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 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Whew... glad I'm in Johnson's camp.

That article was a great summary of just how far short of the requirements of the presidency Donald Trump falls.

On Johnson, given the guy was unable to name a world leader he admires, and ended up floundering about for a Mexican President who's name he couldn't recall, do you know admit that his Aleppo wasn't just a mind blank. That he's actually hopelessly lightweight on foreign policy knowledge? And if you do concede that, do you also accept that Johnson's first effort to minimize his Aleppo comment as just a mind blank was actually an attempt to hide his actual ignorance of the subject?

Yeah... I'll concede Johnson is a light weight in foreign policy and disasterously tried to spin it away.

USA Today could've gone further imo on Cheeto Jesus.
-He's cruel to people on a consistent basis.
-He once pretended to be a pro-Trump publicist named John Miller on a telephone call, and every person with ears and a brain knows it was him...yet he denied it.
-He avoided military service based on obvious made up, bs medical excuse.
-He disparaged war heros like John McCain and that gold star familly

Trump is the "Here, hold my beer and watch this" dick.

Someone watched the latest episode of South Park

 Ouze wrote:

 sebster wrote:
On Johnson, given the guy was unable to name a world leader he admires

Which is even odder, since you should always be able to fall back on Bob Hawke.

And on top of being awesome, Bob Hawke was a seriously good Prime Minister. Elected from the left, he then enacted the broadest and most effective free market reforms in my country's history.

He'd also be basically unelectable today, which is a bit of a shame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
Yeah... I'll concede Johnson is a light weight in foreign policy and disasterously tried to spin it away.

Cool. And it is worth remembering the guy is a protest vote, he won't actually end up running the country. It's okay in that context to vote for him as a protest, or because you agree with him on a bunch of domestic issues. With that in mind Johnson should probably have just run with a 'foreign policy schmoreign policy' position from the start.

 Ouze wrote:

 sebster wrote:
On Johnson, given the guy was unable to name a world leader he admires

Which is even odder, since you should always be able to fall back on Bob Hawke.

The man's a national treasure. And as sebster said, actually a decent leader as well.

Summary of where Clinton and Trump have spent their TV dollars. What's Clinton spending that money in Nebraska for? She's down in the state by about 20 points. Meanwhile she's stopped spending in Colorado, which is as likely as any state to be her tipping point. Similarly, what is Trump spending in Michigan for? He takes Michigan he's already going to have won big. I wonder if a lot of this spending is planned a month or two in advance, so that by now, with the election turning out as it has, a lot of it doesn't really make a lot of sense.



The link has plenty more info and graphs. Most interesting is that Clinton has outspent Trump by 6:1 so far.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-tv-ads/

 Ouze wrote:
Well, look at these dumbasses.

What's truly asinine is that they're somehow blaming Obama for not warning them ahead of time of the potential consequences. I'm no great brain myself, but I foresaw the consequences immediately. Apparently Obama's press releases, interviews, and the veto itself wasn't enough to tell them? What more could they need to get the message?

Trump is on another twitter rant, continuing his attack on the woman he fat shamed 20 years ago. He's now claiming she was in a sex tape, which is both untrue and sort of irrelevant to his own boorish behavior.

 Ouze wrote:
Trump is on another twitter rant, continuing his attack on the woman he fat shamed 20 years ago. He's now claiming she was in a sex tape, which is both untrue and sort of irrelevant to his own boorish behavior.

That last line is kind of ironic.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Well, look at these dumbasses.

What's truly asinine is that they're somehow blaming Obama for not warning them ahead of time of the potential consequences. I'm no great brain myself, but I foresaw the consequences immediately. Apparently Obama's press releases, interviews, and the veto itself wasn't enough to tell them? What more could they need to get the message?

This. They have effectively admitted that none of them have a fething clue what they are doing and are incapable of examining the laws they are voting on with anything remotely approaching the rationality required to identify problems in them.

For anyone who didn't watch the debate, at no point did Hillary claim she was a paragon of virtue or an angel, obviously. Not sure there's any point in even saying that because, JFC, who exactly is it news to that Donald Trump is full of gak.

Did we also miss that the Trump Foundation apparently doesn't have the necessary verification to solicit money?

The amount of psychological projection from Trump is amazing. I can't wait for someone to dig up the Trump sex tape in a week or so.

 Ouze wrote:
For anyone who didn't watch the debate, at no point did Hillary claim she was a paragon of virtue or an angel, obviously. Not sure there's any point in even saying that because, JFC, who exactly is it news to that Donald Trump is full of gak.

Her owning of the email scandal worked pretty perfectly, as it threw off Trump.

Edit: Holy crap, getting a link to work is apparently hard.

infinite_array wrote:
Did we also miss that the [urk=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-foundation-lacks-the-certification-required-for-charities-that-solicit-money/2016/09/29/7dac6a68-8658-11e6-ac72-a29979381495_story.htm']Trump Foundation apparently doesn't have the necessary verification to solicit money?/url]

The amount of psychological projection from Trump is amazing. I can't wait for someone to dig up the Trump sex tape in a week or so.

isn't incest porn illegal? who wants to see trump with his daughter, ewwww.

infinite_array wrote:
I can't wait for someone to dig up the Trump sex tape in a week or so.

That tape would be the best, ever, yuge, just really terrific.

 sebster wrote:

On Johnson, given the guy was unable to name a world leader he admires, and ended up floundering about for a Mexican President who's name he couldn't recall, do you know admit that his Aleppo wasn't just a mind blank. That he's actually hopelessly lightweight on foreign policy knowledge? And if you do concede that, do you also accept that Johnson's first effort to minimize his Aleppo comment as just a mind blank was actually an attempt to hide his actual ignorance of the subject?

I thought everyone knew Trudeau! He's just so dreamy!

 sebster wrote:
Summary of where Clinton and Trump have spent their TV dollars. What's Clinton spending that money in Nebraska for? She's down in the state by about 20 points. Meanwhile she's stopped spending in Colorado, which is as likely as any state to be her tipping point. Similarly, what is Trump spending in Michigan for? He takes Michigan he's already going to have won big. I wonder if a lot of this spending is planned a month or two in advance, so that by now, with the election turning out as it has, a lot of it doesn't really make a lot of sense.



The link has plenty more info and graphs. Most interesting is that Clinton has outspent Trump by 6:1 so far.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-tv-ads/

That's an interesting read... thanks.

If you believe the race is close (I don't), the fact that Clinton is outspending Trump 6:1 further highlights that the amount of $$$ doesn't guarantee or even influence elections as much as people think. Which leads me to believe that the angst against super-PAC and Citizen United are misdirected.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Well, look at these dumbasses.

What's truly asinine is that they're somehow blaming Obama for not warning them ahead of time of the potential consequences. I'm no great brain myself, but I foresaw the consequences immediately. Apparently Obama's press releases, interviews, and the veto itself wasn't enough to tell them? What more could they need to get the message?

Maybe they had to pass it to find out what's in it?

well this is interesting, Johnson is barely trailing trump from the military vote. they're within the margin of error so they're basically tied.

http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/this-poll-of-the-us-military-has-gary-johnson-tied-with-donald-trump-in-the-race-for-president

Among the entire military force, Trump leads Johnson 37.6 percent to 36.5 percent, within the study’s 2 percent margin of error. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton trails as a distant third-place choice, with only 16.3 percent of troops' support.

 d-usa wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Well, look at these dumbasses.

What's truly asinine is that they're somehow blaming Obama for not warning them ahead of time of the potential consequences. I'm no great brain myself, but I foresaw the consequences immediately. Apparently Obama's press releases, interviews, and the veto itself wasn't enough to tell them? What more could they need to get the message?

Maybe they had to pass it to find out what's in it?

You know, I just realized that CNN used the most appropriate image possible for that story.

That is an Obama who is so tired of this gak and cannot believe that it is being blamed on him, yet again

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Well, look at these dumbasses.

What's truly asinine is that they're somehow blaming Obama for not warning them ahead of time of the potential consequences. I'm no great brain myself, but I foresaw the consequences immediately. Apparently Obama's press releases, interviews, and the veto itself wasn't enough to tell them? What more could they need to get the message?

This. They have effectively admitted that none of them have a fething clue what they are doing and are incapable of examining the laws they are voting on with anything remotely approaching the rationality required to identify problems in them.

Thing is, though, I can understand them not reading every word of the law being passed due to all the legalese in it. BUT, they still pay people on their staff to do that for them! So, not only do we have lazy or stupid politicians, but we also have lazy or stupid advisors for our politicians.

 Ouze wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Well, look at these dumbasses.

What's truly asinine is that they're somehow blaming Obama for not warning them ahead of time of the potential consequences. I'm no great brain myself, but I foresaw the consequences immediately. Apparently Obama's press releases, interviews, and the veto itself wasn't enough to tell them? What more could they need to get the message?

Maybe they had to pass it to find out what's in it?

You know, I just realized that CNN used the most appropriate image possible for that story.

Spoiler:

That really needs some Meme lettering saying something funny and beyond my ability to think of.

I'm amused that the party that likes harping about 'personal responsibility' tried to blame someone else for their mistake and lack of forethought.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

Thing is, though, I can understand them not reading every word of the law being passed due to all the legalese in it. BUT, they still pay people on their staff to do that for them! So, not only do we have lazy or stupid politicians, but we also have lazy or stupid advisors for our politicians.

The most damning thing is that this wasn't some flaw resulting from a legal technicality, but the conceptual basis of the legislation itself. In essence, JASTA doesn't have flaws, JASTA is a flaw; one so blatantly obvious that only someone completely ignorant of international politics (as in "failed high school social studies" ignorant) could ever think it was a good idea.

Not sure where to put this, but its surely political so...
(hurray for 'Bama even though I almost fell off your battleship)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/09/30/alabama_chief_justice_roy_moore_suspended_for_judicial_misconduct.html



Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended without pay from the state supreme court on Friday—a suspension that will last through the remainder of his term, which ends in 2018. The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Committee found that Moore violated ethics laws and judicial canons by repeatedly attempting to block same-sex marriage in Alabama long after the federal judiciary required it.

Moore’s misconduct regarding same-sex marriage litigation was sweeping and extensive. In January of 2015, a federal judge invalidated the state’s same-sex marriage ban. Moore promptly wrote letters to probate judges insisting that they remained legally prohibited from marrying gay people—in effect, demanding that they violate a federal court order. In May of that year, the judge explicitly held that probate judges must issue marriage licenses to all couples, same-sex or opposite-sex. The next month, the Supreme Court held that same-sex marriage bans violate the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Yet in January of 2016, Moore issued yet another letter ordering probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Then, in March, Moore penned a bizarre opinion calling the Supreme Court’s decision “immoral,” “tyrannical,” and “unconstitutional.” He declared that he would refuse to follow it and urged all other state judges to follow suit. In response to Moore’s repeated defiance of federal court orders, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a judicial ethics complaint against him. Moore secured Mat Staver, Kim Davis’ attorney, to defend him.

Alabama’s judicial ethics committee is not a beacon of progressivism. Its judgment in the Moore case begins with a declaration that many members of the committee do not “personally agree” with the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling or think it was “well reasoned.” But the committee unanimously concluded that Moore had abused his position, violated the integrity of the judiciary, failed to comply with the law and perform his duties impartially, and brought “the judicial office into disrepute.” In addition to suspending Moore, the committee ordered him to pay “the costs of this proceeding.”

Moore has already been removed from the bench once, in 2003, for refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a massive granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama State Judicial Building. Alabama voters, however, reelected him in 2012. In response to the Moore proceedings, the Alabama Republican Party is attempting to diminish the ethics’ committee’s independence.

>In response to the Moore proceedings, the Alabama Republican Party is attempting to diminish the ethics’ committee’s independence.

Obviously the committee was the problem.

If they keep electing him, he's the judge they deserve

Just as if Trump wins, he's the President we deserve

 skyth wrote:
I'm amused that the party that likes harping about 'personal responsibility' tried to blame someone else for their mistake and lack of forethought.

The crazy thing is, any one of them could have scheduled a talk with the President or one of his aids, gotten educated on why and then made an informed choice. I actually ashamed that I grew up republican sometimes.

 dogma wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

Thing is, though, I can understand them not reading every word of the law being passed due to all the legalese in it. BUT, they still pay people on their staff to do that for them! So, not only do we have lazy or stupid politicians, but we also have lazy or stupid advisors for our politicians.

The most damning thing is that this wasn't some flaw resulting from a legal technicality, but the conceptual basis of the legislation itself. In essence, JASTA doesn't have flaws, JASTA is a flaw; one so blatantly obvious that only someone completely ignorant of international politics (as in "failed high school social studies" ignorant) could ever think it was a good idea.

Unless of course their concept of a good idea begins and ends with pandering, in which case it was a good idea. (It was still a bad idea).

Next week's headline: congress passes a bill that overturns their overturn of a presidential veto of a bill they passed. And people say things never get done in Congress...

 whembly wrote:
If you believe the race is close (I don't), the fact that Clinton is outspending Trump 6:1 further highlights that the amount of $$$ doesn't guarantee or even influence elections as much as people think. Which leads me to believe that the angst against super-PAC and Citizen United are misdirected.

Well...sure, because advertising isn't a 'place ad => get results' kind of business. You can spend a lot of money on ads that turn out to be ineffective due to poor strategy (placement, positioning, audience selection, etc). Or maybe the creative stinks. Or maybe the creative and strategy are both solid, but the product is bad.

There are many pitfalls in advertising, and yet most companies (or candidates) would *much* rather be doing it than not. Someone once told me that when McDonald's tested not advertising anywhere in the country on a given day, they could see a drop in sales. And yet it's fairly impossible to create an algorithm to predict the success of advertising, just because there are so many varied and complicated factors involved.

Another point is that those state-by-state numbers don't tell the whole story. For instance, Clinton's campaign in particular is almost certainly doing some micro-targeting in certain districts, etc. So a number might look modest in a given state, but that's because they intentionally aren't blanketing the state, but instead making very focused buys.

 gorgon wrote:

 whembly wrote:
If you believe the race is close (I don't), the fact that Clinton is outspending Trump 6:1 further highlights that the amount of $$$ doesn't guarantee or even influence elections as much as people think. Which leads me to believe that the angst against super-PAC and Citizen United are misdirected.

Well...sure, because advertising isn't a 'place ad => get results' kind of business. You can spend a lot of money on ads that turn out to be ineffective due to poor strategy (placement, positioning, audience selection, etc). Or maybe the creative stinks. Or maybe the creative and strategy are both solid, but the product is bad.

There are many pitfalls in advertising, and yet most companies (or candidates) would *much* rather be doing it than not. Someone once told me that when McDonald's tested not advertising anywhere in the country on a given day, they could see a drop in sales. And yet it's fairly impossible to create an algorithm to predict the success of advertising, just because there are so many varied and complicated factors involved.

Another point is that those state-by-state numbers don't tell the whole story. For instance, Clinton's campaign in particular is almost certainly doing some micro-targeting in certain districts, etc. So a number might look modest in a given state, but that's because they intentionally aren't blanketing the state, but instead making very focused buys.

We already know texas is going to vote for trump, and california is going to vote for hillary. When it comes to politics, everyone loves the Bi states

most straight states never change, so there's really no point in spending a lot of money in states that will never vote for you, that's why all the big money is spent in swing states. and the ads get catered to them.

When it comes to super pacs though, you could have the IS running one and dumping billions of dollars into it to influence our elections. they're bad because no one knows who is contributing to them.