US Election: 2016

[GAP]

Nah, just to early......try again in October....

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Nah, just to early......try again in October....

If she makes it til then.

 

[cupper]

BS and joking aside, the VP pick is significant when the top of the ticket is of questionable health or of an age that not serving out a full term may be an issue. John McCain is a prime example of why this matters, and even more so when looking at the trainwreck that was Palin post 2008.

 

[cupper]

Interesting article on just how much the GOP has fallen and given up in their rabidly dogged pursuit of destroying Obama through the last 8 years.

The Republicans tried to sink Obama. Instead, the party imploded

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/09/gop-tried-sink-obama-imploded-extremism

It may seem too early to call, but we already have a winner in the 2016 election.

He’s someone the pundits wrote off long ago. An improbable outsider who rode an insurgent wave to snatch the nomination from the establishment. An unconventional politician whose raucous rallies underscored his appeal to voters far outside his party base.

His name is Barack Obama. And he can thank the freak show that is Donald Trump’s Republican party for restoring his stature as a unifying, national leader with a moderated and mature approach to a complex and unstable world.

Eight years ago, Obama represented an existential threat to the Republican party, and not just because he was going to lead the Democratic party to win the White House and Congress by large margins.

No, Obama’s biggest threat was that he could realign American politics, shifting it fundamentally towards progressives for a generation. He and his campaign aides talked privately of being the Reagan of the left: a transformative figure who would leave an indelible legislative mark at home and restore America’s position on the world stage.

With his appeal to independents and moderate Republicans, Obama could break the Republican party as a national force. With his appeal to minority voters – a rapidly emerging majority across the country – he could lock in the fastest growing demographics that could turn red states blue.

So the GOP leadership chose to make Obama unacceptable, unpalatable and un-American. On the night of his first inauguration, House Republican leaders met at a Washington steakhouse to plot their path back to power. They would not reform their policies or consider the root cause of their defeat. Instead, they would oppose Obama on everything, well before he tried to pass a giant stimulus bill or healthcare reform.

They needed to deny him a reputation for bipartisanship and mainstream politics, and they succeeded. He wasn’t reasonable; he was an ideologue. His vision of healthcare reform wasn’t a free-market system based on Republican plans; it was a socialist takeover that would destroy the American way of life. He was inviting terrorist attacks on the homeland, not hunting down Osama bin Laden. He was acting in unconstitutional ways because he wasn’t really American at all.

The party of Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Roger Ailes had turned him into their own kind of freak.

Before he finished his second year in office, Obama was such an object of Republican loathing that the Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell could say – with impunity – that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

If your political priorities are the total defeat of a single politician – not the advancement of your own policies through debate or legislation – then you are already in pretty desperate shape. You render it impossible to compromise with your opponents, and you fan the flames of extremism that will burn anyone in the center.

You also look weak and foolish when you lose, surrendering the stage to someone who can vilify his opponents better than you. So don’t look dazed and confused at Donald Trump when he runs your playbook more convincingly than your own team. It’s too late to fret about endorsing his kooky positions – like deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, treating all Muslims as enemies and blowing up the deficit – when they are only logical extensions of your own.

After eight years of conservative caricature, you may be forgiven for thinking that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim socialist with terrorist sympathies and job-destroying policies on healthcare and bank regulation.

Of course, if you live inside the echo chamber of Fox News and rightwing talk radio, you have to ignore the pesky fact that unemployment now stands at 4.9%. That’s lower than when Reagan left office in 1988, and it’s lower than when Bill Clinton won re-election in 1996.

The rate stood at 8.3% in Obama’s first full month in office, and not much below that when he won re-election. For a president with a job-killing economic plan, that’s not a shabby performance.

Sure enough, Obama’s approval ratings (52%) are almost identical to Reagan’s in August 1988 (53%) and a dramatic contrast to those of George W Bush (32%) in 2008. One of these Republican presidents was succeeded by his own vice-president; the other was succeeded by Barack Obama.

This should lead to some serious soul-searching inside the Republican party. Not a post-mortem about how to reach out to Latino voters, but a dismantling of the politics of personal destruction, and the creation of a new, hopeful agenda that can appeal to the mainstream.

Instead, the only point of unity inside the GOP is its gleeful hatred of Hillary Clinton, and its thinly veiled disdain for a nominee who has yet to find a politician he can’t insult.

The Republican party did not entirely fail to destroy Barack Obama. For a few years, aided by the great recession, they almost succeeded. But then they contrived to revive him by nominating a man who would destroy everything Obama stood for, along with much of the free world as we know it.

The rise of Trump has led, perversely, to the revival of Obama. Republican candidates are saying they will not vote for their presidential nominee, and the party’s national security officials are lining up to condemn Trump as a reckless danger to the Republic. How could the incumbent not look like a statesman compared to a man who apparently can’t be trusted with the elevator button, never mind a nuclear one?

Inside the White House, Obama’s aides talk about a president liberated from previous constraint. On the trail, and at the podium, he seems to love campaigning against his orange nemesis. His party’s candidates can’t get enough of him, and his potential successor – instead of putting distance between them – believes Obama doesn’t get enough credit for his economic achievements.

This one-term president is having an unusually successful end to his second term, and for that he can thank the Republicans who were so determined to destroy him.

 

[cupper]

THIRTY THINGS DONALD TRUMP’S ADVISERS MANAGED TO PERSUADE HIM NOT TO DO LAST MONTH

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/thirty-things-donald-trumps-advisers-managed-to-persuade-him-not-to-do-last-month?intcid=mod-most-popular

1. Enter the Quicken Loans Arena riding on Chris Christie.

2. Open a rally in Dayton, Ohio, by making fun of Mitch McConnell’s neck.

3. Insinuate that Khizr Khan is somehow related to Khan, the “Star Trek” villain.

4. Change his campaign slogan from “Make America Great Again” to “Paul Ryan Will Pay.”

5. Secretly attend the Democratic National Convention disguised as his mysterious alter ego “John Miller.”

6. Swap the over-all palette of his hair and skin from orange to purple (“a very, very good color—a color for kings”).

7. Début his new nickname for Crooked Hillary’s running mate: Fartin’ Tim Kaine.

8. Claim that he saw “thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating” when the McRib went away.

9. Pelt Chris Christie with Oreos throughout his R.N.C. speech.

10. Retweet a message of support from @ExcitedForTheRaceWar.

11. Legally change the name of his youngest son, Barron, to Ted Cruz Sucks.

12. Slap all the books out of Washington Post reporter David A. Fahrenthold’s hands.

13. At a rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, introduce Chris Christie as “my very, very good friend, Stuffed Crusty.”

14. Drop Mike Pence and select the “Affluenza Teen” Ethan Couch as his running mate.

15. Make Chris Christie eat a bug.

16. Distance himself from David Duke by endorsing David Duke’s opponent in the K.K.K. Grand Wizard primary.

17. Announce to a crowd of thousands in Orlando, Florida, that, after it gave him the wrong size Coolatta®, Dunkin’ Donuts is “probably rigged.”

18. Drop Mike Pence and select the fictional character Gordon Gekko as his running mate.

19. Publicly beg the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s Seamless account and order her a “terrible, terrible pizza covered in mustard and hairs.”

20. Have Ivanka sit on his lap for the second and third nights of the Republican National Convention.

21. Begin a town hall in St. Paul, Virginia, by punching the head off a mannequin in a wig, labelled “Megyn Kelly.”

22. Drop Mike Pence and select himself as his own running mate.

23. Join the Warsaw Pact.

24. Make Chris Christie French-kiss a life-size Donald Trump cardboard cutout while pretending to throw up.

25. Devote an entire rally in Nashua, New Hampshire, to how Senator Kelly Ayotte “isn’t a ten.”

26. Attempt to quiet a crying baby in Greensboro, North Carolina, by throwing another baby at it.

27. Bonk Newt Gingrich’s and Rudy Giuliani’s heads together.

28. Unveil his plan to build “a big, beautiful wall in outer space to keep out ‘Space Mexicans,’ who are bringing lasers to this planet.”

29. Get a new wife.

30. Pants Pence.

 

[tomahawk6]

DNC staffer who was murdered was a wikileaks informant.Crazy stuff.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/wow-breaking-video-julian-assange-suggests-seth-rich-wikileaks-dnc-source-shot-dead-dc/

 

[Kirkhill]

Jeffrey Archer wouldn't dare to write this plot line.........

 

[dapaterson]

Jeffrey Archer wouldn't dare to write this plot line.........

Is he out of jail?

 

[Kirkhill]

Is he out of jail?

2003 apparently.... and still Baron Archer

 

[cupper]

Assange needs to STFU.

http://www.snopes.com/seth-conrad-rich/

 

[dapaterson]

2003 apparently.... and still Baron Archer

#CanPoliDigression  Hmm.. I see where Canada's Senate gets it, then - convicted perjurer, yet still a Lord.  A role model for The Duffster.

 

[cupper]

Trump's economic plan apparently includes breast augmentation.

http://youtu.be/IJigwEikRwY

 

[jollyjacktar]

Trump's economic plan apparently includes breast augmentation.

http://youtu.be/IJigwEikRwY

Why, is he going to become a stripper if he loses the bid?

 

[Kirkhill]

#CanPoliDigression  Hmm.. I see where Canada's Senate gets it, then - convicted perjurer, yet still a Lord.  A role model for The Duffster.

Lords are lords regardless of whether or not they are party bagmen, or if they have a seat in the House.  They are lords because they always have been and are entirely separate from the jumped up johnnies dumped in their seats by these political types..... Donchano?  ;D

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting take on how the Legacy media works:

https://pjmedia.com/diaryofamadvoter/2016/08/09/real-reason-msm-hates-trump/?singlepage=true

The Real Reason the Mainstream Media Hates Trump
BY ROGER L SIMON AUGUST 9, 2016 CHAT 276 COMMENTS

In a much talked about August 7 piece—“Trump Is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism”—New York Times "mediator" Jim Rutenberg takes the mainstream media out of the closet and publicly declares them in the tank for Hillary.

As front page news this is not exactly man bites dog, but he goes further actually to excuse this bias because, after all, Trump is Trump:

If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?

How're you supposed to cover a woman whose family foundation helped Putin corner the uranium market? Oh, never mind. Rutenberg's point is that the barbarian Trump has put those Fourth Estate idealists in a quandary as never before. The poor dears always try to be neutral, but The Donald is just too many bridges too far. They just can't be even-handed anymore. (Please stay clear of your computer screen if you start to sputter.)

But the truth is that—although he can be a loudmouthed blowhard with poor impulse control—Trump is not remotely  what they say he is: a racist, sexist demagogue. In fact, if you bother to look it up, he was more than a decade ahead of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on one of the most "sainted" of all liberal issues—gay marriage.  But don't expect to see that covered by Gutenberg, et al.

The real reason the MSM disdains, even loathes, Trump is that he threatens what I call The Big Wink, which means he threatens them.
Qu'est-ce que c'est The Big Wink?

We saw it writ large during the (media pronounced) highly successful Democratic National Convention—the key topic of which, beside the excoriation of Donald Trump, was the rescue of the middle class, a middle class, no one admitted, that has done surpassingly poorly during the Obama administration. Improving the situation of minorities was also, as always, invoked, even though minorities, particularly blacks, have done even more wretchedly over the last eight years.

Unspoken, not surprisingly, was a truly uncomfortable truth—the people who have done best under the Obama administration are the rich. No one said or did anything for eight years as the labor participation rate declined to new lows and stocks rose to new highs. The rich profited at the expense of the poor (somewhat) and the middle class (a lot). The Democrats have become the secret—or not so secret—party of the rich.

The media are, for the most part, those rich people, the most successful of them ensconced well up into the higher reaches of the one percent. They also are people who like to think good of themselves, that they are "doing good." For the older ones, now in control, this comes from their "fight the power" college days, only now they are the power. How do you resolve such a contradiction? By making morally narcissistic pronouncements  on behalf of the disadvantaged while privately hoping for, even working for, the status quo.

No more perfect candidate of the status quo has ever come along than Hillary Clinton. She personifies the status quo. Nothing will change under Hillary—for the country or the media. It's all downhill from here.

Her lifetime reputation as a serial liar and crony capitalist only amplifies this. It's hard to believe she really means it when she makes such outrageous proposals as her confiscatory capital gains plan that could cause a Depression. Wink, wink, she's a Wall Street girl—and everybody, especially the media, knows it. She won't do anything the slightest bit extreme.  And they like it that way, even if they don't admit it to themselves. Better for the old 401K and property values in the Meatpacking District. No one really believes Hillary will follow through with those dopey leftwing proposals—not that she has anything else to offer, but that doesn't matter. Nor will she put more than a slight delay in the TPP trade agreement. It's all a Big Wink, designed to fool the Sanders supporters and, of course, the always handy minorities. Power and money are everything.

Donald Trump is a wholly different matter. No one, especially the media, knows what he really intends to do.  The media doesn't like this because if there's one thing they don't like, no matter what they profess, it is change. Or loss of control.

No wonder they don't like Donald and seize on his every miscue or aside as if he were the second coming of Attila bent on overrunning our nation and quite possibly the world. (Compare that to how they shrug their shoulders at Hillary's actual misdeeds.) What they hate most of all is the temerity of the vulgar Queens billionaire in exposing the haute bourgeois lifestyle of the Upper West Side for what it is—fake and self-serving.  The way things look now, they won't let him survive it.

 

[ModlrMike]

The other thing the media doesn't like is that in today's internet age, you can go back and look at the source information for yourself. When we were primarily in the age of print, the press had virtually absolute control of information. Now it's out there for everyone to see for themselves. Sadly, few do.

 

[George Wallace]

True/Not True?

This is supposed to be a poll conducted by college kids:

[edit to add: https://www.lyingcrookedhillary.com/ is credited at bottom of page as a "Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc." site]

 

[The Bread Guy]

Interesting find and good question - I can't find the list of questions or stats like margin of error anyplace.

True/Not True?

This is supposed to be a poll conducted by college kids:

[edit to add: https://www.lyingcrookedhillary.com/ is credited at bottom of page as a "Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc." site]

 

[George Wallace]

Interesting find and good question - I can't find the list of questions or stats like margin of error anyplace.

As you follow the money/internet links and see it is sponsored by the Trump campaign, it could just be the Trump propaganda machine at work. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

As you follow the money/internet links and see it is sponsored by the Trump campaign, it could just be the Trump propaganda machine at work.

True - pay the piper, call the tune and all that - but one never knows.  I'm going to do a bit deeper dive later this evening for details on this, but the fact that it's not readily available also speaks a bit of some truth.

I'm kinda intrigued from a statistical standpoint re:  more responses can generally make results closer to "reality," but you can't tell without a bit more detail than what's on the graphic that's out there.

Also, like others smarter than me here (lots, I know), the only poll that counts is the vote - all else are like bikinis:  interesting in what they reveal, but vital in what they don't  ;D