If I were Clinton, I'd take that any day of the week. 39% approval from the American people when the average national turnout for presidential elections is 55%?
That's enough to give Clinton the keys to 1600.
You can't directly compare approval and voter turnout. Looking at those poll results alone Clinton's biggest issue is that few people find her inspiring, meaning they won't go out and vote. That doesn't really matter in the Primaries, but it does matter in the General.
Frazzled wrote: Er, that means that not even Democratic voters like her, much less Republicans or Independents. It means the Democratic nomination is in play.
I'd bet good money Biden is winding up to run.
Huh? Her favorability among Dems is 70%. Yes, that is down from 81% in April, but hardly shows that "not even Democratic voters like her". And I doubt Biden is really thinking about it. Sanders rising among dems suggests possible room on Clinton's left. Biden Is pretty close to Clinton on the political spectrum. Warren might have a better shot, but she's already said she isn't running. Clinton only (barely) got beat last time because she ran into the perfect storm of a politician named Obama. Without another Obama (and I'm not seeing one on the horizon), the nomination is hers.
Frazzled wrote: Er, that means that not even Democratic voters like her, much less Republicans or Independents. It means the Democratic nomination is in play.
Clinton is still up by about 40 points in polls where respondents were asked who they would vote for.
If I were Clinton, I'd take that any day of the week. 39% approval from the American people when the average national turnout for presidential elections is 55%?
That's enough to give Clinton the keys to 1600.
You can't directly compare approval and voter turnout. Looking at those poll results alone Clinton's biggest issue is that few people find her inspiring, meaning they won't go out and vote. That doesn't really matter in the Primaries, but it does matter in the General.
Once the Clinton campaign kicks in, and the money starts to roll, watch those approval numbers go up.
Like it or not, there's a sense of destiny about Clinton. There's never been a female president, and I'm getting the gut feeling that the US population is keen to make her the first woman to hold America's highest office.
Frazzled wrote: Er, that means that not even Democratic voters like her, much less Republicans or Independents. It means the Democratic nomination is in play.
I'd bet good money Biden is winding up to run.
Huh? Her favorability among Dems is 70%. Yes, that is down from 81% in April, but hardly shows that "not even Democratic voters like her". And I doubt Biden is really thinking about it. Sanders rising among dems suggests possible room on Clinton's left. Biden Is pretty close to Clinton on the political spectrum. Warren might have a better shot, but she's already said she isn't running. Clinton only (barely) got beat last time because she ran into the perfect storm of a politician named Obama. Without another Obama (and I'm not seeing one on the horizon), the nomination is hers.
Exactly. The hand of destiny will push Clinton to victory.
Will she be a good president? God, no! It'll be a disaster, but America will have its first female head of state.
Frazzled wrote: Er, that means that not even Democratic voters like her, much less Republicans or Independents. It means the Democratic nomination is in play.
Clinton is still up by about 40 points in polls where respondents were asked who they would vote for.
For now, but you and I both know people with high unfavorabilities don't get elected. Nixon being a great exception.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cuba in from the cold, Iran now a peace loving nation, and of course, Obama's red line in Syria saved the day.
Once the Clinton campaign kicks in, and the money starts to roll, watch those approval numbers go up.
I'm not sure of that. She is a terrible campaigner who has already made some poor choices. She has focused on covering her weaknesses instead of emphasizing her strengths.
Like it or not, there's a sense of destiny about Clinton. There's never been a female president, and I'm getting the gut feeling that the US population is keen to make her the first woman to hold America's highest office.
Her campaign tried leveraging that argument when she ran against Obama in 2008, and she lost. Everyone knows her Administration will be almost identical to Obama's, and it is rare to see one Party hold the Presidency for 3 terms.
Once the Clinton campaign kicks in, and the money starts to roll, watch those approval numbers go up.
I'm not sure of that. She is a terrible campaigner who has already made some poor choices. She has focused on covering her weaknesses instead of emphasizing her strengths.
Yeah, that's my read. It's like, her campaign is trying to run "hey, at least I'm not those stinky Republicans".
Like it or not, there's a sense of destiny about Clinton. There's never been a female president, and I'm getting the gut feeling that the US population is keen to make her the first woman to hold America's highest office.
Her campaign tried leveraging that argument when she ran against Obama in 2008, and she lost. Everyone knows her Administration will be almost identical to Obama's, and it is rare to see one Party hold the Presidency for 3 terms.
Yes it's rare for one Party to hold the Presidency for 3 terms... but, if they're going to do it, Hillary is your best bet. Like Obama, there's going to be a significant amount of voters who will vote for HRC no matter what because she'll be the first female President. Being there for 'history' isn't something to scoff at.... and, I'm not sure there's any polls in existence that can measure that.
She faces an uphill battle in the General.
Let's see who's the Republican nominee. If it's Trump or Cruz... she'll clean house. If it's Perry, Bush, Walker or Rubio... maybe it'll be tough for HRC.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Clinton only (barely) got beat last time because she ran into the perfect storm of a politician named Obama. Without another Obama (and I'm not seeing one on the horizon), the nomination is hers.
I’d say the flip side of that is probably more true. Obama only won because the Democrats had a golden ticket in 2008, and the overwhelming favourite in Clinton ran an absolutely terrible campaign. Obama ran a great campaign but I think the bigger issue was Clinton’s terrible performance. So far she’s been better than 2008 but she’s still hardly been great and there’s a long time to go.
Seriously guys, Pataki. He's experienced, has done basically nothing bad ever (his time as gov. weren't very exciting, but they were stable, and there were no big problems or scandals). And he's a moderate, so he'd siphon quite a few votes away from Hillary. At thT point the most important choice is the running mate, probably someone more mainline conservative, but not a nutjob would be preferable. One of those old senators, who has worked with both sides for many years would be great. Perfect R candidate, IMO.
Not at all. I don't care who gets elected. I am a white, upper-middle class, heterosexual male who has no attachment to either Party. There's nothing that's likely to happen in the next few years that could really hurt me.
Yeah, that's my read. It's like, her campaign is trying to run "hey, at least I'm not those stinky Republicans".
Given the amount of vitriol between the Parties and their supporters I think that argument was inevitable, on both sides; it's one of those things you can trot out to inspire your base. Her mistakes, thus far, have related to trying too hard to seem less wooden. Her strength is policy, not playing to a crowd.
Yes it's rare for one Party to hold the Presidency for 3 terms... but, if they're going to do it, Hillary is your best bet. Like Obama, there's going to be a significant amount of voters who will vote for HRC no matter what because she'll be the first female President. Being there for 'history' isn't something to scoff at.... and, I'm not sure there's any polls in existence that can measure that.
At the moment? No, but they wouldn't be difficult to design, it's just that there's little point in spending money to carry them out because Clinton isn't going to become a man in the next anytime soon. But I'm sure the Republican nominee's campaign will try to get some form of data when considering VP selection, and many organizations will happily take their money.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Clinton only (barely) got beat last time because she ran into the perfect storm of a politician named Obama. Without another Obama (and I'm not seeing one on the horizon), the nomination is hers.
I’d say the flip side of that is probably more true. Obama only won because the Democrats had a golden ticket in 2008, and the overwhelming favourite in Clinton ran an absolutely terrible campaign. Obama ran a great campaign but I think the bigger issue was Clinton’s terrible performance. So far she’s been better than 2008 but she’s still hardly been great and there’s a long time to go.
If you recall though those primaries energized the base. Obama won because he was a great campaigner. Yeah, Bush made it pretty impossible for a GOP to win (his numbers were way below Obama's at this point). But the Dems didn't run a slash and burn campaign. Go back and look at the debates. They were remarkably amicable (even if the media wanted to focus on the few negative ads...but that's the media) and focused on some serious issues. They weren't just appealing to the base because they didn't have to. Obama did a better job in IA on the ground and with his new way of mobilizing the internet (don't overlook how well Gibby worked the new media), which gave him a boost in NH. He also had his race speech because of Rev. Wright hoopla. From there the nomination was up for grabs and Obama took it. Clinton actually didn't run that bad of a show, but again, Obama came along. It was actually up for grabs for quite a long while (again, despite the media wanting a coronation at that point). But it all boiled down to Obama being a remarkably good campaigner. I would venture that if he could have a third term, he would win again. Bill would have had a hard time with him (it says something when Hillary is trying to run Obama's campaign and not her husbands. I bet that just grates him.).It was one of the more interesting campaign seasons in my lifetime if you like following that gak.
Clinton dropped amongst Democrats due to the fact that many of Americans want Wall-Street and thge Mega-Banks reigned in, and Sanders' friend Warren and others are going for a reinstated "Glass-Steagall" which includes more moderate and reality seeing Republicans that removal of it is why we had that crash in '08, the removal of that act was under Bill Clinton's watch, and Hillary has not said she would re-instate or seek other measures, nothing she has said has made it clear what she plans to do, she has spouted some pro-progressive sounding stuff, and prattled on about her mom, and her own experiences as a mom and grand-mom to distract folks as she has not yet shown as solid an idea on issues as Sanders has revealed yet.
Now for our British pal, electing someone just for their gender or color is pure pants! I prefer someone who is looking at issues over vague stuff the Main stream Media likes to go off on. O' Malley and others have yet to have a good start on things as Hillary and her massive money collection from big cash PAC donors, and Bernie who has achieved more donors although less cash as Hillary.
Obama also was not as favored ad HRC and he won.
The Teacher Union and another union endorsement for HRC is also being looked to be pulled at this time , likely to be placed on Sanders.
The drop of Hillary's popularity? she is campaigning like a Millionaire, she has the BIG Money that people have come to despise, and she still talks like someone who is not able to feel what it is like for the common man or woman, She is showing her connections to BIG MOney via her method of speeches, as well as how she spends, and her speeches have had low substance.
Bernie went to far right Phoenix AZ where Trump ad Arpaio flopped, and the town hall had to once again move to a large stadium for it became another 8k crowd! Now that he has shown he can raise large crowds in "Red" states, I think it shows that there is a Media Ignored under current of folks tired of the pro-Oligarchy/Rich seeking a shift away from trickle down economics and Corporate control of our government.
Get ready for a left handed shift that brings us back to center and level we have been going around in right handed circles for too long.
Yeesh, I'm not a fan of most of the Rs that have thrown their hats into the presidential ring over the years, but McCain is one I actually do like (would have voted for him in 2008, if not for Palin).
And, McCain is a hero not "just" because he was captured, but because he endured FIVE YEARS of it.
Trump
I do look forward to seeing how the rest of the Rs start falling all over themselves trying to distance themselves from this latest bit of trash from Trump.
Tannhauser42 wrote: I do look forward to seeing how the rest of the Rs start falling all over themselves trying to distance themselves from this latest bit of trash from Trump.
So has stupid stuff Trump has said. I'm not sure if this is really going to affect anybody who claims to support Trump. I would guess they have no love whatsoever for McCain perceiving him as too liberal or too political for their tastes, plus he lost to that foreigner. Military experiences only count as heroic if they were conducted by somebody they like (see "swift-boating") and they ignore ignoble military experiences if it is somebody they do like (see Cheney's five draft deferments.) Edit, evidently Trump got five deferments.
And someone asks Sanders what he has done for them... and he starts segueing into the great Obamacare... and the audiance shouts "we can't afford that!".
And someone asks Sanders what he has done for them... and he starts segueing into the great Obamacare... and the audiance shouts "we can afford that!".
Whooooooweeeee.
You make it sound like he was talking about abortion. It's a group that calls themselves "Black Lives Matter" that heckled him. Their cause was police brutality. They also heckled Sanders, but he didn't flee of the stage from them like O'Malley. I mean did you even read what you posted, Whem?
And someone asks Sanders what he has done for them... and he starts segueing into the great Obamacare... and the audiance shouts "we can afford that!".
Whooooooweeeee.
You make it sound like he was talking about abortion. It's a group that calls themselves "Black Lives Matter" that heckled him. Their cause was police brutality.
To them, 'blacklivesmatters' is sacrosanct... so yeah, it *is* like abortions.
They also heckled Sanders, but he didn't flee of the stage from them like O'Malley.
Is it bad that I don't want this to sink him because I just want to watch the train wreck? This is much more entertaining than The Apprentice, and much less scripted.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The Dems best play in my view? Obama should come out, defend McCain and condemn Trumps remarks in the strongest words possible. Obama's numbers would rise (because he would be right to do so) and so would Trumps among the far right (because Obama=everything wrong with the world). Win win
A cheap shot from Trump, but his campaign was never about winning (he had no chance anyway) it was always about publicity for his big head.
On the subject of war records, I don't think they make much difference in an election. John Kerry's was far superior to GW Bush's, and yet, but the time the media had spun it, you'd be forgiven for thinking GW was a three times MOH recipient!
This is the comedy hour stage of the nominations, the time when a few jokers stand up, get their faces in the papers for a few days, and then get weeded out. Trump is no exception.
'Serious' candidates will be along shortly. I hope
Is it bad that I don't want this to sink him because I just want to watch the train wreck? This is much more entertaining than The Apprentice, and much less scripted.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The Dems best play in my view? Obama should come out, defend McCain and condemn Trumps remarks in the strongest words possible. Obama's numbers would rise (because he would be right to do so) and so would Trumps among the far right (because Obama=everything wrong with the world). Win win
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A cheap shot from Trump, but his campaign was never about winning (he had no chance anyway) it was always about publicity for his big head.
It's not always about publicity. Politics is also involved. Politician X, who has no real chance of winning, works to get a base of voters united and ready, and then, when the time comes, X backs out but offers his support (and his voters) to Politician Y. For example, there is a reason why Ted Cruz's response to this only disagrees with Trump's statement, but does not criticize Trump himself. I would bet money that Cruz hopes to get Trump's (and Trump's followers) support down the road.
On the subject of war records, I don't think they make much difference in an election. John Kerry's was far superior to GW Bush's, and yet, but the time the media had spun it, you'd be forgiven for thinking GW was a three times MOH recipient!
War records are usually just the cherry on top of a candidate's resume. "So-and-so has done this, this, and this to fight the other party, and, if elected, will do that, that, and that to fight the other party...oh, AND he fought and bled for your freedom!" It's all marketing. And if you weren't in the military, then you have to show your patriotism and love of 'Murica in other ways. Not to bring Trump up again, but it's like that recent image that backfired on him. The whole point of creating an image in patriotic colors with soldiers in the background is just pure marketing (although picking the wrong soldiers kinda backfired on him).
Trump seems to have been trying increasing ridiculous claims in order to avoid his pretend campaign turning in to an actual, serious run at the oval office. All the hateful bs about Mexican rapists didn't manage to tank him, so he went for the nuclear option and mocked someone's time as a POW. Hopefully that's worked.
shasolenzabi wrote: Clinton dropped amongst Democrats due to the fact that many of Americans want Wall-Street and thge Mega-Banks reigned in, and Sanders' friend Warren and others are going for a reinstated "Glass-Steagall" which includes more moderate and reality seeing Republicans that removal of it is why we had that crash in '08...
Glass Steagall was good law and it should have been expanded and modernised, not removed, but it wouldn't have stopped 2008. There was nothing in it to control the rise of the shadow banking sector, which simply didn't exist when Glass Steagle was designed.
Kerry screwed up when he addressed the "Brown Water Association(?)" accusation that was made against him
As in some of his award citations were, Silver Star I think was one, was embellished.
Think the other was Purple Heart
Jihadin wrote: Kerry screwed up when he addressed the "Brown Water Association(?)" accusation that was made against him
The Democrats screwed up when they thought Kerry's military record was enough of a counter to Bush to put him in the Whitehouse. A military record is a nice part of a candidate's story, but the bedrock of a good campaign is still charisma and a campaign message that works - Kerry didn't have either of those in the slightest, and so his campaign was screwed from the start.
As in some of his award citations were, Silver Star I think was one, was embellished.
Think the other was Purple Heart
The attacks against Kerry's service were pretty much entirely bs. One of his Purple Hearts and the Silver Star were questioned, but the stories told to challenge them changed over time and between various members of the SBVT. For instance, the officer who granted his Silver Star was on record saying he had no doubt about his award, but then later completely changed and claimed it wasn't justified. Read any interview with the SBVT and sooner or later they'll mention Kerry's testimony to congress, likely the real reason those soldiers reacted against him.
Glass Steagall was good law and it should have been expanded and modernised, not removed, but it wouldn't have stopped 2008. There was nothing in it to control the rise of the shadow banking sector, which simply didn't exist when Glass Steagle was designed.
True BUT the Clinton administration changing the rules (lowering mortgage requirements that would be purchased by the big two) and pushing did that. Those rules were in place for a reason.
sebster wrote: The Democrats screwed up when they thought Kerry's military record was enough of a counter to Bush to put him in the Whitehouse. A military record is a nice part of a candidate's story, but the bedrock of a good campaign is still charisma and a campaign message that works - Kerry didn't have either of those in the slightest, and so his campaign was screwed from the start.
Agreed on this one. I mean, look at the more recent campaigns: John McCain has a fairly well known, well documented military career. Obama has absolutely no military time whatsoever.
Personally I think that military time is important for a potential POTUS, even if we've seen that it doesn't affect how politicians see military folks when in office.
Frazzled wrote: True BUT the Clinton administration changing the rules (lowering mortgage requirements that would be purchased by the big two) and pushing did that. Those rules were in place for a reason.
That’s true. While I’d argue that the banking implosion would have happened even with the old form of Glass Steagal, the changes certainly didn’t help matters at all.
However, trying to blame the changes to Glass Steagal purely on Clinton is fairly superficial. On a purely political level we have to recognise those changes were put through a Republican congress. But more than that, de-regulation was accepted in both parties, and by almost all mainstream parties outside of the US – everyone drank from the koolaid, everyone is to blame.
Putting it down to Clinton is more or less the same thing as the people who try to blame the GFC on Bush.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: History in the making. Cuban embassy re-opens in Washington, US embassy re-opens in Havana.
Whatever happened to those CIA plots to kill Castro? The exploding cigars, the poison in his soup to make his beard fall out...
I'm tempted to re-visit my collection of books on this and start reading up about Bay of Pigs, slush funds, Cuban exiles, CIA etc etc
I'll have you know it wasn't poison in soup, but a radioactive substance in a shoe
That maybe, but most of the attempts to topple Castro were a complete and utter shambles. I'm amazed at the money the CIA wasted on this (millions of dollars) and some of the plots and schemes by Cuban exile groups were so amateurish, as to be beyond parody...
Frazzled wrote:True BUT the Clinton administration changing the rules (lowering mortgage requirements that would be purchased by the big two) and pushing did that.
Frazzled wrote:Oh agreed. I am not. I am blaming Clinton, the administration, and the Congress on that.
In the early days of the 2016 Republican campaign — an unusually important period, in which the viability of the GOP is being defended against a toxic form of populism — some of the clearest leadership has emerged from an unexpected source: former Texas governor Rick Perry.
Those Republican candidates and commentators who sought to accommodate and domesticate Donald Trump — praising his views on immigration or petting his followers — failed an important political and moral test. Trump is (unknowingly) attempting to revive the spirit of Know-Nothingism — a mid-19th-century political movement that stirred up resentment against immigrants (particularly Catholic immigrants) and fought to keep government in the hands of the native-born. In Trump’s updated version, the enemies are China and a perfidious Mexico, which he claims is purposely sending its rejects and rapists to the United States.
Perry has been blunt in describing the nature of Trump’s candidacy: “What Mr. Trump is offering is not conservatism, it is Trumpism — a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense.” Perry understood something early that many of his peers did not. While appeals to nationalism are a traditional Republican strength, xenophobia is a poison. Republican fortunes at the presidential level will not be restored with the political philosophy of Archie Bunker. For the GOP to succeed in this election — and for any viable form of conservative populism to be preserved — Trump must be discredited. Not just defeated, but discredited.
By denying Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) status as a war hero, Trump has done a good job of that himself. Perry has declared that Trump “is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, and he should immediately withdraw from the race for President.” The first part of that sentence is manifestly true. The second part would require a sense of shame, which makes it very unlikely.
But Perry has done more than expose Trump. Following last month’s church shooting in South Carolina, he delivered the best and bravest Republican speech of the campaign so far. In remarks at the National Press Club, Perry confronted his state’s history of racial violence in the story of Jesse Washington, tortured and lynched by a Waco mob in 1916. By vividly recalling the details of that case — by looking this evil of racism straight in the face — Perry took the U.S. debate on race to a deeper level of honesty.
So, at two turning points of the presidential race — the rise of Trump and the Charleston massacre — Perry emerged as a responsible voice. How to explain it? Some of this is assuredly sound staffing choices, providing him good advice and good speeches. But there is a factor more intrinsic to Perry. He has a history of making gaffes that reveal his decency. During his spectacularly failed candidacy in 2012, Perry defended his state’s extension of in-state college tuition benefits to the Texas version of “Dreamers” — illegal immigrants who had graduated from Texas high schools. If you want to deny them education, he said, “I don’t think you have a heart.”
Last time around, Perry also defended the vaccination of girls against human papillomavirus, a cause of cervical cancer, pushing back on Michele Bachmann’s irresponsible, dangerous claim that vaccinations can cause “mental retardation.” This issue is often a dividing line between political responsibility and the conspiratorial fringe. Both Trump and Rand Paul, it is worth noting, have fed baseless fears of vaccination.
Perry’s approach to politics gives evidence of actual executive responsibility. Others can be emperors in ideological fantasy worlds of their own choosing. Perry was governor of Texas. And a good one.
The Republican recovery will require a series of Sister Souljah moments — small declarations of ideological independence — as Perry has done with Trump. The model is the first great Republican. “I am not a Know-Nothing,” Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1855. “That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty.”
The words still apply, and echo.
I think he's overcome his 'heartless' criticism... but, he still has work to do to overcome his 'oops' moment in '12.
shasolenzabi wrote: Clinton dropped amongst Democrats due to the fact that many of Americans want Wall-Street and thge Mega-Banks reigned in, and Sanders' friend Warren and others are going for a reinstated "Glass-Steagall" which includes more moderate and reality seeing Republicans that removal of it is why we had that crash in '08...
Glass Steagall was good law and it should have been expanded and modernised, not removed, but it wouldn't have stopped 2008. There was nothing in it to control the rise of the shadow banking sector, which simply didn't exist when Glass Steagle was designed.
That is what Warren and others, including McCain did they worded a new version that would stop the gambling the banks were doing before 2008
Such petty, childish, and vindictive behavior is not anything close to how a President should act. When it comes time for Trump to bow out, I hope none of the candidates will accept any endorsement from him (although I suspect Ted Cruz is counting on it).
However, trying to blame the changes to Glass Steagal purely on Clinton is fairly superficial.
Oh agreed. I am not. I am blaming Clinton, the administration, and the Congress on that.
Oh I’m blaming him I’m just blaming him, and most Democrats and most Republicans before and after Clinton as well.
shasolenzabi wrote: That is what Warren and others, including McCain did they worded a new version that would stop the gambling the banks were doing before 2008
Sort of. The controls in Glass Steagal were pretty meaningless before they were repealed anyway. In part because they’d been deliberately interpreted to mean very little, but mostly because the security trading that was meant to be controlled by the 1930s law had little relevance to modern finance. An option on pork bellies is nothing like the complex derivatives you can trade in today.
It is possible to bring stability back to retail banking, but you need something with a structure that understands how the sector works today. The McCain & Warren proposal added back some teeth, including a much tighter control on retail banks financial trading, but it was still the old structure, with the same problems.
This election is starting to depress me already. I really dislike Hilliary, and none of the current R frontrunners are any good either. It's probably going to be a choice between bad and worse, kind of sad for my first time voting.
This election, and the next administration is for ONE THING and one thing only:
• Control of the Supreme Court.
Whoever controls the White House in 2016 - 2024 will likely control it for the remainder of the Century (or most of it), due to the Justices they appoint.
That is one reason to like Hillary, regardless of anything else you think about her, is that Justices she appoints will undo EVERYTHING the Roberts' Court has done, and it will undo the Gerrymandering which currently keeps the GOP in power in Congress.
The Roberts Court has done some good things, even a few with him on the (surprisingly) liberal side of things. The SCOTUS is in an interesting point at time right now, and I think it is interesting to watch Roberts grow into his role.
Co'tor Shas wrote: This election is starting to depress me already. I really dislike Hilliary, and none of the current R frontrunners are any good either. It's probably going to be a choice between bad and worse, kind of sad for my first time voting.
Come on Shas.
I gave up on politicians a long long time ago
We need something new
We need some entertainment
We need someone who shock everyone at the debates
Trump has my vote
Unless Colin Powell runs then Trump S.O.L.
BeAfraid wrote: This election, and the next administration is for ONE THING and one thing only:
• Control of the Supreme Court.
Whoever controls the White House in 2016 - 2024 will likely control it for the remainder of the Century (or most of it), due to the Justices they appoint.
That is one reason to like Hillary, regardless of anything else you think about her, is that Justices she appoints will undo EVERYTHING the Roberts' Court has done, and it will undo the Gerrymandering which currently keeps the GOP in power in Congress.
MB
So you are not a fan of the ACA? I thought your life absolutely depended on the ACA. Does that make you suicidal?
The thing about the Roberts court is that many of the big things only barely squeaked though. One more conservative on the court and things would be a whole lot different.
Co'tor Shas wrote: This election is starting to depress me already. I really dislike Hilliary, and none of the current R frontrunners are any good either. It's probably going to be a choice between bad and worse, kind of sad for my first time voting.
Come on Shas.
I gave up on politicians a long long time ago
We need something new
We need some entertainment
We need someone who shock everyone at the debates
Trump has my vote
Unless Colin Powell runs then Trump S.O.L.
Co'tor Shas wrote: This election is starting to depress me already. I really dislike Hilliary, and none of the current R frontrunners are any good either. It's probably going to be a choice between bad and worse, kind of sad for my first time voting.
This is largely how I feel.
The Republican field largely amounts to a clown bus. None of the candidates are anyone I'd want to see anywhere near the presidency, and most of them it's very clear they're not really running to win but to simply generate money/publicity/sell books/etc or position themselves for other offices, or in Trump's case, simply troll everyone for the lulz. I don't think any of them have a snowball's chance in hell in a general election, and most of them know that. In the process however, they're drowning out any more capable candidates, splitting their base, and largely eating each other. It's also somewhat awkward when four or five them are former paid Fox News "consultants".
On the other side, we've got Hillary. I'm not at all a fan of her (she has the ruthlessness of a Merkel or Putin, but nothing near the shrewdness, subtlety, or ability), and I like political dynasties even less. Unfortunately, I think the election is her's to lose, not an opponent's to win. I think that, unless something dramatic happens and HIllary's campaign implodes for some unforeseen reason, she's going to be the next President.
It's loooking very much a repeat of the 2004 election, just reversed. There's a chance for the "out of office" party to capture the office from the "in office" party, but the former are so divided, unorganized, and simply not serious that they fall apart while the latter sits behind a mediocre (but well positioned) candidate and slides to victory on the wave of incompetence from the other side. Now that may change, but if I had to put money on how it'd turn out, I wouldn't put money on anyone but Hillary.
How the hell are you people considering Hillary winning the national election? Or are you guys only paying attention to the mainstream media, who have a blackout on Sanders, and not the local outlets that are actually following him around?
This dude is pulling huge crowds everywhere he goes. 11k in Phoenix. 8k in Dallas. Over 5k in Houston. More importantly? His speeches are resonating with working-class voters in conservative states. You want to talk about a guy who's reaching across the aisle and building bridges in the voting populace? Sanders is that guy.
I'm pretty liberal (my vote is with Sanders so far), and I'd seriously consider Powell. More to the point, if Powell decided to run, it's hard for me to imagine that any contender from either party could beat him, either in the Primaries or the general election.
How the hell are you people considering Hillary winning the national election? Or are you guys only paying attention to the mainstream media, who have a blackout on Sanders, and not the local outlets that are actually following him around?
This dude is pulling huge crowds everywhere he goes. 11k in Phoenix. 8k in Dallas. Over 5k in Houston. More importantly? His speeches are resonating with working-class voters in conservative states. You want to talk about a guy who's reaching across the aisle and building bridges in the voting populace? Sanders is that guy.
It's all well and good for him to do what he's doing, and I'd certainly vote for him over Hillary, however Hillary's campaign hasn't even really kicked into high-working mode yet (because it doesn't need to honestly), has far more backing amongst the establishment and a far larger network of donors and party machinery. One can look at many former candidates who were able to bring out crowds and whatnot early on but crashed once the first primaries came around.
BeAfraid wrote: This election, and the next administration is for ONE THING and one thing only:
• Control of the Supreme Court.
Whoever controls the White House in 2016 - 2024 will likely control it for the remainder of the Century (or most of it), due to the Justices they appoint.
That is one reason to like Hillary, regardless of anything else you think about her, is that Justices she appoints will undo EVERYTHING the Roberts' Court has done, and it will undo the Gerrymandering which currently keeps the GOP in power in Congress.
MB
Welcome to my nightmare.
This Robert court has been trending "liberally" for years.
Gimme a strict, textual constitutionalist... any day.
Otherwise, if we're going to treat the SC as a political entity (ala, Congress)... then, feth it... let's go Calvinball and fething pack the court.
How the hell are you people considering Hillary winning the national election? Or are you guys only paying attention to the mainstream media, who have a blackout on Sanders, and not the local outlets that are actually following him around?
This dude is pulling huge crowds everywhere he goes. 11k in Phoenix. 8k in Dallas. Over 5k in Houston. More importantly? His speeches are resonating with working-class voters in conservative states. You want to talk about a guy who's reaching across the aisle and building bridges in the voting populace? Sanders is that guy.
Sanders is a proud Socialist.
If he's the nominee, we'll see another Reagan wave.
HRC is formiable... she has the funding and an extremely favorable media class working for her.
I'm pretty liberal (my vote is with Sanders so far), and I'd seriously consider Powell. More to the point, if Powell decided to run, it's hard for me to imagine that any contender from either party could beat him, either in the Primaries or the general election.
For some strange reason, I'll be spending most of the afternoon watching John Kerry before the Senate Foreign affairs committee, defending the Iran deal
I love American history and politics, but I think my dedication is going too far. I doubt if most Americans would sit through this
If the day ever comes that I apply for a green card or American citizenship, I want extra points for doing this
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: For some strange reason, I'll be spending most of the afternoon watching John Kerry before the Senate Foreign affairs committee, defending the Iran deal
I love American history and politics, but I think my dedication is going too far. I doubt if most Americans would sit through this
If the day ever comes that I apply for a green card or American citizenship, I want extra points for doing this
How's that going for him after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's recent comments about American policies in the region being "180 degrees" opposed to Iran's, while the crowd chanted "Death to America"?
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: For some strange reason, I'll be spending most of the afternoon watching John Kerry before the Senate Foreign affairs committee, defending the Iran deal
I love American history and politics, but I think my dedication is going too far. I doubt if most Americans would sit through this
If the day ever comes that I apply for a green card or American citizenship, I want extra points for doing this
How's that going for him after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's recent comments about American policies in the region being "180 degrees" opposed to Iran's, while the crowd chanted "Death to America"?
Also, Kerry has done more as sec. of state than Hilliary has. He really gets a lot more done than her, and better too. He probably would have been a good president, much better than who was elected at the very least. He's a horrible politician, but a good statesman (is that the right word).
Remember back in the day when Obama people were trying their damdest on getting the Iran Pres. on to talk to them after he talked to Britain Prime Minister when he was at the UN.
Edit
Trump down in Texas touring the Southern Border. So unlike a good number of GOP candidates he has more "visual" on the matter currently
Are the republicans actually listening to the responses to their questions? Are they really asking questions or just grandstanding to the public with their minds already firmly made up? Are they listening to the nuclear scientists who are actually, you know, experts on the topic?
I sometimes wish they would have never introduced cameras into the hearings. We might actually get honest discussions there as opposed to political grandstanding for the public on both sides. I think the Supreme Court has the right of it.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: For some strange reason, I'll be spending most of the afternoon watching John Kerry before the Senate Foreign affairs committee, defending the Iran deal
I love American history and politics, but I think my dedication is going too far. I doubt if most Americans would sit through this
If the day ever comes that I apply for a green card or American citizenship, I want extra points for doing this
How's that going for him after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's recent comments about American policies in the region being "180 degrees" opposed to Iran's, while the crowd chanted "Death to America"?
I've always liked how people are so quick to point at this guy as a reflection of Iranian thought-process, yet when you point at some Rush Limbough type idiot who screams about gays being the cause of earthquakes and other nonsense, Republicans say that he's just one politician and you can't use the rhetoric of a handful of people to brush a broad stroke over an entire country.
"b-but the difference is Ali Khamenei is the top official in Iran!" Right, and Bush was our president for 8 years, yet his views were only shared by about 40% of the country.
Imagine if the world audience used the Tea Party as a metric of the average American's sanity.
it's almost like McCain and others constantly talking about how we need to bomb Iran despite never trying to pass any legislation to actually bomb Iran.
d-usa wrote: it's almost like McCain and others constantly talking about how we need to bomb Iran despite never trying to pass any legislation to actually bomb Iran.
McCain's defense he thinks they are talking about Barbara Ann, his old girlfriend. She was a hottie.
Limbaugh is not a politician/elected official/leader of a nation. He is an entertainer. I think it is a lot more valid to take the de facto leader of a country's position as more important/relevant than that of a some radio personality.
One had control over how his guys negotiated the nuke deal and does indeed speak for his country, one is a paid entertainer who speaks to his audience.
In fairness, he actually pointed out your exact criticism as the counter argument and he also pointed to the Tea Party (many who do serve in congress) and Bush to counter that counter. I noticed you ignored that bit
To me it's just a more cost efficient version of sending a U.S. carrier group to certain areas to "stand up to Russia".
The Russians will use calls by political leaders to move naval resources near them to point out that we are a warmongering nation intent on destroying them.
The US will see the move as standing up to the great enemy of Russia and protecting the world.
Both sides know that neither Russia nor the US are actually willing to start a war and that moving a carrier group, as well as complaining about it, just serves to play to and rile up your domestic base.
Gordon Shumway wrote: In fairness, he actually pointed out your exact criticism as the counter argument and he also pointed to the Tea Party (many who do serve in congress) and Bush to counter that counter. I noticed you ignored that bit
In fairness, I don't remember Bush calling to completely erase another country the way Khamenei and his folks have.
And in fairness, the 'Tea Party' he likes to attribute some monolithic organized structure to is nothing but a loosely associated group of local/state groups who had some success getting more conservative candidates elected. And none of those candidates are leaders of a country threatening to erase another country...
As head of the Tea Party I call for the utter destruction of Catonia.
Wait, what do you mean there is no Catonia. of course there is. thats where the cats come from. They must be destroyed! Hey why are you putting that jacket on me. No not the tazer Ow! hurts so good.
Think we're counting on the France Aircraft Carrier Group to pick up the slack of of the US not being able to fund a US Carrier Group in the Med.
Also its out that the Pentagon is/was considering placing USMC units on foreign flag naval vessels being the lack of funds to keep US Naval ships in operation
As for Iran I am still a little irritated of them having a hand in providing materials for IED's that killed US Servicemembers
Jihadin wrote: Think we're counting on the France Aircraft Carrier Group to pick up the slack of of the US not being able to fund a US Carrier Group in the Med.
Also its out that the Pentagon is/was considering placing USMC units on foreign flag naval vessels being the lack of funds to keep US Naval ships in operation
As for Iran I am still a little irritated of them having a hand in providing materials for IED's that killed US Servicemembers
Not just materials (in both Iraq and Afghanistan), but Quds force guys actively leading and training Shia militia in Iraq and going on ops with them to kill our guys. feth them.
Keep in mind that a lot of the Iranian "death to america" stuff is speaking to an internal audience and in many ways is often a show. The direct phrasing being used used is also typically more "down with" than really "death to". Iran has its crazies and internal politics just as the US does.
It also needs to be kept in mind that Iran has some valid reasons for being paranoid and disliking the "West", having been invaded and occupied in WW2 by the Birts and the USSR despite not being a combatant, and having a democratically elected government overthrown and replaced with a Western backed police state. These are all things that have happened within living memory, and that plays a role in things that many don't seem to realize. I mean, if such had happened to the US, I'm sure we'd be just as hostile to such foreign powers in our dealings with them.
There's a lot of mistrust and harsh feelings on both sides, with some very good and very real reasons. The only way to change that however is to try and talk things out, as the perpetual standoff isn't doing either side any long term good, and open conflict would be even worse for both parties.
Don't forget Bush Jr. placing them on the Axis of Evil during their democractic reform. Undoing all of it in favor of a more conservative leadership out of fear of US invasion. Which was rightly deserved because the Bush admin was infected with policy makers who were very intent on invading Iran had Iraq gone well.
Those same people are often employed by FoxNews to continue pushing the propaganda to invade Iran. FoxNews, for the neocons by the neocons lol.
Note: CNN/MSNBC generally would follow suit seeing as they plug Liberal Hawk propaganda lol.
I seriously highly doubt we would have open a third "front" by invading Iran though. US Military was rebuilt and geared around a Two Front war concept. Just not long term sustainment over time like OEF and OIF.
No it wasn't, but look at what the DoD analysts for the Bush admin wanted. You had Rumsfeld trying to transform the whole military into a smaller, faster force capable of moving anywhere in the world and rapidly defeating the enemy and then moving onto the next target. The Bush Doctrine emphasized this military style by working off of the idea of a preemptive war. Afghanistan went in with a relatively small force and at the time achieved the win, proving the neocons in the DoD that this new military would work. Iraq was the next on the block because it was easy to convince Bush Jr. and liberal hawks to attack them, also they were considered relatively easy for their purposes.Rumsfeld wanted Iraq taken and won with barely more than 100k in troops (Total, not just the fighting part, as he didn't believe ground pounders won wars).
Iran was supposed to follow. However, it didn't work out in Afghanistan in the end nor did Iraq comply with the plan.
Neocons are pretty open about their agenda as a political ideology. Which is fustrating that their "news" channel is so popular despite conservatives generally being opposed to neocons while unknowingly subscribing to neocon philosophy
Edit: Petraeus redesigning COIN for the US changed everything.
It also didn't help that, going into these places, there wasn't any plan for what to do after conventional forces were defeated or how these nations had actually managed to operate.
Shinseki started that transformation with the Stryker concept when he was Army Chief of Staff
Edit
From Wilki and from memory (Yes. No crap there I was..........had to have been there to understand)
During his tenure as Army Chief of Staff, Shinseki initiated an innovative but controversial plan to make the Army more strategically deployable and mobile in urban terrain by creating Stryker Interim-Force Brigade Combat Teams.[14] He conceived a long term strategic plan for the Army dubbed Objective Force, which included a program he designed, Future Combat Systems.[15] One other controversial plan that Shinseki implemented was the wearing of the black beret for all Army personnel.[16] Prior to Shinseki implementing this policy, only the United States Army Rangers could wear the black beret. When the black beret was given to all soldiers and officers, the Rangers moved to the tan beret.
Yes he did but he didn't fully believe in it. He was a Clinton man which is why Shoomaker was brought in. He would finish the stuff Shinseki begrudgingly started or at least try. My service was only during the repair of that failed strategy lol.
A core concept to neocon ideology is "if they ain't us they hate us", paraphraseed of course. You can go back and still look now at how much you see that idea being thrown around. Especially on FoxNews. They built that propaganda up because neoconservativism can only function if there is an enemy to defeat. The current enemy is Islam, the current intent is every non-democratic state in the M.E. needs to be "liberated" otherwise it is a threat to the US's interests which of course to neocons are its values.
"I'm a guardian of freedom and the American way of life"
America's values which the military must defend. The current soldiers creed shows up in 2003 when Shoomaker takes over by my amateur research.
Point is most of what you see on Iran these days is propaganda because it has to stay an enemy so that eventually we can invade them and bring "democracy." According to and quite openly by a great deal of the talking heads that work for FoxNews. Though admittedly rarely on TV, they do it at their seminars and such off of the main programing.
Shoomaker had no choice but to build on Shinseki concept
By the summer of 2003, the intensive combat operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan were placing a great strain on the U.S. Army. General
Peter J. Schoomaker, sworn-in as the chief of staff of the Army on 1
August 2003, believed that these operations, along with the demands of
an open-ended Global War on Terror, called for a major change in how
the service organized its forces. In early September 2003, he ordered
the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to begin the process of
converting the Army to a modular, brigade-based force. This massive
effort would represent the most far-reaching transformation of the Army’s
operational forces since World War II and the most radical since the
Pentomic reorganization of the late 1950s
Shinseki goal was
To improve the Army’s strategic responsiveness, Shinseki
established a transformation process that would begin with current units,
designated as the Legacy Force, and move through an Interim Force to
what planners termed an Objective Force, the Army of the future. Upon
completion of the process, the service would be able to field a combat-
ready brigade anywhere in the world in 96 hours, a division in 120 hours,
and five divisions in 30 days. The key component of the Interim Force
would be medium brigade combat teams that could deploy more quickly
than existing heavy brigades but be more lethal and have greater tactical
mobility than existing light brigades.
Hhmmm now I know something that made me wonder what was up with all the damn JRTC rotations
When General Gordon R. Sullivan became the chief of staff of
the Army in June 1991, the service was beginning to change from a
forward-deployed force oriented toward deterring the Soviet Union to
a smaller, more flexible body based primarily in the United States. This
more compact force would have to be prepared to conduct missions of
all sizes, not just large-scale, high-intensity combat, and would have to
develop what service members called an expeditionary mind-set, to be capable of quick deployment overseas when necessary. Concerned after a
year in office that existing methods for changing the Army were too slow
to meet those demands, General Sullivan organized a set of experiments
and exercises known as the Louisiana Maneuvers to investigate how to
hasten developments. Much of the work that followed covered two main
areas: how best to design units that had fighting power equal to or greater
than that of current units but could deploy more quickly and how to use
new and future digital technology to improve command and control. To
save time and money, many of the experiments and exercises relied on
computer simulations
BeAfraid wrote: This election, and the next administration is for ONE THING and one thing only:
• Control of the Supreme Court.
Whoever controls the White House in 2016 - 2024 will likely control it for the remainder of the Century (or most of it), due to the Justices they appoint.
That is one reason to like Hillary, regardless of anything else you think about her, is that Justices she appoints will undo EVERYTHING the Roberts' Court has done, and it will undo the Gerrymandering which currently keeps the GOP in power in Congress.
MB
Welcome to my nightmare.
This Robert court has been trending "liberally" for years.
Gimme a strict, textual constitutionalist... any day.
Otherwise, if we're going to treat the SC as a political entity (ala, Congress)... then, feth it... let's go Calvinball and fething pack the court.
While we both know you really do mean that, we also both know that when a politician says that, what they really mean is "I want someone who agrees with my political ideology." You only ever hear politicians say they want constitutionalist judges when they disagree with the ruling.
As far as the whole American problem with Iran, keep in mind we are heavily in bed with Israel, so that generally makes our decisions for us at times. Besides, other countries do have legitimate reasons to dislike/distrust America. We do have a history of attempting to assassinate high ranking officials or overthrowing governments we don't like, just because we think we're right and they're wrong.
While we both know really do mean that, we also both know that when a politician says that, what they really mean is "I want someone who agrees with my political ideology." You only ever hear politicians say they want constitutionalist judges when they disagree with the ruling.
Agreed, just look at the "1st Amendment Defense Act" or whatever they are calling it, that if passed (it won't be), would make it completely OK for people to violate EVERY federal law in regards to discrimination based on "moral convictions"
BeAfraid wrote: This election, and the next administration is for ONE THING and one thing only:
• Control of the Supreme Court.
Whoever controls the White House in 2016 - 2024 will likely control it for the remainder of the Century (or most of it), due to the Justices they appoint.
That is one reason to like Hillary, regardless of anything else you think about her, is that Justices she appoints will undo EVERYTHING the Roberts' Court has done, and it will undo the Gerrymandering which currently keeps the GOP in power in Congress.
MB
Welcome to my nightmare.
This Robert court has been trending "liberally" for years.
Gimme a strict, textual constitutionalist... any day.
Otherwise, if we're going to treat the SC as a political entity (ala, Congress)... then, feth it... let's go Calvinball and fething pack the court.
While we both know you really do mean that, we also both know that when a politician says that, what they really mean is "I want someone who agrees with my political ideology." You only ever hear politicians say they want constitutionalist judges when they disagree with the ruling.
It also doesn't help when one of the judges is on record basically saying "I don't care if the constitution disagrees, if enough people vote for something it should stay", and nobody on that side seems to have a problem with that.
You know, for a party that prides itself on being all about respect for the military, Trump's comment about McCain hasn't actually hurt him that much. Reminds me of the purple heart bandaids making fun of Kerry - for a lot of Republicans respect for the military is political, not genuine.
whembly wrote: It's too early... and the R's haven't had their first debates yet.
I don't buy it. Well... maybe it's a little something as all polls are measuring right now is "name recognition".
Once we get to brass tacks 6 mo prior to the election, that's the time to pay attention to polls.
That's a fair point. I think there's a similar dynamic in both parties, where people are keen for anyone that isn't the same old. So established figures aren't starting with a lead like in more regular political times, but actually starting with a deficit. Meanwhile novel candidates who aren't seen as 'establishment' are given the benefit of the doubt, until they prove otherwise. I guess long term though there's more to being on the political inside than just brand recognition, and sooner rather than later the established insiders with better fundraising, better support teams and more connections carry the day. I guess.
As an aside, in my long running argument of why the Republicans have way bigger problems than the Democrats, compare the fringe candidates both parties are currently doing surprisingly well in the polls. Sanders is certainly fringe, but his ideas are more impractical than actually terrible. Trump's ideas are basically a combination of ignorance and spite.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: For some strange reason, I'll be spending most of the afternoon watching John Kerry before the Senate Foreign affairs committee, defending the Iran deal
I love American history and politics, but I think my dedication is going too far. I doubt if most Americans would sit through this
If the day ever comes that I apply for a green card or American citizenship, I want extra points for doing this
I doubt John Kerry would be committed enough to sit through an afternoon of John Kerry, if he could figure out how to avoid it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
CptJake wrote: In fairness, I don't remember Bush calling to completely erase another country the way Khamenei and his folks have.
I remember Bush actually fething invading another country, so there's that.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vaktathi wrote: It also needs to be kept in mind that Iran has some valid reasons for being paranoid and disliking the "West", having been invaded and occupied in WW2 by the Birts and the USSR despite not being a combatant, and having a democratically elected government overthrown and replaced with a Western backed police state. These are all things that have happened within living memory, and that plays a role in things that many don't seem to realize. I mean, if such had happened to the US, I'm sure we'd be just as hostile to such foreign powers in our dealings with them.
Yep. The US got really mad at the French for a while there, and all they did was not support the US' really terrible idea to invade another country. After what the West has done to Iran, a bit of political theatre is pretty mild, really.
I mean, the Iranian government is rather gak, both in what it does to its people and in its foreign policy esp regarding Israel, but the gakness is pretty much what you’d expect any nation to do in response to their history. This doesn’t mean they get a pass on being gakky, but it also means any effort to paint the Iranians as somehow inherently bad should be seen as very, very silly.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jihadin wrote: I seriously highly doubt we would have open a third "front" by invading Iran though. US Military was rebuilt and geared around a Two Front war concept. Just not long term sustainment over time like OEF and OIF.
Iraq was supposed to be over in a couple of months. A glorious wave of democracy sweeping across a Iraq as they welcomed the liberators with open arms.
Hell
We invaded in my life time so far
Cambodia
Cyprus
Lebanon
Sinai (David Peace Accord)
Honduras
Bolivia
Persian Gulf
Liberia
Kuwait
Saudi Arabia (build up to invade Iraq and Kuwait)
Haiti
Alnania
Grenada
Panama
Bosnia
Kosovo
Somalia
Iraq (twice)
Afghanistan
Eeesshhhhh
Might as well blame Reagan, Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Carter, Obama
Iraq was supposed to be over in a couple of months. A glorious wave of democracy sweeping across a Iraq as they welcomed the liberators with open arms
With 25 days of offensive operations, coalition forces had relative control of all
major Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Tikrit.
Jihadin wrote: Eeesshhhhh
Might as well blame Reagan, Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Carter, Obama
Sure, blame all of them if you want. But don't then claim a high moral ground that Iran is horrible because they sometimes talk about wanting to destroy another country.
Jihadin wrote: Eeesshhhhh
Might as well blame Reagan, Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Carter, Obama
Sure, blame all of them if you want. But don't then claim a high moral ground that Iran is horrible because they sometimes talk about wanting to destroy another country.
I take it you have on excellent knowledge that Iran will not try to nuke Israel?
Jihadin wrote: Eeesshhhhh
Might as well blame Reagan, Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Carter, Obama
Sure, blame all of them if you want. But don't then claim a high moral ground that Iran is horrible because they sometimes talk about wanting to destroy another country.
I take it you have on excellent knowledge that Iran will not try to nuke Israel?
In all honesty, the capability is much more one-sided in Israel's favor and will likely remain so for decades more, even if Iran were to develop such weapons. MAD is still a functional theory, and it's unlikely that the military and political leadership of Iran are willing to risk nuclear retaliation (no matter how big a game some talk). To be perfectly honest, one of their Arab neighbors is a much more likely target, both for practical realpolitik reasons and a lack of in-kind retaliatory capability.
Jihadin wrote: Eeesshhhhh
Might as well blame Reagan, Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Carter, Obama
Sure, blame all of them if you want. But don't then claim a high moral ground that Iran is horrible because they sometimes talk about wanting to destroy another country.
I take it you have on excellent knowledge that Iran will not try to nuke Israel?
In all honesty, the capability is much more one-sided in Israel's favor and will likely remain so for decades more, even if Iran were to develop such weapons. MAD is still a functional theory, and it's unlikely that the military and political leadership of Iran are willing to risk nuclear retaliation (no matter how big a game some talk). To be perfectly honest, one of their Arab neighbors is a much more likely target, both for practical realpolitik reasons and a lack of in-kind retaliatory capability.
Lot riding on a theory.
Israel not going to ride that theory.
Israel will more likely strike first and since we're in a "Deal" with them that we have to protect their nuclear program or something to that effect what will the US of A do eh
BlaxicanX wrote: I've always liked how people are so quick to point at this guy as a reflection of Iranian thought-process, yet when you point at some Rush Limbough type idiot who screams about gays being the cause of earthquakes and other nonsense, Republicans say that he's just one politician and you can't use the rhetoric of a handful of people to brush a broad stroke over an entire country.
"b-but the difference is Ali Khamenei is the top official in Iran!" Right, and Bush was our president for 8 years, yet his views were only shared by about 40% of the country.
Imagine if the world audience used the Tea Party as a metric of the average American's sanity.
You comparisons are in no way, shape, or form apt.
http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/supreme-leader "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s most powerful official. As supreme leader, he has constitutional authority or substantial influence over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government as well as the military and media."
" As supreme leader, Khamenei has constitutional authority over the judiciary, the regular armed forces and the elite Revolutionary Guards, and the state-controlled media. He also has effective control over Iran’s second most powerful institution, the 12-member Guardian Council, which has the authority to vet electoral candidates and veto parliamentary decisions. (Khamenei appoints half its members, as well as the judicial chief who appoints the other half.) The Iranian economy is largely state-controlled, and Khamenei has the most authority over how the country’s oil revenue is spent. He also has control over the country’s bonyads—charitable foundations with billions of dollars in assets—in addition to the millions more his office receives in charitable donations offered to Iran’s holy shrines."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran So as you now be more familiar with the role of Ali Khamenei you can hopefully see that he wields a substantially more power than the POTUS does, much less what "some Rush Limbough type idiot" can muster
Jihadin wrote: Eeesshhhhh
Might as well blame Reagan, Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Carter, Obama
Sure, blame all of them if you want. But don't then claim a high moral ground that Iran is horrible because they sometimes talk about wanting to destroy another country.
I take it you have on excellent knowledge that Iran will not try to nuke Israel?
In all honesty, the capability is much more one-sided in Israel's favor and will likely remain so for decades more, even if Iran were to develop such weapons. MAD is still a functional theory, and it's unlikely that the military and political leadership of Iran are willing to risk nuclear retaliation (no matter how big a game some talk). To be perfectly honest, one of their Arab neighbors is a much more likely target, both for practical realpolitik reasons and a lack of in-kind retaliatory capability.
Lot riding on a theory.
Israel not going to ride that theory.
Israel will more likely strike first and since we're in a "Deal" with them that we have to protect their nuclear program or something to that effect what will the US of A do eh
If they want to initiate a conflict fine, but I'd much rather we at least try to work a deal out, and demanding Iran make it's entire nuclear program dependent on production in other nations, or not allowing it entirely, with the alternative being war, is somewhat ridiculous. We certainly would not accept such conditions if the situations were reversed. I don't think that the deal reached was a bad one.
If Israel has strong objections, well, that's tough on them, they weren't part of the talks. If they want to fight a war over it, let them, but keep us out of it. With Israel's enemies currently eating each other or falling apart internally, I see no good reason for them to refocus that ire onto themselves unless they just want a war for its own sake and are unwilling to trust their allies.
Jihadin wrote: I take it you have on excellent knowledge that Iran will not try to nuke Israel?
If you’re going to lurch in to something completely unrelated, at least swing the conversation over to something that’s interesting, like maybe the cricket. I really like the way Steve Smith is batting – a unique technique but one that suits his strengths. I can’t guarantee he won’t one day fire a nuclear weapon at Jerusalem, but in the meantime we can just enjoy watching the guy who is likely to be our best batsmen since Ricky Ponting.
After sitting through that Senate hearing yesterday, I forgot to post my take on the whole thing, and this won't come as a surprise to Americans on dakka, but that hearing was a disgrace.
No wonder people on this forum are depressed at the prospect of next year's Presidential campaign, because yesterday's hearing was partisan politics at its worst.
The Republican response to the deal can be summed up as this: Democrats bad. Iran very very bad.
When it was pointed out that GW Bush offered Iran a similar deal, their response was democrats bad.
When the Republicans were asked what they would have done differently, they were silent for a while, and then it was Democrats bad.
Rubio's grandstanding was nauseating at the best of times. Yes, we know you're running for president. And the other Republican senators weren't much better.
To be fair, Democrat Senators were equally as clueless.
I actually thought Kerry and his team argued their case quite well, and after reading some of the detail of the deal, IMO it's not a bad deal.
But God almighty, it's just as well most of America doesn't watch these hearings because you would see another American revolution.
The sad thing is, this circus will repeat itself on Tuesday when Kerry goes before Congress.
American dakka members, I've said this before, and I acknowledge that British politicians are equally as bad, but if that's the calibre of politicians that the USA is producing, then I genuinely fear for your country. I would not let these people run a hotdog stand, never mind a global superpower.
Another fun fact about Iran that has bearing on the situation which I don't see mentioned very much.
Yemen had been a decent ally in our fight against AQ both in Yemen and in the region. Iran supported ($$, weapons, training, Quds leadership) the rebels that took out the Yemeni government. This happened while we were negotiating. This, coupled with other actions we have and are seeing is indicative of how they see their role in the region as contrary to US goals/objectives. Probably does not mean a lot to some of you, but it does have implications for the future in the region.
And lets not forget the US citizens Iran is currently holding (that we left out of the deal).
Tannhauser42 wrote: Yep, to paraphrase George Carlin, when you have stupid voters you get stupid politicians, garbage in, garbage out.
I compared it to a circus earlier, but on reflection, it does a major disservice to any circus on this planet! At times it was like comedy hour.
When you watch the news, you would have gotten a 20 second clip from the proceedings, which no doubt made it look respectable. It was anything but.
Sad to see such an important issue reduced to the level of the school playground.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
CptJake wrote: Another fun fact about Iran that has bearing on the situation which I don't see mentioned very much.
Yemen had been a decent ally in our fight against AQ both in Yemen and in the region. Iran supported ($$, weapons, training, Quds leadership) the rebels that took out the Yemeni government. This happened while we were negotiating. This, coupled with other actions we have and are seeing is indicative of how they see their role in the region as contrary to US goals/objectives. Probably does not mean a lot to some of you, but it does have implications for the future in the region.
And lets not forget the US citizens Iran is currently holding (that we left out of the deal).
Earlier I praised Kerry, but the issue of American hostages was not presented well, and at times, Kerry tried to dodge it, and the Republicans rightfully gave him stick for it.
But then the Republicans shot themselves in the foot by reverting back to the Democrats are bad, no matter what they do, approach.
You may have the answer to this, but for the life of me, I don't know why the Republicans act like this.
One minute they're acting like proper, serious, politicians, the next minute, it's fingers in the ear time, la la la, Democrats are bad etc etc .
Would they act like this if there wasn't a Presidential election next year?
The problem is that the Ayatollah is quite correct when he called America "arrogant" recently. As you can see, our politicians wanted this deal to basically take everything from Iran without giving them anything in return. That's not how a deal works, but our current crop of politicians cut the word "compromise" out of their dictionaries long ago.
sebster wrote: You know, for a party that prides itself on being all about respect for the military, Trump's comment about McCain hasn't actually hurt him that much. Reminds me of the purple heart bandaids making fun of Kerry - for a lot of Republicans respect for the military is political, not genuine.
I thought he was a clown before, but those comments of his has given me an actual distaste for the man now. I will actively preach against him because of his attack on McCain.
Double standards? No outcry when Chris Rock did it but then Chris Rock wasn't running for POTUS.
Yet I did not know Chris Rock made similar reference about McCain till recently.
Just saying Still has my vote just for Entertainment Value and the mayhem of the upcoming debates and that he is not a politician
America is in the midst of another US presidential primary season. That means a bunch of politicians are doing whatever they can to appeal to almost every demographic in the country.
So if one of them meets a "Star Wars" fan, they'll probably try to win their vote by pretending to do a mind meld or saying how much they hate those pesky Cylons (which happen to be from "Battlestar Galactica," not "Star Trek"). Then the world gets to sit back and enjoy the awkward hilarity of their misinformed pandering.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a candidate for the Republican nomination, already had such a moment in an awkward video attempt to audition for "The Simpsons" on BuzzFeed. Still, I'll give him props for one thing. He appears to have a genuine interest in and prowess for pop-culture knowledge that most of politicians would kill to possess. He knows enough to have a conversation about "Star Trek," as he did in a Q&A with The New York Times Magazine that was published Thursday and led to a strange assertion about the political leanings of the franchise's most famous character.
Interviewer Ana Marie Cox asked the senator about his love for all things "Star Trek" and whether he preferred Capt. James T. Kirk from the original "Star Trek" series or Capt. Jean-Luc Picard from "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Cruz said he's an old-school Kirk fan because he prefers "a complete captain" who possesses the "heart and mind" needed to be a spaceship captain.
"The original 'Star Trek' was grittier," Cruz told the Times. "Kirk is working class; Picard is an aristocrat. Kirk is a passionate fighter for justice; Picard is a cerebral philosopher. The original 'Star Trek' pressed for racial equality, which was one of its best characteristics, but it did so without sermonizing."
Cox then asked Cruz whether he thought Kirk would be a Democrat or a Republican. Unless you're completely ignorant of American politics, you can probably guess Cruz's response.
"I think it is quite likely that Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat," Cruz said.
Well, there is at least one person out there who disagrees with Cruz's assessment -- and that's Capt. Frickin' Kirk himself. Actor William Shatner, who played Kirk in the original "Star Trek" series, jumped on his Twitter account on Thursday to voice his opinion on Cruz's claim that Kirk should have an "(R)" next to his name if he ever ran for public office.
Frankly, I'm not going to get in the middle of this debate. But it's not because I believe that pop culture doesn't belong in national politics or that our time should be better spent discussing more important issues potential presidential candidates.
In fact, I really want this war of words between Cruz and Shatner to escalate so they'll have to fight each other the way that Spock and Kirk did in the "Amok Time" episode with that battle music playing in the background. I'm sure that the folks at CNN are thinking the same thing so they can use their hologram technology to show something cool for once.
She and her staff took classified material provided by the intelligence community and dropped it into unsecured communications... which is a violation of the law, and a potential disaster for national security.
So... let's update the scorecard eh?
"Just wanted one device." LIE "All work emails handed over." LIE "Never received classified info." LIE "Never sent classified info." LIE
Rank and File officials would be charged already. Why is HRC going largely unscathed?
Eh, I still believe that it probably doesn't really matter who it is, just that it isn't the kind of thing a lot of people care about to begin with.
After all, the whole OPM thing has largely been forgotten by the masses, and that was a tangible disaster that only barely made the top headlines for a little while before the latest celebrity breakup/hookup took over.
As far as why she isn't charged already compared to "rank and file officials"? Tinfoil-Hat-Conspiracy-Idea: The Republicans secretly want to drag it out as long as they can so they can produce the real "Gotcha!" at the height of her campaign shortly before the election.
The sad part is, the state of our politics is such that that idea may actually be possible.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Eh, I still believe that it probably doesn't really matter who it is, just that it isn't the kind of thing a lot of people care about to begin with.
After all, the whole OPM thing has largely been forgotten by the masses, and that was a tangible disaster that only barely made the top headlines for a little while before the latest celebrity breakup/hookup took over.
As far as why she isn't charged already compared to "rank and file officials"? Tinfoil-Hat-Conspiracy-Idea: The Republicans secretly want to drag it out as long as they can so they can produce the real "Gotcha!" at the height of her campaign shortly before the election.
The sad part is, the state of our politics is such that that idea may actually be possible.
I don't think it's tinfoil territory at all... they're still dragging their feet on the Benghazi Committee.
I mean, Patreus got ding'ed for sharing classified info...
In other news, Cruz just attacked his own party on the Senate floor, basically saying:
the majority does get things done, but it listens to one and only one voice: That is, the voice of the Washington cartel, of the lobbyists on K Street, of the big money and big corporations.
He's not wrong... but man... he's burning some bridges there...
No, Cruz isn't wrong, but he is the pot calling the kettle black. He just got $15 million from some billionaires, he's been bragging about being the better candidate because he's raised more money than others, and he certainly made good to his cable company contributors when he spouted off against net neutrality. I would love to see his NASCAR sponsor suit.
Tannhauser42 wrote: No, Cruz isn't wrong, but he is the pot calling the kettle black. He just got $15 million from some billionaires, he's been bragging about being the better candidate because he's raised more money than others, and he certainly made good to his cable company contributors when he spouted off against net neutrality. I would love to see his NASCAR sponsor suit.
Indeed... just a curious tactic that's all.
I mean, the only thing I can think of is that when the inevitable Trumpmania dies down... Cruz is trying to line himself up as a replacement for trump voters.
Tannhauser42 wrote: No, Cruz isn't wrong, but he is the pot calling the kettle black. He just got $15 million from some billionaires, he's been bragging about being the better candidate because he's raised more money than others, and he certainly made good to his cable company contributors when he spouted off against net neutrality. I would love to see his NASCAR sponsor suit.
See. That's one of the things I like about Trump
Besides entertainment and not a politician
He owes no one any favors from donations
@Whembly Oh yeah, no doubt about that. When Trump mouthed off about McCain not being a hero, Cruz very conspicuously did not attack Trump himself, just Trump's comment He's definitely hoping to get Trump's endorsement when/if the time comes.
Which is one more reason I have no faith/trust in Cruz. I would prefer a politician with the moral strength to reject Trump's endorsement. That's one reason why I like Perry after his attack on Trump.
whembly wrote: Yeah... I'm a Perry fan, but I'm not convinced he can overcome his "oops" moment.
One would think the more serious issue for that particular candidate would be attempting to run a presidential campaign while under criminal indictment for felony corruption charges
whembly wrote: Yeah... I'm a Perry fan, but I'm not convinced he can overcome his "oops" moment.
One would think the more serious issue for that particular candidate would be attempting to run a presidential campaign while under criminal indictment for felony corruption charges
Sure... if you buy that this doesn't mean anything:
Let's not forget that the DA prosecuted Perry for threatening to veto funding while a disgraced DA remained in charge of the county’s public integrity unit. He did veto funding for the office, an act allowed under the Texas constitution.
Your talking about that hammered Democrat who tried to use her position to get out of a DUI/DWI while being process into lockup? The one who's in charge of a Corruption Task Force or something to that effect?
Edit
by Whembly
Still recovering from Cooper/Crue concert
whembly wrote: Yeah... I'm a Perry fan, but I'm not convinced he can overcome his "oops" moment.
One would think the more serious issue for that particular candidate would be attempting to run a presidential campaign while under criminal indictment for felony corruption charges
Sure... if you buy that this doesn't mean anything:
VIDEOS
Let's not forget that the DA prosecuted Perry for threatening to veto funding while a disgraced DA remained in charge of the county’s public integrity unit. He did veto funding for the office, an act allowed under the Texas constitution.
Text book definition of prosecuturial abuse.
I'm not commenting on the charges themselves, only that he's under indictment, and, no matter what the facts are, that's an awkward thing to wrestle with when running for President that is likely going to be an insurmountable issue later in the campaigning season if the final charge is not dropped. Even if he's totally innocent, that sort of a cloud is basically impossible to move out from under once he's out of his home base.
That said, you'll have to excuse me if I find videos directly from his campaign, and a country music station, to be somewhat...biased sources of information on the matter.
As I understand it, and I could be wrong, the issue isn't that Perry didn't have the authority to veto the funding, but that he did so as a means of coercion. Hell yes that DA should have been kicked out, I just think it could have been done a better way. How many other people wee going to lose their jobs without that funding, just because the DA fethed up?
The issue isn't that he used the line-item veto, but that he used it to coerce another branch of government and when they did not kowtow to his dictates, he did so punitively.
The fact that someone else also acted poorly doesn't somehow negate that this is, under Texas law, a felony.
As an analogy, if I have an employee that works for me, and it's at-will state, I can fire someone for any non-discriminatory reason I want, or no reason at all. But I can't tell an employee to have sex with me or I'll fire them, and then fire them if they don't. You see how harping on the fact that one of his actions was lawful while disregarding the unlawful basis for that action is a little intellectually dishonest? "Yeah, but it's not illegal to eat candy" while glossing over the candy was shoplifted, to use another analogy.
The charges are pretty weak, but clearly not so weak that an appellate court was willing to dismiss them. I think he'll beat the charge. I don't think it's going to impact his presidential race, because, come on, he's Rick Perry. It's like me being worried about whether or not Katy Perry liking my sex moves when we hook up - it's never, ever going to happen, so it probably doesn't matter.
The real issue is, in my opinion, that Texas has a line-item veto, which is I think a poor practice. I feel like it usurps too far into the powers of the legislature and lends itself to exactly the kinds of shenanigans you see here. But, you know, the voters in Texas seem OK with it, so it's their call.
I want to say that it was struck down as unconstitutional at some point. I know he doesn't have it, but I honestly don't know why from the top of my head to be honest.
I want to say that it was struck down as unconstitutional at some point. I know he doesn't have it, but I honestly don't know why from the top of my head to be honest.
Just read up about the line item veto. Regardless of the merits of the actual case, that's the sort of bipartisanship we need. Dole and McCain law, Clintn signed it, Bryd challenged it. 6-3 Supreme Court ruling. Man, those were the good old days when stuff was judged on the merits.
I want to say that it was struck down as unconstitutional at some point. I know he doesn't have it, but I honestly don't know why from the top of my head to be honest.
Start bailing we're in the same damn boat and we hear banjo music
BeAfraid wrote: This election, and the next administration is for ONE THING and one thing only:
• Control of the Supreme Court.
Whoever controls the White House in 2016 - 2024 will likely control it for the remainder of the Century (or most of it), due to the Justices they appoint.
That is one reason to like Hillary, regardless of anything else you think about her, is that Justices she appoints will undo EVERYTHING the Roberts' Court has done, and it will undo the Gerrymandering which currently keeps the GOP in power in Congress.
MB
So you are not a fan of the ACA? I thought your life absolutely depended on the ACA. Does that make you suicidal?
Yes.
In fact it does make me suicidal (among other things).
If I was capable of killing myself with a morphine overdose, I would have already done so (I get around 2400mg of Morphine a month - but it is in pills that do not lend themselves to being "cooked" to inject, or I would already be dead).
Why do you ask?
Odds are likely that the ACA will be replaced with something that does not cause doctors to become utter imbeciles WRT insurance options. I doubt seriously that the ACA is in any danger, unless it comes in the form of a Single-Payer replacement in the 20s (the earliest that the GOP's gerrymandering of key states giving them an artificial majority can be undone).
How the hell are you people considering Hillary winning the national election? Or are you guys only paying attention to the mainstream media, who have a blackout on Sanders, and not the local outlets that are actually following him around?
This dude is pulling huge crowds everywhere he goes. 11k in Phoenix. 8k in Dallas. Over 5k in Houston. More importantly? His speeches are resonating with working-class voters in conservative states. You want to talk about a guy who's reaching across the aisle and building bridges in the voting populace? Sanders is that guy.
"Dude is pulling huge crowds" of people who are already Far Left, for the most part.
His polling among the vital "Undecideds" is tepid in states like Wisconsin, to non-existent in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the undecidededs will not vote for someone who answers the question "Are you a socialist?" with an emphatic "YES!"
Which is sad, because I would love to see him as President, if we had the necessary foundations in place to implement his policies.
But, alas, he is roughly 4 to 8 years too early. which is tremendously frustrating.
Most of the issues with Hillary, though, I find to be overblown, and based upon as much biased, manufactured outrage as exists on the right.
She remains one of the most qualified and capable politicians alive, and has more experience in dealing with the White House than any other candidate running on either side.
I am pretty sure, though, that Bernie Sanders will wind up in her administration. He could wind up her VP, or he could go for a Cabinet Position (although I can't quite figure out what he would be interested in doing in the cabinet).
I'm pretty liberal (my vote is with Sanders so far), and I'd seriously consider Powell. More to the point, if Powell decided to run, it's hard for me to imagine that any contender from either party could beat him, either in the Primaries or the general election.
Powell will not run for the GOP.
If you have been reading his latest works, he has abandoned the GOP over their decline into insanity.
But I would be ALL OVER A Powell Candidacy.... He is very much the pragmatist's pragmatist.
Jihadin wrote: Eeesshhhhh
Might as well blame Reagan, Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Carter, Obama
Sure, blame all of them if you want. But don't then claim a high moral ground that Iran is horrible because they sometimes talk about wanting to destroy another country.
I take it you have on excellent knowledge that Iran will not try to nuke Israel?
Are they going to carry the nuke to Israel in a truck?
They have no delivery systems.
And I doubt Russia (and the Chinese certainly aren't) is going to give them any capable of throwing an atomic bomb.
There will be certain events that take place that let us know if Iran ever assembles a working nuclear weapon.
When that happens, it is unlikely that Israel would wait for the USA for permission to do anything, and would likely act themselves (putting us in the position of having to either abandon them, or support them - and we will support them).
We have a pretty good idea of a time-table for their ability to assemble a bomb, and how to track key technologies that could be reverse-engineered to create parts for a bomb (and how long it would take).
So it is a little bit of a gamble once we reach the end of that time-table, but if they assembled a bomb (and then tried to deploy it without testing it), we would probably be able to detect it long before it got anywhere (especially if they put it in a vehicle capable of any speed, where shielding the fissiles enough to halt neutron detection would not be possible).
And if they are stupid enough to test one, then we would know INSTANTLY they had a bomb (so would Israel)... and we are back to Israel acting pre-emptively.
MB
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: After sitting through that Senate hearing yesterday, I forgot to post my take on the whole thing, and this won't come as a surprise to Americans on dakka, but that hearing was a disgrace.
No wonder people on this forum are depressed at the prospect of next year's Presidential campaign, because yesterday's hearing was partisan politics at its worst.
The Republican response to the deal can be summed up as this: Democrats bad. Iran very very bad.
When it was pointed out that GW Bush offered Iran a similar deal, their response was democrats bad.
When the Republicans were asked what they would have done differently, they were silent for a while, and then it was Democrats bad.
Rubio's grandstanding was nauseating at the best of times. Yes, we know you're running for president. And the other Republican senators weren't much better.
To be fair, Democrat Senators were equally as clueless.
I actually thought Kerry and his team argued their case quite well, and after reading some of the detail of the deal, IMO it's not a bad deal.
But God almighty, it's just as well most of America doesn't watch these hearings because you would see another American revolution.
The sad thing is, this circus will repeat itself on Tuesday when Kerry goes before Congress.
American dakka members, I've said this before, and I acknowledge that British politicians are equally as bad, but if that's the calibre of politicians that the USA is producing, then I genuinely fear for your country. I would not let these people run a hotdog stand, never mind a global superpower.
Having lived in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, Kenya, South Africa, Afghanistan, Mexico, Honduras, Columbia, Venezuela, and Canada (I can't recall if I actually lived in Australia, India, or several other European Countries... GREECE! I lived in Greece for about six months, and went back a few times), and been an avid consumer of politics....
The USA's politicians (especially on the right) are right now behaving worse than most of the developing world I have seen.
The history of how they got to this point is equally interesting. And we are poisoning the rest of the world with our toxic partisan politics, as other "allies" of the USA take our political behavior as a sign that they can behave just as stupidly (Korea and Japan have both seen neo-reactionary movements arise in their countries since 2000 that are directly related to the shift rightward we took after Bush's "Election" in 2000 - among others).
Since 1995 there has been a growing rejection of expertise in the USA, where people have resorted to a Post-Modernistic Rejection of "Facts" in favor of "beliefs," "values," or "opinion."
Yet, those things can all be completely wrong no matter how strongly one "believes" they are right.
I want to say that it was struck down as unconstitutional at some point. I know he doesn't have it, but I honestly don't know why from the top of my head to be honest.
It was, and I think that was the right call. I understand that sometimes the legislature has to put on their big boy pants and actually do their jobs, and that doesn't make them happy, but I don't think the answer is essentially abdicating their responsibilities. It gives too much power to the executive.
I think it could work on the most local of levels - townships or small cities, but anything larger that that scale is I think an invitation to bad governance.
She and her staff took classified material provided by the intelligence community and dropped it into unsecured communications... which is a violation of the law, and a potential disaster for national security.
In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, the inspector general of the intelligence community concluded that Mrs. Clinton’s email contains material from the intelligence community that should have been considered “secret”—the second-highest level of classification—at the time it was sent.
Simply because something should have been considered "secret" does not indicate that it was at the time, as the State Department appears to be arguing.
That's not necessarily true. The case against Hillary, as presented, is not a strong one. A rank-and-file official may have resigned by now, but it isn't certain they would have been charged with anything.
Your hate-on for Clinton is clouding your judgment.
House of Rep congresscritters are generally worse than even senate congresscritters. The Reps have to try to be re-elected every couple of years so they tend to try even harder to score points. If you watch you'll surely be entertained.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And because there are so many more of them compared to the Senate, they have to try even harder to outdo each other in attention whoring.
I don't know...
I don't blame Cruz's attention whoring here. After what transpired last weekend... that's exhibit 'A' as to why typical GOP voters hate the current GOP leadership.
It's no wonder why Trump is appealing to some folks... (even though he's so far away from a typical republican).
MrDwhitey wrote: To be fair, the crazy vote isn't usually catered for so Trump will have some people supporting him.
It's not 'the crazies'...
It's just that the current GOP leadership/direction isn't popular within their own voters.
I think Cruz hit's the mark when he said there's no really Republican / Democrat parties with respect to the whole lobbying-to-funding activities. It's truly a "#WashintonCartel".
Frankly, I've yet to be convinced that Ex-Im bills is a good thing... heck, I think it's blatant corporate cronyism there. But, alas, the general election voters won't care about it. *shrug*
I'm not crazy. I just like good entertainment. How many here going to watch the Fox debate that's happening soon? Trumps the wild card with a "W". He's resonating with the general population with his bluntness to issues.
I also the notice he really didn't take a hit for the McCain comments either. I blame Bergdahl for that one.
Jihadin wrote: I'm not crazy. I just like good entertainment. How many here going to watch the Fox debate that's happening soon? Trumps the wild card with a "W". He's resonating with the general population with his bluntness to issues.
I personally wouldn't consider a 60% unfavorable rating among registered voters "resonating".
Still, as someone who doesn't want any of the current GOP contenders to win the election, I think he's doing a terrific job and I hope he never shuts up.
What I'm really puzzled over is how the Republicans have devolved in the last 15 years in terms of campaign management.
The Republican party of 2000 was a well oiled, disciplined, coherent, and highly structured machine. There was a line that was, for the most part, rigidly towed. Republicans did not speak ill of other Republicans (particularly in the ways they are now). Primaries were largely restricted to internally approved candidates where only two or three got any attention and resources. Ranks were closed and efforts were focused and elections were won seemingly in spite of the electoral demographics in many instances and ruthlessly shut down the Democrats for basically a decade between mid-late 90's and late 00's.
That remarkably smooth functioning machine that once characterized Republican campaigning, and that made such a mockery of the Democrats for years, has seemingly vanished and begun to cannibalize itself, hoist by its own petard in many ways.
Jihadin wrote: I'm not crazy. I just like good entertainment. How many here going to watch the Fox debate that's happening soon? Trumps the wild card with a "W". He's resonating with the general population with his bluntness to issues.
I personally wouldn't consider a 60% unfavorable rating among registered voters "resonating".
Still, as someone who doesn't want any of the current GOP contenders to win the election, I think he's doing a terrific job and I hope he never shuts up.
Thats what Hillary is paying him for... If he actually got the nomination, then the Republicans would deserve the Extinction Level Event they receive at the voting booth.
Jihadin wrote: I'm not crazy. I just like good entertainment. How many here going to watch the Fox debate that's happening soon? Trumps the wild card with a "W". He's resonating with the general population with his bluntness to issues.
I personally wouldn't consider a 60% unfavorable rating among registered voters "resonating".
Still, as someone who doesn't want any of the current GOP contenders to win the election, I think he's doing a terrific job and I hope he never shuts up.
Thats what Hillary is paying him for... If he actually got the nomination, then the Republicans would deserve the Extinction Level Event they receive at the voting booth.
You know dang well you would go all out on a "Pay Per View" to watch Trump and a Hillary Debate.
The fact that Trump is a front runner shows how delusional the base has become, and also how pandering to the base and forget the rest is the best way to win. That was Rove's visionary idea!
Frazzled wrote: If he actually got the nomination, then the Republicans would deserve the Extinction Level Event they receive at the voting booth.
RCP is saying even Sanders would beat Trump by 10 points.
If its Sanders vs. Trump, I'm immediately forming my own republic, the Republican of Frazzledistan. In Dog we Trust!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Easy E wrote: The fact that Trump is a front runner shows how delusional the base has become, and also how pandering to the base and forget the rest is the best way to win. That was Rove's visionary idea!
Once a primary is actually held, I'd put Trump as being slaughtered. People think he's the best carnival barker around, but I can't see them actually voting for him. Plus, mark my words, if it looks like he has even a slight chance the oppo research dumped to the press will be tsunami like.
Easy E wrote: The fact that Trump is a front runner shows how delusional the base has become, and also how pandering to the base and forget the rest is the best way to win. That was Rove's visionary idea!
*meh*
Lest we forget, Herman Cain was the front runner for a while...
The real issue, is that there's a lack of clear GOP leadership who resonate to the base right now and they're wanting to pushing the GOP somehow.
In twittah speak, they're the "let it burn" caucus.
Once a primary is actually held, I'd put Trump as being slaughtered. People think he's the best carnival barker around, but I can't see them actually voting for him. Plus, mark my words, if it looks like he has even a slight chance the oppo research dumped to the press will be tsunami like.
All you have to say is that, here's a guy who voted Democrat, donated directly to Hillary Clinton's campaign, and simply do a simple google search post 2010 for all his social media excursion.
Eh, I would argue most of the lesser candidates are basically scamming, too. I won't name names (we'll call him Mr. C), but one candidate just got $15 million from a couple of billionaires. First, if that's not clearly buying a politician's vote, I don't know what is. Second, this Mr. C has no real chance of actually being elected President. But, until it's time for the GOP to actually pick their ballot, he gets a free ride to wherever he wants to go on the campaign trail, riding in nice cars, nice jets, getting free meals at fancy restaurants, and generally enjoying the hell out of life while also putting himself in the spotlight so he can use it all to help push his own reelection when that time comes, and most of the other candidates are in it for the exact same reasons.
Just think about that, $15 million from two guys, basically just being pissed away on a candidate that won't win.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vaktathi wrote: What I'm really puzzled over is how the Republicans have devolved in the last 15 years in terms of campaign management.
The Republican party of 2000 was a well oiled, disciplined, coherent, and highly structured machine. There was a line that was, for the most part, rigidly towed. Republicans did not speak ill of other Republicans (particularly in the ways they are now). Primaries were largely restricted to internally approved candidates where only two or three got any attention and resources. Ranks were closed and efforts were focused and elections were won seemingly in spite of the electoral demographics in many instances and ruthlessly shut down the Democrats for basically a decade between mid-late 90's and late 00's.
That remarkably smooth functioning machine that once characterized Republican campaigning, and that made such a mockery of the Democrats for years, has seemingly vanished and begun to cannibalize itself, hoist by its own petard in many ways.
The last 15 years have also seen the rise of the Internet as the dominating primary source of all news and information. I remember reading some commentary a couple elections ago about how poorly the GOP handled the digital side of campaigning compared to the Dems.
Just think about that, $15 million from two guys, basically just being pissed away on a candidate that won't win.
I don't think they see it that way... Imagine this scenario if you will... These two individuals have paid $15 mill into a campaign. Let's say the "unthinkable" happens, and he gets elected. Now, they can pretty much go to him at ANY time thereafter and say, "hey, this bill coming up, [squash/pass] it." And he'll do that.... Let's say it's a bill that will help these millionaires. That 15 mill could net the pair of guys 20 mill in a couple years. That's a pretty good "return on investment" no?
Well, in my original version, I had said it was publicly pissing away $15 million but privately buying a senator's vote, but I changed it before posting. I did say at the beginning that I saw it as buying a vote. After all, when you give someone that much money, and some important bill comes up that stands to make you gain or lose a lot of money, you can wink and nod and say "you know, if that bill doesn't go this certain way, I may not have another $15 million to give you for your next election."
Now, I'm not intending to hammer away at this particular candidate, it's just that it was in the news recently and still sticks in my mind. They ALL get ridiculous amounts of money in the name of "campaign funding." Money that they can fritter away on things like campaign dinners and paying their "campaign managers" who just happen to be good friends and so on.
Tannhauser42 wrote: They ALL get ridiculous amounts of money in the name of "campaign funding." Money that they can fritter away on things like campaign dinners and paying their "campaign managers" who just happen to be good friends and so on.
Well, almost all. Keep in mind that Sanders has no big financial backer. His biggest donors are are groups of unions, and if the infographic I saw on it is accurate, he's getting at or less than $1 million per donor group, with the majority of his funds actually coming from single person donations of $250 or less
One of the things I like about Trump. He backs himself with his own funds. If he doesn't win the nomination I'm sure he find a way to get back all the money he sunk into it
The article is funny, but mostly it's a really good summary of the Trump campaign. He's built a campaign that perfectly captures the 12% of stupid, hate-filled voters that no real candidate wants to touch.
Vaktathi wrote: What I'm really puzzled over is how the Republicans have devolved in the last 15 years in terms of campaign management.
The Republican party of 2000 was a well oiled, disciplined, coherent, and highly structured machine. There was a line that was, for the most part, rigidly towed. Republicans did not speak ill of other Republicans (particularly in the ways they are now).
In 2000 Bush ran a push poll that asks voters if their vote would be affected if they learned McCain had fathered a black baby out of wedlock. So things were never really all that nice.
But your general point is a good one - gak has gotten wild in the Republican Party. A party that used to more or less define itself on being sensible and showing excellent control is now incapable of shaking a nutbar like Trump from their primary. People made a big deal out of the 1980 Democrat primary for years because it was such a shambles, but it looked like ultra-slick compared to what you see in the current Republican mess.
I think the shortest explanation is the Tea Party, which drew in to the party a whole new generation who had no loyalty to the old establishment. But I think there's a more meaningful answer, though, which sees the Tea Party as part of a process the Republicans started decades ago, in which they searched for new demographics by chasing more and more disaffected voices. Over time, though, those voices stop being new targets for the party... over time those people become the party.
Vaktathi wrote: What I'm really puzzled over is how the Republicans have devolved in the last 15 years in terms of campaign management.
The Republican party of 2000 was a well oiled, disciplined, coherent, and highly structured machine. There was a line that was, for the most part, rigidly towed. Republicans did not speak ill of other Republicans (particularly in the ways they are now). Primaries were largely restricted to internally approved candidates where only two or three got any attention and resources. Ranks were closed and efforts were focused and elections were won seemingly in spite of the electoral demographics in many instances and ruthlessly shut down the Democrats for basically a decade between mid-late 90's and late 00's.
That remarkably smooth functioning machine that once characterized Republican campaigning, and that made such a mockery of the Democrats for years, has seemingly vanished and begun to cannibalize itself, hoist by its own petard in many ways.
I think I have recounted a few times how this happened.
Their efforts, began in 1995, to rig a permanent GOP Majority backfired on them, as it gave control of the party to the most radical voters.
While they were organized and disciplined, the drain on academics in the GOP from the 1970s onwards left them with too few who understood systems relationships (as opposed to purely reductionistic thinking), and with fewer and fewer who valued real evidence 9even when it contradicts with ideology).
This came about in the early-90s (when I still belonged to the GOP), when cheap computation began to allow the resolution of a great many policy debates that had previously been legitimately open to debate. And the answers almost universally came out against the GOP's chosen policy and ideology (i.e. it showed they were wrong about these things). Many in the GOP decided "Great! We'll just adapt to the evidence, and find a new path."
However, to those like Newt Gingrich (who led most of the opposition to "adapting") it was more important to adhere to "values" than it was to adhere to evidence (because the latter would make the GOP nearly indistinguishable from many more conservative Democrats). And they decided that, evidence be damned, they would instead force through these policies simply by seizing control of the party.
So, even though they had discipline and organization (brought about by Gingrich's faction, soon to be taken over by Rove, et. al.), they lacked the ability to project the consequences of their actions, which led to everyone who valued facts and evidence fleeing the GOP.
And we are now seeing the end-game of those consequences, with the radicals now wholly in control of the party in a race-to-the-bottom.
BeAfraid wrote: I think I have recounted a few times how this happened.
Their efforts, began in 1995, to rig a permanent GOP Majority backfired on them, as it gave control of the party to the most radical voters.
It starts a long time before 1995. The Southern Strategy is a major step towards the modern GOP, and after that the next two major steps were made in Reagan's 1980 election bid - he looked to counter Carter's religious appeal by targeting conservative Christians, and at the same time embraced a kind of populist economics that was, well, aggressively stupid.
Those three things, race baiting, ultra-conservative social policies, and small government fantasies, were all solid winners - in the short and medium term, and helped Republicans achieve a position of strength in US politics they'd rarely held before. But there's a kind of corruption in choosing to believe something that's very silly at its core - when you're willing to pretend the Laffer Curve is a real thing, well it isn't long before you are required to sign an oath to never raise taxes. So a process began where nutters starting rising up through the ranks of the party, and at the same time previously mainstream people became more nutty.
I think we're more or less describing the same process, I just think it started earlier than you.
BeAfraid wrote: I think I have recounted a few times how this happened.
Their efforts, began in 1995, to rig a permanent GOP Majority backfired on them, as it gave control of the party to the most radical voters.
It starts a long time before 1995. The Southern Strategy is a major step towards the modern GOP, and after that the next two major steps were made in Reagan's 1980 election bid - he looked to counter Carter's religious appeal by targeting conservative Christians, and at the same time embraced a kind of populist economics that was, well, aggressively stupid.
Those three things, race baiting, ultra-conservative social policies, and small government fantasies, were all solid winners - in the short and medium term, and helped Republicans achieve a position of strength in US politics they'd rarely held before. But there's a kind of corruption in choosing to believe something that's very silly at its core - when you're willing to pretend the Laffer Curve is a real thing, well it isn't long before you are required to sign an oath to never raise taxes. So a process began where nutters starting rising up through the ranks of the party, and at the same time previously mainstream people became more nutty.
I think we're more or less describing the same process, I just think it started earlier than you.
Well, no... I recognize that the Southern Strategy was the "prime mover" of this direction of the GOP.
Also, in the 1970s, the US Evangelicals decided that the GOP would be the vehicle by which they would implement their preferred policies (as a direct result of the Southern Strategy).
I worked for the GOP (and Libertarians) in the 1980s (I used to have a photo of me and Reagan from the 1984 Dallas GOP Convention that I proudly displayed), but due to that very collection of jobs and employment for various conservatives throughout the 1980s, I began to question the motivations and long-term consequences of many of the decisions.
I was about as elitist as could be during this time, and due to a combination of factors bought into the idea of the GOP as a "ruling class" in the USA (basically the North East Coast, New England Republican Aristocracy idea).
But I also happened to be a rather huge supporter, and student of the sciences, thinking that the evidence would eventually support our position.... When that turned out to not be the case, I rebelled for a period, but wound up eventually accepting facts, because I noticed how utterly stupid others were becoming in trying to dismiss anything at all that contradicted their ideology (I had other conservatives telling me that "Facts do not matter. If your values are strong and consistent, then they will always triumph in the end."). Essentially they were telling me the same Post-Modern garbage I heard from Democrats in the 1970s (although in a different form).
And by 1992, with the loss of the White House to Clinton, I discovered that all of the "Pragmatists" were migrating to the Democratic Party, and were forming a rather powerful coalition, displacing the older post-modernists within the party. And I began to get curious about what the hell was happening (How did everything get so reversed from where it had been before?)
But, yes, you are correct, it technically began before that.
And, if one wants to get down to it, even Nixon's decision to use the Southern Strategy can be traced back to the Republican opposition to FDR's "New Deal" and to Social Security; opposition which originated with the New England GOP Aristocrats who wished to form a "ruling elite" in the USA. Only they failed to take into account the dangers of applying a pure-consequentialism (the ends justifying the means) to gaining their permanent ruling party. Thus, they chose means that ultimately backfired on them, such as the Southern Strategy, and adopting the Evangelicals, or later aggressively gerrymandering artificial majorities that gave away control of primaries to the most radical elements in their party.
I keep seeing it at my local Barnes and Noble, and while I'm interested, I just don't have the time to add this to my already mile thick stack of books yet to be read (nor do I have funds to justify it )
An excerpt from the description:
As Kruse argues, the belief that America is fundamentally and formally a Christian nation originated in the 1930s when businessmen enlisted religious activists in their fight against FDR’s New Deal. Corporations from General Motors to Hilton Hotels bankrolled conservative clergymen, encouraging them to attack the New Deal as a program of “pagan statism” that perverted the central principle of Christianity: the sanctity and salvation of the individual. Their campaign for “freedom under God” culminated in the election of their close ally Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.
But this apparent triumph had an ironic twist. In Eisenhower’s hands, a religious movement born in opposition to the government was transformed into one that fused faith and the federal government as never before. During the 1950s, Eisenhower revolutionized the role of religion in American political culture, inventing new traditions from inaugural prayers to the National Prayer Breakfast. Meanwhile, Congress added the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and made “In God We Trust” the country’s first official motto. With private groups joining in, church membership soared to an all-time high of 69%. For the first time, Americans began to think of their country as an officially Christian nation.
During this moment, virtually all Americans—across the religious and political spectrum—believed that their country was “one nation under God.” But as Americans moved from broad generalities to the details of issues such as school prayer, cracks began to appear. Religious leaders rejected this “lowest common denomination” public religion, leaving conservative political activists to champion it alone. In Richard Nixon’s hands, a politics that conflated piety and patriotism became sole property of the right.
But it has a more myopic scope that the holistic pathology that has consumed the GOP that I am talking about.
Kruse is only dealing with the Evangelical invasion of the GOP, and the capture of the GOP by US Evangelicals, who have been waging a revisionist war on US History since the 1930s (the Scopes/Monkey Trial in 1925 had a lot to do with lighting this fuse as well - the New Deal just gave ammunition to the wrong people to then draft even worse people to their cause, who were already pissed about Evolution).
The Evangelical takeover is sort of, as the analogy already indicates, the fuse that was lit to set off a bomb that turned out to be much less "controllable" that those who lit the fuse imagined.
The Evangelical community has just provided the necessary set of "perfect storm" dysfunction that has spread throughout the GOP to make it such that it will fail completely if it loses the gerrymandering, and other rigging of the system that keeps them in power.
One way I heard it put was that "the GOP tried to capture the South, but the South captured the GOP". Not sure exactly how accurate that is, but that amusing anecdote appears to have some truth to it at least.
It's interesting to see the perspectives of others on the issue, particularly from some formerly on the inside and how the elements the GOP used to solidify itself now seem to have overtaken it.
A problem I tend to see with a lot of politicians (on both sides) is the overuse of "bogeymen". They use a bogeyman of some sort to scare and distract the voters away from having to actually think about what their politicians are, or should be, doing. In the last election, the ACA was the bogeyman. Right now, Trump is setting up Mexican illegals as a bogeyman, while others are using the Iran deal. Other elections saw terrorists, the environment, etc. as bogeymen. All politicians use them to some extent in one way or another, but perhaps the GOP has relied on it too strongly in recent years so that they don't have much else in their playbook?
It's sad that, these days, it's easier for the parties to scare people into voting for them through playing on their fears and creative interpretations of facts, rather than using rational thought and clear and simple facts.
Tannhauser42 wrote: A problem I tend to see with a lot of politicians (on both sides) is the overuse of "bogeymen". They use a bogeyman of some sort to scare and distract the voters away from having to actually think about what their politicians are, or should be, doing. In the last election, the ACA was the bogeyman. Right now, Trump is setting up Mexican illegals as a bogeyman, while others are using the Iran deal. Other elections saw terrorists, the environment, etc. as bogeymen. All politicians use them to some extent in one way or another, but perhaps the GOP has relied on it too strongly in recent years so that they don't have much else in their playbook?
It's sad that, these days, it's easier for the parties to scare people into voting for them through playing on their fears and creative interpretations of facts, rather than using rational thought and clear and simple facts.
The GOP's eventual bogeywoman is none other than HRC.
Contentions
Carly Fiorina: The Substantive Donald Trump Alternative
Noah Rothman | @noahcrothman
07.28.2015 - 5:00 PM Political reporters are less vexed by the reasoning behind Donald Trump’s decision to mount a narcissistic campaign of self-aggrandizement disguised as a presidential bid than they are by the fact that it resonates with so many Republican primary voters. More than a few pieces have been penned amid the effort to understand the Trump surge and the primary voters that make up his base of support. The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel submitted one of the best dispatches on the subject after spending several days covering the Trump campaign on the ground. He discovered that Trump has staying power, and not merely because of what he represents but because of who he is and how he is running for the highest office in the land. But all those traits that make him attractive to GOP primary voters are present in another candidate: Carly Fiorina.
Weigel’s excellent report should be read by all who cover political campaigns, and particularly those in the pundit class who – myself included – believed all the laws of political physics should apply to Trump and have been shocked to learn that they do not. Despite all the historic forces arrayed against his steady rise in the polls, perhaps because of them, Trump remains buoyed by the support of nearly a quarter of the GOP electorate. Weigel points to a variety of elements of the conventional wisdom that have failed commentators. Trump’s rude antagonism toward Republicans is a net plus among his supporters. Voters see his tactlessness as honesty. His wealth leads voters to believe he is beholden to no donor. The fun he is having on the trail is infectious. Finally and most consequentially, he has assembled the rudimentary staffing scaffolds that could become the foundation of a real campaign team.
On paper, these qualities are equally attributable to the former Hewlett-Packard CEO running for the Republican nomination. Fiorina is quite wealthy; with an estimated net worth of $60 million, she doesn’t have Trump’s $2.9 billion on hand (a far cry from the $10 billion his campaign alleged the real estate magnate to possess), but she is certainly in no one’s pocket. Fiorina is blunt and antagonistic toward those who deserve her scorn, although she reserves her barbs primarily for Democrats – a substantial stylistic distinction from Trump, who attacks Republicans almost exclusively. She’s an outsider and a patrician who is not a member of the political class – a fortunate outcome of losing her 2010 U.S. Senate bid against California’s Barbara Boxer.
“Regularly, she says things that don’t normally come out of politicians’ mouths,” National Review’s Jay Nordlinger discerned while profiling the former CEO. “For instance, she describes wind power as the pet of ‘ideologues in the environmental movement.’ Those turbines are ‘slicing up hundreds of thousands of birds every year.’ True, but who says it, among politicians?”
One intangible aspect of Trump’s allure that Weigel doesn’t touch on is the likelihood that the celebrity’s supporters are so drawn to him, at least in part, because the rest of the political universe is repulsed by him. This is one stylistic element of Trump’s approach to running for the White House that Fiorina will not be able to duplicate. Perhaps no Republican running for the 2016 nomination outside Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker so excites both “establishment” Republicans and the outside-the-Beltway activist class as does Fiorina.
“Every stop never gets off message,” observed radio host Rush Limbaugh last week. “She handles the media with aplomb and skill and it’s obvious she enjoys doing it, and she’s schooling people. She’s showing how it’s done.”
“[S]he is someone who Republicans need to have in the race because she is a woman and she is a successful woman,” GOP campaign strategist Ford O’Connell told Politico last January. From conservative talkers to the consulting class and many in between, Fiorina has struck a chord.
And, yet, she polls especially poorly among Republican primary voters. In a CNN/ORC survey of the national GOP primary electorate released on Tuesday, Fiorina secured just 1 percent of the vote with 4 percent of GOP voters dubbing her their second choice candidate. That lackluster performance may change, however, when Republican voters get a chance to assess Fiorina vis-à-vis her Republican opponents on the debate stage.
The Republicans in attendance rose to their feet at the conclusion of Fiorina’s foreign policy address at the Reagan Library on Monday night. In the address, she identified the threats facing the United States – from a nuclearizing Iran to Chinese revanchism – and she laid out a compelling case for a robust American defense of its interests abroad and those of its allies.
Taking questions from the audience at the conclusion of her speech, Fiorina was asked by an honest and frustrated Republican voter how she would, as president, force Republican congressional leaders to heed the will of the GOP’s base voters. “I believe ours was intended to be a citizen government; of, by, and for the people,” Fiorina replied. “I don’t know when we got used to this idea that only a professional political class can hold public office. It used to be, for most of our nation’s history, that leaders would step forward out of private life, and serve for a time, and return to private life.”
Rather than, as Trump has suggested, wrestled a co-equal branch of government into submission through sheer force of personality and, if necessary, imperial overreach similar to that practiced by Barack Obama, she went on to define how her administration would mobilize public pressure by, for example, using mobile technology to bombard elected leaders with text message and telephone calls. Those Trump supporters who have not entirely succumbed to fatalistic nihilism and continue to see aspects of the republic worth preserving will see this as a feasible and preferable alternative to bombast.
“Margaret Thatcher, a woman I admire greatly, once said that she was not content to manage the decline of a great nation,” Fiorina said near the close of her address. “Neither am I. I am prepared to lead the resurgence of a great nation.” It was Trump’s “make America great again,” but with a touch more – well, the reality television star might call it “class.”
Don’t expect Trump’s supporters to bolt into Fiorina’s camp anytime soon. Stylistically, she is more a contrast to Trump than a compliment. His supporters want to make a statement and issue a vote of no confidence in the Republican Party. Fiorina will not satisfy that desire. On paper, however, she could serve as a capable and viable Trump alternative.
George Washington will never be remembered as a great military tactician, but one of the things I admire about him is his epic leadership qualities and his refusal to throw in the towel when faced with disaster.
I'm reminded of a scene in David McCullough's biography of Washington during the New York campaign.
The Americans tried to capture New York from the British, but it was a disaster - the continental army was defeated left, right, and centre, and it was after the Battle of White Plains (another defeat) that the continental army faced a crisis. Morale was rock bottom. Desertions were high. nobody believed anymore. The British are too powerful, we'll never defeat them.
And yet, Washington, sitting in his tent, was probably the calmest man around. He still believed.
Fast forward 250 years to that clusterfeth of a congress committee!
What an embarrassment.
Who the hell votes for these people?
If Washington could have seen into the future that day, I honestly think he would have gave up there and then
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: George Washington will never be remembered as a great military tactician, but one of the things I admire about him is his epic leadership qualities and his refusal to throw in the towel when faced with disaster.
I'm reminded of a scene in David McCullough's biography of Washington during the New York campaign.
The Americans tried to capture New York from the British, but it was a disaster - the continental army was defeated left, right, and centre, and it was after the Battle of White Plains (another defeat) that the continental army faced a crisis. Morale was rock bottom. Desertions were high. nobody believed anymore. The British are too powerful, we'll never defeat them.
And yet, Washington, sitting in his tent, was probably the calmest man around. He still believed.
Fast forward 250 years to that clusterfeth of a congress committee!
What an embarrassment.
Who the hell votes for these people?
If Washington could have seen into the future that day, I honestly think he would have gave up there and then
Exactly. Frankly time for some good old fashioned conquerin'. Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, watch your backs Jack!
Are we not going after Lichtenstein? The root of ALL evil in the world comes from Lichtenstein, or so I've heard from a friend of a friend who knows a guy that knows guy.
Exactly. Frankly time for some good old fashioned conquerin'. Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, watch your backs Jack!
Are we not going after Lichtenstein? The root of ALL evil in the world comes from Lichtenstein, or so I've heard from a friend of a friend who knows a guy that knows guy.
Exactly. Frankly time for some good old fashioned conquerin'. Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, watch your backs Jack!
Are we not going after Lichtenstein? The root of ALL evil in the world comes from Lichtenstein, or so I've heard from a friend of a friend who knows a guy that knows guy.
Lichtenstein is a beautiful country. Nice Alpine scenery. I would recommend it if you're ever looking for a place to visit.
Belgium on the other hand
Beware the Belgians. They are a cunning bunch. They have NATO HQ, the European Union HQ, and they make great beer. Watch them like hawks. World domi9nation has always been their goal.
Exactly. Frankly time for some good old fashioned conquerin'. Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, watch your backs Jack!
Are we not going after Lichtenstein? The root of ALL evil in the world comes from Lichtenstein, or so I've heard from a friend of a friend who knows a guy that knows guy.
Liechtenstein won't be conquered, but it will be dealt with.
Taking questions from the audience at the conclusion of her speech, Fiorina was asked by an honest and frustrated Republican voter how she would, as president, force Republican congressional leaders to heed the will of the GOP’s base voters. “I believe ours was intended to be a citizen government; of, by, and for the people,” Fiorina replied. “I don’t know when we got used to this idea that only a professional political class can hold public office. It used to be, for most of our nation’s history, that leaders would step forward out of private life, and serve for a time, and return to private life.”
US politics have always been dominated by a political class. The very notion of a discreet group like the Founding Fathers implies as much.
So if one of them meets a "Star Wars" fan, they'll probably try to win their vote by pretending to do a mind meld or saying how much they hate those pesky Cylons (which happen to be from "Battlestar Galactica," not "Star Trek").
Not a typo, as the last line explains. It's like those troll images of, say, a picture of Gandalf with a quote from Dumbledore attributed to Yoda. It's intended to show how clueless politicians can be when they're trying to pander to voters on subjects they don't really know.
Ouze wrote: Stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen.
On the flip side of that, for all the "Sanders simply cant win" rhetoric, I've been seeing more and more on FB and around the net of "mainline" Democrats coming out in support of him...
Then there's the whole thing of him polling better and better:
On the flip side of that, for all the "Sanders simply cant win" rhetoric, I've been seeing more and more on FB and around the net of "mainline" Democrats coming out in support of him...
Then there's the whole thing of him polling better and better:
When polling is limited to Democrats and those who lean Democrat Clinton leads Sanders by 35 points. Even considering all adults she leads by 19 points. Sure Sanders has a more favorable spread in the latter case, but with 56% of responses being null you have to wonder how that will transfer to voting behavior.
The Democratic Party in Oklahoma decided, for the first time, to open their primary to independent voters next year. Does Sanders have anything to do with that?
d-usa wrote: The Democratic Party in Oklahoma decided, for the first time, to open their primary to independent voters next year. Does Sanders have anything to do with that?
I wouldn't think so at this point, because he's currently running as a Democrat, even though in his home state he represents as an Independent.
d-usa wrote: The Democratic Party in Oklahoma decided, for the first time, to open their primary to independent voters next year. Does Sanders have anything to do with that?
I wouldn't think so at this point, because he's currently running as a Democrat, even though in his home state he represents as an Independent.
Oklahoman has pretty gakky ballot access laws, so indelendents were never really able to vote for him here. Opening the primaries to us might cause some independents to pick up a democratic ticket to vote for him on a day that none of us ever go to the polls (since primaries are closed).
Maybe it's all coincidence and means nothing.
Maybe democrats are simply trying to market themselves as the more "open" party.
Maybe the Oklahoma Democratic leadership prefer Sanders and think that by letting independents vote he could pull an upset.
Maybe the Oklahoma democratic party thinks that letting independents vote for Sanders in the primary could be their gateway drug into voting democrat in the general election.
d-usa wrote: The Democratic Party in Oklahoma decided, for the first time, to open their primary to independent voters next year. Does Sanders have anything to do with that?
I wouldn't think so at this point, because he's currently running as a Democrat, even though in his home state he represents as an Independent.
Oklahoman has pretty gakky ballot access laws, so indelendents were never really able to vote for him here. Opening the primaries to us might cause some independents to pick up a democratic ticket to vote for him on a day that none of us ever go to the polls (since primaries are closed).
Maybe it's all coincidence and means nothing.
Maybe democrats are simply trying to market themselves as the more "open" party.
Maybe the Oklahoma Democratic leadership prefer Sanders and think that by letting independents vote he could pull an upset.
Maybe the Oklahoma democratic party thinks that letting independents vote for Sanders in the primary could be their gateway drug into voting democrat in the general election.
Ahh, I read that backwards, and I get what you're saying... they're opening it to OK residents who have registered (I), not trying to put an "independent" on the ballot
BeAfraid wrote: Also, in the 1970s, the US Evangelicals decided that the GOP would be the vehicle by which they would implement their preferred policies (as a direct result of the Southern Strategy).
Meh, 70s, 80s... if you go back to root causes you can claim it started in the 60s. It all depends what event you use as the symbol for the start of what was a multi-decade trend.
But I also happened to be a rather huge supporter, and student of the sciences, thinking that the evidence would eventually support our position.... When that turned out to not be the case, I rebelled for a period, but wound up eventually accepting facts, because I noticed how utterly stupid others were becoming in trying to dismiss anything at all that contradicted their ideology (I had other conservatives telling me that "Facts do not matter. If your values are strong and consistent, then they will always triumph in the end."). Essentially they were telling me the same Post-Modern garbage I heard from Democrats in the 1970s (although in a different form).
Yeah, while I only saw that during Bush's term, that kind of 'we choose our own reality' bs was what made me hate so much of the left wing a decade earlier. It's amazing that after the right (correctly) condemned that kind of thinking in the left, here they were adopting it to bolster their own terrible policies.
But, yes, you are correct, it technically began before that.
The best kind of correct!
And, if one wants to get down to it, even Nixon's decision to use the Southern Strategy can be traced back to the Republican opposition to FDR's "New Deal" and to Social Security; opposition which originated with the New England GOP Aristocrats who wished to form a "ruling elite" in the USA.
That's a really good point. Cheers.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tannhauser42 wrote: A problem I tend to see with a lot of politicians (on both sides) is the overuse of "bogeymen". They use a bogeyman of some sort to scare and distract the voters away from having to actually think about what their politicians are, or should be, doing. In the last election, the ACA was the bogeyman. Right now, Trump is setting up Mexican illegals as a bogeyman, while others are using the Iran deal. Other elections saw terrorists, the environment, etc. as bogeymen. All politicians use them to some extent in one way or another, but perhaps the GOP has relied on it too strongly in recent years so that they don't have much else in their playbook?
It's sad that, these days, it's easier for the parties to scare people into voting for them through playing on their fears and creative interpretations of facts, rather than using rational thought and clear and simple facts.
I think it's fair to say both parties are struggling to find a message that appeals outside of small core of voters. So instead they both rely on drumming up support by making people scared or angry at the other side.
It's a method that will win elections in the short term, but when it's all either side has it makes it very hard to build functional government.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dogma wrote: US politics have always been dominated by a political class. The very notion of a discreet group like the Founding Fathers implies as much.
Yep.
And the basic reality is that if you want government to start acting like you want it to, the first step is to stop being stupid people who want stupid things. I'm not saying that smart people would be happy with all, or even most of what government does, but the reality is that most people who complain loudest about elected officials not doing what the people want are fething idiots who want government to do very silly things.
As long as the electorate remains very stupid, you're going to get a political elite who do what is necessary while occasionally pandering to the people with bad policy.
whembly wrote: Guys... I've been watching youtube of Carly Fironia's interviews and stump...
Ya'll really need to take the time and listento her.
If I have time latter, I'll try to collate them all here.
I eat a bowl of beans and break wind in her direction. I'd vote for Hillary before I'd vote for her. She wasted thousands of jobs here. Compaq was a good company and she killed it. She can choke on hairy bull balls and fething die.
Tell us what you really think, Frazz.
Besides I'll be more inclined to hear what she has to say when in a debate with the other candidates (preferably from both sides), and can't just rely on prepared responses.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Tell us what you really think, Frazz. Besides I'll be more inclined to hear what she has to say when in a debate with the other candidates (preferably from both sides), and can't just rely on prepared responses.
Someone should tell Trump its a trap. When Trump is halfway up, Perry will sucker punch him right in the baby maker. Its how we won the Battle of San Jacinto. Houston rouchambou'd Santa Anna. When the rest of the Mexican army was distracted letting out a sympathy "ow" the Texians attacked. Hey don't laugh, why do you think FDR picked Texans to run the Pacific War (Nimitz) and Europe (Eisenhower). We cheat.
What can I say? We fight dirty. Its how our moms taught us.
whembly wrote: Guys... I've been watching youtube of Carly Fironia's interviews and stump...
Ya'll really need to take the time and listento her.
If I have time latter, I'll try to collate them all here.
I eat a bowl of beans and break wind in her direction. I'd vote for Hillary before I'd vote for her. She wasted thousands of jobs here. Compaq was a good company and she killed it. She can choke on hairy bull balls and fething die.
Um...
Many in the industry are now saying that merger helped 'save' HP by setting the company on a long term success path. HP was on the ropes at the time and was dangerously losing market shares (dot-com bust). HP (Carly), wanted to stay in the computer business (very tough market), and saw a way to increase market shares with the Compaq merger. (besides, Compaq's computers/servers sucked hairy assed balls at that time... to use your parlance) She's credited for HP's dominance in the printing business in not only in the US, but she was the first to crack open foreign markets for the printing business (HP is huge in central/south america).
All mergers are messy. There's no way around that. Eventually, overlapped dept, entities, employees will have to be downsized to fit the new company. And yes, that makes any CEO 'the bad guy' when something of this magnitude happens.
She was skewered by the press for laying off, because at the time, HPjust didn’t do those things…I'd imagine Walter Hewlett wanted his company to be like this 'do no evil' company that Google aspires to be. HP took a massive PR hit for this... which ultimately precipitated the ugly boardroom fight that fired Carly.
Keep in mind that the TECH BUBBLE burst already... The tech industries all across the board were taking enormous beatings. You'd want your CEO to anticipate these things and have robust long term plans to help the company.
Here is the irony…she has more foreign policy experience than any other candidate, except Hillary.
She is the only one with true executive business experience for a large enterprise. (excepting Trump)
She has met with more world leaders than any one else, except Hillary.
And she is the only one that has actually downsized, fired people. (except maybe Trump?)
We need to drop the pretense that only a career politician can run the government… we don't need a career politician/bureaucrat or even a community organizer as a president... look how well they have done the past 50 years. What we need is someone to be a leader who has and can, make the hard choices for what is believed to be the right choice. @dogma/sebster: I get what you're saying... but, there is a distinct difference between a career politician (like those of the old days), to how pervasive the political class is now, which is primarily spurnned on by the lobbying class.
I can understand folks not wanting a 'CEO' to be a President, as there are differences between running a business vs running an executive branch. I can understand that you may not want Carly in particular over the Compaq merger. That was as messy as it can get in the tech merger field.
Here's the few things I *like* about Carly. There's one thing that you can't say about her... and that, she's had a successful robust career. You can't take that away from her. Also, she'll be the first to acknowledge that she had helping hands along the way. She articulated that much better than Obama's "you didn't build that" snafu.
The thing I'm most intrigued by her, is that in her successful ventures as VP at AT&T, CEO of Lucent Tech and, yes, HP... is that she surrounds herself with very capable, successful people. As for building a hypothetical 'Fiorina Administration', I suspect she'll be more interested in not only, can you do your job, but can you do it well. As opposed to using cabinet/executive positions as job placements for your flunkies or political payoffs.
But... alas... doesn't matter, HRC is gonna win. But, man... it'd be a glorious campaign season (HRC vs Fiorina) as HRC won't be able to use the anti-women tactics.
Frazzled wrote: She's road pizza. She's hated here. You can't fire tens of thousands of pizza and hit the eject on a golden parachute and think people won't remember.
Only a few people care and thats because she's attacking Hillary.
I'd vote for an Obama 3rd term before I'd vote for that creature.
Here is the irony…she has more foreign policy experience than any other candidate, except Hillary.
She has virtually no foreign policy experience. She was part of the CIA's External Advisory Board for two years, and calling that "foreign policy experience" is generous. Indeed, Michael Hayden (the guy that tapped her) has stated that her primary role was to provide council on how the CIA should interact with the American public given the transparency of the modern world. This puts her on roughly equal footing with John Kasich (Goldwater-Nichols), and Lindsey Graham (long military career), but well behind Jim Gilmore (worked in military intelligence).
I get what you're saying... but, there is a distinct difference between a career politician (like those of the old days), to how pervasive the political class is now, which is primarily spurred on by the lobbying class.
There really isn't. Lobbying is not a new thing, nor is the existence of a lobbyist class. Indeed, it has existed for just about as long as the US political class has. And you're fooling yourself if you really believe the US political class was not just as pervasive in the past as it is now. Indeed, it can be argued that it is actually much less pervasive now thanks to overall reduction in campaign costs, and increased ease with which information can be accessed.
But, man... it'd be a glorious campaign season (HRC vs Fiorina) as HRC won't be able to use the anti-women tactics.
*shrugs*
I can't think of any time Clinton's campaign has really pushed an anti-woman angle. I can think of lots of times Republican media sources have tried to accuse her of it, much as many of the same sources tried to claim that people only voted for Obama because he's black, but its never been a fixture of her campaign.
The newsletter for the "How Do We Fix It?" podcast
You can listen to our latest podcast on how to stop the revolving door that leads to corruption and waste. here.
Hello Fellow Fixers!
On our latest episode of How Do We Fix It? we look into the cozy relationship between top government officials and the industries they're supposed to regulate.
This has a profound impact on corporate subsidies, tax breaks, and other ways that special interests benefit from their ties to Congress and the Administration.
In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Craig Holman wrote:
The revolving door phenomenon is particularly acute in the financial services sector. Statistics published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show a dramatic rise in the movement of financial executives into positions as financial regulators, and regulators into private sector financial firms, growing threefold over the last decade. Accordingly, the tenure of financial regulators has dropped, with 88 percent of regulators in 1988 spending three or more years on the job, down to 64 percent today.
This begs the question: who's in charge of our nation's financial health?
Our guest is a certified blogging star. Glenn Reynolds' day job is Professor of Law at The University of Tennessee. But he's best known for www.instapundit.com, the influential and widely-read conservative and libertarian political blog.
I agree with Glenn when he says the revolving door "is a corrupting influence on both government and industry." There's plenty of reason for anger on the left and right when top government officials resign to take very lucrative jobs at firms and lobbying groups that benefit from their insider knowledge.
In our podcast, Glenn calls for a surtax on top or regular earnings of at least 50% on pay hikes received by former senior government officials when they go back to the private sector.
"There are all kinds of laws to limit influence peddling and they've all been failures," Reynolds told us. Powerful interests are willing to pay large amounts of money to former cabinet members and top officials for what they know. "It seems only fair for the government to share in those profits."
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren calls ties between big banks and regulators a "Wall Street Shuffle". She backs a new bill that would ban bonuses for private-sector executives who enter government service.
"Big business orthodoxy against rules and regulations can seep into the bones, including the bones of new policymakers who are charged with protecting consumers and strengthening markets," wrote Warren in an article for Politico. "Industry groupthink and overconfidence can prevent clear and evenhanded analysis of problems."
Warren, a crusader against what she calls "recklessness and excessive greed," says the revolving door contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008.
Recently, political journalist Matt Taibbi called ex-Attorney General Eric Holder a Wall Street "double agent" for going back to his lucrative partnership at a powerful law firm known for defending financial firms. While in office, Holder's Justice Department was repeatedly criticized for failing to send a single senior banking boss to jail for their role in the mortgage mess.
Double-standard or not, there's plenty of room for debate and criticism about the behavior of D.C. "fat cats".
If you want to read more about Glenn Reynolds' view of the world, I recommend his book: An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths. He argues that tech has given people more freedom of action to challenge big establishment organizations.
It ain't beach reading, but it is a provocative view of the world!
What do ya'll think of a surtax on top or regular earnings of at least 50% on pay hike over a period of time?
Many Americans are wary and sick of Corporate run America telling them their jobs need to go else where, and they have to pay more taxes for a war they did not start, and has nothing to do with "Murica safety" while the Fat Cats and wealthy pay little to no taxes (Corporates report losses to get tax-breaks, and then some get gov't subsidies,,,aka Corporate Welfare while poor folks who got worse situations due to safety net cuts that they happened to help pay into by their paychecks if the have them still or not taken own to help pay for the perpetual war.
Folks are sick of family members and friends coming back from these wars that now show they are looking to grab resources for corporates with PTSD and physical injuries.
The same soldiers who have to have SNAP for their families which is attacked by the one party with help from DINOs, and they also seem to be still shuffled off to be forgotten by these same politicians helping their pals who lobbied them to get these perpetual wars going.
We have seen ongoing situations and new war fronts opened up since 2001, it is now 2015, many are sick of this over a decade long situation
We can reduce military spending so that infrastructure can be repaired or better yet, upgraded to more modern standards.
We do actually out spend several other nations, both allies and foes combined, yes, it means we would be simply set to defend, not wage wars of empire.
As we wage so much wars and help let the uber-rich get fatter, we have kids starving education being reduced to what can be bought by silly vouchers, with religionism creeping into Public education our power system is a joke, our roads are a joke in many places, our bridges and railways unsafe,
All while we have the most active Military invading other nations all over the world in many guises.
So, Bernie for Pres, and a more progressively seated democratic house and senate to help fix our crumbling nation,,,,or do folks want an Oligarchy where the top families cut slices of the pie just for them, and all the crumbs are swept out to their lapdogs as you all starve?
I have watched the "American Dream" just fade like smoke as paychecks could not keep up with rising rent/mortgage prices, fuel to transport by car, having to shift to mass transit in areas, and food also became more costly to avoid doctors having to settle for the cheap and unhealthy foods to stay working,
I am on disability, they want to take that away.
I am on Medicare (ain't perfect, but is what it is at my age)
IF the Republicans take those way, they can essentially be killing people with their hands clean because it is a writ passed, may as well be kill teams sent to all like me or others to give us one last lead pill.
So, Bernie for Pres, and a more progressively seated democratic house and senate to help fix our crumbling nation,,,,or do folks want an Oligarchy where the top families cut slices of the pie just for them, and all the crumbs are swept out to their lapdogs as you all starve?
Where were you in 2008? Democrats had the WH and both house of congress.
I have watched the "American Dream" just fade like smoke as paychecks could not keep up with rising rent/mortgage prices, fuel to transport by car, having to shift to mass transit in areas, and food also became more costly to avoid doctors having to settle for the cheap and unhealthy foods to stay working,
The economy is *stuck*... and I mostly blame Obama and the rest of the democrats for being that "stick in the mud".
I am on disability, they want to take that away.
Who's "they". And do you have proof of that?
I am on Medicare (ain't perfect, but is what it is at my age)
Nothing wrong or to be ashamed about that dude. And yes, it does need an overhaul (and not the trash bucket).
IF the Republicans take those way, they can essentially be killing people with their hands clean because it is a writ passed, may as well be kill teams sent to all like me or others to give us one last lead pill.
The economy is *stuck*... and I mostly blame Obama and the rest of the democrats for being that "stick in the mud".
You could do that, but you'd be partially wrong. Republicans are equally to blame with their "tactic" of saying "anything Obama wants is wrong, so we're gonna oppose it"
I have, no joking here, heard republicans espouse a view that they want ALL economic regulations repealed back to pre-1900 levels. Yeah, They actually WANT people like the Waltons and Koch brothers to have literal monopolies, AND somehow think that this is good for the economy and good for the country.
In Germany, I can't remember their name. their cell company is one huge monopoly.
Think Deutshe Telecom is the name
Better service then what we have here with Verizon, Sprint, Alltel...etc etc etc
The economy is *stuck*... and I mostly blame Obama and the rest of the democrats for being that "stick in the mud".
You could do that, but you'd be partially wrong. Republicans are equally to blame with their "tactic" of saying "anything Obama wants is wrong, so we're gonna oppose it"
I said... mostly. Of course, as an entity, there's plenty of blame to hand out to both parties.
And, yes, just about "anything that Obama wants is bad" is generally true... and has been true.
WASHINGTON
The classified emails stored on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server contained information from five U.S. intelligence agencies and included material related to the fatal 2012 Benghazi attacks, McClatchy has learned.
Of the five classified emails, the one known to be connected to Benghazi was among 296 emails made public in May by the State Department. Intelligence community officials have determined it was improperly released.
Revelations about the emails have put Clinton in the crosshairs of a broadening inquiry into whether she or her aides mishandled classified information when she used a private server set up at her New York home to conduct official State Department business.
While campaigning for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton has repeatedly denied she ever sent or received classified information. Two inspectors general have indicated that five emails they have reviewed were not marked classified at the time they were stored on her private server but that the contents were in fact “secret.”
The email issue, however, has distracted from Clinton’s campaign for days and already has hurt her in public opinion polls. Besieged with questions, she has found herself caught in a murky dispute between State Department and intelligence officials over whether emails on her server were classified.
“Even if Secretary Clinton or her aides didn’t run afoul of any criminal provisions, the fact that classified information was identified within the emails is exactly why use of private emails . . . is not supposed to be allowed,” said Bradley Moss, a Washington attorney who specializes in national security matters. “Both she and her team made a serious management mistake that no one should ever repeat.”
McClatchy also has determined some details of the five emails that the intelligence community’s inspector general has described as classified and improperly handled.
Intelligence officials who reviewed the five classified emails determined that they included information from five separate intelligence agencies, said a congressional official with knowledge of the matter.
The Benghazi email made public contained information from the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a spy agency that maps and tracks satellite imagery, according to the official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The other four classified emails contained information from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA, the official said.
The Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General did not respond to questions about the matter. The five agencies either referred questions about it to the inspector general’s office or declined to comment.
The intelligence community inspector general only looked at a sample of 40 emails, even though a total of 30,000 emails were turned over to the State Department by Clinton.
In documents that were publicly released, Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III said State Department officials had warned that there were “potentially hundreds of classified emails” on Clinton’s private server.
Clinton’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Clinton has maintained she used a personal email account as a “matter of convenience” and has denied she emailed any classified material.
“The facts are pretty clear,” Clinton said at a campaign stop Saturday in Iowa. “I did not send nor receive anything that was classified at the time.”
Clinton said she had “no idea” which emails the inspector general had singled out.
The State Department so far has refused to grant the intelligence community inspector general access to the entire batch of emails on jurisdictional grounds. The inspector general has authority to audit and investigate matters related to 17 intelligence community agencies, including a State Department intelligence unit.
On June 25, McCullough notified members of Congress that he understood that Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, possessed the more than 30,000 Clinton emails on a computer thumb drive.
In a July 24 letter to FBI Director James Comey, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa expressed concern about “a compromise of national security information” because of Kendall’s possession of the thumb drive. He called on Comey to explain what steps the FBI had taken to secure the information.
“This raises very serious questions and concerns if a private citizen is somehow retaining classified information,” wrote Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Kendall did not respond to phone and email messages. The FBI and the Justice Department declined to say whether security officials had recovered the device or had arranged for its secure storage.
John Fitzpatrick, the official responsible for overseeing the government’s security classification system, told McClatchy that during the review of four years of Clinton’s State Department emails it became clear that intelligence agencies were concerned State Department officials were not appropriately protecting classified information in screening documents for public release.
State Department officials routinely gather and report diplomatic information that “in an intelligence context could be read very differently,” said Fitzpatrick, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives.
Government employees with access to classified information are trained to identify classified information, Fitzpatrick said.
“The requirement to mark is so that you know it when you see it,” he said. “Failure to observe any of the requirements for marking or safeguarding would be in a category known as a security violation.”
Failing to properly mark information as classified would not necessarily result in criminal charges, he said.
“But there can be consequences for holders of security clearances,” Fitzpatrick said. “If they fail to safeguard the information, once or as part of a pattern, they can be administratively reprimanded” or retrained.
Secretary of State John Kerry and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick will meet this week to talk about the issue, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Wednesday.
“Secretary Kerry wants to get to the bottom of this, hear what the concerns are and then figure out if they need to take any action,” Schultz said. “So, I think that’s the right step and we support him doing so.”
The White House has not said that Clinton did not follow rules, but it has repeatedly said that “very specific guidance has been given to agencies all across the government, which is specifically that employees in the Obama administration should use their official email accounts when they’re conducting official government business.”
The House Select Committee on Benghazi subpoenaed the emails while asking Clinton to voluntarily turn over her personal email server to a “neutral, detached and independent” third party for “immediate inspection and review,” perhaps the State Department’s inspector general.
Clinton’s attorney told the committee that Clinton permanently deleted all the emails from the server – apparently after she was asked by the State Department to turn them over. Clinton has refused to hand over the server.
The State Department has begun to release her emails in response to a public records lawsuit, though four of the emails containing classified information were among those that have not yet been released. The next batch is due to be released Friday. Clinton has agreed to testify about her email arrangements on Oct. 22 before the committee investigating Benghazi.
Jihadin wrote: In Germany, I can't remember their name. their cell company is one huge monopoly.
Think Deutshe Telecom is the name
Better service then what we have here with Verizon, Sprint, Alltel...etc etc etc
T-Mobile.
It has (at least when I was there from 09-12) an extremely large market share... Like, remember those Verizon "coverage" maps where they claim the entire US is red, but the customer base isn't that dense? It's kinda like that. You still can get O2, Vodafone and other cell carriers in Germany, you just won't get the same kind of coverage/reception in some parts of the country as you will with T-Mobile.
Where were you in 2008? Democrats had the WH and both house of congress.
Voting aggressively progressive, Nader and any and all progressives I could.
The economy is *stuck*... and I mostly blame Obama and the rest of the democrats for being that "stick in the mud".
Oh please how many "shut downs" did the Boehner bunch pull? then toss in recent years Ryans and Cruz and other crazoids who decided they did not want to play with Obams and they always make threats, throw tantrums and want ice cream as well to get what they want or better what they did not want Obama to get.
BTW< TPP proved Obama is no socialist, but a corporatist in democrat clothing.
Who's "they". And do you have proof of that?
Mainly Republicans and some pro-corporate democrats, they do get quoted a lot about doing away or cutting Social Security, food stamps, and other programs. So you know, on Disability, my whopping Gov't budget killing income is 13,250 a year It would take 40 of me to make the 1 M1a3 cost of 8.6million up.
Nothing wrong or to be ashamed about that dude. And yes, it does need an overhaul (and not the trash bucket).
Like at my monthly income I could afford the stupid Apple watch and app that some of the sillier republicans feel could replace medicare with? a program I paid into when i could work? the cheapest I-watch is 500bucks, with the cheap plastic band, 1k for the all metal edition. (Yes, the quote for that can be found.
Republicans take "what" exactly away?
Republicans are quoted very often how they desire to cut or do away entirely with Social Security/Disability, Medicare, and other programs that barely keep anyone afloat due to the cuts they like to make so they can hand it to their wealthy pals, corporations, and the war machine.
So, I dare you to look it up yourself rather than make others do it for you. If you can't be bothered to do it, and I am one who has researched both sides, I tend to challenge people to look things up, but also make sure the sites are attached to as well. Too many Koch Bros funded sites out there spewing so much disinformation, there are some sites that pretend to be "democratic" But you can use critical thinking and objective reasoning to look past the propaganda can't you?
I do take note that many things I addressed were ignored by Whembly as he focused on a few knee jerk ones only.
Where were you in 2008? Democrats had the WH and both house of congress.
Voting aggressively progressive, Nader and any and all progressives I could.
Again... in the aftermath of the 2008 election, you had one of the most progressive Government possible. And, if you're a progressive, they "blew it"... except maybe for the PPACA. (they should've gone full bore with single-payor)
The economy is *stuck*... and I mostly blame Obama and the rest of the democrats for being that "stick in the mud".
Oh please how many "shut downs" did the Boehner bunch pull? then toss in recent years Ryans and Cruz and other crazoids who decided they did not want to play with Obams and they always make threats, throw tantrums and want ice cream as well to get what they want or better what they did not want Obama to get.
Because Obamy-poo and his flunky wanted their way and were WILLING PARTICIPANT to all the theater shutdowns. See... I can do that too!
BTW< TPP proved Obama is no socialist, but a corporatist in democrat clothing.
Never said he was a socialist... but, he's a left-wing idealogue who desprately tried to push his own agenda.
Who's "they". And do you have proof of that?
Mainly Republicans and some pro-corporate democrats, they do get quoted a lot about doing away or cutting Social Security, food stamps, and other programs. So you know, on Disability, my whopping Gov't budget killing income is 13,250 a year It would take 40 of me to make the 1 M1a3 cost of 8.6million up.
O.o
Ooookay. Nothing wrong with having that sort of discussion to see if we ought to be reducing defense spending, et. el.
I'm game, if you're willing to have a conversation over the increase federal bureaucratic regulations that increases the cost of doing business.
Cool?
Nothing wrong or to be ashamed about that dude. And yes, it does need an overhaul (and not the trash bucket).
Like at my monthly income I could afford the stupid Apple watch and app that some of the sillier republicans feel could replace medicare with? a program I paid into when i could work? the cheapest I-watch is 500bucks, with the cheap plastic band, 1k for the all metal edition. (Yes, the quote for that can be found.
What the holy hell are you talking about?
Republicans take "what" exactly away?
Republicans are quoted very often how they desire to cut or do away entirely with Social Security/Disability, Medicare, and other programs that barely keep anyone afloat due to the cuts they like to make so they can hand it to their wealthy pals, corporations, and the war machine.
So, I dare you to look it up yourself rather than make others do it for you. If you can't be bothered to do it, and I am one who has researched both sides, I tend to challenge people to look things up, but also make sure the sites are attached to as well. Too many Koch Bros funded sites out there spewing so much disinformation, there are some sites that pretend to be "democratic" But you can use critical thinking and objective reasoning to look past the propaganda can't you?
I have.
This is one of the hardest thing to articulate because the moment someone wants to talk about benefits / entitlements... you're immediately branded as Satan's left testicle.
I, for one, don't really have a problem with any of the welfare/entitlements.
What I *do* have a problem, is able bodied people using government welfare/entitlements as a living. That is, they'd rather just collect their benefits than work to become independent.
Furthermore, it's the Actuaries of Medicare and other programs TELLING us that at it's current projections, it's unsustainable.
So... when is it a good time to have a meaningful discussion?
Here... I'll start: Do we really need 10 carrier groups? I mean, has independent groups/the government TRULY done an analysis on whether 10 carrier groups is need to maintain our missions? Knocking it down to 9 groups would save quite a bit... no?
Now, with those savings, we should shore up Medicare and SS.
Conversely, what needed to be done to ensure Medicare/SS is operated effectively to minimize wastes and abuse?
This is part of the problem in politics these days. Everyone has their "sacred cow". And really, it goes beyond this or that party.
Oh the Clintons tried to go single payer, as did the original idea, but the Koch think tanks and "institiutes" all poo-poohed it as socialism, yet all our allies do it. Nixon a republican I may add, also broached the subject of single payer health care to Henry Ford back in the 1970's, Ford liked the idea that taxpayer paid health care would put an end to taking profits to pay for worker health plans, and make it easier on all companies as they would only have to pay once source, taxes, as their share of paying for health care. Again, too many in this nation have been erroneously taught Socialism = Communism, which at Nixons' time was part fo the Cold War.
Because Obamy-poo and his flunky wanted their way and were WILLING PARTICIPANT to all the theater shutdowns. See... I can do that too!
Because they instead stood up to and dared challenge the Reps to try and shut the Gov't down, it actually hurt things economically as the parks were NOT making tourist dollars all closed down.
Never said he was a socialist... but, he's a left-wing idealogue who desprately tried to push his own agenda.
With his approach during elections as that of a car salesman, and his very pro-corporate stance? I say he was no different than many politicians, beholden to those who paid for his campaign. And he had to clean up a mess left by his predecessors, the Republicans from Day 1 said they would simply not work on things with him at all.
O.o
Ooookay. Nothing wrong with having that sort of discussion to see if we ought to be reducing defense spending, et. el.
I'm game, if you're willing to have a conversation over the increase federal bureaucratic regulations that increases the cost of doing business.
Cool?
Maybe one could do so with a fresher thread so it all does not get lost here? The thing you mention is supposed to fall under the Government Oversight Agency to avoid over spending and maybe it is the corruption in DC that no regulatory agency seems capable of doing what they are supposed to do?
9/11 a major loss of money by the Pentagon, oh the lost records when that section of the Pentagon was destroyed by the Missile or plane, your choice to believe what destroyed it, but the financial records magically got to burn. Allegedly 2billion oversight was ashed.
Like at my monthly income I could afford the stupid Apple watch and app that some of the sillier republicans feel could replace medicare with? a program I paid into when i could work? the cheapest I-watch is 500bucks, with the cheap plastic band, 1k for the all metal edition. (Yes, the quote for that can be found.
What the holy hell are you talking about?
I thought I was using plain English here.
Republicans take "what" exactly away?
Republicans are quoted very often how they desire to cut or do away entirely with Social Security/Disability, Medicare, and other programs that barely keep anyone afloat due to the cuts they like to make so they can hand it to their wealthy pals, corporations, and the war machine.
So, I dare you to look it up yourself rather than make others do it for you. If you can't be bothered to do it, and I am one who has researched both sides, I tend to challenge people to look things up, but also make sure the sites are attached to as well. Too many Koch Bros funded sites out there spewing so much disinformation, there are some sites that pretend to be "democratic" But you can use critical thinking and objective reasoning to look past the propaganda can't you?
I have.
This is one of the hardest thing to articulate because the moment someone wants to talk about benefits / entitlements... you're immediately branded as Satan's left testicle.
I, for one, don't really have a problem with any of the welfare/entitlements.
What I *do* have a problem, is able bodied people using government welfare/entitlements as a living. That is, they'd rather just collect their benefits than work to become independent.
Furthermore, it's the Actuaries of Medicare and other programs TELLING us that at it's current projections, it's unsustainable.
Yes the programs, the word or term "Entitlements" is a bogeyman trigger that Fox, and the Koch Bros and their cronies love to use to make it seem like some sort of special snowflake program, when many are paid into at many American's paychecks.
Okay, so yes, those who go and fraudulently work the system, and they are fewer than you may realize, but they get touted once caught by Fox, to give an excuse to shut them down totally for the sake of the few bad apples. Basically a "toss the baby out with the bath water" approach. I hate the extremist tack of "all or nothing approaches as opposed to dealing case-by-case on such issues, burn the frauds, yes. Just don't burn the whole forest just to light one campfire please.
There are are always the lazy, or inventive grifters, It is a process to get any of the programs, many humiliating hoops to jump for any single program at all. I have Medicare as I hit 51 on disability, before that it was state medicaid, medicaid dropped when medicare kicked into gear. No meds covered till the part B+ was selected to kick in. Of course the + part of the medicare are in fact major medical insurers who also were insuring people who can work. they get so many slices of that pie.
Now also, not all people can get independent on a basic min wage paycheck anyway, less so on "Gubmint money" as so many poor have less chances to dig their way out of the holes they find themselves in, poor pay leads to poor diet/health, lack of brain power, which means they can't see a way out. add in that piddly weekly checks are devoured by rent/utilities/transport to/from work and food.
So... when is it a good time to have a meaningful discussion?
Here... I'll start: Do we really need 10 carrier groups? I mean, has independent groups/the government TRULY done an analysis on whether 10 carrier groups is need to maintain our missions? Knocking it down to 9 groups would save quite a bit... no?
Now, with those savings, we should shore up Medicare and SS.
Okay, so you think the one carrier group for that? it may actually cover more. Now also drop another group so we can fix the Nation's infrastructure. Tax the rich to a "fair share" which they can afford, Oh wait, that was 30% or so before the Reagan Administration started the cuts which Bush and likely Clinton dropped further to the present 10% that they still try to avoiud paying like the plague while they hoard and stash that money out of the economy?
Tax Wall street speculating, no more supporting them with taxpayer dollars as Wallstreet investing is supposed to be private sector cash gambled on stocks and hedge funds, why does the gov't need to bail out gamblers in Vegas (closest analogy
Meanwhile the money we could also save on the over priced/budget, overdue, and under performing F-35? Money that could well be spent on education.
Conversely, what needed to be done to ensure Medicare/SS is operated effectively to minimize wastes and abuse?
This is part of the problem in politics these days. Everyone has their "sacred cow". And really, it goes beyond this or that party.
The charts by the gov't show while disability has increased since 1957, it is stable along the top bar graphs, retirement is climbing. It took soe years to show the government I was chronically ill, and the blood clot they found in 2012 pushed it through. but yes, the info can be found, Mostly the spending is more folks are getting old or somehow disabled , that adds to the spending right there. as for the actual offices and agency costs, that is another issue, and I think that was what you were on about? the cost of the workers in offices doing the jobs of keeping track of al the disability and retirement accounts?
I also have a fight on my hands with the Veteran' Admin as they will easily see cancers as a sign of radiation exposure from a nuke missile I worked on, but the fact that congestive heart failure can equally be caused by it they do not readily accept. if I get any VA at all, it will likely be "non-service" related. of course then, at say a mere 100USD a month, that would mean I will no longer need the 29bucks a month of food stamps as I will be over the pay limit per month.
Each program has stringent limits on the recipients of said programs, My thought is that if there is over spending, it is in the managing of said programs.
whembly wrote: @dogma/sebster: I get what you're saying... but, there is a distinct difference between a career politician (like those of the old days), to how pervasive the political class is now, which is primarily spurnned on by the lobbying class.
My political memory only goes back to the 80s, and my memory of US politics only goes back to the early 90s, but I can't remember a time when people weren't calling for an outsider to do magical outsider things. I even know of a few outsiders that won elections, and while a few were okay none of them ever managed to do anything magically different to the establishment candidates.
This doesn't mean I'm resigned to politics same as it always is, just that actual change comes from something a lot more meaningful than parachuting in some random person. Real change requires new policy approaches and other meaningful, substantive things.
whembly wrote: @dogma/sebster: I get what you're saying... but, there is a distinct difference between a career politician (like those of the old days), to how pervasive the political class is now, which is primarily spurnned on by the lobbying class.
My political memory only goes back to the 80s, and my memory of US politics only goes back to the early 90s, but I can't remember a time when people weren't calling for an outsider to do magical outsider things. I even know of a few outsiders that won elections, and while a few were okay none of them ever managed to do anything magically different to the establishment candidates.
This doesn't mean I'm resigned to politics same as it always is, just that actual change comes from something a lot more meaningful than parachuting in some random person. Real change requires new policy approaches and other meaningful, substantive things.
I think though, that there are quite a number of instances where "career politician" was meant as an honorific... Usually we also use the term "Statesman" for those people. And that, I think, is something that HAS changed very drastically since the 90s
Ensis Ferrae wrote: I think though, that there are quite a number of instances where "career politician" was meant as an honorific... Usually we also use the term "Statesman" for those people. And that, I think, is something that HAS changed very drastically since the 90s
I've never seen 'career politician' as anything but a slur. Statesman is used positively, but you'll never see it applied to a politician while they're still actively campaigning for office, it is usually reserved for politicians once they've left office, and even then generally only once they've been out of the game for a while.
I could be wrong, and if you can give an example that'd be really interesting.
I could be wrong, and if you can give an example that'd be really interesting.
Glad you asked, lol.
In Oregon, Mark O. Hatfield pretty much gaks gold. He's got a bunch of stuff named after him, and is generally revered as a great statesman. While I don't think "Statesman" was applied to him during his whole career, I do recall seeing, on microfiche at the library, newspaper articles from the late, late 80s (like, 87-90 or so) that used the term, and I he retired in the early 90s. Ironically, he cited partisanship as one major reason for his retirement, and that was in the 90s, well before we got where we are today
But you could very well be right about the distinction between a "statesman" and "career politician", because thinking a bit more on it, I can't really recall anyone ever calling even Mr. Hatfield a "Career politician", and I can't think of too many instances, outside of a history class (wherein a term "career politician" is used as a statement of fact, not judgement) where the term has been used positively.
The economy is *stuck*... and I mostly blame Obama and the rest of the democrats for being that "stick in the mud".
You really had to waste time typing that sentence? I thought it goes without saying that you blame Obama and the Democrats for... well, everything.
Yup. Pretty much.
Don't worry, the congressional Republican doesn't escape my ire over passing the Ex-Im and TPP along with the Democrats. At times, both parties are indistinguishable and should be renamed as the 'Chamber of Commerce' party.... 'CoC' party for short.
The attitude that one side of the aisle is "bad" is a large part of the reason compromise has become nearly impossible on major issues. Unfortunately the populace tends to blame politicians for this, rather than looking inwards to realize that it is the root of the problem.
Easy E wrote: I can't believe I just saw Whembly post a Gary Reynolds Instapundit post!
I thought for sure Whembly WAS Instapundit!
Nice job ignoring the content and felt necessary to impugn me.
I didn't think that was a diss?
However, I think HRC's victory lap is a bit premature. However, the Repubs at this stage aren't even serious about contesting her yet. There is still WAY, WAY too much campaigning to be done to call it yet.
However, I won't disagree that it is really hard to get things to stick to the Clinton's, but part of that is that they don't really do much to get all worked up about. Most of it is just shady stuff, not outright Nixonian levels of conspiracy and cover-up.
However, I won't disagree that it is really hard to get things to stick to the Clinton's, but part of that is that they don't really do much to get all worked up about. Most of it is just shady stuff, not outright Nixonian levels of conspiracy and cover-up.
Additionally, the IG believes HRC’s attorney has the entire collection of 33,000 emails that she gave the State Department on a thumb drive in his office. Why is this a big fething deal?
1) Having those 33,000 emails are electronic records. Easily searchable. When the States dept. asked for those records, the Clinton flunkies PRINTED the emails and gave what THEY thought the State Department needed in reams of boxes. (no meta data).
2) That is textbook definition of improper handling of classified data.
In the real world, this would disqualified HRC a long time ago.
But now? The Democrats are putting all their eggs into HRC's basket. She'll skate, and there's literally nothing she can do that stop folks from voting from her.... even if they have to hold their nose.
Additionally, the IG believes HRC’s attorney has the entire collection of 33,000 emails that she gave the State Department on a thumb drive in his office. Why is this a big fething deal?
1) Having those 33,000 emails are electronic records. Easily searchable. When the States dept. asked for those records, the Clinton flunkies PRINTED the emails and gave what THEY thought the State Department needed in reams of boxes. (no meta data).
2) That is textbook definition of improper handling of classified data.
@1: That is how evidence discovery works, generally speaking. If there was no specific format request (which can many times be legally ignored if it is not actually legally compelled), the producing party is free to provide data in whatever format. Printing email is (annoyingly for me) not uncommon, since it protects the mail recipients.
@2: Depends on the flash drive. Encrypted thumb drives are a thing.
It also depends on whether any of it actually is classified information. What most people think is classified actually isn't. 99% of the time it's considered "sensitive" or whatever term the particular agency uses for information they want to keep private without going to the trouble of actually classifying it, or because it doesn't meet the requirements for classification. Because it is a lot of hassle to classify stuff and handle classified data, as there are ridiculous amounts of labeling requirements for it.
I think the bigger issue is "do people even know what the term means?"
Probably 98% of the time I hear the word "socialist", it's being used as a derogatory term without any deeper meaning but as an insult, or as some all-encompassing generalization with limited application to the given context.
Almost all people are for at least some level of Socialism and the public provision & ownership of certain goods and services, whether they want to think of it in those terms or not
The inability to respond is pretty amusing however.
Yeah she was unable to answer, yet had he asked Bernie, he would have parsed it out as if matthews was in junior high level of reading comprehension.
But those highways we drive on, the Libraries folks still get books out of, municipal hospitals and other services, social security/medicare and other safety net programs, and the now gone but talked about community and public education for colleges, plus our public education system all fir into socialistic tendencies of the United States.
And I am seeing Bernie overtaking Hilary, so maybe not all the Democratic eggs are all in her campaign basket after all.
Even after a dinner in 2014, Liz Warren does not feel Hilary is sincere and she has not been strongly clear on anything she claims to espouse, she has said things because of the Sanders-Warren stances on issues. Hilary is a political animal trying to feed off the populist ideal of reforming an overloaded to the Rich and Corporate run that people are tired of,
Bernie so far comes off as the most authentic, no odd political double speak. There appears even to be a Republicans for Bernie Sanders on FB.
Wasserman-Schulz is of the middle of the road, milk toast demos, you know, the ones who cave when faced with the Republican tantrums? But yes, she was incapable of a coherent answer, and she is allegedly Pelosi's protege`
I feel any party group that tosses a childish tantrum, either side of the aisle, should be stood up to, especially when they are wrong.
Gov't shutdowns are stupid.
One of Hilary's aides said she was not looking to re-instate the Glass-Steagall act her husband removed in his term in office, makes folks wonder, is she really against Wall-Street? or as suspected, is she a pal to them?
whembly wrote: Bernie comes off authentic because he's literally shouting out what he is and what he wants to do.
He's not your typical 'double-speaking' politician for sure.
But he also has drawn the biggest crowds of any of the campaigners, and that has many of the old school polis worried.
Now i also said Hilary is coming across as not so authentic or trust worthy, add in her e-mail issues and it may come down to the 4 other demos running, and Bernie is more prominent than O'Malley or the other guys I hardly hear about.
But many want Hilary to be the anointed one to face whoever gets the final go for the reps in the general election.
For now, the primaries are still it, Trump is still there, far longer than I thought he would be, No telling where the Republican primaries will wind up at the end.
Demo primaries, Hilary is still lead, but losing ground.
whembly wrote: Bernie comes off authentic because he's literally shouting out what he is and what he wants to do.
He's not your typical 'double-speaking' politician for sure.
But he also has drawn the biggest crowds of any of the campaigners, and that has many of the old school polis worried.
Now i also said Hilary is coming across as not so authentic or trust worthy, add in her e-mail issues and it may come down to the 4 other demos running, and Bernie is more prominent than O'Malley or the other guys I hardly hear about.
But many want Hilary to be the anointed one to face whoever gets the final go for the reps in the general election.
For now, the primaries are still it, Trump is still there, far longer than I thought he would be, No telling where the Republican primaries will wind up at the end.
Demo primaries, Hilary is still lead, but losing ground.
Yeah...
If you're in a camp that doesn't believe HRC should be the nominee... the next, and probably best choice, is for Warren to throw her hat in. She's like Obama, only on steroids. The question would be, could she rally the base like Obama did?
Tannhauser42 wrote: It also depends on whether any of it actually is classified information. What most people think is classified actually isn't. 99% of the time it's considered "sensitive" or whatever term the particular agency uses for information they want to keep private without going to the trouble of actually classifying it, or because it doesn't meet the requirements for classification. Because it is a lot of hassle to classify stuff and handle classified data, as there are ridiculous amounts of labeling requirements for it.
Except that, within the realm of the US government, there are basically four classifications for anything, and everything falls within them. Even if a piece of infiormation isn't classified, if it is sent via classified channels, then it is treated as though it is classified as well.
If you're in a camp that doesn't believe HRC should be the nominee... the next, and probably best choice, is for Warren to throw her hat in. She's like Obama, only on steroids. The question would be, could she rally the base like Obama did?
Warren is a progressive, more like Bernie than Obama as she has criticized Obams for placing a Wall-Street insider in the SEC, she demanded he not and pick someone outside the Wall-Street gang, but if she tossed her hat in the dream ticket would be either her and sander, or sanders and her amongst progressive dems.
Obama proved to be a very establishment/corporate guy, especially with the demand to fast track TPP he pulled Warren and Sanders lead the charge to slow that down so folks could get a chance to read how they would get bent over and screwed by it. Had folks had a chance, they would not want it passed. I know even some of the Reps did not think it was good to pass, so there was bi-partisan sentiment against the TPP and what it could possibly do to many things.
For now, since Bernie is running, and is focused on important issues and not dodging like HRC he is the one we want.
whembly wrote: Bernie comes off authentic because he's literally shouting out what he is and what he wants to do.
He's not your typical 'double-speaking' politician for sure.
It's one of his big draws, IMO. He is honest, and keeps his principals. You can respect that even if you disagree with the man. That was my relationship with McCain until the election. It's sort of my relationship with my representative now (he's conservative, and I'm liberal, but when it comes to vets or the army, he will vote against his party when the need arises (him being an Iraq war vet himself)).
Lets be honest, no large organization is as competent as we'd like them to be
I remember interning for a large defense contractor in an IT role, and having to routinely transport equipment, including a dozen servers at a time, on a cart, on foot, between buildings, unescorted, via public sidewalk...
Except that, within the realm of the US government, there are basically four classifications for anything, and everything falls within them. Even if a piece of infiormation isn't classified, if it is sent via classified channels, then it is treated as though it is classified as well.
There's actually 4.5 if you consider CUI: Core Secrets, Top Secret, Secret, Confidential, and Controlled Unclassified Information. A great deal of information falls outside that framework, as "unclassified" is not a classification.
It is true that information is often classified because of the it's source, but the information itself still has to be classified. The US government cannot classify a line of communication, even if it often does so in a de facto sense.
Her best defense is that the US classification system (especially CUI), outside the DoD, is an absolute mess and the State Department has to deal with nearly all of it.
Jihadin wrote: Within those classifications are additional levels that goes with those classifications
Oh, I know. It makes pulling direct sources a nightmare.
There's actually 4.5 if you consider CUI: Core Secrets, Top Secret, Secret, Confidential, and Controlled Unclassified Information. A great deal of information falls outside that framework, as "unclassified" is not a classification.
When I was in the army, it was simply TS, S, Confidential and FOUO/Unclass. Each document, or packet of info was given a rating, of course, as I was saying, information that isn't classified will be classified if it's part of a larger packet of info.
For example, if we have a detailed battle plan, such as storming the beaches of Normandy, those plans will be rated at TS or S. Included in our plan for invading Normandy will be a weather report. You and I know that the weather isn't classified, however the overall "plan" or document's overall classification means that the weather is now treated as though it is TS or S.
I have honestly never heard of a "Core Secret" classification, and I worked in the realm of the intelligence community.
I was just thinking, because I've been hearing a lot about it lately, do you think the R's will be focusing on abortion this election now that gay marriage is out the window as an issue? Or do you think they will focus less on the conservative christian voting bloc?
There's actually 4.5 if you consider CUI: Core Secrets, Top Secret, Secret, Confidential, and Controlled Unclassified Information. A great deal of information falls outside that framework, as "unclassified" is not a classification.
When I was in the army, it was simply TS, S, Confidential and FOUO/Unclass. Each document, or packet of info was given a rating, of course, as I was saying, information that isn't classified will be classified if it's part of a larger packet of info.
For example, if we have a detailed battle plan, such as storming the beaches of Normandy, those plans will be rated at TS or S. Included in our plan for invading Normandy will be a weather report. You and I know that the weather isn't classified, however the overall "plan" or document's overall classification means that the weather is now treated as though it is TS or S.
I have honestly never heard of a "Core Secret" classification, and I worked in the realm of the intelligence community.
Exactly, there are only three levels of classification: Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret, each defined as, if released, would cause X amount of damage to national security (IIRC, the terms, in ascending order, were serious, grave, and exceptionally grave). Anything else is just made up by that particular department/agency and has no real legal meaning apart from "stuff the agency doesn't want to get out but isn't classified." Classified data is a pain to handle. Every page has to be marked with what level of classification, when it will be declassified, and, I think, when it was classified. Derivative documents also have to maintain all the same markings, and if a document incorporates stuff from multiple sources, that page has to cite all those sources. They can only be stored/transported in approved containers. Media that holds the information must also be properly labeled. And not just anybody can say something is classified, it has to be classified by a designated classifying authority.
For the stuff that isn't classified but is still supposed to be kept private, some agencies call it sensitive, some call it compartmentalized, and there are other terms for it. For example, the name of someone the FBI is investigating wouldn't be classified, but it would be "sensitive." I've had to go through classified document training every year, even though not one classified document has ever passed through our entire building. Hell, the steel, combination locked filing cabinet that was intended to secure stuff like that was used to store office supplies.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Co'tor Shas wrote: I was just thinking, because I've been hearing a lot about it lately, do you think the R's will be focusing on abortion this election now that gay marriage is out the window as an issue? Or do you think they will focus less on the conservative christian voting bloc?
Nah, some of them will still bang the drum of anti-same-sex-marriage. Look at how many of them were talking about trying to amend the Constitution to protect their definition of marriage.
Co'tor Shas wrote: I was just thinking, because I've been hearing a lot about it lately, do you think the R's will be focusing on abortion this election now that gay marriage is out the window as an issue? Or do you think they will focus less on the conservative christian voting bloc?
They'll still be beating the dead horses of abortion, "Take the country back", "We're a Christian Nation, and god told me to run, to lead y'all to the promised land", gay marriage, "They" are coming to take your gunz, Taxes are bad mmm'kay?
Outside of Trump, it seems like the majority of candidates from the Republican side are focusing MORE on the conservative christian block, not less.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Outside of Trump, it seems like the majority of candidates from the Republican side are focusing MORE on the conservative christian block, not less.
As a voting bloc how big is that faction of the GOP?
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Outside of Trump, it seems like the majority of candidates from the Republican side are focusing MORE on the conservative christian block, not less.
As a voting bloc how big is that faction of the GOP?
Overall? Not that much I think. But they are a big faction of the group of voters that come out and vote during the primary.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Outside of Trump, it seems like the majority of candidates from the Republican side are focusing MORE on the conservative christian block, not less.
As a voting bloc how big is that faction of the GOP?
Overall? Not that much I think. But they are a big faction of the group of voters that come out and vote during the primary.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Outside of Trump, it seems like the majority of candidates from the Republican side are focusing MORE on the conservative christian block, not less.
As a voting bloc how big is that faction of the GOP?
Overall? Not that much I think. But they are a big faction of the group of voters that come out and vote during the primary.
Yep, and the more church leaders that voice their support for candidate X, the more voters will vote that way.
I have honestly never heard of a "Core Secret" classification, and I worked in the realm of the intelligence community.
Core Secret is NSA specific. Basically its Top Secret information that is given out on a tightly controlled, need-to-know basis. If you think of the scene in Independence Day where Bill Pullman is shocked to find out he wasn't aware of alien technology at Area 51, and James Rebhorn says something to the effect of "Plausible deniability.", that's Core Secret.
For cargo heading into that are. As a long running joke in the Logistical world. The first part of the TCN (Transportation Control Number) is AA51#############.
I have honestly never heard of a "Core Secret" classification, and I worked in the realm of the intelligence community.
Core Secret is NSA specific. Basically its Top Secret information that is given out on a tightly controlled, need-to-know basis. If you think of the scene in Independence Day where Bill Pullman is shocked to find out he wasn't aware of alien technology at Area 51, and James Rebhorn says something to the effect of "Plausible deniability.", that's Core Secret.
All classified information is on a need-to-know basis. The NSA can use whatever term they like, but the only officially recognized classifications are Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. Executive Order 13526 is the order regarding classified information.
I have honestly never heard of a "Core Secret" classification, and I worked in the realm of the intelligence community.
Core Secret is NSA specific. Basically its Top Secret information that is given out on a tightly controlled, need-to-know basis. If you think of the scene in Independence Day where Bill Pullman is shocked to find out he wasn't aware of alien technology at Area 51, and James Rebhorn says something to the effect of "Plausible deniability.", that's Core Secret.
So, basically, it's a "subset" of another classification level, in this case TS. When I was in, it was possible to be read on to a "higher" classification than TS, but it was generally reserved for guys who were stationed at NATO and was used as a sort of "we need everyone in this office read on and able to read other countries' intelligence/classified data"
but, I am intimately familiar with the "actual" subclasses that we used when I was in (SCI, H, G, SK, etc)
There are caveats to the classification levels (like NOFORN or not for foreign consumption even though they are allies, or REL NATO, releasable to NATO or REL UK AUS, releasable to UK and Australia.) Those caveats are more like handling instructions than classifications.
The stuff you had to be 'read on to' was either SCI (special compartmented information) or related to a SAP (Special Access Program). Every one with a clearance has to sign an NDA, when you do SCI or SAPs you'll sign additional ones, at times with VERY specific conditions you are accepting. Many SAPs and SCI info are only allowed to be transmitted.sent via specific mechanisms channels as well.
The CUI/FOUO/SBU stuff is all descriptors of the same stuff used by different agencies/organizations. It is 'sensitive' but not classified. Depending on how/where it is generated it may traverse 'classified' networks and take advantage of the protections or traverse unclassified networks but is supposed to be protected (DoD mandates encrypting it with a CAC type certificate for example) to send via email for example. Many (I won;t say all because I don't know) organizations also mandate it is only sent via official means (I can send it via my DoD email NOT via gmail, and only to a .mil or .gov address, not to a Comcast account).
The current discussion at the moment is centred on Hillary and her emails. So a thread getting started on the same topic was always going to see it end up here.
Interestingly, this whole email debacle might be what's needed to finally push into action the hero this city needs.
Spoiler:
Joe Biden Said to Be Taking New Look at Presidential Run By AMY CHOZICK AUG. 1, 2015
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his associates have begun to actively explore a possible presidential campaign, which would upend the Democratic field and deliver a direct threat to Hillary Rodham Clinton, several people who have spoken to Mr. Biden or his closest advisers say.
Mr. Biden’s advisers have started to reach out to Democratic leaders and donors who have not yet committed to Mrs. Clinton or who have grown concerned about what they see as her increasingly visible vulnerabilities as a candidate.
The conversations, often fielded by Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti, have taken place through hushed phone calls and quiet lunches. In most cases, they have grown out of an outpouring of sympathy for Mr. Biden since the death of his son Beau, 46, in May.
One longtime Biden supporter said the vice president had been deeply moved by his son’s desire for him to run.
“He was so close to Beau and it was so heartbreaking that, frankly, I thought initially he wouldn’t have the heart,” the supporter, Michael Thornton, a Boston lawyer, said in an interview. “But I’ve had indications that maybe he does want to — and ‘that’s what Beau would have wanted me to do.’ ”
Mr. Biden’s path, should he run, would not be easy. Mrs. Clinton has enormous support among Democrats inspired by the idea of electing a woman as president, and her campaign has already raised millions of dollars.
Additionally, Mr. Biden, who is 72, has in the past proved to be prone to embarrassing gaffes on the campaign trail. He would also face the critical task of building a field operation.
One Democrat with direct knowledge of the conversations described the outreach as a heady combination of donors and friends of Mr. Biden’s wanting to prop him up in his darkest hours, and of recent polls showing Mrs. Clinton’s support among independents declining, suggesting there could be a path to the nomination for the vice president.
Ms. Dowd reported that as Beau Biden lay dying from brain cancer, he “tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.” Mr. Biden’s other son, Hunter, also encouraged him to run, she wrote.
The support Mr. Biden has garnered speaks to growing concerns among Democrats that Mrs. Clinton could lose in Iowa and New Hampshire, as the populist message of one of her opponents, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, draws swelling crowds.
“The reality is it’s going to be a tough, even-steven kind of race, and there’s that moment when a lot of party establishment would start exactly this kind of rumble: ‘Is there anybody else?’ ” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist.
At the same time, the slow trickle of news about Mrs. Clinton’s use of private email when she was secretary of state, and the coming Benghazi hearings, may be distracting some voters from the core message of her campaign: the need to lift the middle class.
“It’s not that we dislike Hillary, it’s that we want to win the White House,” said Richard A. Harpootlian, a lawyer and Democratic donor in Columbia, S.C., who met with Mr. Ricchetti before Beau Biden died. “We have a better chance of doing that with somebody who is not going to have all the distractions of a Clinton campaign.”
A spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign declined to comment.
In a July 30 Quinnipiac poll, 57 percent of voters said Mrs. Clinton was not honest and trustworthy, and 52 percent said she did not care about their needs or problems. The same poll showed Mr. Biden with his highest favorability rating, 49 percent, in seven years, with 58 percent saying he was honest and trustworthy and 57 percent saying he cared about them. But Mrs. Clinton’s numbers are still strong, especially among likely Democratic primary voters.
“The No. 1 thing voters want is a candidate who is honest and trustworthy, and the veep is leading in those polls,” said William Pierce, executive director of Draft Biden, a “super PAC” that is trying to build enthusiasm for a possible candidacy.
Mr. Biden could still decide not to run. Confidants say they expect him to make something official by early September. Other than by not ruling out a run, and by holding preliminary meetings, he has not openly fueled speculation about his candidacy. As of Saturday, he had no trips planned to Iowa or New Hampshire in the coming weeks. But an intermediary recruited by the vice president’s office has been in touch with potential staff members who have not yet signed on to the Clinton campaign.
Kendra Barkoff, a Biden spokeswoman, said, “As the Biden family continues to go through this difficult time, the vice president is focused on his family and immersed in his work.”
A 2016 run would be the third time Mr. Biden, a longtime senator from Delaware, had sought the presidency, which friends say is his ultimate dream.
Mr. Biden’s first campaign in 1988 ended in heartbreak after news reports that he plagiarized parts of a speech and exaggerated his academic record forced him to drop out. In 2008, he drew less than 1 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses and dropped out after making controversial comments about Barack Obama, then seeking his first term in the White House. Mr. Biden said he was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.”
Mr. Obama later chose Mr. Biden as his running mate. In the early months of the 2016 campaign, the president has been careful not to undermine or wholeheartedly endorse either his former secretary of state or his vice president.
“The president has said that the best political decision he’s ever made in his career has been to ask Joe Biden to run as his vice president,” Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said last week.
Friends described Mr. Biden’s relationship with Mrs. Clinton in the Senate as cordial and warm. But in his long career in Democratic politics, Mr. Biden has clashed with former President Bill Clinton, and his relationship with Mrs. Clinton has not been without awkwardness. One close Biden confidant, Ron Klain, has been in contact with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign about helping her prepare for the Democratic debates, a sign some people interpreted as evidence that Mr. Biden would decide against a run.
Mr. Ricchetti, a White House aide in the Clinton administration who is now Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, began talking to donors and supporters in the months before Beau Biden died.
In recent weeks, those talks, with local elected officials and party leaders, started again, mostly because well-wishers were calling to check on the Biden family. The talk inevitably drifted to 2016, and many of these Democrats urged Mr. Biden to seriously consider getting into the race, said people with knowledge of the talks who agreed to discuss private conversations only anonymously.
Mr. Ricchetti declined to comment.
The speculation intensified on Thursday when friends of Mrs. Clinton’s spotted Mr. Ricchetti having breakfast at the Four Seasons in Washington with Louis B. Susman, a major donor and former ambassador to Britain. Fox News reported on the meeting.
Mr. Susman — who has already made the maximum donation allowed in the primary, $2,700, to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, and who is a longtime friend of the Biden family — dismissed any implication that he was discussing the vice president’s plans. “He wasn’t testing the waters with me,” Mr. Susman said of Mr. Ricchetti. “There was never any discussion of the presidential campaign or money.”
Mr. Biden is by no means a virtuoso campaigner. But his entry into the race would add an unbridled, often unscripted passion for the presidency that some Democrats say the ever-cautious Mrs. Clinton at times lacks.
One Democratic donor with direct knowledge of the overtures from the Biden camp said Mr. Biden had already thought about how he would position himself in the race, delivering an economic message to the left of Mrs. Clinton’s while embracing Obama administration policies, like health care reform, that are widely popular among Democrats.
And now for a very depressing report on money in politics
By JULIE BYKOWICZ, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly all of the contenders for president are encouraging their deep-pocketed donors to give not just to their campaigns, but to groups known as super PACs as well.
Unlike campaigns, these outside groups aren't limited in how much money they can accept from individual donors. While they can't directly take orders from the candidates they're spending money to help elect, they still account for about $2 of every $3 raised so far in the 2016 race for president.
Many super PACs must file their first fundraising reports with federal regulators by midnight Friday. The super PAC filings will detail how money was raised and spent from January to the end of June and include the names of donors.
Two weeks ago, many of the candidates filed their first campaign fundraising reports. Together, the reports from the super PACs and the candidates will produce the first major accounting of who is paying for the campaign for president.
Here is a guide to what's already known about the presidential super PACs, based on information provided by the groups and their official filings with the Federal Election Commission.
___
THE BIGGEST DONORS
A super PAC aiming to help Texas Sen. Ted Cruz win the Republican presidential nomination raised from a single donor nearly as much as the candidate's formal campaign raised in three months. A $10 million donation from Toby Neugebauer is the largest contribution so far to any of the candidate-specific super PACs. Neugebauer is an energy investor in Texas and the son of GOP Rep. Randy Neugebauer. The money went to Keep the Promise II, one of several similarly named super PACs all working to help elect Cruz.
The Wilks family in Texas pooled together for a $15 million gift to a second pro-Cruz super PAC. Brothers Farris and Dan Wilks made billionaire lists by getting into the booming shale gas industry.
___
LOCAL MILLIONS FOR WALKER, RUBIO
TD Ameritrade's billionaire founder Joe Ricketts, his wife, Marlene, and their son Todd together gave just over $5 million to a super PAC supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's Republican presidential ambitions. The Ricketts family owns the Chicago Cubs. Diane Hendricks, the billionaire executive of a wholesale roofing company headquartered in Wisconsin, also wrote a $5 million check.
Those donors accounted for half of the money raised by the pro-Walker super PAC, called Unintimidated. Richard Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, gave $2.5 million. In recent years, Uihlein moved his packaging supply company, Uline, entirely out of Illinois and into Wisconsin because of tax incentives.
Million-dollar donors also featured prominently in the super PAC supporting Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential bid. Miami-based automobile dealer Norman Braman gave $5 million; Besilu Stables LLC, owned by Miami health care executive Benjamin Leon, gave $2.5 million. In total, the group Conservative Solutions pulled in about $16 million, including a $3 million gift from Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
A lone local donor also is propping up the super PAC supporting former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Of the $3.6 million raised by Pursuing America's Greatness, 83 percent came from Ronald Cameron, chief executive of Arkansas-based Mountaire Corp., one of the country's largest poultry companies.
___
JEB BUSH'S JUGGERNAUT
Right to Rise, a super PAC helping Republican former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is backed by two dozen donors who have given $1 million or more. Miguel "Mike" Fernandez, a Miami health care investor, made the biggest contribution at just over $3 million.
Four Texas couples who built fortunes from the oil and gas industry are also among the biggest donors, with each couple contributing $2 million: Trevor and Jan Rees-Jones, Ray and Nancy Hunt, Richard and Nancy Kinder, and Hushang and Shahla Ansary.
Both of Bush's ex-president relatives also donated to Right to Rise. His father, George H.W. Bush, gave $125,000; brother George W. Bush gave $95,000. Jeb Bush aggressively courted big donors in the six months before he announced his presidential campaign, when he faced no legal restrictions on his work with the super PAC. Now that he's a candidate, Right to Rise is in the hands of a longtime friend and strategist, Mike Murphy.
___
CORPORATE DONORS
Another highlight of the Right to Rise donor list is corporate money. Four dozen corporations or organizations gave a total of more than $16 million to the super PAC, or about 15 percent of its overall haul.
The largest corporate contribution was $2 million from Rooney Holdings, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based construction company. San Francisco-based American Pacific International Capital Inc., an investor and developer with projects in the United States and China, gave $1.3 million.
Another roughly $1 million gift came from Juno Beach, Florida-based Nextera Energy Inc., a large energy company that operates in 27 states and Canada. The company owns Florida Power and Light, the largest electric company in the state, where Bush was governor. The charitable trust for the U.S. Sugar Corporation, a sugar-cane producer based in Florida, gave $505,000.
Meanwhile, Manhattan-based Access Industries, an international holding company led by Len Blavatnik, one of the world's wealthiest men, gave $1 million to a pro-Walker super PAC and $500,000 to one supporting the longshot presidential ambitions of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
The Supreme Court's 2010 decision in the case Citizens United made it clear that corporations and unions can contribute in unlimited ways to political races, so long as that money comes through outside groups that are not directly coordinated with the candidates. Corporations and unions remain legally barred from giving to the official campaigns of the candidates.
___
CHRIS CHRISTIE SUPPORTERS
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may not be leading in the Republican presidential polls, but his supporters are contributing six and seven figures to a super PAC supporting his candidacy.
The filing from the America Leads super PAC provides one of the first insights into Christie's fundraising network, which includes notable names such as New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon, Hewlett-Packard Chief Meg Whitman and Linda McMahon, the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment. The group raised $11 million through the end of June.
Among the largest contributions were $1 million each from hedge fund manager Steven Cohen and his wife Alexandra Marie Cohen, and $750,000 from Quicken Loans founder Daniel Gilbert. Christie's brother Todd gave $100,000, while long time Christie cheerleader and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone gave $250,000.
The list, according to a person familiar with the numbers, includes more than a dozen billionaires as well as many donors the group believes could afford to spend much more should the governor's campaign take off in the coming months. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss donors' financial information.
___
RAND PAUL'S (PAY)PALS
PayPal board member and Silicon Valley investor Scott Banister gave $1.25 million to Concerned American Voters, one of three super PACs supporting Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's presidential bid. All three filed their FEC reports earlier this week.
Two other donors gave big to pro-Paul entities. Jeff Yass, managing director of high-frequency trading firm Susquehanna International Group, split a $2 million contribution between Purple PAC and America's Liberty. George Macricostas, head of a data center company called RagingWire, gave more than $1 million to America's Liberty.
Thanks mostly to those three donors, the trio of pro-Paul super PACs raised about $6 million through the end of June.
___
RICK PERRY'S TEXAS TWOSOME
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry isn't performing well enough in national polls to guarantee he'll have a spot on the first GOP debate stage, and his campaign has so far only raised about $1 million. But thanks to two Texans, his presidential effort has the money to carry on.
Several super PACs working together as an operation called Opportunity and Freedom say they raised $16.8 million through June 30. About two-thirds came from Kelcy Warren and Darwin Deason.
Warren, a billionaire Dallas energy executive who gave $6 million, also serves as finance chairman of Perry's campaign. Because of that position, he's legally restricted in what he can tell the super PAC. Fellow Dallas businessman Deason gave $5 million. Deason made his fortune by selling Affiliated Computer Services, a data-processing company, to Xerox.
___
DEMOCRATIC DOLDRUMS
There won't be much talk of Democrats in the presidential super PAC filings. That's because they account for less than 9 percent of the total super PAC haul so far, according to an Associated Press analysis that compared money raised by formal presidential campaigns with what the super PACs say they plan to report having raised on Friday.
Priorities USA Action, the main group helping Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, will report having raised $15.6 million by June 30. Haim Saban, an entertainment executive, gave $2 million to Priorities, making him the top donor. Hedge fund billionaire George Soros, one of the biggest Democratic donors in earlier elections, gave $1 million.
___
Associated Press writers Jack Gillum, Stephen Braun and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
It's disgusting. I often disagree with supreme court decisions, but those are mostly on my personal opinion on the issue, not constitutionality (I'm going to assume that supreme court justices know a bit more on the subject than me ). It's quite different with the decisions that lead to this. The amount the Constitution was stretched and battered to meet them is ridiculous, they were decisions completely at odds with both the wording an intent of these rights, made to protect those without power and influence, not make those with power, influence and money even more powerful than they already are.
I might be biased on the issue (well, let's face it, I definitely am ), but that's what I think at the very least.
Co'tor Shas wrote: The amount the Constitution was stretched and battered to meet them is ridiculous, they were decisions completely at odds with both the wording an intent of these rights, made to protect those without power and influence, not make those with power, influence and money even more powerful than they already are.
Protecting the poor and powerless is not the point of the Constitution. The Constitution was written to provide a division of powers between the branches of the Federal Government, define the Federal Government's relationship with the individual states, the states' relationship with each other, and enumerate some of the rights the people have in relationship to the Federal Government. What we refer to as the Bill of Rights was written because several founders wanted to ensure the limitations of Congress and make more clear the rights of US citizens, and some powers of the states. The Constitution has nothing to do with regulating the relationship of poor people vs rich people in private society, but rather providing for a diversified power structure in the Federal Government, and ensuring the rights they saw as inalienable and God-given to its citizens.
Co'tor Shas wrote: The amount the Constitution was stretched and battered to meet them is ridiculous, they were decisions completely at odds with both the wording an intent of these rights, made to protect those without power and influence, not make those with power, influence and money even more powerful than they already are.
Protecting the poor and powerless is not the point of the Constitution. The Constitution was written to provide a division of powers between the branches of the Federal Government, define the Federal Government's relationship with the individual states, the states' relationship with each other, and enumerate some of the rights the people have in relationship to the Federal Government. What we refer to as the Bill of Rights was written because several founders wanted to ensure the limitations of Congress and make more clear the rights of US citizens, and some powers of the states. The Constitution has nothing to do with regulating the relationship of poor people vs rich people in private society, but rather providing for a diversified power structure in the Federal Government, and ensuring the rights they saw as inalienable and God-given to its citizens.
He is right in a way though. Who needs "protection" most? The poor. In previous forms of government, we see that the poor and lower class have no protections, and no rights. The US Constitution was designed to protect ALL people rich and poor alike. And I think that decisions like Citizens' United are definitely means to stripping away rights and protections.
The stripping of rights has been a SC specialty since before the Civil War. Only recently (I don't know, 1960's maybe?) have we seen trends away from that, mostly driven by the Executive or Legislative Branch leading the way first. The court is a reactive body by its nature.
As a bit of perspective regarding the divide between rich and poor in politics, I just read an article on CNN about an event the Koch brothers held for a few hundred other rich people and their personal favorites among the current GOP contenders. The sickening part about it is that the article basically said a few hundred people would be responsible for nearly $1 BILLION in campaign contributions. As we know, most of these candidates stand no chance of coming close to making it on the ballot, but they'll still be in public office after this, so tell me this isn't about buying votes.
I know the same thing happens on the D side, too, this is just the particular example that popped up today.
Just been reading up on the TTIP negotiations between the US and the EU, and in particular, the sort of food America could export to the EU, if TTIP is passed.
Currently, the EU bans the import of certain American foodstuffs (beef for example) because of the high level of banned pesticides and hormones you guys pump into your foods.
When I read the list, my initial reaction was
You guys really eat that stuff
Most worryingly of all, it could make it easier for the USA to export root beer to the UK!
To that I say: never! Never! A thousand times NEVER
But if the day should ever come that America gets the green light to flood the UK with root beer
It will be a three pronged attack.
First, Scottish highlanders will come down from the north, waving bottles of IBC and doing the Hakka. Second, the Battleship Texas will steam up the Thames and bombard London with 14in shells full of A&W. Third, Zombie Nazis will surface from fallen Uboats and strike with Barqs Fourth, the Welsh will cross the border shoutign gibberish (which is perfectly good English to them) and driving Churchill tanks fulls of Dads root beer. Hey no one said I could count.
But if the day should ever come that America gets the green light to flood the UK with root beer
It will be a three pronged attack.
First, Scottish highlanders will come down from the north, waving bottles of IBC and doing the Hakka.
[I]Second, the Battleship Texas will steam up the Thames and bombard London with 14in shells full of A&W.[/u]
Third, Zombie Nazis will surface from fallen Uboats and strike with Barqs
Fourth, the Welsh will cross the border shoutign gibberish (which is perfectly good English to them) and driving Churchill tanks fulls of Dads root beer. Hey no one said I could count.
You forgot that the shells would be frosted, in keeping with proper A&W serving tradition
Aaand, it looks like we might be headed for another government shutdown over....Planned Parenthood. At least Rand Paul had the balls to stand up and say you shouldn't make shutting down the government your objective to get what you want. While Cruz has said "it won't be our fault if the government shuts down, it will be the Ds' fault (because they won't give in to our demands despite the vote already failing in the Senate)." Bullgak, Cruz, by the very act of saying that sort of crap you're making it your fault! "It's not my fault I drew a line in the sand" /facepalm
Maybe these supposedly bright and intelligent people should wait for some actual investigative results before thumping their chests in furiously indignant outrage during campaign season?
Tannhauser42 wrote: Aaand, it looks like we might be headed for another government shutdown over....Planned Parenthood. At least Rand Paul had the balls to stand up and say you shouldn't make shutting down the government your objective to get what you want. While Cruz has said "it won't be our fault if the government shuts down, it will be the Ds' fault (because they won't give in to our demands despite the vote already failing in the Senate)." Bullgak, Cruz, by the very act of saying that sort of crap you're making it your fault! "It's not my fault I drew a line in the sand" /facepalm
Maybe these supposedly bright and intelligent people should wait for some actual investigative results before thumping their chests in furiously indignant outrage during campaign season?
Plays right into the "Republican War on Women". It's as if HRC is calling the shots for the GOP.
Maybe these supposedly bright and intelligent people should wait for some actual investigative results before thumping their chests in furiously indignant outrage during campaign season?
I did see one article/report out there that explicitly showed that not only was there no wrong doing, but that the "investigators" were so bad, that they FORCED a situation where there was "wrongdoing" and heavily modified the actions and evidence to show that it was such a horrible situation and that they were innocent.
Also, there's a meaningful poll I saw on twittah (I'm still trying to find the source), but in OHIO Kasich leads HRC 48/40. So, if we think of a GOP ticket that has a meaningful chance at the WhiteHouse... Kasich/Rubio? This has a good chance to lock up Ohio and Florida.
As long as it's tied to potential shut downs/the actions of politicians, go on with the planned parenthood stuff. If it devolves into the "it's life at X/No its life at Y/no at Z!" Argument, or another kind that isn't related to politics, then the discussion on that will stop. But the thread still won't close
Trump
I’m just blaming him, and most Democrats and most Republicans before and after Clinton as well.
by Whembly
