Unless it's lime, lime can fuck off.
Unless it's lime, lime can fuck off.
I can't see a Cruz win. You'd think if it's going to be a contested convention, they'll go for Kasich on the grounds he might actually win the general. Even if Cruz did get through, Clinton would almost certainly beat him.
Imagine all of the other things you could teach me as your new roommate :)
Can't you just buy it in England?
Who would ever do that to their taste buds? The only thing lime is good for is making lemon-lime flavored drinks and Key Lime Pie, which even then isn't really that good.
What would make anyone think that Kasich has a chance? Sure, he comes off as 'decent' but that is clearly not what the Republicans are looking for. Both Cruz and Trump have a far better chance than him, which the primary results very clearly demonstrate. Isn't that the whole point of a primary anyway?
The primaries are appealing to the base and those who are natural Republicans. Elections are won from the centre, appealing to independents, moderates and swing voters. Trump and Cruz are unlikely to win, whereas Kasich has a record of being solid and moderate. He'll appeal to independents, many of whom won't like Clinton. He's an alternative which the electorate won't consider as being "worse than the other one". He's also from Ohio, securing a key swing state right off the bat.
There was also a poll done recently where Clinton was put against the three Republicans. She thumped Trump, beat Cruz by a good distance but lost out to Kasich. How accurate that is would be hard to say, but Kasich would at least be competitive. Trump can't win, and Cruz is too weird.
What is Cruzface all about? If you hold your hand over one side of his face he looks like he's smiling genially, but if you hold your hand over the other side he's gazing, distraught, anxious, perhaps even crying for help.
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Elections are won by convincing your side to bother showing up. I don't really see Trump and Cruz supporters (which are pretty much everyone) being particularly excited about Kasich. A few independents might like Kasich, but I can see more people who usually don't bother showing up voting for someone like Trump (because for some reason people are voting for Trump.) Truth be told, Clinton looks the clear favorite and that has been the case since before this whole circus even began. It just seems to me that the Republican party deciding to tell all their voters to go fuck themselves and choose bloody Kasich wouldn't be a particularly smart move. I think you only like him because he seems 'decent' next to the others so he is a right winger you can see yourself getting behind, unlike the other two nutters. Clinton would swipe the floor with him, he has absolutely nothing going on for him.
It's not a case of being 'excited'. Republicans hate Clinton. A solid ground operation from Republicans, particularly congressmen and senators in stronghold districts and states, will see him sweep the south and other Republican strongholds. They'll be 'energised' sufficiently to stop Clinton. It gets them a solid foundation in the electoral college, and Kasich then becomes someone that can be 'sold' to the wider electorate as a moderate, supportable candidate.
Your assertion on Trump is also erroneous. He has very low support amongst key demographics, including women, the young and ethnic minorities. It is inconceivable that he wins because of this. He might energise the base of the party and get them to show up, but they're going to win the south and other Republican states anyway. He simply cannot win in the electoral college system.
I also wouldn't vote for a Republican in a US election solely on the basis that the executive nominates Supreme Court justices and the Republicans would inevitably pick pro-life candidates. I don't like abortion, but you can't have a party using this as a litmus test and supporting judges on the basis of imposing their morals on other people. Fuck that. Their party are also full of fascists, so I wouldn't be going near them.
And again - you may think Kasich has nothing going for him, but he is a viable "not Clinton" candidate who takes a key swing state. It's a better foundation than anything Trump or Cruz can offer. Undemocratic it may, but if Trump doesn't win enough delegates then that's just tough shit for him. You should probably read this, which at least has statistics to support my points on Kasich - http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...clinton-221192.
I don't do polls, so fuck that. I simply don't see anything that makes him 'viable' but it is all unimportant anyway, they are losing. Losing while also telling their voters that their opinion is worth fuck all does not seem like a smart move to me, but who knows what passes as smart in the Republican world.
That's pretty good. :D
The whole Ted Cruz lookalikes is also quite lol.
:lol:
Well, that's a fairly good reason why we can discount your view on the electability or otherwise of the different candidates.
The system for nominating their presidential candidate says that delegates are free to vote for whoever they want on the second ballot if there's no agreement on the first. In that instance, the party are, in my view, obliged to pick the candidate they think is most likely to win. Trump will have a plurality of votes, not a majority - so even if they picked Trump, you could say that the majority of primary voters didn't want him as the candidate.
Party elders will be looking at a contested convention as a way of positioning them to actually win the election, not an opportunity to appease a base which is increasingly separating itself from mainstream American opinion.
American polls are absolutely pointless, in fairness. Especially at this stage.
Probably, but it's been fairly accurate in terms of identifying where key areas of strength or weakness lie for the candidates in polling. Then again, most of those polls are probably reinforcing what's obvious i.e. ethnic minorities hate Trump.
The whole election is going to boil down to about six states anyway.
California is going to be insane. That's where it's going to be won or lost for the Republicans, and it's the most difficult state to campaign in.
The thing about Kasich is that nobody has really gone after him yet. He's positioning himself as a moderate, and he's being allowed to get away with it, because compared to Cruz, he is one. But his record as governor isn't actually that of a moderate at all.
If he made it to the general election, and the wolves started going for him, his record would get dragged out. And while he's fairly amiable, he's still mostly taken the kind of hard right stances that will leave him open to attacks that resonate with independents. Anti-women, anti-welfare, anti-health, etc. I'm not saying he'd tank totally, but I don't think that any comparative model involving Kasich as he stands now can be used as a serious reference point.
Five thirty-eight made a fairly strong argument that a contested convention goes to Cruz:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...ed-convention/
If the convention is done on the first ballot, Trump wins.
If it's done on the second ballot, Cruz wins.
If it goes past the second ballot, I don't think anyone can make any sensible predictions anymore.
I wouldn't disagree, but the relative starting points are important in the context of how the campaign would go. Trump and Cruz are already perceived to be lunatics. Kasich may start to be exposed as he's scrutinised more, but it would take time for the ideas to stick and the Republicans will be going after Clinton just as hard.
You'd struggle to see a way back for Trump / Cruz at the minute.
Clinton is safe as houses, because she knows exactly what the Republicans are going to throw at her, and they've been throwing it for the last eight years. It's not like they've been holding something back; there's just no ammunition that they haven't been slinging already. It won't be simple for Clinton, but everyone knows exactly what is coming and what to expect.
Kasich would out-perform Cruz and Trump, because he's sane. But he's not a political moderate, and that would come out fairly quickly. That basically means the game changes totally for him when they hit the general election, and renders any comparative polling at this stage pretty much moot.
When two candidates share 85% of the vote going into the convention, one of those candidates is going to walk out with the nomination. If they don't, there will be riots. There might be anyway. It's going to be fun to watch.
The issue with Kasich is whether the party is really ready to blow itself up for a guy 85-90% of people who voted don't want. Trump's base will be livid. They're going to be mad either way of course, but at least Cruz has a solid level of natural party support and has won a significant number of states and delegates.
Trump winning on the first ballot is definitely the cleanest outcome, but failing that it will be really really messy if they don't come back to Cruz. He's winning the delegate selection process easily, which might be more important than whether or not he's actually electable anyway.
I think the ideal outcome is:
Trump missing out by a handful of delegates
Cruz winning easily on the second ballot
Riots in the streets of Cleveland
Trump flipping out and running an independent campaign
Democrats just kind of quietly watching the madness unfold before winning 43 states due to the split vote
There is a very real chance though, that if Trump gets within 20 or so candidates, that the Republican establishment will try and flip it in his favour by quietly having a word with some of the uncommitted delegates (such as those from Pennsylvania). They'll essentially be throwing away the Presidency, but the clearer heads will know by that point that it's gone already, and they'll be laying the groundwork for damage control.
The real question is what a Trump or Cruz candidacy mean for senate elections. If right-wing voters are so turned off by the candidates that they stay home, there are some pretty important races that could swing to the Democrats. The house is so gerrymandered that the Republicans couldn't lose it even if they were trying to, but the senate is the real battleground. I honestly think that the "establishment" have already gotten to this point, and now they're more concerned with trying to figure out how to salvage senate seats.
And get to confirm the leftiest lefty Supreme Court Judge of all time :drool:
I've lately been watching a bit of news in the morning before work, and it usually coincides with Hannity being on Fox. He (they) seem to have had a fairly unfriendly stance towards Cruz and Trump but have now softened considerably. Probably trying to get them inside the tent or something.
Hannity is such a gobshite. He had an interview with Cruz this morning where he started bitching that Cruz had gotten upset and angry, but if you listen to the thing, the only one doing that is Hannity himself. Totally threw the toys out of the pram when Cruz (admittedly) wouldn't answer his question about undemocratic voting rules. Then he had a guy who he introduced as his own attorney on to talk about it, and they spent half of the interview flirting with each other about how good their friendship was.
43 states is a low estimate I reckon. Nobody who isn't already a Trump enthusiast is going to break for Trump, plus Hillary is unusually strong in the south for a modern day Democrat.
He could do Walter Mondale numbers.
Enjoyed this. He has such an odd speaking style that I find it kind of mesmerising.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cg-JOTDU0AEFCRW.jpg
Good night for Trump. Beat his targets by enough that he only needs to stop Cruz from sweeping Indiana to make it very hard for him not to win the nomination.
Sanders fighting hard still, but Clinton should basically be unbeatable from here, even if she narrowly loses a state tonight.
I don't think Trump would win many states at all against Hillary. Maybe the likes of Wyoming and Montana. I could see her winning everything with an east coast.
Dunno about Texas.
These are apparently going to be the two most unpopular nominees of all time, according to polling.
Clinton beats Trump comfortably, assuming something 'game changing' doesn't happen like an indictment.
Cruz is going to announce Fiorina as his running mate. That'll be interesting.
Will it?
Not really, no.
They're denouncing Trump as a liberal, I see. And Fiorina started singing.
Bizarre.
What an incredibly unappealing pair of people (Cruz and Fiorina).
Personally, I will be glad to be out of the country when Clinton-Trump turns into the ugliest election in national history.
One of the debates will be held at my uni. Not too long ago we got an email saying that if the 'campus community' get any tickets, they would be given to students via a lottery. If? What sort of bollocks is this?
Good to see the same people dismissing a Trump win for the Republican nominee are dismissing a Trump presidential win; you heard it here first, Trump will win and win resoundingly.
If he does it'll be because he's continues to move to the centre, and even outflanks Hillary to the left on some issues, so how would that sit?
I'd love nothing more than for The Donald to smash Hillary. He just won't. He's too polarising.
Trump smashing Hillary. There's a porno not to make.
He couldn't pick anything for you more embarrassing than what you have now, so that's a no lose wager for you.
I reckon if Mert was around a bit more he'd be doing a decent Ginner/Sebo tribute act.
Ah, gotcha. Appreciate you taking the time to clarify.
I honest to God think Trump has a much better chance than what the media would like you to believe.
When it comes down to Trump vs. Hillary I think there's a a good deal of people who would, as was previously alluded by others, see Trump as more of a centralist candidate than a true conservative republican. What many have said as a slight against Trump being the republican nominee (his documented liberal leanings on certain issues) could help him rise above Hillary.
If you really think about it, Hillary is the exact politician that Trump has been railing against this entire time anyways. I think a lot of Americans might weigh up the lesser of two evils and say "Maybe we need to try a different, less politically inclined direction." Especially when it comes to people 40+ and 50+. They'll try to draw parallel to the Reagan administration and convince themselves that way.
I think Hillary has a strong base in place but I struggle to see how her policies and rhetoric will actually win over any voters. Not saying Trump's is much better, but the sensational fanaticism that Trump pushes is done so in a way that can romanticize, as opposed to the grating rhetoric that Hillary generally comes out with.
It's also worth noting that this is still America and there's a large portion of the country (not a majority by any means) that will treat the election like American Idol/Big Brother and vote strictly for things that really have nothing to do with either candidates policy.
All in all, there's a lot of factors that could easily favor Teflon Don that I'm not so sure Hillary will be able to combat in a way that doesn't come off as (more) snobbish (than Donald is).
Ted Cruz is "Lucifer in the flesh", says John Boehner.
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36163188
I can't see Trump winning the general election.
But I didn't think he'd get this far, so what do I know?
Does he have any sort of constituency beyond pissed-off white people (and isn't it actually just pissed-off white men)? Other than with the help of a bizarrely low turn-out, where does he find the numbers to avoid an absolute battering?
This is it. Given his misogyny, you can't see him winning the percentage of the women's vote he would need. Similarly, he's surely going to get battered in any area of the country where there's a large non-white vote. How does he overcome that plus a system already weighing in favour of the Democrats? I can't see it.
It's been a fight for second for quite some time. This explains why the financial industry has been backing Clinton: the industry is apolitical (not to mention chock full of professional gamblers).
Finance had backed Rubio and Bush prior to their departures, but now the vast majority of contributions are going to the pantsuit.
Anyone seen the WhiteHouse Correspondents Dinner this time around? Any good?
I thought it was one of Obama's best, He had some cracking lines.
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/1/11549262...ondents-dinner
There was definitely an edge to the comedy which he wouldn't have had at the start of his term.
You capitalised the pronoun for no reason whatsoever.
It doesn't matter. :moop:
You'd think Ital of all people would get that.
Oh! Didn't catch that. Actually meant to be a period at the end of the first part, rather than a comma.
The only thing playing into Trumps hands is that this will be the most unpopular election of all time meaning a low turnout could help him. The only problem with this being that he's so unpopular it's record breaking.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChZg1UmWwAAeLL2.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIDEGN4Js40
I think this is great.
How was Obama at 23.7% unfavorable back in 2008? Straight racism or what? All he talked about was HOPE and UNITY.
It seems Trump is going to win Indiana well, surely effectively tying up the nomination.
Grim.
Cruz is out boys. Glorious day.
Remarkable. Something really changed for Trump just before New York - his polls shot up 10% in about a week, after he'd struggled to clear 35% for about a year before that. And it's held up in all of the primaries since, including tonight where he's outperformed his long term average in Indiana by 12.5%.
Whatever it was, he seems to have convinced enough people that it's all over. Again, utterly remarkable and if he doesn't kick off WW3 and nuclear winter us all, the number of political science PhD's based on this race might exceed the number of votes Rubio got.
Nice consolation night for Sanders.
You have to think that a result like this is probably going to make other nations a bit more wary of the US in general. That much power even potentially in the hands of individuals who are that unpredictable will surely lead to some serious international side-eyeing.
Yes.
People agree with him, America is a fundamentally conservative country, and they absolutely hate the cowering obsequious un-American retreat from undisputed global power that they've had to swallow in the name of tolerance and so called necessity. Time to make America great again. All hail the God Emperor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1w4IxCXIxU
It occurred to me the other day that Trump is basically Silvio Berlusconi.
The real question is whether America is Italy. :D
And he rounds off his campaign by elbowing his wife in the face. :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROrtyz9v5q4
Jab, then an elbow. That's the biggest impact he'll have in American politics.
I don't think I have ever meet an American under the age of 35 who is a republican. Many of the older people I meet are, but never the young-middle aged ones.
Maybe it's just that those who travel more, tend to be more liberal.
Younger people, in general, tend to be more liberal. It's only when you have something you want to keep hold of that your turn to the other side.
That and about 99% of Americans never leave the motherland, so your Republican voters are probably in there.
Think it's up to 13% of Americans have a passport these days...
I'm pretty sure Trump and activists like Milo Yannopoulos (sp?) are bringing some young voters to the Republican party, actually.
One of the benefits of Harold getting banned is that I'd completely forgotten that Milo tosser even existed.
Also shout out to Milo DA GAWD.
I love that little homo.
Kasich gone too.
The Donald. :cool:
That's it. The whole has turned upside down.
Lmao. Florida is certainly a very, very interesting place.
Trump with the nomination. Horrendous day.
I read somewhere he was staying in to get some connections and lay the groundwork for a possible 2020 bid.
Either way, Trump v Clinton is an absolute shitfest for several reasons. I think both are part Berlusconi, in that Trump has the same humour and Clinton has the same criminality. Between the two, I much prefer Trump, not that my opinion matters.
I'd rather have dinner with Trump, but I'd probably rather Hillary was president.
You couldn't vote for Trump based on some of his public statements. Clinton's a shitehawk as well, but less so. In a battle of the lesser evil, Clinton gets your vote unless you're a loon.
I just can't seem to bring myself not to absolutely despise Hillary.
As do most people, but the fucking state of this - http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/po...ists-families/. You can't vote for him, unless you're a loon.
McCain endorsing Trump is just sad.
People, especially young people, let their personal hatred of Hillary cloud their decision. It's absolutely no decision between the two. Clinton will continue Obama's policies and philosophy, Trump will be very dangerous to a lot of vulnerable people in this country.
I don't really get the visceral hatred for Clinton. She's just a politician with a long history of doing politician things.
Husband and wife presidents is probably a bigger step in the wrong direction than sticking a maniac like Trump in charge. Not that he is a maniac, particularly, more a figure of fun. He's an American Boris, replacing intellect and wit with brash vulgarity and piles of money. In many ways, he's the most American thing since sliced Uncle Sam. Maybe not 'modern America' though, whatever that is. Whenever I see one of his supporters on the news they do come across a bit like the sort of deranged sex pests who support the pick-up artist industry and have a general chip on their shoulder about the non-subservient existence of women in the modern world - which I suppose would explain why women are wary of him, and Mert is such a fan.
I feel like a lot of the underlying Hillary hate is just basic venal misogyny which lurks under a lot of American society. As Elth says, she's no worse (really) than any other political asshat. Obama, Bernie and perhaps Bloomberg are the only ones in recent memory who would represent any real change from expected norms (and that basically only comes down to race and campaign finance source).
I wouldn't include Obama in that. He's knee-deep in corporate money and has been a fucking massive let down. Hilary's campaign and supporters have been crying sexism for months when faced with legitimate criticisms of her record and her policies. There's been a lot of whinging about the fact she's got so much grief about the way her campaign is funded when as you say, everyone's at it; she'd have a point if she was running against Biden or someone similar and was getting grief. Unfortunately she's running against the most liberal senator in the country so the contrast is plain for all to see.
Don't forget the FBI (headed by a massive republican) are currently conducting an investigation into her. Has a presidential candidate ever been indicted during an election campaign?
I saw Obama described the other day - by the Guardian's Sir Michael White, no less - as a 'class act, but second rate president'. I thought that summed him up quite well.
'Hillary' combines vacuousness and arrogance in such a way that she makes Tony Blair look substantial. Still, we live in hope for that 'progressive landslide'.
It's crazy to me that people would think Obama's done a bad job. Republicans yelling at him doesn't mean a damn thing. Any one of the nuclear deal with Iran, actually getting the healthcare through, and being in charge of the stabilizing economy would have cemented the legacy of any other President.
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/4...esident-obama/
And even if you don't think what he did was good, it's impossible to argue that he hasn't been incredibly consequential. Especially given the stone-walling he had to stare down.
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/26/8849925...ory-presidents
He's the first president never to have had a growth rate exceeding 3 percent during any year he's been in office. You can chalk that down to circumstance and so forth, but his failure to make substantial reforms to the way the economy works is at least partly to blame.
Let's not forget the state it was in when he took it over. He stabilised the ship.
Again, individual influence, etc. But if you're going to blame him for one, you have to give him credit for the other. There are charts from the first article give a pretty decent picture of the situation he's left the economy in when compared to what it was when he got a hold of it:
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Again, how much credit you give him for that is up to you. But it's pretty clear that he's leaving the economy in a dramatically stronger position than it was when he got given it.
The 'she's just as shit as every other politician' defense has to be the lamest defense I've ever heard. Well, it's probably only behind the 'misogyny' one.
Obama's been fantastic on so many issues. "Growth rate" is a generally pointless stat for non-third world countries these days, and in any case as president your job is to try and set market trends, rather than control the entire economy. Ours has been doing quite fine since he took office; the Fed Funds rate is almost negative, and there's no need for any structural reforms at the moment. Plus, he's very good at directing national discourse, for better or worse. And doing that Iran deal knowing full well that he'd get shafted by most American media and politicians afterwards was ballsy as fuck.
I think Obama's achieved about as much as he could have within the system, and given the state of Congress. The criticisms that come in are that he hasn't changed the system well enough (hence Berniemania), and that he's betrayed the promise of 2008, both of which have some validity; but he's done pretty bloody well to achieve some of the things he has.
I don't know if Obama's the best president of recent years (can you ever know until years later?), but he is certainly the smoothest. He's basically a god among liberals, leading to the odd situation where Hillary gets lambasted for wanting to continue his policies, yet nobody will criticize the man himself. I think it's partly that liberals love him for being the first black president just as much as conservatives hate him for it.
This basically reinforces my point - I admit I don't get it, and someone who obviously viscerally hates Clinton calls it a "lame defense" without any further elaboration. I literally have no idea what you think is the problem with her, and you think that's even an attempt to defend her?
I'm not any closer to getting it because of whatever you think it is you're demonstrating with that comment.
Viscerally hate her :*****)
Obama would always look good versus the shitstorm that went before him, but versus what he ran on and the HOPE of 2008 it's been shit. Started from the centre on almost every issue, implemented a Republican healthcare plan, and is capping it off with a horrible attempt at appealing to them with his SC pick. I give him credit for his new approach to foreign policy, but generally it's been turgid incremental progress still restrained by corporate interests, to which he's as tied as anyone else.
He was hamstrung a bit by a Republican House of Representatives or something, kinda, sorta, possibly.
Jake Tapper @jaketapper 1m1 minute ago
Breaking -- @SpeakerRyan tells @CNN he cannot endorse/support @realDonaldTrump right now --
Ha! Apparently not since 1972 (George McGovern) has a prominent member of a party refused to support their presidential candidate...
LOL at the greatest war criminal of modern times refusing to endorse Trump.
Paul Ryan is the greatest war criminal of modern times?
Vladimir Putin is the Speaker of the House?
Bashar Al-Assad refuses to endorse Trump?
Donald Trump refuses to endorse Donald Trump?
You've cited Obama's economic record as a positive, and questioned why the Conservatives haven't undertaken similar steps to him to achieve the same success. What is your actual view on this, other than suiting the point you want to make on the day?
One of Obama's big problems is that he campaigned with a particular rhetoric that he was never, ever going to fulfil. HOPE and CHANGE are great campaign themes, but he's still going to go into work every day dealing with the exact same checks, balances and constraints as every other president. Getting any sort of healthcare deal through was good work, albeit he did so with a Democratic congressional majority and even then it was hacked away at. Still, he pushed it through and fair play. Iran and Cuba will both hopefully be successes, but those are still in the "too early to tell" stage.
Lack of clarity on Syria, and a failure to deal with Libya post-Gaddafi have been significant failures, in my view.
I'd agree with Ital that he's done well economically, particularly as I think we're all too prone to assuming politicians can actually improve the economy significantly through unilateral policies. He can't move global markets, much as he might want to. He helped to stabilise matters after the recession and Lehman Brothers, and beyond that there's probably not a huge deal he can do.
Ultimately he's faced a Congress which thinks he's some sort of devil, and Republicans who seem to have decided to block everything he wants to do out of spite. In that context, he's done as well as he can. He just raised expectations far too high in 2008. And he was following Bush, for fuck sake. Anything looked better at the time.
Jeffrey Sachs wrote about this last year, and they're basically the same when you account for us 1) taking a slightly bigger hit in the first place; 2) being more exposed to shitty Europe; and 3) them rolling in cheap gas and oil.
Tories are scum, mate. Did you not get the leaflet?
The thing with Obama is that I think he more or less did the best possible job that could be done, which unfortunately fell a long way short of what he'd promised, and well short of what were with hindsight pretty unrealistic expectations.
But if I knew the future in 2008, I still would have said he was easily the best available candidate.
In the end, the big three are economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy. I think most of us agree that he did a decent job on the first two, and managed to do the best job he could have done given the circumstances. It's less than what he campaigned on, but obstructionist Republicans weren't a part of his campaign platform, either.
On foreign policy, he'd largely been middling out, with solid arguments for and against. But I'd say that Iran and Cuba knock it into favourable territory, and both of those will be important components of his legacy. It's not a slam dunk like the other two, because there's still questions over how Syria was handled. But to be honest, I don't know that it wouldn't have been a disaster no matter how it was approached.
Yep, that. Stimulus was the right thing to do, so he deserves kudos for that and for facing down the austerity-hawks within in the US. However what stimulus he did was too small and poorly directed. He also didn't do much to fix the underlying issues that caused the crash - he just basically fixed up the system back to the way it had been.
By comparison, the Tories descended into flat-earth territory, choosing an austerity program that is (to put it mildly) counter-productive and damaging to the economy. They've done this because of an ideological opposition to the concept of the welfare state itself, all the while posing as moderates.
He didn't really do much for blacks, did he? He also deported more people than Bush.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiG0AE8zdTU
What a don.
Yes, fuck the poor!!
Mug.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._41_clinton_39
Trump 41. Clinton 39.
He hasn't even gotten started.
That poll is way out of line from all of the others.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...nton-5491.html
Unsurprising since Rasmussen is known for pro-Republican bias.
Eh no, just statistics:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120839/wo...dless-age.aspx
I think our entire fraternity had 1 democrat and 1 'moderate' and the rest were Republican/Libertarian.
Might be interesting to see how the markets react if he gets near the presidency. His comments on national debt the other day were a bit worrying to say the least.
He hasn't a fucking notion. It's different getting a party nomination compared to winning an election across the whole country. Most centrists / swing voters will surely be appalled at the sort of shite he comes out with.
I wouldn't say she's safe with definiteness, but even that would be less silly than pulling out a Rasmussen poll which is wildly out of line with every other poll.
A lot of things can change in the coming months, but Rasmussen's pointlessness is as dependable as ever.
Didn't 'The Donald' just say he would look at restructuring their debt (albeit in his usual piss-poor way of explaining things)? They could easily get away with that.
Yeah, I read that. The whole system is predicated on the US being the safest credit risk in the entire world. If he erodes that idea by trying to mess around with repayments, then that will have fascinating and very dangerous knock-on effects. Can't just declare bankruptcy to get out of it, either.
The whole system used to be predicated on them having enough gold to back up their currency until it suddenly wasn't.
Are you a gold standard man, then?
No, I diverge from the cranks on that one. I'm just saying that if any country could mess people around and still count on there being a queue of lenders it's the Americans.
The debt thing is so stupid. Why would the US need to renegotiate debt issued in its own currency?
That is straight up the dumbest thing Trump's said this whole campaign.
Having said that, I agree with Mert that it's foolish to write off Trump based on polling (or at all, frankly). Polls change, and they got him horrifically wrong before.
Boondoggle, more like.
Is it actually the position of the Republican party to oppose all forms of abortion?
Ah, I see. Was just reading a bit on 'the platform' (????)
And wondered if that last bit would be in any way controversial (as the artcile seems to suggest it would be)?Quote:
All — including those chosen to support Trump — can vote however they want on the platform. Many conservatives say they will use that vote to keep Trump from reshaping GOP dogma against abortion, for free trade and on other issues. But presidents are not bound by their party platforms and typically ignore planks that don't fit their agenda once in office.
Even so, a showdown could be an embarrassment he'd seek to avoid by not pushing divisive changes.
"If the party walks away from any of its clearly cut social, family values issues, it will be an issue," said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council and GOP delegate from Louisiana. "We're not just going to fall in line because he's the nominee."
Trump has said he would seek to include exceptions for rape and incest to the GOP platform's opposition to abortion. He's also flouted the party platform by repeatedly criticizing trade deals and calling NATO obsolete
"This is the United States government. First of all, you never have to default because you print the money. I hate to tell you. So there’s never a default"
:facepalm:
Well, that's technically true, but he's still all over the place because he doesn't get to decide to print money (the Fed does) and doing so to cover debt repayments could cause all sorts of other problems.
The idea that the Fed would refuse to allow the US to meet its debt obligations is pretty unrealistic. They're nominally independent but their regulatory mandate is given to them by the Government.
Reuters credible enough for you blue hairs?
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...idUSKCN0Y21TN?
Behold the God Emperor, his reign will soon be upon us...
http://www.sharedwanderlust.com/wp-c...rump-small.jpg
:cool:
I am warming up to the idea. It is going to be tremendous entertainment, plus potentially a good test for the so-called 'checks and balances' system.
I'd fucking love a Trump win just for the look on Hillary's face. Also, it wouldn't actually do anyone any harm, because the Fed / joint chiefs / Bilderberg society / shape-shifting lizards actually run things.
Agree on nothing would actually happen. The whole 'scared of Trump' is heavily overblown.
Imagine him in a UN meeting, or some climate summit. :drool:
In other polling news: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/m...lead.html#more
:clap:Quote:
There's been a lot of recent coverage of Donald Trump's embrace of various conspiracy theories, so we asked about a bunch of them on this poll to see which ones his supporters believe and which ones even they say are a bridge too far. Among voters with a favorable opinion of Trump:
-65% think President Obama is a Muslim, only 13% think he's a Christian.
-59% think President Obama was not born in the United States, only 23% think that he was.
-27% think vaccines cause autism, 45% don't think they do, another 29% are not sure.
-24% think Antonin Scalia was murdered, just 42% think he died naturally, another 34% are unsure.
-7% think Ted Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of JFK, 55% think he was not involved, another 38% are unsure.
And closing the loop on the greatest conspiracy theory of this election- a rare one that Trump didn't embrace- 5% of voters nationally think Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer, 18% are unsure, and 77% find Cruz not guilty of the charge of being a serial killer in diapers. So at least he has that going for him.
Ted Cruz is the zodiac killer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...ry-clinton-as/
Might be time for Bernie to call it a day. He's playing with fire without much to gain at this point. Needs to start endorsing down the ticket.
Nah, he has to take it all the way to the end. Fear politics can fuck right off.
I don't know if it's fear politics. I decried people who said the same thing back when he still had a genuine chance, but he really doesn't. I'm just not sure what the point is now.
American elections are way too long. I'm sick of everyone, including Bernie, and rightfully so; if any other celebrity got half as much sustained news coverage people would hate them. I really don't think it's possible to be so horribly exposed to the public for 18 months and still end up well-liked. It's become a media circus. Britain has it right with six-week election cycles.
The point is to get as many votes as possible to show that his agenda is one with which many people agree with and one which could make a viable candidate in the future. He can also go to the convention and try to pull Hilary as much towards the left as possible (at least on paper, we all know where she is going to sway once in power.)
Totally agree that the primaries are way, way too long. I said it before and I'll say it again: everyone should vote at the same time. Give them a couple months to campaign, have a nationwide voting day and be done with it.
I just don't think he has anything to prove at this point. He's won 20 states. The agenda is clearly viable. I agree about the convention, though I don't exactly understand how that will work in reality.
He takes it all the way on the hope that she gets indicted or that the super delegates actually do their job and pick the more viable candidate.
Also, hark at 'crazy Bernie'. :D
"super delegates" are the biggest sham.
Sanders wasn't even a member of the party until recently, so I don't see why Democratic party super delegates should be rushing to support him. He's riding the party, which is fine, but that's one of the consequences of doing so.
Oh they won't; they exist to act as a safety should a 'radical' candidate gain any kind of traction, and promote a more viable establishment figure instead. What happens when the radical still looks a lot more viable than the chosen one? LOL. I hope he runs until the end and fucking takes the piss at the convention.
If the Republicans had similar safeguards, they wouldn't have ended up with Donald Trump. You can see it both ways.
Bernie won Oregon and they split Kentucky yesterday.
I do wonder how Bernie would do as a third-party candidate. He pulls much more from independents (who are now a political majority in the country) than Clinton does, and probably more than Trump does. While obviously he's to the left of both of them, he attracts the working class in a way that Trump does and Clinton doesn't; in a way he's sort of a hybrid of the two. It would probably still end up with Trump in office, but it would be a fascinating election.
Lord Trump beating Clinton by 3 in new national poll:
https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/statu...75738061111296
God Emperor trolling Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...ean-pocahontas
I see people making this god emperor reference but I don't think they realise quite what it means.
It's that weird crowd that are into men's rights and idolise pick-up artists.
And really, really enjoy using the word "cuck".
Salon.com (Marxist Propaganda Machine) defends Trump, slams NYT and PC feminists: http://www.salon.com/2016/05/19/cami..._donald_trump/
All Knees Shall Bend.
It's Camille Paglia, rather than nonce-loving Salon. The 'alt right' (or whatever it is) crowd seething over Facebook is quite lol. It's a private service, lads. They can do what they want.
Just seen the footage from the Nevada Democratic convention. Fuck me. Voice votes are bad enough but that was out and out fraud. The fallout is spectacular as well with the corrupt lass saying she feared for her life, and Clinton's news networks being OUTRAGED at the violence of Bernie supporters, which at this stage amounts to video of a guy picking up a chair and then putting it back down.
Fucking laughable. These wankers deserve Trump. :nodd:
People have been waking up for a while; their viewing figures are increasingly diabolical and their average viewer is not far off the Fox demographic. They're so obsessed with not offending people, especially the right, that they stay middle of the road on every issue and play dum, even when facts point in one way of the other. In this cycle people have had their eyes opened to the fact that this supposed 'liberal' media is comprised of massive corporations headed by millionnaire anchors, who surprise surprise haven't got much time for anything left of centre economically. CNN in particular is a fucking disgrace, should be forced to declare that their parent company is a huge contributor to Clinton's campaign, and should stop passing off Hilary staffers as 'political analysts'.
The Ron Paul Effect. I wonder how he would have done this year.
As poorly as Rand I would guess.
Ron Paul would have been much better placed to tap into the mentals then the boy. Then again, Ted Cruz also covers the Texas-based survivalist stuff. Poor Ron Paul.
There were far too many options for mentals to support, and no one would have come close to the Donald.
He could have run a 'Bernie'-like campaign (#theRonandonly?), with pictures of him being arrested in the seventies protesting against inflation.
:D
Not sure his demographic 'gets' social media. I guess he could have gone for email chains.
There aren't enough out and out libertarians in America and culturally Ron Paul simply doesn't have the charisma / gumption to have effectively challenged the liberal status quo (ref: political correctness, media bias and dishonesty, etc.), so I don't think he would have appealed to the 'disaffected masses' in the same way as Trump.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...-working-class
This is quite smart re: Trump and the working class.
Trump leading in another poll, 46-44:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/post-...ry?id=39265102
Lol at this delusional, condescending caricature of Trump supporters by an author desperately trying to rationalize the increasingly discredited and fast crumbling relevance of the secular globalist intelligentsia.
.
You realize Trump polls better with minorities than Romney, right?
I feel like I should provide a non-dickhead translation here;
'Lol at this condescending picture of Trump supporters from an author struggling with the idea that society is changing.'
Bernie posted on Facebook that he's going to debate Trump in California.
:|
Part of me thinks it's a terrible idea, part of me thinks it will be the pinnacle of American politics for at least 20 years.
Looks like Trump chickened out.
Why would Sanders do that? You can't like the nominee if you are not, in fact, going to be the nominee and have no chance of being so. It's a bit pathetic.
TYT have put up a million dollars for charity to do the debate. :drool:
Everyone needs to go and read Trump's speech on energy policy.
Bernie is starting to look really fucking salty about losing the nomination.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/w...c-694626371717
Starts at 5.30.
Quote:
Rachel Maddow just reported that the Sanders campaign has demanded that Governor Malloy of Connecticut and Barney Frank be removed from their positions as chairs of the Platform and Rules committees at the convention because they won’t be fair enough to Sanders. If the DNC does not give in to this demand, the Sanders campaign has announced that it will use all procedural means to grind the Convention to a halt.
The left usually lose with such grace as well. Especially when they don't particularly like their [nominal] party to begin with.
It comes back to the same point that they simply don't have the intellectual capacity to understand why people vote against what they perceive as their own self-interest.
Sanders is really losing a lot of the goodwill that he'd built up by being such a fuckhead as soon as it's clear he's going to lose.
He is. I daresay it's quite an immature way to behave. It's also 'stringing people along' and making it more likely that Trump will win by polarising the Democrats further for absolutely no advantage whatsoever.
I think it's a smart thing. Means he's not attacking Hilary in the lead up to a general and looking to get genuinely left leaning people into positions of power inside the DNC. Thought the Chris Hayes segment on this was very good.
P.S. Chris Hayes, literally the only thing on 24 hour news worth watching these days.
It's still a long time to the general. I wish he'd bow out now, and I don't think he's helping anyone by continuing on.
But there's a lot of news cycles between now and the election, and Trump is going to do what he can to be the loudest in all of them. When it comes down to Hilary v Trump, the narrative will swing to the point that Sanders will likely be forgotten entirely.
I don't mind him staying in, he's as entitled to run as anyone, but he's being a brat about it. It doesn't matter who's in what positions at the convention mate, Hillary handed your ass to you. It's over.
Is Debbie Wasserman-Schultz upset?
I think he cares more about the issues he's campaigned on than the actual presidency, and just wants to keep banging the drum and sustaining the movement he's built. See also the offer to debate Trump. Given the shite thrown at him recently, the smug attitude of the party and the corporate media, not to mention the outright corruption, he might as well go fucking big.
There comes a point where it's counterproductive. Hillary's won the nomination. If you believe Trump is going to be a disaster, surely you recognise the reality of the situation and start throwing your weight behind the Democratic nominee.
All he's doing by going in is driving wedges into the Democratic base and, potentially, alienating independent voters who wonder why the fuck he's bothering and whether it's worth trusting the Democrats when this is the sort of shite they're pulling. It's not just the presidency - it's the associated Congress races and a united party is far better than this.
He's doing it to keep Dave going.
No he's not. All his fights have been ignoring Hilary completely. Saying Barney Frank made a bad bill and that the DNC chair isn't up to the job is exactly what a losing candidate should be doing. Shaping the politics of the party for years to come due to him winning multiple states on said platform. The only people who are following the DNC race at this point are Politics Nerds like ourselves who couldn't matter less. It's not going to effect the General whatsoever. Outside of the selected candidate not following important positions to those that did vote for Bernie, obvs.
He's not shaping the politics of the party. He lost and the blunt truth is he never looked like he was going to win. Even where one excluded the super delegates, he's never been ahead nor looked like being ahead. To suggest that he's gaining anything from this apart from looking bitter and refusing to accept that the ride is over is a significant misreading of the situation. There's also no guarantee whatsoever that the youth he has supposedly energised are going to remain engaged for any length of time. Such idealism soon meets its end when confronted with reality and pragmatism.
What a losing candidate should be doing is gracefully bowing out having, you know, lost. Sticking the boot into your own party (well, they weren't his party until a year or two ago) and then presumably needing to turn around in four or five months and campaign for everybody else to trust that party? That's going to be a difficult thing to do, because he's going to look like someone who can't make his mind up.
You're such a nark.
It must be difficult to see another supposed socialist be roundly rejected by the electorate. It might help if they actually did some self-reflection instead of SEETHING over it and trying to pretend they're CHANGING THE PARTY.
Nobody cares. If they did, they wouldn't keep losing heavily.
Surely everyone recognizes that Bernie is still in it because Hillary is liable to get indicted...then he will be poised to pick up the pieces
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...c91_story.html
From a totally pragmatic standpoint, you're just wrong. He is literally helping to shape to party platform. If he dropped out he wouldn't be doing that.
He is, to be fair, 300 elected delegates or so behind Clinton. It's not a close race.
Out of 4.051 delegates. That is less than a 10% difference. Total blowout isn't it?
To suggest that he should shut up because he has been 'roundly rejected' when he has won 46% of the pledged delegates so far is fucking stupid.
'Losing heavily' :harold:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/m...n-georgia.htmlQuote:
-50% of Trump fans think Hillary Clinton had some involvement in the death of Vince Foster, to only 13% who think she didn't and 37% who aren't sure one way or another. This is another example of the cult like aspect of Trump's following. He says something and his voters get on board with it for the most part. We saw a similar dynamic with his claims about Arabs in New Jersey cheering on 9/11.
-Georgia removed the Confederate flag from its state flag in 2001, but Trump fans in the state want it back. 52% want it reincorporated back into the Georgia flag, compared to only 29% who would be opposed to doing such a thing. By contrast voters with an unfavorable view of Trump oppose, 14/76, putting the Confederate flag back into the state flag.
-Trump fans are pretty ambivalent on whether they even think it's a good thing that the North won the Civil War. Only 37% say that they're glad the North won, compared to 31% who wish the South had won, and 32% who aren't sure one way or another.
-Finally we find that Trump fans support his practice of calling Elizabeth Warren 'Pocahontas,' 50-31. Among voters who have a negative opinion of Trump, 86% think it's inappropriate to call Warren by that moniker to only 10% who find it acceptable.
31% wishing the South had won. :uhoh:
This is it. Nor has it ever been close. He has never looked like winning, and has been nothing more than a spoiler. Fair play to him, but the race is over. The Democrats aren't going to lurch to the left, and you're not going to have swarms of people who wouldn't vote Democrat move to the party. Clinton's supporters who suggested after the primaries in 2008 that they'd never vote for Obama then went and did so. In much the same way, most of his supporters will end up voting for the Democratic candidate or not voting at all.
If you lads want to convince yourself that 75 year old Bernie Sanders getting a respectable second in a two and a quarter horse race is evidence of some great imminent change in Democratic politics, then crack on. You'll be in for a disappointment when Clinton and the rest of the Democratic representatives in Congress get on exactly as they would have if Sanders hadn't bothered.
And who said that exactly? :face:
Welcome to the South.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAFjBSPUQJk
'Dixie Land' is a fucking corker of a song, so I kind of wish the south had won so I could listen to that for Olympic gold medallists in wood cutting and hog baiting.
My favorite version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WocYevOF44U
Goose bumps every time. Makes me want to move to the Deep South, work as a big-shot local lawyer, live in a neo-classical mansion with large Greek columns in the front, marry a blonde sorority girl wife from a tier 2.5 state school, and have the entirety of my social life revolve around football tailgates.
New high energy poll has Trump within 4 against Hillary in deep blue New Jersey (Romney lost by 18):
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...-jersey-223724
Hilary's reached the magic figure then, but Bernie's going to run for the duration just for the lols. There's a Reuters poll out today that has her ahead of Trump by 10.
The other interesting thing the past few days has been how many high profile Republicans have turned on Trump after his comment about that judge. He's since gone on to suggest Muslim and female judges would probably discriminate against him as well. :face:
Slate had a decent piece on the latter:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...el_attack.html
I mean he's right. The judge has ties to radical pro-immigrant groups who have spoken exhaustively against Trump, he's only human, he will almost undoubtedly by biased against him. Despite the faux outrage coming from the center-left mainstream media (which some RINOs still mistakenly believe to be relevant), nobody cares or buys that what he's said is at all contentious.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...607-story.html
I was intrigued what part of this article would uphold merts arguments about this radical pro-immigrant group who has spoken exhaustively against Trump.
I found this
Quote:
Curiel is, reportedly, a member of a group called La Raza Lawyers of San Diego. Trump's aides, meanwhile, have indicated that they believe Curiel is a member of the National Council of La Raza, a vocal advocacy organization that has vigorously condemned Trump and his views on immigration. The two groups are unaffiliated, and Curiel is not a member of NCLR. But Trump may be concerned that the lawyers' association or its members represent or support the other advocacy organization.
You've gone from being an asshole to an infowars level conspiratard. Well done.
I was wondering why that guys name was so familiar...
http://dronecenter.bard.edu/files/20...-testimony.jpg
It's the, "I Don't Recall" guy! Oh what a time that was. The guy fired a bunch of democratic US Attorneys so he would know something about bias judging at least.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IBvZlRqOTw
I assumed Mert would love Trump despite the fact Trump would probably be seething inside if he had to shake hands with Mert.
Barack Hussein Obama sez: 'I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified [as 'Hillary'] to hold this office'. Gutted, Eisenhower, mate.
It's gone right off.
She's the most qualified person in America at the minute.
I still say that nobody is really 'qualified' for it, but Colin Powell ticks all the boxes (Stansfield Turner is still alive as well).
Lol so much for the Judge gaffe having any effect on Trump, the God Emperor leading in Florida:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...ad-heat-in-fla
Trump puts DEEP BLUE Connecticut into play, only down 4 (Romney lost by 18):
http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/...mp-7956289.php
http://i.filmot.org/BKATBwN.jpg
Fukin rect. The God Emperor remains un-stumable. Next 5 months are going to be awesome.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZWQ3YOMtJa...id-oh-snap.gif
The MELTDOWN if he won would be incredible. Not least because the 'Bernie' people will go to their graves thinking that he would have beaten him.
I'm telling you, he's going to win. The media is very very out of touch with how actual Americans feel, I have no doubt he will vastly out perform polls.
Trump tied with Clinton in support among Latinos:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/opi...on-rise-at-37/
In a way I'm fully on board the lolmobile, but in another way, if he wins that will just fuel the self-righteous pillocks over here into further anti-Americanism, so meh.
Our po-faced commentariat have all en masse decided Hillary is absolutely wonderful within the last 48 hours, so that's bad news for her as they haven't got anything right since about 2004.
I'm fully on board the Trump train.
And we'll promptly lol when Mert's student visa expires and he's punted off to Turkey.
It's a real shame there are no frats to rush at McGill.
Brain damaged toilet. :D
Still Turkish, a nation that is crushing free speech across Europe if you didn't know, and you hate America, the greatest nation on earth, because Muslims hate America so clearly you should hand your passport in as you cannot be trusted not to be a proud American, you just can't be trusted, because you are Turkish.
It's fun talking like 'God Emporers'
The most interesting angle on Trump is probably the efforts to prove he's worth a lot less than he says he is. He still refuses to release his tax returns, and their was a story last week examining some tax exemption he applied for which put his income last year at less than $500k. Normally with these sort of things you'd be suspicious of tax irregularities but with Trump it's far more likely he's holding back because any disclosure would confirm he's not quite as loaded as he says he is.
You realize America doesn't work that way right? It is accepting of immigrants and considers them all American. Putting aside your bigotry, I'm ethnically Armenian (my mother is Orthodox) and Circassian; I am not 'Turkish' (to the extent that refers to Muslims from Anatolia).
My bigotry
:D
You literally accused a federal judge of being unable to get over the fact that his parents are Mexican as cause to call him incompetent and unreliable, as well as tying him to an 'extremist' society that there's zero evidence of him being part of, on the last page. Because his parents are Mexican. That's your entire argument.
The real DT trolling Clintz on Twitter is absolutely amazing.
140k RTs. :|
So I guess you're also calling Justice Sotomayor, the first Latina POC on the Supreme Court and one of it's most liberal members, racist too?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...se_130828.html
"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences ... our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."
The next few months here are going to be wonderful / mental. If there's not a riot at some point, I'll be disappointed.
Of course your belief system makes a difference in your judging but as long as you're applying the law, that literally doesn't matter. Should no Jewish lawyer be able to try an Islamic terrorist because the defendant probably isn't a big fan of Israel?
There are judges that will hand down harsher punishments than other judges based on their beliefs. That's what they're there for, to exercise judgement within certain parameters based on the arguments laid before them.
You're going to law school and I'm having to explain the basic notions of objective v subjective... No wonder you're having such a tough time.
edit: P.S. Both your examples of appealing to authority have explained in those very articles why you're wrong. It's okay if you can't find a source to agree with you, just pretend or link to something that you found on Stormfront, Harold did it for years.
Trump said it's a conflict of interest and the judge must recuse himself of an ongoing case. For being Mexican. It's both an attack on the idea of an independent judiciary and racist. That's the difference.
Your only defence of it is that he has ties to some extremist Latino group that he doesn't have and there's not even a shred of proof that he has ever had. So even you know this is ridiculous and yet you still defend it. It's embarrassing.
First of all it's not because he's Mexican, it's because he's affilliated with radical Leftist "Latino Interest" anti-Trump groups. Second, if you accept what Sotomayor says as true, isn't it indeed a conflict of interest? Or is she a racist too? You can't have it both ways.
For the record I don't agree or support Trump's comments, but am more concerned with the unsurprising hypocrisy of liberals in its wake.
If this was the case, he wouldn't have doubled down with "I don't think a Muslim judge could give me a fair trial either". The question that led to that statement had nothing to do with affiliations, and everything to do with heritage.
It's a serious stretch to say that Sotomayors comment implies a judge not conducting a fair trial, which is what The Donald claims is happening to him, and would happen if a Muslim judge presided over his case.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkDYTVgWYAAgkGd.jpg
"he said, it “would be possible, absolutely” that he would consider a Muslim judge inappropriate in court."
Nothing to do with him being Mexican of course.
You're conflating two completely seperate groups. Completely seperate. Nothing to do with each other.Quote:
it's because he's affilliated with radical Leftist "Latino Interest" anti-Trump groups.
This literally makes no sense.Quote:
Second, if you accept what Sotomayor says as true, isn't it indeed a conflict of interest? Or is she a racist too? You can't have it both ways.
Sure.Quote:
For the record I don't agree or support Trump's comments, but am more concerned with the unsurprising hypocrisy of liberals in its wake.
At least Harold was good at this.
Yes please tell me more about the inaccurate distortions by mainstream media. Here is Trump's official statement which reitierates what I said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/us...ment.html?_r=0
Are you retarded, he's implying that a radical Mexican nationalist would potentially be biased, just like a radical Islamist might be biased under certain circumstances. His statement explains this point further.
Again we went over this example. The Greater Manchester Manchester United Supporter's Club is not affiliated with Manchester United, they are indeed SEPERATE!!, but to pretend as if the Manchester United Supporter's Group doesn't support Manchester United (which is effectively what you're metaphorically claiming) is laughable.
What makes him a Radical Mexican Nationalist?
Can black judges not preside over police violence cases that involve white officers attacking a black man?
Can Jewish judges not preside over cases involving Islamic extremism?
Can no latino judge oversee an immigration case?
Can no female judge oversee a sexual harassment suit?
The world is full of bias and beliefs, as long as you're interpreting law based on the arguments made in court, none of it matters. Unless you have a direct conflict of interest that can be proven in court through a recusal motion.
Trump has tried to get this guy to recuse himself by leaning on him via the media, or his lawyers would have asked for the Judges recusal. But they didn't because they know there's no conflict of interest. It's a massive attack on the independent judiciary and Mr "OBAMA IS A DICTATOR WHO RUNS ROUGHSHOD OVER THE THREE BRANCHES" should be able to see this.
They're not the same thing. Not sure how many times this can be stated.
Sums up this page well.
edit: Stupid embed doesn't highlight the actual tweet.
Clinton would spark IRL riots, Trump would spark Facebook riots.
No one will riot if Clinton wins. One or two 'peaceful demonstrations' drowned by liberal tears might occur if Trump wins. Twitter, of course, would go bananas.
Reading about how fantastic Elizabeth Warren is is getting a bit boring.
Trump's already sparked some shaky protests.
I know. There were several when he came to St. Louis.
Will be interesting to see which, if any, of Bernie's policies Hillary adopts now things seem to have softened a bit following yesterday's talks. He seems to be ready to step aside if not openly endorse her, and you'd imagine he'd have wanted some guarantees on certain things. Warren as VP and her getting on board with say, the $15 minimum wage, would probably see her grab a good chunk of his support in the general.
Except national elections are won in the centre, so winning over Bernie Sanders' army of new-found socialists - the vast majority of whom will end up voting for the Democratic candidate anyway - isn't a strategy which will win her the general.
If she has any sense, she'll pay lip service to Bernie, talk about his great work, and then ignore him.
I know it won't happen but maybe he should man up and take the VP?
She would never even offer it to him, would she?
She won't bother, if she has any sense. Again, she's just shoring up a vote she's going to win anyway (youth and liberal) and he's from fucking Vermont so it's not like he wins a state that matters.
Bernie in as VP could win somewhere like Utah, with its dueling Mormon values of morality and socialism.
There's not really a heap of evidence that picking a factional or regional candidate actually helps shore up support in a candidate's appeal, so she's probably best picking whoever actually will be the best President if she carks it.
I find it unlikely any latent sexists out there are going to hold their noses and vote for Clinton, but balk at the idea of a female VP too, so if she thinks Warren's the best choice, that shouldn't be an issue.
She's been dragged left already, and his following is too big and currently too utterly against her for her not to give a shit. I'm not saying she's going to take her whole campaign in that direction, but she needs to recognise the current direction of the party and do something to appease younger people. Warren as VP is a move in that direction, but we might see some policy positions change as well.
What's your beef?
Also, while you're here: https://trumpsingles.com/
Get on it.
Mark Cuban as in the owner of the Dallas Mavericks?
That doesn't ring true based on polling: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...exclusive-poll
Not that I understand how 7% of Sanders' supporters defect to 'the Donald', but there you are. She's winning Sanders' converts by 6-1 against Trump when supposedly 'peripheral' candidates are considered, and less than one in seven says they'll stay home. She's going to do well, as you expect the break to her instead of Trump will only increase as election day nears and Sanders supporters are confronted with the non-abstract choice of Hillary Clinton, Democrat, or Donald Trump, Republican.
There's also this, which suggests that Sanders supporters favour Clinton over Trump by 86-10.
Recognising the 'current direction of the party' is also not what she should be doing. 28.5M people voted in the Democratic primary - Sanders took 42.7% of that vote or 12.4M. There are c. 226m voters for the general election - Sanders only has 5.5% of that, and they're breaking in a plurality (which will soon become a majority) for Clinton anyway. Party members are always more 'extreme' (relatively, not absolutely) than the electorate at large. She doesn't, therefore, need to recognise the direction of the party and appease younger people. Falling back on the views of the membership is a sure-fire way to lose, as they're simply not representative of the centre ground one needs to capture to win.
There's also precedent here. A lot of Clinton supporters - 54% - said they wouldn't vote for Obama in 2008. Nine in ten Democrats ended up voting for Obama anyway.
Sanders has had a good run but it's over now, and any sane Democrat will a) support Clinton and b) support her positions which ensure a Democratic President and a Democratic congress. That's what advances your agenda, not baying at the moon from the margins with the politics of protest and faux revolution.
In the future people will divide world history into pre and post-'Bernie' phases.
Whose agenda? People uniting behind Sanders have done so because they're tired of the gradualism that is promoted by centrist Democrats and that has been implemented by Obama. It's about decisive change and there's a real feeling that Trump, bad as he would be in the short term, would bring that kind of change quicker than four/eight years of Mrs Establishment negotiating from the centre and doing the bidding of her donors.
That argument is compelling in most instances, but not when the alternative is Trump. The guy's a maniac and no-one should be doing anything that might help him into office. Fuck me, it's hard to envisage the sort of fuckwittery that would be unleashed should he get in.
:sick:
'Your' agenda being the Democratic and / or American liberal agenda in this context.
It takes a rare set of circumstances for decisive change to be implemented. Incrementalism may not be revolutionary, it may not excite people, but it ensures that progress is made and the general trend towards a certain end game continues. In the absence of a significant consensus on an issue, it's the only way to realistically proceed. This is particularly prevalent in the American system where the checks and balances are so cumbersome that it can bring the legislative process to a halt. Take Obama's healthcare package. He just about got it through congress, and that was only by making significant concessions to conservative Democrats and Nancy Pelosi engaging in some quite clever congressional procedural tricks. He had a slim majority in the HOR and a bigger one in the Senate, but it scraped through. He was criticised for not going as far as he should have, but how is he supposed to if he doesn't have the votes in congress? He simply couldn't - that's the way the American system works.
Even if Sanders somehow won the nomination and then the White House, he could only do so much without congressional support and there are plenty of conservative Democrats who simply wouldn't stand for some of his policies. Even if he won, the 'decisive change' he wants to implement is not an agenda he could proceed with. He could try limited executive action, but then congress (whose members have their own democratic mandates and which the vast majority of members will, first and foremost, want to protect) would procedurally pound him for his entire presidency and stop him doing any number of things he wants to do.
People need to move on from the idea that Sanders is going to leave some sort of profound legacy. The Democrats need to win back a congressional majority, and they're only going to do that if they go after the Republicans hard. Sanders needs to stop baying at the moon and throw the full weight of his support (and encourage his supporters to do the same) behind the Democratic candidates in their districts / states.
Ugh. He's promoted the notion that people don't have to accept politics within the confines of what the establishment lays out; there's nothing to be gained from his attempting to reinforce that system at this point, in fact it was be farcical. See some of the flak Warren is getting for endorsing and potentially running with Hillary. His campaign seems to be more focused on making sure the movement continues to grow; it's built around principles rather than personalities and there's every reason to suggest it can continue to grow.
Also, the idea that Hillary and the DNC would in any way 'go after the Republicans hard' is laughable. DWS is busy at the moment getting in bed with them in an attempt to de-regulate the payday loan sector for fuck sake. Economically she's just a different shade of grey; a lot of money that previously flowed to Rubio and Bush has now funneled into her campaign.
Genuinely feel sorry for the choice that the yanks are going to be presented with.
I've always been confused by people who want 'immediate, radical change'; don't you think that if the wisdom of a certain approach was overwhelmingly obvious, that the vast majority of people wouldn't be opposed to its implementation?
That isn't really the best example of 'immediate, radical change'.
As much as people might be uncomfortable with this response, ending slavery without the necessary underlying shift in economic organization would have probably resulted in a complete social collapse to the detriment of all parties.
And putting that aside, the vast majority of people, if we were to count slaves, were probably still against slavery. You're talking about an era without basic civil rights and full participation in the political process for adults, which in turn enabled the exploitation of groups without representation; that's just not the case today.
In a free democratic society like those found in the modern West, belief in the necessity of radical change in any direction is simply stupid / naive / delusionally arrogant. You just don't know better than everybody else. I think our democratic system with its checks and balances and legislative gridlock in the absence of consensus is alright (minus recent epidemic of executive overreach, Congress needs to get its act together).
Alright Mert.
https://m.facebook.com/GodEmperorTrump/
Yes because American during war time 70 years ago is comparable to American society today.
More importantly LOL at Phonics, US government recused an Iranian judge from hearing Iranian-American immigration cases because she was Iranian...but Trump's the racist right?
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/10/th...form=hootsuite
Bit different from the Trump situation.
She's sueing them for discrimination so if she wins, yes?
It also states in the piece that it's totally out of the ordinary for such a thing to happen.
Quote:
IRA KURZBAN: It's quite odd.
GONZALES: Attorney Ira Kurzban teaches at the University of Miami. He literally wrote the book on immigration laws, and he says he's surprised by the scope of the Justice Department's action.
KURZBAN: I have never heard of a case of a recusal of a judge on this basis, across the board.
GONZALES: Kurzban says by the same logic, the Justice Department would have to order African-American judges not to hear cases involving people from Africa or the Caribbean. Or a Jewish judge would be barred from hearing cases involving Israelis. Ali Mojdehi is Judge Tabaddor's attorney.
Justice Department recuses a judge from hearing a case because of her nationality due to associated bias. Not racist. Never makes the news.
Trump says that a judge should be recused form hearing a case because of his nationality due to associated bias. OUTRAGE!! 24/7 WALL-TO-WALL COVERAGE OF RACIST BIGOT
Okay.
Or no-one reported on the story because it wasn't of national interest (literally where would you put that in your newspaper? Page 12, below the fold just about maybe?) because it wasn't one of the two people set to be the next Commander-in-Chief. You're literally doing the equivalent of 'WHY DOESN'T ANYONE CARE ABOUT TERRORISTS IN YEMEN' when France was under attack.
Priorities shift when they broach our interest.
edit: By the way, Christ that Daily Caller website is terrible. It's like putting the Enquirer online.
You do a really shitty job of it because I just have to click on the article you cite and read that you're wrong. It's satisfying to have my beliefs confirmed by someone who thinks the opposite more than anything.
Can you get any judge recused by publicly smearing their demographic and then claiming that makes them unable to be impartial?
At any rate, race generally can't be taken alone as a reason to recuse:
The lawyers got absolutely slammed in the sanction decision, too.Quote:
In 1998, lawyers in a case concerning a commercial breach of contract attempted to force federal Judge Denny Chin, who is of Asian descent, to recuse himself because some of the people in the case were Asian-American, and the defendants had been portrayed in the press as anti-Asian. The lawyers also argued that because Chin had been appointed by President Bill Clinton, he was biased since the case touched on conduct by the Democratic National Committee. An appeals court later upheld sanctions against one of the lawyers in the case.
Quote:
Chin said to Klayman, "You asked questions of the Court, at least in part, because of my race?"
"In part," Klayman responded. "I, for instance, would not sit as a Jewish American on a case that involved a Palestinian."
Chin said the question was "offensive." He ordered Klayman and Orfanedes never to appear before him again, and to notify any other judges they appeared before that they had been sanctioned.
An appeals court upheld the punishment in 1998, saying, "A suggestion that a judge cannot administer the law fairly because of the judge's racial and ethnic heritage is extremely serious, and should not be made without a factual foundation going well beyond the judge's membership in a particular racial or ethnic group."
Trump has just gone up to eleven. It's mental.
And now he's revoked credentials of the Washington Post for negative coverage :D
The man is a coward of the highest order.
Seems unlikely. If you could get a judge to recuse themselves just by being inflammatory toward them or their ethnicity, the legal system would grind to a halt.
It would be a novel defense strategy though - make your defendant publicly attack every judge appointed to the case, then demand they recuse themselves because they now might appear to be biased against the defendant.
Yeah, the question was really aimed at how stupid the idea is. :D
Would be fun to see it catch on though. And possibly even get vindictively personal:
"We'd just like to say on the record that the judge is ugly, and his mother is a whore. Let's see him try and judge us impartially now."
Mert is an anchor baby?
1) I'm not. My mother immigrated as a Christian with an H1B1 visa, my father (who for what it's worth told me he was atheist after my grandfather's funeral) only got his green card through marriage. Both were highly educated and secular. I was born to two American citizens on American soil. Regardless, 1982 is not 2016; the threats posed to American security is vastly different today.
2) 100k Muslim immigrants are admitted to the US every year. Who are these people? The San Bernadino terrorists got through this system, the Orlando shooter's dad (who is an open supporter of the Taliban) also got through this system. I'm not saying don't allow immigrants, especially those which would add value to society through their education / skills, but our current approach has clearly failed, both in the US and Europe.
3) I am not beholden to identity politics. I don't understand why you would let in people from this background, and I'm allowed to be afraid of Islamic terrorism too. I'm probably first in line in all honesty because of my various betrayals of Islamic law.
The reality is that the majority of Muslims I know refuse to integrate, view integration as betrayal of a medieval utterly intolerant value system, harbor deep seated resentment/bitterness towards Western culture, and hate America. I've seen it first hand. It genuinely is painful to confront this reality, but you can't pretend it's not there.
For all my half joking misogyny, disapproval of sex positivism / feminism, the homosexual lifestyle, etc, I recognize the existence of basic human values common to all. I don't know if it's a problem inherent to Islam or if it can be reformed, but there is absolutely a problem / intractable ideological conflict with a large group of its adherents and liberal Western norms; they cannot co-exist peacefully.
All three are cowards. Obama has been absolutely shameful on this.
He's not a coward, just an absolute fucking retard. Why are we even having a discussion about immigration in the wake of this attack?
Because mert.
Trump stands by his campaign manager through an assault (clearly not but whatever) case and then fires him on a Monday morning when there's nothing else going on in the news :cab:
By the way, during times like these, nothing cheers me up more than checking out the replies to his tweets. It's an incredible ocean of 100% pure, oaken brown, dog shit.
So, a Brit tried to assassinate Trump? What the fuck?
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36582770
We gunna pretend like the Left didn't cultivate a climate of hatred / violence / hysteria, because I sure as hell know if the tables were turned that's exactly the rhetoric the mainstream media would employ to somehow shift the blame on Trump.
Oh and he was an illegal immigrant.
Clocked a class of students earlier researching The Donald. In amongst people searching on his business background and political views was one lad asking Google 'Is Donald Trump dating his daughter'.
Quality.
God Emperor up 4 (43-39), highest polling numbers since October:
http://m.rasmussenreports.com/public...te_house_watch
Interesting article about Trump's press manager, a 27-year-old model fittingly named Hope Hicks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/st...rump.html?_r=0
It's amusing how Mert keeps crowing about the Rasmussen Reports poll results, while ignoring every other poll in the country showing Trump down 2-8 points.
I assume that solely listing Rasmussen polls is basically fishing for responses.
Some of them did reasonably well.
No. I don't trust polls by establishment / center-left sources, the same polls that were shockingly inaccurate in predicting the Brexit results. They have their own agendas to promote and skew their data sets accordingly. See ABC News/Washington Post poll results for more information.
Were any polls actually shockingly inaccurate as regards the referendum? Other than the secret ones the City and the bookies had access to. Wasn't the prevailing view that it was going to be margin of error tight?
Populus had an absolute mare, but the online crew did pretty given it was a one-off event with no precedents. YouGov were solidly around the correct mark throughout the campaign.
You mean this election?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...ard-democrats/
"The polls did have a strong bias this year — but it was toward Democrats and not against them."
I mean the one where you went into the election convinced that the polls were wrong, and then melted down, Karl Rove-style, on the night.
Surely it makes sense to listen to the polls and look to change the situation, rather than pulling a Romney and claiming that they were wrong. Like, it's no skin off my nose what you go in believing, but if you're putting all your eggs in the basket of the polling company well-known for being the least reliable, then there's a decent chance of a repeat. It's not like the fact that Hilary is dominating the polls at this point is even that big a deal - you don't get bonus points for winning early polls. There's only one that matters.
That said, if you want to bring in fivethirtyeight, their prognosis is not a strong one for Trump at this stage. :sorry:
What makes sense is to light all polls on fire.
Didn't John Kerry have very strong early poll ratings? Although I'm really not sure why.
Whilst I'm as up for a bit of pseudo-science (hello economics) bashing as the next man, this whole "what do experts know?" movement the world seems to be in the grip of does seem a bit on the cultural revolution/Pol Pot side of things.
Without wanting to assimilate too strongly into the metropolitan bourgeoisie, the man on the Clapham omnibus maybe good for a reasonable man test, but that doesn't mean he's not a fucking idiot.
The man on the Clapham omnibus is probably a management consultant who works in the City these days.
Is Mert trashing his own sources? Guys, we don't even need to be here.
FBI won't press charges on Hillary.
Mert :wave:
I'm dissapointed but I can't say I'm surprised, welcome to Obamas partisan America where the Justice Department is only a tool to be wielded to repress conservatives.
Comey's statements directly demonstrate that Clinton lied to the public at least, so at least we'll have decent attack ad fodder.
Hillary lied to the public about important things, Trump invented and pretended to be a publicist so he could brag about all the bishes Donald Trump was fucking.
Comme ci, comme ça.
Honestly...I'm so upset Kasich didn't get the nomination, this was a fucking lay up of an election to win. He would have been a perfect moderate socially, fiscally center-right candidate that would have brought the country together and legitimized Republicans a little bit in the eyes of the Left.
The polarization right now is indescribable, it's like living in two separate countries who hate each other, forced to co-exist in one. If our generation wasn't a bunch of pussies, I wouldn't be surprised if a civil war broke out. I predict secessions within 25 years.
But God Emperor?
Provided they could prove they don't have Irish sympathies, I would be up for resettling Republicans in Scotland.
I would imagine Texas is big enough for them.
Mexas. Yeah right.
They could even build The Wall all around the state.
The elites won't let him win, the major media outlets pretty much run 24/7 anti-Trump propaganda and it is wearing down his supporters on the margin. And as much as I love him fighting and sticking it to the mainstream media he's too populist, I studied enough economics that I know protectionism doesn't work. Cutting taxes without cutting spending on entitlements doesn't work. Etc.
I'm mostly just upset because I don't think traditional principled conservatives (the people and principles that made this country great) are a significant voting block in this country anymore. It's beginning of the end of American greatness happening in a slow motion train wreck, and most people are totally oblivious / more interested in letting trannys into YMCA locker rooms / watching the Kardashians act slutty on TV.
I presume all the "Texit" jokes have already been made.
But yeah, nobody really believes in principled political positions. The Republicans spent so long courting the public with populist rhetoric that they didn't realise that their philosophical supporter base had eroded from the inside out. They're basically a reactionary populist party now, with some laissez-faire capitalists trying and failing to wrangle the runaway train. I will be interested to see where they go post-Trump.
Bernie will endorse Clinton tonight
The Bernster has played this incredibly well all things told.Quote:
Hillary Clinton's campaign is making it official: Former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders will join her at a New Hampshire event on Tuesday where he plans to endorse her.....Though Clinton effectively clinched the nomination more than a month ago, Sanders has been slow to formally endorse her fall bid against Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump. He has instead maneuvered to win commitments from Clinton and the Democratic Party to incorporate portions of his agenda into theirs.This all makes sense. Though I've had my issues with Sanders, I said a few weeks ago: "In the end, the threat of Donald Trump will prevent Bernie and his followers from hating Hillary too long, but in the meantime there's no reason not to use every weapon in his arsenal to browbeat both Hillary and the Democratic Party into moving in the direction he wants them to go."
Last week, Clinton announced revamped policy on college tuition and healthcare that did just that. And at a meeting on the Democratic Party platform, Sanders successfully pushed for liberal positions on an array of issues, including the minimum wage and climate change.
And that's what he's done. He cooled it on the personal attacks, but used every bit of leverage he had to move both Hillary and the Democratic platform to the left. He didn't get everything he wanted, but unlike some of his more rabid supporters, he never expected to. He did lose the primary, after all.
Nonetheless, he got a helluva lot. He played his cards well, and in Hillary Clinton I think he had a fairly willing sparring partner. She didn't fight all that hard against his platform demands.
But yesterday the platform was finished, and Bernie is pretty happy with it. With that done, he's endorsing Hillary almost immediately. My guess is that it will be a fairly enthusiastic endorsement, too—and will get more enthusiastic as time passes and the wounds of the primary race fade away. In the end, I'm happy to see that Bernie has pretty much played things the way he should: he stopped the personal attacks, pushed the party to the left, and now he's diving in to the campaign against Donald Trump. Good work.
He seems to have got her to adopt his plan for college funding, and the $15 minimum wage. It'll only make it even more annoying when she pisses it all way whilst negotiating with the Republicans.
Quite. None of it matters unless the Democrats win congress. Even then, they'll have their own concerns far more than they do here.
Still, it's nice for him to get a platitude or two now he's finally chucked it.
r/s4p is amazing right now.
Quote:
[–] [score hidden] 6 minutes ago
What a lying piece of shit.
This whole time he lied to our faces.
At least with Clinton you knew that she was a fuck. Now we find out that Bernie was even worse- he was pretending to give a shit and now he's selling us all out.
What a complete fuck.
I'm done with this politics shit. Fuck this, let whatever happen in November happen. Who the fuck can ever trust anyone again after the 1 person who promised to actually give a shit about us just stabbed us int he back.
[–] [score hidden] a minute ago
Never did I imagine that I be witness to the creation of a new political hope, a party that truly represented the people, by a person who lived those morals and values their entire life. And never did I imagine that same person, so steadfast in their beliefs, get bought and sold to destroy that movement in an instant...
[–] [score hidden] 6 minutes ago
Bernie is now a fucking paid Hillary shill!
You have to assume those folks just became aware of the existence of a world around them within the past 12 months.
'Bernie', mate. 'Bernie'. This time it was different.
Until he betrayed us. The cunt.
I wonder what will be of Marco.
The Republican Obama, they said. :harold:
Obama is the Republican Obama. #FeelTheBern
Bernie will have another go in four years once 'Hillary' is FOUND OUT.
Does this endorsement shite exist anywhere else btw? What a load of rubbish, it's as if Americans want to be told what to think.
We call it BACKING here, mate.
Trump leads in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Iowa based off Quinnipac and Monmouth polls:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/polltra...a-pennsylvania
http://www.monmouth.edu/polling-inst...oll_IA_071216/
:dust:
Supreme Leader ahead by SEVEN points:
http://m.rasmussenreports.com/public...te_house_watch
Yep. She's getting molested in a lot of the swing states.
It'll come back in the campaign, given he's a mental.
Hillary BTFO with new Trump pokemon Meme:
https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump...type=2&theater
The state of that. Although kudos to the man for getting a Vice called Pence. "Hi, I'm Mike Pence with - my two cents."
Pence makes Ted Cruz look like a backsliding apostate. You may as well just nominate a bible as VP.
Not one of those namby-pamby liberal translations, either. One of the ones which are all smiting, all the time.
It does make sense though. For all Trump's posturing, he's obviously not at all religious, nor is he making any effort to learn how to dog whistle his way to appearing devout. While the evangelical right have largely fallen in line behind him (right beats evangelical, when push comes to shove), it's a choice that he has to hope will mollify the ones who are still wavering about voting for somebody outside their own tribe.
It's an uninspiring but wise choice; it'll consolidate the GOP establishment / 'True Conservatives' behind him which is the bare minimum his pick needed to do if he was going to have any chance to beat Hillary. I'm also convinced that he is doing much better, especially among Democrats, than polls pick up.
And it needs to be said, that unfathomable 'Muslim Ban gaffe' is probably quietly looking more and more sensible to Americans across the spectrum...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrX3Ql31URA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLt9jO9QkAAoeF7SSQFHqPEyq2dqIA6hZD&v=oe YKFRV34kY
Love that they brought back the second one. The first one is a bit "won't somebody PLEASE think about the children?!" though.
Hillarys Instagram is getting raided with Spicy Boi memes; worth a look
https://www.thenation.com/wp-content...and_ap_img.jpg
Looking good boys. Never know when an impromtu motocross race might occur.
Is that security?
Cleveland police.
http://image.cleveland.com/home/clev...167-mmmain.png
Didn't know the streets in Cleveland were so bad that you need a mountain bike to make it through.
It's like a bad sci-fi movie army uniform :sick:
That's what 20 million gets you nowadays.
Now let's see some sweet jumps.
Trump's a post-truth candidate, nobody who votes for him or is thinking about it will care about trivia like that. He makes them feel good about themselves, that's all that matters.
How's that unchecked mass immigration working out for Europe? Bet it felt sooo good taking them in right, all involved parties surely deserved their self-righteous fact based smugness...
Speaking of post-truth, why didn't the media care about Obama and Biden's plagerism you delusional idiot:
http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/melani...deval-patrick/
Hint: the smug Leftist periodicals you read don't have a monopoly on the Truth
I don't give a toss about anyone's plagiarism, Mert, but by all means keep drinking the Koolaid.
He said Trump was a post-truth candidate. The cornerstone of Trump's popularity is his 'nativist' stance on immigration which allegedly appeals to emotions rather than facts. The point was to compare Trump's 'emotion based' position versus the consequences of Europe's 'fact based' immigration policy, to demonstrate how Elth should just go ahead and shut up, his type have ruined enough countries.
These Scots are killing us at the border and raping our women.
I love how Mert builds a throwaway observation into an entire strawman.
I reckon he was bullied at school for being Turkish so he's become absorbed in a white privileged persona he can never truly own.
Clinton Has 69-Point Lead Over Trump in Latest Latino Vote Tracking Poll
http://latinousa.org/2016/07/20/clin...nt-lead-trump/
http://latinousa.org/wp-content/uplo...07/Poll2-1.png
Another one:
http://www.latinodecisions.com/files...ines_Day_1.pdf
Quote:
Over the last year Donald Trump has said, “The Hispanics love me. Latinos love Trump, and I love them.” Do you love Donald Trump?
Yes 12
No 88
https://media.giphy.com/media/kVaj8JXJcDsqs/giphy.gifQuote:
Does watching the Republican National Convention and reading or listening to the speeches make you feel:
Happy 19
Angry 77
Proud 16
Embarrassed 70
Safe 18
Scared 65
Patriotic 26
Disappointed/Sad 76
If the GOP don't find a way to fix this, it'll be electoral lockout for a while. Florida, Colorado, and Nevada are not going to be up for contention anymore.
Lol are you kidding me with that ridiculous poll, look I can post propaganda too:
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/06/1...trump-on-rise/
Trump beats Romney with Hispanics:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/17/nb...ith-hispanics/
I liked the RNC response to the speech. "I LIKE DAT SHE SUPPAWT HER MAN!" Like every wife of a politician ever.
*yawn*
Trump already addressed this situation and the cuck media was BTFO:
https://scontent-cdg2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...f3&oe=57927045
Thanks, Donald. Shit all over 'I Have a Dream'.
Not sure how to link this on my phone but if we are just going to recycle old LBJ ads I want an update of this one:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4hcpedQmOyo
That has to be my favorite attack ad ever.
A closing section, yes. As opposed to a speech entirely constructed, word for word in sections, from 8 years ago. That was televised.
'Cuck' is somehow more annoying than 'sloot' ever was. Vary your insults, Mert. You look stupid.
Why assume prejudice? I had a good long lol at that daft cunt Melania and I think Trump and Hillary are equally terrible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcbiGsDMmCM
Structurally, it's identical, even if it's not word for word completely. Why are you being so defensive? Are you just shitting it because every country you've set foot in is having a complete meltdown at the minute?
As long as you lol at everyone equally:
http://www.breitbart.com/california/...ing-democrats/
Yes there is some very limited overlap in two short paragraphs because of the error of a speech writer. So? Michelle Obama plagiarized some of those same passages from Bob Dole's wife's speech at the 1996 RNC; does that bother you? It was a minor mistake, hardly news worthy beyond a passing 'lol'.
You suck dude :D
Try having some depth to your personality
Number one is a 'refrain' too simple to be plagiarised, and the list starts out on a Congressman lifting from an op-ed piece in a minor newspaper. That's not the same as a twat having the gall to lift from someone infinitely more prominent than her. If you think anything on that list is the same as what's happened here then you're the one showing prejudice.
I won't lol at everyone equally, because Trump is funnier than Hillary. He's a shouty used car salesman, making stupid gaffes, talking about his cock in debates and referring to himself in the third person. Hillary is a virulent shitbag with a shameful voting record who's getting by on being a woman. Two incredibly shitty candidates, but one is much easier to lol at.
I wouldn't say I'm a social liberal by any stretch of the imagination. I just think you're not very smart.
His thoughts are facile, whether or not that's an indicator of intelligence idk. I would think so
Jesus fuck this RNC shitshow. :D Cruz just went on stage and said "vote your conscience" without endorsing.
@EWErickson:
Why would you let him speak? That smug grin combined with the booing, this is going to overshadow Pence hard tomorrow.Quote:
SOURCE: The Trump camp knew this morning Cruz would not endorse and told Cruz's camp they'd orchestrate booing if he refused.
Nobody who votes for Trump cares about Cruz endorsing him or who the VP is, either. This is all irrelevant.
Trump's message is I'm Here To Make You Feel Good About Being White And/Or Middle Class Again. Nothing else matters. Nothing else sticks. It's all noise that feeds the beast - Trump's here, it's ok to feel good again.
The worse he looks in conventional political terms, the worse the stories get, the better he'll do. His narrative is "they" hate you, I love you, vote for me and feel good and that's all being reinforced every day of this convention.
I'd hate to be a speech writer in the Trump camp. Donald rarely sticks to anything you put in front of him. At least you can get his wife to open with, "As a fellow American..." and she'll stick with it.
LOL. Please tell me more about how intelligent you are when we both know you're only at Stanford because you play a sport.
Protip: Dismissing someones opinion as 'facile' without actually addressing the merits of any particular argument is idiotic: "Oh you're just so wrong it's not even pointing out why you're wrong obviously" :rolleyes:
No it's not. This is a simplistic media narrative to try and undermine why people actually vote for him; this same psychological phenomenon appeals to the same extent to Hillary anyways. People vote for him because of his policies.
Please keep in mind Trump supporters are better educated and wealthier than Hillary supporters.
Of course they are, they're white.
As if mokkers is on a sports ride. He makes Spoonsky look hard.
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...8b&oe=57EF630E
This is basically how the day went.
1. Trump threw Melania under the bus admitting she plagiarized the speech just hours after Manafort went on TV denying it.
2. Trump in an interview with the NYT claimed he would not back up NATO allies in the event of a Russian attack.
3. Heil Hitler
http://i.imgur.com/E74Oesk.gif
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn2oCBcXEAABNhV.jpg
4. Cruz basically told the base to come out, not vote Trump, vote GOP down ballot.
5. Mike Pence did a pretty good old-school Repub speech that no one will remember after all this other fuckery.
My response is that Trump's support is overwhelmingly white, and white people in America area much more educated and wealthy on average than everyone else.
Ted Cruz trolling the hall with the smuggest face. :cool:
It was pretty good.
When you look at the list of high profile Republicans not backing Trump it's staggering. That said, there are enough who have jumped aboard to make it hard for them to ever row back from this position in the future. If he doesn't get across the line then the Republicans could be completely fucked.
People see through his selfish ploy which does nothing but embolden the Democrats in the short-term.
But...was this all planned to destroy Cruz as retribution for not endorsing him? Couldn't be...or could it?
http://www.dailywire.com/news/7665/e...ch-ben-shapiro
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...7/3j0w48qR.pngQuote:
According to the source, the entire Cruz speech was cleared by the Trump campaign. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, expressly approved the speech at 4:30 PM ET. The source, who was standing on the convention floor at the time of the speech, said that Trump operatives were present, urging the crowd to boo. “This was orchestrated by the Trump campaign to make Senator Cruz a pariah within the party,” said the source.
You have to admire how smug he is.
The primaries were decided by people for whom policy is a secondary consideration. On both sides.
#TheTedWedding is trending. :D
...except that the GOP is now as united as it's ever been this cycle:
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/07/2...s-looking-for/
Fair play to Cruz. I don't think it's even politically driven, I think he just hates Trump on a personal level for making personal attacks on his family.
If they could get Clinton thrown out on purgery, they could find some dirt on Trump easily. Just look under his golf course for his eight aborted daughters.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...-at-rnc-225974
Full transcript leaked.
I was reading that earlier.
Yeah, alright.Quote:
America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy.
I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets. Her bad instincts and her bad judgment – something pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what caused the disasters unfolding today. Let’s review the record. In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map.
Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region, and the world. Libya is in ruins, and our Ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos.
Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After fifteen years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.
This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness.
His trade "policy" is somehow even worse than I previously believed.
Just the complete stupidity of wanting to rip up and remake every trade deal INDIVIDUALLY.
Sounds familiar.
Someone might be trying to win the Midwest.
And once again someone proves the maxim that nobody thinks America is more shit than a proponent of American exceptionalism.
Ivanka's speech would have gone down well at the Democratic convention.
Trump's giving the Trumpiest speech possible. Fair play to him, dancing with the girl he brought to the party. The centre is for low energy losers anyway.
That's the thing that concerns me most about Trump. As soon as he gets on the mic in a time of national tragedy, it'll be the most fire-stoking bitterness fuel known to man.
So how about those DNC leaks :drool:
I liked the one about Mexicans never changing their voting habits.
Should start a petition to see if they can re-run the primary campaign.
Never underestimate our ability to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Saddest thing is that this will probably stop "the progressives" from learning that the real reason they lost was all the 80 / 20 losses in the South where the party is made up of the two biggest practical instead of ideological voting groups.
The 'Solid South' defecting to the Republicans en masse after the Civil Rights Act is one of the most spectacular seethes in history. You'd think they'd be over it by now.
Not really. People still vote in the same blocks. Is it any different than my wife's family who voted for Republican's after they got the chance to desert the rice plantations in South Carolina to fight with Union Army? They left the party of Lincoln just as quickly.
DNC chairs serve at the nomination of the party leader ie. President or Senate leader so her term was up with Obama leaving anyway. It's a nice little sop to Sanders supporters - pretending to quit a job she was leaving anyway.
The bigger win for Sanders is that there's going to be less super delegates going foward. Of course he got smashed on regular delegates anyway, but in the future a populist insurgency may have a better chance.
The media not counting super delegates from the start would be a nice touch.
Nearly a new page :cool:
Oh lawd, Trump in the lead in new CNN and Morning Consult poles, and they haven't even properly incorporating the fallout from the DNC email leaks:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/25/po...oll/index.html
https://morningconsult.com/2016/07/2...nvention-bump/Quote:
Donald Trump comes out of his convention ahead of Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House, topping her 44% to 39% in a four-way matchup including Gary Johnson (9%) and Jill Stein (3%) and by three points in a two-way head-to-head, 48% to 45%.
Quote:
In the national poll, conducted from July 22 through July 24, Donald Trump pulls ahead of Hillary Clinton by 4 points (44-40), a sizeable swing from the past week, when the former secretary of State was clinging to a 2-point lead.
Me in November:
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...jErrADHmMOnOGI
I'll still be surprised if he wins. The bulk of the polls still favour Clinton, and he won't have a convention bounce in November.
Lots of time though, so cockiness this early is a bit of a risky strategy. Does remind me the board in 2012, mind.
First time there's been a significant convention bounce since 2000. Have to wait until after the DNC to get stabilised numbers, but there's no doubt Trump's winning the campaign right now.
Just confirms that Trump isn't negatively affected by drama, though.
I found this interesting:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/...really-a-thing
1-3 are purely circumstantial, and 6 seems like the natural consequence of things he's said. The ones regarding his staffing are interesting (but hardly damning on their own).
Most of these are circumstantial, but this bit really isn't:Quote:
4. Then there's Paul Manafort, Trump's nominal 'campaign chair' who now functions as campaign manager and top advisor. Manafort spent most of the last decade as top campaign and communications advisor for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister and then President whose ouster in 2014 led to the on-going crisis and proxy war in Ukraine. Yanukovych was and remains a close Putin ally. Manafort is running Trump's campaign.
5. Trump's foreign policy advisor on Russia and Europe is Carter Page, a man whose entire professional career has revolved around investments in Russia and who has deep and continuing financial and employment ties to Gazprom. If you're not familiar with Gazprom, imagine if most or all of the US energy industry were rolled up into a single company and it were personally controlled by the US President who used it as a source of revenue and patronage. That is Gazprom's role in the Russian political and economic system. It is no exaggeration to say that you cannot be involved with Gazprom at the very high level which Page has been without being wholly in alignment with Putin's policies. Those ties also allow Putin to put Page out of business at any time.
I wouldn't have thought anything of the links, except for that last one. That's really weird.Quote:
7. Here's where it gets more interesting. This is one of a handful of developments that tipped me from seeing all this as just a part of Trump's larger shadiness to something more specific and ominous about the relationship between Putin and Trump. As TPM's Tierney Sneed explained in this article, one of the most enduring dynamics of GOP conventions (there's a comparable dynamic on the Dem side) is more mainstream nominees battling conservative activists over the party platform, with activists trying to check all the hardline ideological boxes and the nominees trying to soften most or all of those edges. This is one thing that made the Trump convention very different. The Trump Camp was totally indifferent to the platform. So party activists were able to write one of the most conservative platforms in history. Not with Trump's backing but because he simply didn't care. With one big exception: Trump's team mobilized the nominee's traditional mix of cajoling and strong-arming on one point: changing the party platform on assistance to Ukraine against Russian military operations in eastern Ukraine. For what it's worth (and it's not worth much) I am quite skeptical of most Republicans call for aggressively arming Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. But the single-mindedness of this focus on this one issue - in the context of total indifference to everything else in the platform - speaks volumes.
Bernie also has a former Yanukovich-advisor on his staff, but the last point really is the one that ties all of the circumstantial stuff together.
If there's anything that might scare away baby boomers it's Russia.
A 'bounce' of any kind after the shitstorm that was the RNC is frightening.
Keeping drinking the koolaid buddy, RealClearPolitics has Trump leading in 5/6 last polls, many of which suffer from sampling bias against him:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...nton-5491.html
I've never before seen a man transcend all barriers thrust in front of him by what I had long ago accepted to be an untouchable and intractable political elite, this election will be in the history books as the moment when the tide was turned against the seemingly inevitable collapse of Western civilization, where the people rose up to again became Masters of their Destiny:
http://iyon.addictinginfoent.netdna-...tional-god.jpg
Without having paid much attention to this of late the one thing that strikes me is that Trump has the better slogans. And if the whole EU Referendum taught us anything it was that catchy slogans about taking back control of things etc are very potent. Hilary is such an uninspiring mook as well. Trump probably couldn't have conceived a better opponent to run against on an anti-establishment/angry white man ticket. If he wins it certainly will be one for the history books, although I don't know if it'll be in the positive sense Mert suggests or as Western society's Sarajevo moment.
Hillary's seethe when she loses is almost enough to make it worth it. Add four years of comedy and then it's hard not to be pro-Trump.
And given that he wanted to have Kasich as VP handling "foreign and domestic policy", how much harm can he really do in 4 years? :rosebud:
Trump is going to be doing an ama over at /r/The_Donald
:drool:
I bet he chimps out within five minutes.
I'd love his ama to be spammed with questions about his tiny hands, mainly because he seems to have absolutely zero sense of humour about the subject.
Think you're missing out on what /r/The_Donald is
http://imgur.com/WWCzzqT.png
O lawd, Trump at 57.5% likelihood of winning the election, Clinton at 42.5% according to Nate Silver's Election Forecast:
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/...-forecast/#now
:happycry::happycry::happycry::happycry::happycry:
The American electoral math[s] is the most boring thing in the world, but Michael Moore of all people had a good point about how 'The Donald' can afford to lose the likes of Florida as long as he concentrates on places like Michigan and that wanker cheese state who might be receptive to his protectionist bollocks.
Bounce or not, my view remains that it's difficult to see Trump building the necessary voting 'coalition' to win.
The situation isn't helped by Hillary Clinton being utterly dislikable. However, I'm not building the Anderson Shelter just yet.
Some Sanders supporters are causing a scene, apparently:
This isn't the time to purge people who aren't true believers, lads. Stop being wankers and be pragmatic, for fuck sake.
Maybe they figure that 4 years of Trump catastrophe would be better for their agenda than 8 years of establishment Hillary?
Republicans always get a bounce at their convention and Democrats always protest theirs. Not the end days, just usual service.
More interestingly, David Duke is back after being inspired by Trump. Hopefully this brings back my favorite home state politician Edwin Edwards. Last time he ran against Duke he sold bumper stickers saying "Vote for the Crook; It's Important" because there was a bit of graft in it.
This Russian influence seems likely. There's been an ongoing attempt from Obama and chums to destabilise Putin's government in a circumspect way (see: World Cup/Olympic scandals, Panama Papers). This feels like Russia trying to get their own back (by helping an enormous fucknugget get elected)
The Guardian group had £173m odd worth of losses recently. We won't have to put up with their sanctimonious shite for much longer.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...testers-226148
That's going well, then. That they're booing, heckling and chanting for "Bernie" demonstrates why he should have chucked it well before he did - this is the consequence of dragging it out and whipping these idiots up into thinking there's some sort of REVOLUTION underway.
Are they disrupting the coronation? :happycry:
So delicious.
https://media.giphy.com/media/uqPDIEPMODKne/giphy.gif
It's perfectly valid to vote for him to begin with. This is just rejecting the results of democracy when you don't like the result. See: the left, Remain voters, the SNP.
Anyone who thinks Sanders' progressive agenda will be in any way advanced by a President Trump is a delusional moron.
If the Democrats implode because their far left would rather Hitler than Blair, what even is the point of politics.
Incidentally, if it is actually true that Trump is a patsy for Putin, then it's one of the most masterful pieces of political manoeuvring to have ever been pulled off. First-class stuff.
I'm sure he's not a patsy for him, he's getting a full intelligence briefing this week and I doubt the CIA/FBI would let that happen if there was a single shred of truth to those accusations. However, that Russian intelligence might actively be working for Trump to win is another question.
Cory Booker is pretty freaking great. Should make a run in 2020 if Hillary loses or in 2024 if she wins.
Nobody's really talking about it, though. And you have to admit that the convention thing is a bit weird. If you asked me to rank the full list of issues by how much I'd guess Donald Trump cares about them, Ukraine would rank somewhere distantly below the Antarctic Treaty. But apparently, it's the single policy issue he cares enough about to intervene with.
Couple that with some of his other statements - admiration for Putin, whole-hearted rejection of NATO, etc. - and it's got to be at least slightly disquieting. It's certainly possible that he simply sees Russia as a key ally and wants to stay in their good books, but even that's hardly encouraging. Especially at the expense of the North Atlantic.
That said, if a foreigner was to pick a Presidential candidate, they'd always default to the kind of brash, macho, hyper-patriot that everyone stereotypes America as loving. :D
EDIT: It's all fine though. Even if Trump does want to deep-six NATO, Boris will save the day.
Michelle's speech was incredible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYYI43_mYWc&feature=youtu.be
The contrast with the RNC is astonishing.
Trump as a patsy for Putin isn't credible. Trump as a Putin sympathiser and Putin therefore quietly using a little soft power to support him and undermine Clinton certainly is.
Russia fear is a bit overblown anyway - the Red Army isn't going to be marching into Warsaw even with a President Trump - but Putin would be right in assessing that Trump is a lot less likely to try to stop Russia re-establishing the Soviet sphere of influence in Russia's immediate neighbours.
You're underestimating the contempt for Hillary among Bernie's supporters then, and to suggest people just throw away their beliefs as soon as their candidate has lost is fucking bizarre. Trump is dangerous enough to force enough people to hold their nose and do so I reckon, but the arrogant contempt for voters who actually have principles is wank.
You really are a massive, boring, old-before-your-time, cunt.
I'm still really struggling to come to terms with Revolutionary Dave.
It is just baffling to me the depth of the mental illness of Clinton supporters. She openly undermined the democratic process by rigging an election, colluded with the media to distort public opinion, and is actively suppressing speech criticizing any of this. And in response to this what do you do? Fucking nothing?
How can you save this society? People have totally lost it.
DNC thought: how many of the people in that building will be on the front lines if war were to break out protection the nation's borders? Probably none, it will be those evil scum conservative white males who would be willing to sacrifice themselves to protect them.
HE IS AN ISOLATIONIST. Holy crap. He has consistently been against intervening in stable countries.
Ital how could you possibly take this seriously?
This. Plus Putin probably sees Trump as an ally more willing to overlook 'necessary' domestic actions to ensure stability within the government, as well as a ruthless partner in the fight against terror.
Like Trump, who was first to put up his hand in a time of war.
On the other stuff, if it makes you feel better, I don't actually believe that Trump is a patsy for Putin. I do think he's very sympathetic to Putin's agenda, which is what led to his convention behaviour. That's worrying for the future of NATO though.
His convention behaviour is weird though, given that he apparently didn't care one jot about any other item on the agenda. Like, if it was just not intervening in Ukraine and a bunch of other things, then fair play, he's an isolationist. But to totally ignore anything else on the agenda, then drill in on that one issue, suggests that keeping Russia happy is at the very least one of his foremost priorities.
EDIT: Holy hell, apparently the FBI think the DNC hackers were Russian government. You'd struggle to make this up. :D
If you truly believe that your own security forces are openly corrupt against you, then your country is already lost.
Do I think they are corrupt? Yes. Do I think the Russians probably did this. Also yes.
The Liberal political infiltration runs deep, the issue is that Conservatives are generally more averse to intervening in neutral state institutions because of quaint beliefs in ideas like objectivity, reason, morality, etc; the Left is not constrained by any such limitations. So they win every time. In a nutshell we are so so fucked, we need Trump to clear house.
http://www.behindthename.com/name/donald
It was Ordained.Quote:
Given Name DONALD
GENDER: Masculine
USAGE: Scottish, English
PRONOUNCED: DAHN-əld (English) [key]
Meaning & History
From the Gaelic name Domhnall which means "ruler of the world", composed of the old Celtic elements dumno "world" and val "rule".
Sanders spent months declaring Clinton the enemy to whip his supporters up. That's fine. When it was clear he'd lost, he kept going and hammering the same points home anyway - making it inevitably far more difficult to bring the party back together. It's difficult for him to say "we need President Clinton" after constantly and repeatedly stating she was an appalling human being for several months, usually followed by thunderous applause.
It's not a case of "throwing away your beliefs". It's recognising you now have a binary choice and being pragmatic. If Sanders' supporters don't put their shoulder into it because "Hillary, lads" and Trump wins, then lol.
It's not 'arrogant contempt', by the way. It's pity.
There's no-one more zealous than a convert. See: Tobias.
People either loved Booker's speech or went "meh". I thought he did a good job of weaving the African American literary cannon into a happy America speech for all comers. These things rarely pan out (see Chris Christie) but as of now you would think that the next big presidential hopefuls on our side include Booker, Warren, and Garcetti.
[QUOTE=Bernanke;117584]I think Kaine might be in the running as well if he gets 8 years as VP. He has surprised me so far.
VP may as well be Siberia anymore. I've no idea why progressives wanted one of their few stalwarts exiled there.
@Mert - hmm, maybe I said "hopeful" for a reason. Or you could just reflexively attack anything that does not swear allegiance.
IMO Kaine would be a great Democrat nominee.
I think the fundamental issue with why there don't seem to be any good Democrats is that at the end of the day people want a tall, handsome charismatic alpha male (preferably with a few plausible rumors suggesting womanizing tendencies) to lead them, and men with those qualifications are simply not liberal enough to satisfy the base. Clinton in his prime was the last one I can remember that fit the bill, he'd be a Republican today anyways.
Warren's too old. I can't see the Dems running a 70+yo Warren back to back from Hillary, although if Trump wins or Clinton only chooses to serve one term then it's more possible.
I suspect a Clinton will bookend this generation of Democratic politics, one way or the other. The next Dem nomination will be younger.
The Democrats could basically do with someone like Trudeau, the Canadian. Similar liberal values but not a thousand years old.
Trudeau is probably the best you'll get from a liberal. Dude is as beta as you would expect from a progressive but the underlying genetic quality + genuine subconscious entitlement that comes from his background is elite tier, so that it balances out to the extent that he projects some natural leadership value (his wife is hot; that's a big indicator).
That bloke's an embarrassment.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-n...nap-story.html
Trump 47-40 Clinton
Trump is the first major party nominee in forty or so years that has not released his tax returns. The last one was Nixon.
There's something going on.
Why is releasing tax returns even a thing? It's made its way over here as well, and it's fucking stupid.
He's asking Russia to hack Clinton's emails which contain personal information? That ... sounds illegal.
No, he is asking Russia to hack her server during her time at State because he worries it contains hidden classified information. Which is ok because of Benghazi.
You sort of have to wonder how this would be playing out if it was Trump who was claiming the Russians were trying to sabotage his campaign. I can't imagine they would be given much credence. Is it a good idea to start fighting in the gutter now? I suppose someone has to keep flying the flag for McCarthyism. There is obviously a fear that the original idea that he'd eventually sabotage himself (before now, obviously) was very wrong. Maybe that's a good thing.
His comments were obviously not an incitement of any sort.
It'll get real dirty between now and November. I bet Trump is wallowing in filth but his support is much, much less likely to care.
I would strongly encourage you not to take a tongue in cheek joking comment, made after saying that there would be serious consequences if it was proven that Russia was proven to be behind the DNC leak, seriously.
More significantly, Trump up 2 in the latest Reuters poll, he was down 11 three weeks ago:
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/07/2...or-first-time/
I think his actual quote is something along the lines of hopes they have it and can share. Which is silly if you think the material is classified but not incitement. I'm 1000% not voting Trump and think that the Russia conspiracy stuff is one of the dumbest things I've heard.
I think Trump is becoming a bit of a victim of his media success. He got a pass on policy for a long time because he was an amusing story that could get eyeballs. Now they want their typical policy related fight and he is not giving it to them. They need a new story for the daily campaign churn and they have picked up that they can bait him and get him to double down about almost anything. If you notice she also got him to respond to her personally.
His hope is that the resentment of both the media and policy elite that works in the flyover states continues to play. Hers is that she gets enough women in the Midwest to say what my wife does about him "ughh that creepy guy at work who always tries to look down your shirt."
It isn't that hard to find the actual quote. It doesn't say that.
Find it instead of have it sure. But if you think it may be classified? Why would you want them to have it at all even if they were an ally?
I'm obviously missing your point completely.
The debates are going to be sensations. 'Hillary' will already have a crack team of twenty-six year old wankers coming up with snarky put-downs that won't resonate beyond Twitter, and he'll shitpost her into having a stroke. If I was him I would go with the Bill Clinton is a sex offender stuff straight off the bat, and then run a cigar under my nose as she stumbles around for an answer.
Even 'Bernie' had her in full seethe mode within five minutes every time. The Donald will don her senseless. She can go join 'Jeb' who is still crying in some corner.
'Jeb is a mess!'
Trump would go with the Lewinsky line as well, wouldn't he. The television could be fucking spectacular.
"I'll stand up to Vladimir Putin!"
You can make up your own innuendo.
His guacamole recipe was shit.
My point was that this:
Is a bit of a daft line to take on the back of his comments. Not that the whole Russia angle isn't a bit of a foray into mentalville as it is.Quote:
Donald Trump has "actively encouraged" foreign powers to hack his presidential rival Hillary Clinton, her camp says.
Yes, that is just dumb and went right over my head. That whole talking points memo story is just a ludicrous stringing together of coincidences.
Also the Russian angle is pretty outrageous tin-foil hat speculation that would be immediately dismissed and mocked if it was anyone other than Clinton who stood to benefit from the obfuscation.
The transcript of Trump's post-election speech - the one where he slags off Ted Cruz - is amazing.
He did get one thing absolutely correct in his campaign. Trump could shoot a man in the middle of fifth avenue and it wouldn't affect his supporters one jot.
Likewise, any good things he says or does won't affect the anti-Trump bandwagon one jot.
Yeah, I more and more feel like this election will be about getting your base to turn out rather than fighting for independents. That's why Trump hasn't "pivoted" at all which some people expected him to do after the primary.
The one thing that could break away from this is if any well-known Repubs endorse Gary Johnson, otherwise it's gonna be pandering towards their respective camps for 3 months.
I read somewhere that they're estimating the "true" middle ground as about 6%, and that political strategists have largely decided that there's more value in energising your base than pivoting towards the middle.
I've been binge-watching Veep lately, and it just makes me feel a bit despairing. :D
Mic drop of a speech from Obama, but doubt it swings many votes.
Bams speech is one of the best I have ever seen.
You don't get to say, 'the Republican nominee is colluding with the Russians to manipulate the outcome of the election' without having evidence. Burden of proof is on the accuser.
The funniest part of course is that Democrats are okay with manipulating the democratic process when they are the ones doing the manipulating :lol:
This is totally wrong; 38% of the country is registered as independent. Moreover, Trump is pulling many many Democrats over to his side, and a significant amount of Republicans are similarly voting for Hillary. You're repeating the outdated conventional wisdom from past elections.
I only read this in an article, which noted that lack of political registration isn't as reliable on voting patterns as it used to be. I read that they estimated that about 6% of voters were in the "legitimately could swing" basket. It's not nothing, but it's miles from 38%.
This is the opposite of conventional wisdom, which is that you go extreme in the primaries and pull to the centre in the election itself. Whereas for the first time, we are likely to see things go the other way this year, because campaign managers are prioritising getting out their own base over winning the undecideds.
EDIT: I did get all this third-hand from articles, of course. I'm fairly sure I littered enough "apparently"s throughout to make that clear.
I mean, you saw the article - it's not random assertions. As I said at the time, most of it is circumstantial. But there are enough notes of weirdness - Trump ignoring every other aspect of the platform in favour of Ukraine, and the DNC hackers apparently being Russian government - that it's worth taking a closer look.
It's not strong evidence, and I doubt that it's true - I imagine Russia want Trump to win because of their own reasons, and Trump likes Putin because he respects hardman dictators, neither of which are of the level of collusion. But it's enough that you can't just brashly write it off completely without some explanation. I mean, you can - you can do whatever you please - but it's not really as convincing as move as you think it is.
https://twitter.com/mikedogli/status/758578450760204288
Comment below captures it well:
Quote:
Progressive Democrats order aggressive police force to protect their border wall from undocumented delegated
All we can be sure of is Ted Cruz' dad killed JFK.
Uh huh.
In other news, seems like Biden got the attack speech, in a similar vein to Christie for the RNC. Did a good job with it too - he's an incredibly likeable person, which is a nice contrast.
Good article as to why Bernie supporters and Conservatives are actually quite similar in their grievances:
http://thefederalist.com/2016/07/28/...#disqus_thread
Apparently it's time to ditch the Geneva Convention.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-s...d=sm_fb_maddow
This is so far from sensible political discourse that you can see the curvature of the horizon. Bugger me. Even Bush-Cheney never came remotely close to floating that balloon.
EDIT: This is MSNBC, so it's pretty partisan, but the quoted lines can be found elsewhere.
When's the Geneva convention stopped America in the last decade?
http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/07/...ified-secrets/
Quote:
@Bencjacobs (Political reporter for The Guardian)
Trump is now complaining "we pay rent for our base to Saudi Arabia"
Please let there actually be a base there. :DQuote:
@yarotrof (Greater Middle East columnist of The Wall Street Journal)
If there is now a US military base in Saudi, it is classified and mentioning it should have legal consequences.
I would assume it was a reference to Eskan Village, which the Saudi Arabian government owns, but lol if it isn't.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...vention-speech
In all seriousness though, what does Trump have to say before someone influential from his own side of the aisle tries to get him to tone it back a little?
Like, what's the worst thing he could possibly say before he starts to take hits from his own side? Because currently, we've ruled out slagging his own party's war hero for being captured and put in a POW camp, making comments about a judge that even most of his own party acknowledge were racist, inciting foreign powers to hack his opponents, rejecting the Geneva Conventions, and taking pot-shots at the parents of a US military casualty. I'm honestly struggling to think of what he could actually say that would shed party support at this stage. Any one of those things would be a guaranteed campaign-killer in any other election.
In all honesty, I half-suspect that the reason none of it sticks is because he continually follows every outrageous statement with another one so quickly that we don't really have time to process any of them: http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...=Gish%20Gallop
Democrats responded quite favourably to the convention. Even if you think their situation is dire, they don't.
Although if you're right, that's arguably the best situation to be in. Like how the Romney camp in 2012 didn't seem to realise how screwed they were at any point, and got legitimately blind-sided on election night. If they'd caught on earlier, they might have been able to do something about it.
EDIT: At the poll thing.
So you don't think any of those statements were actually over the line? Any one of those would have sunk McCain or Romney (or Obama or Bush or anyone else).
As an honest question, how outrageous a statement would Trump have to make before he'd get some public dissent from within his party? Advocating actually dropping the bomb on someone? Would that do it? I'm not even sure it would. I'm beginning to think he could promise to drop a nuke on Portugal and have it as mainstream Republican policy within a fortnight.
So you think he was right in all five of those cases? John McCain, the "Mexican" judge, inciting foreign hackers, the Geneva conventions, and the parents of the war victim?
Was any of those five statements out of line? It's fine for you to say "yes" to all of them, but I'd like to see where you think the baseline is.
Yeah. I mean in every single case he is justified in what he's saying or the media has distorted his words. I don't think anybody cares about these gaffes, we're sick of having to police our speech to remain in line with the sensibilities of the center-left media, who will portray Republicans badly regardless of the content.
Probably the best example is that Sotomayor, the Hispanic female justice on the Supreme Court, pretty much has said far more racist things about the influence of a judges background in his decision making. Nobody cared when she said it, it's just a hypocritical double standard and Republicans see that.
"Poorly-worded"
That roughly translates as "I know it's beyond the pale, but I can't possibly acknowledge this fact". See also, the Republican Party stance. They know, and it really comes across as that you do too. I presume you can't be induced to address each of the five statements? Let's play "How many statements does Mert support?", with a score from zero to five.
Any other politician would have been savaged for making any of those, let alone all of them. And they're based on direct quotes, without any editorialisation:
Toggle Spoiler
I'm skeptical, but if you showed me something appalling in her own words, without a smear associated with it, I'd acknowledge that it was the wrong thing to say.Quote:
Are you capable of seeing the lol hypocrisy and dishonesty of the media on the judge question?
You seem genuinely mystified, it's 6 AM here but I'll address each one individually later if you're interested. And no I'm not being an apologist for the Republicans, I never cared about these things and neither do most reasonable people. It's just the Leftist machine desperately trying to promote their candidate and smear her opponent.
Sure, and please know that if you don't condemn her, you are so deeply conditioned and biased against Republicans as to render your future opinions meaningless, no offense but it's the truth:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/08/ju...ce-in-judging/
Those aren't comparable statements.
Sotomayor is saying that race will have an effect on perception in the case of judging in general. She's talking highly generally, and not even affirming that as a positive thing. I think her statement on being a Latina woman was ill-advised, and I'd disagree with it - I'd hope that in a perfect world, judges would be primarily informed by the letter of the law. But even then, she's expressing it as a hope, rather than a truth claim. The strongest claim she actually makes is that race affects perspective, which is like saying that the sky is blue. She's not saying that it does or should supersede the law itself, either in general or in any specific case.
But none of that is comparable to the statements Trump made, which even his own party did criticise. Very specific accusations against a very specific judge based solely on his racial heritage.
It's a weak attempt to link together Trump and some (any!) progressive figure (who, unlike Trump, is not running for President). But reading the transcript of Trump's interview is downright painful, and it's no surprise that Paul Ryan, as well as a bunch of other lesser Republic figures, couldn't avoid calling the statements racist. Paul Ryan is actually the person I feel most sorry for here, because you just know he didn't sign on for this. :D
Have you read the transcript of the Curiel interview? It's teeth-edgingly awkward to read.
But that's the thing, it's been replaced by other statements now, on different topics, of equal outrageousness. Trump says so many things so quickly that it's impossible to bring things back into the spotlight.
Yeah you have no credibility and are blinded by prejudice.
Five for five?
Maybe this will provide insight:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=172077353
I'm loathe both to post in the middle of Mert displaying just how Trump's crowdsurfing communication style works, which is the real answer to Ital's question or to post a YouTube video Harold style, but I'm curious. To people outside of the US I was wondering if you have a version of the left that resembles this or are you just stuck with the class warfare stuff, or is it distinctly American? And Mert, feel free to miss the point entirely and reflexively attack it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gARt1GGM7d4
This would be quite amusing coming from most people but from someone who literally cannot see any point of view othe than his own it's laughable. Just out of curiousity, do you see any Left wing policies as good? Any at all?
I'd almost want Clinton to win just to see your meltdown, despite her being such an odious indvidual.
Yes. I'll be happy to list them after you and Ital tell me the right wing policies you support.
Yeah, that pattern of speech is very American. Not even sure where that got popularised in time? Civil Rights movement? British politicians rarely go for that. Its not the kind of thing you learn at Eton.
It's a fair question for them to ask - it shouldn't be answered only on the basis that "you do it first". It's a bit juvenile.
You should answer the question - Ital won't stiff you a response when he's back online, and it's certainly a worthwhile discussion to have.
I'll say that whilst I have a lot of sympathy with Republican views on things like states rights and the government leaving people alone, I couldn't be voting for one on the basis of their views on abortion (and appointing judges using this as a litmus test) or the second amendment as it currently stands.
I don't agree with many of Trump's stances (from here):
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions
I do generally tend to favour non-intervention in international matters, and broadly speaking I think that moderate Republicans interpret the second amendment correctly, even if I don't like what they get from it. Also, I strongly disagree with the TPP.
Trump's pretty lightweight on policy details, but I do disagree with the right in general on tax, on health, on welfare, and on education. I find "the wall" too obviously ludicrous to get worked up over, but I disagree with whatever limp physical manifestation of that policy would wind up appearing. More because it's stupid, than anything. :D
Remember, I don't really have much riding on the US. I'm well out of it.
Every time I watch an interview with Trump I just imagine Mayor Roy Chubby Brown.
The article by the guy who wrote "The Art of the Deal" is a fascinating window into what makes Trump work.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...iter-tells-all
Not everything in the article would be considered a criticism by everyone. Just interesting character insights. It's just an interesting picture of who he actually is as a person. I don't think anything there would be a great surprise, either.
Quote:
In those days, Schwartz recalls, Trump was generally affable with reporters, offering short, amusingly immodest quotes on demand. Trump had been forthcoming with him during the New York interview, but it hadn’t required much time or deep reflection. For the book, though, Trump needed to provide him with sustained, thoughtful recollections. He asked Trump to describe his childhood in detail. After sitting for only a few minutes in his suit and tie, Trump became impatient and irritable. He looked fidgety, Schwartz recalls, “like a kindergartner who can’t sit still in a classroom.” Even when Schwartz pressed him, Trump seemed to remember almost nothing of his youth, and made it clear that he was bored. Far more quickly than Schwartz had expected, Trump ended the meeting.
Week after week, the pattern repeated itself. Schwartz tried to limit the sessions to smaller increments of time, but Trump’s contributions remained oddly truncated and superficial.
“Trump has been written about a thousand ways from Sunday, but this fundamental aspect of who he is doesn’t seem to be fully understood,” Schwartz told me. “It’s implicit in a lot of what people write, but it’s never explicit—or, at least, I haven’t seen it. And that is that it’s impossible to keep him focussed on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes, and even then . . . ” Schwartz trailed off, shaking his head in amazement. He regards Trump’s inability to concentrate as alarming in a Presidential candidate. “If he had to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine him paying attention over a long period of time,” he said.
In a recent phone interview, Trump told me that, to the contrary, he has the skill that matters most in a crisis: the ability to forge compromises. The reason he touted “The Art of the Deal” in his announcement, he explained, was that he believes that recent Presidents have lacked his toughness and finesse: “Look at the trade deficit with China. Look at the Iran deal. I’ve made a fortune by making deals. I do that. I do that well. That’s what I do.”
But Schwartz believes that Trump’s short attention span has left him with “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” He said, “That’s why he so prefers TV as his first news source—information comes in easily digestible sound bites.” He added, “I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life.” During the eighteen months that he observed Trump, Schwartz said, he never saw a book on Trump’s desk, or elsewhere in his office, or in his apartment.
Other journalists have noticed Trump’s apparent lack of interest in reading. In May, Megyn Kelly, of Fox News, asked him to name his favorite book, other than the Bible or “The Art of the Deal.” Trump picked the 1929 novel “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Evidently suspecting that many years had elapsed since he’d read it, Kelly asked Trump to talk about the most recent book he’d read. “I read passages, I read areas, I’ll read chapters—I don’t have the time,” Trump said. As The New Republic noted recently, this attitude is not shared by most U.S. Presidents, including Barack Obama, a habitual consumer of current books, and George W. Bush, who reportedly engaged in a fiercely competitive book-reading contest with his political adviser Karl Rove.
Well for one I don't support nuclear disarmament. It's a nice sentiment but totally unfeasible in this day and age especially given we won't be convincing the likes of North Korea, Pakistan or India to disarm.
I support harsh prison sentences for certain crimes, especially where rehabilitation is unlikely or unfeasible or for crimes such as drunk driving, pedophilia and the like.
Your move.
Probably wasn't clear. I meant if there was a form that's essentially religious rather than secular. We used to have a trade union version, a version from the universities, and a religious one. I'm curious because this is the first time I've really seen the Democratic Party of the South that I grew up with fully on display at our convention.
Tony Blair got sniggered at for going to church so no, not really. There just isn't the kind of fervently religious section of society to play to, it's more jumble sales and lying about how much you go to church because you want to get married in one (because paying for the privilege is apparently not enough).
Did anyone see Trump's response to the Muslim father of a soldier? So good. :D
I liked the "he doesn't have the right to go on stage and say I haven't read the constitution." bit.
It's actually unreal he's a candidate. Fucking hell.
Open carry and active shooter are such shite American terms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWdQD0SANgY
The man is clearly deranged. Literally crazy grandpa. It's Sarah Palin levels of bad.
'I have one of the great temperaments'. Can't Andrew Neil do some freelance work with him?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CotJFERXYAAIXEV.jpg
It's like a child.
People are so ready to like Trump...he needs to just stop doing incredibly retarded shit
Cut your losses, mate. You're not part of it.
For those still clinging onto the antiquated notion that the mainstream media operates under any pretense of objectivity:
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presid...inton-winning/
Are you purposely posting like a second year law student?
Trump has two key cards he can play which may help people to overlook the fact he's just not up it: 1) Clinton's a wanker and 2) SUPREME COURT MATE.
I think it's fair to say that he's not an intellectual heavyweight, and the more the campaign goes on the more he's likely to be slowly eviscerated by the media. At some point - surely - this shit has to start sticking to him. There's only so many times he can embarrass himself.
The debates could be a particularly dreadful lowlight for the pair of them.
Is there any way I can filter out all coverage of this from my life? Every possible outcome is absolutely terrible.
You're assuming Trump conducts the debate within sensible parameters.
If he gets personal - which he almost certainly will when riled - then fuck knows what impact it might have.
This. He has a lot of material to truly fluster Hillary with and ask her questions a fawning media dare not bring up.
Also the latest in lol hypocrisy of the media:
http://i.imgur.com/8ZLvFAXl.jpg
I mean sure, if he live on national TV accuses Bill of being a rapist or something, that would be out of what you could prep for ahead of a debate with him. Still though, take a look at the Benghazi-hearings. She doesn't rattle easily.
It was basically hours of listening to her political opponents slander her without actually having a case. I can't see her running into problems in a debate.
She'll know that her best debate strategy is to keep her cool while baiting Trump into saying something beyond the pale, so you'd imagine that it'd be part of her debate prep.
LOL. Are you kidding me? Even most Hillary supporters recognize the long laundry list of scandals which she could justifiably be targeted for, it's so embedded in popular culture they even have click bait slide-show articles about it:
http://www.lifedaily.com/16-most-not...nton-scandals/
How did that get started if the left leaning media won't talk about her being a shit?
For fucks sake, just elect someone will you, this has been going on for what feels like a thousand years.
Why weren't the Bernie Sanders mob flagging up her voting history in a big way? It's too late now since biffing her would lead to a Republican win, but thirty seconds with it and I knew she'd abstained from a vote to stop children's toys being made from toxic materials so it can't be too hard to find plenty of shameful stuff in there.
Obviously Trump can't do it because a policy based campaign is the last thing he wants, but it seems like a missed opportunity.
Unless it was flagged up and this liberal media conspiracy you're always telling us about just suppressed the whole thing.
Oh, another thing that I agree with Trump on is raising the federal minimum wage, which he recently came out in favour of (up to $10). But given that Trump is on the record as saying it should be raised, kept where it is, lowered, eliminated, and left to the states, I'm not entirely sure whether I believe that to be his plan going forward. But if he settles on that, then good for him.
Wait so he wants to raise the minimum wage, but also bring back all the precious Production to USA?
He's republican, and I assume something of a hardcore capitalist, so I can't see how raising minimum wages will in any way benefit himself or his agenda :cab:
But I suppose he just does that - outright just lies about everything in the knowledge that whoever calls him out on it wouldn't be voting for him in the first place, and will struggle to reach those who will with the information (that he's lying) as well.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...supreme-court/
http://i.imgur.com/UJ3gtzx.png
Quote:
One of the most enduring legacies of the next president will flow from a few words in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution: the power to nominate justices to the Supreme Court. With the court still shorthanded after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, and with two of its sitting justices older than 80, the next president will shape the court, and through it the law of the land, for decades to come.
Quote:
Clearly, the court will take a different shape under a President Trump than it would a President Clinton. But just how different, and how quickly? Very different and, if Clinton wins, very quickly. If Donald Trump is elected president, the Supreme Court may, seat by vacated seat, move rightward toward its most conservative position in recent memory. If Hillary Clinton is elected, the court may quickly become the most liberal it’s been in at least 80 years.
This is honestly what the election really is about. It will shape the judicial direction of the US for a generation.Quote:
One thing is certain: This is a high-leverage election, judicially speaking. In addition to Scalia’s vacant seat, about one justice is expected to die in the next four years, and just over two in the next eight years.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Coz0YBOXgAAkyC4.jpg:large
This yo team mert. This yo team.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...bestworst-yet/
Straight transcript of Trump's ABC interview. Every paragraph has something new and special. Worth reading the whole thing, just to get an idea of how scatty he is when he's talking off the cuff.
If a candidate is just continually saying stupid shit that is obviously false or needs to be rolled back, it reaches a stage where you have to think that it's not "misspeaking" or "poor phrasing", but rather a representative look at their thought processes. At some point you have to wonder whether he's honestly all there.
That is not even the worst thing Roger Stone (of the Cruz killed JFK story) has said in the last 48 hours.
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/01/team...herhood_agent/
He's just genuinely stupid, I think. His inherited money meant he was reasonably well advised when it came to business, though even there he started selling a line of steaks exclusively in an electronics shop and a shopping channel, but put him in front of a camera and he's exposed as a div.
John Oliver had a good metaphor for all his horrifying comments. It's a bed of nails. Any one of his comments would kill another candidate, as one nail will go straight through your foot, but because he's constantly at it no single comment stands out enough to really hurt him.
Quote:
Trump Steaks was a brand of steaks owned by Donald Trump that launched in 2007 and were sold at The Sharper Image[1] and QVC.[2][3] Trump was featured on the June 2007 issue of the Sharper Image magazine to promote his then-new brand of steaks, which were billed as the "world's greatest". [4] Prices of the four packages of Trump Steaks varied from $199 to $999.[5] The Sharper Image closed the following year after filing for bankruptcy.[6] The Trump Steaks trademark was canceled in December 2014 according to a trademark search through the United States Patent and Trademark Office.[7]
I don't want this man in charge of economic policies anywhere.Quote:
Steaks from Bush Brothers Provision Co. were on display at Trump's election-night speech on March 8, 2016 during which Trump claimed them to be "Trump Steaks". Trump-branded wine and water were also displayed, as an example of Trump's success in business.[8] Observers there noted the Trump-branded steaks were produced by a butcher in West Palm Beach, Florida.[2] In an interview with Anderson Cooper the following day, Trump explained that he does not process the steaks but instead purchases them from local suppliers before subsequently relabeling them.[8]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyONt_ZH_aw
I agree with the statement. 2/3 of the federal election vote counting machines contributed to the Clinton Foundation and many of these states have fucking bonkers laws which don't require a state ID to vote (because racism). Reuters literally changed their methodology with their polls after it showed Trump winning, there is wide spread suppression on the Internet, the mainstream media is 24/7 anti-Trump propaganda.
Trump is a flawed candidate but he's honest, Hillary is a monster who is undermining the very foundations of our country.
Does he say stupid things: yes, but at least there is a chance that his advisors will keep him in check and his policy proposals are actually pretty moderate, reasonable and urgently necessary. With Hillary the United States as we know it will be finished.
He doesn't just say the odd stupid thing. I challenge you to find one minute of footage during which Donald Trump speaks and doesn't say something either monumentally stupid or blisteringly offensive. Most of what he says is stupid.
How is it undisputed that he's a world class negotiator and deal maker?
If you buy into that image then you're falling for a trick.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/gallery/donald-trump
Most of his children went to UPenn, did serious majors and graduated with honors with the one exception being Eric who went to Georgetown. Say what you like but getting in and graduating from those schools is fucking hard and they don't just let anybody in (the Vice Presidents kids went to schools like DePaul, Northeastern and Purdue). His genetic IQ is definetly high and at the end of the day he won the Primaries with this same approach despite the self-righteous scoffing of the intellectual class. I will suspend judgement until after the election.
If you fall for the image of him being an idiot you are a sheep who is a slave to the manipulation of the elites who are scared to death of a genuine outsider and are doing everything in their power to discredit him.
I remember reading that he'd be worth more if he'd just stuck his inheritance into a blind trust and rode the returns. Also, a place on the rich list isn't proof that you're a world class anything. Half that list is people who inherited companies or bank accounts.
I couldn't give less of a shit where his children went to school. You went to a good school and here we are. He says stupid things constantly. He invented a publicist and then pretended to be that publicist on the phone, without disguising his voice in any way, so that he could boast about all the women he was getting. Those are not the actions of an intelligent man.
I'm not falling for any image. I'm listening to what the man himself has to say and making a judgement based on that. Forget where his children went to school, find me that minute of footage where he doesn't say something utterly ridiculous.
Who's that then? Sorry but I feel the need to fact check any statement you make as every time you've provided any proof of something, it's shown the exact opposite.
edit: Tried to find a source. It was a series of posts from /r/The_Donald and blogs with banners like this one
http://imgur.com/LiTo0VR.png
By the way that picture of him eating KFC with a knife and fork is fucking disgusting. The man looks like one of those rotting shits on the pavement that seems to grow hair.
Toggle Spoiler
Fucking. Gross.
You are cherry picking incidents and repeating misinformation, just like the media wants, to detract from overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That absurd article you're referring to is if Trump hadn't spend a dime in the last 30 years, after he had already made $100 millions, and invested the entirety of his fortune in index bonds (which increased in value %1,400). Sure he could have performed better, just like if my parents had invested all their money in Apple 20 years ago our family would be richer.
How about the millions of dollars Hillary made selling influence with the US government in return for exorbitant 'speaking fees' for Bill? Do you care about that? Please direct even 1/10th of the scrutiny you are giving to Trump to Hillary, there are far more worrisome skeletons in the closet.
I'm not scrutinising Trump. I'm laughing at him, and we've been over this before.
I'm not sure you realise just how stupid, desperate, and pathetic you look every time you shout 'BUT HILLARY' when someone lols at Trump. Found that one minute of footage yet?
I try not to pay too much attention to this, but the outline idea of tariffing the shit out of GM cars (for example) if they choose to make them outside the US and reimport them back in (NAFTA-style) sounds a decent one to me. People always say protectionism is bad, but it depends whose perspective you are looking at it from. From my middle class urbanite perspective getting things as cheaply as possible (ie through use of quasi-slave labour) is great. Or getting 'premium' foreign shit without extra cost could fall into this category as well. Probably not so great if you were one of the people who used to make the things before production went elsewhere. The US automobile market, from a completely uninformed perspective, looks like something that could be self-sustaining through domestic production. They don't export their cars (even if their companies own foreign brands or make cars for elsewhere - you don't see many Ford Fiestas in America) - they re for a domestic market. Make them there and stop the rust belt states falling into irreparable depression. Everything about the US is designed to be self-sufficient in an end of days scenario (it's why they don't bother with their own oil reserves that much). Surely protectionism is only bad if you want to be an export economy and/or you don't have the clout to tell most other countries what to do?
What do Hillary supporters have to do with anything? I'm asking you to provide one minute of footage that shows him speaking without saying anything stupid or ridiculous to back up your assertion that he's not an idiot.
I'll not be voting, so I'll continue to laugh at Trump being a buffoon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36958126
Lol? Has that ever been said by an outgoing president before?
@niko
Essentially, people are too fixated on trade deals and the auto industry. Trade flows follow capital flows. As long as the US is a net importer of capital we will be a net importer of goods. That is a strict national income accounting principle instead of an economic theory. When you have a net inflow of capital you will always reach a point where you have purchased all the domestic goods and have excess capital which will be spent on imports. A simple look at the last four pages of the Economist will prove this; every country with a trade surplus will be exporting capital. Trade deals have nothing to do with it.
Trade deals are typically bad because they are as much about protectionism as free trade. Why should we prioritized an auto worker in Michigan (and fuck the one in North Carolina) and not the waitress in California who has to now pay more for her car? If you try to completely square the circle by improving everyone's wage with protectionism you will ultimately just increase the price level with no real change in underlying wealth. Or you just end up prioritizing certain workers over others most likely for voting reasons. The truth is that every national policy decision creates winners and losers.
Increase corporate taxes or save a bunch of money by removing all the distortionary crap like paying to subsidize McDonald's and Coke overseas ads. Nevada offered Tesla a community college program that trained workers to work in their new facility instead of tax breaks. That's what we should be doing. If welfare is problematic because of disincentives corporate welfare is poison because of the multiplier effect it has on disincentives.
Does anyone remember when Rand 'Rand' Paul donned Trump regarding TPP in a debate?
But then what of the waitresses of Michigan who have no jobs because no one can afford to go to their establishments?
Also, does making the yankee shitmobiles in Mexico make them any cheaper for anyone other than the company themselves? I doubt savings are passed on. Do we just have to accept that there are going to be large scale human casualties as the nature of economies change and, if that is the judgment, is it any wonder that the turkeys might stop voting for Christmas and turn to some populist maniac instead?
We all know how that ended.Quote:
All right, fine. If you want an experienced politician, vote for me. But if you want to believe a bunch of crazy promises about garbagemen washing your cars and emptying your kitty litter, then by all means, vote for this sleazy lunatic.
Donald is imploding these last few days, especially today. It's a sight to behold.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Co29K65WYAA_fwY.jpg
and
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...e-heart-226565
andQuote:
Trump recounted the exchange, remarking that the man, who he identified as retired Lt. Col. Louis Dorfman said, "That's my real Purple Heart. I have such confidence in you."
"And I said, 'Man, that’s like big stuff. I always wanted to get the Purple Heart," Trump said. "This was much easier.”
Trump tells a mom with a crying baby that he loves babies.
Then, moments later, he changes his mind on how he feels about crying babies..
https://twitter.com/nbcnightlynews/s...07533379284992
Brb obsessing about someone misspeaking but not caring that his opponent hasn't given a press conference in nearly a year and engages in open corruption.
lol at the media in 2016
Why don't we hear about the shady connection between Khan and Hillary:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...p-goes-flames/
It doesn't have to end up as Michigan. Pittsburgh moved from its dependence on steel. You are right in that they are shitboxes. An economy built on shitboxes is shit. Let's find somebody who wants to build something else.
Tax the companies making the shitboxes or iPhones or financial services or whatever does get made. Use that to provide a better safety net and training to move to other things. I'm not arguing for the status quo. But we have been propping up the Rust Belt with protectionary policies for decades and the result is always the same. Despite best intentions it has always ended the same with the companies capturing the politicians for fear of votes / jobs. Coal in West Virginia and Tennessee for Republicans and auto for Democrats.
Jobs are being added here in the Southwest and West because we are not trying to force a specific industry. In a five mile radius from where I live we have a new Intel chip fabricator, new Garmin facility, a financial services call center, Go Daddy Tech support, two new hotels, and something I've no clue what it is. 1,200 new jobs in a year, filled in large part by Midwest transplants.
How is any of that relevant to Trump being a cunt about the guy's wife? Unless either his son didn't die fighting for the military or that wasn't actually his wife, none of it deflects anything the Breitbart folk seem to think it does.
It's a bit shady that he was trotted out as some unknown, unconnected Muslim dad if he was actually mega well connected, but then I suppose a moment's thought would tell you there was some connection there.
We gunna pretend like Desi communities aren't incredibly sexist? I had feminists 'PoC' on my newsfeed agreeing with Trump.
How about everyone collectively ignoring when Hillary Clinton called gold star Benghazi mom a liar and the media chastised her for being a political opportunist / a horrible person for 'exploiting / politicizing' her sons death?
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/benghazi-...llary-clinton/
PEOPLE NEED TO WAKE THE FUCK UP.
Protectionist economic policies are shit.
Fuck me, GS makes my point with less words.
Maybe not if you want to win (buy) votes though.
It's not, but this isn't a difficult issue. They're just shit and everybody sensible knows it.
This is like fans of those really shit clubs. Clubs so shit that everybody agrees with how shit they are apart from a vocal minority of brain-damaged fucks because this shit team is all they have.
I'm actually looking at Trump's wikipedia entry on his 2000 campaign. He won two primaries after he'd exited the race (!) and had Oprah Winfrey as his proposed VP. Fuck.
Conservative meme of the day:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...9118fb870e2466
Fuel for the fire.
Here's what he said about the two:Quote:
Katy Tur @KatyTurNBC 25s25 seconds ago
Trump refuses to support Paul Ryan, John McCain in upcoming Republican primaries - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...856_story.html
Quote:
“I’ve never been there with John McCain because I’ve always felt that he should have done a much better job for the vets,” Trump continued. “He has not done a good job for the vets and I’ve always felt that he should have done a much better job for the vets. So I’ve always had a difficult time with John for that reason, because our vets are not being treated properly. They’re not being treated fairly.”
That last bolded part is exactly what Ryan said leading up to him endorsing Trump. This is the pettiest shit I've ever seen. He has to be a Clinton plant.Quote:
“I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country,” Trump said. “We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. I’m not quite there yet.”
I don't see how anyone sensible can continue to excuse his actions.
It's a perfectly fair position to say that you're supporting him because, say, you would prefer his Supreme Court nominations. Or because you just hate Hillary Clinton that much. But there's surely no way one can excuse his stupid policies, crass behaviour or self-evident extreme hubris.
Why isn't Trump allowed to treat other people how he's treated?
More fun details overlooked by the mainstream media, turns out our buddy Khizr Khan wrote extensively in favor of Sharia law, you know the one where women are 2nd class citizens, men can have 4 wives, homosexuals and adulterers should be executed, the punishment for robbery is amputation, etc:
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presid..._medium=social
This is the Democrats hero...could you imagine if a prominent speaker at the RNC had written an academic article condoning slavery because of the supremacy of the Bible over man-man law? The media is completely orchestrated, this is worse than the Soviet Union, because at least there people knew they weren't free.Quote:
“The Shari’ah-was completed during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammed, in the Quran and Sunnah. This brings up an important fact which is generally overlooked, that the invariable and basic rules of Islamic Law are only those prescribed in the Shari’ah (Quran and Sunnah), which are few and limited,” Khan continues to write. “All other juridical works which have been written during more than thirteen centuries are very rich and indispensable, but they must always be subordinated to the Shari’ah and open to reconsideration by all Muslims.”
Because he's putting himself forward to be President of the United States and you can't have someone who feels the need to react every time someone baits him. It's fine if you're some TV celebrity with a questionable hair-do - it's quite another when you're the leader of the free world. It suggests he doesn't have the temperament.
On your second point, it's largely irrelevant in the context of what he said. You're just trying to excuse things which you know you should be condemning.
It's not so much excusing as much as exposing the hypocrisy of the media. It's just so exasperating / frustrating...people are being kept deliberately blind to the Truth...Trump is a poor candidate but these people are existential threats to democracy as we know it and literally destroying the country while they personally benefit...
Anyways, I just want my SCOTUS nominees man.
The media are shit, but the unfortunate truth here is that they're just reporting what Trump says. He's exposing himself, rather than it being any sort of media conspiracy. I grant you that they're getting stuck in with a certain glee, but that's hardly surprising given the long list of shit he's coming out with. He's complaining about the heat from the fire whilst he throws armfuls more kindling on every day.
That said, it's a perfectly valid position to want him to win for SCOTUS nominations. I can certainly understand it. But you know you're trying to condone shit that you wouldn't with anybody else. I assume you're trying to positively reinforce the idea, to yourself, that it would be alright to vote for him, even though he's an awful candidate because the direction of SCOTUS is more important in the long-run than what he does in office before he'd inevitably lose in four years.
That quote on John McCain's a fun one. Aside from having Oprah as his VP, his 2000 cabinet picks included the very sensible Colin Powell as Secretary of State and John McCain as Secretary of Defense.
That is a slanderous lie invented out of whole cloth by the right. Who apparently don't understand what a "research article" is. Quelle surprise.
He wrote an article explaining Islamic law in his capacity as an expert in international trade law. That's it.Quote:
ThinkProgress says the article is “less of an article and more of a fever dream of conspiracies strung together,” but it barely qualifies as that. The entire cockamamie conspiracy theory is based on the fact that Khan, who is a specialist in international and trade law, published an article more than three decades ago in a major law journal explaining the structure of Islamic law, including its sources and historical development. And one of the people whose work he cites in that article, Said Ramadan of the Islamic Center of Geneva and also a well-known legal scholar, is allegedly a “major icon of the Muslim Brotherhood.” That’s it. From that, they actually imply that Capt. Humayun Khan was a “double agent for Al-Qaeda.”
Seriously. You'll believe anything.
Are you literally retarded? Read the quotes from the article, THERE ARE DIRECT QUOTES, no it's not a conspiracy, here are two particularly shocking ones:
"All juridical works...must always be subordinated to the Shari’ah and open to reconsideration by all Muslims.” And, "the Quran being the very word of God, it is the absolute authority from which springs the very conception of legality and every legal obligation."
What does that fucking sound like? He directly states that Sharia Law should supersede Man made law. You're a pathetic shill.
But The Truth!
Those are true statements about how Islamic law works from the perspective of within. They're not endorsements. I would say the same if I were describing Islamic law. Those are precepts of the system, and to understand how it works, you need to understand those foundations.
You do understand that research papers in international law journals typically aren't accepted if they're "iSlamic LaW is gr8 yo", right?
It is interesting to see the scattergun approach taken by Trump's band when some mud finally starts to stick, mind.
You do realize that I'm on a law journal? You write in an argumentative tone in 'research papers' and take a definitive position that you then defend. It's also published by the Law School of the University of Houston (LOL) hardly the most prestigious or legitimate source for international law articles; they would 100% publish a hip trendy pro Sharia-law article to show the world how open minded, tolerant and brave they are.
But please tell me more abut how law school works though.
Then you'll appreciate that this is a desperate attempt to discredit someone who has actually hit Trump's numbers and Republican support.
This paper was just a report on the basis and history of Islamic law in the context of international trade. I presume you have access to journal materials, so you can look at the article itself to see this context. It's not secret - I have institutional access to it, and I have to assume you do too. It's an incredibly dry article, largely about positioning Islamic law within historical context, and how that affects interactions at an international law level. :sorry:
Mind you, Trump is so obviously in the wrong here that even his own side are hanging him out to dry.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/trum...n-controversy/
It's not working though. Republican politicians know that this one is toxic. They're not touching it, because they don't want to hit their election chances. McCain and Ryan have directly criticised his statements.Quote:
Rob Wasinger, a onetime congressional candidate who has been working for the Trump camp on congressional outreach, sent an email to senior Senate aides saying, “We want to get several member statements out today on this, and would really appreciate your help.”
A similar appeal was made to Republicans in the House of Representatives, according to a senior aide.
LOL...you just cited Rawstory to prove a point...and I'm the one grasping for straws?
I don't have access to the article and commentary I'm seeing is in-line with my interpretation of the quotes provided in the Breitbart article.
Again...that's not how research articles work and regardless he's incontrovertibly incorporated in some overtly political statements about the supremacy of Shari'ah that are mainstream views among the Muslim community.
Harold vs Toby > Mert vs Ital
Mert definitely reached Harold status in this thread a long time ago. Why Ital (or anyone else) is giving his words any thought is sort of beyond me.
The Romney and Kasich strategists really are the best at this stuff. I don't think anyone hates Trump quite like they do.
https://mobile.twitter.com/stuartpst...28769471119360
I do know that they're a partisan source (not as openly willing to fabricate as Brietbart, but still). That's why I only pulled the direct quote, and omitted any editorialising. Feel free to interpret the quote differently. But it's hard to see it as anything other than the Trump camp looking for anyone at all to support them on this. And given the chilly response from members of the Senate and Congress on the matter, it got the reception it deserved.
How's the weight loss going?
The best bit is that if Trump just waited out a news cycle, the whole thing would have been gone. Throw out a couple of platitudes, support the troops, etc., nothing to see here. It's only his thin skin that forced him to respond at all in the first place.
It'll still be superseded by other topics as the race goes on, but it's quite telling.
What even started this whole Constitution waving dead muslim soldier thing?
Mert's played it about as well as the Donald by the looks of things. You can tell by the article's title it's going to be nothing more than a dry historical/functional narrative. Is it the era of clickbait which has lead to the proliferation of such wildly misleading headlines? Business Insider is one of the worst for it. You do have to wonder if anyone reads much beyond the headline and the first line of editorial these days. I can just see the gleeful intern charging into Donald's war room with this little gem.
There is a case to be made for bias in media coverage, but it's daft to try and manufacture outrage against individuals (in a perceived attempt to fight fire with fire).
Can only imagine what Trump would do with Supreme Court nominations. He'd probably put his daughter forward.
In other interesting U.S. Political news, the Kansas legislature that had been putting all those top, top GOP plans to work like getting rid of entitlements and welfare services and replacing it by cutting taxes on high level earners and businesses have just been ousted by... GOP moderates.
It's well worth a look at the state of Kansas at the moment, very interesting results.
Good ideas, implementation had to be much more gradual. I'm close friends with the son of somebody who's a big deal in Kansas politics...Kansas just needs a few years for the reforms to bare fruit there are already unprecedented shifts in investment / business expansion...but yeah it's pretty grim right about now.
Until he comes out and states that he hasn't actually said that, I'm going to believe it to be true.Quote:
Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can't we use them.
Reddit said it better than I can: "All of the stupid, insensitive, neurotic, insane garbage he has spouted off with in the last couple of days is absolutely inconsequential in light of and compared to this. You have someone that wants to be president who legitimately doesn't understand why we cannot simply rain apocalyptic hellfire on people he doesn't like. This is unforgivable. It's insanity. Voting for trump is explicitly a vote against a stable global environment."
Eh, I've never taken anything to come out of Joe Scarbroughs mouth at face-value. Morning Joe was also one of the shows that gave him the air-time he needed to launch his campaign when no-one took him seriously and now The Donald slags them off as much as possible so I'd rather here it from this Foreign Policy Advisor (which will never, ever, ever, happen)
Like I said in the other thread. As the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki become historical paragraphs rather than remembered events, someone's eventually going to drop another one. It only takes one bad decision.
The use of nuclear weapons should be treated with such gravity that those comments (if he said them) alone should totally disqualify him from any right-thinking individual's voting list. And I would say that about any potential political leader, irrespective of their other political stances. They could be a progressive hero, but if they were to demonstrate a cavalier attitude towards nuclear weaponry, I couldn't in good conscience support them.
EDIT: One thing that does ring true is the idea that Trump would ask the same question three times in a single one hour briefing. :D
It's a good question. 'Consideration of the use of any weapon is always implicit in the very possession of that weapon', said the Truman White House.
When would you advocate their use, Ital?
It is America. The utterly egregious act of eating fried chicken with a knife and fork will do him in. Honestly, there shouldn't be debates. A Voight - Kampf test is all that is needed.
If anything, he is downplaying McCain in regards to veteran benefits.
He's not going to win anyway, but I suspect this week represents 'peak wanker'. There's no further depths for him to lower himself to, you'd expect.
Mark my words: he will win.
Most Americans no longer trust the mainstream media. This week has been a coordinated attack in response to the horror of Trump briefly dominating the polls. People are smarter than that.
Lol at thinking people are smart enough to not blindly take in the mainstream news but not smart enough to vote for a horrible cunt like Trump.
Have they just stopped trusting the media since yesterday when PEOPLE NEEDED TO WAKE UP, or is this just another example of you saying whatever suits the point you're making at the time, regardless of how many prior statements it contradicts?
Trump was exceptionally kind to have a go at the mother of a dead soldier on national television at the precise moment the media wanted to attack him.
I've just googled Trump nuclear unpredictability and got these:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ear-weapons-a/
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...m-muslim-world
http://time.com/4437089/donald-trump...weapons-nukes/
So, it's kind of a mixed bag. He sounds like he at least wants to threaten ISIS with one which, I'm sure you'll agree, will cause an everlasting negative legacy between the US and the Arab world.
https://twitter.com/noonanjo
There's a very good thread on there on the nuclear deterrent.
He's such good value.
He's being a bit dramatic, but the military would just ignore 'The Donald' if he rang them up wanting to flatten somewhere stupid for something stupid. What would he do, call them out on Twitter?
He'd be the commander in chief (fucking hell).
Imagine the constitutional crisis if the military refused to follow orders because they thought he was fucking bonkers. :drool:
They wouldn't, unfortunately. The military establishment is naturally very hawkish (by virtue of their organizational structure). They're usually quite bonkers themselves - I read a good paper on organization systems theory that detailed the plans of action proposed by each of like 3 or 4 sectors of govt in response to the Bay of Pigs crisis, and the army generals consistently suggested the most bellicose approaches. They love to escalate, so they would probably take to Trump in a heartbeat. Which is pretty demoralizing.
If that was the case (which it wouldn't be), it probably wouldn't even go that far. He would need the Secretary of Defense to agree to any nuclear orders, and, assuming he has to have at least a few competent people around him, there is scope within the Constitution for mental Presidents to be declared unfit to command if a majority of the Cabinet thinks they've lost it.
Assuming that a Trump inauguration goes off without somebody capping him.
http://a57.foxnews.com/images.foxnew....jpg?ve=1&tl=1
Darn liberal media.
The authoritarian fears are all overblown. The real danger is that he is temperamentally unsuited to be head of state. I would imagine Twitter wars with generals, Congress, or the Supreme Court. His interviews and press conferences are all extemporaneous and it is odd what he remembers. He flubs what could be a good attack on Ukraine by messing up details and ruins it. He remembers four to five sentences of what Ryan said verbatim because it was a personal affront.
There will be a mass shooting, terrorist attack, police involved violence, political gridlock, or even a natural disaster. He has never displayed an attempt at anything other than blaming, bragging, dominance, or delagitimizing. His response to that is the worry.
Nice to see that they finally turned on Brownback in Kansas.
https://newrepublic.com/article/1195...as-become-hell
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...17-column.htmlQuote:
By June of 2014, the results of Brownback’s economic reforms began to come in, and they weren’t pretty. During the first fiscal year that his plan was in operation, which ended in June, the tax cuts had produced a staggering loss in revenue—$687.9 million, or 10.84 percent. According to the nonpartisan Kansas Legislative Research Department, the state risks running deficits through fiscal year 2019. Moody’s downgraded the state’s credit rating from AA1 to AA2; Standard & Poor’s followed suit, which will increase the state’s borrowing costs and further enlarge its deficit.
Brownback had also promised that his tax cuts would vault Kansas ahead of its higher-taxed neighbors in job growth, but that, too, failed to happen. In Kansas, jobs increased by 1.1 percent over the last year, compared with 3.3 percent in neighboring Colorado and 1.5 percent in Missouri. From November to May, Kansas had actually lost jobs, and the labor participation rate was lower than when Brownback took office. The cuts did not necessarily slow job growth, but they clearly did not accelerate it. And the effects of Brownback’s education cuts were also glaring—larger class sizes, rising fees for kindergarten, the elimination of arts programs, and laid-off janitors and librarians.
Tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts. Turns out that when you slice $630 million out of the budget, you can't afford to pay for things like schools. Who knew.Quote:
The Congressional Joint Economic Committee reported earlier this year that Kansas had just 9,400 new private-sector jobs in 2015 (out of 2.6 million nationwide). U.S. Department of Commerce data show that, prior to Brownback's tax cuts, Kansas ranked 12th in the nation in personal income growth; after the tax cuts it fell to 41st.
Somehow this will be spun into a successful trickle-down conservative utopia, but it's going to really take some solid blinkering to make it happen.
Never ever first. I honestly can't think of a situation where I would be alright with being the first party in a conflict to drop a nuclear weapon.
I think there can be reasonable disagreement on this. I don't think that someone with a cavalier attitude who doesn't appreciate the gravity of the discussion should be permitted to get within state lines of the launch codes. Even if you think there are situations where a nuclear first strike is the correct course of action, you shouldn't ever see it as an easy decision.
If the best argument is "maybe someone smarter will do something drastically unprecedented in order to stop me from doing something stupid hopefully", it doesn't instil much in the way of courage.
Trump refused to endorse Ryan or McCain.
Civil War :drool:
He's going to have some serious bother getting together a cabinet at this rate.
Trump's spokeswoman reckons the Khan boy was killed because of military changes made by Obama.
Dig up!
Obama was still Senator for Change in 2006.
I'd say it's unlike me to get my dates wrong but that's quite evidently not true.
http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/poli...ps-crowds.html
Murica :cool:
Tempted to get 'Trump 16' on my new LUFC home shirt.
http://imgur.com/RObl0Uk.png
http://imgur.com/0MwMUyJ.png
GOSH DARN LIBERAL MEDIA LIARS
It was always a bit hit 'n' miss, but Breitbart is a full-going embarrassment these days. I blame 'Milo'.
This is an interesting idea, although you would probably have to limit it to people over seventy to stop 'active' historians using every crisis to validate whatever shite they write about (plus lol Niall Ferguson mate as if they would invite you you Scottish meathead).
I loled.
Odds on every single one of those being other white property billionaires?
At least a few are Jewish.
Harold Ham, Howard Lobster, Steven Munching? He was probably just hungry when that team was assembled.
And it includes a guy named Barrak so back off the poor Donald.
This election is insane. The good Dr. Jill Stein is pandering to anti-vaxxers to get 2%. The former Counter Punch enthusiast Sanders is a New Deal Democrat. The Democrats are left leaning Rockefeller Republicans. The Reagan Republicans are either stunned, screaming "I fucking told you so", or are holding their nose while pretending the Trumpkins are not actually the Dixiecrats.
Nothing in my life has prepared me for a day when state polls come out in Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina with not simply a Democrat but Hillary in front. It can't hold up but I never thought I'd see a single poll like that.
A former Acting Director of the CIA has an op-Ed in the NYT basically saying Trump is so stupid that he is essentially a co-opted Putin asset.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/05....co/3gp7CiaqTf
If you believe any of those polls and take anything published in the NYT in 2016 seriously, then I feel sorry for you.
North Carolina was almost entirely a Democrat dominated state until like 2008, so you have no idea what you're talking about.
Two Democratic winners since 1968.
Remember, people. Always fact check what Mert has to say.
Or just ignore it.
It was a list of things that make me think "What?"
He won't off himself. He'll just do some crunches in the basement whilst crying. "Mert, you can come out. That Alpha Female has our best interests at heart."
He'll pretend he didn't even like him that much anyway.
The pussy liberal media won't let Trump win anyway.
Mert was similarly bullish before 2012. Properly on board the poll-unskewing lunacy that infected the Republicans that time around. He spun out on election night, but picked himself up and dusted himself off for 2016. He'll be fine.
I'm more curious about what Trump will do if he loses. If Clinton goes down, she'll go quietly. But Trump just can't let any slight pass, let alone the biggest, most ego-bruising rejection he'll have ever experienced. He'll at least put out a call to civil war and/or secession.
Look at state offices buddy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...111304276.html
"Republicans hold the North Carolina Senate for the first time since 1870 and the Minnesota Senate for the first time ever."
Ask Sebo if he has a spare room.
He has already laid the groundwork for being able to call foul play on the election. I actually think that that's his dream scenario. Lose by 0.5% and claim that the powers that be rigged it. Hard to do if he gets "BTFO" by 7% though.
Great new visualization by 538:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...32/Capture.PNG
Apparently both the Republicans and Democrats are reducing their operations in Colorado and Virginia, as they're seen as pretty close to safe. The picture suggests that all the Democrats need to get is Pennsylvania and Nevada, while the Republicans pretty much need to run the table of swing states.
Lots of time left to go, but it's always instructive to watch where the campaigns are sending the money.
Have you seen this? https://medium.com/welcome-to-the-sc...932#.2a93vmfd8
I immediately thought of it when I saw this post but couldn't remember what it was called.
Yeah. I thought it covered that lot quite well, although he probably deserves more credit for exploiting that gamer shit and 'Daddy' how he has (even if none of it seems particularly sustainable).
Is that Laurie Penny article any good or is it just her usual shit?
It pins down Mert pretty well too.
I see Trump has had a MASSIVE go at Japan, not apparently recognising it's quite an important alliance for the Americans.
You have to laugh.
That reminds of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj9dA6E3fJw
I would love to marry her and spend the rest of my life showing her up.
Its the marriage all of us want. Bollocks to some Victoria Coren-inflicted intellectual pit.
The level of smugness in the Coren Mitchell household would be so potent that the building would evaporate the second you lit a match.
'Can we not have one dinner party without you having to "guess the benders"?'
'Was I right?'
'.....'
'Who holds a fork like that?'
'.....'
'Seriously. You should blog about it.'
She's definitely shameful lustage. Although I'm not even all that ashamed.
Nothing shameful at all. I'd go all day on those tits.
Polls are still close despite what the dishonest media would have you believe, taking into account the Shy Tory effect Trump would probably win an election if it was held today:
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/08/0...e-nearly-tied/
No, he wouldn't.
http://www.welovetheiraqiinformation...7-minister.jpg
Picking the one poll you like the most in a pool of contradictory ones is not sound statistical methodology. That said, the polls are going to narrow massively before the election, and it looks like the party has brought him to heel slightly, managing to get endorsements out of him.
Registered voters vs Likely voters; that's why the race is also nearly tied in the LA Times tracking poll.
How mad are you going to be when he wins?
I don't live there. It's kind of not my problem. My only real investment is the actual risk of an honest-to-god nuclear war, but as long as they hide the nuclear codes from him, it won't really affect me all that much.
How mad are you going to be if he loses? Walk through the fallout with us.
Hillary is a closet moderate, it wouldn't be that bad tbh, if it wasn't for the SCOTUS nominees and if she would commit fully to free trade I would give it serious consideration.
What's your concern with her likely SCOTUS nominations? Second amendment and Roe v Wade?
I don't know if I asked this or not, but I meant to either way - is Barry's supreme court nomination still on the table or has that been fully dismissed? Wasn't he fairly mainstream? The grand old wankers might want to think about him for fear of losing all arms of the government in the next 4 years and ending up with multiple young lesbian ethnics ruining their judicial dreams for the forever..
The Senate have so far refused to hold confirmation hearings. He was quite middle of the road too, so if Clinton wins and Trump takes half the down ticket races with him they could end up completely shafting themselves.
It's probably personal where it's Obama, mind you. The Republicans in Congress are complete wankers.
Hahahahaha
Oh God why would you encourage him
It's fine when he's keeping it to one thread, plus it's genuinely interesting to see a real-life Trump voter. It's like visiting a zoo.
Is he a Trump voter or is he just never going to vote Democrat?
Both. There's a third party conservative candidate now, alongside 50 Republican security officials who've released an open letter which effectively calls him dangerous and not fit for office.
He's metastasized to other threads recently
r/thedonald is a good laugh though.
Donald Trump wants to expand libel laws to encourage public officials to sue the media. He wants to use religion as a restricting measure for immigration (a far greater threat to religious liberty than any wedding cake). He has come out explicitly in favour of methods known to be cruel and unusual punishment. You can absolutely agree with those stances, but all three of them clearly contravene the US constitution as it stands.
Trump clearly has no understanding of, nor regard for, the US constitution.
http://www.politico.eu/article/donal...s-us-politics/
http://time.com/4320105/donald-trump-u-s-constitution/
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpYa-bVUEAA1X8s.jpgQuote:
darice fisher @daricefisher 1h1 hour ago
#ManyPeopleAreSaying he's just standing, nothing to say. maybe wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.
:D
This is one sentence
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpbSlYPXgAArNvx.jpg
If this guy becomes President, language is dead.
Doesn't that very much depend on how you choose to punctuate what is presumably a spoken answer?
It is just rambling nonsense, mind.
Hence the en-dashes? It's still not a sentence.
You could probably punctuate that differently and throw some full stops in. It's his inability to keep his mind on one topic for more than ten seconds that's far more worrying than his sentence structure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcxkkrNSv-4
This is pretty fucking horrible, even for him.
Don't worry about it, dude. Ignore the fact that he implied that someone would/could/should assassinate her for appointing people she is both mandated and obligated to. It's the DISHONEST MEDIA.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpcXjWiXEAAgmAG.jpg
By the way '2nd amendment people' is the dumbest thing I've heard in a while.
:D (at the video)
He'd be great value if he wasn't terrifying, like the harbinger of the end of days.
But that campaign statement is factually wrong since he talked about it after the fact that she's won. It's an actual comment on assassinating either Hillary or the SC nominees.
That's what the 2nd amendment is all about though.
Living in Arizona and watching the Olympics it is wall to wall Hillary commercials like:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U8qUhXzr43o
And
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mrX3Ql31URA
I don't even know what Trump's ads look like. He is not even really pretending to run a proper campaign. It is such an odd election.
The second ad would be much better if it didn't have Hillary speaking at the end of it, but it's still quite effective I would imagine.
@jefftiedrich
Republicans should be forced to carry their candidates to term. Even when the life of the party is in danger.
:D
You'd probably see his ads if you watched the nascar.
You are right. There is a shortened version of that which fits in the 45 second spot that is much more effective. Our campaign rules are so utterly insane that some require the candidate to speak to differentiate them from dark money ads.
I don't know, abortion to me is a lot more ambiguous than most issues. If it's legal to get an abortion after a certain amount of time and illegal after that, an arbitrary line has been drawn (I don't think that science has really figured out exactly when the foetus becomes 'human') and I don't like arbitrary lines being drawn. At the same time, people are going to get abortions anyways so you might as well have it out in the open where it's safer.
Well, you need an arbitrary line in this case. There's a point at which, medically, the foetus can't survive outside the womb even with the best medical care. I assume science can pin this down within a fortnight or so (22-24 weeks, presumably). Just take the lower part, cut a month off and say that after, say, 18 weeks you're down to your standard caveats like rape, incest, risk to life of the mother.
The above strikes me as a sensible way of compromising on the issue, but of course any suggestion that the cut off point should be looked at would be anathema to the women's rights groups.
I believe life begins at conception, by the way - but far be it from me to impose my view of that on everybody else.
I thought it was a good joke. Still, the OUTRAGE gets that Orlando bloke off the news cycle.
Ital, mate, we've seen the video. We're briefed.
Yep. I'd hung around on the page too long and hadn't seen the update. Deleted. :nodd:
Seriously though, it was a suggestion at assassination. It's beyond the pale. I want to hear his supporters (mert?) justify the statement. Preferably with something less obviously desperate than the official release.
@Lewis That was clearly a joke but he is not running for Jon Stewart's old job. I think I would be equally offended with Boris if he were running here. It is not really a policy issue. I don't want some silly spoiled brat who feels like playing at government 2 days a month. Being a liberal Southerner and hearing someone sound like George Wallace pre-conversion doesn't help either.
@GS I'm not sure about Roe v. Wade in the US. It is nearly impossible to untangle because the pro-life camp is very loud and a significant portion of pro-choice people find abortion deeply troubling.
@nico I'm from Louisiana; there is no the in NASCAR. Unlike DC exburg wannabe's I know proper political debate covers whether you dunk or crumble your cornbread into your potlikker, whether crowder peas or zipper beans make the best field peas, and that if you go to either a crawfish boil in St Charles or an oyster bake in Charleston the proper beverage is beer, in a can. Joking aside, the NeverTrumpers on Twitter have a massive Republican campaign consultant base who delight in bashing not just what he says but how the campaign is run. According to them his campaign is disastrously run. No clue how accurate they are but they are hilarious.
It's a disgraceful comment, but his numbers are going to bottom out soon in the sense that there's a core of voters who will vote for him regardless. Maybe it's Lewis' 30% rule, but he's starting to tank across the board.
Barring some sort of outside event, he doesn't have a hope of winning.
I find it deeply troubling and deeply uncomfortable, but I'm still pro-choice in the context of the legal framework for it.
I can't imagine there is much appetite for actually over-turning it, outside the evangelical vote.
The polls will almost certainly narrow before the election, mind. They always do.
Although this election has defied political wisdom so far, so who knows?
EDIT: The smartest thing Trump could have done would have been to shut his mouth during the Olympics and let his bad last week be eaten by the new cycle. Saying stupid stuff in the Olympic buffer zone is a bad plan.
This isn't a conventional election. He can't get through a week without doing something that would ruin any other candidate. In the absence of a wide field to bury his stupidity in, he's just going to be continually exposed as not up to it. The media will be relentless, and he'll continue lashing out.
There's some discussion he may not turn up to the debates. It might be for the best, given the disaster that could unfold if he did turn up.
I'm were you are but I think at the polls it would be close because our side would have a depressed turnout and they would have an enthusiastic one.
Democrats will surely have solid turnout - not only for the presidency (stopping Trump at a minimum) but also given the congressional elections are on the same day.
Capitalising on Trump's negatives downticket might see them make a serious indent in the Republican majorities in the Senate / House, although you suspect they'd struggle to overturn them. Still, it's their best opportunity since 2008 to do so, and you'd expect their ground game to be quite good if they're ripping off the Obama model that worked so well in 2008 and 2012.
If anything, I'd expect Republicans (of the sane variety) to be less enthused about going to the polls as they'll want to vote for neither Trump nor Clinton.
My comment was a response to you on abortion. Same metric you are applying to the race but I think magnified on a single issue basis.
Personally, I think there won't be that much movement in Congress unless Trump continues to commit suicide and Republicans don't disavow him. They need to do it sooner rather than later.
@ItalAussie Trump sucks but that clearly wasn't a suggestion of assassination, he was just telling "Second Amendment People" that voting for him could avoid the tragic abolition of rights etc etc. I actually think it's insane that anybody has construed his words to mean that he suggested assassination. Don't want to play down to the level of his mindless devotees, but that's really grasping at straws.
@Spoonsky I totally agree. I'm in favor of right to choice only because it's the safer option in the long run, but there are serious issues with it. I personally find abortion reprehensible and for good reason, imo
The context of that line in his speech is that they need to make sure Trump wins, because once Clinton is elected, there's nothing they can do to stop her. Except the second amendment types.
That's clearly not just a reference to their devoted character.
I don't think is campaigning for Clinton's assassination, though. I just think he says whatever idiot thing pops into his head. I mean, he's not wrong. That would indeed be a (reprehensible) way to stop Clinton once she was elected. It's just not an idea that should be encouraged.
Oh yeah it doesn't put him in a good light, but it shouldn't be cause for consternation other than "he can't give a real speech".
It is exactly what disqualifies him. He is applying for a job where your words matter. How about an offhand joke during a financial crisis? Any possible consequence? Or next time we have a police involved shooting? Or .... Every word he says has the potential to matter if elected.
Trump vocalises whatever half-assed idea flits into his mind. He's giving us an unfiltered view into his scatty and ill-considered thought processes.
But then he says it out loud it and it has to become policy, because it's that or back down. I mean, that's clearly how we wound up with the whole "we're gonna build a wall" thing. In no planet is that anything other than a silly idea suggested by someone who thought about situation for all of seven seconds. But then he said it, and because he's never backed down from something in his life, it had to stick.
I think Mert has gone into hiding. Come on mate, you said Trump was needed to stop the rot in Western society and that he is the Truth. You must have an easy answer for Trump's video.
In fairness, mert does have a job which I imagine can be quite demanding at times.
Losing weight?
http://www.cracked.com/blog/trump-wr...ow-which-ones/
I know it's weird to be citing cracked.com as a source of political journalism, but they struck upon an interesting trend in Trump's tweets. It's speculation, of course, and they don't present it as anything otherwise.
The theory is that if it came from an Android, it's Trump, while if it came from an iPhone, it's a campaign stooge. It's very interesting what they dug out of that. Tweets in the two different classes seem to be markedly different in character and lucidity.
Cracked just stole this guys work and made it less comprehensive
https://www.r-bloggers.com/text-anal...-android-half/
The "polls are skewed" narrative being wheeled out by desperate Trump fans is pretty hilarious, although it's making 538 super annoyed.
Can I get a bet on Trump to carry no states at all?
Sounds impossible but Walter Mondale almost managed it.
Sturdy, dependable, unbending.
I'd vote for the chair.
Clinton is not Reagan and it is not really a national race. Trump will win at least 15 - 20 states. Better long odds bet would be Trump dropping out.
I'd favour that as well. He's got his pride but, at some point he'll say something impossible to come back from.
My bet is that he'll call her a cunt during one of the debates.
Oh, and she's 52/37 among likely voters in Wisconsin. I don't understand how Donald hopes to turn this around.
A few swing-districts with the last election to compare with:
CA-10: Clinton+6 (Obama+3)
CA-25: Clinton+25 (Romney+2)
CO-6: Clinton+14 (Obama+3)
FL-7: Clinton+14 (tied)
FL-26: Clinton+24 (Obama+11)
IL-10: Clinton+31 (Obama+16)
MN-3: Clinton+24 (Obama+1)
Again, this was always going to happen. There's nowhere for him to hide, and the media are going after him relentlessly. There's no way to avoid it in the heat of a presidential campaign when you're the party nominee - everything comes out.
He needs to avoid the debates, because he doesn't have the message discipline not to say something inflammatory and / or be outright misogynistic.
2%, lads.
Isn't that basically the margin of error?
It's a shit sample size, but 2% for fuck sake.
He's also starting to lose white republican women - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us...gop-women.html
He's basically going to be reliant on the angry white man vote. He's not going to do a Mondale, but the electoral college / popular vote could look quite unpleasant.
It'll be great if one of his kid's defects.
Ivanka's speech could've just as easily been held at the DNC. She's well-spoken and looks good, so if she stays in the background during all of this I could see her being politically successful in the future if she wants to.
Trump saying Obama literally founded ISIS. :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSE-XoVKaXg
Alright, mate.
He has such an unnervingly small, bitey mouth.
Reports are that the Republicans are seriously considering giving him up as a bad job, and focusing on downticket races instead. They won't (they're cowards), but with things like this, you can see why they'd consider it.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...t-out-the-vote
The Democrats have a particularly effective operation in place to get voters to the polls on voting day. Apparently this isn't something that Trump considers to be of value. I assume that will be out of Trump's hands in the end, but still. Bit crazy.
Yesterday he "bragged" that he only has 80 staffers compared to Hillarys 1000.
He really doesn't understand how elections and turnout works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXDe8HxHBA
That's enough internet for today...
Trump is going to absolutely whomp Clinton in votes per dollar spent so really he's the moral victor.
So, Manafort is being paid by the Russians, and Ivanka is vacationing in Europe with Putin's girlfriend.
Is this real life?
The worst part is in theory this is a good shout.. considering power vacuum blah blah blah... but the idiot kept repeating "no literally. i literally mean he is the founder." and the guy says "No, you mean figuratively, surely?" and THE DON is all "No no, LITERALLY he founded ISIS."
He doesn't want to win, the cunt.
I almost feel sorry for erstwhile Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson. Her job description seems to be "say something so stupid we forget what Trump just said." Upon reflection, while that takes some doing, she seems up for the task.
Now she is being attacked for her incorrect use of literally. A mistake that virtually every American makes. Hopefully, a huge amount of the $62 million Trump spent on neither campaign ads or offices last month go to her because she has to be unemployable after this campaign.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoePertic...955776/video/1
Trump spending campaign funds on push polls because the media polls are too biased. The poll simply attacks the media. He is not even really attacking Clinton anymore and is just lashing out at whoever criticizes him, which is currently the media. I wonder if the Clinton camp is at all confused at what to do when your opponent does not campaign. Here are the questions:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JSwiftTWS...04721602879488
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedAndrew/s...54440085577728
Rudy ffs, you were mayor of NYC on 9/11. :face:
Noun verb 9/11.
I wonder if mert's given up on the cause.
Trump underperforming Romney more in red states than blue states.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bcburden/...18345989746688
For all that it seems amusingly one-sided at the moment, it's worth remembering that the polls will definitely narrow as the election nears.
Clinton is constrained by her unfavorables; all that traffic could just go to Johnson, Stein, and McMullin. Trump's lack of a campaign may mean he wins at worst 15-20 states instead of 20-25. We have only had three terms once in about 75 years, I can't imagine it is a blowout.
It would be the first Democratic three-termer since FDR (which extended into a five-termer with FDR / Truman), although the Republicans have only had Reagan / Bush 41 as a three-termer since the war.
I can't see anyway Clinton doesn't win barring "events" outside both candidates' control prompting a massive shift. Another 9/11, for example, where security becomes the only thing people are prepared to vote on.
No, but you would expect 'Murica would swing more behind the Republicans if security became the overwhelming 'swing' criterion.
Soccer moms. Never ever fuck with soccer moms. How does a grown man in America not know this?
Utah has to be the one at the far end. AZ must be close for the same reason. That is built on 538's polls only data which only uses state polls as well. The sample size for everything from Idaho to the Dakotas always appears to be 4 people in eastern Oregon.
The only way it's swinging behind Trump is if tasteless golf hotels become the main campaign issue.
He's just switched his campaign team around again.
He's hired Breitbart to run his campaign. Wonder if mert's put his hand up.
Did you see that Breitbart started their own polling to counter THE BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA polls only to find Clinton up by 5 points?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CqEHGVmWgAA9SzR.jpg
Holy fuck. :|
This is why Ted Cruz will be the main man once these lot get humped.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy Giuliani out of 9/11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8
$100 says he's offered Ivanka to him at some point.
PublicPolicyPolling
@ppppolls
We'll release rest of our TX poll this PM but here's a preview. 50% support building a wall with Mexico, 7% support building one w/ Oklahoma
:D
Dishonest media are pretty funny at least.
Trump down .6 in online LA Times poll while trailing in traditional polls:
http://cesrusc.org/election/
Lol if you buy into the dishonest media at this point after they've been exposed time and time again.
...?
I don't know but please more talk about polls.
Historical bias in polling:
http://i2.wp.com/espnfivethirtyeight...ll&w=575&ssl=1
It's actually quite interesting.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...t-intelligence
Trump doesn't want to use US intelligence agencies. Presumably he'll rely on the Russians or something. He's teetering on the deep end now.Quote:
“Very easy to use them, but I won't use them, because they’ve made such bad decisions,”
Hopefully this change of campaign management (you know, because it's going so super well that Trump was getting bored) frees him up to be the unmitigated lunatic asshole he clearly wants to be.
What are the polls saying?
Best part of election season has happened. If you like older documentaries PBS has started replaying their American president series. Probably much more rah rah cheerleading than I remember but they've got from Kennedy to Clinton online.
I just enjoy when Trump runs his mouth and winds up saying something mind-bendingly stupid. I know nothing he says is thought-through policy. It's just fascinating to see how his mind works. He's basically what would happen if a twelve-year-old ran for office. 100% id.
I'm hoping the campaign shake-up drops whatever limited public filter he's been able to maintain. Just for kicks, really.
To be fair, 'Hillary' has said she'll be less corrupt if she wins.
Same Hillary who approved the sale of 20% of America's uranium production capacity to the Russians in return for a fat cheque to the Clinton Foundation and 500k in speaking fees for Bill Clinton the month after? You trust HER to act in the best interest of American national security?
Do you even care about her corruption? Honestly, does it bother you, or do you just dismiss it as a giant "right wing conspiracy" despite their being emails directly referring to a "pay for play" system connecting Clinton Foundation donors and the State Department?
You don't get to high horse anyone else about "dismissing" things. :D
Mert, if I wanted to engage with fleck-laden right-wing talking points, I'd directly read whatever Breitbart story you've credulously eaten up, rather than getting it second-hand.
I'm content to snicker at Trump from afar. This is a case where the election is between an actual grown-up, and a man-child with the emotional maturity of a slighted twelve-year-old. It's such a non-starter. And now, fingers crossed, he's going to tell us what he really thinks.
One significant divide I've noticed between Republicans and Democrats - at least the politicians of the respective parties - is that Republicans have no shame in coming off as foolish and stupid, whereas Democrats are generally averse to public displays of idiocy. Both sides might well be equally intelligent, but the Republicans make no attempt to appear that way. This can probably be traced to when the Republicans picked up all the evangelist, anti-knowledge retards in the post-LBJ era. In any case there are probably political advantages to being this way, but it is pretty shameful on the whole.
That's a trend all over politics at the moment. It's basically a point against your credibility to be an actual non-political expert.
Politicians have spent a decade trashing the idea of expertise in general (experts aren't really a great source of campaign funds, after all, and tend to get inconveniently in the way of people who are), so now anyone capable of correcting political narratives with actual fact is deemed suspicious by default.
Rand (:cool:) does not come off as foolish.
I don't know. Doing all those eye operations for free gives him a bit of a mug vibe.
It remains amazing to me that Mert bothers agitating for whatever 'equal time' nonsense he wants here, as though we're a news outlet with some bearing on the election.
Hillary Clinton could be the single most corrupt individual in the history of politics and instinctively she'd still seem more suited to that office than a grinning ballsack with no barrier between mind and mouth. That there is so much corruption surrounding her is the only reason anyone is still entertaining the idea of President Trump.
The hair makes up for it.
Tbh I'd vote for Trump's hairpiece before Trump himself.
Hillary is so tough that Putin pays up AFTER he got what wanted. Trump can't get a roofer from Sarasota to finish a project on time and under budget without suing.
You said she sold the uranium and Bill got paid for his speech a month later. If you are doing illegal work you get paid up front unless you are the most dangerous thing around because you have no recourse. Putin is clearly afraid of getting Fostered if he crosses her. Trump meanwhile has to sue thousands of subcontractors because he can't get them to do the agreed upon work (or he is just shafting people). He is so weak and his management team's ability so poor that he can't handle a contractor?
Hillary is strong and Trump is weak. I thought I would try some of your bizarro logic and wow - it is fun. Why try applying real thought to your original claim which is simply post hoc ergo proptor hoc? The only real answer to absurdity is absurdity.
I kind of have a soft sport for the mythical super villain Hillary, who can intimidate Putin, scare the media into doing her bidding, strong-arm the justice system and the opposition establishment into line, manipulate polling, and usher in a communist dystopia if left unchecked. She sounds really on top of things. Very competent, and you'd have to think incredibly well-organised. You know she'd get bills through the senate.
I'd like to see Trump get in on the basis that the CIA investigate the shit out of his finances because he won't let them do proper work. "Yeah, you're in the pocket of Russia, Mr. President. 40 years ago, that'd be treason."
Posting West Wing episode titles, is that on purpose?
Are you retarded, she yielded a huge amount of a strategic national resource in return for pennies, it's a shocking deal. That's not compliance, it's lol'ing indifference; like selling your wife into sex slavery and getting a few coins indifferently tossed your way after she gets gang banged in your bedroom. You're still a cuck.
If Putin gave a shit about Hillary or had any fear or respect whatsoever for the US, why has he completely disregarded 'the reset' between the two countries, by invading Crimea and humiliating the US in the Middle East?
No. She is a spineless vassal for the larger ambitions of people more powerful than her. She has absolutely no power, and is simply a slave to the dictates of the globalists who will profit from her presidency, in terms of competence, literally everything she has ever touched has been transformed into utter failure. Please find one, ONE, achievement of note to her name in her entire history of public service.
On an entirely different topic, I find it very interesting that the Republican candidate campaign is now essentially being run by the minds behind Breitbart and Fox News.
If it wasn't apparent before, it's certainly clear now who's the tail and who's the dog on the right.
Manafort resigned. :lol:
It's like if the Democratic Party fell to pieces and Ariana Huffington became the cherub face of the campaign
This is pretty interesting - Eight real US electoral college maps that now look like science fiction.
Never been the world's biggest Bernie fan but stories like this are why I've never really found the Glenn Greenwald style of journalism all that compelling. It just seems gotcha for no apparent reason. Who cares that he bought a house? Or if he personally lost money on the campaign?
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016...ded-disclosure
#clintoncrimefamily
It matters when you're citing other people's finances as a campaign strategy and when you describe yourself as a 'socialist'. Holding considerable wealth and / or 'exploiting capitalism' to maximise your own financial position could be considered quite hypocritical. A perennial problem for the socialists, unfortunately.
I'm going to see if "What have you got to lose?" washes with any other minorities.
http://cesrusc.org/election/
Trump now leading in the LA Times poll, African American support has increased 600% in the last week. I've said it since last August, he is going to win, anyone who feels otherwise is simply out of touch with the average American.
So will you be out of touch if he loses?
So, all the polls are wrong, except the one that backs up your prediction/hope. Interesting.
@ John_Arne
The LA Times poll is interesting in that it is pretty much the only one doing what it does, as per their site:
The 2016 USC Dornsife / LA Times Presidential Election Poll represents a pioneering approach to tracking changes in Americans' opinions throughout a campaign for the White House. Around 3000 respondents in our representative panel are asked questions on a regular basis on what they care about most in the election, and on their attitudes toward their preferred candidates. The "Daybreak poll" is updated just after midnight every day of the week.
Decide on your own if giving your contact information so that you can be regularly polled is in fact "anonymous".
I think Sander's critique is largely overblown and misses the forest for the trees, but this is pantomime villain stuff. His critique is using your wealth to 'exploit government' to maximise your own financial position. Owning a third home (particularly if your job demands you have two residences) is a sign of nothing, nor is whether you have lost money during a campaign. We know where his campaign money came from and that clears him from charges of hypocrisy against taking money from special interests in exchange for policy. And I voted against him because I think his approach to creating policy is hopelessly naïve and his focus is myopic.
All of them, you say?
They're up to six black guys.
I'm honestly curious as to what sort of numbers it would take to convince you that Trump was behind? Because if the answer is "nothing", you're not really providing much information content in your posts. Not even a dig - I just would like to know.
I mean it's pretty well known that there is a 4-10 'hidden' Trump vote captured when the polling is done anonymously combined with a bump that will follow as the polls shift from Registered voters to Likely voters.
To pretend otherwise is sheer irrationality, which would be about par for the course for you...
And that's assuming the polls aren't otherwise manipulated, such as through targeting known Democrat households or asking to speak to the youngest member of the household (with circumstantial evidence suggesting that this has been occurring).
So you're saying if polls reliably had Trump down by more than 10 points, you'd accept that he wasn't secretly winning? If not 10, then how many points would it take?
Cool. Just wanted to know where you think the line is.
That said, you saw the stats on previous polls that I posted, right? There's no shy Tory effect in the US. In fact, polling averages have overestimated Republican vote in the last four Presidential elections to the tune of between one and two points. I realise that this election is a touch different, but claiming a systematic polling bias against Republicans does rather fly in the face of recent historical polling results.
Yeah but it's different this time and has been empirically proven as much, you haven't shown anything except your own ignorance:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/11...-admit-it.html
How does it feel to just be completely wrong? Embarrassing? Must hurt to have your 'credibility' constantly undermined, your laughably misplaced condescending tone of academic authority exposed as the farce it is.
Stick to math.
'What have you got to lose?' is such a good pitch. Or it would be with somebody else.
How is 4.8 to 14.1 a 600% increase? How does that math work?
Literally all I did in the last few posts was to ask what your numerical baseline is (to establish where you're working from), and to point out that there's no history of polling bias in President elections favouring the Democratic candidate (while explicitly allowing that this election might be different).
I think you should probably just chill a little bit.
Mert's raging :groove:
Harold, Chinny, Mert...they're all the same really.
Reuters are using a biased sample.
I had a Jewish bloke apologise to me about Trump in a bar in NY last night. It was like talking to John Stewart for a night.
No, we didn't exchange numbers.
But what did he say about the polls? That is all that matters.
lol at citing Reuters:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/...viduals-207228
In all seriousness, Mert - I just want to thank you for making me aware that all these polls are incorrect - and alerting me to that one somewhat obscure phone poll that was the best measure. On the back of this great tip, I've placed $300 on Trump. Thanks again, mate.
Reuters commissioned the study through Ipsos, a polling company. Ipsos gets an A- rating with a historical bias of 0.1 points toward Democrats, which is comfortably within the statistical error margin:
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/
They don't do phone polls either, which is the big "skewed polls" objection. The fact that it's commissioned by Reuters isn't really important, as they went with a respectable polling outlet that has a strong track record. It's unlikely that they'd sabotage the main selling point of their organisation (polling accuracy) in the service of a short-term scheme three months out from an election.
Yeah, but they donated money to save the lives of kids with HIV in Africa mate, they're obviously in the can for Hillary.
To balance that slightly, there were a couple of polls last week that showed small national movements back to Trump, so it's not all Clinton at the moment. The only available recent swing state polling has strongly favoured Clinton, although it's not frequent enough to draw any firm conclusions from at this point.
You are all aware that it is not a national race. If you want to obsess over polls, obsess over state ones.
And by all means, let's denigrate people who donate to the Clinton Foundation, like maybe this guy (check out the last entry on page 18). Proof of a Clinton plant? Some people say it is.
The worst part of Trump really isn't him; it is that all the assholes like David Duke have started coming out of the woodwork again. Sadly, both the national and the Louisiana Republican party were the two biggest forces trying to kill him off the last time which makes this video horribly depressing. For the uniformed to properly understand his last statement look up the Southern agricultural policy toward the boll weevil since the 1970s. It is not simply Democrats who think that Trump is pushing a racist agenda, the KKK do as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSMaC28bmQE
There has never been a skewed poll in history. Nobody understands political polling. Political polling makes no money for the companies, in fact it makes a big loss, but it's important for them to be as accurate as possible because it's a good shop window for them to get their name out there and attract business to the more profitable sectors (notably corporate and brand research).
No polling company has ever skewed a poll in the history of polling to favour any party or candidate, and nor will it ever happen.
You mean the same Reuters who changed its methodology the day after their poll showed Trump winning? Wake up.
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presid...inton-winning/
Will the narrative include polls? I hope it does.
The narrative is skewed by the liberal media. Everyone knows there is a shy Trump narrative of about 4-5pts.
Only the unbiased ones showing the true state of play; i.e. God Emperor Trump in the lead.
The swing state polls are key, but a heavy national lead for Clinton will certainly shape the media narrative, and thus how the campaigns react, over the next couple of months.
You want to be in a position where the Democrats can take out the Republicans further down the ticket as well, which you would hope is more likely to happen if Clinton can start thumping Trump across the country.