirmed on wiki that it was indeed something like that, I created a null hypothesis, that black people vote for Obama just because he is black. And I chose you, as a forum of US citizens, to test the hypothesis, because it seemed irrational (and I, as a market-liberal, believe that people are rational, to certain extent). I say "null hypothesis", because "assume" sounds like I believed in that, and I really didn't
Now, the argument, that 88% black people voted for Democrats always, is an argument that proves the hypothesis wrong - now I think that 5-10% of black people voted for Obama because he was black, and not 90%. Like 5-10% of women would vote for Hilary because she's a woman, and 5-10% of men would vote for any man but her, because he's a man.
This just creates another, much more probable hypothesis, that 90% of black Americans are simply democrats, for various historical reasons. It's a normal, rational situation, where poorer people want a bigger state.
I hope I didn't offend anyone and I hope I made myself clear Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:It's a normal, rational situation, where poorer people want a bigger state.
Well, that's possible. But as noted in the Atwater quote above, Republicans have spent the last sixty years telling their white southern base that they don't trust black people any more than their voters do.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Again, I would note that the issue is not black and white. Its not "why do blacks vote for Obama so much?" or even "why do blacks vote for democrats so much?" The real question that should be asked is why modern Republicans do such a great job of turning off anyone that's not white.
When you take the focus off asking what's different about blacks or what's special about Obama and instead focus on what's horribly wrong about Republicans you'll be a lot closer to describing reality.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:It's a normal, rational situation, where poorer people want a bigger state.
Well, that's possible. But as noted in the Atwater quote above, Republicans have spent the last sixty years telling their white southern base that they don't trust black people any more than their voters do.
I would say it's a normal, rational situation, in which the black people (poor or otherwise, because they are not all poor, or even 95% poor), recognize that the "small state" ideology is in a thinly veiled gambit to empower a white, wealthy subclass. Whether you're a rich black person or a poor black person, you can recognize when someone's political priorities involve disenfranchising, dehumanizing, and marginalizing you and people like you.
I have known more than one black republican, but not more than three. And not one of them was the least bit unaware of what a large part of their own party's platform was really about. They were there despite that knowledge, and they were, to a person, intent on changing it.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: It is worth noting that the Iraq War has been going on for 12 years now. After your CBO's estimates of a long-term cost of 2.4 trillion and between 100,000 as documented by leaked US logs to 500,000 excess deaths as recorded by peer-reviewed medical journals, it is worth asking how you got here and what safeguards are being put in place to make sure that another huge mistake, arguably the worst in modern US foreign policy doesn't happen again.
Instead, it seems like you'll be electing Hilary Clinton who is pretty straightforward in her support of the war in the first place.
Hillary doesn't have even remotely the same level of motivation as Neocons to go knee deep into Iran on superfluous reasons.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote: Jeb Bush is under growing pressure to acknowledge what to some voters and a number of campaign finance lawyers seems obvious: He is running for president.
The lawyers say Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor, is stretching the limits of election law by crisscrossing the country, hiring a political team and raising tens of millions of dollars at fund-raisers, all without declaring — except once, by mistake — that he is a candidate.
quote:Just what you want in a candidate for President: someone who tries to weasel around laws for his own personal benefit.
It's not like he'd later be charged with enforcing and carrying out the law as head of the executive branch or anything.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
i guess there was enough room in the clown car for donald trump
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
The clown car just became incredibly classy.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
"Nobody is tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump. Nobody." -Donald Trump
The army using suicide bombing tactics? Enlisting children into the armed forces? What are the limits of Pres. Trump's toughness!?
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
I wanted to like Jeb. He was supposed to be my guy if I had to pick a Republican.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Aside from how stupid it is for him to say that religion should stay out of politics (though goodness, I would relish trying it out, as an experiment), I admit I am pretty surprised at how badly Jeb is so far at this sort of thing. Repetitive though outwardly sincere campaign statements are one bit of bread and butter for politicians, and so is an even more useful skill: 'don't make stupid gaffes'.
Of course the truth about what he actually said about Iraq in the big stuff people quote is a bit more nuanced than it seems without context, but also 'avoid answering questions in a way that looks bad' is also a fundamental.
I would have expected him to be more polished than this. Too long out of the governor's office?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I think Jeb is actually just plain too much like Hillary.
Both of them hate the politics of politics. They hate canned answers and speeches and rubbing elbows. They both just want to govern, and they, at a fundamentally basic level, don't understand why elections aren't about ideas.
They all hate the cult of personality stuff, and maybe because they're both really bad at it, but that's the reason why he's having so many gaffes, that, and as Rakeesh says, his lack of recent experience and being out of the game too long.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
jeb as a governor
quote:When people ask, between now and Election Day, 2016, what the Schiavo case was about—pity or bitterness, faith in God or science, conviction or political posturing, the judiciary against the executive, or maybe arrogance—their interest may be in Jeb Bush’s motives. Examine the Schiavo case, and try to find the moderation that is so often casually ascribed to Jeb: it isn’t easy. It’s worth sorting out the balance of pragmatism and ideology in his character, as well as his interest in playing to the G.O.P. base and his own Catholic faith—but the policy consequences are the same. That’s clear in Bush’s manhandling use of Terri Schiavo.
Then there is Bush’s sense of how far to push, and that he was entitled to do so. In August, 2003, he wrote to one of the many judges involved, “I normally would not address a letter to the judge in a pending legal proceeding…. However, my office has received over 27,000 emails reflecting understandable concern for the well-being of Terri Schiavo.” A Times report published last weekend, about Jeb’s many notes and requests to the White House on other matters when his father worked there, suggests that he “normally” wasn’t shy at all about asserting influence inappropriately. At the very end, after the autopsy confirmed that Terri’s brain really was too damaged for the sort of consciousness that her parents imagined, Bush wrote to a state prosecutor asking him to investigate Michael Schiavo, suggesting that there had been a sinister gap between when Schiavo found his wife collapsed and when he called 911. “I urge you to take a fresh look at this case without any preconceptions as to the outcome,” Bush wrote. The prosecutor found nothing.
Does the RNC have a say on who can announce their candidacy as a Republican? Are they approving all these people as candidates or is all the candidates need is enough signatures?
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: Does the RNC have a say on who can announce their candidacy as a Republican? Are they approving all these people as candidates or is all the candidates need is enough signatures?
At this point I don't think they even need signatures. Just have to find someone in the media willing to listen and say that they're running.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
To announce a run they need no approval. To actually appear on a ballot they need to meet the signature threshold.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Although certain state organizations may still say no. As Colbert found out.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Donald Trump is polling second among conservative voters even as he says the things he is saying about hispanics.
think about that
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
an update to that last post: he didn't last in second place for very wrong
he said even worse things about brown people and quickly became #1 in the republican polls. Was polling at about 2% before, and now has almost twice the support of his closest rival in the entire republican field.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
What did he say about brown people?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
That they're brining in drugs and crime and rape but he's sure that some of them are good people. That's pretty old news, Gaal.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
I knew that but I thought that's what Sam was referencing in his first post and his update said that he said even worse things.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
basically it was in response to saying those things that he shot up out of nothing to lead the polls
I wonder if I should tell him about Mitt Romney.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Trump is like a person I once knew who was an elegant combination of amoral egoism and basketcasery to the extent that it was useless to try to figure out which of his actions were a concerted con, and which of his actions were the result of nutbar beliefs that became bizarrely contradictory as time went on.
He is literally in federal prison now for some sort of real estate or wire fraud our some crap like that and to this day I don't know if it's more because he's an idiot and got suckered into being a fall guy, or if he actually knowingly committed these frauds. Either is as likely a guess.
Same with trump. You can neither attribute malice or stupidity in sum because the core of his personality makes these things functionally identical in practice.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
Yeah, but he tells it like it is.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
You know, I got a good job offer for a position in Stuttgart, recently.
Now might be the perfect time to emigrate.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
You're just going to abandon us at the first sign of trouble
Some patriot you are!
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
This doesn't bother me in the slightest.
Polls right at this point in the race aren't meaningless, but they're also, historically, not particularly predictive of just about anything.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
It doesn't bother me in the sense that I'm worried he will win, but it bothers me because...44% of those surveyed would vote for him? Really? Before it was just registered Republican voters that he was polling high with, but this was a random sample. When the Trump Show started a few months ago, I never would've believed he would poll like this.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'm not surprised. This is a populist election season and he's proven very adept at a populist voice over the last couple years.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
Kasich is the only GOP candidate who doesn't fall back on pandering during those moments when issues get discussed.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
Oh the irony that the only thing that shuts up Trump is supporting Dubya.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I was actually kind of sad for Bush during that debate. I think he's wrong on most things, but his attempts to be the adult in the room were painful to watch when he was clearly baffled by the entire endeavor.
On the other hand, if that's how he deals with an uncomfortable situation...it's one of the few times I've ever seen someone really collapse under pressure in a way that makes me wonder how he'd be in the Sit Room at the White House when The Call comes in. I used to think he was on the list of the least bad options since he was at least someone moderate on paper. But now he's on my No Go List.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
bush is still the most likely candidate to end up on top at the end of the race, especially what with his Hillary-level long game endorsements and fundraising.
which makes it interesting to see how pitiful he looks up there on stage.
but ben carson, man, there's a dude who knows how to party. it was really bold of him to show up on stage so baked on whatever drugs he was taking!
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
hang on, folks. i need to offer a retraction. we're just getting news that, ... yes, i have to confirm that ben carson was not, in fact, stoned out of his gourd on a slow-burning quaaludes trip. it is now being reported that that is apparently just how ben carson is now, again, that's just ben carson.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Okay, maybe I need to watch at least part of the debate, if only to see how close Bad Lip Reading Carson is to the real Carson.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I was actually kind of sad for Bush during that debate. I think he's wrong on most things, but his attempts to be the adult in the room were painful to watch when he was clearly baffled by the entire endeavor.
On the other hand, if that's how he deals with an uncomfortable situation...it's one of the few times I've ever seen someone really collapse under pressure in a way that makes me wonder how he'd be in the Sit Room at the White House when The Call comes in. I used to think he was on the list of the least bad options since he was at least someone moderate on paper. But now he's on my No Go List.
I didn't think it was pressure he was collapsing under, it was Trump's trolling that he didn't know how to respond to. I can't imagine knowing how to handle a troll is an important characteristic in the potus, I don't think Putin or the Ayatollah will negotiate by trolling.
His problem to me seems that he's lost between pandering and actually attempting to talk policies. He doesn't know how to pander to the current conservative crowd and when he tries to talk policies he garbles it with pandering and ends up not doing either well.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I think your second point is well taken.
But on your first point, Trump is a bully. Bush's way of handling him was to be baffled, point at him and expect everyone else in the room to just agree with Bush that Trump was being crazy, then being exasperated when that didn't happen.
I think these debates, as is, are mostly useless entertainment, but he had plenty of opportunities up there to show at least some leadership, even if it was of a Junior High quality. But he had no idea what to do. That's an important part, good or bad, of being president.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
What I like the most about this situation is that Walker as a candidate had superior general election viability to nearly all of the Republican candidates in the primary, but the actions of people who have pretty much no general election viability have overshadowed and then destroyed him.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
A Rubio/Fiorina ticket seems like the GOP's best bet at this point.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: What I like the most about this situation is that Walker as a candidate had superior general election viability to nearly all of the Republican candidates in the primary, but the actions of people who have pretty much no general election viability have overshadowed and then destroyed him.
On paper maybe, but I think almost any professional pol in Wisconsin would have told you he was always a paper tiger not ready for the national stage.
I think most every Wisconsin prediction - that he would wilt under the glare of national lights - proved prophetic. Doesn't mean we've seen the last of him. He could still bone up and return (better than Perry, one hopes), but his downfall was self-inflicted, and I think would have happened whether folks like Trump and Carson were sucking up all the oxygen in the room or not.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I kind of what to put money on Carly Fiorina being a ticking time bomb. The absurd Planned Parenthood lie is in keeping with character for her. Her major accomplishment was being a terrible CEO and no one will hire her. She's been trying and failing to get into politics for years.
If she gets enough pressure put on her, she'll crack, hard, and her lies will spin out of control.
That's my call, anyway.
Posted by NobleHunter (Member # 12043) on :
Time for the anyone-but-Bush parade? Unfortunately for Bush, Trump changes the dynamic so we might not get a repeat of last time.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
I would prefer Mitt Romney far and away from all of these candidates. At least he has actual accomplishments instead of repeated failures *and* confusing viewpoints.
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
I'm with you there. I don't like Romney but I would take him over all these clowns any day. And this is coming from someone who in the past almost always voted republican.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Talking about Romney reminded me of Paul Ryan. I was not a big fan of his in 2012, but, despite that, I think the primary would be very different were he in it.
So I went looking and found this. If the messages in that are actually genuine (and one the biggest problems - second only to the terribleness of his ideas - I had with Ryan was his propensity for lying), it's one of the best things I've seen come from a Republican with core support in a while. What do people think?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
It should be noted that when Ryan says that he thinks the federal government should give money to anti-poverty programs at a local level and then step away, what he really means is that the federal government should give money to churches. There's also a reason he's not fighting poverty in Janesville, despite the fact that it's his district and it's one of the hardest-hit parts of Wisconsin right now. Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
It's also easier for bias and racism to show itself and stick at the local level rather then the federal when it comes to benefits.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: What I like the most about this situation is that Walker as a candidate had superior general election viability to nearly all of the Republican candidates in the primary, but the actions of people who have pretty much no general election viability have overshadowed and then destroyed him.
On paper maybe, but I think almost any professional pol in Wisconsin would have told you he was always a paper tiger not ready for the national stage.
Of course he would, and of course he is. I'm not saying he's clearing any particularly high bar. Him being one of the most viable candidates this field is actually in and of itself an absurdity pertaining to this race.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Fiorina has the advantage of being incredibly polished at a time when polish is far more important than substance. She didn't say anything particularly well at Debate 2, but she said it with enough poise and control that she had the LOOK and FEEL of someone competent. Verisimilitude is apparently all it takes these days to convey legitimacy.
But for that reason, it'll be hard to take her down. Trump has been without substance for going on 3 months now, and Fiorina just got started (her problem being she's attempting substance where Trump isn't), and if she's willing to just lie to everyone and not back down, our system doesn't really have an answer to that sort of politician other than leaving it to the people to decide, which at the moment is a terrible failsafe.
If she hangs on for the three months Trump has been on top, she could get a lot of votes in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Carson, on the other hand...I don't see how he sticks around.
I understand, sort of, why Trump and Fiorina are so popular. I do not at all understand the appeal of Carson.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Carson is educated, soft spoken, and humble. He doesn't resort to insults or pettiness, and manages to give off an impression of being kind and generous while also being strong and willing to stand his ground. He's also, from what I can tell, a genuine believer who takes his faith very seriously and talks about it openly, and I think a lot of Evangelicals - especially those tired of Trump's egotism and hypocrisy - are flocking to him because of that.
Too bad he's also crazy as a loon.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Carson is there for the same reason Trump is (and, for the same reason, from a different angle, Sanders is): he's not a politician. Voters are really, really tired of career politicians. Especially after the election cycle seems so depressingly repetitive.
Candidate: "I am outraged by the same things you are outraged by!" Voters: "Yes! Go fix those things!" Elected Official: "I can't actually fix those things but I will complain loudly about them!" Voters: "We want someone to fix the things!" Candidate: "I am outraged by the same things you are outraged by and I will fight the do-nothings in Washington to fix them even though I didn't actually do much about them when I was in Washington myself!"
Carson is riding the same no-politicians wave that Trump is on, with the added bonus of being actually intelligent, plus he has the creationist cred to pull in believers that Trump can't get.
Bernie, despite decades in government, is also high on that wave because he's spent those decades consistently fighting the same things people are upset about now, and because Clinton is a politician down to her bone marrow.
Each party has a shallow, candy-coated covering of social opinions (gay marriage, abortion, Sharia law, gun rights) and politicians are used to aiming at those things to get votes, but underneath, both parties are based on money coming in and keeping rich people happy. Voters understand that, to varying degrees, and they're used to trying to winnow out which candidate will be beholden to money AND also incidentally get some good things accomplished.
But here comes candidates who do the unthinkable and talk directly about the money part, and it's so unusual voters actually listen.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Another reason Jeb! and Clinton aren't doing as well as everyone expected, I think: they both so clearly expected to walk in and just take the candidacy. That sense of entitlement, and their ineptness at dealing with the fact that they both have to work for what is so clearly theirs, is palpably obvious and kind of annoying.
Posted by DOCTORLOVE (Member # 13310) on :
(Post removed by JB. Cute Spam.)
[ September 28, 2015, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: JanitorBlade ]
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Spam reported.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
I'm not sure how intelligent I would consider someone to be who considered religion to be probable cause for searches.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
That's interesting because people have been letting, "I had a hunch" slide for decades.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
It should be noted, surveillance by religion would probably cover fewer people than the current American rules. As I understand it, the current rules allow surveillance up to three (email + phone) hops away from a terrorism suspect which rough estimates pegs at half of the world's population.
quote:Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson said on Sunday he'd listen to evidence that religion could provide probable cause to search the emails and calls of Syrian refugees in the United States.
Actually, never mind. In the case of the vast majority of Syrian refugees who are not dual-national Americans, there is no cause needed anyway.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
So I hope you guys like your constitutional crisis because that is how you're going to get a constitutional crisis.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy of California abruptly withdrew on Thursday from the race to succeed Speaker John A. Boehner, blindsiding his House Republican colleagues and throwing their already tumultuous chamber into deeper chaos with no clear leader in sight just weeks before a series of high-stakes fiscal battles.
As lawmakers ate barbecue and sipped sodas during what was expected to be a pro forma vote to select Mr. McCarthy as their nominee, he did an about-face, saying that he had concluded he could not unite the increasingly fractious Republican majority.
“I am not that guy,” said Mr. McCarthy, with his wife and family by his side, according to members who were in the room. Moments later, Mr. Boehner, who learned of Mr. McCarthy’s decision only minutes before he announced it, declared the vote postponed and the meeting adjourned even though there were two other candidates in the running, underscoring the weakness of the field.
quote:Some Republicans, including Mr. Boehner and Mr. McCarthy, are pressing Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s nominee for vice president in 2012, to step up. Mr. Ryan, however, has repeatedly said he does not want the job, a point he reiterated Thursday even before his colleagues left the meeting.
quote:Mr. McCarthy’s decision leaves the House rudderless just weeks before the Treasury Department faces a debt default that could roil markets, and two months before a deadline for a budget deal to avoid another government shutdown. But it also represents another victory for the clutch of unyielding hard-line conservatives who toppled the ambitions of yet another member of the party leadership.
The turmoil in the House only added to the uncertainty for the Republican Party, which is also dealing with a contentious presidential primary campaign in which obstreperous outsiders continue to ride the Tea Party swell against establishment politicians. While the presidential race has many months to sort itself out, House Republicans have little time to spare to restore order.
After Mr. McCarthy’s announcement, many visibly shaken and nearly speechless Republicans emerged from a large hearing room in the Capitol complex. The acoustics inside were so poor that some had failed to fully take in what had happened: The man with the most votes to become the next speaker had just given up on what was once the most desired job in the House.
“The first reaction was ‘Wow!’ or ‘What did he say?’ ” Representative Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska, said. “The next reaction was, ‘Let me sit down and process this while eating lunch at the same time, because this was a shock, a surprise.’ ”
quote:A group of about 40 hard-right House conservatives announced on Wednesday night that they would support Mr. Webster, making it clear that Mr. McCarthy would have had to accede to their demands as he struggled to assemble 218 votes over the next three weeks. (While only Republicans choose their nominee, a majority of the whole House, including Democrats, elects the speaker.)
The Republicans who participated in the revolt were jubilant over the turn of events.
Wow. For a week Boehner got to taste freedom, only to have it yanked away as he is consigned back into hell. It's almost mythic.
I hope he decides to stop placating Tea Partiers who won't like him no matter what he does and just legislates without them. Push the budget without defunding Planned Parenthood and watch it pass almost immediately. Work out a plan to raise the spending ceiling and make it the practically automatic thing it used to be so that particular negotiating nuke is no longer part of the arsenal. Work to pass laws that have strong bipartisan support and input and show how democratic governing is supposed to work.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
He can't. He would risk the moderates getting primaried and letting the crazies have a chance at becoming a plurality.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Maybe, but he risks the moderates getting defeated outright by Democrats after the GOP brand is so soured by dysfunction that no one can get elected at all.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Might be a good thing for Ryan. Might be an even better thing for America. The fact that no Republican wants the Speaker seat is a clear sign that the Republicans shouldn't have congress.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Might be a good thing for Ryan. Might be an even better thing for America. The fact that no Republican wants the Speaker seat is a clear sign that the Republicans shouldn't have congress.
Either way, I think Ryan comes out looking good. If we could redraw district lines with an objective party doing it, I think it would astound Americans just how little their government actually reflects our demographics.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Or switch to STV and not need to worry about districts being gerrymandered.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
There's a major grassroots movement to switch over to a non-partisan legislature in a couple states, modeled after Nebraska's legislature.
There's also a movement in a few states to push for a top-two runoff strategy that mirrors what they have on the West Coast.
And there's an increasingly successful movement to switch over to non-partisan redistricting committees.
All of these will gain more traction in the run up to 2018, when the major pre-2020 Census state elections all start to happen. I think the Dems learned from 2010 that the structural disadvantages they suffered as a result of losing all those state houses will never be overcome by anything other than retaking those legislatures and rebuilding gerrymandered districts. Otherwise they'll never, ever get the House back. I think we'll see the biggest off-season election push from Dems in a generation in 2018.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
You'll notice that all the states with redistricting committees are democratic strongholds. So they are giving up votes that could be gained through gerrymandering (such as is the case in Illinois), and Republican states are obviously not doing this.
So ironically fairness in places like California is allowing gerrymandering to meet with more success in other states.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
As former justice Stevens some years ago proposed:
The 28th Ammendment:
"Districts represented by members of Congress, or by members of any state legislative body, shall be compact and composed of contiguous territory. The state shall have the burden of justifying any departures from this requirement by reference to neutral criteria such as natural, political, or historic boundaries or demographic changes. The interest in enhancing or preserving the political power of the party in control of the state government is not such a neutral criterion."
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Again though, with STV you could draw the ranges anyway you want and it doesn't matter.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Yes, that's very convenient if you want to disrespect the historical auonomy of the states, and the will of majorities within certain districts. Canada has a tenth of the US population. Districts and voting patterns within individual provinces matter far less.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
It is hard to say who won the Republican Presidential Debate tonight, But there is no question that the real losers of the debate were the moderators, who really got excoriated over and over again for demonstrating the hipocrisy and double-standard of the leftist Democrat-biased media mainstream. Candidates called to everyone's attention the improper and rude and absurd questions virtually all of them were being asked, and contrasted them to the softball lovefest type questions that were asked of the Democratic candidates in their debate. When Trump was asked if he were deliberately being a cartoon character of a political candidate, Trump complained about the question, but it was Cruz who really tore into the moderators, listing three or four similarly inappropriate questions that had just been asked of various candidates. Then Rubio said the liberal mainstream media was the worst superpac in the country. Chris Cristie rebuked the moderators for introducing the inane question about fantasy football. The first few moments of the debate, it looked like the candidates might snipe at each other like everyone expected--but after a few minutes of really bad and hostile questioning, the candidates obviously drew together, turned on the moderators and really shredded them. Several of the candidates bluntly contradicted the moderators when they made statements of fact that were wrong.
The first debate at 6:15 P.M. involving the candidates who were the last four in the polls, was interesting. The candidates all acquitted themselves well, but it is hard to say any of them will experience a "breakout" like Carly Fiorina did in a previous debate, and move up to the second tier of candidates.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Nice.
Welcome back.
Posted by Elcheeko75 (Member # 13292) on :
As much as it pains me to agree with anybody on the stage last night, I would have to agree that the moderators could be described as, at worst, actively hostile, and, at best, well.... dumb. They were certainly not in control for much of the night. If they were going for a less formal, more genuine debate, I think it was naïve to expect it to happen with that many participants. If CNBC is, as all of the candidates claimed, blatantly partisan, then they did a terrible job furthering their own ends by allowing Marco Rubio to look good, as he is the only republican who has any chance of winning the general.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Ron is back just in time to talk to us endlessly about his predictions and analysis of the race, which will be "Hillary is getting owned and will lose" and in keeping with Ron's habit of being wrong every time, will be wrong I guess
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Rubio is, in fact, the only proto-viable one they have left. The establishment has to figure a way to push him past the crazy-wall of their own party's populist dysfunction, unless they want to just completely throw the election so let's see how that goes
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
Eh. The real losers last night were CU students.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
To be fair, I thought the obvious strategy of "let's pander to our base by criticizing CNBC" worked pretty well for them, since it distracted from their inability to actually address issues or demonstrate moral fiber.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: To be fair, I thought the obvious strategy of "let's pander to our base by criticizing CNBC" worked pretty well for them, since it distracted from their inability to actually address issues or demonstrate moral fiber.
it was the strategy that they had to rely on and which i would contend they were intending to rely upon well before the debate began.
Klein noted today that the tax plans of the republican candidates are just so incredibly out to lunch — such absolutely unworkable — that simply asking about them cannot sound anything other than extremely hostile.
quote:The Republican primary has thus far been a festival of outlandish policy. The candidates seem to be competing to craft the tax plan that gives the largest tax cut to the rich while blowing the biggest hole in the deficit (a competition that, as of tonight, Ted Cruz appears to be winning). And the problem is when you ask about those plans, simply stating the facts of the policies sounds like you're leveling a devastating attack.
Take the question to Trump. He wasn't asked if he was a comic book villain. He was asked why his policies sound like "a comic book version of a presidential campaign." And the question was specific. Moderator John Harwood asked, "Mr. Trump, you have done very well in this campaign so far by promising to build another wall and make another country pay for it. Send 11 million people out of the country. Cut taxes $10 trillion without increasing the deficit."
Trump declined to explain how he could cut taxes by $10 trillion without increasing the deficit. Instead, he appealed to another CNBC personality for support. "Larry Kudlow, who sits on your panel, who's a great guy, came out the other day and said, 'I love Trump's tax plan.'"
As for the wall, Trump didn't get very specific there, either. "A politician cannot get them to pay. I can." That is ... not an answer.
Similarly, Ben Carson wasn't asked whether he could do math. He was asked whether his tax plan's math added up.
"You have a flat tax plan of 10 percent flat taxes," said moderator Becky Quick. "This is something that is very appealing to a lot of voters, but I've had a really tough time trying to make the math work on this. If you were to take a 10 percent tax, with the numbers right now in total personal income, you're gonna bring in $1.5 trillion. That is less than half of what we bring in right now. And by the way, it's gonna leave us in a $2 trillion hole. So what analysis got you to the point where you think this will work?"
The ensuing exchange is worth quoting at length:
CARSON: The rate — the rate — the rate is gonna be much closer to 15 percent.
QUICK: 15 percent still leaves you with a $1.1 trillion hole.
CARSON: You also have to get rid of all the deductions and all the loopholes. You also have to some strategically cutting in several places.
Remember, we have 645 federal agencies and sub-agencies. Anybody who tells me that we need every penny and every one of those is in a fantasy world.
So, also, we can stimulate the economy. That's gonna be the real growth engine. Stimulating the economy — because it's tethered down right now with so many regulations...
QUICK: You'd have to cut — you'd have to cut government about 40 percent to make it work with a $1.1 trillion hole.
CARSON: That's not true.
QUICK: That is true, I looked at the numbers.
CARSON: When — when we put all the facts down, you'll be able to see that it's not true, it works out very well.
The question was extremely substantive. Carson's answer was laughably vague. The problem here isn't that Carson was asked whether he can do math, but that he couldn't show that his tax plan was based on sound math. And that's because it isn't.
As for the question to Kasich, he was asked about a speech he gave on Tuesday calling his rivals' proposals "crazy." As the New York Times reported, Kasich argued "that Republicans who proposed abolishing Medicaid and Medicare, imposing a 10 percent flat tax, or deporting millions of people were out of touch with reality."
Kasich is right about all that, by the way. And while the question was, as Cruz said, an invitation to attack some of the other candidates, it was keyed to a substantive debate about some very strange policy ideas.
Meanwhile, Cruz himself was also asked a substantive question. The moderators asked why he was opposing a bipartisan budget deal that would avert a debt ceiling crisis, a Medicare crisis, and a Social Security Disability Insurance crisis. Rather than answer that question, he attacked the moderators for refusing to ask substantive questions, during which he pretended a slew of unusually substantive questions were trivial political attacks.
Cruz's strategy was smart, and he was arguably the debate's big winner. But it bespoke a deeper weakness. Republicans have boxed themselves into some truly bizarre policies — including a set of tax cuts that give so much money to the rich, and blow such huge holes in the deficit, that simply asking about them in any serious way seems like a vicious attack. Assailing the media is a good way to try to dodge those questions for a little while, but it won't work over the course of a long campaign.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Only losers complain about officiating.
You have two candidates who likely never thought they'd be in the lead trying to figure out a) what got them there, and b) how to stay there. You have candidates who thought for sure they'd be in contention wondering what they have to do to even get noticed.
With 10 (or however many there are at this point) candidates, something has to be done to cut that number down. All you end up with are sound bytes if you let everyone speak - or a 5 hour debate, which no one wants or would watch.
But none of them want to answer any hard questions - and complain when they're asked.
The GOP race is wacko this year - none of them have a legitimate shot against Clinton, which is why they're trying to take her down in other ways (namely, botched Congressional hearings).
Hell, this is even a dream GOP field for Sanders, if he were to get nominated. Probably the only field of candidates he'd have a legitimate shot against. McCain or Romney would have crushed him... this lot? I don't think anyone has the umph to just beat him outright, and it'd be a fight over which side the voters are more scared of.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Flying Cow, why do you refer to "botched Congressional hearings" when in fact it was proven beyond any question by producing the email documents, that Hillary Clinton told several heads of state right away that the attack was by an "Al Queda-like group," but to families of victims and the American people she kept repeating the silly video argument for the next week. As one of the candidates said (I believe it was Carly Fiorina) this proves that Hillary Clinton lied. The mainstream media of course claims she was the winner, and came through the hearing unscathed. That is typical of the total, pathological, systematic dishonesty of the liberal-biased mainstream media. But it was not the truth. Hillary was proven to be a liar. Anyone who would vote for a sociopathic, serial liar like Hillary is also a criminal, with no concern for morality.
Hillary truly deserves to be in prison, not in the White House.
Posted by NobleHunter (Member # 12043) on :
Did the hearing even ask about the video/attack? The commentary I've seen said it focused on emails from some guy.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Ron, is it truly your opinion that the central question at the heart of the Benghazi investigation is whether the Secretary of State knowingly withheld information from the general American public for a couple weeks after the attack?
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Flying Cow, why do you refer to "botched Congressional hearings"
Because the hearings had one purpose - to tarnish Hillary Clinton in the eyes of undecided voters. It failed in that task - thus, botched.
All it served in doing was make the members of the committee look foolish, and make voters feel more sympathetic with Clinton for having to deal with them.
No one other than those already solidly in the anti-Clinton camp were moved in any way by those hearings - if anything, some were moved in the opposite direction, seeing the hearing as political theater and being more likely to vote for her.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Tom, the central question of Benghasi is why the Obama Administration, with Hillary as Secretary of State, did not respond to the dozens of requests for additional security from the Ambassador who was killed, and why none of the available military resources were authorized to go and intervene. The fact that Clinton lied about it is just further evidence of her criminality and incompetence. Actually, she and her husband should have been jailed 22 years ago. I think they had Vincent Foster murdered.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
This interesting comment comes from Dr. John J. Ray:
quote:Leftist irrationality
Conservatives are well-used to Leftist irrationality. If you present a Leftist with some fact that undermines one of his claims, you will get not cool reflection or rational debate but rather rage, abuse and avoidance. In a face to face situation, the Leftist will actually walk away from you. So it is clear that, with Leftists, we are dealing with emotions not reason. They can write whole articles about (say) socialism without for one moment considering the facts about the practical impacts of socialism.
And those of us who can remember it remain quite astounded at the ecstasy among Leftists when Obama won his first Presidential election. Winning an election is cause for celebration for anyone but the Left really seemed to lose all touch with reality. They really seemed to believe that Obama's win signalled the time when "the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal". Not since King Canute has such a claim been made in politics and even Canute was more level-headed than that. Commentators spoke of "Obamania" and the "Obamessiah".
So we don't really need anyone to tell us that the Left are more emotional than conservatives but it is nice to see it confirmed in a careful set of psychological experiments and surveys.":
Are Leftists More Emotion-Driven Than Rightists? The Interactive Influence of Ideology and Emotions on Support for Policies"
By Ruthie Pliskin et al.
The authors looked at emotion generally but I have always argued that anger/rage/hate is the dominant emotion among Leftists. The authors above added in anger to their study more or less as an afterthought but did find that anger was a particularly powerful motivator among Leftists." Link for above: http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2015/10/leftist-irrationality-conservatives-are.html
This certainly describes the kind of mindset I find among many of the posters in this forum.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Tom, the central question of Benghasi is why the Obama Administration, with Hillary as Secretary of State, did not respond to the dozens of requests for additional security from the Ambassador who was killed...
Ah. Do you believe that their failure to do so was criminal?
---------
(Note, by the way, that Ron has followed up his speculation on Vince Foster's death with a hit piece on leftist irrationality. He is, as always, unaware of the irony.)
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Tom, the central question of Benghasi is why the Obama Administration, with Hillary as Secretary of State, did not respond to the dozens of requests for additional security from the Ambassador who was killed, and why none of the available military resources were authorized to go and intervene. The fact that Clinton lied about it is just further evidence of her criminality and incompetence. Actually, she and her husband should have been jailed 22 years ago. I think they had Vincent Foster murdered.
Honestly, trying to correct this crap is like emptying the ocean with a spoon. The White House did not order the military to "stand down". In his own testimony, General Ham, says that he made the decision not to go in. The rescue operation, which deployed in 20-25 minutes had already rescued the embassy personnel who were still there to be rescued. You want to talk about why there wasn't more security in the first place? Talk to your Republican congress critters. Secretary Clinton: House Republican budget cuts will endanger national security - Feb. 14, 2011 Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Tom, the central question of Benghasi is why the Obama Administration, with Hillary as Secretary of State, did not respond to the dozens of requests for additional security from the Ambassador who was killed, and why none of the available military resources were authorized to go and intervene. The fact that Clinton lied about it is just further evidence of her criminality and incompetence. Actually, she and her husband should have been jailed 22 years ago. I think they had Vincent Foster murdered.
Ah I missed this!
Every single point of yours is untrue; if they had any weight behind them whatsoever, *actions* by the Republicans likely would've been taken.
Instead, what we have here is basically 11 hours of advertisement for the Clinton campaign in which the undecided voting block got to see Clinton be presidential.
You are so up to the ear in believing in this bs that it is virtually going to guarantee a Clinton presidency.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Yes, that's very convenient if you want to disrespect the historical autonomy of the states, and the will of majorities within certain districts. Canada has a tenth of the US population. Districts and voting patterns within individual provinces matter far less.
Huh? do you know what STV is? I don't see how this is relevant.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
I was amused Oct. 22 when Michael J. Fox appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel Show to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Back to the Future. He and Christopher Lloyd participated in an excellent skit. But during the interview, Fox admitted that the character "Biff" in the movie was modeled after Donald Trump. I enjoyed that segment so much that I checked, and found I only had the Back to the Future trilogy on VHS tape, so I decided to order the 25th anniversary edition on DVD from Amazon. It includes deleted scenes and other special features. I just received it today in the mail, and have begun watching the trilogy. There was much that I had forgotten, at least in the details,
Trump's candidacy resonates with a lot of people who are fed up with the liberal Democrat foolishness that is ruining America. But I do not favor Trump. I do not hold against him the fact that he is rich enough to be able to afford a trophy wife. Even serial trophy wives. What is a billionaire supposed to do? But I do think that the last thing America needs is another president who thinks he is a king--and with his enormous ego, that is likely what Trump would be.
I would favor Cruz, Rubio, Carson, or Fiorina. Any one of them would make mincemeat of Hillary Clinton in a debate (assuming she is not in prison, where she really belongs). It surprises me that Carson is doing so well. All along, I have been expecting him to be attacked for his religious background, just like Mitt Romney was attacked. Trump recently hinted at doing just that a little, but so far has not followed up on it.
While in many ways Carson would be the best man possible for president, I view him as something like a dolphin that saves human swimmers in trouble and guides naval vessels through reefs--and I would hate to see him surrounded by sharks in Washington.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Reminder to everyone else: Carson, like Ron, is a Seventh-Day Adventist.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Anyone notice Ron is just sorta blogging at us and not at all responding to people's rebuttals?
Like I actually listened through the majority of the hearings at work and the Republicans screwed up big time. That's demonstrable.
quote: Yes, that's very convenient if you want to disrespect the historical autonomy of the states, and the will of majorities within certain districts. Canada has a tenth of the US population. Districts and voting patterns within individual provinces matter far less.
To address this again because I really still don't understand what you're trying to respond to here:
For Congressional districts in the House, which Congress can absolutely pass STV for without a constitutional amendment (the states are another matter but if they chose to use STV the same thing applies). As for the will of majorities? Again I'm not sure what you mean, this is assuming of course the majority elected representatives agreed to such a thing, but there's nothing about STV that violates the "will of the majority" within a district or whatever.
Each district elects three representatives using ranked voting with a 33% threshold. If a candidate gets over say, 60% of the vote, he gets elected and then his excess votes go to the second ranked individual (usually of the same party).
Likewise if all of the 10's and 11's percent candidates can't get the threshold than the candidate with the lowest votes drops out and his votes consolidated to those voters next-best preferred candidate until someone has 33-34%.
This allows voters to have districts/ranges/constitutencies with local representatives while also ending gerrymandering.
The states would obviously have to implemented it locally based on local procedure but nothing stops Congress from doing it for the House. In fact nothing stops Congress from having the house have more representatives, originally there was a formula used until a bill was passed to set it to the current number today.
Finally I have no idea why Canada is relevant to your point, as Canada also uses FPTP though thankfully might be reforming to AV or something else in the coming 18 months.
Basically virtually every vote now counts and everyone in every district now has a representative that most closely approximately represents their interests.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
In other news, the debt ceiling has been raised until march 2017!
Ah those poor Tea Partyers who can't do nothin' anymore.
[ October 30, 2015, 09:48 AM: Message edited by: Elison R. Salazar ]
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I think that my favorite part so far is that Ron thinks Carson would beat Clinton in a debate.
I would love nothing more than to see captain tramadol in any sort of one on one debate. Maybe you could make it fair by putting Clinton in a medically induced coma
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
I think you should lay off on the digs about how he speaks. That's usually what gets people fired up to defend him and there's plenty of digging material on the substance of what he says.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I've ranted enough about that, but I guess I could point out that economic plan of his again. It speaks for itself as long as you loop a barfing sounds over it
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Ben Carson: "It is important to remember that amateurs built the Ark and it was the professionals that built the Titanic."
Says the professional brain surgeon.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Elison, I do not need to respond to utter stupidity. That is all you liberal Democrats have. Your opinions are too dumb to even be interesting. Just because you call your comments "rebuttals" doesn't mean that they really are.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Elison, I do not need to respond to utter stupidity. That is all you liberal Democrats have. Your opinions are too dumb to even be interesting. Just because you call your comments "rebuttals" doesn't mean that they really are.
So is this your version of complaining about "gotcha" questions?
Tell me Ron, how is Carson going to pay for the federal government with a flat tax of 15% without shrinking the federal government by 40%, I'm waiting.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Among the several things wrong with that statement: according to Carson, those 'amateurs' were constructing the Ark with the direct, inspire guidance of God. Who unless I misunderstand Christianity, is supposed to be a pretty good authority on most things, including the art of being a shipwright. I may be understating things.
Which would mean they...weren't amateurs? Or...something? Oh and perhaps we could talk a little more about that whole global genocide-minus-a-few-favorites story that necessitated an Ark at all? I can't wait to hear about the love!
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Elison, I do not need to respond to utter stupidity. That is all you liberal Democrats have. Your opinions are too dumb to even be interesting. Just because you call your comments "rebuttals" doesn't mean that they really are.
This is more brazenly dishonest and cowardly than you have been in the past this early in election cycles in the past, Ron. Though in a sense it is more honest for you to speak this way since you always end up there eventually. Kudos!
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
quote: Among the several things wrong with that statement: according to Carson, those 'amateurs' were constructing the Ark with the direct, inspire guidance of God. Who unless I misunderstand Christianity, is supposed to be a pretty good authority on most things, including the art of being a shipwright. I may be understating things.
I imagine his claim would be that he is an amateur political leader who would have the direct, inspired guidance from God.
quote: Elison, I do not need to respond to utter stupidity. That is all you liberal Democrats have. Your opinions are too dumb to even be interesting. Just because you call your comments "rebuttals" doesn't mean that they really are.
Ron, speaking as a moderate here, can you sell Carson to me and why I should vote for him? I don't want to hear anything about the Left or why Hillary is the devil. Just explain to me, in specific terms, what his plans are and what problems they will solve. I promise I will listen with an open mind.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
GaalDornick, I do not wish to sell Dr. Carson to you. I would be glad if he were elected, but right now I favor Sen. Ted Cruz. His people say that they took in 1.1 million dollars in the 22 hours after the debate. So that sounds to me very much like a real indication that he won the debate.
One thing I do not like about Carson was his statement that he would not have sent in troops to Afghanistan in the first place. That was right after 911, and it is the president's primary job to take action when American is directly attacked. President Bush was right, and wise in the way he managed it, sending in Special forces to assist the Northern Alliance, to coordinate with American air power, and they succeeded in defeating the Taliban in only one month--something Russia failed to do after many years of warfare.
Also I respect and admire Dr. Carson, and like I said earlier, I would hate to see him surrounded by sharks in Washington. (Although he seems to be able to handle himself dealing with the opponents he has had to deal with so far. Even Trump has been forced to respect him--albeit grudgingly.)
Concerning the Ark--it is really rather silly even to comment on this. But Noah and his family had 120 years to build the Ark. We do not know what limits to technology people had before the Flood. The Bible does tell us that Noah, his family, and Methuselah (who also worked on the Ark) were very long-lived, and obviously bigger and stronger than humans are now. It would be foolish to underestimate what they could have accomplished. Of course, if you are locked into the mindset of evolution, and believe that people back in Noah's day had to be less intelligent and less capable than we are today, then to be corrected you would first have to be disburdened of the modern myths that mainstream science has chosen to adopt as a virtual faith--one that determinedly ignores a vast wealth of solid, contrary evicence. But mention of such evidence only makes them angry and hateful. They flatly refuse to consider it.
[ October 30, 2015, 10:36 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
Okay, so same question about Cruz.
I'll tell you what my perception of him is and you can tell me why I'm wrong.
As a moderate, I think that both conservatives and liberals want what's best for the country with different ideas on how to do so. Government works both when both sides argue, but compromise. From my understanding, Cruz engineered a government shutdown because he was not willing to accept funding for the ACA. To me, compromising would be speaking to the Democrats, explaining his concerns with the bill, and how they could modify it to address some of their concerns. But instead he prefers to shutdown the government.
Whenever I hear him talk, he speaks as if Obama is always wrong because he's either too stupid or too evil to do what's right. He never articulates why he disagrees with Obama's policies civilly. I would vote for a conservative that can say that Obama is doing what he believes is best for the country, but is wrong for X reasons.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
I really do agree with Cruz that Obama is truly evil, deliberately trying to weaken America and bring us down to the status of a third world nation. He spent his childhood in Africa, and was schooled in Indonesia, before coming to America to attend college as a foreign student--so he has the mindset of his third-world upbringing. It was precisely to prevent this that the Constitution requires that a president be a native born and raised American. His senior advisor is Vallerie Jarrett, who was born in Iran. You don't think it is a coincidence that the outrageous "treaty" he claimed he got with Iran so completely favors Iran? And even though Iran has openly terminated the treaty, Obama still is willing to limit us as if the treaty were in effect. How stupid can stupid be?
Obama's main gun to counter the Republican majority was to threaten to shut down the government (and blame it wrongly on the Republicans). If Republicans in Congress and the Senate had shown that they were willing to stand up to Obama, as Cruz wanted them to, he would have been forced to back down, and then we would have seen some real compromise. Obama is the one who has never listened to the opposition. He behaves like he thinks he is a king, and he believes that no matter how shamelessly he tramples on the Constitutionally mandated separation of powers, his loyal Democrat liberals will support him no matter what.
I also believe that Planned Parenthood is so monstrously evil, that the United States of America has no right to exist as a nation if it continues to fund this abomination. Congress should refuse to provide one cent of public money to this terrible shame on America, no matter what Obama tries to do about it. Congress controls the purse, not the president.
[ October 30, 2015, 11:02 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Ron, you really are a stunning example of self-deception and epistemic closure.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:His senior advisor is Vallerie Jarrett, who was born in Iran.
Why does this matter even a little bit about Jarrett
like do you actually know her life story or are you so gullible that you'll just affix to a single contextless fact about her (SHE WAS BORN IN ~IRAN~ OMG) and then be sure she's an america-hating iranian agent or something
No seriously Ron are you dumber than even I give you credit for
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
Ron, that's nuts. If Obama was really that evil, our economy wouldn't have improved so much since 2009. You can make the argument that the economy would have improved anyways, but if a Commander in Chief deliberately wants to destroy America, things would be a hell of a lot worse off than they are.
Valerie Jarrett has two American parents and she lived in Iran until she was 5. Not exactly a long time to become a loyal Iranian. But listen to yourself -- your politics are based on conspiracy theories. I asked you about Carson and Cruz because I want to hear a conservative's explanation on why their policies and ideas would be effective, not this conspiracy garbage.
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
I know nothing about Jarrett but I dated a girl born in Iran. She was more patriotic for America than I am.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
No, you see, it's that Obama is extremely evil and wants to destroy america, but so far he's just, uh, really ... bad at it, I guess, so bad that america just got, uh, better. now that's incompetence
I mean if obama wanted to destroy america he'd just veto all budget appropriations and just do a few other extremely easy things a POTUS can do without real opposition and yet for some reason he just doesn't do it
but i guess all we really learned is that ron is really bad at credible conspiracy theories it's so boring i am going to fall asleep before i finish this pos
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Ron,
What exactly do you find appealing about Carson?
Literally every idea I've heard him utter is ridiculous, unconstitutional, or both.
I continue to fail to understand his appeal.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
Ted Cruz wasn't born on this planet so he's disqualified too.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
umberhulk's comment made me realize the irony of this:
quote: It was precisely to prevent this that the Constitution requires that a president be a native born and raised American
quote: GaalDornick, I do not wish to sell Dr. Carson to you. I would be glad if he were elected, but right now I favor Sen. Ted Cruz.
quote: Cruz was born on December 22, 1970, in Calgary, Alberta, to parents Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Concerning the Ark--it is really rather silly even to comment on this. But Noah and his family had 120 years to build the Ark. We do not know what limits to technology people had before the Flood. The Bible does tell us that Noah, his family, and Methuselah (who also worked on the Ark) were very long-lived, and obviously bigger and stronger than humans are now. It would be foolish to underestimate what they could have accomplished. Of course, if you are locked into the mindset of evolution, and believe that people back in Noah's day had to be less intelligent and less capable than we are today, then to be corrected you would first have to be disburdened of the modern myths that mainstream science has chosen to adopt as a virtual faith--one that determinedly ignores a vast wealth of solid, contrary evicence. But mention of such evidence only makes them angry and hateful. They flatly refuse to consider it.
It's paragraphs like this that really illustrate just how far off the reservation Ron has drifted, and how futile it is to engage with him in any rational way.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Yeah. First of all, even if evolution said that people were less intelligent a few thousand years ago than now, that would have no bearing on my point.
Which was simply this: under no meaning of the word 'amateur' that people use would Noah&Co. be considered amateurs. If we accept the story entirely on its own grounds, they were being guided and managed directly by the creator of reality. Who would, by definition, be a more than adequate shipwright.
Of course Dr. Carson is familiar with the biblical story of Noah and the Ark and the Flood, so of course he knows this. Which makes his pithy remark about experts and amateurs either a cynical lie or an empty piece of stump speech. Because, as Dr. Carson believes that story, they weren't amateurs.
Of course I expect Ron to ignore this or lie about it, as is his style when discussing politics-when he isn't simply evading direct challenges.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: [QB] umberhulk's comment made me realize the irony of this:
] [QUOTE] Cruz was born on December 22, 1970, in Calgary, Alberta, to parents Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.
Lies
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: I really do agree with Cruz that Obama is truly evil, deliberately trying to weaken America and bring us down to the status of a third world nation. He spent his childhood in Africa, and was schooled in Indonesia, before coming to America to attend college as a foreign student--so he has the mindset of his third-world upbringing. It was precisely to prevent this that the Constitution requires that a president be a native born and raised American.
Aside from all that being a lie (Obama was born in Hawaii, a state in the united states, and he was raised in Honolulu, for which there is ample, overwhelming first person evidence), The constitution requires only that a person be "a natural born" citizen of the united states. The constitution does not even strictly require that a person be born within the territory of the United States, if we are to follow the interpretation of citizenship law as it has been applied for the past several decades.
Tom Cruz, your favorite candidate, was not born in the United States, but is also a natural born citizen. Interestingly, he was also a citizen of Canada until last year (though he may have been unaware of the fact before 2013).
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Elison, I do not need to respond to utter stupidity. That is all you liberal Democrats have. Your opinions are too dumb to even be interesting. Just because you call your comments "rebuttals" doesn't mean that they really are.
This is more brazenly dishonest and cowardly than you have been in the past this early in election cycles in the past, Ron. Though in a sense it is more honest for you to speak this way since you always end up there eventually. Kudos!
Also I'm not a liberal democrat either...
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: umberhulk's comment made me realize the irony of this:
quote: It was precisely to prevent this that the Constitution requires that a president be a native born and raised American
quote: GaalDornick, I do not wish to sell Dr. Carson to you. I would be glad if he were elected, but right now I favor Sen. Ted Cruz.
quote: Cruz was born on December 22, 1970, in Calgary, Alberta, to parents Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.
amazing, amazing
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
I mean, guys, like, maybe I'm wrong and crazy but, could it be that Ron's objection to Obama on nativist grounds, was entirely reflexively partisan?
Truly it would be shocking and I want to be wrong. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
It's not entirely PARTISAN. I mean, Cruz is at worst-case a CANADIAN infiltrator. What's he going to do, send a wave of moose after our maple syrup supply?
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: It's not entirely PARTISAN. I mean, Cruz is at worst-case a CANADIAN infiltrator. What's he going to do, send a wave of moose after our maple syrup supply?
You joke, but there have been large maple syrup heists.
Posted by NobleHunter (Member # 12043) on :
I've heard moose are bloody scary, too.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
A møøse once bit my sister...
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: It's not entirely PARTISAN. I mean, Cruz is at worst-case a CANADIAN infiltrator. What's he going to do, send a wave of moose after our maple syrup supply?
Cruz will have to pry our maple syrup from my sticky, delicious fingers.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Carson now saying the Pyramids weren't tombs!
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
carson has a campaign rap video
I have not listened to it yet because i just cant i just cant
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Carson now saying the Pyramids weren't tombs!
What are they?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Grain silos, apparently.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Hah... really? That's so cute.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
My father-in-law just shared this comic on Facebook along with this text:
quote:Dr. Ben Carson earned a week's worth of media scrutiny, but where was the media when it came to Hillary "I dodged sniper fire in Bosnia" Clinton's stretches...?
Also, are people still buying into the whole Clinton body count thing?
Also also, why are the candidates lives being visualized as dumpsters? Saying that Ben Carson is a clean dumpster isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
It amazes me when people say, "Where was the media when it came to Hillary's: Clinton Foundation activities, foreign investments, Benghazi, email scandal, White Water, et al"
And you just want to look at them and say, "Tell me how you know so much about Hillary Clinton."
[ November 10, 2015, 01:30 PM: Message edited by: JanitorBlade ]
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Yup. I actually replied and pointed out that there was plenty of media coverage of that and many other issues. And then someone replied to me and said that while there was coverage, there wasn't any scrutiny.
"Where was the media when . . ." always means "The media isn't covering something as much as I'd like or in the way that I'd like." So then the question is, why do you think the media should cover things a certain way? Why, it's almost as if people have already made up their minds about certain things and just want the media to affirm their preconceived notions.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
The crowd of social justice types that I regularly have to encounter in a series I'm starting to call Progressives Behaving Badly also do that stuff and it makes me almost murderously annoyed
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: My father-in-law just shared this comic on Facebook along with this text:
quote:Dr. Ben Carson earned a week's worth of media scrutiny, but where was the media when it came to Hillary "I dodged sniper fire in Bosnia" Clinton's stretches...?
have they completely forgotten the whole Benghazi investigations thing yet or what
like they do remember that this was a thing that was in the news constantly for forever right
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I tend to think "the media" doesn't include whichever outlet they actually use. And you can even have people on Fox News talking about liberal media bias with a straight face.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: My father-in-law just shared this comic on Facebook along with this text:
quote:Dr. Ben Carson earned a week's worth of media scrutiny, but where was the media when it came to Hillary "I dodged sniper fire in Bosnia" Clinton's stretches...?
have they completely forgotten the whole Benghazi investigations thing yet or what
like they do remember that this was a thing that was in the news constantly for forever right
Jeez I seem to remember the media being all over it.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I alternate between hot and cold on this primary.
I am sometimes thoroughly enjoying it because it has hilariously broken through any reasonable poe's law holds and become a legendary farce, and I take great and sinister pleasure in marveling at the agonal breathing of a slowly demographically imploding party.
I am sometimes thoroughly tired and done with it because these people are just being total cretins — the otherwise decent elements are punted out to the very fringe and are themselves complaining about how insane the party has become, but they don't stand a chance and there's nothing ultimately good or encouraging, sometimes, about how it has been shown you can apparently only succeed in a republican primary by now if you are deliberately working the basest populist elements of a truly ignorant and bigoted core using the foulest elements of populist appeal — the end stage of what happens when you rally a base by training them to reject "elitists" of any stripe, be they scientific or social or economic or political.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Mmm. I think 2015 will likely go down as the year when American politics thoroughly lost its S***.
But from what I've been reading about the polling problem that has been mounting more heavily with every cycle, we may now be *far* out of the time in which the GOP could muster a national popular vote. In fact, that time may have ended more than 10 years ago.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
To me, the only thing that's at risk so far is "2015: the year that the republican party showed that it was already too far gone"
which may or may not happen, depending on whether the GOP can push a more establishment character through and avoid the embarrassment of running trump or carson in a completely doomed general election
but if trump or carson win the primary
that's it
they're done
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: To me, the only thing that's at risk so far is "2015: the year that the republican party showed that it was already too far gone"
which may or may not happen, depending on whether the GOP can push a more establishment character through and avoid the embarrassment of running trump or carson in a completely doomed general election
but if trump or carson win the primary
that's it
they're done
This is why that won't happen. Even if they get the votes, which they won't, the party won't nominate them. It will destroy itself before it does that.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: To me, the only thing that's at risk so far is "2015: the year that the republican party showed that it was already too far gone"
which may or may not happen, depending on whether the GOP can push a more establishment character through and avoid the embarrassment of running trump or carson in a completely doomed general election
but if trump or carson win the primary
that's it
they're done
This is why that won't happen. Even if they get the votes, which they won't, the party won't nominate them. It will destroy itself before it does that.
So.... the country will be left with Cruz or Rubio. Great. Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: This is why that won't happen. Even if they get the votes, which they won't, the party won't nominate them. It will destroy itself before it does that.
The establishment is already seriously considering any and all ways it can provide a leading edge to Rubio, because it is at least vaguely aware of what is happening to them.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: This is why that won't happen. Even if they get the votes, which they won't, the party won't nominate them. It will destroy itself before it does that.
The establishment is already seriously considering any and all ways it can provide a leading edge to Rubio, because it is at least vaguely aware of what is happening to them.
This is why I'm so confident in a Dem victory. A Cruz nomination is a path to a 50 state dem victory. We're talking 1984 Reagan level for Hilary Clinton.
For Rubio, he'd lose, but he'd lose Dole/Kemp style.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
50 states?
I wish I could believe in your confident predictions, but IIRC, you were sure Jeb would not run.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I don't believe Rubio would lose. I'm reasonably sure Cruz would lose, but not by the margins you seem to think. He'd still carry the South and chunks of the midwest and chunks of the west as well. But Hillary would sweep all the purple states and pick up a couple light red states maybe.
But Rubio would give her a serious run for her money. He's incredibly slick. He'd run into a bit of an ideas gap, but I don't feel like that really gets in the way of winning all that much if people really like you.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: 50 states?
I wish I could believe in your confident predictions, but IIRC, you were sure Jeb would not run.
I was. Now I'm only sure he shouldn't have run, that he didn't really want to run, and that he won't be running for long.
And I only said it was a path to a 50 state victory. It would depend on how badly he managed the campaign after nomination. I'm predicting it would be pretty bad.
And in response to Lyr, sorry but I just don't see it. There's really nobody on the right who can energize voters anymore. And Rubio is not the answer for them either. He'd do the best of anyone in the field, but he'll melt like a popsicle in the national spotlight. He's too young, too inexperienced, and lacks the chops that Obama had at the same point in his career (despite Obama having even less experience).
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
quote: And I only said it was a path to a 50 state victory. It would depend on how badly he managed the campaign after nomination. I'm predicting it would be pretty bad.
I'm trying to imagine a screwup bad enough that Hillary Clinton would win Texas.
Maybe if Ted came out right before election day.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Agree that Rubio would wilt in the national spotlight.
Carson hasn't been taking it so well, and that will undoubtedly get worse. Rubio is the flashy alternative right now for people looking for someone more "serious" than the clowns in the front of the clown car.
If he were the frontrunner, or the presumptive nominee, all barrels would be trained on him, and he'd begin to struggle. He just doesn't have any substance that makes any sense at this point (then again, no one in the current field really does)
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: 50 states?
I wish I could believe in your confident predictions, but IIRC, you were sure Jeb would not run.
I was. Now I'm only sure he shouldn't have run, that he didn't really want to run, and that he won't be running for long.
And I only said it was a path to a 50 state victory. It would depend on how badly he managed the campaign after nomination. I'm predicting it would be pretty bad.
And in response to Lyr, sorry but I just don't see it. There's really nobody on the right who can energize voters anymore. And Rubio is not the answer for them either. He'd do the best of anyone in the field, but he'll melt like a popsicle in the national spotlight. He's too young, too inexperienced, and lacks the chops that Obama had at the same point in his career (despite Obama having even less experience).
The interesting thing about having Congressional Republican candidates is that the past 8 years have been about them deliberately not having a record to run on.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: This is why that won't happen. Even if they get the votes, which they won't, the party won't nominate them. It will destroy itself before it does that.
The establishment is already seriously considering any and all ways it can provide a leading edge to Rubio, because it is at least vaguely aware of what is happening to them.
This is why I'm so confident in a Dem victory. A Cruz nomination is a path to a 50 state dem victory. We're talking 1984 Reagan level for Hilary Clinton.
For Rubio, he'd lose, but he'd lose Dole/Kemp style.
Not even Trump would manage a '50 state dem victory' — we have a wide swath of states which are essentially guaranteed to be in the red.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
What I'm suggesting is that the Republican party would implode if it somehow nominated Ted Cruz. He is universally hated by the establishment in his party, most of his colleagues, and most of Washington generally. He is also just about the most reptilian, mercenary, machiavellian politician on the national stage since Nixon.
I would predict something like a Republican establishment rebellion given his nomination, a spoiler candidate, and a total abdication of responsibility for his candidacy by the Republican party. In effect, total panic and confusion.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I will have to think on that, but I don't think that would happen. Cruz would lose, and it would be a fairly severe loss, and there would be plenty of discontent working its way through the party after the nomination, and Cruz would certainly have a great deal of (continued) antipathy to the establishment elements who would have raised hell trying to do everything in their power to prevent his nomination.
But I don't believe they would go into a full rebellion, given that if the GOP implodes now, they're done. They can't afford a full and significant schism.
Instead, my prediction is more muted. A remarkably bad general election campaign, an overwhelming defeat, the freedom caucus remains as ungovernable as they can manage, the tea party remains a pile of cavernously xenophobic dorks that dog the party for another cycle, and plenty of puff pieces trying to invent new angles to describe "What Went Wrong with the Republicans in 2016?"
(note that we're getting a thousand of those puff pieces no matter what happens, though, so)
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
What exactly would the GOP imploding look like, if not like Donald Trump pinning a string of cans to the tail of the party, and Ben "Believe Me" Carson leading in national polls?
I think we're witnessing the end of days here for the GOP as a national party.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I'm going to sound really arrogant simply supposing all this as though I'm a psychic, but I'll answer in regards to the theory I've been talking people's ears off about for about a decade now — namely that there are two widely observed consistent and overwhelmingly evidenced realities about how people vote that indicate that the Republican party will be entering a period of terminal decline which we literally don't know how they could get out of, where any scenario in which the GOP survives in anything like its present form would require something inordinately unprecedented.
But skipping all that, the first phase is where the GOP simply loses viability in the presidential election. First in the sense of "the republicans can't win the election, the democrats can only lose it." Then, later, it's just incredibly hard to expect a GOP candidate can do anything to hold nationally viable numbers. This necessarily has an impact on the judicial branch, of course. There's just no longer the viable raw numbers needed to hold any of today's swing states, because conservatives are literally dying off and the generations which are coming into the years that they are reliable voters are significantly more and more liberal, to an overwhelming degree. Eventually, there's a set of states which used to be competitive or which the republicans had to carry to hold the office of the presidency which they can't hold anymore. Like Colorado before them, they go blue.
The second phase is the collapse of their legislative national viability. By this time their demographic implosion is severe enough to render them unable to ever hold the Senate. As the decline becomes more severe, the House surpasses a threshold that Republican gerrymandering had successfully held off (or there's some dramatic event like a supreme court ruling against partisan districting). By that time, there's a significant total popular advantage to democratic candidates that blows by disproportionate representational districting and the Republicans lose the house.
This effectively turns the GOP into a regional party rather than a national one.
This is where their one strongest remaining legacy is confronted: today's republicans are excellent at locking down and completely controlling state governments, and they have taken a number of states and given themselves fairly complete control over the governance of these states, and they will likely have control of them for some time. They will be long running experiments in unhindered republican state government. This will represent the ultimate test of the speed of republican decline, to see both
1. how many of these states get broken out of controlled republican lockdown (watch Kansas and Michigan for these ones) and
2. how many states turn into places where the democrats respond to their expanding power by becoming similarly iron-fisted rulers of their states
within somewhere between one and two decades, the sorts of things we write off as "socialist" fantasy will become plausible or even unstoppable overhauls of our system. Universal health care, in particular, would start to seem inevitable.
... now all this comedic dysfunction is all just an oddly visceral surface response to a series of faustian bargains the GOP seems to have made, so I guess I can just enjoy all that on the side?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Kansas won't rediscover their liberal roots. But they might toss Brownback out in a primary.
As for Michigan, I have no idea what my home state will do, but I'll tell you the current government is almost universally reviled.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I'm interested Sam, in what happens in the national political vacuum left by the departure of the Republicans.
I would surmise that a split between Social Democrats (similar to Labor) and Conservative Democrats (Ie: Federalists), would emerge if the party were to essentially inherit total control of national government.
At that point, whatever is left of social liberal Republicanism would try to align with Conservative Democrat, to form a new center coalition.
I think what we'd be left with would be essentially the same two party system, only with the rabid Tea-Partier wing of conservatism relegated back to the fringe once again, and Socialism a more powerful force within national policy.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
The problem with State-side UHC is that there is a non-trivial upfront cost and Medicaid(?) reduces the size of their risk pools too substantially to make it viable.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
If it's a full blown collapse where the GOP doesn't just reform and become a fairly different party under the same general name (before they can crawl back up to much national relevance)
then, well, deprived of the spoiler effect, I would imagine you would get an eventual split to two parties, one resembling the establishment democratic party, one a Bernie sanders style left progressive party.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
It's interesting. We haven't had a party really die off for nearly a century. Seems overdue though- whatever philosophical ties Republicanism had to Lincoln and Blair seem quite distant indeed. Gone with the southern strategy- only the first of a series of such :ahem: Faustian bargains.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
You guys are nuts. There's no sign that the Republican party is collapsing any time soon.
I know there are warning signs in the near term years that look rough for them, but they aren't going to disintegrate any time soon. They still have a chance to win at national politics in 2016 if they play their cards right. And unless Dems can win back state houses they have a lock on Congress for another 15 years at least.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
I think a realignment is coming but I'm with Lyrhawn that such predictions are a little overblown. The lock on the States is a real thing that will persist.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Yee of little faith. People forget that the Republicans had the Presidency 6 years after the founding of the party. If it can rise to dominate national politics in 6 years, it can fade just as quickly. Watch.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
The Republican party needs to significantly shift its positions on some things, or it's just going to demographically start to fade.
Its base is older, whiter, and more Christian than average... and all three of those populations are shrinking. As its voters pass away, it is not adequately replenishing its base with an equal or greater amount of younger voters. The racial demographics of the country are also shifting, and the country as a whole is identifying less with the various Christian religions (both non-Christian and "unaffiliated" are growing).
Its position on various issues is also growing more out of sync with the general public (e.g. public opinion polls now show 60% of Americans support gay marriage, up from 27% in 1995).
Without some significant changes to the platform, all the gerrymandering in the world isn't going to hold back that tide.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: You guys are nuts. There's no sign that the Republican party is collapsing any time soon.
I know there are warning signs in the near term years that look rough for them, but they aren't going to disintegrate any time soon. They still have a chance to win at national politics in 2016 if they play their cards right. And unless Dems can win back state houses they have a lock on Congress for another 15 years at least.
Remember that my prognostications are looking 20+ years into the future. The only parts of this that are likely to be a 'stark' or 'sudden' realization would be those points where pundits start saying "Now that <CONDITION X>, how can the Republicans ever win the Presidency again?"
(because they can't anymore)
(because the only demographic that floats the GOP to national viability is approaching an average age of 70)
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Everything else is going to be a general demographic wearing of the bastions. Their relevance in legislative will slowly wane, they will start losing some state governments here and there until the ones they have left are either the really red states and/or the ones that they have locked down the voting representation on.
None of this is really nuts as long as you understand exactly what my prediction is and what it is based on!
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
blah blah blah something something bernie sanders can't win now
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
Thanks a lot, New York.
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
New York might not be to blame. There's still the matter of some 100k-150k of voters who were purged from the polls. From Brooklyn. Sanders home town.
Oh well. Politics as usual I guess. No ever said the Clintons couldn't play hardball.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
Whelp, here we are. Down to the inevitable versus the inevitable everyone really hoped was one big joke.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
Thanks a lot, California.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Bernie was I believe just about mathematically eliminated a few weeks back; he'd have to win with something like 80% of the vote consistently after losing New York.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Yeah, he's technically been out of it for about a month, now; there was no realistic way for him to grab the nom since New York.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
WHY THE COMMA!?
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
Eh, in the darkest depths of my heart I'm still hoping for an indictment so that the DNC HAS to accept Sanders.
That's not going to happen though, both because there's probably not enough to prosecute on, and because HRC falls into the "Too Big to Jail" category.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Bernie was I believe just about mathematically eliminated a few weeks back;
He certainly wasn't going to be nominated with that attitude.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Bernie was I believe just about mathematically eliminated a few weeks back;
He certainly wasn't going to be nominated with that attitude.
Or without it, it seems.
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
He wasn't eliminated weeks ago, no matter how much Clinton and her cronies were pushing that idea.
The super delegates don't vote until the convention. They could have, at any time, switched their votes to Sanders for literally any reason. It wasn't until yesterday that Clinton won enough delegates to actually claim the nomination, no matter what.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
There is no chance that the superdelegates would have done that, even if Clinton were arrested for beating a man to death with baseball cleats.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Wow, I wish the Hillary scandals were that interesting.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Heisenberg: He wasn't eliminated weeks ago, no matter how much Clinton and her cronies were pushing that idea.
The super delegates don't vote until the convention. They could have, at any time, switched their votes to Sanders for literally any reason. It wasn't until yesterday that Clinton won enough delegates to actually claim the nomination, no matter what.
It's extremely difficult to take this seriously.
For one thing, Hillary is winning by the popular vote handly, the superdelegates switching their vote would be the sort of anti-democratic thing Bernie and his supporters were complaining about earlier (i.e them stealing the thing from a possible Sanders victory).
That and with the other post, what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Why listen to what are basically Republican talking points? The FBI has yet to conclude their investigation.
It's basically just obviously salty.
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
Well, yeah, I'm salty. I'm certainly not going to be happy with a frigging Republican-lite when there was a chance for an actual progressive. I know the superdelegates weren't going to change short of something crazy happening, but the word mathematically implies that she had won on the same level as two plus two equals four, and that just wasn't the case.
I realise that she's innocent until proven guilty, I know that there PROBABLY isn't anything that she could be convicted over. All I was saying in that other post was that if I had a genie in my back pocket, one of my wishes would be Clinton getting indicted so that we could have Sanders.
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
Basically, I'm never going to be happy with an establishment politician again, which Clinton is from top to bottom. I will also never support someone who takes money from Wall Street firms. I don't care if they're literally Jesus Christ.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:I'm certainly not going to be happy with a frigging Republican-lite when there was a chance for an actual progressive.
SHE IS NOT A REPUBLICAN, SHE IS A DEMOCRAT.
^^ THIS, is why I can't take the majority of Berniebro's I see online on the internet seriously. You basically see her as bad as electing a Republican when compared to virtually any Republican that was running you could name the difference in policy is like night and day.
-She would fight for more rights for women and LBGT people. -She IS despite rhetoric to the contrary likely to do more to regulate the banks; and certainly 100% would not abolish entire regulatory bodies like virtually any Republican candidate would Day 1. -She will not start a war with Iran. -She's not going to pass laws based entirely on scripture or moralism. -She is not going to appoint a right winger to the Supreme Court. <---- THIS IS THE IMPORTANT THING. -She is not going to throw the PPACA into the trash bin, her own healthcare proposals back in the 90's were more progressive, and thus I think she is likely to fight for improvements to the PPACA. -Additionally we can rest assured that she won't roll back the clock on the remainder of the New Deal like any Republican would.
She would basically be a third term for Obama, and Obama has generally despite plenty of reasons to criticize some of his actions and policies, done an amazing job as President.
There is no rational basis for equating Hillary to being a "Republican lite" she is most definitely not a Blue Dog, by any metric that matters she was actually and factually one of the most liberal members of the Senate; her voting record is 90+% the same as Bernie Sanders.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Man am I glad I already sent in my vote.
Shit burger or ass sandwich.
Or snowflake...in hell.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:-She IS despite rhetoric to the contrary likely to do more to regulate the banks; and certainly 100% would not abolish entire regulatory bodies like virtually any Republican candidate would Day 1. -She will not start a war with Iran. -Additionally we can rest assured that she won't roll back the clock on the remainder of the New Deal like any Republican would.
These specific assertions are ones I find questionable, based on her record.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
What about her record makes her likely to be less liberal than Obama was?
What evidence is there that she would go remotely as far as Republicans who actively campaign on rolling back the New Deal, considering her own platform and website expresses a desire to preserve them?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:What about her record makes her likely to be less liberal than Obama was?
She and her husband pretty much defined neoliberalism, which is liberal in the sense that neoconservatives are conservative.
quote: What evidence is there that she would go remotely as far as Republicans who actively campaign on rolling back the New Deal, considering her own platform and website expresses a desire to preserve them?
She was instrumental in dismantling effective welfare, was one of the loudest advocates of the Pacific trade deal, and has been stumping for deregulated stock markets since literally before she ever held any sort of office.
She's to the right of Richard Nixon on almost every issue.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote: She and her husband pretty much defined neoliberalism, which is liberal in the sense that neoconservatives are conservative.
Neoliberalism has its own set of issues and evils but it isn't the stark neoreactionism of the GOP. Also how much of the modern Third Way Democratic movement was a result of the factual political setting the Reagan administration placed America in? Now we have the 99% Movement, Occupy, BLM, and well, Sanders' own candidacy and the success of populism in the Republican primary has shown that Americans are more willing to entertain government sponsored solutions to inequality, and that trickle down economics have failed. Hillary is a politician, from her platform, voting record and rhetoric I think its likely she wants to improve things as much as possible; the third way was about constructing a broad coalition that can get into office to do that under the post-Reagan environment; now we have the post-Obama environment and I think we'll see substantial policies being advanced to that effect (whether the House will budge...).
Like Obama spent years trying to reach a compromise the GOP and the Dems could both live with and learned there just isn't much to deal with when it comes to the Republican house that's held hostage by their base and clearly has some level of contempt for them now; based on what we can glimpse from his routine at the previous WHCD's, but Hillary? She despises them. I don't see her actively courting them the same way Obama did, and will probably be more willing to push for broader progressive changes at least because of spite.
Also Hillary has a much deeper working relationship with Senate Dems, Obama didn't have that and contributed to the difficulties in the passing the PPACA. There's a lot of benefits from a progressive standpoint from a Hillary administration and I don't see where the doom and gloom comes from when you consider the context.
Shes not Bernie fine I get that, but she's certainly a candidate any long time Democratic voter can live with short of Biden.
quote: She's to the right of Richard Nixon on almost every issue.
Nixon got the EPA passed, I'm fine with Nixon.
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
My sister likes Sanders even more then I do, and dislike Clinton a whole lot. Can we also refer to her disparagingly as a "bro?" The term is ridiculous, made up to infer that anyone supporting Sanders over Clinton is doing so because they're sexist.
Ya'll can bite into that low fat shit sandwich and talk about how great it is, because hey, low fat! I'm going to pass, thanks. Clinton is not a progressive and barely qualifies for the term liberal. I'm certainly not going to support Trump. I'm just also not going to support Clinton. If she wants to earn the votes of people who feel like I do, then she should probably start addressing the issues that we care about, and remove her lips from Wall Street's ass.
I'm done with the idiotic lesser of two evils approach. The class war started decades ago, it's just only the rich have been landing blows, and most of the other side doesn't even know that it's going on.
I'll support progressives. No one else.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
that puts you in the uncomfortable position of that the single most harm that can possibly be done to progressive positions in the united states for the next 40 years or so would be done if the republicans took the presidency. it would be immediate and long-lasting.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Seriously Heisenberg can talk about sandwiches or try to imply he's taking the idealist principled approach and whatever but the fact of the matter is whoever is the next President of the United States is in a position to choose up to three Supreme Court replacements; and as we've seen POTUS and the Executive branch can still do a huge amount of good from their position in the face of an obstructionist Congress; in the face of the literal saturday morning captain planet-esque cartoon villainy that is the GOP in it's current form, it is to knowingly enable great evil to occur to millions of Americans by allowing Trump or any Republican to win the WH.
Like, imagine just how much hell the Federal government can make individual peoples lives under Trump? Imagine if every single obsolete moralist law on the books were suddenly selectively enforced at the Federal level and not just the State level? The GOP holds the House and Senate and with all three branches nothing stops them from rolling back the clock as far as the Judicial branch lets them.
quote: Can we also refer to her disparagingly as a "bro?"
Yeah? It's a disparaging term for people who take their Bernie Sanders worship to Mao Tse-tung Cult of Personality level of veneration to the point that they are just not seeing reality and are irrational*. Maybe technically that is what "Bernout" is for, but they seem interchangeable to me.
Bernie lost, and remember as a Canadian Bernie is more in line with my values and I wish he did better but at the same time nothing about Hillary's record makes me unable to also live with her as POTUS if I were an American voter.
quote: Clinton is not a progressive and barely qualifies for the term liberal.
Like this speaks to the mountainous levels of salt you mined up there from your national park salt reserves because this is frankly factually not true. Water is wet levels of fact; this isn't a matter of opinion, check any reputable source and Hillary is by her record was one of the most liberal members of the US Senate, she is absolutely a progressive.
Here's a ready quote from HuffPo:
quote: But Clinton’s responsibility for her husband’s agenda isn’t always self-evident, because, as first lady, she had less ability to dissent than other advisers. A better indicator of her instincts is probably her subsequent record as a senator from New York. According to those same DW-NOMINATE ratings, Clinton was the chamber’s 11th most-liberal member during her tenure. It’s a crude statistic, but it suggests strongly that she was not just progressive relative to the Senate. It suggests that she was also progressive relative to members of her own party.
quote: If she wants to earn the votes of people who feel like I do, then she should probably start addressing the issues that we care about, and remove her lips from Wall Street's ass.
The majority of people who think like you do also statistically do not vote in the general. So why should they work hard for your vote?
*I wonder if I caused anyone to spontaneously combust from the irony.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
To further illustrate why it's just irrational like I can't believe I missed this:
quote: if I had a genie in my back pocket, one of my wishes would be Clinton getting indicted so that we could have Sanders.
"Even though I know she is probably innocent I would still jail my political opponent so I can have my preferred candidate on the ballot."
Irony called, they want their democracy and rule of law back.
Like here's a good post from Something Awful about the metaargument of emailghazi by poster McAlister:
quote: This is primarily a meta-argument about how the email scandal accusations are framed.
quote: It's very likely that the state dept had no mechanism for delivering classified email to smartphones and the only option would be unclassified email.
When Colin Powell stepped up in 2004 the state department didn't have email at all. He used a private mail account through dial up on his personal laptop in his office to do all his emailing in part to show other people how awesome email is and make the case for adopting it.
In his autobiography he talks with pride about successfully making the case to get funding that allowed him to purchase 44,000 internet capable computers so that every person at state could have one:
quote: What I did when I entered the State Department, I found an antiquated system that had to be modernized and modernized quickly.
So we put in place new systems, bought 44,000 computers and put a new Internet capable computer on every single desk in every embassy, every office in the State Department. And then I connected it with software.
But in order to change the culture, to change the brainware, as I call it, I started using it in order to get everybody to use it, so we could be a 21st century institution and not a 19th century.
It's a rather important bit of perspective to realize that when Clinton stepped up in 2008 email was still a rather new thing at State ( it takes awhile to get funding and install 44,000 computers ) and that prior to its adoption all the business done on email was done on private accounts out of band. For example, Powell's demo email account only connected with staff who also had private email accounts since the .gov email system didn't exist yet. People who frame this as if the state department IT was run like a James Bond movie are misinformed. Deliberately so since talking up the maturity/security of their IT allows detractors to make Clinton's actions look more significant/subversive.
Another bit of misleading framing is the implication or claim that Clintons' server was set up after she was appointed SoS. In reality the Clinton family server was set up by Bill after he stepped down around 2001ish. Hillary had her blackberry hooked up to it all during the primary. Setting up a secure email server is a significant endeavor for the layman. By claiming it was done after she stepped up you make listeners suspicious and prime them to accept a devious motive. The truth that she just kept on using the setup she'd been using, otoh, flows much more naturally into Hillary's stated reason, convenience. All her shit was there and why mess with what works? You can juggle two mail boxes ok but juggling two calendars completely defeats the purpose of a calendar. Again, she used it in place of a non-classified .gov email. When she had to use the secure system she went to the secure building and handed over her wireless devices to security to get in and sit at a special secure terminal like everyone else. She hated it just like everyone else. Lastly, her own emails show her asking IT to hook up her blackberry to a .gov account and them saying they couldn't do it..
This information is also left out or actively lied about by people pushing a nefarious motives narrative since attempt to use the State system while maintaining the functionality of her system undermines their entire premise.
The last major false frame of the email scandal is the idea that criminal prosecution is something that routinely happens when people mess up with secure material. You get a lot of hyperbolic claims about how much trouble a regular Joe would be if they'd done that. Also a shit ton of quoting snippets of legal statutes and torturing the definition of the word "deliberately". If security agencies criminally prosecuted people for honest mistakes then people would never self report or cooperate with security audits for fear of jail. It is more important that breaches be promptly and honestly reported than to jail people for mistakes. They will **** you up if you deliberately sell data or deliberately post it to wiki leaks sure. But if you are operating in good faith then jail isn't a realistic outcome even if you "deliberately" took some work home with you the night you got mugged and someone stole your backpack. You didn't intend for the data to get away so that's not the right kind of "deliberately" to get anti-espionage statutes thrown at you.
A minor frame used in all three major frames is trying to make this an elitist thing. Asserting that nobody else uses personal emails when it was actually a common practice or that she is avoiding punishment others would face when in reality punishment would be the exception rather than the rule.
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
Here's why people are disgusted. Sanders stands for everything that the Democratic party SAYS that they stand for. The things that they tell the progressive wing that they're just going to have to wait for, because the country just won't accept it yet.
And yet, in a year where the candidate opposing them was going to be Ted Cruz or Donald Trump, when they could have nominated a ham sandwich and won the presidency, they disparaged and ignored Sanders at every turn. The DNC basically coronated Clinton a year ago. As it turns out, when they had a chance to break the status quo, they revealed that all the talk about really fighting for progressive causes was just so much pandering bullshit. Bullshit directed at a portion of the base that they can safely ignore because, hey, "Welp, do you dumbasses really want a Republican instead?"
The Democratic party likes the system just the way it is, because they've benefitted just as much as the Republicans. Clinton is included in that. They have no interest in changing it.
And it's not surprising to me that the portion of the base that sees establishment politicians as all being the same haven't bothered to vote in elections with nothing but establishment politicians. They WOULD have voted for Sanders.
So at the end of the day, I prefer HRC over Trump the same way I'd prefer a beating with a baseball bat over being shot. I DO prefer her over Trump. But I refuse to support the status quo anymore. She can do it without my support.
As far as I'm concerned, she can take her $12,000 jackets and her million dollar speaking fees and her Wall Street campaign donations and shove them straight up her welfare decimating, stock market deregulating, Iraq War supporting ass.
Enjoy your shit sandwich.
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
And as soon as the left wing version of the Tea Party forms, and it will, I'll be abandoning any semblance of loyalty to the Democrats.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
You're just kinda being every bad facebook meme/parody at this point in that you keep making a mountain out of a mole hill at every opportunity over every little thing.
quote: Sanders stands for everything that the Democratic party SAYS that they stand for.
This actually isn't true. Sanders almost certainly does not stand for anything the DNC has ever officially endorsed as a policy goal.
Posted by Heisenberg (Member # 13004) on :
It will. There's an entire wing of the party being blatantly ignored. How'd that work out for the Republicans?
And honestly, Blayne, I wouldn't expect you to get it. An eternal student who, if he's worked a single day in his life, probably hasn't had anything more then a part time campus job, isn't going to understand the perspective of the class of people who have had the shit end of the stick for so long that the status quo is simply unacceptable.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Support for the little guy, opposition to big moneyed interests, less militaristic intervention, well it's true that policies that explicitly support these things don't tend to find their way onto the Democratic platform, but it does like to paint itself-even if only by criticizing the GOP as being so awful about these things-as supporting them. But 'not as bad' isn't really support.
I can get behind a pragmatic 'Trump is too dangerous, and if your state is likely to be close you should hold your nose and vote for Clintom' argument. I can understand someone sincerely believing she's a good candidate, though I disagree. I can wholeheartedly agree she's not as bad as Trump.
But to claim that she's actually a liberal is very strange to me. She gets *called* a liberal an awful lot by, well, American republicans who politically speaking are as you know Ellison well to the right of most western representative societies. But just because she gets called a liberal doesn't mean she was one, then or now.
Hell, a liberal of the purity you're suggesting would never have been friends with a man like Donald Trump who in the past as now embodied some of the most disliked traits for liberals that exist in American culture.
As for a breakaway Democratic Party, well I'm not sure but to me it certainly seems possible. If as could happen Trump does critical damage to the GOP in November in Congress, Clinton and other centrist democrats will have much less need for the ongoing support of progressives. Which is a very similar scenario to the one which birthed the Tea Party.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote: But to claim that she's actually a liberal is very strange to me.
It's borne out by her voting record, 11th most liberal member of the US Senate at the time. Furthermore there's her platform, such as support for the minimum wage, women's reproductive rights, support for African American issues, and so on.
This is a matter of open record.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Heisenberg: And as soon as the left wing version of the Tea Party forms, and it will, I'll be abandoning any semblance of loyalty to the Democrats.
In the spirit of effective realpolitik and trying to keep liberals from cannibalizing their own progress faster than a group of college identity politics protomarxists can declare literally everything problematic, can i recommend keeping with the democratic vote while the conservatives go down a demographic toilet, then help push mainstream DNP policies leftward in a fabian fashion?
hillary is, still, very liberal for her era. it's a great thing that the left is evolving so much that SHE represents the furthermost extent of acceptable centrism to most, but I can only suggest strategizing around the realities of spoiler effects and our first past the post system.
to wit: if the tea party had been a separate voting bloc that abandoned support of the republicans, conservatism would already be flat ****ing dead all across the country. if progressives split from centrist liberals, even a goddamned joke like donald trump could take the election and poop a bunch of poopy butt garbage assholes straight into three or so seats in the supreme court, and no matter our idealism, we'd be stuck dealing with that for the rest of our lives.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
I'm wondering what are the odds of Bernie being a VP pick. If you read Game Change, you learn that Obama and Hillary hated each other's guts. That Obama nominated her as Secretary of State speaks a lot about Obama as a person, and how he can work with someone he dislikes, but respects (I assume they like each other slightly better now).
Bernie has been very careful not to attack Hillary over emails or Benghazi (it's almost like they are smears cooked up by the right or something) and he has been extremely circumspect compared to the things the other side of the aisle had to turn around out when they endorsed Trump. He's also been fairly complimentary for an opponent.
The worst thing about the Hillary vs. Bernie feud has been uncivil college aged students, which honestly, whoever got stuck with that demographic was going to have that problem. When Bernie said Hillary wasn't qualified to be president, he said it was because he didn't like her voting record.
Between Obama's example of the olive branch, and the fact that Bernie does poll better than Hillary against Trump, it's not a bad idea.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:It's borne out by her voting record, 11th most liberal member of the US Senate at the time.
This is actually one of my pet peeves. People don't get that the methodology for this is always a measure of party loyalty, not ideology. The way these measurements work is usually like this: a "liberal" bill is defined as one that a lot of Democrats voted for and a lot of Republicans didn't, and vice versa. The most "liberal" members of the legislature, then, are the ones who voted most reliably on bills supported by Democrats and against bills supported by Republicans.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
It also fails to take into account anything other than, well, voting records. A Secretary of State does hardly any voting in Congress from what I hear.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm pretty sure he was referring to her voting record as a Senator.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I know. My point was that a voting record in the senate, particularly when such a significant portion of a candidate's political life happened outside of the senate, might not tell the whole story.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: I'm wondering what are the odds of Bernie being a VP pick. If you read Game Change, you learn that Obama and Hillary hated each other's guts. That Obama nominated her as Secretary of State speaks a lot about Obama as a person, and how he can work with someone he dislikes, but respects (I assume they like each other slightly better now).
Bernie has been very careful not to attack Hillary over emails or Benghazi (it's almost like they are smears cooked up by the right or something) and he has been extremely circumspect compared to the things the other side of the aisle had to turn around out when they endorsed Trump. He's also been fairly complimentary for an opponent.
The worst thing about the Hillary vs. Bernie feud has been uncivil college aged students, which honestly, whoever got stuck with that demographic was going to have that problem. When Bernie said Hillary wasn't qualified to be president, he said it was because he didn't like her voting record.
Between Obama's example of the olive branch, and the fact that Bernie does poll better than Hillary against Trump, it's not a bad idea.
Bernie is better in the Senate. The electoral map is a slam dunk and Hillary is far better off to pick that Castro brother from Texas to both groom her successor and to possibly soon turn Texas blue.
quote: People don't get that the methodology for this is always a measure of party loyalty, not ideology.
Is this the actual methodology used, and even if it were, is consistently voting for Democratic bills which tend to be fairly liberal a bad thing?
But in any case though, you realize that most of what I see about the arguments about what supposedly makes Hillary "not a true progressive" (Leftist Circular Firing Squad much?) basically comes down to ignoring her statements and platform to the contrary in favour of allusions to the centrist policies advanced during the Clinton administration that generally I'm pretty sure were still fairly progressive for the time in the post-Reagan years.
She's in favour of a higher minimum wage? That's progressive. She's in favour of unions, that's economically progressive. She's in favour of protecting reproductive rights, that's progressive. She has as Senator for New York and in general from what I've heard of, done a lot for African Americans; which is an important reason why Bernie didn't win the minority vote, because he spent too long talking about race issues as a result of economic inequality and not also as a result of institutional racism.
So this is an aspect that makes Hillary more progressive than Bernie.
That she isn't going to guillotine the bankers who led the US into the financial crisis doesn't make her Not A Liberal whatever that even means or not a progressive.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Dude. How does not seeking actual punishment and oversight of bankers who knowingly screwed the country over-of taking their money, in fact-register as an action that has no impact on progressive/conservative?
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Let us put aside for the moment that it actually says on her website she is in favor of more regulations of Wall Street... So it isn't at all like that she "won't" or doesn't intend to.
Newton believed in Biblical Numerology, does that make him not a scientist? It just means there's a thing he isn't super good at; in the same way that as issues go it's a flaw for Hillary. I'm castigating people who are serious in saying that Hillary is a "Republican Lite" or is somehow indistinguishable to a Republican to the point of implying she has zero chops as a liberal/progressive which is just plainly not true.
Hillary is liberal, and is certainly progressive, she champions a number of issues that fall under that spectrum; Sure it may be probable that in fine American oligarchical tradition she probably won't go far in the distance to reign in Wall Street but it just feels like a bad version of the "What did the Romans ever do for us!?" Skit. "Oh Sure, Hillary supports the minimum wage, rights for trans, gays, and lesbians, for treating minorities like people, for maintaining the basic ideal that the government exists to help people, to advance environmentalism, to fight climate change, but what did she ever do to fight the Bankers!?"
I just can't see the logic in the position of because of that you can say "Therefor Hillary Clinton is not a real progressive. Q.E.F!"
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Let us put aside for the moment that it actually says on her website she is in favor of more regulations of Wall Street...
Can we grant that all credit for the existence of that lip service goes to Sanders?
--------
quote:Oh Sure, Hillary supports the minimum wage, rights for trans, gays, and lesbians, for treating minorities like people, for maintaining the basic ideal that the government exists to help people, to advance environmentalism, to fight climate change...
You know what we call those positions? Reasonable, moderate ones. They're not remotely progressive; they're the bare minimum for a reasonable person.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Secretary Clinton is liberal, and progressive, when compared to Republicans. Particularly just about all of those who were in the Republican Primary.
When compared to people who spend all of their time, even in off years, on the left side of the American spectrum and who oppose all the faits accompli (fait accomplis?) of things that happen in American politics from foreign policy to social polo to economic policy, well, she ain't a liberal or a progressive.
I'm not even saying that's a terrible thing, though personally I am all of those things. But Senator Sanders is to the left of Secretary Clinton on just about everything except gun control, and god knows Clinton has been pragmatic about that. Again, not necessarily a bad thing. But progressive and liberal aren't just defined by 'not nearly as bad as Trump or recent republican congresses'.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote: You know what we call those positions? Reasonable, moderate ones. They're not remotely progressive; they're the bare minimum for a reasonable person.
Yeah but you live in Amerikastan.
For serious though, the fact remains that increasing the minimum wage is by definition the progressive position, compared to leaving it where it is (I would term this the minimum centrist position) and then anything less is the reactionary/conservative position. Since Conservatism in the states has defined itself as rolling back the clock and not merely defending the existing social order.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Relative progressive to no raise at all, yes.
But telling someone who wants it raised to $20/hr that a raise to $9 means someone is a progressive probably won't be taken very seriously.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
They both support 15$ minimum wage so...
Like, sure, Bernie is more progressive, no dispute there; saying Hillary is not a progressive just seems like you've internalized Republican propaganda to your own biases.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Dude, you can accept that other people honestly, legitimately are skeptical of Clinton's progressive bona fides or the answer is that I have embraced republican attacks.
I'm self aware enough of my own politics to know that is a pretty silly thing to accuse me of, at least.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Secretary Clinton is liberal, and progressive, when compared to Republicans. Particularly just about all of those who were in the Republican Primary.
Nixon and even reagan were liberal and progressive when compared to republicans today
they make such a terrible yardstick of progressives, because a pattern of cyclical radicalization in their demographic twilight (and all of the ghastly and weird effects that has) has made them the functional ideological equivalent of fractional autocratic far-right parties in europe, buoyed only by methods designed to artificially bias electoral outcomes in their favor
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'm not so sure the debate is over how liberal Hillary is so much as it is about how much you believe her.
If you believe her, then you probably think she's fairly liberal. Because she's running in a fairly liberal platform. Sanders liberal? No. But pretty liberal.
If you don't believe her, and you think everything she's likely to do is simply reflective of what she did as First Lady in the 90s, you're much more likely to label her a Republican.
I know there's some overlap between them, but I feel like that's what it comes down to at the end of the day.
I'm the last person to try to defend her as some sort of liberal icon. But I do think she's about as close as we're likely to get to palatable liberalism any time soon. And I say that because I think Bernie's run was far more about a cult of personality than it was about dedication to his ideas. I think that in part because that's a big part of why Trump is so popular is simply because of who he is. It's clearly not about Trump's ideas (he doesn't have any). But the same motivation that's pushing his supporters (anti-establishment sentiment) is what's driving Sanders' campaign as well.
The other reason I think it's a cult of personality is that polls of Sanders' actual supporters show they don't really support his policies (for what concrete details of them actually exist). The vast majority of his supporters aren't willing to pay more than $1,000 in additional taxes (combined!) for "free" college and healthcare. That blows his plan right out of the water, and that's from his most friendly demographics! I know it's not universal, but on his most signature issues, his platform polls terribly.
Also I just get this feeling that remind me of Ron Paul and crowds chanting "end the fed!" when most of his followers had no idea what the Fed is or what it does. I don't think Sanders' followers are quite like that, but it has the same feeling to me. That a lot of them aren't entirely aware of what they're signing up for, but they're angry and Sanders is so genuine.
So I'm not sure how popular far left policies actually are on a mass scale. Hillary is half a loaf, but in a country that's increasingly politically gluten-free, that might be the best thing for us at the moment.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: If you believe her, then you probably think she's fairly liberal. Because she's running in a fairly liberal platform. Sanders liberal? No. But pretty liberal.
I would add that it is precisely because I believe her that I don't think she's particularly liberal. Sure, she's less liberal than Sanders and more liberal than Republicans. That's trivial. But that's not the only benchmark.
In a number of ways, she's more conservative and more war-like than President Obama as another benchmark. You hardly need to go back to her tenure as first lady to get that.
A few examples:
On Israel
quote:In her primary race, Hillary Clinton took a more robustly pro-Israel position than either Obama or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Clinton spoke out against the BDS movement and voiced a harder line against Iran, although she still defends the JCPOA.
quote:(Privately, Atlantic interviewer Jeffrey Goldberg reported, Obama called the Libya situation a “shit show” that proved the U.S. had no business attempting to govern the Middle East and North Africa.)
Obama’s comments highlight a growing divide with Clinton as she seeks to win the Democratic presidential nomination. As secretary of state, Clinton was one of the strongest proponents of the U.S. intervention in the Libyan civil war against Gadhafi; according to the New York Times, the decision to commit military assets to ending the dictator’s 42-year-old regime was “arguably her moment of greatest influence as secretary of state.” While Obama has now pointed to that decision multiple times as one of his biggest regrets, he has also used the same logic to defend his reticence to intervene in Syria, where Clinton has urged a more militaristic approach, including a no-fly zone.
Not strictly a comparison, but I would also note with some alarm, her not-so-veiled calls for increased censorship and surveillance on top of the status quo
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I suppose she might be a Teddy Roosevelt style progressive...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
She is far, far less progressive than Teddy Roosevelt, the man famous for trust-busting.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Mucus -
No argument here. She's absolutely a hawk on defense. I don't much care for her foreign policy. I've grown to appreciate Obama's foreign policy approach more and more as the campaign goes on.
Rakeesh/Tom -
Yeah, she's no Roosevelt on domestic policy. But in terms of a liberal domestic policy mixed with a hawkish foreign policy, yes, I think that's a fair comparison. Roosevelt was an ardent imperialist. By comparison Hillary's foreign policy is fairly tame. And yes, Roosevelt was a super liberal on domestic policy by modern standards. Hillary is very tame in that regard by comparison as well.
I don't know if it equals out or not, but yeah.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote: In a number of ways, she's more conservative and more war-like than President Obama as another benchmark. You hardly need to go back to her tenure as first lady to get that.
Drones...
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
quote: In a number of ways, she's more conservative and more war-like than President Obama as another benchmark. You hardly need to go back to her tenure as first lady to get that.
Drones...
The drone strikes are bad, for what they are, but still nothing like what Clinton supports. She was the main reason the US got involved in Libya. She pushed for more involvement with Syria. She wanted to scuttle the deal with Iran.
I've grown much more appreciative of Obama's foreign policy in the last year as I see what all the alternatives are. The hardest thing a president has to do is nothing.
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