The defense for Obama ya'll trying to spin is getting nauseating.
I'm not spinning anything. I'm pointing out that your characterization of Obama's words is not reflective of what Obama actually said. Stating that one group of people has found common cause with another group of people does not indicate that the speaker believes that they are the same, or even necessarily comparable.
Really? Here's his double-down on CNN's interview:
Spoiler:
Uh... no... not a mischaracterization. It's a tactic to paint the oppositions as an extreme viewpoint, as it's agreed that the hardliners in Iran are far away extreme themselves.
The oppositions are for multitude of reasons... namely:
a) very pro-Israel
b) the idea of "negotiating" with a terrorist state with US servicemen's blood on their hands
c) 'rewarding' Iran for relinquishing held money (billions)
d) gakky deal all round
Did you actually watch and listen to the video? He's not factually wrong.
It's simple logic:
Group A opposes a thing + Group B opposes same thing = common cause
The reasons for opposing it are irrelevant to that equation, the simple fact of opposition is what is relevant to the comparison. Was it a bad choice of words, intended solely to provoke and antagonize? YES, but it still does not change the fact that many of those opposing the deal did so before the deal was completed, before they even knew the details, solely because those politicians are in the pockets of special interest groups.
Why bring up such a antagonizing comparision in fthe first place?
He's not fostering any compelling argument for this other that "This is what I want, so suck it up buttercups".
I don't want to have anything to do with a country that chants "Death to America" and funds very bad organizations in that region. feth them.
I don't want to have anything to do with a country that chants "Death to America" and funds very bad organizations in that region. feth them.
Historically, the US hasn't been much better. Look up some of the things said by Curtis Lemay, for example. We can't really blame the Iranians for being 60 years behind us in the development of political rhetoric, can we?
Besides, in the point of view of many in that region, what you said largely describes how they see the US. Maybe if we actually gave diplomacy an honest try, things might change. But, no, we send our soldiers over there, our own politicians (including one VP candidate) then claim we're doing God's work, and we wonder why they think we're attacking Islam? We spend over a year in negotiations, only to have the result fail because of a political hissyfit on our end and we wonder why they call us arrogant and untrustworthy?
I can certainly appreciate how they could see us as untrustworthy, but this is how a Democracy works. But on the flipside nobody in that region has ever given a western nation any good reason to trust in return.
And no matter how much they may try to paint the picture that the West hates Islam its simply not true. We don't have state approved marches shouting "Death to Islam", while at the same time them shouting "Death to America" is basically a daily occurrence. All we do in reaction is yawn and carry on because its no big deal.
Why should we negotiate in good faith with these people in the first place?
Why should we negotiate in good faith with these people in the first place?
Because we're the "good guys"??
That was approximately the answer given each time I ever heard the question, "but Sgt. why do we need to follow the Geneva Conventions when the other guys aren't going to?"
Following the Geneva Convention and negotiating in good faith with those who have none is stupid. The idea that rules and such can apply to war and conflict is beyond stupid, its braindead and moronic and only ensures you will lose any conflict you engage in.
Following the Geneva Convention and negotiating in good faith with those who have none is stupid. The idea that rules and such can apply to war and conflict is beyond stupid, its braindead and moronic and only ensures you will lose any conflict you engage in.
It's not at all stupid. There are lots of very good reasons for such, and they aren't necessarily detrimental to conduct of war.
Did the US suffer any meaningful problems in WW2 for treating German prisoners humanely? Hrm...no, in fact it's likely the opposite as many German units would not resist as fiercely and would give up sooner than their comrades would against the Red Army. Did Germany & Japan suffer for treating prisoners badly? Yes, they absolutely did.
Likewise, not every war is a knock down drag out fight to the bitter end. Having some rules that each side generally agrees to abide by makes settling a conflict much easier. Had the British used nerve gas against the Argentinians, or the Argentinians brutally tortured prisoners and burned down every dwelling during the Falklands war, would that conflict have ended as quickly and (relatively) cleanly as it did, or would it have turned into a longer, and much uglier conflict that would have resulted in heavier costs for both sides?
Why bring up such a antagonizing comparision in fthe first place?
Because Obama wouldn't get Republican cooperation under any realistic set of circumstances. Many GOP politicians have spent the last 7 years demonizing the present Administration, and now have to act in consistence with the "History's Greatest Monster" charade or risk losing their seat.
He's not fostering any compelling argument for this other that "This is what I want, so suck it up buttercups".
You realize the structure of your argument is identical to the one you claim Obama is making, right?
Anyway, the core argument is that lifting sanctions on Iran will lead to economic development, and a concomitant reduction in support for radical political positions, with the elimination of nuclear sanctions being particularly important for symbolic reasons. In short, Iran gets to feel like a significant world power, while the West gets to look a bit more reasonable in the eyes of others.
This argument isn't even one that has been specifically articulated with respect to Iran. The basic principles underlying it have been a major focus for Obama since he was campaigning in 2008.
Why should we negotiate in good faith with these people in the first place?
Because we're the "good guys"??
That was approximately the answer given each time I ever heard the question, "but Sgt. why do we need to follow the Geneva Conventions when the other guys aren't going to?"
If they could be trusted to stand by the agreements that they made, then I would agree with you. But "death to America" is a huge part of their culture, and any agreements that they make are going to simply further the cause that they have assigned themselves to - the destruction of the most powerful superpower in the world. Regardless of our own efforts to make peace and end the wars going on, a helluva lotta the people over there see Americans as untrustworthy, unfaithful whores, and think of it as common sense to see us in that manner. Until that culture is broken, then we will never have successful negotiations, and the only way for us to supplant that culture is to take full control (ie balls-to-the-wall invasion and occupation) and replace the anti-Western bull shonkey and replace it with pro-American bull shonkey - and then back it up with humane practices and unquestionable kindness and freedom. Even then, it would take decades to create a people that would be more "sensible" (by our standards), and wouldn't be as radical with their beliefs, plus, we would likely make a metric asston of enemies if we were to engage in such an action.
tl;dr: The current Islamic states are too radical and brainwashed to engage in true-blue, mutually beneficial negotiations that they can be trusted to keep.
Grey Templar wrote: I can certainly appreciate how they could see us as untrustworthy, but this is how a Democracy works.
Actually, foreign policy tends to be pretty stable in established democracies, or really any other form of established government. The West (The US is really just the current poster boy.) simply has an illustrious history of fething with less powerful countries, especially the Middle East.
Actually, foreign policy tends to be pretty stable in established democracies, or really any other form of established government. The West (The US is really just the current poster boy.) simply has an illustrious history of fething with less powerful countries, especially the Middle East.
Yes. What I meant was the US political climate is volatile and changes with each election, often to diametrically opposed viewpoints. This leads to flux in what our foreign policy is at any given time, thus it can give the illusion of untrustworthyness. Basically promises made are only good so long as someone amicable to that agreement is in power OR if it somehow passes Congress with bipartisan support.
Did Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE cease to exist at some point?
While those are relatively stable countries they still far from being trustworthy. The Saudis funding of terrorist organizations is the worst kept secret ever. They allow many terrorist organizations to operate openly or very poorly concealed within their borders.
This entire region is filled with 2 faced people. Remember Islam says its ok to lie to non-believers.
Everyone in the region is at best an ally of convenience depending on the situation.
Perhaps. But thats not really a big deal is it? Everyone acts in their own interests on the political stage. Its really just a matter of how much another's goal align with your own.
Grey Templar wrote: Perhaps. But thats not really a big deal is it? Everyone acts in their own interests on the political stage. Its really just a matter of how much another's goal align with your own.
Grey Templar wrote: Perhaps. But thats not really a big deal is it? Everyone acts in their own interests on the political stage. Its really just a matter of how much another's goal align with your own.
I think the ultimate question to look at is: what makes us right and what makes them wrong?
And the plain and simple truth is that age old axiom: Might Makes Right. We're only "right" because we're bigger and stronger. Morality doesn't enter into it, because we've proven we'll throw away our morals when we feel like it. Freedom and democracy doesn't enter into it, because we toss those aside when they become inconvenient.
Grey Templar wrote: What I meant was the US political climate is volatile and changes with each election, often to diametrically opposed viewpoints. This leads to flux in what our foreign policy is at any given time, thus it can give the illusion of untrustworthyness.
Illusion? A nation-state which experiences frequent, significant shifts in its foreign policy does not project an illusion of being untrustworthy, it is simply untrustworthy. Thankfully, as I've already pointed out, that doesn't happen under established governments.
While those are relatively stable countries they still far from being trustworthy.
All of those countries have strong diplomatic ties with the US for one reason or another, a few of them host (or have hosted) US military bases, 1 of them (Turkey) is a member of NATO, and most them have economic or defense agreements with the US (primarily the Gulf states).
The Saudis funding of terrorist organizations is the worst kept secret ever. They allow many terrorist organizations to operate openly or very poorly concealed within their borders.
I don't particularly care if the Saudis fund terrorist organizations (and the Saudi state doesn't actually do so), so long as those terrorist organizations aren't a significant threat to US interests.
This entire region is filled with 2 faced people. Remember Islam says its ok to lie to non-believers.
Taqiya is actually a lot more complicated than that (with multiple interpretations of the doctrine), usually requiring a legitimate fear of significant harm to be considered acceptable.
Grey Templar wrote: Perhaps. But thats not really a big deal is it? Everyone acts in their own interests on the political stage. Its really just a matter of how much another's goal align with your own.
I think the ultimate question to look at is: what makes us right and what makes them wrong?
And the plain and simple truth is that age old axiom: Might Makes Right. We're only "right" because we're bigger and stronger. Morality doesn't enter into it, because we've proven we'll throw away our morals when we feel like it. Freedom and democracy doesn't enter into it, because we toss those aside when they become inconvenient.
Well, in the political game Good and Bad are determined by which side you personally are on.
It all depends on the details. Was it an actual classified document sent to her, with all the proper labelings? Was it derived from a classified document (a quote from a classified document contained within a larger, normally unclassified document), and was that document properly labeled or not? Did she send a properly labeled classified document incorrectly? Did she make a derivative document (quoted something classified) that was or was not labeled correctly? The devil will be in the details.
If we're talking actual, properly labeled classified materials sent to her, and she did not properly address the issue (i.e. disciplinary action) with whomever did it, then she's in trouble for that. If she sent them, she's in trouble for that, too. By letting them remain on a server not approved for storing classified materials (after being accused of deleting emails, ironic, eh?), she's in trouble for that, too. Interestingly enough, if she was the original classifying official who classified the material, she has the authority to declassify it, but not, you know, retroactively after it was already sent incorrectly. The devil's gonna be in the details.
Hillary Clinton has agreed to hand over the private email server that she used as secretary of state to the Justice Department.
Mrs Clinton's use of private email has generated a barrage of criticism.
Critics say that her set-up was unsecure, contrary to government policy and designed to shield her communications from oversight.
Mrs Clinton initially handed over thousands of pages of emails to the state department, but not the server.
The FBI is investigating the security of Mrs Clinton email server.
I think ultimately, unless charges come out of it, Hillary's email snafu is going to get swept under the rug. Even if she's guilty as sin, I'd be shocked if she were indicted. If that happens, I think it'll be the end of her campaign, and I'm sure her opposition is going to hope very much that it does happen, but I'd be surprised if she doesn't brush it off in the end or at worst get it pinned on a poor staffer. Much as I dislike her (particularly after the 2008 campaign), I think it's going to be very difficult to get anything to stick, particularly while the Justice Department operates under the control of a Democratic president.
With regards to the GOP candidates, I'd guess that within the next couple months it'll be down to Bush, Walker, Cruz, maybe Rubio, Fiorina, and possibly still Trump. My guess is that Rubio and Fiorina are going to be gunning for a VP slot, Cruz is going to try to eat up Trump's disaffected populists after Trump eventually crashes, Walker is going to be the Koch puppet, and Jeb the "establishment" candidate, and we'll see if Trump runs a 3rd party campaign or not.
I don't see any of the others sticking it out much longer however, at least in any serious sort of capacity and generating any campaign income.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Well, Dune was a big metaphor about oil and the middle east. Too bad nobody but geeks learned the lessons within it, though.
That writing a series of books that focus on pre-destination are pre-destined to get very silly, very quickly?
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ProtoClone wrote: It does reek of some sort of political character assassination. Not only that, it confuses the image of the real BLM movement and causes more people to associate them in a negative way. My first thought was that they were trying to discredit the BLM by acting in this way.
I don't think you need to reach for conspiratorial plots, when it can be explained a lot easier with idiotic attention whoring. Every cause has a fringe of people who are way more interested causing a ruckus than achieving anything. Some movements these people aren't even a fringe, but the majority.
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Jihadin wrote: In all serious though from what being said on some media news outlet that the more likely reason that Trump leading in the polls is that majority being polled are a bit tired of career politicians. I'm one of those who is tired of "career politicians"
We’ve already talked through why the whole outsider thing is total bs, and we even spent time establishing that even if it meant something, it certainly doesn’t apply to Trump.
Do we really need to go through it again?
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Frazzled wrote: Thats my fear.
Alternatively Israel attacks and the world blames Israel for being the aggressor.
Mwahahaha!
Yeah, okay, so now that we've moved in to the world of Tom Clancy's shittier, more delusional later novels, can we get on with blowing up Baltimore?
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Grey Templar wrote: I can certainly appreciate how they could see us as untrustworthy, but this is how a Democracy works. But on the flipside nobody in that region has ever given a western nation any good reason to trust in return.
And no matter how much they may try to paint the picture that the West hates Islam its simply not true. We don't have state approved marches shouting "Death to Islam", while at the same time them shouting "Death to America" is basically a daily occurrence. All we do in reaction is yawn and carry on because its no big deal.
Why should we negotiate in good faith with these people in the first place?
It isn’t about trusting that the other person is really nice, but about knowing how mutual benefit works. You don’t have to like your boss to know that an arrangement where you turn up and do your job, and they pay you works out for both parties.
Also, your comment that ‘no-one in that region has ever given a western nation any good reason to trust’ is fething absurd. The region consists of more than the couple of countries who get talked about in the news, you know. There have been long term, mutually beneficial deals set up with Egypt, with Jordan, with the UAE.
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Grey Templar wrote: Following the Geneva Convention and negotiating in good faith with those who have none is stupid. The idea that rules and such can apply to war and conflict is beyond stupid, its braindead and moronic and only ensures you will lose any conflict you engage in.
Absolute bs.
Of course it is difficult and maybe impossible to take an absolute, hard and fast set of rules and never break them no matter what the circumstances of the war, but that doesn't mean a complete rejection of laws is even remotely sensible.
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Grey Templar wrote: This entire region is filled with 2 faced people. Remember Islam says its ok to lie to non-believers.
Everyone in the region is at best an ally of convenience depending on the situation.
Okay, so we're basically at the point where it should be clear to everyone your worldview is about as sophisticated as the Monster Manual.
Engaging further on this issue is a waste of time.
sebster wrote: very cause has a fringe of people who are way more interested causing a ruckus than achieving anything. Some movements these people aren't even a fringe, but the majority.
Tannhauser42 wrote: It all depends on the details. Was it an actual classified document sent to her, with all the proper labelings? Was it derived from a classified document (a quote from a classified document contained within a larger, normally unclassified document), and was that document properly labeled or not? Did she send a properly labeled classified document incorrectly? Did she make a derivative document (quoted something classified) that was or was not labeled correctly? The devil will be in the details.
If we're talking actual, properly labeled classified materials sent to her, and she did not properly address the issue (i.e. disciplinary action) with whomever did it, then she's in trouble for that. If she sent them, she's in trouble for that, too. By letting them remain on a server not approved for storing classified materials (after being accused of deleting emails, ironic, eh?), she's in trouble for that, too. Interestingly enough, if she was the original classifying official who classified the material, she has the authority to declassify it, but not, you know, retroactively after it was already sent incorrectly. The devil's gonna be in the details.
I'm still confused on what the policy is in disiminating 'Top Secret' information...
Need to research further, but it appears that multiple information (not just the 4 reported) falls within this 'Top Secret' category. These were originated from the intelligence departments and the IG confirmed that at least two of them are impacted:
From what I understand, these are compartmentalized with an associated code word, which means you have to be 'read in' to that particular information. Once you sign whatever red-tape needed, you then are 'cleared' to read material with that particular code word. I guess that's how they control folks with 'need-to-know' and control access.
If it were anyone else, this is hard-core felony prison infraction.
But, alas, nothiing will happen... the Clintons will always remain the best example of living/breathing Teflons™.
From what I understand, these are compartmentalized with an associated code word, which means you have to be 'read in' to that particular information. Once you sign whatever red-tape needed, you then are 'cleared' to read material with that particular code word. I guess that's how they control folks with 'need-to-know' and control access.
If it were anyone else, this is hard-core felony prison infraction.
But, alas, nothiing will happen... the Clintons will always remain the best example of living/breathing Teflons™.
I know you have a hard-on for taking down HRC, but in this case... with the way things are going, I almost wouldn't be surprised to see some Ana Montes or Bob Hanson level stuff going on, and at her level of the gov't... damn, that would be fething huge
Please note, all you dakka users, I am NOT saying that HRC was spying, I'm merely saying that at this point it wouldn't surprise me.
I think it's pretty rare for anyone that high up to be prosecuted and imprisoned for mishandling or leaking classified info, even if that was the case. Look at Sandy Berger, Mary McCathy, Richard Armitage, and David Petraeus.
Ouze wrote: I think it's pretty rare for anyone that high up to be prosecuted and imprisoned for mishandling or leaking classified info, even if that was the case. Look at Sandy Berger, Mary McCathy, Richard Armitage, and David Petraeus.
It's more fun to pretend, though, I guess.
What I'm saying is that, if it turns out the reason her camp was holding onto stuff, instead of immediately obeying the court orders, was because they were attempting to permanently destroy evidence of espionage or some such foolishness, it'd be a bit beyond merely mishandling classified.
It was just an idea that sprang to mind, and while it wouldn't surprise me, I'm not really giving it serious thought.
Sorry, my post was a little incomplete. What I meant by "it's more fun to pretend" is that idea that, should Hillary Clinton prove to have mishandled classified info and not be prosecuted and or jailed, it wouldn't necessarily be because of some magical shield that surrounds the Clinton name, and more that historically we have been loathe to prosecute and jail people for those offenses, regardless of administration or partisan stripe. I wasn't directing my last post at you.
Responding to you though the idea that she was holding onto classified material as part of a spying ring is equal parts unlikely and interesting. First Lady: Mata Hari sounds like a good Lifetime movie. I would watch that, I'm not ashamed to say.
Ouze wrote: Sorry, my post was a little incomplete. What I meant by "it's more fun to pretend" is that idea that, should Hillary Clinton prove to have mishandled classified info and not be prosecuted and or jailed, it wouldn't necessarily be because of some magical shield that surrounds the Clinton name, and more that historically we have been loathe to prosecute and jail people for those offenses, regardless of administration or partisan stripe. I wasn't directing my last post at you.
Has there been anytime in history... where a Presidential candidate was under an FBI criminalinvestigation? I can't help to think that if it were any other candidate, (hypothetically, just think of Cruz being under investigation) that would destroy the campaign.
But the Clintons? Dude... just watch. She's going to pull a Ben Kenobi here.
Responding to you though the idea that she was holding onto classified material as part of a spying ring is equal parts unlikely and interesting. First Lady: Mata Hari sounds like a good Lifetime movie. I would watch that, I'm not ashamed to say.
I'd watch that Lifetime movie too!
But, no, it's more likely that she believes she's untouchable rather that some insane spying plot.
Automatically Appended Next Post: EDIT: just saw this drop in my twittah feed:
@bostonherald: Franklin Pierce Univ/Boston Herald NH Dem primary poll: Sanders 44, Clinton 37, Biden 9, Webb 1, O'Malley & Chaffee -1
Oi... that's kinda significant. HRC will need to start actually campaigning and do media blitz now. o.O
whembly wrote: Has there been anytime in history... where a Presidential candidate was under an FBI criminalinvestigation? I can't help to think that if it were any other candidate, (hypothetically, just think of Cruz being under investigation) that would destroy the campaign.
I know, that you know, that Rick Perry is under a felony indictment.
What's actually destroying his campaign is not his potential incarceration, but simply people appear to be unwilling to donate their money into a dumpster fire of a candidate. So, yes, there is another presidential candidate whose alleged criminality has not hindered their campaign noticeably.
Anyway, I still think the reason why there isn't as much uproar over HRC's emails is because the whole thing just isn't exciting enough. It's not particularly scandalous (she didn't send nudie pics to interns, or meet up with hookers), it's really just kinda boring and dry. Look at all the previous posts here talking about the nature of classified information, it's snooze-worthy. And we're actually interested in it, but imagine how the average person would see it.
It's probably hard enough to convince the public that her use of a private email address was a bad thing. The US government has been getting hacked left and right, but our Gmail and Yahoo mail are still safe?
It's not so much that she's Teflon, it's just that "Hillary used a private email address instead of official one" is not exactly a headline that grabs the reader like, say, "President caught in affair with WH intern".
And as of now Clinton is not the target of a criminal investigation of the FBI.
"The inquiry by the FBI is considered preliminary and appears to be focused on ensuring the proper handling of classified material. Officials have said that Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, is not a target."
whembly wrote: Has there been anytime in history... where a Presidential candidate was under an FBI criminalinvestigation? I can't help to think that if it were any other candidate, (hypothetically, just think of Cruz being under investigation) that would destroy the campaign.
I know, that you know, that Rick Perry is under a felony indictment.
What's actually destroying his campaign is not his potential incarceration, but simply people appear to be unwilling to donate their money into a dumpster fire of a candidate. So, yes, there is another presidential candidate whose alleged criminality has not hindered their campaign noticeably.
Another Clinton managed to get reelected while being investigated as well.
Is Christie still wrapped up in the whole BridgeGate thing?
Bridgegate is over at the Federal level as of May 1st. No one knows about at the state levels; neither NY nor New Jersey has indicated an investigation has concluded.
whembly wrote: Has there been anytime in history... where a Presidential candidate was under an FBI criminalinvestigation? I can't help to think that if it were any other candidate, (hypothetically, just think of Cruz being under investigation) that would destroy the campaign.
I know, that you know, that Rick Perry is under a felony indictment.
State investigation... not FBI criminal investigation. And, really Ouze, you're going to bring up an obvious malicious/frivolous case? Dude.
What's actually destroying his campaign is not his potential incarceration, but simply people appear to be unwilling to donate their money into a dumpster fire of a candidate. So, yes, there is another presidential candidate whose alleged criminality has not hindered their campaign noticeably.
He's a horribad campaigner and never really recovered from his infamous 'oops' moment in '12.
Warren and/or Biden must be seriously thinking now. Both of them are better candidates than Bernie.
Anyway, I still think the reason why there isn't as much uproar over HRC's emails is because the whole thing just isn't exciting enough. It's not particularly scandalous (she didn't send nudie pics to interns, or meet up with hookers), it's really just kinda boring and dry. Look at all the previous posts here talking about the nature of classified information, it's snooze-worthy. And we're actually interested in it, but imagine how the average person would see it.
Here's the deal: A) General Patreous got indicted/convicted for mishanding confidential documents to his biographer. That's one of the lowest security classification category there is...
B) Bradley fething Manning got 35 years of pound-me-in-the-rear FEDERAL prison (perole is largely non-existent) for his Wikileak actions... and as far as I know, those were only sensitive information, not confidential or Top Secret. (<---edit: they were classified as 'secret')
It's probably hard enough to convince the public that her use of a private email address was a bad thing. The US government has been getting hacked left and right, but our Gmail and Yahoo mail are still safe?
Irrelevant. HRC herself AND her staff are responsible for handling classified information appropriately.
It's not so much that she's Teflon, it's just that "Hillary used a private email address instead of official one" is not exactly a headline that grabs the reader like, say, "President caught in affair with WH intern".
Nah... their "Teflon-nish" will be tested.
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Easy E wrote: Is the Clinton Emails the new Benghazi?
No... it's becauseof the Benghazi Select Committee's investigation.
whembly wrote: State investigation... not FBI criminal investigation. And, really Ouze, you're going to bring up an obvious malicious/frivolous case? Dude.
Are you making the argument that being under indictment for a felony is less serious than someone being involved in, but not the target of, of a criminal probe? If so, are you doing it with a straight face? If I were Rick Perry, I'd make that trade in a heartbeat.
If that case is frivolous, it didn't seem so to the judge who let it stand while dismissing the other charge.
whembly wrote: State investigation... not FBI criminal investigation. And, really Ouze, you're going to bring up an obvious malicious/frivolous case? Dude.
Are you making the argument that being under indictment for a felony is less serious than someone being involved in, but not the target of, of a criminal probe? If so, are you doing it with a straight face? If I were Rick Perry, I'd make that trade in a heartbeat.
If that case is frivolous, it didn't seem so to the judge who let it stand while dismissing the other charge.
Give me a break. He refused money for a committee to pressure a DRUNK (as in caught 3x or 5x the legal limit drunk) DA to resign. Cry me a fething river.
So is anybody going to bother to challenge Jeb or Hillary? Trump doesn't count, I'm talking about politicians. So far it's just a row of republican straw candidates and democrat golden boys. Hillary gets to put down the idealists and look stern and tough. Jeb gets to sit back while the amateurs burst into flames under the spotlight and he comes out of it looking like a big huggable pillsbury dough boy. Both dynasties have little to offer except for an antiquated approach to foreign policy that will lead us to World War 3.
The entire DNC appears to be trying to throw it for HRC. OMalley is talking about legal action, that the few debates and times violate federal election law.
The entire DNC appears to be trying to throw it for HRC. OMalley is talking about legal action, that the few debates and times violate federal election law.
You have a source for that? OMalley suing who? The DNCC? o.O
Anyway, I still think the reason why there isn't as much uproar over HRC's emails is because the whole thing just isn't exciting enough. It's not particularly scandalous (she didn't send nudie pics to interns, or meet up with hookers), it's really just kinda boring and dry. Look at all the previous posts here talking about the nature of classified information, it's snooze-worthy. And we're actually interested in it, but imagine how the average person would see it.
Here's the deal:
A) General Patreous got indicted/convicted for mishanding confidential documents to his biographer. That's one of the lowest security classification category there is...
B) Bradley fething Manning got 35 years of pound-me-in-the-rear FEDERAL prison (perole is largely non-existent) for his Wikileak actions... and as far as I know, those were only sensitive information, not confidential or Top Secret. (<---edit: they were classified as 'secret')
It's probably hard enough to convince the public that her use of a private email address was a bad thing. The US government has been getting hacked left and right, but our Gmail and Yahoo mail are still safe?
Irrelevant. HRC herself AND her staff are responsible for handling classified information appropriately.
It's not so much that she's Teflon, it's just that "Hillary used a private email address instead of official one" is not exactly a headline that grabs the reader like, say, "President caught in affair with WH intern".
Nah... their "Teflon-nish" will be tested. no
I think you misunderstood the point I was making, because you're arguing against something that wasn't my point. My point is that the general public will have a hard time caring about Hillary's emails because it simply isn't exciting enough for them to care. I would argue the OPM breach was an ever bigger deal than this, and even it got knocked off the top of the news after less than hour by the latest celebrity gossip.
That's why there just isn't as much public uproar over this. It just doesn't bring in the ratings.
You're living on another planet if you honestly believe anybody else has a fraction of a chance of even getting the money together for a proper campaign.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Lest we forget, around this time in 2012 pundits and polls actually placed Rick Perry and Herman Cain as frontrunners for the Republican nomination. But at this point in the game it's a dog and pony show. There was never any doubt of Romney's candidacy then, and there is no credible reason to doubt Bush's candidacy in the absence of a proper challenger.
You're living on another planet if you honestly believe anybody else has a fraction of a chance of even getting the money together for a proper campaign.
There was never any doubt of Romney's candidacy then, and there is no credible reason to doubt Bush's candidacy in the absence of a proper challenger.
The establishment candidate almost always wins the GOP primary, and 4/7 of the past primaries went to a guy named Bush. Jeb Bush isn't so much an establishment candidate as he is the establishment itself. Fox News threw him softballs all night long in the debate, and even Donald Trump made a point to friendly up to him.
The entire DNC appears to be trying to throw it for HRC. OMalley is talking about legal action, that the few debates and times violate federal election law.
Well, a lot can change between now and then but I think Jeb is quite likely to be the nominee.
So far as the latter, I don't think that's going to work for O'Malley. The courts have given pretty wide latitude to the parties to organize their primaries the way they like to, I don't see them intervening.
Anyway, I still think the reason why there isn't as much uproar over HRC's emails is because the whole thing just isn't exciting enough. It's not particularly scandalous (she didn't send nudie pics to interns, or meet up with hookers), it's really just kinda boring and dry. Look at all the previous posts here talking about the nature of classified information, it's snooze-worthy. And we're actually interested in it, but imagine how the average person would see it.
Here's the deal: A) General Patreous got indicted/convicted for mishanding confidential documents to his biographer. That's one of the lowest security classification category there is...
B) Bradley fething Manning got 35 years of pound-me-in-the-rear FEDERAL prison (perole is largely non-existent) for his Wikileak actions... and as far as I know, those were only sensitive information, not confidential or Top Secret. (<---edit: they were classified as 'secret')
It's probably hard enough to convince the public that her use of a private email address was a bad thing. The US government has been getting hacked left and right, but our Gmail and Yahoo mail are still safe?
Irrelevant. HRC herself AND her staff are responsible for handling classified information appropriately.
It's not so much that she's Teflon, it's just that "Hillary used a private email address instead of official one" is not exactly a headline that grabs the reader like, say, "President caught in affair with WH intern".
Nah... their "Teflon-nish" will be tested. no
I think you misunderstood the point I was making, because you're arguing against something that want my point. My point is that the general public will have a hard time caring about Hillary's emails because it simply isn't exciting enough for them to care. I would argue the OPM breach was an ever bigger deal than this, and even it got knocked off the top of the news after less than hour by the latest celebrity gossip.
That's why there just isn't as much public uproar over this. It just doesn't bring in the ratings.
Why is it still regarded as so far-fetched that Clinton could be charged with a crime?
From the Associated Press, a headline for the ages: “Clinton Relents, Gives up Possession of Private E-mail Server.” “Relents” isn’t quite the right word, of course. A better way of putting it would be, “runs out of options.”
Since the news first broke, Hillary has run and she has run and she has run, and now the men with guns have caught up with her. “Federal investigators,” the AP confirms, “have begun looking into the security of [the] Clintons’ email setup amid concerns from the inspector general for the intelligence community that classified information may have passed through the system.”
What was once casually derided as so much partisan hype has matured into a full-fledged criminal investigation. There’s another word in the AP’s report that doesn’t belong: “concerns.” Back in July, the Office of the Inspector General confirmed in no uncertain terms that classified information had indeed “passed through the system.” “Emails that contained classified information,” the OIG reported, had been “transmitted via an unclassified personal system.” In consequence — and despite some truly preposterous dissembling from Hillary’s many allies — the question before us now is not so much whether Clinton could be plausibly suspected of having violated a number of federal statutes, but how close we are to knowing whether she is in serious trouble. Heretofore, speculation that Clinton may eventually be on the receiving end of criminal charges has been waved away as idle, perhaps even pernicious, chatter.
At this stage in the developments, this is a grave mistake. There are still a good number of “ifs” and “buts,” yes. But we are nevertheless approaching the point at which, should they be so inclined, prosecutors could begin to construct a case.
As it stands, Hillary seems likely to have violated at least two federal laws. They relate to:
1) The illegal storage of classified information. The rules that govern the storage of classified information — laid out for all to see in 18 USC 1924 — hold that “whoever . . . becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.” By deliberately setting up a home-brewed server in her house that contained classified e-mails — and by copying at least some of those e-mails onto thumb drives and giving them to her lawyers — Hillary Clinton violated this rule. The statute confirms that one cannot become “possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States . . . with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location.” Surely, Clinton did. (Incidentally, this was the law that General Petraeus broke.)
2) The illegal transmission of classified information. Under 18 USC 793(f)(1)-(2), it is a felony to transmit classified information on the subject of national defense through unapproved channels:
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,
(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or
(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
If Hillary Clinton either sent, forwarded, or destroyed a single classified e-mail that related to national defense, she will have broken this law. Indeed, whether she did any of these things is one of the key questions that the FBI investigators combing through her server will be seeking definitively to answer. If they should find what they are looking for, Clinton will presumably argue that she did not actively intend to break the rules. Perhaps that will be true. Legally speaking, however, her intentions are wholly and utterly irrelevant. In this area of federal law, the standard isn’t intent, it’s negligence.
The obvious question, then, is this: Given all that we now know, why is the very idea that Clinton may have committed crimes that require punishment still being met with such disbelief?
If you are willing and able, forget for a moment that a conservative is posing that challenge, and suppose instead that it has come from a Black Lives Matter activist, or from Glenn Greenwald, or from anybody who is a part of our present conversation about judicial and structural inequality.
In such an instance, what do you imagine is the best answer that you would be able to give?
Certainly, the government has a great amount of leeway in these circumstances — as so often in life, prosecutorial discretion rules supreme. But to acknowledge that is not to answer the underlying question so much as it is to restate it in different words:
To wit: Why, given that the government can choose whom it wishes to prosecute, is it ridiculous to imagine that it would choose to do so if the case involved Hillary Clinton? Meditating upon that inquiry, I cannot help but think that the answer is, “because Clinton is running for president, because she is extremely famous, and because Loretta Lynch is the attorney general.” Is that just?
The Department of Justice is notoriously reluctant to pull the trigger on a prosecution if their doing so could be construed as an overtly “political” act, or if it could swing an election (especially if that possible swing is away from the president’s own party). In a vacuum, one can make a reasonable case in favor of the overall prudence of this approach.
But one cannot credibly deny that, whatever virtues it might have to recommend it, this preference will inevitably accord to its beneficiaries a form of legal privilege that is not available to most people who are suspected of having crossed the same statutes.
To the many intelligence officials who have been prosecuted by the Obama administration in the last seven years, “she’s running for high office” would presumably not represent a convincing reason for sparing Hillary Clinton the consequences of her indiscretions.
Nor should it.
We are at present hearing a great deal of talk about injustice and caprice. Is nobody vexed by the manner in which the suggestion that a prominent figure might actually go to jail is being so casually dismissed?
Ouze touched on this earlier... but, here's the real world.
We are all equal. But some, unfortunately, are more equal than others.
As prominent as HRC is... she's going to skate, or get the Sandy Berger slap on the wrist. But, if I'm lucky... it may impact her campaign.
shasolenzabi wrote: Poll recently taken has Bernie at 44%, Hilary at 37% 7% lead by Bernie, and that he may be top come primary election day.
It's awfully early. Remember, frigg'n Michelle Bachman was the frontrunner in IA for a few months about this time in the last election.
Does Whembly secretly like Hilary?
No.
NO.
HELL FETHING NO!
But, as I've always said, the Clintons manages to twist away from these sorts of things and proceed on unscathed. Hence the moniker... The Clinton Teflons™.
It's awfully early. Remember, frigg'n Michelle Bachman was the frontrunner in IA for a few months about this time in the last election.
While it's true that it's still early, I don't seem to recall the Dems running the same kind of knock down drag out fight style primaries as the Republicans have done the last couple times.
It's awfully early. Remember, frigg'n Michelle Bachman was the frontrunner in IA for a few months about this time in the last election.
While it's true that it's still early, I don't seem to recall the Dems running the same kind of knock down drag out fight style primaries as the Republicans have done the last couple times.
O.o Dude... the democrat 2008 primary between Obama and HRC was fugly. Clinton was even the source of the Birtherism™ movement.
18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally (a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Doesn't that apply to HRC's private server & thumbdrive that her lawyer had in possession?
O.o Dude... the democrat 2008 primary between Obama and HRC was fugly. Clinton was even the source of the Birtherism™ movement.
While that's true, you still only had 2 candidates, by and large.... I mean, with this years crop of Republicans, we can field a full rugby side, and I'm sure if we wait long enough, we'll get some reserves to suit up as well
The campaigns ran by Dems may be "ugly" but they aren't clown car getting hit by a freight train ugly like we're getting right now.
Doesn't that apply to HRC's private server & thumbdrive that her lawyer had in possession?
No. Clinton's lawyer did not have custody of any form of deposited record. He had access to the original data, but that is distinct from a deposited record.
I've said it a bunch of times before, but the basic way to assess whether a scandal has real legs is to see if it can be explained in a single sentence, that makes it sound really serious and believable. If it requires more detail than you can reasonably fit in a single sentence, or requires any kind of follow up question, or results in most people thinking it sounds like partisan/conspiracy nonsense, then it isn't going to work very well.
This doesn't mean things that fit in to one sentence are the only things that should be scandals, or that everything that is told in one sentence is a genuine scandal. I'm just saying that's a pretty good rule of thumb for establishing whether or not something will actually produce a decent scandal.
And that's the issue here. I just cannot figure out a sentence that sounds like anything more than murky, technical nonsense. I doubt anybody else could. If they can, they should probably send that sentence to the GOP, because those guys have spent crazy effort trying to make this in to something without really getting anywhere. Already it seems like they're positioning to make this 'oh it really is bad for sure, but we just couldn't produce anything meaningful because Clinton is magic, and the MM is biased'.
Just been catching up with the latest round of the email saga, and it only confirms what I've been saying for months: HRC is bullet proof. The hand of destiny is pushing her all the way to 1600. I seen it with Obama. Will HRC be a good president? That's another question entirely, but get used to it, whembley, she's going to be your president
You're living on another planet if you honestly believe anybody else has a fraction of a chance of even getting the money together for a proper campaign.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Lest we forget, around this time in 2012 pundits and polls actually placed Rick Perry and Herman Cain as frontrunners for the Republican nomination. But at this point in the game it's a dog and pony show. There was never any doubt of Romney's candidacy then, and there is no credible reason to doubt Bush's candidacy in the absence of a proper challenger.
This is a different election. Thats why Sanders and Trump are so popular.
Bush is barely making the top 5 at this point in many polls.
Just as I'm fairly confident that Jeb will be the nominee, I'm not sure at all it will be Hillary. She's a pretty terrible campaigner on the best of days.
You're living on another planet if you honestly believe anybody else has a fraction of a chance of even getting the money together for a proper campaign.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Lest we forget, around this time in 2012 pundits and polls actually placed Rick Perry and Herman Cain as frontrunners for the Republican nomination. But at this point in the game it's a dog and pony show. There was never any doubt of Romney's candidacy then, and there is no credible reason to doubt Bush's candidacy in the absence of a proper challenger.
This is a different election. Thats why Sanders and Trump are so popular.
Keep in mind that when we are talking about Trump being popular, we are talking about being at the top of a pile of 15 people and attracting less than 20% of the people. Being at the top of the polls =/= being popular, especially when 80+% of the people pick anyone but you.
Yup. Trump is pretty steady at 25 or so, with the remaining going to the others. When the voters settle on their establishment candidate, whether that be a Bush or a Rubio or whatever, that 75% will likely coalesce behind him, while Trump will likely peak at 25%. That's my prediction anyways. I have to believe that the majority of Republican voters are smarter than to want to nominate a sideshow like Trump.
I think he is higher than 25% and the polls are known to be innaccurate. Trump is the Republican equivalent of Obama. People talk about Trump with Messianic tones.
It's awfully early. Remember, frigg'n Michelle Bachman was the frontrunner in IA for a few months about this time in the last election.
While it's true that it's still early, I don't seem to recall the Dems running the same kind of knock down drag out fight style primaries as the Republicans have done the last couple times.
At this point in time it doesn't make any sense for Democrats to get into a brawl. If Hillary or Bernie start getting into the mix, all the Republicans will suddenly stop fighting each other and swing their targeting reticules toward whoever is the Democrat front-runner. With nearly twenty Republicans spending tons of money tearing into each other, the Democrats need only keep a low profile and fund raise. This allows them to save money for the actual primaries and general election where the Republicans will have spent much of their money too early.
BrotherGecko wrote: I think he is higher than 25% and the polls are known to be innaccurate. Trump is the Republican equivalent of Obama. People talk about Trump with Messianic tones.
The difference is that the Democrats who supported Hillary generally still liked Obama, while most Republicans who don't support Trump hate the guy. Of course that plays well with his target audience: disaffected conservatives.
BrotherGecko wrote: I think he is higher than 25% and the polls are known to be innaccurate. Trump is the Republican equivalent of Obama. People talk about Trump with Messianic tones.
The difference is that the Democrats who supported Hillary generally still liked Obama, while most Republicans who don't support Trump hate the guy. Of course that plays well with his target audience: disaffected conservatives.
Conservatives are always disaffected if American media is anything to go by. Even when they have a Republican president, they're still disaffected.
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Jihadin wrote: I'm actually looking forward to a Trump-Hillary debate
I'm going to ask my bookmaker for odds for Trump yanking off his toupee and throwing it at somebody during a debate.
It's awfully early. Remember, frigg'n Michelle Bachman was the frontrunner in IA for a few months about this time in the last election.
While it's true that it's still early, I don't seem to recall the Dems running the same kind of knock down drag out fight style primaries as the Republicans have done the last couple times.
At this point in time it doesn't make any sense for Democrats to get into a brawl. If Hillary or Bernie start getting into the mix, all the Republicans will suddenly stop fighting each other and swing their targeting reticules toward whoever is the Democrat front-runner. With nearly twenty Republicans spending tons of money tearing into each other, the Democrats need only keep a low profile and fund raise. This allows them to save money for the actual primaries and general election where the Republicans will have spent much of their money too early.
It's strange how most normal people can see that a mass brawl of candidates only helps the Democrats, and yet, they keep playing into Democrat hands.
I've maintained this for months, and I stick by it: the election is Hilary's to lose. If she loses it'll only be because of some scandal.
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BrotherGecko wrote: I think he is higher than 25% and the polls are known to be innaccurate. Trump is the Republican equivalent of Obama. People talk about Trump with Messianic tones.
Eh? I doubt if Trump's own family talk about him with Messianic tones
Conservatives are always disaffected if American media is anything to go by. Even when they have a Republican president, they're still disaffected.
Anger generates interest, which makes the media money. No one cares about people saying "Yeah, things are pretty great!" unless they previously had things pretty bad.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Just been catching up with the latest round of the email saga, and it only confirms what I've been saying for months: HRC is bullet proof.
The other side of the equation is that, because of her position and prominence, any case against her absolutely has to be bulletproof. The case has to be rock solid. Even a whiff of "party vs party witchhunt" means much of the public will automatically be biased in her favor. Our partisan politics are so bad that if a senator from one party punched a senator from the other party, there would be people in both parties believing the other was somehow to blame, and damn the facts.
They have to investigate and Hillary has to allow it. If not then it can be used as a beat stick against her for the perception of a "Double Standards"
Jihadin wrote: They have to investigate and Hillary has to allow it. If not then it can be used as a beat stick against her for the perception of a "Double Standards"
This is such an obvious trap for the republicans I'm amazed they are walking into it. Tannhauser nailed it.
If HRC is smart she will welcome this investigation with open arms as it will bounce off her. HRC can then say she is being reasonable I've got nothing to hide and it is the republicans who are wasting public money to score political points. Public agrees with HRC.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Allow me to jog your memory, but not so long ago, the Republican party deemed it wise to nominate one R.M.Nixon for the ticket
If not for Watergate I think Nixon might be remembered as the greatest modern president. I think he did an amazing job.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Allow me to jog your memory, but not so long ago, the Republican party deemed it wise to nominate one R.M.Nixon for the ticket
If not for Watergate I think Nixon might be remembered as the greatest modern president. I think he did an amazing job.
Yeah... Tricky Dicky was a very savvy statesman.
He also got the US off of the gold standard too, which spurn'ed the whole US Currancy as a global researve currency.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Just been catching up with the latest round of the email saga, and it only confirms what I've been saying for months: HRC is bullet proof.
The other side of the equation is that, because of her position and prominence, any case against her absolutely has to be bulletproof. The case has to be rock solid. Even a whiff of "party vs party witchhunt" means much of the public will automatically be biased in her favor. Our partisan politics are so bad that if a senator from one party punched a senator from the other party, there would be people in both parties believing the other was somehow to blame, and damn the facts.
What you're describing is that the DOJ *do* typically loathe to *investigate* political candidates during the election season.
My sense is that the Intelligence Community (IC), are the ones leaking all these tidbits of information to force the government to investigate HRC.
My guess is that they're *pissed* off that HRC flouted against the classification laws.
jasper76 wrote: Yup. Trump is pretty steady at 25 or so, with the remaining going to the others. When the voters settle on their establishment candidate, whether that be a Bush or a Rubio or whatever, that 75% will likely coalesce behind him, while Trump will likely peak at 25%. That's my prediction anyways. I have to believe that the majority of Republican voters are smarter than to want to nominate a sideshow like Trump.
I agree, but I'm not sure the other 75% are looking elsewhere because Trump is lacking in substance. In terms of policy, what's being spouted by each Republican candidate is about as ridiculous as what Trump is saying.
The other candidates are more measured in their answers and they're certainly a lot more diplomatic, but that's about it. If someone decides that Trump’s angry nonsense about Mexico and China is bad, but they’re happy with Bush’s promise of 4% growth through the sheer power of Jeb!, their decision wasn’t really made based on rational political assessment.
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Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Allow me to jog your memory, but not so long ago, the Republican party deemed it wise to nominate one R.M.Nixon for the ticket
Say what you want about Nixon's morality, especially once he reached the Oval Office, but the guy was in politics for a long time, and was a serious and heavy hitter throughout. So the comparison doesn’t really work.
whembly wrote: He also got the US off of the gold standard too, which spurn'ed the whole US Currancy as a global researve currency.
Being the global reserve is actually fairly close to meaningless. That's not a thing that really does anyone any good.
But being off the gold standard allowed for flexible money management, which after the early stagflation balls up, has been instrumental in the 'great moderation', that long period of time where the booms and busts of the economy were far more measured.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Allow me to jog your memory, but not so long ago, the Republican party deemed it wise to nominate one R.M.Nixon for the ticket
If not for Watergate I think Nixon might be remembered as the greatest modern president. I think he did an amazing job.
If not for Vietnam, LBJ would probably have won a second term, and we'd never have heard of Nixon, except as minor footnote of US history. If anybody was a match for Nixon, it was LBJ.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Allow me to jog your memory, but not so long ago, the Republican party deemed it wise to nominate one R.M.Nixon for the ticket
If not for Watergate I think Nixon might be remembered as the greatest modern president. I think he did an amazing job.
Yeah... Tricky Dicky was a very savvy statesman.
He also got the US off of the gold standard too, which spurn'ed the whole US Currancy as a global researve currency.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Just been catching up with the latest round of the email saga, and it only confirms what I've been saying for months: HRC is bullet proof.
The other side of the equation is that, because of her position and prominence, any case against her absolutely has to be bulletproof. The case has to be rock solid. Even a whiff of "party vs party witchhunt" means much of the public will automatically be biased in her favor. Our partisan politics are so bad that if a senator from one party punched a senator from the other party, there would be people in both parties believing the other was somehow to blame, and damn the facts.
What you're describing is that the DOJ *do* typically loathe to *investigate* political candidates during the election season.
My sense is that the Intelligence Community (IC), are the ones leaking all these tidbits of information to force the government to investigate HRC.
My guess is that they're *pissed* off that HRC flouted against the classification laws.
The intelligence community knows where their bread is buttered. They don't want to annoy a potential new president either, as new job opportunities and promotions will be getting handed out in 2017. They have to back the right horse.
jasper76 wrote: Yup. Trump is pretty steady at 25 or so, with the remaining going to the others. When the voters settle on their establishment candidate, whether that be a Bush or a Rubio or whatever, that 75% will likely coalesce behind him, while Trump will likely peak at 25%. That's my prediction anyways. I have to believe that the majority of Republican voters are smarter than to want to nominate a sideshow like Trump.
I agree, but I'm not sure the other 75% are looking elsewhere because Trump is lacking in substance. In terms of policy, what's being spouted by each Republican candidate is about as ridiculous as what Trump is saying.
The other candidates are more measured in their answers and they're certainly a lot more diplomatic, but that's about it. If someone decides that Trump’s angry nonsense about Mexico and China is bad, but they’re happy with Bush’s promise of 4% growth through the sheer power of Jeb!, their decision wasn’t really made based on rational political assessment.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Allow me to jog your memory, but not so long ago, the Republican party deemed it wise to nominate one R.M.Nixon for the ticket
Say what you want about Nixon's morality, especially once he reached the Oval Office, but the guy was in politics for a long time, and was a serious and heavy hitter throughout. So the comparison doesn’t really work.
People knew full well Nixon's dark side from his California days and his campaign against Kennedy. They knew what they were buying into.
Well aren't politics weird. You've got a party leadership campaign over there with a guy ahead in the polls whom everyone else really hopes doesn't win, and we've got one over here that's almost the same.
The only differences are that yours is conservative whilst ours is labour, and yours doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell whilst ours looks like he's going to romp home.
It's an entertaining time to be a politics spectator.
Henry wrote: Well aren't politics weird. You've got a party leadership campaign over there with a guy ahead in the polls whom everyone else really hopes doesn't win, and we've got one over here that's almost the same.
The only differences are that yours is conservative whilst ours is labour, and yours doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell whilst ours looks like he's going to romp home.
It's an entertaining time to be a politics spectator.
I think if Corbyn gets the nod, it's likely to trigger a civil war in the Labour party.
Edit: will somebody get rid of that bloody US flag next to my avatar!!!
I think I'm being punished for starting a Confederate army last month!!
Henry wrote: Well aren't politics weird. You've got a party leadership campaign over there with a guy ahead in the polls whom everyone else really hopes doesn't win, and we've got one over here that's almost the same.
The only differences are that yours is conservative whilst ours is labour, and yours doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell whilst ours looks like he's going to romp home.
It's an entertaining time to be a politics spectator.
I think if Corbyn gets the nod, it's likely to trigger a civil war in the Labour party.
Edit: will somebody get rid of that bloody US flag next to my avatar!!!
I think I'm being punished for starting a Confederate army last month!!
No, you are being punished for saying Australia has better BBQ! Heathen!
I think it's going to be pretty tough to talk his way out of this one.
John Hopkins Hospital IIRC has a huge tissue bank of all stages and ages.
Yeah, I think Carson's counterargument was that his source was "legit" in that the fetal tissue came from fetuses that were already dead or something, and not aborted. I can see that argument.
However, there is a failure in that logic. By extension, that also means he, and other doctors like him, should refuse to use tissue and organs from, say, murder victims. Can you just imagine a doctor telling a patient "we found a heart that matches you, but it's from a murder victim so I won't do the transplant"?
I think it's going to be pretty tough to talk his way out of this one.
John Hopkins Hospital IIRC has a huge tissue bank of all stages and ages.
Yeah, I think Carson's counterargument was that his source was "legit" in that the fetal tissue came from fetuses that were already dead or something, and not aborted.
The samples came from aborted fetuses. And his justification is "to not use those tissues that were available would be wrong", although it appears that this is an inadequate excuse for Planned Parenthood according to him.
I think it's going to be pretty tough to talk his way out of this one.
John Hopkins Hospital IIRC has a huge tissue bank of all stages and ages.
Yeah, I think Carson's counterargument was that his source was "legit" in that the fetal tissue came from fetuses that were already dead or something, and not aborted. I can see that argument.
However, there is a failure in that logic. By extension, that also means he, and other doctors like him, should refuse to use tissue and organs from, say, murder victims. Can you just imagine a doctor telling a patient "we found a heart that matches you, but it's from a murder victim so I won't do the transplant"?
If the murder victim was an organ donor there would not be an issue as the victim, prior to being a victim, agreed to provide organs when dead. In fact, without that consent I don't think the organs can be used.
Seeing as dakka has decided that I'm now a US citizen
I thought I'd ask a slightly OT question that will probably provoke a groan from some people, but here it is: should we have another second amendment debate on dakka?
I ask because I have been reading some fascinating articles on the 2nd, and have been watching a great documentary about it, with regard to one very simple, but complex question:
Is the 2nd amendment a collective right (militia) or an individual right?
A simple question, but I had no idea how much of an argument rages round that question.
Yeah, I know about the Heller case, but the historical content around this issue is amazing with scholars and lawyers on both sides arguing about this. James Madison, constitutional conventions in the 1780s/90s, English common law, dozens of court cases etc etc have all been mentioned.
It really got me thinking, and I'm not sure what the answer is, Does it apply only to militia? Or the individual? Or both? Or none?
I imagine if you started a thread about the Second Amendment, it would be well populated with responses, until it got locked up.b it's probably one of the most contentious and divisive political issues in the US.
If I want lessons on BBQ I'll go to Australia, THE masters of BBQ
HERESY!!!
@jasper... I tend to agree with you on that one. I think that just about the only issue that can get the same kind of response from people IRL, is abortion. Here on dakka we have the triumvirate of "contentious topics" (gunz, religionz, and abortion)
If I want lessons on BBQ I'll go to Australia, THE masters of BBQ
HERESY!!!
@jasper... I tend to agree with you on that one. I think that just about the only issue that can get the same kind of response from people IRL, is abortion. Here on dakka we have the triumvirate of "contentious topics" (gunz, religionz, and abortion)
I don't know. I've had Australian beer, and it's even worse than American beer, so it's possible their BBQ is better.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: It really got me thinking, and I'm not sure what the answer is, Does it apply only to militia? Or the individual? Or both? Or none?
I agree that we definitely should not do this debate here, in this thread.
That being said I'd like to address the quoted question as an extremely brief digression because I can answer it fairly quickly and definitively - "Whether or not the right to bear arms is only in furtherance of a militia in the US". This will probably surprise you but that was actually an open question for a really, really long time. It was relatively recently answered in a case called Heller vs DC. The Supreme Court unambiguously answered the question you pose, and as such, from a legal standpoint, you have your answer (it's not connected to militia service).
If you want to question whether it's a good ruling, or whether that's the way it should be, you should start a new thread, but if you just want to know the answer as asked, read the link, it answers it.
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Jihadin wrote: Isn't the accusation against Plan Parenthood is profit (personnel?) on aborted tissue though?
Yes, and the first investigation already concluded that this didn't happen.
Going back to why Dr. Ben Carson is a huge fat lying hypocrite, he went beyond saying that we shouldn't collect aborted fetal tissue in general, and said that organs and tissue from aborted fetuses aren't needed for medical research (while doing exactly what he said is totally unnecessary). Which is, to be clear, a big, steamy load of horsecrap. And he knows it's a big, steamy pile of horsecrap, but he feels free to say it anyway because he knows perfectly well that his supporters aren't going to dig into what he says critically.
I wanted to use our time tonight to directly deal with an attack launched on me today by the left and the media. A couple questions came in on this subject, so I want to address it head on.
Today I was accused by the press as having done research on fetal tissue. It simply is not true. The study they distributed by an anonymous source was done in 1992. The study was about tumors. I won’t bore you with the science. There were four doctors' names on the study. One was mine. I spent my life studying brain tumors and removing them. My only involvement in this study was supplying tumors that I had removed from my patients. Those tissue samples were compared to other tissue samples under a microscope. Pathologists do this work to gain clues about tumors.
I, nor any of the doctors involved with this study, had anything to do with abortion or what Planned Parenthood has been doing. Research hospitals across the country have microscope slides of all kinds of tissue to compare and contrast. The fetal tissue that was viewed in this study by others was not collected for this study.........
It also changes literally nothing. He says that aborted fetal material service no medical purpose and what he did was totally different that what PP did, and then goes on to explain that what he did is exactly what PP did; which is to do research with aborted fetal material. It wasn't "collected for this study"? Well gee, that seems like an awful fine bit of hairsplitting. It serves no medical purpose, but we have it anyway so might as well use it for some needless research? I mean literally nothing about that makes sense.
While admitting that "Americans want abortion to be legal and as such, it makes sense to preserve the fetal tissue for research as it saves lives" is obviously a no-go for him - being reasonable will absolutely kill him with his core demo - what he should probably do is walk back the idea that aborted fetal tissue has no medical value or use.
Asked if Planned Parenthood should cease its fetal tissue distribution, Carson demurred. He still favored defunding the group, but would not call for the end of fetal tissue research so long as the fetal tissue was available.
Again, he knows what he said is a big, steamy pile of horse crap. If it's so horrible and serves no useful purpose, it seems like a pretty easy answer to say PPtotes should stop what they're doing, right? Why even think about it, let alone refuse to answer?
That's the problem with "political outsiders" being the answer to our problems: they're not significantly less full of gak than political insiders.
Scrabb wrote: The fetal tissue that was viewed in this study by others was not collected for this study.........
Bob and weave guys, bob and weave.
So the argument is that the doctors didn't phone in a specific request to some facility and said "I need you to abort me some babies for this study that I'm running" and that they used fetal tissue that was already available from abortions that happened anyway.
Like what Planned Parenthood is doing with their tissue samples.
whembly wrote: Um... Ouze... you might want to dial back that ire and think it through.
He's not being a hypocrite here.
Further more, the Post shouldn't be taken as gospel on this... wait for other sources/Carson interviews.
His own stories don't line up with each other. Unless he's being misquoted/ "mispoke."
I think there's a few things going on here...
1) Since Dr. Carson is making some noise, it's time to for everyone to play the political 'gotcha' game. One of those is to let's paint how extreme a Republican is by bringing up 'Abortions'
2) Another thing is that his name on that article was being taken as an implication that he did work with fetal tissue.
3) Again, with PP/Abortion subject matter, many are trying to infer that PP is the only *source* for fetal tissues. Which is patently false.
4) You can be totally against what PP does... and STILL support research with fetal tissues.
5) These arguments get totally whacked because fetal tissue research often pits medical research\scientific studies against morality and human ethics.
But, to elaborate on Ouze's earlier point... this highlights how "green" Dr. Carson is in the Political Thunderdome as he's falling into these obvious landmines.
4) You can be totally against what PP does... and STILL support research with fetal tissues.
So far, despite lots of noise and accusations, PP hasn't done anything except exactly the kind of thing that provided the tissue samples that were used.
But maybe we will find out that Carson once checked out a book on OB/GYN procedures and that that book had a chapter on abortions, because that will be the ultimate proof that he has something to hide.
4) You can be totally against what PP does... and STILL support research with fetal tissues.
So far, despite lots of noise and accusations, PP hasn't done anything except exactly the kind of thing that provided the tissue samples that were used.
In addition to apparently breaking a few laws... sure.
4) You can be totally against what PP does... and STILL support research with fetal tissues.
So far, despite lots of noise and accusations, PP hasn't done anything except exactly the kind of thing that provided the tissue samples that were used.
In addition to apparently breaking a few laws... sure.
4) You can be totally against what PP does... and STILL support research with fetal tissues.
So far, despite lots of noise and accusations, PP hasn't done anything except exactly the kind of thing that provided the tissue samples that were used.
In addition to apparently breaking a few laws... sure.
I'm sorry, I thought we were playing the "make gak up and pretend people have been subject to a criminal investigation, indicted, tried, and convicted" game. None of which has happened to Planned Parenthood after these "gotcha" videos.
They have not broken any laws. A quick search doesn't show any active investigations, other than links from WorldNewsDaily and other crazy blogs/news/whatever.
Planned Parenthood takes tissue that will end up in a red biohazard bag and burned in an oven and passes it on for research. Dr. Carson participated in a study that used tissue from aborted fetuses. Now he wants to defund PP for doing the exact same thing that he benefited from.
You can have some more integrity than Dr. Carson and see it for the hypocrisy that it is, or you can stick to the same playbook you always stick to.
d-usa wrote: I'm sorry, I thought we were playing the "make gak up and pretend people have been subject to a criminal investigation, indicted, tried, and convicted" game. None of which has happened to Planned Parenthood after these "gotcha" videos.
They have not broken any laws. A quick search doesn't show any active investigations, other than links from WorldNewsDaily and other crazy blogs/news/whatever.
Same attitude that allow Gosnells to operate for years imo. Because of it's inflammatory subject matter, no one wants to investigate any possible issues with these clinics in fear of being labeled an "extremist".
Planned Parenthood takes tissue that will end up in a red biohazard bag and burned in an oven and passes it on for research. Dr. Carson participated in a study that used tissue from aborted fetuses. Now he wants to defund PP for doing the exact same thing that he benefited from.
You can have some more integrity than Dr. Carson and see it for the hypocrisy that it is, or you can stick to the same playbook you always stick to.
The tissues, in itself, isn't the FETHING issue d-usa.
Research using fetal tissues isn't the issue.
Full Stop.
It's the manner of how PP themselves, acquired these tissues, and the apparent profit motives of these fetal organ/tissue harvesting.
But, I don't want to talk about this in this thread... so, if you're bothered by my viewpoints, startup a "defend PP thread" and we'll tango.
With respect to Carson, again, you can participate in fetal tissue studies AND take a "Defund PP" stance. There's no hypocrisy there. Only that Political newbie Carson is in danger of flubbing these questions.
He's a Neuro Surgeon. Carson has the patience and stamina.....I hated Neuro. Their surgical sets were a pain to assemble. I also hated passing one instrument and waiting 20 mins. Also going through the front where they demask your skin from your face.......anyway. He did his research from a "stock" hospital. Anyone ever been to a "Body World" display/exhibit?
2) Another thing is that his name on that article was being taken as an implication that he did work with fetal tissue.
Yes, because the article involved data collected from fetal tissue. That seems like perfectly legitimate grounds to question someone as to whether or not they worked with fetal tissue directly, which Carson later admitted to doing.
Lol if the "founder" had any real moral bearing on the current organization then we ought to stop buying products from: Ford/IBM/Porche/Volkswagen /The United States/ all of Europe/ all of Asia/ Africa/ Australia...etc until you grow your own food on a farm in northern Canada.
What a stupid stupid arguement from an educated man. These candidates need to stop pandering to the Republicans fundamentalist minority.
If nothing Carson is good proof that being knowledgeable in one field doesn't guarantee, or even mean, knowledge of another field. Being educated doesn't mean one is free from idiocy. I have two advanced degrees and I'm a monumental idiot.
BrotherGecko wrote: Trump is the Republican equivalent of Obama. People talk about Trump with Messianic tones.
I honestly thought this claim was full of gak when I saw this post, but I am listening to s CSPAN post-Trump speech call-in, and you're right. This is some Reagan/Obama-level worship going on, at least anecdotally.
Yah, I would of thought the same but if you look at social media and look to the comments people make they really believe he is the one that will save us all.
whembly wrote: 1) Since Dr. Carson is making some noise, it's time to for everyone to play the political 'gotcha' game. One of those is to let's paint how extreme a Republican is by bringing up 'Abortions'.
The "He/She Must Be Doing Something Right If Liberals Are Attacking" defense. No reason to actually talk about the issue at hand, the fact that the left wing is talking about it means they must be scared and so that's the real story.
By the way, no one has to paint a picture of how extreme these republicans are. They're doing a pretty awesome job of that themselves. I'd argue that with the exception of John Kasich and Cris Christie, the median political belief of the current GOP field actually is pretty far from the political center. I imagine Dogma has better info on that than I do, but that's my gut feeling.
Ahtman wrote: If nothing Carson is good proof that being knowledgeable in one field doesn't guarantee, or even mean, knowledge of another field. Being educated doesn't mean one is free from idiocy. I have two advanced degrees and I'm a monumental idiot.
Impossible! We all know that the best person qualified to be a successful politician is someone who isn't a successful politician. You're like, 90% of the way there.
whembly wrote: But, I don't want to talk about this in this thread... so, if you're bothered by my viewpoints, startup a "defend PP thread" and we'll tango.
Well, of course not. You want to use this thread for posting a new Hillary Clinton Totally Serious Scandal Update every day between now and November 7th, 2016; and anything that distracts from those efforts is unwelcome
So far as Oprah goes, Rush Limbaugh certainly used to be the conservative Oprah, but his star has waned considerably. I think O'Reilly's reputation is a bit tarnished as well. I don't think I really could call anyone the conservative Oprah, currently.
Ouze wrote: I'd argue that with the exception of John Kasich
Kasich is just as extreme as the rest of them, he just hides it better. He championed limiting collective bargaining in Ohio, signed a budget bill severely restricting reproductive rights, and at one time decided that we need to repeal parts of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate birthright citizen ship (which is now backtracking on, probably because he realized [or was told] that idea is fething stupid).
He did accept expanded Medicaid coverage (though he did later say that everything else in the ACA should be repealed) and he actually acknowledges that climate change is an actual, measurable thing (though he's not sure what is causing it).
You know who is truly a moderate republican? Former NY state governor George Pataki. He's pro gay marriage. He's pro environment. He's practicality unknown.
whembly wrote: 1) Since Dr. Carson is making some noise, it's time to for everyone to play the political 'gotcha' game. One of those is to let's paint how extreme a Republican is by bringing up 'Abortions'.
The "He/She Must Be Doing Something Right If Liberals Are Attacking" defense. No reason to actually talk about the issue at hand, the fact that the left wing is talking about it means they must be scared and so that's the real story.
Holy batman! wut?
Are you seriously trying to imply that this doesn't happen to candidate on both sides?
o.O
By the way, no one has to paint a picture of how extreme these republicans are. They're doing a pretty awesome job of that themselves. I'd argue that with the exception of John Kasich and Cris Christie, the median political belief of the current GOP field actually is pretty far from the political center. I imagine Dogma has better info on that than I do, but that's my gut feeling.
Kasich/Christie ain't that moderate. They're savvy politicians that can get gak done in a purple/blue state.
Please don't tell me that you buy that any one of Sanders, O'Malley, HRC, potential democratic bench are bastions of "moderates".
Ahtman wrote: If nothing Carson is good proof that being knowledgeable in one field doesn't guarantee, or even mean, knowledge of another field. Being educated doesn't mean one is free from idiocy. I have two advanced degrees and I'm a monumental idiot.
Impossible! We all know that the best person qualified to be a successful politician is someone who isn't a successful politician. You're like, 90% of the way there.
Agreed! Obama falls into that same group.
whembly wrote: But, I don't want to talk about this in this thread... so, if you're bothered by my viewpoints, startup a "defend PP thread" and we'll tango.
Well, of course not. You want to use this thread for posting a new Hillary Clinton Totally Serious Scandal Update every day between now and November 7th, 2016; and anything that distracts from those efforts is unwelcome
I just don't want this glorious thread to be desintegrated by our overlords, like every PP/Abortion threads.
So far as Oprah goes, Rush Limbaugh certainly used to be the conservative Oprah, but his star has waned considerably. I think O'Reilly's reputation is a bit tarnished as well. I don't think I really could call anyone the conservative Oprah, currently.
There isn't a conservative 'Oprah' because no one is as awesome as Oprah.
Ouze wrote: I'd argue that with the exception of John Kasich
Kasich is just as extreme as the rest of them, he just hides it better. He championed limiting collective bargaining in Ohio, signed a budget bill severely restricting reproductive rights, and at one time decided that we need to repeal parts of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate birthright citizen ship (which is now backtracking on, probably because he realized [or was told] that idea is fething stupid).
He did accept expanded Medicaid coverage (though he did later say that everything else in the ACA should be repealed) and he actually acknowledges that climate change is an actual, measurable thing (though he's not sure what is causing it).
Yeah... Kasich is a pompous ass to the Republican base, but as I mentioned earlier, he's a good politician.
If we want to look at the Electoral College game for the general election... one could argue that the best possible ticket would be a Kasich/Rubio or Rubio/Kasich combo. Getting both Ohio and Florida to turn red is paramount for a Republican win... and it won't be easy.
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Co'tor Shas wrote: You know who is truly a moderate republican? Former NY state governor George Pataki. He's pro gay marriage. He's pro environment. He's practicality unknown.
whembly wrote: But, I don't want to talk about this in this thread... so, if you're bothered by my viewpoints, startup a "defend PP thread" and we'll tango.
Well, of course not. You want to use this thread for posting a new Hillary Clinton Totally Serious Scandal Update every day between now and November 7th, 2016; and anything that distracts from those efforts is unwelcome
I just don't want this glorious thread to be desintegrated by our overlords, like every PP/Abortion threads.
It will only get derailed if people start talking about the whole "religion/when does life begin/should it be legal/etc aspect of abortion.
Fact is that Carson used fetal tissue from aborted fetuses for research, Planned Parenthood provides fetal tissue from aborted fetuses for research.
Carson is trying to argue that him experimenting with aborted fetal tissue is different because he didn't break any laws and Planned Parenthood did, but every single investigation has revealed that they are following the rules and didn't break any laws.
He is being pretty hypocritical, and if you are okay with him using fetal tissue and against PP for providing fetal tissue then you are being pretty hypocritical as well. What he did was legal, and what Planned Parenthood did was legal (as multiple investigations have revealed so far). Research on aborted fetal tissue is either bad, in which case Carson and PP are both bad people, or it's okay, in which case Carson and PP did nothing wrong.
Additionally his comments about PP engaging in eugenics and setting up shops in black neighborhoods to control the black population is simply bs, as the statistics clearly show.
Dr. Carson is a victim, that much I agree with you. But he is not a victim of the liberal media, he is a victim of the idiots he has to pander to during the GOP primary and he knows he has no political/pundit/consultant future if he tries to actually try to explain that fetal tissue is very important in medical science and that no laws were broken.
I don't buy the whole PP clinics were mainly placed in minority districts to practice eugenics. It's simply just that the black population tends to live in major cities (where the PP clinics are likely operating from).
Marguarette Sanger... ho boy... she was a piece a work back in the day. But, she ain't running that show anymore.
Anyhoo... let's be honest. Carson isn't getting nominated on any ticket.
Throw a bit of clarity into Carson research in 1992
Dr. Carson’s involvement in this 1992 study was supplying tumors that he removed from patients,” Watts wrote.
“The microscope slides of those tumors were compared with pre-existing microscope slide of fetal tissues by pathologists,” he continued. “Those slides have existed for decades and are often compared to diseased tissue for clues in pathology. Dr Carson had nothing to do with the acquisition of these potentially decades old fetal tissue slides.”
His statement
“There is absolutely no contradiction between the research I worked on in 1992 and my pro-life views. The issue of fetal tissue has everything to do with how the tissue is acquired. My primary responsibility in that research was operating on people to obtain diseased tissue for comparison to banked tissue samples. Killing babies and harvesting tissue for sale is very different than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it, which is exactly the source of the tissue used in our research.
And despite numerous investigations trying to prove otherwise, PP is not killing babies in order to harvest cells to sell. So that's lie #1.
PP is doing exactly the kind of thing that provided the samples used in his research, so him trying to deny that is lie #2.
Posting over and over again that he is trying to claim that PP broke the law and is running an illegal fetal tissue harvesting business doesn't change that, neither are his attempts to somehow make his use of fetal tissue seem different than "using aborted fetal tissue".
Please don't tell me that you buy that any one of Sanders, O'Malley, HRC, potential democratic bench are bastions of "moderates".
On a 2 dimensional spectrum which considers the last 40 years of American politics Clinton sits center left. Considering the same spectrum Sanders sits way left, and O'Malley falls somewhere in the middle of the two; probably right around the same spot as 90's Hillary Clinton.
Now, if we consider only the last 10 years of American politics the picture changes. The massive swing to the right undertaken by the GOP, and conservatives in general, has pulled the entire spectrum to the right. This makes guys like Kasich and Christie seem like moderates if for no other reason than the fact that many of their colleagues have locked themselves into intransigence by building their political success on the backs of equally intransigent voters. Obviously this also makes anyone left of the 40 year center seem like a raving socialist.
But the thing is what we've seen in the last decade is unlikely to be a long term trend. Rather it is largely the result of a confused Republican Party doubling down on "Reagan!" rhetoric, and conservative social issues because it doesn't know how to move away from them without compromising it's strength in Congress. This is especially true for individual GOP politicians who know very well there's someone waiting right behind them with a RINO horn.
Which bugs the crap out of me because for the Republicans to ever even attempt to get my vote they would need to at least attempt to represent people outside of reactionary Christians. I understand why they pander so hard to them. They can mobilize voters with their mega churches by making it seem like the non-republican is somehow the antichrist (or Muslim ). I still refuse to believe that they represent anything but a small percentage of voters.
I really do no enjoy voting towards Democrats because the Republicans can't figure out how to be conservative. If they would just leave out their religious convictions as a compass to what they do in a representative democracy where they are representing people of every background I would be happy.
I really do no enjoy voting towards Democrats because the Republicans can't figure out how to be conservative. If they would just leave out their religious convictions as a compass to what they do in a representative democracy where they are representing people of every background I would be happy.
Republicans have almost no appeal to a moderate.
So, if they figure out how to be conservative you would vote for them. But instead vote for the party which is the complete opposite of conservative.
Why do I suspect you really wouldn't vote for a real conservative?
CptJake wrote: So, if they figure out how to be conservative you would vote for them. But instead vote for the party which is the complete opposite of conservative.
You are conflating conservative with ultra-orthadox Christian which is a problem the party is dealing with at the moment as well.
CptJake wrote: Why do I suspect you really wouldn't vote for a real conservative?
Why do I suspect you wouldn't know what a "real conservative" is?
CptJake wrote: So, if they figure out how to be conservative you would vote for them. But instead vote for the party which is the complete opposite of conservative.
You are conflating conservative with ultra-orthadox Christian which is a problem the party is dealing with at the moment as well.
CptJake wrote: Why do I suspect you really wouldn't vote for a real conservative?
Why do I suspect you wouldn't know what a "real conservative" is?
You would be very wrong. A history of my posts would tend to show I am pretty damned conservative, and not in the social/religious way you want to attribute to me.
But bluntly, someone willing to vote for Sanders or Clinton will not be voting for a conservative. You don't go full tilt left to protest a lack of a conservative candidate.
What is a "real conservative"? I suspect that definition changes from demographic to demographic. I would argue that the problem that the Republican party faces these days, is that they just don't understand that it is possible to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Instead, they double down on being conservative on both, arguably to their own detriment, since they have to pander to a base that demands social conservatism because their religion says so. In spite of that whole separation of Church and State concept.
I really do no enjoy voting towards Democrats because the Republicans can't figure out how to be conservative. If they would just leave out their religious convictions as a compass to what they do in a representative democracy where they are representing people of every background I would be happy.
Republicans have almost no appeal to a moderate.
So, if they figure out how to be conservative you would vote for them. But instead vote for the party which is the complete opposite of conservative.
Why do I suspect you really wouldn't vote for a real conservative?
Well no Republican candidate is conservative but all of them are reactionary. That shifts the spectrum way right. Which is why conservativism is mostly called liberal in the US. Which isn't to say Democracts are conservative or liberal. They are mostly the same.
Either party you vote for you get the same thing different color.
I'd vote for Rand Paul but he can't stop pandering to reactionaries. I'd vote for his dad but that went nowhere either.
And I have the feeling you wouldn't vote for a "real conservative" either.
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Tannhauser42 wrote: What is a "real conservative"? I suspect that definition changes from demographic to demographic. I would argue that the problem that the Republican party faces these days, is that they just don't understand that it is possible to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Instead, they double down on being conservative on both, arguably to their own detriment, since they have to pander to a base that demands social conservatism because their religion says so. In spite of that whole separation of Church and State concept.
Social conservatism isn't conservative its reactionary once we start throwing personal religious faith in as being better than others in a democracy.
CptJake wrote: A history of my posts would tend to show I am pretty damned conservative
Which of course has feth all with deciding who is a True Scotsman and who isn't.
CptJake wrote: and not in the social/religious way you want to attribute to me.
The only thing attributed to you was a complete lack of ability to tell others what a "real conservative" is.
CptJake wrote: But bluntly, someone willing to vote for Sanders or Clinton will not be voting for a conservative.
You figured out that people that vote Democratic don't tend to vote Republican, and vice-versa? Well you deserve a cookie. Of course your failing is the assumption of what conservative is and that somehow the Republican party is that thing.
If we go by the fairly "standard" Political Science meaning of the term Conservative...
A conservative is a person who does not change without cause. Often times that "cause" is found in the history of that people, country, nationality, ethnicity, etc.
As such, you can have 2 conservatives sitting at a table, disagreeing over the subject of SSM. One is for it, because America has traditionally been about "family values" and believes that the nuclear unit is still attainable whether the children are natural to that family. The other one is against it because he/she feels that our country, though not officially Christian, has strong Christian ties and that the religious traditions of the country would say that SSM isn't right and that there can be no "traditional family" in a SSM situation.
Each one is a Conservative by definition, even though each will say the other isn't.
You figured out that people that vote Democratic don't tend to vote Republican, and vice-versa? Well you deserve a cookie. Of course your failing is the assumption of what conservative is and that somehow the Republican party is that thing.
Yeah, and I typed that as a reply to a guy who implied otherwise. Because it is clear he wouldn't.
And you'll have a hard time pinning me to a claim the Rs at this point represent conservatism. A very hard time.
Maybe my definition is wrong, but I consider conservatives to be for less big gov't, attempting to keep the Federal gov't in particular doing the things the constitution gives them authority to do and staying out of as much else as possible, keeping gov't out of folks daily lives to the largest degree possible. I'll think that especially at the federal level the congress critters and Pres need to work within a system that has become bloated and massively inefficient and churn out laws/regulations without much of a grasp of the existing laws and regulations. They've instituted a tax code that even professional CPAs have trouble with at this point.
You'll find I have been against militarization of the police, against forcing folks on gov't assistance to take piss tests, against wasteful efforts overseas that expend $$$ and lives but are not tied to any real national objectives (and a disgusting inability to apply all the elements of national power and instead overly rely on the military). I think the 'war on drugs' is a great example of Good Intent filtered through a bloated and inefficient system doing way more damage at a much higher cost than any benefits we get from it merit.
Show me a R candidate with similar positions. And if you could, show me one that has the will to actually fight for those positions.
You figured out that people that vote Democratic don't tend to vote Republican, and vice-versa? Well you deserve a cookie. Of course your failing is the assumption of what conservative is and that somehow the Republican party is that thing.
Yeah, and I typed that as a reply to a guy who implied otherwise. Because it is clear he wouldn't.
And you'll have a hard time pinning me to a claim the Rs at this point represent conservatism. A very hard time.
Maybe my definition is wrong, but I consider conservatives to be for less big gov't, attempting to keep the Federal gov't in particular doing the things the constitution gives them authority to do and staying out of as much else as possible, keeping gov't out of folks daily lives to the largest degree possible. I'll think that especially at the federal level the congress critters and Pres need to work within a system that has become bloated and massively inefficient and churn out laws/regulations without much of a grasp of the existing laws and regulations. They've instituted a tax code that even professional CPAs have trouble with at this point.
You'll find I have been against militarization of the police, against forcing folks on gov't assistance to take piss tests, against wasteful efforts overseas that expend $$$ and lives but are not tied to any real national objectives (and a disgusting inability to apply all the elements of national power and instead overly rely on the military). I think the 'war on drugs' is a great example of Good Intent filtered through a bloated and inefficient system doing way more damage at a much higher cost than any benefits we get from it merit.
Show me a R candidate with similar positions. And if you could, show me one that has the will to actually fight for those positions.
Rand Paul might be your man. He doesn't hit every one of your checkboxes, but he does hit alot of them, and I don't think anyone would argue that he's not willing to fight for his positions.
You figured out that people that vote Democratic don't tend to vote Republican, and vice-versa? Well you deserve a cookie. Of course your failing is the assumption of what conservative is and that somehow the Republican party is that thing.
Yeah, and I typed that as a reply to a guy who implied otherwise. Because it is clear he wouldn't.
And you'll have a hard time pinning me to a claim the Rs at this point represent conservatism. A very hard time.
Maybe my definition is wrong, but I consider conservatives to be for less big gov't, attempting to keep the Federal gov't in particular doing the things the constitution gives them authority to do and staying out of as much else as possible, keeping gov't out of folks daily lives to the largest degree possible. I'll think that especially at the federal level the congress critters and Pres need to work within a system that has become bloated and massively inefficient and churn out laws/regulations without much of a grasp of the existing laws and regulations. They've instituted a tax code that even professional CPAs have trouble with at this point.
You'll find I have been against militarization of the police, against forcing folks on gov't assistance to take piss tests, against wasteful efforts overseas that expend $$$ and lives but are not tied to any real national objectives (and a disgusting inability to apply all the elements of national power and instead overly rely on the military). I think the 'war on drugs' is a great example of Good Intent filtered through a bloated and inefficient system doing way more damage at a much higher cost than any benefits we get from it merit.
Show me a R candidate with similar positions. And if you could, show me one that has the will to actually fight for those positions.
Gotta agree with BrotherGecko, to the Republican Party, you're a stinkin' commie liberal scum (join the club, we've got jackets). Besides, even if someone did check all of those boxes, without more members of the party to support it, they won't get very far.
But, like I said earlier, I think the definition of conservative changes from person to person.
whembly wrote: That's part of the reason why Trump/Carson (and not Bush) leading the polls now.... they're not playing ball right now with the GOP bigwigs.
The two bigger reasons are that and they are absolutely terrible politicians with no chance of making it through the primary and the other is that their followers have the political efficacy of infants. I suppose the third reason would be that we aren't even actually close to any election at this time and so the sound and fury candidates will get more attention momentarily since there really isn't much else to pay attention to at the moment.
The other 80% that are not following Trump & Carson are divided between the more legitimate political candidates. It's easy to lead the polls when you just need 20% to be "the favorite".
d-usa wrote: The other 80% that are not following Trump & Carson are divided between the more legitimate political candidates. It's easy to lead the polls when you just need 20% to be "the favorite".
That's true... folks forget... fething Michelle Backmann was leading in the polls this early.
The point is not that he is leading the polls early, it's that "leading the polls" is a useless metric considering that he leads with less than 20%. Of all the people nobody wants to vote for, he has the least detractors. It's hard to take "leads in the polls" seriously when 4 out of 5 people are not choosing you.
d-usa wrote: The point is not that he is leading the polls early, it's that "leading the polls" is a useless metric considering that he leads with less than 20%. Of all the people nobody wants to vote for, he has the least detractors. It's hard to take "leads in the polls" seriously when 4 out of 5 people are not choosing you.
Yeah... I see that.
So when's Biden jumping in? How soon does he have to jump in?
I doubt Biden jumps in. If he does, it's nothing but uphill for him. For diverse reasons, hardly anyone wants a third Obama term, and I can't think of another Democratic politician who would represent a third Obama term more than Biden.
jasper76 wrote: I doubt Biden jumps in. If he does, it's nothing but uphill for him. For diverse reasons, hardly anyone wants a third Obama term, and I can't think of another Democratic politician who would represent a third Obama term more than Biden.
You mean, aside from Hillary?
This election is still more than a year away and I can't help but feel mightily depressed about it
jasper76 wrote: I doubt Biden jumps in. If he does, it's nothing but uphill for him. For diverse reasons, hardly anyone wants a third Obama term, and I can't think of another Democratic politician who would represent a third Obama term more than Biden.
You mean, aside from Hillary?
This election is still more than a year away and I can't help but feel mightily depressed about it
I noticed in the GOP debates some candidates are presenting Clinton as a third Obama term....if they're doing that with Clinton, what would they do with Biden? But then again, what would the Clintons do with Biden? Itd be easy for her to paint Biden as the Obama candidate, because it would have the added virtue of being true. And Biden would have to get through Clinton first.
They'd almost assuredly do it with Biden, I'm not sure how a Clinton/Biden showdown would go, I don't think it really would be in either's interest however. Biden is, I think, the backup "establishment" candidate in the off-chance Hillary implodes,
CptJake wrote: If the murder victim was an organ donor there would not be an issue as the victim, prior to being a victim, agreed to provide organs when dead. In fact, without that consent I don't think the organs can be used.
And if they're under 18, it is up to the parents to give consent. And if they died without saying one way or the other, then it is up to the next of kin to decide. So the framework is basically the same whether it's an aborted fetus, or a 16 year old killed in a drive by.
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Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Wasn't my intention. Just trying to gauge the mood before starting a separate thread.
Just read some of the countless threads we've had on this. Shouldn't be too hard to find one, just search for locked threads on Off Topic. Most of them are 2nd amendment threads.
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jasper76 wrote: I don't know. I've had Australian beer, and it's even worse than American beer, so it's possible their BBQ is better.
But I doubt it.
Australian beer is pretty decent. It's a bit like what's claimed in the US, 'don't drink the mainstream stuff, our boutique beers are really good!'... except in Australia it's actually true.
Our BBQ is really crappy though. The US leaves us for dead there.
whembly wrote: Tanner... there's a sort of schism going on with the establishment GOP vs the regular GOP voters.
What we're seeing within the GOP right now isn't so much a schism as it is a reality check. GOP politicians are coming to grips with the waning efficacy of the strategies they've employed for the last four decades, and GOP voters are being forced to acknowledge that the ideology they've bought into won't produce the results they're after. The latter, of course, will happen much more slowly than the former as the natural response of any group that has a core component of its identity threatened is to double down on it; hence all the RINO nonsense.
I don't buy the whole PP clinics were mainly placed in minority districts to practice eugenics. It's simply just that the black population tends to live in major cities (where the PP clinics are likely operating from).
Not just major cities, but also in poorer areas where PP is more likely to operate. Because that's what PP is about - providing services to pregnant women who don’t have the resources to access those services normally.
And that’s what gets me really pissed off about these PP scandals every time they happen – the services provided include scans and early intervention that saves a lot of babies, far more than the number who request abortion services. The basic reality is that if people wanted to make sure as many babies lived as possible, they’d support funding for PP.
But, as I’ve said a whole lot of times before, the anti-abortion movement really just does not give a gak about savings babies.
Marguarette Sanger... ho boy... she was a piece a work back in the day. But, she ain't running that show anymore.
I think she was pretty representative of the politics of the time. We don't like to think about it now, but people believed a lot of really crazy, really nasty gak not very long ago.
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dogma wrote: Now, if we consider only the last 10 years of American politics the picture changes. The massive swing to the right undertaken by the GOP, and conservatives in general, has pulled the entire spectrum to the right. This makes guys like Kasich and Christie seem like moderates if for no other reason than the fact that many of their colleagues have locked themselves into intransigence by building their political success on the backs of equally intransigent voters. Obviously this also makes anyone left of the 40 year center seem like a raving socialist.
You make good points, and it’s a decent summary of what’s happened in US politics, but I think there’s another way to look at it as well. I think it’s problematic to look at a political spectrum just in terms of the population. I mean, the political spectrum is problematic in general, but doubly so when we define it in terms of a general political group. It leads to the odd situation just as you describe - in which someone goes from being centre left to an extremist despite standing still, just because everyone else moved to the right.
So the other way to look at the issue is to describe characteristics that make someone extreme. This list is hardly conclusive, but features such as being highly combative, basing policy on ideology over real world practicalities, being fixated on ideological purity, these are characteristics that I think define an extremist, no matter what their actual policies are.
But, as I’ve said a whole lot of times before, the anti-abortion movement really just does not give a gak about savings babies.
O'yes, please tell me more about how you know exactly what millions and millions of people actually want.
If there was an option for all those services without abortions being funded and offered as well, I, and millions of others who oppose PP, would be all for it. But the abortions are the rotten apple that spoils the whole barrel.
Nothing justifies state sanctioned murder, even if it also happens to save other lives. Especially when all those good things could be done without offering abortions too. Its not like we have to have abortion to also have those services.
Doing some good things doesn't excuse doing some things that are monstrously horrible.
Grey Templar wrote: If there was an option for all those services without abortions being funded and offered as well, I, and millions of others who oppose PP, would be all for it.
Well, you're in luck because federal law prohibits government funding for providing abortions (unless from rape or to save the mother's life). It would help if you got your facts right before you decide to oppose something.
Nothing justifies state sanctioned murder, even if it also happens to save other lives.
Are you against the death penalty as well?
Doing some good things doesn't excuse doing some things that are monstrously horrible.
I'm going to have to remember that you typed this. I have a feeling it will come in handy one day.
Oh, Grey Templar. In a world full of confusion and uncertainty, we always have you to rely upon. Thank you for being our bedrock. To put it differently, you should argue with this guy:
Grey Templar wrote: Only because our system has too many appeals and delays.
If we either limited appeals or have much shorter unmovable deadlines it would be much cheaper.
Give them 5 years to prove their innocence, then at the end they get a .45 magnum point blank to the base of the skull. Guaranteed instant painless death. No possibility of botching chemicals or other crap.
Grey Templar wrote: There are criminals who must simply be removed from this earth, not having the Death Penalty is simply not a viable option. Take the guy who shot up that kids camp in Sweden(?), no death penalty. He'll either rot away his life indefinitely in a cushy prison(hardly justice, he has a platform to spew his rubbish), and the horrifying possibility exists that he'll get released eventually by some future review panel.
If someone commits deliberate premeditated murder, as far as I am concerned they have given up any rights they were previously deserved. Human life is at the most basic level equal with all other human life, and that is the very reason the death penalty should exist. Otherwise, someone can take a life and continue with their own, which basically says that their continued existence matters more than the life they destroyed. It creates a statement that the murders life is more valued than his victim. The death penalty says the lives are equal and that committing murder means you must lose your own life in exchange.
The same for any other heinous crimes. At a point, you lose your right to continue to exist.
And so on, and so forth. I mean, there's more obviously, but I think I've already proven the point to everyone else reading, and you've proven to have a 2+ invulnerable save to logic, so no point in beating that horse.
You and everyone else knows full well that the death penalty is not murder. Executing a convicted criminal is totally different from killing an unborn child because "I don't want it" or "I can't take care of it" or any other number of pathetic excuses for abortion.
You may think there is some conflict here, but there really isn't.
The death penalty is a punishment for wrongs which have been committed. Abortion ends a life which has committed no crime beyond merely existing.
Sounds like there IS a justification for it, which you're making, right now. Hilarious. Again, no point in arguing about it since you are who you are and I'm sure everyone else gets the point.
Grey Templar wrote: If there was an option for all those services without abortions being funded and offered as well, I, and millions of others who oppose PP, would be all for it.
Well, you're in luck because federal law prohibits government funding for providing abortions (unless from rape or to save the mother's life). It would help if you got your facts right before you decide to oppose something.
Abortions are still legal. Which is the issue I have here. Nobody should be allowed to provide them except when it is absolutely medically necessary.
Grey Templar wrote: You and everyone else knows full well that the death penalty is not murder. Executing a convicted criminal is totally different from killing an unborn child because "I don't want it" or "I can't take care of it" or any other number of pathetic excuses for abortion.
The fact remains that you are entirely comfortable with the idea that the government can take a citizen's life, something that makes us special in the West (and almost so compared to the rest of the developed world, since only the US and Japan have capital punishment).
Something, something, American Exceptionalism, something....
Grey Templar wrote: If there was an option for all those services without abortions being funded and offered as well, I, and millions of others who oppose PP, would be all for it.
Well, you're in luck because federal law prohibits government funding for providing abortions (unless from rape or to save the mother's life). It would help if you got your facts right before you decide to oppose something.
Abortions are still legal. Which is the issue I have here. Nobody should be allowed to provide them except when it is absolutely medically necessary.
Ouze wrote: Sounds like there IS a justification for it, which you're making, right now. Hilarious. Again, no point in arguing about it since you are who you are and I'm sure everyone else gets the point.
If me saying "I don't want it" isn't a reasonable excuse is an unreasonable position to take then I would hope nobody would ever be reasonable again.
How about you give me a reason why "I don't want it" is enough justification to end a human life?
How about the time Grey Templar argued it was actually OK if a few innocent people got executed, if mostly guilty ones were killed? Kind of the literal definition of "state sponsored murder":
Grey Templar wrote: But locking an innocent man away for life is no better than executing him. In a way its worse because he's being confined indefinitely.
And no, the possibility that he'll get exonerated isn't an upside. He'd still have lost potentially decades of his life. You might as well have killed him.
You've also exposed him to the criminal elements in prison, now he's more likely to actually become a real criminal.
The possibility of executing someone who is innocent is low enough that its an acceptable risk. yes, the justice system needs reform. cutting the death penalty isn't part of that.
I mean lol, man. What a clown. You just can't make gak like this up.
Grey Templar wrote: You and everyone else knows full well that the death penalty is not murder. Executing a convicted criminal is totally different from killing an unborn child because "I don't want it" or "I can't take care of it" or any other number of pathetic excuses for abortion.
You may think there is some conflict here, but there really isn't.
The death penalty is a punishment for wrongs which have been committed. Abortion ends a life which has committed no crime beyond merely existing.
Which then gets into the wild array of interpretations as to what an "unborn child" is, and what importance that has, which is...more than a wee bit varied across people, cultures, age groups, geographic location, religions & denominations/sects, history, and socio-economic status.
Those "I don't want it"/"I can't take care of it" concerns have very real importance, are very much influenced by the above factors, and often only affect one of the two parties to the original act, and that's typically the one who's body is involved in the full process for months.
Though, yes, there's a difference, between a convicted criminal and an "unborn child", but lets also acknowledge that what a "life" constitutes is, well, hazy.
Grey Templar wrote: You and everyone else knows full well that the death penalty is not murder. Executing a convicted criminal is totally different from killing an unborn child because "I don't want it" or "I can't take care of it" or any other number of pathetic excuses for abortion.
You may think there is some conflict here, but there really isn't.
The death penalty is a punishment for wrongs which have been committed. Abortion ends a life which has committed no crime beyond merely existing.
Which then gets into the wild array of interpretations as to what an "unborn child" is, and what importance that has, which is...more than a wee bit varied across people, cultures, age groups, geographic location, religions & denominations/sects, history, and socio-economic status.
Those "I don't want it"/"I can't take care of it" concerns have very real importance, are very much influenced by the above factors, and often only affect one of the two parties to the original act, and that's typically the one who's body is involved in the full process for months.
Indeed. Although there are actually 2 bodies involved in this process. The mother and child.
Really pathetic man. How about you engage the discussion instead of trying to distract from what we are talking about.
No, I know how to use google. It's pretty easy.
And, the "discussion if what we are talking about" includes the absolutely ridiculous things you say in that discussion. If you don't like people pointing and laughing at the ridiculous things you say, you could stop saying them.
Really pathetic man. How about you engage the discussion instead of trying to distract from what we are talking about.
No, I know how to use google. It's pretty easy.
And, the "discussion if what we are talking about" includes the absolutely ridiculous things you say in that discussion. If you don't like people pointing and laughing at the ridiculous things you say, you could stop saying them.
So you admit you have nothing to contribute beyond personal attacks? Like calling me a clown?
Grey Templar wrote: You and everyone else knows full well that the death penalty is not murder. Executing a convicted criminal is totally different from killing an unborn child because "I don't want it" or "I can't take care of it" or any other number of pathetic excuses for abortion.
You may think there is some conflict here, but there really isn't.
The death penalty is a punishment for wrongs which have been committed. Abortion ends a life which has committed no crime beyond merely existing.
Which then gets into the wild array of interpretations as to what an "unborn child" is, and what importance that has, which is...more than a wee bit varied across people, cultures, age groups, geographic location, religions & denominations/sects, history, and socio-economic status.
Those "I don't want it"/"I can't take care of it" concerns have very real importance, are very much influenced by the above factors, and often only affect one of the two parties to the original act, and that's typically the one who's body is involved in the full process for months.
Indeed. Although there are actually 2 bodies involved in this process. The mother and child.
That's where the question is. What exactly constitutes a "life" is by no means universally accepted. That line is...quite nebulous.
MrDwhitey wrote: We all post ridiculous things sometimes. Some of us far more than others.
I once posted that America was uniquely a nation of immigrants. I think it was Motyak who called me out on it. I still think about how stupid that was once in a while. Where did that even come from?
Ouze wrote: How about the time Grey Templar argued it was actually OK if a few innocent people got executed, if mostly guilty ones were killed? Kind of the literal definition of "state sponsored murder":
Grey Templar wrote: But locking an innocent man away for life is no better than executing him. In a way its worse because he's being confined indefinitely.
And no, the possibility that he'll get exonerated isn't an upside. He'd still have lost potentially decades of his life. You might as well have killed him.
You've also exposed him to the criminal elements in prison, now he's more likely to actually become a real criminal.
The possibility of executing someone who is innocent is low enough that its an acceptable risk. yes, the justice system needs reform. cutting the death penalty isn't part of that.
Remember when I said that I'm going to remember when he said this because it might come in handy:
Grey Templar wrote: Doing some good things doesn't excuse doing some things that are monstrously horrible.
It's already paid off many times over.
Grey Templar wrote: How about you engage the discussion instead of trying to distract from what we are talking about.
It isn't, you're just upset because you said something stupid and that something stupid was used to prove you're a hypocrite. It's also relevant to the discussion.
You don't want government funding for PP to provide abortions, which it doesn't get. Even though PP doesn't get government money for abortions that aren't medically necessary (something you've said you're okay with), you go on to claim that it's "state-sanctioned murder" (which it isn't) and "doing some good things doesn't excuse doing horrible things." However, you're perfectly content with the state having the power to kill its own citizens, even if they are innocent (which is the literal definition of "state-sanctioned murder") because of all the "good" the system does.
"Sanction" doesn't require the government to pay for it. It simply requires them to allow it. Then there was this whole thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
Grey Templar wrote: You and everyone else knows full well that the death penalty is not murder. Executing a convicted criminal is totally different from killing an unborn child because "I don't want it" or "I can't take care of it" or any other number of pathetic excuses for abortion.
You may think there is some conflict here, but there really isn't.
The death penalty is a punishment for wrongs which have been committed. Abortion ends a life which has committed no crime beyond merely existing.
Which then gets into the wild array of interpretations as to what an "unborn child" is, and what importance that has, which is...more than a wee bit varied across people, cultures, age groups, geographic location, religions & denominations/sects, history, and socio-economic status.
Those "I don't want it"/"I can't take care of it" concerns have very real importance, are very much influenced by the above factors, and often only affect one of the two parties to the original act, and that's typically the one who's body is involved in the full process for months.
Indeed. Although there are actually 2 bodies involved in this process. The mother and child.
That's where the question is. What exactly constitutes a "life" is by no means universally accepted. That line is...quite nebulous.
I suppose, although a growing fetus is well and truly far from any line as far as defining life. Its not like its a virus that is straddling the line. Its a fully intact organism that respires, grows, and is capable of reproduction(in about 16 years or so). And furthermore its a member of our own species.
MrDwhitey wrote: We all post ridiculous things sometimes. Some of us far more than others.
I once posted that America was uniquely a nation of immigrants. I think it was Motyak who called me out on it. I still think about how stupid that was once in a while. Where did that even come from?
Being called on ridiculous things you post is a good thing to be honest, as it lets you examine what you posted and realise why it was wrong. It lets you realise that you were posting from a position of ignorance and you can now examine why that is.
I mean, if you're being an honest, consistent debater anyway.
If you're not, it just lets everyone else see you for what you are.
Grey Templar wrote: You and everyone else knows full well that the death penalty is not murder. Executing a convicted criminal is totally different from killing an unborn child because "I don't want it" or "I can't take care of it" or any other number of pathetic excuses for abortion.
You may think there is some conflict here, but there really isn't.
The death penalty is a punishment for wrongs which have been committed. Abortion ends a life which has committed no crime beyond merely existing.
Which then gets into the wild array of interpretations as to what an "unborn child" is, and what importance that has, which is...more than a wee bit varied across people, cultures, age groups, geographic location, religions & denominations/sects, history, and socio-economic status.
Those "I don't want it"/"I can't take care of it" concerns have very real importance, are very much influenced by the above factors, and often only affect one of the two parties to the original act, and that's typically the one who's body is involved in the full process for months.
Indeed. Although there are actually 2 bodies involved in this process. The mother and child.
That's where the question is. What exactly constitutes a "life" is by no means universally accepted. That line is...quite nebulous.
I suppose, although a growing fetus is well and truly far from any line as far as defining life. Its not like its a virus that is straddling the line. Its a fully intact organism that respires, grows, and is capable of reproduction(in about 16 years or so). And furthermore its a member of our own species.
To many, unless it's capable of living under the power of its own organs (i.e. won't immediately die if it's removed from the womb), it's not its own life. Before viability, it's not fully intact (it can't breathe, pump blood, digest food, etc on its own), it's absolutely not capable of reproduction, and, depending on what stage we're talking about, may bear more functional and structural resemblance to other organisms.
Wait no it doesn't quite read like that. Let's keep this open by moving the rest of the abortion talk somewhere else, at least until one side or the other brings it out as a wacking stick in the polls.
Grey Templar wrote: O'yes, please tell me more about how you know exactly what millions and millions of people actually want.
If there was an option for all those services without abortions being funded and offered as well, I, and millions of others who oppose PP, would be all for it. But the abortions are the rotten apple that spoils the whole barrel.
You complained about my summary where I said the anti-abortion movement prioritised things ahead of dead babies, and then you state that some things are more important than preventing dead babies.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyhow, this isn’t about proving Gray Templar said something wrong, though. The anti-abortion movement in the US has serious problems at its core, whatever side of the abortion debate you land on, it should be agreed that lying and self-righteousness isn’t cool. Anyone who takes the issue seriously owes it to themselves to really look in to the people who claim to be acting on behalf of the unborn.
Ouze wrote: I once posted that America was uniquely a nation of immigrants. I think it was Motyak who called me out on it. I still think about how stupid that was once in a while. Where did that even come from?
I've had a few. In a WWII thread I once mentioned the Sherman as having a 50mm gun. Not as a typo, but as a straight up brain fart, where I somehow got the lower velocity 75mm caught up in my head with a 50mm gun. When someone corrected me I sat there reading it, thinking 'what is this guy talking about, I didn’t say that, it doesn’t even make sense to even think that’… but sure enough I wrote it. I still think about that from time to time.
I think the more we think about what we’re just about to post, and the more we think about our opinions in general, the less likely we are to say something really silly. There’s never any guarantee though
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motyak wrote: Wait no it doesn't quite read like that. Let's keep this open by moving the rest of the abortion talk somewhere else, at least until one side or the other brings it out as a wacking stick in the polls.
I’m not challenging your mod ruling, and I understand the desire to drop the abortion discussion, but it has been raised in this election cycle. There was a video released that was edited to try and show Planned Parenthood doctors selling aborted foetuses for money, and the Republicans have even threatened a government shutdown over funding to Planned Parenthood.
Perhaps the thread could leave aside personal opinions on abortion, and maybe just look at the issue is playing out politically? If we can’t do that, then maybe drop abortion?
I understand that, but the discussion has spread to when a baby is and isn't alive and things bordering on personal attacks. So I want everyone in thread to drop it for, let's say 2 pages, so you can pick it up again on page 110, because at the moment everyone is, whether they want to be or not, likely too caught up in the non-political side of the argument to be able to discuss the political side for more than 2 or 3 posts. So that's the reasoning behind it being dropped for 2 pages. I probably should have clarified that first time
Note that this isn't in red as a tell off so much as to make sure that everyone sees it to see the reasoning behind the decision
whembly wrote: Tanner... there's a sort of schism going on with the establishment GOP vs the regular GOP voters.
What we're seeing within the GOP right now isn't so much a schism as it is a reality check. GOP politicians are coming to grips with the waning efficacy of the strategies they've employed for the last four decades, and GOP voters are being forced to acknowledge that the ideology they've bought into won't produce the results they're after. The latter, of course, will happen much more slowly than the former as the natural response of any group that has a core component of its identity threatened is to double down on it; hence all the RINO nonsense.
That's a great summary... isn't that another way of saying 'there's a schism' going on here?
I mean... look at the Tea Party movement... it's just as much as a reaction to the Democrat/Obama's policy as its a reaction to the old GOP guard.
Number of Hillary Clinton’s emails flagged for classified data grows to 60 as review continues
While media coverage has focused on a half-dozen of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal emails containing sensitive intelligence, the total number of her private emails identified by an ongoing State Department review as having contained classified data has ballooned to 60, officials told The Washington Times.
That figure is current through the end of July and is likely to grow as officials wade through a total of 30,000 work-related emails that passed through her personal email server, officials said. The process is expected to take months.
The 60 emails are among those that have been reviewed and cleared for release under the Freedom of Information Act as part of a open-records lawsuit. Some of the emails have multiple redactions for classified information.
Among the first 60 flagged emails, nearly all contained classified secrets at the lowest level of “confidential” and one contained information at the intermediate level of “secret,” officials told the Times.
Those 60 emails do not include two emails identified in recent days by Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III as containing “top-secret” information possibly derived from Pentagon satellites, drones or intercepts, which is some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets.
State officials and the intelligence community are working to resolve questions about those and other emails with possible classified information, a process that isn’t likely to be completed until January.
That will be right around the time Mrs. Clinton is slated to face voters in the Iowa caucuses in her bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
As the number of suspect emails grows and the classification review continues, it is clear that predictions contained in a notification Mr. McCullough sent Congress this summer is likely to hold true: Mrs. Clinton’s personal emails likely contained hundreds of disclosures of classified information.
The rising scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton regarding her apparent misuse of unclassified email during her tenure as Secretary of State gets worse for the Presidential hopeful with each passing day. During the week now ending, I’ve explained in writing and in radio and TV appearances how Americans ought to look at this touchy matter.
Few Americans have ever dealt with Top Secret materials and understandably they are left perplexed by this complicated and mysterious subject. This is not helped by the fact that Clinton backers seek to blow off this scandal as “no big deal.” Obfuscation does not change the fact that the placing of highly classified information on an unclassified and unencrypted network is a very serious matter indeed, not to mention very likely a criminal act to boot.
To aid understanding of how security classification works in the real world of the Intelligence Community, I’m giving you a sample intelligence assessment which I will walk you through to illustrate how this plays out every day in Washington, DC.
Everything I’m presenting you is fake — Zendia for decades was used by the National Security Agency as its preferred made-up country in training exercises — but corresponds exactly to how the IC actually writes “finished” intelligence assessments based on multiple information sources, then classifies them.
Such assessments are authored every day by multiple American intelligence agencies and offices, then shared with senior leadership. The Secretary of State is always a top consumer of such intelligence. Moreover, the State Department has its own in-house intelligence analysis shop, termed the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) to meet their department’s need for additional classified assessments and reporting.
What follows is a short intelligence assessment of the kind U.S. Government officials read every single day, made up by me but adhering to the style and substance of what I used to do at work when I was an IC analyst.
TOPSECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN
(S) Economic, Political Problems for Zendia Ahead
(TS//SI) The Zendian Ambassador to Dirtbagistan believes it is increasingly likely that his country will fail to make its next International Monetary Fund (IMF) payment, scheduled for mid-September. This IMF payment of 475 billion Zendian wangos ($8.4 billion) is beyond his government’s ability to pay, Ambassador Abu Travolta explained to a senior member of his country’s Ministry of Finance (believed to be Deputy Finance Minister Abu Nugent) on 12 August. The ambassador further opined that, in the event of this likely default, the government of Prime Minister Barack Dukakis would not last long, politically. For this reason the Zendian government is going to great lengths to prevent word of the impending IMF default from reaching the media, according to Ambassador Travolta.
(TS//SI//TK) This information was supported by Zendian Deputy Foreign Minister Abu Bon Jovi, who last week informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) that budget constraints, which he expected to get significantly worse in mid-September, meant that MFA payrolls may not be met upon “something big” happening then. This is believed to be a reference to a possible default on Zendia’s IMF loan.
(S//NF) According to U.S. Government information obtained from multiple agencies, Ambassador Travolta is a well-connected member of the ruling party and is close to Prime Minister Dukakis. He has a track record of accurate predictions about forthcoming events in his country.
(FOUO) According to media reports, Ambassador Travolta has been experiencing health problems (NFI) which may indicate his willingness to be unusually frank with fellow members of the Zendian ruling party.
(U) This situation will be updated as soon as additional information becomes available.
TOPSECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN
Off the bat, you’ll notice the report’s overall classification, TOPSECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN, in big and bold letters at the top and bottom, which reflects the highest classification levels of anything incorporated in the assessment. Only people cleared to that level — here a very high one — can read this report.
Like any report, this has a title slug reflecting what it’s about. It’s classified S for SECRET: notice that each paragraph has its classification stated in parentheses at the beginning. This is called “portion marking” by the IC.
The first paragraph is classified TOPSECRET, the highest “official” classification in the U.S. Government, while the addition of SI, meaning Special Intelligence, indicates this is very sensitive stuff. SI is a security caveat that falls under the rubric of Sensitive Compartmented Information or SCI. Not everybody cleared for TOPSECRET also has access to SCI, that’s a separate matter and all SCI materials require special handling to protect them from compromise.
Here, SI indicates that the paragraph is based on information from signals intelligence or SIGINT from NSA — in this case an intercepted phone call between two senior Zendian officials. Although the report never states that this is SIGINT, the kind of information provided plus the SI caveat indicate this is based on NSA reporting, as anybody experienced with intelligence would immediately recognize.
The following paragraph is also based on NSA SIGINT, albeit from a different, even more sensitive source: the TK in its classification stands for TALENT KEYHOLE and indicates that information is derived from foreign communications intercepted by an intelligence satellite. This, again, is a conversation between top Zendian officials, so it’s valuable “horse’s mouth” information. Here two senior bureaucrats seem to corroborate each other, which is an important revelation.
The third paragraph has a lower classification, SECRET, is not based on SIGINT, and has the NOFORN caveat, meaning it cannot be shared with non-Americans (a good deal of NSA SIGINT, even at the TS/SI level, is shared with close foreign partners such as the Anglosphere Five Eyes countries). This paragraph is based on local classified assessments — probably from the US Embassy to Zendia as well as the CIA Station there — that are sent back as regular reports to Washington, DC about the political lay of the land in that country.
The last substantive paragraph isn’t classified at all but has the For Official Use Only marking, meaning it cannot be released to the public without official approval. It’s based on media reports, which represent an important source of information for the IC and the State Department. CIA’s Open Source Center is the IC’s hub for translating foreign media in many languages and, pound for pound, represents the best value in the Intelligence Community, in my opinion. Here, unclassified media (termed Open Source Intelligence or OSINT) by some, is used to round out the assessment, and how the analyst has reached a tentative conclusion based on that media is considered to be FOUO. NFI means No Further Information.
The last line is entirely unclassified, as indicated by the U at the beginning, and states simply that more information will be forthcoming on this issue as the analyst gets it.
That last line is the only part of the assessment that is wholly unclassified and, in theory, could be released to the public without a cumbersome approval process: of course, taken alone it says nothing of interest, which perhaps is the point.
The larger point, however, is that, save that last line, absolutely none of the information in this assessment could be released to the public, or placed on any unclassified information system, by anybody, not even a cabinet secretary, without specific approval from outside agencies. The SIGINT, in particular, is highly sensitive and could only be placed in unclassified channels with an explicit NSA (and probably Director of National Intelligence) go-ahead, which is rare.
Even “talking around” such information, especially in written fashion, is unwise and usually represents a serious security breach, not to mention it may be illegal. For example, this is how a top official who read that Zendian intelligence assessment might proceed:
1. “We’re hearing Zendia will probably default on its IMF loan.” (Marginally acceptable because there’s no attribution, no sources and methods are mentioned, though even so it’s really at least FOUO if it’s a cabinet secretary putting it in an unclassified email.)
2. “We’re getting intel that Zendia will probably default on its IMF loan.” (Unacceptable, a security violation, but not classified higher than SECRET due to lack of source attribution.)
3. “NSA says Zendia will default on its IMF loan in September.” (Absolutely unacceptable in any unclassified format, a compromise of TS//SI sources and methods….call the FBI.)
What exactly happened in the case of Hillary Clinton’s classified emails we don’t know yet, but the FBI is now on the case, and I’m sure the Bureau will eventually find out. What happens after that? It’s too soon to tell ….
While I still think she's skates largely unscathed...
It's interesting that the President is golfing with the husband whose wife is under FBI investigation:
I can only imagine a dialogue like this:
Former-President: Gimme some coffee kid!
President: Feth you President Blow Job!
Former-President: Hey... Listen... my wife... she's in trouble man.
President: Gimme some coffee gramps!
Question: If HRC was convicted and sent to jail for this... but STILL was elected President... does her jail cell become the Oval Office? (nah... she'd pardon herself )
Question: If HRC was convicted and sent to jail for this... but STILL was elected President... does her jail cell become the Oval Office? (nah... she'd pardon herself )
I would think that, if she were convicted after being elected and sworn in, she'd abdicate the "throne" and her VP would take over the job. If she were convicted after election, but before being sworn in, there may be a run-off? If she were convicted before election, it would depend on whether or not she's the candidate
Question: If HRC was convicted and sent to jail for this... but STILL was elected President... does her jail cell become the Oval Office? (nah... she'd pardon herself )
I would think that, if she were convicted after being elected and sworn in, she'd abdicate the "throne" and her VP would take over the job. If she were convicted after election, but before being sworn in, there may be a run-off? If she were convicted before election, it would depend on whether or not she's the candidate
During Watergate/Perjurygate, this was hashed out.
Theoretically, you could commit a whole range of crimes prior to being sworn in... and then you could pardon yourself. The President's Pardon powah is damn near irrevocable.
The only thing you couldn't do, is pardon yourself for any crime comitted DURING your tenure as President. Even then, it'd take a impeachment by the house AND a 'removal' from the senate.
That's a great summary... isn't that another way of saying 'there's a schism' going on here?
I mean... look at the Tea Party movement... it's just as much as a reaction to the Democrat/Obama's policy as its a reaction to the old GOP guard.
No, because there is no ideological gap between the GOP and the people that vote for it. The difference is that the GOP is dominated by people who know the rhetoric they've been using to secure votes is just motivational rhetoric, while many GOP voters have taken it at face value and become ideologues as a result; at least if they weren't at that stage to begin with.
In essence, lots of GOP voters have accepted the "old guard" solutions as a panacea, and so can only conclude that the problem is that they're electing the wrong people. This is unfortunate because it prevents the "old guard" from doing anything constructive. We won't see this state of affairs change until either the GOP accepts some losses in Congress so that it can alter its base, or Republican voters realize and admit that they're the biggest part of the problem groups like the Tea Party are railing against. Of course, the latter will never happen because its far easier to blame someone else.
Posting from phone, sorry for not quoting your post Whembly.
Anyway, regardless of what classified material was sent to HRC, was any of it actually marked as classified? That's what will really matter most in getting her into trouble.
Also, that article about classifying info is inaccurate. All documents must also include the declassification instructions, as well. Classified info cannot remain classified indefinitely, there are time limits imposed by the executive order. And, again, anything beyond C/S/TS is just made up by that particular agency as a shortcut to quickly determine who would have "need to know" access.
CptJake wrote: You could change GOP with Democratic Party, change Tea Party to 'Unions' or 'Progressive wing' and your post would be as accurate if not more so.
Not really. The progressive elements of the Democrat base are much easier to appease as they tend to be organized around a large number of relatively insignificant issues, rather than a small number of relatively important ones. This means Democrats tend to have a much easier time demonstrating successes, and sweeping failures under the rug. After all, it is nowhere near as hard to secure some federal funding for local environmentalist NPOs as it is to lower Federal taxes, reduce the deficit, or repeal Obamacare.
As for unions: The Democrats don't have to do anything in order to get their support beyond take a relatively neutral stance towards them. After all, part of Republican voters doubling down on their ideology involves becoming more hostile towards unions, making opposition to them a convenient way for GOP politicians to pass the purity test. Plus, lets be honest, support for unions isn't a big part of the national Democratic platform.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Posting from phone, sorry for not quoting your post Whembly.
Anyway, regardless of what classified material was sent to HRC, was any of it actually marked as classified? That's what will really matter most in getting her into trouble.
That's why I'm trying to wrap my head around this...
I think that argument is a red herring.
The IG found 2 emails that should've had those markings. The question is... who "removed" them? There are strict protocol to unclassify information and according to the IG, it was classified from the source and still currently classified.
Also, that article about classifying info is inaccurate. All documents must also include the declassification instructions, as well. Classified info cannot remain classified indefinitely, there are time limits imposed by the executive order. And, again, anything beyond C/S/TS is just made up by that particular agency as a shortcut to quickly determine who would have "need to know" access.
What do you mean by "All documents must also include the declassification instructions"???
What do you mean by "All documents must also include the declassification instructions"???
For instance, in the army there are regulations that cover declassifying... Typically, something that's Secret remains so for 10 years, TS is 25 years.
There's a small paragraph that is supposed to accompany all classified files/documents that outline the 10/25 year declassifying. Of course, that doesn't mean that it automatically gets declassified at that point. It goes to a sort of "review board" who is supposed to look at, and review that material and either downgrade it, keep it classified at it's current level, or move to declassification and public record.
So... that article that Tanner claims to be inaccurate...
Is it accurate, minus the unclassify blurb?
There are other minor errors, but it's hard to go into much detail while posting just from my phone. When was the article written? I would guess it predates the current executive order.
It's not that Hillary will get in trouble for simply receiving classified stuff, that's on whoever sent it to her. She would be in trouble for forwarding the material, and, ironically, for keeping it on the server instead of deleting it.
So... that article that Tanner claims to be inaccurate...
Is it accurate, minus the unclassify blurb?
There are other minor errors, but it's hard to go into much detail while posting just from my phone. When was the article written? I would guess it predates the current executive order.
Article was written last weekend.
It's not that Hillary will get in trouble for simply receiving classified stuff, that's on whoever sent it to her. She would be in trouble for forwarding the material, and, ironically, for keeping it on the server instead of deleting it.
Actually, the article is postulating that she'd be in trouble for receiving ANY classified information on her homebrew'ed email system.
Yet you respond seriously to a clearly not-serious post. Perhaps the 'meter' that is broken is closer to home than you think.
Okay... play this game with me then...
If George W Bush had gone golfing with Mrs. Scooter Libby, during the investigation phase of that scandal (which involved a far less serious crime imo) how would you think that would have gone with the media?
So... that article that Tanner claims to be inaccurate...
Is it accurate, minus the unclassify blurb?
There are other minor errors, but it's hard to go into much detail while posting just from my phone. When was the article written? I would guess it predates the current executive order.
Article was written last weekend.
I wonder if the writer must be basing it on knowledge/experience prior to the 2009 executive order.. Part of the problem with the examples used in that article is that it includes stuff that is not part of the official classification standards (those agency-specific made-up terms/qualifications), which can confuse the reader. All classified material must be marked with its classification level, who classified it, agency/office of origin, and the declassification conditions (specific event or date), as well as including the reason for classification. Yes, it's quite possible for all of that to take up more space on the page than the actual classified material itself. And if it's quoting classified material from another source, it has to cite that source as well.
It's not that Hillary will get in trouble for simply receiving classified stuff, that's on whoever sent it to her. She would be in trouble for forwarding the material, and, ironically, for keeping it on the server instead of deleting it.
Actually, the article is postulating that she'd be in trouble for receiving ANY classified information on her homebrew'ed email system.
Nah, simply receiving classified material doesn't get you into trouble. It's what you do after that. If it's been properly marked and you look at it without clearance? Bad. Keeping it on the server instead of deleting it? Bad. Not telling the person who sent it to not do it again? Bad. Forwarding it on to someone else, or using her personal email to send something classified to someone? Very Bad. That last is what she would get in the most trouble for.
Anyway, I hesitate to continue talking about classified material documentation requirements and rules, as we may be borderline off topic if we go too far into the details of it. Suffice it to say, Hillary can certainly get into big trouble over this, but it really depends mostly on the details like in the examples above.
Even receiving classified emails onto her personal homebrew server seems to breach at least two federal laws.
'Tis why she and her campaign vehemently denies that she received any classified materials.
She SHOULD be in trouble from that server setup by itself.
That's besides the point, really... it's the fact that people are willing to vote for Clinton even though she's the kind of person to put natsec at risk for the sake of convience and to subvert government audit laws.
dogma wrote: As for unions: The Democrats don't have to do anything in order to get their support beyond take a relatively neutral stance towards them. After all, part of Republican voters doubling down on their ideology involves becoming more hostile towards unions, making opposition to them a convenient way for GOP politicians to pass the purity test. Plus, lets be honest, support for unions isn't a big part of the national Democratic platform.
No, but union support is a huge part of the Democrat money flow. I agree that Democrats have union support tied up very nicely pretty much forever, but the issue there is more that unions are in decline, and like any business it's not great to have one of your key cashflows coming from an industry in long term decline.
It's nothing like the problem Republicans have with long term demographics, but it's still an issue that Democrats will have to resolve one way or another in the next couple of decades.
whembly wrote: If George W Bush had gone golfing with Mrs. Scooter Libby, during the investigation phase of that scandal (which involved a far less serious crime imo) how would you think that would have gone with the media?
No idea since it is just made up bs and not something that actually happened, unlike different Presidents, past and present, who actually meet fairly regularly.
Even receiving classified emails onto her personal homebrew server seems to breach at least two federal laws.
You're still misunderstanding it. It is not a breach on her part that she simply received classified material on an unapproved system. The person who sent it is the one in violation for sending classified material to an unapproved system. Even if she told someone to send it to her at that address, it still falls on the sender for violating policy (assuming she didn't coerce someone into doing the sending).
That she kept it after receiving it on an unapproved system is the violation on her part. If she sent any classified material to anybody else, that is also a violation on her part. But just the act of receiving it? No. What you're essentially saying is that, if you FedEx something to me at my home address instead of my work address, it's my fault for opening the door and picking up an envelope addressed to me, and not your fault for putting the wrong address on it. Now, once I realize the contents of that FedEx envelope, it would then fall on me to get it the hell out of my house asap and into somewhere approved, and then to tell you off for sending it to the wrong place (and that's something else that falls on her: lack of disciplinary or corrective actions taken against the sender).
I am well and truly aware that the server was her personal equipment, that it was not an approved and secured system, and that it is the reason why this is a problem, I do not and never have questioned that. I am not arguing that she shouldn't get into trouble. But when you're going to charge someone with violating the law, you do have to make the right charges.
And, to add to all of that, there is still the factor of whether the classified material was actually labeled as classified. If it wasn't labeled, she can wiggle a bit on that technicality. Eurgh, mental image of Hillary wiggling...
Oh, and by the way, I don't plan on voting for her. Besides, I'm in Texas, it's not like my vote matters anyway.
whembly wrote: If George W Bush had gone golfing with Mrs. Scooter Libby, during the investigation phase of that scandal (which involved a far less serious crime imo) how would you think that would have gone with the media?
No idea since it is just made up bs and not something that actually happened, unlike different Presidents, past and present, who actually meet fairly regularly.
Um... most of the time its for a cause, ie a charity or special event.
*shrug*
Believe what you will.
I will say that the Presidency is a unique club in such that, current & past President should maintain communication among one another as there's nothing like it elsewhere.
If you receive it and don't immediately unplug from the net and call the security folks, you are in violation of the regs/laws. If you do call them, the security folks come and wipe your gak clean (or destroy in some cases where a cleaning isn't possible for a variety of reasons).
There is zero evidence she did so, and in fact it is starting to appear she hid the fact she had classified on her system. If that is accurate, she SHOULD be in trouble.
Frankly I would be willing to bet she created classified on her machine. By virtue of her position a lot of her work related comms are gonna be classified, whether she properly marks them or not.
Even receiving classified emails onto her personal homebrew server seems to breach at least two federal laws.
You're still misunderstanding it. It is not a breach on her part that she simply received classified material on an unapproved system. The person who sent it is the one in violation for sending classified material to an unapproved system. Even if she told someone to send it to her at that address, it still falls on the sender for violating policy (assuming she didn't coerce someone into doing the sending).
That she kept it after receiving it on an unapproved system is the violation on her part. If she sent any classified material to anybody else, that is also a violation on her part. But just the act of receiving it? No. What you're essentially saying is that, if you FedEx something to me at my home address instead of my work address, it's my fault for opening the door and picking up an envelope addressed to me, and not your fault for putting the wrong address on it. Now, once I realize the contents of that FedEx envelope, it would then fall on me to get it the hell out of my house asap and into somewhere approved, and then to tell you off for sending it to the wrong place (and that's something else that falls on her: lack of disciplinary or corrective actions taken against the sender).
Okay...
According to the IG, 2 of the emails she received was & is currently classfied TS. The labeling was missing... and the investigation is now at the point of, what happened to the labeling? Did someone purposely remove those labelings? (which its a felony by itself).
Is someone going to take that fall besides HRC? If so... that's a hell of a fall.
I am well and truly aware that the server was her personal equipment, that it was not an approved and secured system, and that it is the reason why this is a problem, I do not and never have questioned that. I am not arguing that she shouldn't get into trouble. But when you're going to charge someone with violating the law, you do have to make the right charges.
True... but it won't go that far.
*shrugs*
The DoJ will drag it and won't do anything.
And, to add to all of that, there is still the factor of whether the classified material was actually labeled as classified. If it wasn't labeled, she can wiggle a bit on that technicality.
It being labeled or not is a red herring. Folks with security clearance are trained to look out for this.
You know why I know this? I know someone who works for NGA, who's an avid Democrat and probably would've voted for HRC. He said if he did anything close to what HRC and her staff reportedly have done... he'd be out of the job before you can say "Cubs SUCK!" (<-- his word, not mine )
But he did bring up a good point. The WH and other government officials had to know she was using her homebrew server... where's the accountability for that? Where's the States Department IT's staff about this?
Eurgh, mental image of Hillary wiggling...
Where's the mental bleach! HERE!!!
Spoiler:
Oh, and by the way, I don't plan on voting for her. Besides, I'm in Texas, it's not like my vote matters anyway.
I hear ya... Missouri has been trending blue for quite awhile. The D's luuuuuurrrrrve the Clintons.
When politicians talk about “immigration reform” they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties.
Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first – not wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change. Here are the three core principles of real immigration reform:
1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.
2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.
3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.
Make Mexico Pay For The Wall
For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well as in other Latin American countries). They have even published pamphlets on how to illegally immigrate to the United States. The costs for the United States have been extraordinary: U.S. taxpayers have been asked to pick up hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, housing costs, education costs, welfare costs, etc. Indeed, the annual cost of free tax credits alone paid to illegal immigrants quadrupled to $4.2 billion in 2011. The effects on jobseekers have also been disastrous, and black Americans have been particularly harmed.
The impact in terms of crime has been tragic. In recent weeks, the headlines have been covered with cases of criminals who crossed our border illegally only to go on to commit horrific crimes against Americans. Most recently, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, with a long arrest record, is charged with breaking into a 64 year-old women’s home, crushing her skull and eye sockets with a hammer, raping her, and murdering her. The Police Chief in Santa Maria says the “blood trail” leads straight to Washington.
In 2011, the Government Accountability Office found that there were a shocking 3 million arrests attached to the incarcerated alien population, including tens of thousands of violent beatings, rapes and murders.
Meanwhile, Mexico continues to make billions on not only our bad trade deals but also relies heavily on the billions of dollars in remittances sent from illegal immigrants in the United States back to Mexico ($22 billion in 2013 alone).
In short, the Mexican government has taken the United States to the cleaners. They are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up.
The cost of building a permanent border wall pales mightily in comparison to what American taxpayers spend every single year on dealing with the fallout of illegal immigration on their communities, schools and unemployment offices.
Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore.
Defend The Laws And Constitution Of The United States
America will only be great as long as America remains a nation of laws that lives according to the Constitution. No one is above the law. The following steps will return to the American people the safety of their laws, which politicians have stolen from them:
Triple the number of ICE officers. As the President of the ICE Officers’ Council explained in Congressional testimony: “Only approximately 5,000 officers and agents within ICE perform the lion’s share of ICE’s immigration mission…Compare that to the Los Angeles Police Department at approximately 10,000 officers. Approximately 5,000 officers in ICE cover 50 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, and are attempting to enforce immigration law against 11 million illegal aliens already in the interior of the United States. Since 9-11, the U.S. Border Patrol has tripled in size, while ICE’s immigration enforcement arm, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), has remained at relatively the same size.” This will be funded by accepting the recommendation of the Inspector General for Tax Administration and eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.
Nationwide e-verify. This simple measure will protect jobs for unemployed Americans.
Mandatory return of all criminal aliens. The Obama Administration has released 76,000 aliens from its custody with criminal convictions since 2013 alone. All criminal aliens must be returned to their home countries, a process which can be aided by canceling any visas to foreign countries which will not accept their own criminals, and making it a separate and additional crime to commit an offense while here illegally.
Detention—not catch-and-release. Illegal aliens apprehended crossing the border must be detained until they are sent home, no more catch-and-release.
Defund sanctuary cities. Cut-off federal grants to any city which refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
Enhanced penalties for overstaying a visa. Millions of people come to the United States on temporary visas but refuse to leave, without consequence. This is a threat to national security. Individuals who refuse to leave at the time their visa expires should be subject to criminal penalties; this will also help give local jurisdictions the power to hold visa overstays until federal authorities arrive. Completion of a visa tracking system – required by law but blocked by lobbyists – will be necessary as well.
Cooperate with local gang task forces. ICE officers should accompany local police departments conducting raids of violent street gangs like MS-13 and the 18th street gang, which have terrorized the country. All illegal aliens in gangs should be apprehended and deported. Again, quoting Chris Crane: “ICE Officers and Agents are forced to apply the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Directive, not to children in schools, but to adult inmates in jails. If an illegal-alien inmate simply claims eligibility, ICE is forced to release the alien back into the community. This includes serious criminals who have committed felonies, who have assaulted officers, and who prey on children…ICE officers should be required to place detainers on every illegal alien they encounter in jails and prisons, since these aliens not only violated immigration laws, but then went on to engage in activities that led to their arrest by police; ICE officers should be required to issue Notices to Appear to all illegal aliens with criminal convictions, DUI convictions, or a gang affiliation; ICE should be working with any state or local drug or gang task force that asks for such assistance.”
End birthright citizenship. This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, including Harry Reid who said “no sane country” would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.
Put American Workers First
Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class. Today, nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed. Nearly 30% of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000. Across the economy, the percentage of adults in the labor force has collapsed to a level not experienced in generations. As CBS news wrote in a piece entitled “America’s incredible shrinking middle class”: “If the middle-class is the economic backbone of America, then the country is developing osteoporosis.”
The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans – including immigrants themselves and their children – to earn a middle class wage. Nearly half of all immigrants and their US-born children currently live in or near poverty, including more than 60 percent of Hispanic immigrants. Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream.
Additionally, we need to stop giving legal immigrant visas to people bent on causing us harm. From the 9/11 hijackers, to the Boston Bombers, and many others, our immigration system is being used to attack us. The President of the immigration caseworkers union declared in a statement on ISIS: “We've become the visa clearinghouse for the world.”
Here are some additional specific policy proposals for long-term reform:
Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.
Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need to companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.
End welfare abuse. Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.
Jobs program for inner city youth. The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program.
Refugee program for American children. Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses. Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.
Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women's plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.
We'd be fools to believe he could achieve any of this...
But, this is some serious red meat that'll play well with the general public.
My only issue...so far... is ending birthrights citizenship. I'm not a fan of repealing that.
That's not a great plan. That's totally unworkable crazypants. I'm not cherry picking out the stupidest idea, but that's the one the rest of it hangs on. There is absolutely no way we can make that happen.
The rest of it ranges from the reasonable (tripling ICE agents, nationwide e-verify) to the dubious and sort of hypocritical (cutting off funds to sanctuary cities) to the lol no (ending birthright citizenship).
Of course, since Mr. Trump knows he'll never have to actually try to get any of these things passed, he has a free hand to say whatever he will get him the best ratings. I mean, don't hate the player, hate the game right?
Birthright citizenship made a ton of sense when the country relied on immigration to build the population. Now it really is not a 'need to have' from the country perspective, and I think we are seeing consequences to it that the Founders really didn't expect to ever see the country face.
I think it may be a conversation worth having, but consequences of repealing need to be thought out and understood, just as teaching the consequences of maintaining the status quo need to be communicated and understood.
Screwing with something like this (something in the constitution) should be done carefully if at all. Of course, that is why the amendment process is not an easy one.
CptJake wrote: I'm not sure you can do it without an amendment and have it make it through the courts.
Actually... it ought to be simple due to the fact that a child that is a citizen should not and does not confer on the child’s parents and siblings the right to live in the United States. That right is strictly the right of the child. It is not wrong for the child to remain with the child’s parents in their country until reaching of age, and then deciding where to live. Simple solution to a simple problem.
That's not a great plan. That's totally unworkable crazypants. I'm not cherry picking out the stupidest idea, but that's the one the rest of it hangs on. There is absolutely no way we can make that happen.
Did you read that details or just the bolded section? That plan stems from charging fees to pay for the wall... not sending someone to mexico demanding that they fork over a check.
The rest of it ranges from the reasonable (tripling ICE agents
Agreed... that's reasonable.
, nationwide e-verify) to the dubious
Why would that be dubious? Two years ago, I had to show my employer (whom I worked for 13 years) proof that I'm a legal resident AND can legally work.
and sort of hypocritical (cutting off funds to sanctuary cities)
Que? What's hypocritical about that?
to the lol no (ending birthright citizenship).
Agreed... I feel like its just a "red meat" for the masses... but, in practice, when the rubber hits the road, there'll be no traction to change the constitution.
Of course, since Mr. Trump knows he'll never have to actually try to get any of these things passed, he has a free hand to say whatever he will get him the best ratings. I mean, don't hate the player, hate the game right?
Yes... he's a master troll here. He's forcing this conversations with the other Republican candidates.
CptJake wrote: I'm not sure you can do it without an amendment and have it make it through the courts.
Actually... it ought to be simple due to the fact that a child is a citizen should not and does not confer on the child’s parents and siblings the right to live in the United States. That right is strictly the right of the child. It is not wrong for the child to remain with the child’s parents in their country until reaching of age, and then deciding where to live. Simple solution to a simple problem.
I don't disagree in theory (heck, parents could even leave the child in the US with relatives who are here legally), but it would require policy changes and funding to enforce. And the optics of 'deporting babies or forcing families to separate' won't sell. And again, it WOULD be challenged in court.
Actually... it ought to be simple due to the fact that a child is a citizen should not and does not confer on the child’s parents and siblings the right to live in the United States. That right is strictly the right of the child. It is not wrong for the child to remain with the child’s parents in their country until reaching of age, and then deciding where to live. Simple solution to a simple problem.
Unless you want to mandate that the child remain with its parents until it reaches the age of majority, which is de facto deportation, you'll likely be dumping a bunch of kids into the social services system.
CptJake wrote: I'm not sure you can do it without an amendment and have it make it through the courts.
Actually... it ought to be simple due to the fact that a child is a citizen should not and does not confer on the child’s parents and siblings the right to live in the United States. That right is strictly the right of the child. It is not wrong for the child to remain with the child’s parents in their country until reaching of age, and then deciding where to live. Simple solution to a simple problem.
I don't disagree in theory (heck, parents could even leave the child in the US with relatives who are here legally), but it would require policy changes and funding to enforce. And the optics of 'deporting babies or forcing families to separate' won't sell. And again, it WOULD be challenged in court.
Agreed... but, there's a lot more support for this than you'd think. Hence why the master troll is a work here.
Actually... it ought to be simple due to the fact that a child is a citizen should not and does not confer on the child’s parents and siblings the right to live in the United States. That right is strictly the right of the child. It is not wrong for the child to remain with the child’s parents in their country until reaching of age, and then deciding where to live. Simple solution to a simple problem.
Unless you want to mandate that the child remain with its parents until it reaches the age of majority, which is de facto deportation, you'll likely be dumping a bunch of kids into the social services system.
Yup. That's what I'm arguing for. Keep the family together.
Did you read that details or just the bolded section? That plan stems from charging fees to pay for the wall... not sending someone to mexico demanding that they fork over a check.
No it doesn't. The fees Trump is proposing would amount to a drop in the bucket when it comes to the cost of constructing, and maintaining, a Great Wall of America*. What he is proposing is essentially a set of sanctions designed to push Mexico into giving the US a pile of money. Hell, two of the changes he specifically mentioned (increased fees on border crossing cards and NAFTA visas) actually work against the goal of reducing illegal immigration and visa overstays.
Re: sanctuary cities: I think they're a pretty gakky idea. I agree with the idea that the federal government is the sole arbiter of immigration policy, and that cities should neither enforce immigration laws nor hinder them. So I just as strongly feel that Sheriff Arpaio and Arizona were wrong for making stops solely on suspected unlawful immigration status as I feel that San Francisco shouldn't do what they do. It's not their role, either of them.
However, the hypocritical aspect comes into play when it's usually the same people who are arguing things are best decided at the local level and that the federal government is ALWAYS the problem,. and is too overreaching, that think that the federal government should defund sanctuary cities. It reeks of "it's best when the state and cities make their own policy, unless it's one I don't like".
I didn't think nationwide e-verify was dubious, I was putting it with the reasonable, even the no-brainer. Again, that is a federal role IMO and one states should pass on to them.
Has anybody happened to watch a Black Mirror episode "The Waldo Moment"? I was watching it last night and the whole time thinking that Trump had seen it and it was the impetus behind his campaign.
That's not a great plan. That's totally unworkable crazypants. I'm not cherry picking out the stupidest idea, but that's the one the rest of it hangs on. There is absolutely no way we can make that happen.
There's a way to make it happen, just ask this guy.
Ouze wrote: Re: sanctuary cities: I think they're a pretty gakky idea. I agree with the idea that the federal government is the sole arbiter of immigration policy, and that cities should neither enforce immigration laws nor hinder them. So I just as strongly feel that Sheriff Arpaio and Arizona were wrong for making stops solely on suspected unlawful immigration status as I feel that San Francisco shouldn't do what they do. It's not their role, either of them.
However, the hypocritical aspect comes into play when it's usually the same people who are arguing things are best decided at the local level and that the federal government is ALWAYS the problem,. and is too overreaching, that think that the federal government should defund sanctuary cities. It reeks of "it's best when the state and cities make their own policy, unless it's one I don't like".
I disagree that it's hypocritical. It's the law. If the states disagrees with it... then, take it up with the courts.
If the states want to have sanctuary cities, then they should do it w/o receiving any federal fundings if it's that important to them. How else do you enforcing it? Know what I mean?
I didn't think nationwide e-verify was dubious, I was putting it with the reasonable, even the no-brainer. Again, that is a federal role IMO and one states should pass on to them.
Huge difference. The constitution and a couple of centuries of case law make immigration enforcement and funding for the enforcement 100% a Federal issue. It is not really hypocritical in my opinion to demand the Feds step up and do one of the things they are actually mandated to do. Just as with war fighting, immigration is a Fed responsibility.
It is the extra stuff not actually explicitly mandated for the Feds that folks like me want to see pushed down to a level where it makes more sense and/or doesn't require vast and often inefficient federal resource expenditure.
That's not a great plan. That's totally unworkable crazypants. I'm not cherry picking out the stupidest idea, but that's the one the rest of it hangs on. There is absolutely no way we can make that happen.
There's a way to make it happen, just ask this guy.
I enjoyed the blacked haired D-bag and his advocating of slavery to build a wall. The blonde woman and Geraldo seem to be fairly sensible, I wonder how they stay employed at Foxnews.
At least Trump is putting out some details that show he actually put some thought into it.
Honestly, though, what good would a fething wall do? The Berlin Wall was one of the most heavily guarded walls in history, people still got through, and it was only 96 miles long. The US-Mexico border is 1,900 miles long. Patrols, surveillance systems, occasional towers, sure. But a border wall? Pfft, it's not like walls stopped El Chapo from getting out...
As regards Trump's immigration plan, I wouldn't be surprised if he just sunk the GOP's chances at the White House. This opinion piece sums it up better than I could:
It may not seem like it, but this week has seen the most significant development yet in the immigration debate’s role in the 2016 election. I’d go even farther — it’s possible that the entire presidential election just got decided.
Is that an overstatement? Maybe. But hear me out.
For months, people like me have been pointing to the fundamental challenge Republican presidential candidates face on immigration: they need to talk tough to appeal to their base in the primaries, but doing so risks alienating the Hispanic voters they’ll need in the general election. This was always going to be a difficult line to walk, but a bunch of their candidates just leaped off to one side.
After Donald Trump released his immigration plan, which includes an end to birthright citizenship — stating that if you were born in the United States but your parents were undocumented, you don’t get to be a citizen — some of his competitors jumped up to say that they agreed. NBC News asked Scott Walker the question directly, and he seemed to reply that he does favor an end to birthright citizenship, though his campaign qualified the statement later. Bobby Jindal tweeted, “We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants.” Then reporters began looking over others’ past statements to see where they stood on this issue, and found that this isn’t an uncommon position among the GOP field. Remember all the agonizing Republicans did about how they had to reach out to Hispanic voters? They never figured out how to do it, and now they’re running in the opposite direction.
Here is the list of Republican candidates who have at least suggested openness to ending birthright citizenship, which would mean repealing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution: Donald Trump, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, and Rick Santorum. That’s nearly half the GOP field, and more may be added to the list.
The 14th Amendment states in part: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It was passed after the Civil War to ensure that former slaves had all the legal rights of other citizens. You can’t end birthright citizenship without repealing it. That means that no matter who gets elected in 2016, birthright citizenship is not going to be eliminated. The bar is so high for amending the Constitution that it’s impossible to imagine any amendment this controversial getting ratified, which is as it should be.
But the political impact is going to be very real, whether or not the idea goes anywhere in practical terms. The simple fact is that if Republicans don’t improve their performance among Hispanic voters, they cannot win the White House. Period.
This discussion about birthright citizenship sends an incredibly clear message to Hispanic voters, a message of naked hostility to them and people like them. It’s possible to argue that you’re “pro-immigrant” while simultaneously saying we should build more walls and double the size of the Border Patrol. Indeed, many Republicans do, and while their argument may not be particularly persuasive, it’s not completely crazy. But you can’t say you’re pro-immigrant and advocate ending birthright citizenship. You just can’t.
I promise you that next fall, there are going to be ads like this running all over the country, and especially on Spanish-language media:
“My name is Lisa Hernandez. I was born in California, grew up there. I was valedictorian of my high school class, graduated from Yale, and now I’m in medical school; I’m going to be a pediatrician. But now Scott Walker and the Republicans say that because my mom is undocumented, that I’m not a real American and I shouldn’t be a citizen. I’m living the American Dream, but they want to take it away from me and people like me. Well I’ve got a message for you, Governor Walker. I’m every bit as American as your children. This country isn’t about who your parents were, it’s about everybody having a chance to work hard, achieve, and contribute to our future. It seems like some people forgot that.”
When a hundred ads like that one are blanketing the airwaves, the Republicans can say, “Wait, I support legal immigration!” all they want, but it won’t matter. Hispanic voters will have heard once again — and louder than ever before — that the GOP doesn’t like them and doesn’t want them. Will it be different if they nominate one of the candidates who doesn’t want to repeal birthright citizenship, like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio? Somewhat, but the damage among Hispanic voters could already be too great even for them to overcome.
Now let’s look at the magnitude of the challenge the Republicans face. A number of analysts have all come to the same conclusion: given that Hispanics are rapidly increasing their share of the population and whites’ share is declining, Republicans need to improve their performance among Hispanics to prevail.
And they may have to improve dramatically. For instance, in this analysis by Latino Decisions, under even the most absurdly optimistic scenario for Republicans — “that white voters consolidate behind the Republican Party at levels that were observed in 2014; that black participation and Democratic support returns to pre-Obama levels; and the expected growth in the Latino vote does not fully materialize” — the Republican candidate would need 42 percent of the Hispanic vote to win. As a point of comparison, according to exit polls Mitt Romney got 27 percent of Hispanic votes in 2012, while John McCain got 31 percent in 2008. Under a more likely scenario, with an electorate that votes something like in 2012 but with African-American turnout reduced, the Republican would need 47 percent of the Hispanic vote. In their worst-case scenario for Republicans — an electorate that votes identically to the way it did in 2012, but adjusted for changes in population — the Republican would need a stunning 52 percent of Hispanic votes.
So to sum up: even in the best possible situation when it comes to turnout and the vote choices of the rest of the electorate, the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 is going to have to pull off an absolutely heroic performance among Hispanic voters if he’s going to win.
That seemed awfully unlikely a week ago. How likely does it seem today?
The "Platte River" IT firm that stored HRC's backup server was a tiny 'mom & pops' shop with NO security clearance and NO internal security.
Nevermind that the equipment was alledgedly in the bathroom's closet!
O.o
The Onion or Duffel Bag wrote that... right?
Come on dude....sources, not British tabloids.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf isn't just an entertaining story, there's an important moral to be found in it
Sure, it's an exclusive get for that UK site. What's interesting is that no one is disputing this at all. Normally, you'd see some stories pointing out "yeah... that BS man).
Okay... let's try this straight from the horse's mouth?
Reporter: "did you wipe the server?"
HRC: "thats for the investigators to find out."
Da Fuq?!?! That's a hit Ad right there on the platter for Sanders/Republicans.
jasper76 wrote: As regards Trump's immigration plan, I wouldn't be surprised if he just sunk the GOP's chances at the White House. This opinion piece sums it up better than I could:
It may not seem like it, but this week has seen the most significant development yet in the immigration debate’s role in the 2016 election. I’d go even farther — it’s possible that the entire presidential election just got decided.
Is that an overstatement? Maybe. But hear me out.
For months, people like me have been pointing to the fundamental challenge Republican presidential candidates face on immigration: they need to talk tough to appeal to their base in the primaries, but doing so risks alienating the Hispanic voters they’ll need in the general election. This was always going to be a difficult line to walk, but a bunch of their candidates just leaped off to one side.
After Donald Trump released his immigration plan, which includes an end to birthright citizenship — stating that if you were born in the United States but your parents were undocumented, you don’t get to be a citizen — some of his competitors jumped up to say that they agreed. NBC News asked Scott Walker the question directly, and he seemed to reply that he does favor an end to birthright citizenship, though his campaign qualified the statement later. Bobby Jindal tweeted, “We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants.” Then reporters began looking over others’ past statements to see where they stood on this issue, and found that this isn’t an uncommon position among the GOP field. Remember all the agonizing Republicans did about how they had to reach out to Hispanic voters? They never figured out how to do it, and now they’re running in the opposite direction.
Here is the list of Republican candidates who have at least suggested openness to ending birthright citizenship, which would mean repealing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution: Donald Trump, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, and Rick Santorum. That’s nearly half the GOP field, and more may be added to the list.
The 14th Amendment states in part: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It was passed after the Civil War to ensure that former slaves had all the legal rights of other citizens. You can’t end birthright citizenship without repealing it. That means that no matter who gets elected in 2016, birthright citizenship is not going to be eliminated. The bar is so high for amending the Constitution that it’s impossible to imagine any amendment this controversial getting ratified, which is as it should be.
But the political impact is going to be very real, whether or not the idea goes anywhere in practical terms. The simple fact is that if Republicans don’t improve their performance among Hispanic voters, they cannot win the White House. Period.
This discussion about birthright citizenship sends an incredibly clear message to Hispanic voters, a message of naked hostility to them and people like them. It’s possible to argue that you’re “pro-immigrant” while simultaneously saying we should build more walls and double the size of the Border Patrol. Indeed, many Republicans do, and while their argument may not be particularly persuasive, it’s not completely crazy. But you can’t say you’re pro-immigrant and advocate ending birthright citizenship. You just can’t.
I promise you that next fall, there are going to be ads like this running all over the country, and especially on Spanish-language media:
“My name is Lisa Hernandez. I was born in California, grew up there. I was valedictorian of my high school class, graduated from Yale, and now I’m in medical school; I’m going to be a pediatrician. But now Scott Walker and the Republicans say that because my mom is undocumented, that I’m not a real American and I shouldn’t be a citizen. I’m living the American Dream, but they want to take it away from me and people like me. Well I’ve got a message for you, Governor Walker. I’m every bit as American as your children. This country isn’t about who your parents were, it’s about everybody having a chance to work hard, achieve, and contribute to our future. It seems like some people forgot that.”
When a hundred ads like that one are blanketing the airwaves, the Republicans can say, “Wait, I support legal immigration!” all they want, but it won’t matter. Hispanic voters will have heard once again — and louder than ever before — that the GOP doesn’t like them and doesn’t want them. Will it be different if they nominate one of the candidates who doesn’t want to repeal birthright citizenship, like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio? Somewhat, but the damage among Hispanic voters could already be too great even for them to overcome.
Now let’s look at the magnitude of the challenge the Republicans face. A number of analysts have all come to the same conclusion: given that Hispanics are rapidly increasing their share of the population and whites’ share is declining, Republicans need to improve their performance among Hispanics to prevail.
And they may have to improve dramatically. For instance, in this analysis by Latino Decisions, under even the most absurdly optimistic scenario for Republicans — “that white voters consolidate behind the Republican Party at levels that were observed in 2014; that black participation and Democratic support returns to pre-Obama levels; and the expected growth in the Latino vote does not fully materialize” — the Republican candidate would need 42 percent of the Hispanic vote to win. As a point of comparison, according to exit polls Mitt Romney got 27 percent of Hispanic votes in 2012, while John McCain got 31 percent in 2008. Under a more likely scenario, with an electorate that votes something like in 2012 but with African-American turnout reduced, the Republican would need 47 percent of the Hispanic vote. In their worst-case scenario for Republicans — an electorate that votes identically to the way it did in 2012, but adjusted for changes in population — the Republican would need a stunning 52 percent of Hispanic votes.
So to sum up: even in the best possible situation when it comes to turnout and the vote choices of the rest of the electorate, the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 is going to have to pull off an absolutely heroic performance among Hispanic voters if he’s going to win.
That seemed awfully unlikely a week ago. How likely does it seem today?
While I disagree with the idea of ending birthright citizenships... I think the writer is really underestimating how the majority feels about the current immigration policies.
whembly wrote: Sure, it's an exclusive get for that UK site. What's interesting is that no one is disputing this at all. Normally, you'd see some stories pointing out "yeah... that BS man).
The article may be factually true in every regard, but when its sandwhiced between
"It's good to be rich! Bikini-clad Princess Olympia of Greece enjoys lavish Bahamas getaway with cousin Talita von Furstenberg and Elle Macpherson's son"
and
"Donald Trump was AMAZING in bed' Former Penthouse Pet reveals the presidential hopeful had his secretary track her down after spotting her in sexy magazine spread... and he didn't disappoint"
But, give kudos to the man... there's a sense of watching-the-inevitable-train-wreck within the establishment GOP on how they're dealing with Trumpmania.
While I disagree with the idea of ending birthright citizenships... I think the writer is really underestimating how the majority feels about the current immigration policies.
I think you missed the point of the article. It's not about how whites or the national majority feel about immigration, its about how Hispanic voters, which are by all accounts crucial for a Republican White House victory, feel about the message they are receiving from Republican candidates about repealing the 14th Amendment.
whembly wrote: Sure, it's an exclusive get for that UK site. What's interesting is that no one is disputing this at all. Normally, you'd see some stories pointing out "yeah... that BS man).
The article may be factually true in every regard, but when its sandwhiced between
"It's good to be rich! Bikini-clad Princess Olympia of Greece enjoys lavish Bahamas getaway with cousin Talita von Furstenberg and Elle Macpherson's son"
and
"Donald Trump was AMAZING in bed' Former Penthouse Pet reveals the presidential hopeful had his secretary track her down after spotting her in sexy magazine spread... and he didn't disappoint"
noone is obligated to take it seriously.
I'm surprised no one chimed in yet with a "you gotta be gaking me".
While I disagree with the idea of ending birthright citizenships... I think the writer is really underestimating how the majority feels about the current immigration policies.
I think you missed the point of the article. It's not about how whites or the national majority feel about immigration, its about how Hispanic voters, which are by all accounts crucial for a Republican White House victory, feel about the message they are receiving from Republican candidates about repealing the 14th Amendment.
Didn't miss it. The author is overstating the impact.
And, the Hispanic voters (legal ones anyways) are not being counted on by GOP.
Besides, in order to lock up Florida... you'd really only need to have Rubio or Jeb! on the ticket.
Clinon-wise, If you're expecting me to jump up and say "This must be BS", don't hold your breath, because I don't know what her email situation is, and she doesn't have my vote at this stage anyways.
Immigration-wise, If the GOP doesn't take the Latino vote seriously, they'll be signing the same song they were after Romney, and have no one to blame but themselves.
In order for this debacle not to blow up in their faces, the best thing the establishment dudes (Jeb and Marco) can do is come out forcefully and unequivocally against repealing the 14th Amendment. But they can they do that and appease the right-wingers with the taste of red meat on their tongues? And is the brand even repairable Lation-wise? This is why this issue Trump has raised is so perilous for the GOPs presidential prospects.
jasper76 wrote: Clinon-wise, If you're expecting me to jump up and say "This must be BS", don't hold your breath, because I don't know what her email situation is, and she doesn't have my vote at this stage anyways.
Nah man... just conversing.
Immigration-wise, If the GOP doesn't take the Latino vote seriously, they'll be signing the same song they were after Romney, and have no one to blame but themselves.
Last election the Hispanic votes maintained the historical norm. Romeny got beat by the Obama's campaign ground game.
In order for this debacle not to blow up in their faces, the best thing the establishment dudes (Jeb and Marco) can do is come out forcefully and unequivocally against repealing the 14th Amendment. But they can they do that and appease the right-wingers with the taste of red meat on their establishment tongues? And is the brand even repairable Lation-wise? This is why this issue Trump has raised is so perilous for the GOPs presidential prospects.
Some are...
imo, the drums they should be beating are as follows: 1) Build a real wall, across the whole damn southern border, and guard it. Buff Coast Guards and port of entry staff throughout the US.
2) If you commit a crime and you're illegal. Deport their asses. No exception.
3) Allow US citizen, special interest groups to sue employers for damages if they hire illegals. (labor unions would lurrrrrrrrrve this)
4) Enforce the laws on the books, they exists, to reduce the incentives for illegals to immigrate to illegally work here in the states.
Beat those four drums... and it'll be popular with large swath of the voting public.
2004 - Bush wins with 44% of the Hispanic vote.
2008 - McCain loses wih 31%.of the Hispanic vote.
2012 - Romney loses with 27% of the Hispanic vote.
Unless you have your head in the sand, you know that the Hispanic share of the vote is increasing, and the white share of the vote is decreasing. And Romney never did anyhjng so idiotic as propose the repeal of the 14th Amendment, iirc.
.this proposition by its very nature will alienate Hispanics to the extreme. So it's up to Jeb and Marco to do some major damage control, and I don't think they are capable of cleaning up the mess without a alienating their base.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Made this post before seeing your reply...I don't pretend to know what is best for the country on this issue, just talking political repercussions here.
The Republicans in Congress have destroyed the GOP brand in my view, and the view of every other left-leaning people I know. This lot of candidates are certainly doing nothing at all to win my vote, and I doubt the people who voted for Obama once or twice are going to be impressed by what the GOP has to offer. Their ideas on immigration are not changing my mind in the least. I live in the mid-Atlantic, where, all things considered, we get along with Latinos just fine and have by-in-large embraced them as out neighbors.
Have the GOP delivered any meaningful campaign promise? Really?
The Brand isn't being hurt by your left-leaning friends jasper... that's not the intended targe. The Brand is damaged and it's the Republican voters are disaffected by the current batch of GOP voters.
Hence why the Trump/Carson/Fiorina is getting a little play now.
So you think immigration is the issue to use to fix the GOP brand nationally?
I can see it might draw some segment of unaffiliated voters, but I think it will alienate even more, especially and crucially those Latino voters who are otherwise conservative.
2004 - Bush wins with 44% of the Hispanic vote.
2008 - McCain loses wih 31%.of the Hispanic vote.
2012 - Romney loses with 27% of the Hispanic vote.
Unless you have your head in the sand, you know that the Hispanic share of the vote is increasing, and the white share of the vote is decreasing. And Romney never did anyhjng so idiotic as propose the repeal of the 14th Amendment, iirc.
.this proposition by its very nature will alienate Hispanics to the extreme. So it's up to Jeb and Marco to do some major damage control, and I don't think they are capable of cleaning up the mess without a alienating their base.
In line with this thought, increasingly I think the Republicans have the problem that in order for a candidate to win the primary election, they have to advocate positions so extreme as to assuredly be defeated in a general election.
Trump is a big part of this, in that he's seized the initiative. This is resulting in candidates having to take positions far earlier than they otherwise likely would have to, and having to take more...extreme positions than they otherwise might. A very bad place for a politician, particularly when they're doing to have to defend those positions outside of their base over a long campaigning season.
Yeah, the "viable candidates" are now in a weird position of having to support Trump's positions. At some point, some candidates besides Perry and Paul are going to have to step up, grow some gonads, and take the paper tiger down.
Well, the GOP could just pass a rule that says "no Trump", in which case he would assuredly run third party and completely destroy their chances. However, if he keeps talking, is is currently doing that anyway.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Well, the GOP could just pass a rule that says "no Trump", in which case he would assuredly run third party and completely destroy their chances. However, if he keeps talking, is is currently doing that anyway.
Trump said as much in the debate that he won't commit to the Republican brand because he has "leverage". When a real-estate tycoon talks about "leverage", there's little mystery in my mind as to what that means...blackmail. I.e. if you don't promise to make things nice for me, I'll run Independent and give this election right over to the Democrats. It's pretty thinly veiled, and the degree to which Republican voters don't care does speak to amount of faith they have lost in their party's leadership.
CptJake wrote: Huge difference. The constitution and a couple of centuries of case law make immigration enforcement and funding for the enforcement 100% a Federal issue. It is not really hypocritical in my opinion to demand the Feds step up and do one of the things they are actually mandated to do. Just as with war fighting, immigration is a Fed responsibility.
It is the extra stuff not actually explicitly mandated for the Feds that folks like me want to see pushed down to a level where it makes more sense and/or doesn't require vast and often inefficient federal resource expenditure.
Then you find someone who’s been negatively affected by illegal immigration, and have them take the government to court to make them enforce the existing laws. You don’t just assume the powers and responsibilities of federal government for yourself.
The same applies to any city or state that wants to open up immigration or create a path for national citizens.
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whembly wrote: And, the Hispanic voters (legal ones anyways) are not being counted on by GOP.
A successful GOP presidential run is maybe 50% about winning Republican votes, probably less than that. The big issue is in making sure that people who lean Democrat don’t bother this year. A lot of that is dependant on the Democratic candidate and his campaign team, but a major part is doing nothing to piss off people who lean Democrat.
There’s a hell of a lot of left leaning Hispanics that Democrats would have struggled to get the ballot, that are likely to go now, depending on how Trump's noise plays out and is handled by the rest of the field.
2004 - Bush wins with 44% of the Hispanic vote.
2008 - McCain loses wih 31%.of the Hispanic vote.
2012 - Romney loses with 27% of the Hispanic vote.
Unless you have your head in the sand, you know that the Hispanic share of the vote is increasing, and the white share of the vote is decreasing. And Romney never did anyhjng so idiotic as propose the repeal of the 14th Amendment, iirc.
.this proposition by its very nature will alienate Hispanics to the extreme. So it's up to Jeb and Marco to do some major damage control, and I don't think they are capable of cleaning up the mess without a alienating their base.
A successful GOP presidential run is maybe 50% about winning Republican votes, probably less than that. The big issue is in making sure that people who lean Democrat don’t bother this year. A lot of that is dependant on the Democratic candidate and his campaign team, but a major part is doing nothing to piss off people who lean Democrat.
There’s a hell of a lot of left leaning Hispanics that Democrats would have struggled to get the ballot, that are likely to go now, depending on how Trumps noise plays out.
Yep. And in 2000 Muslim voters were actually voting more than 50% Republican. They’re nowhere near as important a group as Hispanics, but it’s interesting to see how fairly normalised social conservatism actually plays pretty well with more recent immigrant groups.
But that’s been absolutely squandered by Republicans in the last decade, as Republicans have thrown them under the base to whip up more support among white voters.
Republicans have made a lot of really terrible strategic decisions in the last decade. Democrats haven’t been too impressive, of course, they’ve just sat there like a fairly inoffensive lump, and just watched Republicans shoot themselves in the foot.
Jihadin wrote: I'm agreeing with Shep from Fox. Think everyone is burned out with the career politicians and/or the establishment.
While I am sure that's so, who is running other than Ben Carson that isn't a professional politician? Carly Fiorina has been a failed political advisor/ failed candidate for office for nearly a decade. Donald Trump has been "running for President" since 1988. The only thing keeping them from being career politicians at this point is their utter lack of success at the polls.
I think we've successfully discussed why the idea of a magical outsider who flies in and fixes all the problems isn't a real thing in this thread previously so no need to belabor that.
Have the GOP delivered any meaningful campaign promise? Really?
The Brand isn't being hurt by your left-leaning friends jasper... that's not the intended targe. The Brand is damaged and it's the Republican voters are disaffected by the current batch of GOP voters.
Hence why the Trump/Carson/Fiorina is getting a little play now.
It’s an interesting list you put up, and I think looking at it closely shows an issue that’s deeper than simply failing to deliver. To look at Obamacare, they did fail to stop it but would anyone claim they could have done more to try? They held it in committee as long as possible, they voted en masse against it every step of the way, and they attempted ever possible court case they could imagine to try and ban it. And what if they had stopped it? Would anything in GOP politics be any different now?
Then consider government spending, where government spending has actually been dragged back significantly. Not just savings through the improved economy, but actual structural cuts. This is barely even known, let alone appreciated by the electorate.
I think it’s more about the messages the goals the party has focused on and the way they’ve sold them. Just looking at your own list, we see frustrated angst, there’s no greater vision translated to policy objectives. And then if we look at how Republicans have attempted to approach those goals, it gets even worse. To take government spending as an example, there’s been a hell of a lot of noise about unsustainability and doom saying, even threats to let the country hit the debt ceiling. But there’s been almost no attempt to provide a grounded alternative plan. The only efforts have been from guys like Paul Ryan, who basically released a con job held together with straight out lies.
Five years of that stuff (and Republicans have been doing it increasingly for twenty years, arguably) and it starts to corrode the party. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this thread, everyone is quick to write off Trump as a blow hard with no policy substance, including Republicans, but is there anything more meaningful coming out of the established candidates?
Jihadin wrote: I'm agreeing with Shep from Fox. Think everyone is burned out with the career politicians and/or the establishment.
While I am sure that's so, who is running other than Ben Carson that isn't a professional politician? Carly Fiorina has been a failed political advisor/ failed candidate for office for nearly a decade. Donald Trump has been "running for President" since 1988. The only thing keeping them from being career politicians at this point is their utter lack of success at the polls.
I think we've successfully discussed why the idea of a magical outsider who flies in and fixes all the problems isn't a real thing in this thread previously so no need to belabor that.
It's not that there's a belief that an "outsider" can fix all the problem
It's about punishingthe establishment and donor class.
Desparately trying to rile up some religiousosity street cred.
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sebster wrote: As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this thread, everyone is quick to write off Trump as a blow hard with no policy substance, including Republicans, but is there anything more meaningful coming out of the established candidates?
Again... it's not so much there isn't any meaningful plans from the established candidates.
whembly wrote: Again... it's not so much there isn't any meaningful plans from the established candidates.
It's just that we don't believe them.
This isn’t about a single candidate, or even about the group of candidates running in this primary. Remember the churn of outsider candidates in 2012? It happened then, and it’s happening again because there a core problem in the Republican party today.
Nor is it about trust. Trust what? There is nothing being promised to accept or disbelieve. There’s a lot of noise about individual issues. Most of those issues, like the Iran deal, will be done and dusted by the time the presidency is decided, while the rest, like abortion, won’t be resolved in any of our lifetimes, and certainly won’t be changed by a president. What no-one has given is any kind of framework for how the US should operate as a whole.
Plenty of Democrats fail to do that as well, and I think it’s a major failing of Hillary’s, but at least there she’s got the Democrat brand to fall back on. The difference is there is no Republican brand anymore. The old brand about a mature, steady hand on the reigns of government is just gone. Threats of shutdowns, ludicrous claims about death panels and birther nonsense have wiped that away.
So why not Trump? He’s ludicrous, but is he saying anything that, at its core, is any less ludicrous than Jeb! or Cruz’s stuff?
Honestly I would take an established lame duck president for 4 years over the "punish" the establishment candate that is likely to burn the country to the ground.
I am lucky that my degree will be finished by the time the next president takes office because I'd like the ability to move out of the country incase it gets terribad or badong for 4 to 8 years.
BrotherGecko wrote: Honestly I would take an established lame duck president for 4 years over the "punish" the establishment candate that is likely to burn the country to the ground.
Well... a "punish the establishment" candidate is just going to hand the election to the democrats.
Which is in keeping with Trump's inspirational campaign posters, I guess.
Plenty of Democrats fail to do that as well, and I think it’s a major failing of Hillary’s, but at least there she’s got the Democrat brand to fall back on. The difference is there is no Republican brand anymore. The old brand about a mature, steady hand on the reigns of government is just gone. Threats of shutdowns, ludicrous claims about death panels and birther nonsense have wiped that away.
So why not Trump? He’s ludicrous, but is he saying anything that, at its core, is any less ludicrous than Jeb! or Cruz’s stuff?
Yep. The issue comes down to a mix of the general issue that American politics focus overtly on specific issues with no unifying context (other than the ambiguous "American <blank>" phrases which basically mean nothing), and the Republican parties growing "feth you" attitude. It's really hard for a party to find national support when it spends the bulk of its time pandering to a very ill defined ideal of what America/ns are supposed to be while in complete ignorance of anything resembling reality.
Democrats haven’t been too impressive, of course, they’ve just sat there like a fairly inoffensive lump, and just watched Republicans shoot themselves in the foot.
Yup, exactly.
The disciplined, organized slick political machine that was the Republican Party that brought W to power in 2000 is dead and gone. The Democrats haven't really changed, but the Republicans are self-selecting themselves out of electability, cannibalizing each other in the name of orthodoxy and who can be the most extreme, making Barry Goldwater look like a goddam visionary They're on their way to becoming a regional party at this point.
Meanwhile the democrats sit there on their short bus eating paste, but they're letting everyone ride and are giving out paste for free
Democrats haven’t been too impressive, of course, they’ve just sat there like a fairly inoffensive lump, and just watched Republicans shoot themselves in the foot.
Yup, exactly.
The disciplined, organized slick political machine that was the Republican Party that brought W to power in 2000 is dead and gone. The Democrats haven't really changed, but the Republicans are self-selecting themselves out of electability, cannibalizing each other in the name of orthodoxy and who can be the most extreme, making Barry Goldwater look like a goddam visionary They're on their way to becoming a regional party at this point.
Yeah, the Republican machine was still mighty impressive in 2000, but the problems were already there, bubbling under the surface. By 2000 we were in to the decline of the Republican think tanks, many of which had been reputable for a long time, but were now putting out more and more dubious work, just to support the conservative line.
It probably wasn’t anything disastrous by then, but from 2006 on the question of what had gone wrong has been answered with ‘not conservative enough’. The gains in the 2010 and 2014 mid-terms ‘proved’ that idea, which meant nothing had to be done to correct the real long term issues.
Meanwhile the democrats sit there on their short bus eating paste, but they're letting everyone ride and are giving out paste for free
Meanwhile Greens and Libertarians are chasing that bus, trying to get on
US presidential hopefuls are making the customary stop at the Iowa State Fair this weekend. That means it is time for a classic campaign moment, devouring some of the fair's signature food.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump chose pork chop-on-a-stick, while Jeb Bush went for a deep fried Snickers bar. Mike Huckabee told reporters his wife had to stop him from overeating in the Iowa Pork Tent.
Humanizing the candidates by showing them indulging in humble fare is a well-known photo opportunity, though it can also be calorically immodest.
Strangely, that is directly at odds with US voters' current preference for trim leaders. In fact, as high-profile names seek the nation's highest office in 2016, experts say their weight could deeply affect their political clout. It wasn't always thus.
Historical legend has it that America's heaviest president, William Howard Taft, once became stuck in a bathtub and required the assistance of six men to free him.
The 27th president of the United States weighed nearly 340lbs (154kgs), but was luckily spared the harsh glare of television cameras during his White House tenure from 1909 to 1913.
Today, a man of Taft's size would have a much more difficult time winning the nation's highest office.
"There's an increasing pressure to conform to supposedly ideal body standards," says Paul Campos, professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder.
But, those ideal body standards are frequently changing.
In Taft's day, physical heft was associated with wealth, high social status and power, Campos, the author of the Obesity Myth, says.
The physical and financial largesse of early 20th Century railroad barons even inspired expressions including "fat cats" and "throw your weight around".
But the end of World War One concluded a period of relative scarcity. Plentiful food meant it became more difficult - and thus more attractive - to be physically trim.
Obesity - before the purview of the upper class - soon became associated with a lower socioeconomic status, Campos adds.
Soon a cult of thinness was born, which exists to this day, University of California, Los Angeles sociology professor Abigail Saguy says.
The author of What's Wrong with Fat? argues obesity has since become heavily stigmatised in American culture, and such negative views can hurt a larger candidate's chances with voters.
"We live in a society in which it is just so deeply ingrained and so taken for granted that it is better to be thin and worse to be fat, in terms of health, morality, attractiveness, everything," Saguy says.
Pop culture, 24-hour news, movies and magazines encourage a "halo effect" around the thin and attractive, she adds. This means voters can ascribe positive qualities to a candidate which they may not in fact possess.
The opposite can also hold true for heavier candidates, who may be unfairly perceived by voters as lazy, impulsive or unhealthy.
That hasn't stopped larger men, including Republicans Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee, from having their names bandied about for 2016, however.
According to US media, Christie told a group of Republican donors last September he had shed 85lbs after surgery in 2013, adding it was critical to his long-term political prospects.
After a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, Huckabee went on to lose more than 100 pounds. He even later wrote a motivational book about the experience, titled Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork.
Even former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has got in on the weight loss action. The Republican candidate employing a personal trainer and dropping several pounds in a recent push for the White House. He's reportedly on a Paleo diet, but must have made an exception for the deep-fried Snickers.
America's largest leaders by body mass index:
William Howard Taft, served from 1909-1913
Grover Cleveland, served from 1885-1889, 1893-1897
William McKinley, served from 1897-1901
Zachary Taylor, served from 1849-1850
Theodore Roosevelt, served from 1901-1909
ut, according to Saguy, none of these 2016 contenders will face as much scrutiny over their appearance as a female candidate, such as former Democratic Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should she put on the pounds.
"A fat woman is going to face much more prejudice as a political candidate than a fat man, because we're much less tolerant of fatness in women than we are of men," Campos says.
But the one-time first lady may have a secret weapon: her husband, Bill.
While in office, former Democratic president Bill Clinton was considered overweight and frequently lampooned for his well-known love of fast food.
But, in recent years he has publicly adopted veganism and dropped a sizable amount of weight.
If voters view the Clintons as a "package deal", says Campos, it may well help how people physically view Hillary in her anticipated run for the White House.
With more than one-third of US adults currently considered obese, more voters may be willing to overlook a few extra pounds as well.
In a July 2014 Vanity Fair poll, when asked how they felt about an overweight president, 64% of respondents said it has nothing to do with getting the job done.
But, even with some positive poll numbers, politicians will continue to be conscious of their appearance, strategist Jim Manley says.
The senior director with QGA Public Affairs says he saw celebrated Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy attempt to slim down prior to embarking on every campaign trail.
"I spent 21 years in the Senate, and it wasn't unusual for members to begin to lose weight before they went into an election cycle," Manley says.
"In this day and age, it's a factor that everyone, either male or female, has to be cognisant of."
There's few ...err...... bigger boned ...... top politicians in the UK too.
]Mike Huckabee wouldn't have allowed a 10 year old rape victim to have an abortion, right[/url]?
If you believe individual life begins at conception, then this is consistent as its preventing murder. Your inflammatory comment does nothing.
Tell us more about Planned Parenthood and how they need government money in the age of the ACA.
Vaktathi wrote: They're on their way to becoming a regional party at this point.
Ya know, that may not be the worst thing to happen though. I believe it was somewhere in this thread that someone said that this is the natural tendency anyhow (a more Progressive national government, and a more Classical Liberal/Conservative State government)... Obviously, you need a bit of classical liberalism at the top to counter the progressivism, but at the same time, we absolutely do not need "I don't like it, let's shut the whole thing down!!!" mentality going on.
I was just thinking so you can call me cray cray, but wouldn't repealing the 14th Amendment remove the citizenship of the decendants of those that benefited from its creation?
I mean there wouldn't be anything on paper saying they are citizens.
So would this create a new era of witch hunts? People needing to have rock solid family records or run the risk of being deported. Of course this would only apply to those of western protestant decent mostly and those that took the "right" route to citizenship.
). I still refuse to believe that they represent anything but a small percentage of voters.
glad I stayed out of that 
