American Politics: Discuss and Debate (Page 6 of 57)

She's not dropping out, but as far as I know, both parties have similar rules in this matter.  They would have the power to vote on another candidate.  It probably would not require all the delegates, just the committee itself.  David Schuster, a reporter/TV host, who was fired for stretching the truth, "reported" on this the other day, for (no surprise) the Moscow-owned RT news channel.  He said the Dems would draft Joe Biden.  The bigger issue is that most states would not allow a name change on the ballot at this time, so people would be in the booth voting for Hilary when in fact she was no longer running.  And no, she does NOT have Parkinson's.  The accusation the wackjobs have made on that is an insult to the poor souls who truly suffer from that disease, because what they've even claimed she was exhibiting are in fact NOT associated with Parkinson's.

I agree that Hillary Clinton won't drop out. Her reasons for running have nothing to do with working for America or Americans, and it is all about herself and her ego. She would rather watch this country burn than drop out.

I never went with the Parkinson's theory. People went there because she was asking questions about a Parkinson's drug in one of her emails, so I don't blame them for going there. But I think it's something more like a stroke, which can result in seizures and many other symptoms. Her behavior at times, laughing at inappropriate moments and not getting the context of a situation, reminds me of my father at times. An imbalance of medication could easily cause her to act out of it, as we have seen on numerous occasions. Obviously, a stroke can have an impact on memory, which we know has been an issue with her.

It could be some other neurological issue, but there has definitely been something wrong with her for a very long time now. Even when her doctor released a statement the other day, he was very careful to say that she hasn't been diagnosed with anything else *this year*.

The media is a mess. They report on the stories that will push the narrative that they're trying to tell. Most of the news outlets will not play up problems with national security, the economy, healthcare, etc. simply because Obama is in office. If they report on those stories at all, they breeze by them. The press is a big problem in this country. It is not serving the purpose that it was supposed to serve. It is not keeping the politicians accountable to the people, it is acting as propaganda to help cover the asses of the politicians that they like.

(for more on this issue and how I feel about the press, check out my Freedom/Hate series of novels, available now on Amazon!... I'm joking. It just felt like I was talking about my books for a second. :-) )

Plus she's probably still pissed off that the dems gave Obama the 2008 nomination. She and Bill have spent decades manipulating and scheming and playing politics, and then Obama walks in with about an hour of political experience (though decades of experience within the political machine, working with radicals, etc) and takes it from her.

She always thought that she had to at least appear to be qualified for the job. How annoying must it be to find out that she wasted all that time?

I would like to see that.

I wonder how long the divorce would take as well.

Debate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryp51N21vOU

The Avengers wade into the election!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRp1CK_X_Yw

John Oliver compares Hillary and Trump's scandals!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lfd1aB9YI

SOUTH PARK observes that we are caught between a rock and a hard place!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlqKFlU7YAs

Still rewatching Arrow's second season. I reached the point where Moira Queen announces her candidacy to run for mayor. I remember when the episodes first aired, I watched it like "Really?!?! She was just on trial for killing 500 people and now she's up in the polls?!?! REALLY?!?!"

Now I watch the episodes and I'm like "Yup."

Well, after things were looking pretty good for him for a while, there's virtually no way he wins now.  Hillary Clinton will be president. Now I know a lot of people were anti-Trump, and I get that.  I don't like him, and I think he'd be a terrible president.  But I saw this example on Twitter, and I think it fits.  This election is like the end of The Graduate - we as a country have shown up en masse to rush out to the church and tell this woman we love her because the alternative is so terrible.  So we do it, we tell her, she comes with us, and we escape on this bus.  And, like the characters in the movie, our smiles fade as we realize the decision we just made. 

Hillary Clinton will be president.

During this whole campaign, it's all been about Trump.  Hillary is supposed to be this policy expert, but I've seen about five different campaign ads for Hillary (I'm in Texas so I bet she has more), and only one was about her at all.  When she answers questions, she doesn't answer how she'll do it....she answers how he'll do it worse.  When Hillary supporters talk about the election, it's always about him and how horrible he is.

And he is.  But that's not the point.

Hillary Clinton will be president.

People talk about Hillary using Obama's words.  "The most qualified person to ever run."  And that's always bothered me.  For all the research that's been done into both candidate's pasts, I don't think any major news source really looked into the quote.  People are just accepting it.  I looked into it, and it's basically laughable when you dig into it.  John Quincy Adams was also a senator just as long as Hillary, was secretary of state for longer, and was also foreign minister several times under different presidents, and was a member of the House.  If you want to give Hillary extra years of experience for being the wife to the president, then you have to also give credit to Adams for being the son of one of the creators of the nation. 

Martin Van Buren has the same resume as Hillary (minus being Bill Clinton's wife), but he was also Vice President, Governor of New York, Attorney General of New York, and foreign minister to the UK. 

Is she more qualified than, say, Obama was?  Yes.  But she's also about 20 years older than he was.  I'd hope she has more experience.  In fact, as the second-oldest person to ever be inaugurated, there's almost no reason why she shouldn't have more than 12 years of experience in public office.

What's crazy is that this woman is going to be president, but she really hasn't had to sell herself.  All she's had to sell is how bad Trump is.  And she's done a good job.  But I'll repeat again:

Hillary Clinton will be president.

The same day the Trump tape came out, Hillary's Goldman Sachs speeches were leaked.  In some of the speeches, she admitted that she has a "public and private" position on certain issues.  She talked about how she's out of touch with the middle class because she's so wealthy.  So if you're looking to her to fix any issues related to Wall Street, she won't.  In fact, professionally, I'd suggest buying stock in Goldman Sachs if you can afford it.  She's going to make them a lot of money.

What about Bill helping fix the economy?  While it's true that the economy was great from 1992 to 2000, it has almost nothing to do with anything Bill did.  In 1992-2000, something you're using right now rose to public prominence.  An entire industry was literally created out of thin air overnight, and the economy boomed because of it.  If you want to look at Bill's policies, they actually led to the subprime crisis.  So if you're looking for 90s prosperity out of a Clinton White House again, you're not going to get it unless she's able to invent a new internet.

But she's great on foreign policy, right?  Well, that's also not quite true.  While Trump is an idiot for saying she founded ISIS, a lot of her work as secretary of state certainly didn't make the ISIS situation better.  Her key policy weapon in the Middle East seems to be assassination.  And that might well work in Syria under a Hillary presidency, but I don't think it fixes the problem there.  And the Russians won't like that....but we'll come back to Russia again.

Hillary Clinton is a war hawk.  Plain and simple.  More than the Bushes, if you listen to certain prominent people.  Under Hillary, war will be a weapon she uses quickly and often.  She's promised that she won't put any more troops in the middle east, but based on her record, that's almost certainly her "public" position and not her private one.  There will be troops in Syria.  She wanted to go there while she was secretary of state, and Obama is the one who kept us out.  Hillary Clinton will be president, and it'll be her call.  We're going.

If you don't believe she's a hawk, read this article.  Written by a paper that has been extremely polite to her for a really long time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magaz … -hawk.html

On ISIS, all she talks about is more of the same.  But is more of the same even working?  Is Obama making progress in defeating ISIS, and if he's not, how could she possibly make progress with the same strategy?

So what about Russia?  We can't elect Trump because he's a friend of Putin.  Or a puppet for Putin.  Trump will dismantle NATO because that's what Putin wants.  We can't elect Trump because Putin wants him.

Here's the bad news.  He wants Trump because he hates Hillary.  I've read that he's *afraid* of Hillary.  Now I've thought about this a lot because it scares me.  A scared Putin scares me.  Because Putin will be in charge in Russia until he dies.  Even if he's removed from power, he'll still be in charge because he's working to make sure one of his lieutenants is in charge. 

Hillary wants to remove/kill Assad.  Putin is friends with Assad.

If you go to Hillary's website, there's sections on her policies on dozens of issues.  If you read them, they're vague one-sentence bullet points that sound great.  She's got one on gay rights, on minority rights, on the economy, on ISIS, and a ton of others.

Nothing on Russia.

She's talked a lot about Russian/American relations if Trump is president.  Nothing about it if she is.  People talk about World War 3 if Trump is president, but they don't want to talk about the very-real Cold War 2 when Hillary is president.

Everyone's thrilled that Trump's finally getting wounded.  But when the smoke clears and Hillary is in office, we're all going to be a little like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TP4MuVnS2A

Well, the problem I see is that people are still treating this like it's a conventional election; it's not.  Trump has already done dozens of things every one of which would have destroyed a candidate under the political rules we've known, but Trump survived each of them and stayed competitive.

One telling thing is something I saw on CNN earlier; Erin Burnette mentioned that they spent yesterday and today finding people from past focus groups to see if their opinions had changed since the video.   The opinions hadn't changed except for one guy who said he was kind of iffy but still on the Trump side.

There are 29 days left in the election.  Anything can happen; and as bad as it is, the history of this cycle shows that Trump can weather anything so far.  I believe he'll weather this too; and frankly, his newly revealed lude behavior may even gain him votes with male voters.  The talking heads seem to believe in this American ideal where all people simply must believe in a certain moral value.  They don't.  They may not admit it in public, but when they're behind the curtain voting, no one is going to know.  That's why polls are pretty useless in this cycle - just look at Brexit, Columbia and even the U.S. primaries.

The only thing this has solidified for me is that I will never vote Republican again. These self-righteous fools have finally cut it for me and shown who they are - a right wing of the Democratic Party.  You may as well cut out the middle man and just vote Democrat.

I once told my wife the internet is the greatest and worst invention of all time.

This is right after I told her that the 2nd best thing that could happen to the Earth is an EMP pulse.

--Chaser9

http://www.luckytv.nl/time-of-my-life/

Okay, but embarrassment is one thing.  Would you rather send troops to Syria to fight Hillary's version of the Iraq War?  Do you want to restart the Cold War because Hillary wants to kill Putin's friend?  I'd rather be embarrassed than dead, and Hillary's more likely to get me killed.

People always use the nukes thing with Trump, but they seem to think we live in a world where the President has a big button on his desk with "NUKES" written on it.  To fire off a nuclear weapon, the president's command has to go through a handful of really smart people who are really good at their jobs.  Even if Trump wanted to nuke Paraguay because they made fun of him, there's a better chance Trump would end up impeached due to massive overuse of power than any missile would ever leave the ground.

Now restart the Cold War?  That's how nuclear devastation happens.

Hillary is not attacking Syria.  Frankly there's nothing left to attack there.  She'll be rebuffed by Congress regardless.  Also, it was Trump who said the other night that our nuclear arsenal was suddenly out of date, and that Russia were upgrading theirs.  This was not only false of course, it was ludicrous.  Another arms race?  Come on.  As for the Supreme Court, I think the GOP made a huge gaffe by refusing Judge Garland, because I personally feel he is moderate if not slightly conservative, and if Hillary wins, she can nominate another Ginsberg and there's little they can do about it.

Trump supporters chant jail her, they have shirts calling Bill a rapist, while Donald says the election system is rigged, the polls are fake, he lies without repent.  If we allow this guy to succeed after running a campaign that resides in the sewers, what does that say about democracy going forward?  Reward the guy or gal who can lie the most, rile up the most people with falsehoods and bigotry?  The same guy who has been reported to have next to no attention span, and limited interest in actual policies?  At some point, you have to take the stand that the decency must win out.  We cannot reward him, and be left with an autocrat like in The Philippines.

It's not too late for them to confirm him, and they should seriously consider it.  If they lose the senate in addition to the presidency, they'll get someone far to the left of Ginsburg.

See, I don't get how saying "jail her" or calling Bill a rapist is living in the sewers. Hillary Clinton is guilty 100%, without a doubt, of crimes which would have anyone else in the country either thrown in prison or possibly even tried for treason. Acting as though it is silly, reckless or somehow gossipy to point this out is simply a refusal to acknowledge the truth.

And there is at least as much evidence to convict Bill of rape as their is Bill Cosby, if not more. Again, screaming the truth has become the only option, because what other option is there? Neither one of those people will pay for their crimes. They get away with it because the laws of normal citizens do not apply to them.

I'm sorry, but I can't vote for Hillary. Voting for her is not a vote for decency, or maturity. It's a vote for someone who does whatever she wants, because she is above the law. She lies, cheats, steals, kills, and absolutely nothing happens to her. She threatens her husbands victims and their families in order to cover for his misdeeds, and she is held up as a champion of women everywhere. She wouldn't just be a bad president. She is evil. She is a psychopath, with no regard for human life. With no understanding of basic right and wrong.

And don't get me wrong. The idea of voting for Trump makes me sick to my stomach. I don't think that he is qualified. I don't think that he is stable. I think that he has a whole slew of psychological issues, but being a psychopath is not one of them.

This election is a game of Russian Roulette. Side with Trump, and you're playing with a revolver. Side with Hillary and you're playing with a semi-automatic.

There is no decency here. There is no good option. right now, I'm thinking in terms of cutting off limbs in order to save the patient's life.

Project Veritas is starting to roll out their videos before the election. They're starting with some smaller stuff, but they say that they have bigger bombs to drop next week.

https://youtu.be/jUDTcxIqqM0

Project Veritas has a history of misleading editing and outright manipulation of their videos.  After the ACORN fiasco, O'Keefe's credibility is pretty well shot.

A lot of the reports of Project Veritas videos being edited were false. They released both edited and unedited versions, but the media only reported on the edited videos, just so they could use the term "heavily edited video". As though their own reports aren't heavily edited anyway.

I think normal people might care about Hillary's misdeeds. They will just never know about them because the press won't report them

Okay, this might come out as garbled, but hopefully my point comes across.

I think this election is doing irreparable harm to the country.  Because these two candidates are so hated (and don't get me wrong, they are hated), people are becoming more polarized than ever.  No matter how bad your candidate is, the only way to "elevate" your candidate is to attack the other.  Hillary supporters are exclusively talking about Trump, and Trump supporters are exclusively talking about Hillary.

I saw a post today from a casual acquaintance telling his friends to unfriend him if they support Trump and the idea of repealing the 19th amendment.  And while I agree that it's a dumb idea, I didn't like the sentiment.  The media reported that a poll says people are losing friends because of this election.  We're willing to disrupt connections we've made because people are making a choice.  That bothers me.

And I think it's because we have so many ways of filtering the way we get media.  On social media, we can choose to follow only people who think like us.  If you follow only Trump people, you could get the idea that Trump is going to easily win the election.  If you follow only Hillary people, you could get the idea that Trump is actually much worse than Hitler.  And when you only get one side of the argument, you can start to de-humanize the other side.  They aren't people anymore, and that's how these friendships are dissolving.

The media isn't helping.  Fox News has routinely been accused of leaning right, but I'm seeing a ton of the other networks leaning way further left than usual.  CNN has been accused of being the Clinton News Network, but as a former journalist, I'm seeing a lot more editorializing than I'm comfortable with.  During the Republican convention, CNN usually put together a huge panel (10-12 people) that was usually pretty even.  During the Democratic convention, it was usually 80% Democrats with one or two Trump people.  The other night, I saw a panel that was 5 Hillary supporters and one Trump supporter.  A lot of times, CNN will throw Ana Navarro on a panel as a Republican, but she's anti-Trump.  So CNN is quickly becoming Fox News.

(Fox News isn't even trying anymore.  They'll do panels of just Trump supporters or bring on a Hillary person and simply antagonize them for the entire segment)

People are going to disagree.  Your friends are going to disagree.  But that used to be something we wanted.  We wanted people around us who thought differently so we could learn a different perspective.  That's how compromises are made.  But when we completely close out one person's idea, there's no longer room for compromise.  I surround myself with people who think like me, and you do the same.  Instead of trying to understand how the other side thinks, we do the opposite.  Trump is Hitler so Hillary is Antichrist.  Before we know it, both are the Devil.  And so their supporters must be devil worshipers.

At least we have this place still.

The polarization is largely a result of the primaries becoming preeminent in selecting nominees.  We got better candidates when they were picked in smoke filled back rooms.  Today a candidate has to appeal to the lowest common denominator of half the electorate in order to get on the ballot.  Any display of centrism or cross over appeal or less than 100% orthodoxy is damaging if not disqualifying.  The candidates are more extreme because they are chosen by the extremists.

Yeah, that's the crazy stuff to me.  Almost all this stuff is at least a decade old.  How did none of it come out during the primaries?

I don't believe most conspiracy theories, but the whole election (from start to finish) being orchestrated by the Clintons is one that makes sense to me. 

- Trump and the Clintons are friends and have been for a long time.
- Bill Clinton, according to several noted sources, is the one who convinced Trump to run.
- Many democrats reportedly voted Trump to help him win the republican primary
- The media holds on to all Trump-related negative stories until after the primary is over and it's too late for the Republicans to course-correct.
- Many of Trump's more-awful moments happened right after (or the same day) as Clinton's worst moments (he praised Saddam the same day as the Comey announcement, the Trump tapes came out the same day as the Clinton speeches)
- Trump hasn't released his taxes.  If Trump was paid any amount of money to run, that payment would show up in his taxes.  It's a point to make Hillary look strong and Donald look weak.
- Trump gets money, fame, notoriety.  Hillary gets to beat the only candidate that she could easily beat.

He announced his candidacy in June of 2015, and yet all this stuff is coming up now.  Hillary would say that the Republicans were just bad at opposition research, but *all* of them were bad?  The media just started looking into him in the last month? 

WikiLeaks and Assange are doing their hacks the same way.  If they have an October surprise that anyone would care about (and I think anything short of concrete evidence of a murder doesn't stop her from winning), they're holding onto it as late as possible.  But at least WikiLeaks isn't claiming to have any integrity.

Whether they did it to help Hillary or just to help their own ratings by keeping Trump in the race, waiting until this point is bad journalism.

I think it's interesting that Republicans are going after Bill.  I think Hillary just used Bill for his charisma, and as soon as she's president, she has no further need for him.

Yeah, but it was all a means to an end.  I think she set him up to be president so she could be president.  If Bill had his way, he'd rather be chasing coeds.  I think she built him up and used him.

I agree. The establishment disagreed with what the people wanted. So, rather than endorse a candidate that the people would get behind, they stomped their feet and refused to grow up until it was too late. We started it with far too many candidates, most of whom never stood a realistic chance, and most of whom stayed in the race for far too long. The establishment hates Ted Cruz, but he was the candidate that the people were leaning toward (others had their following, but obviously didn't have enough).

The more the establishment tried to impose their will on the people, the more the people rebelled. It turned into a giant mess, which is a shame, because we had a really solid candidate this year, but he got tossed in favor of a sideshow.

The same thing happened with the democrats, but with a different method of screwing over their people.

I don't think that Kasich could beat her. Hillary was never going to play fair or be nice, and he couldn't take her on. He would look weak and forgettable. Ryan, I have to doubt as well. He's seen as a sellout by a lot of people in the party. Many don't even want him to have the job he has at this point.

This time around, I think it was always going to have to be someone that wasn't seen as part of the establishment. After McCain and Romney, people were too frustrated to go for someone like that again. Trump got support because he says a lot of things that people have been waiting for someone to say for a very long time (in between his being crazy). I think Cruz was also as popular as he was because he's always been willing to challenge the establishment (which is why they don't like him). It had to be someone from the "outside".

She would have beaten Ben Carson.  Any of the GOP contenders would have taken her, IMO.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how … residency/

I don't know who this guy is, but vote McMullin!

I appreciate that. I still have to vote though, and at this point that vote will be about choosing the lesser evil. Looking at what is likely to happen with the Supreme Court, etc.

At the very least, anyone who votes this year should feel dirty and sick about it. I have a family member who voiced her enthusiasm after early voting, saying that she has never been more certain of her choice. Those types of comments make me really nervous about the state of humanity this time around. Anyone who doesn't see the flaws in their candidate is just not keeping their eyes open.

But I won't judge. I will probably have to vote with my eyes closed, nose pinched, and maybe drunk.

I must confess -- I've generally always seen the Republican political party as Donald Trump even before Donald Trump become the nominee. Long before Trump staggered into politics, he came off as a geyser of hatred and arrogance who claimed to be successful but whose fortune was ultimately drawn from (a) a predecessor who was as competent as Trump was not and (b) exploiting the poor and gullible to line his pockets at their expense (c) presenting his exploitative practices as a showcase of independence cloaked in religion to obscure how he was simply a man driven by (d) greed and contempt for other human beings while using (e) hatred and fear of minorities, immigrants, refugees, homosexuals and the disabled and marginalized to convince his audience that his monstrosity had acceptable targets.

And that, to be honest, is how I always viewed most Republicans in America. My opinion was that Bush, Cheney, McCain, Palin, Romney and Ryan were essentially Donald Trump but they concealed and hid and dressed up the characteristics that Trump flaunts and parades and that Trump was who Republicans really are and have been all along.

It's been a relief to realize that there can be a massive gulf between having conservative values and being what the Republican party stands for now.