US Election 2016: DO NOT MY FRIENDS BECOME ADDICTED TO WATER

[Kalbear]

While Sanders is going after longtime successful senators because they are against him (and alienating even more people while doing so), that's just typical fighting between candidates in the same party. The DNP has basically told Sanders to fuck off. 

No, we need to go to the other side to get actual supervillain behaviors. 

In this case, Trump has noticed that California is under a 4-year drought. Clearly, the problem is...um...there isn't a drought.

Quote

 

Trump said state officials were simply denying water to Central Valley farmers to prioritize the Delta smelt, a native California fish nearing extinction — or as Trump called it, "a certain kind of three-inch fish.”

“We’re going to solve your water problem. You have a water problem that is so insane. It is so ridiculous where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea,” Trump told thousands of supporters at the campaign event.

 

We have imagery of how Trump will give back the water here.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

While Sanders is going after longtime successful senators because they are against him (and alienating even more people while doing so), that's just typical fighting between candidates in the same party. The DNP has basically told Sanders to fuck off. 

No, we need to go to the other side to get actual supervillain behaviors. 

In this case, Trump has noticed that California is under a 4-year drought. Clearly, the problem is...um...there isn't a drought.

We have imagery of how Trump will give back the water here.

I somewhat expected a different image. Something photoshopped, that has Trump wearing a sombrero and pissing from wall into the mojave desert. 

And I am not sure, that certain three-inch fish might simply be "little Donald". So Trump business as usual.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Notone said:

I somewhat expected a different image. Something photoshopped, that has Trump wearing a sombrero and pissing from wall into the mojave desert. 

And I am not sure, that certain three-inch fish might simply be "little Donald". So Trump business as usual.

Is this better? From the amazing tumblr Immortan Don

[Red Hermit]

Trump's ignorant statements on climate change and possible derailment of criminal justice reform are more reasons not to buy into the "well at least things might be different under him" train of thinking.

[Jace, Extat]

On 5/24/2016 at 7:33 PM, DanteGabriel said:

Not hard to see that Maester Drew wants to avert the catastrophe of a Trumpian Presidency but maintain his hard-won moral purity by not having to cast a vote for the evil Hillary Clinton.

Expecting others to do what's necessary while keeping your own hands and conscience 'clean'. Sounds like the thinking of an entitled child to me.

On 5/24/2016 at 7:44 PM, Kalbear said:

I guess I don't see it as bullying, but sorry you do, and I'm sorry you feel bullied. 

I see it as being personally responsible for voting sanely. To me, writing in Sanders in the general is as sane an act as voting for Vermin Love Supreme. It has little to do with voting your conscience, particularly given that the person who you'd be voting for specifically stated that wasn't what they wanted. 

 

On 5/25/2016 at 9:07 PM, Maester Drew said:

Finally, my voting for Hillary would still be self-defeating, given where I live. So even if right now, I was suddenly inspired to vote for Hillary and do so in November, it wouldn't change the fact my state will go to Trump.

So, according to you:

• Writing in Bernie: self defeating
• Voting for Stein: self defeating
• Voting for Johnson: self defeating
• Voting for Hillary: not self defeating?

We all looked at the demographics and polls of my state two threads back, if I'm supposed to vote for someone in which it wouldn't be self defeating, then it'd have to be for Trump. And that is something I ain't willing to do.

 

This is fucking insane! And it's why we have abysmal voter turnout in this country. Your vote is the only actual measure of control you have over your government and you would rather throw it away (or not use it at all) than compromise your precious morals to prevent active regression. Here's a news flash, your messiah Bernie Sanders is not perfect. You've latched onto him for what could be a myriad of reasons (if I had to guess, because he's the king of facebook), but he's as flawed as any other man or woman on earth and certainly as petty and vindictive as many. No perfect candidate is coming, but if you want to stick your clean conscience in the sand until the next cute fad comes along and call it a revolution, that's your prerogative. But spare us your tales of moral virtue while we do our best to drag our society out of the stagnant abyss one flawed and incomplete candidate at a time.

It's easy to be lazy or absolve yourself of responsibility and call it a moral stand, compromising and pushing forward takes actual effort.

On 5/25/2016 at 11:35 PM, DanteGabriel said:

Jesus Christ, this isn't about convincing you that Texas will go Democrat or needing to explain to me how the fucking Electoral College works. I actually voted in 2000, I know there's a difference between the Electoral College and the popular vote.

This is about the fucking definition of "self-defeating." You described a vote for Clinton as "self-defeating" which does not fit the definition of the fucking term, because voting for Clinton does not make a Trump victory more likely. I've tried to explain this multiple times. Kalbear explained it to you. Either you understand what "self-defeating" means or you don't. Either way, I'm done.

Hear, hear! Get 'em, tiger.

On 5/25/2016 at 3:43 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You know I've never read Mein Kampf before but I found a copy on the free table in the library last night so I picked it up.  It is scary to see how close Hitler is to Trump's blowhardedness.

This comparison remains absurd. Donald Trump is not Hitler 2.0, he lacks a lot of the pure evil attributes.

He's more like Mussolini, a fucking cartoon caricature of the worst kind of humanity.

 

On 5/26/2016 at 0:35 PM, Kalbear said:

I was just going to post how this would have been a brilliant bit of political judo worthy of Obama. Nothing but upside for him, nothing but downside for his opponents. Wonder why he chickened out?

 

Because he doesn't have a strategic thought in his fucking head is why. Much like when I heard he had said 'we don't have to worry about the debt' and had yet to hear the full story I thought for a moment he was actually revealing some kind of actual intelligence, but thankfully the universe always restores balance.

On 5/26/2016 at 5:08 PM, Kalbear said:

Palin is an excellent improvisational speaker. Similar to Trump, actually, though her ideas tend to have less rational coherence. 

Obama is an excellent speaker, period. His tone and inflection is almost perfectly suited to convey emotional and intellectual importance, he uses the preacher's tricks of rising in the middle and lowering at the end so that you follow his sentences with greater attention (this is also a favored trick of Frank Underwood in House of Cards). He has very few vocal ticks or oddities. He has almost flawless enunciation. And he manages to speak with clear conviction. Obama is going to be studied as one of the best political speakers that we have recordings of. 

Gawd, I think I actually like you when you're not confused about Luck>Wilson.

On 5/27/2016 at 10:06 AM, TrackerNeil said:

I knew it! I knew that bottom-feeding, over-polished, ambition-drenched opportunistic little scumbag was going to come around. I didn't think Little Marco could be more pathetic after losing his home state, but apparently there is at least one way in which Rubio never disappoints: he can always be more pathetic than you think.

I'm admittedly a little bit surprised. Marco was the one wooden puppet toy on the Republican debate stage who I thought reacted appropriately to Trumps antics, basically by throwing his normally sized hands in the air in disbelief at the childish antics. But I guess being a shitty person at heart won in the end.

On 5/27/2016 at 11:00 AM, Tywin et al. said:

The most striking aspect about Trump's lying is that many of his supporters recognize that he's full of it and yet they don't really seem to care about it.

They only care that he 'tells the truth/tells it like it is' when he's being a racist or misogynist.

22 hours ago, lokisnow said:

It's what we get letting non-democrats run for our party's nomination. 

I've never really strongly called myself a Democrat, mostly out of vanity and wanting to appear neutral/conciliatory, but this cycle has kind of stripped me of that silly notion. Sanders is playing in the Democratic sandbox, he's lost the popular vote by a substantial margin, and he knew the rules before playing. I have no sympathy for him or his 'disenfranchised' supporters.

19 hours ago, Triskan said:

Obama's appearance at Hiroshima was pitch-perfect.  I doubt many Presidents could pull such a thing off.  I am intensely proud of this man as President of the United States, and I expect that I may never see his equal again, and I implore all decent Americans to oppose the possibility of a Trump White House with all their being. 

Whether you are for Clinton, Sanders, Johnson, anyone else....Trump cannot be allowed to be our President.  Please look inside yourself.   Consider the enormity in human history of Hiroshima and President Obama's visit today, consider how fragile our world is, and say no to Trump.

Please. 

Hear, hear!

[lokisnow]

I think this rhetoric is profoundly unproductive. Bernie supporters nor the supporters of any candidate should have their morals impugned nor should they be castigated for them. Stand down.

Voting for Clinton is not a "compromise of your precious morals" rather voting for Clinton is clearly an exercise in favor of those same moral principles when the alternative is Trump.  

If one truly believes in the morality of Sanders' positions then those morals that are the foundation and essence of the beliefs and positions demand that your vote be to affirmatively choose Clinton over Trump.  Otherwise these morals are not very consistent nor very moral.

sometimes morality is a hard thing, but no one ever said making the right choice--the moral choice--was always going to be an easy choice to make.

[Altherion]

7 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

If one truly believes in the morality of Sanders' positions then those morals that are the foundation and essence of the beliefs and positions demand that your vote be to affirmatively choose Clinton over Trump.  Otherwise these morals are not very consistent nor very moral.

I don't think so. The stated positions of Sanders are closer to those of Clinton than those of Trump, but they are still quite different. More importantly, the funding of Sanders and Clinton (which, in my opinion, is a much, much more valuable indicator of a politicians actions once in office than anything they say during the campaign) is radically different and, at least for now, Sanders is actually much closer to Trump in this respect: neither of them has a SuperPAC worth noting and neither of them has relied on big external donors.

[ThinkerX]

Ok, been trying to work through this:

State Department and FBI are both investigating Clinton.  Multiple articles attest to this.

State Department decided last week that Clinton was guilty of an offense of some sort in the Email scandal.  How serious that offense is remains open to dispute.  What interests me here is that the State Department is effectively under the direct control of the presidents office.  Yet, despite this, and the presidents not exactly subtle support for Clinton, they still ruled against her in the midst of an election year.  This is the sort of thing that is not supposed to happen.

Now, seemingly, the State Departments role is finished in this mess.  But that still leaves the FBI investigation, which could, at least in theory, result in a criminal conviction of some sort.  More, the FBI appears to have more autonomy than the State Department in its investigations - the president cannot really suppress such. 

So, given that autonomy, and that this is an ongoing investigation, what happens should the FBI announce an intent to pursue an indictment against Clinton just prior to the convention?

Could she campaign and deal with the legal fallout at the same time?  Could Obama issue a pardon, as Bush II did when his flunkies got themselves in a vaguely similar mess?  Would the super delegates still support Clinton, given this legal cloud?  And assuming that Clinton bows out, who takes over as the democratic candidate?  Sanders?  Or somebody else? 

 

Not saying the FBI is likely to initiate legal action against Clinton.  But given the State Departments mangled decree and the fact the FBI investigation remains ongoing, something along these lines remains possible.   

[Bonesy]

9 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Sanders is playing in the Democratic sandbox, he's lost the popular vote by a substantial margin, and he knew the rules before playing. I have no sympathy for him or his 'disenfranchised' supporters.

 

I played by the rules. Registered for the FIRST time in Kentucky last July as a Democrat. Checked my registration 3 times the last as recently as April. Democrat. One last check in May because I had yet to be notified of my poll location. Independent.

Which is interesting as I've been registered all my life in California. As far as Kentucky is concerned, I've only ever been a Democrat.

On the day, I was of course turned away at the poll.

You have no sympathy?. Good to know as disappointing as it is to hear.

[maarsen]

8 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Ok, been trying to work through this:

State Department and FBI are both investigating Clinton.  Multiple articles attest to this.

State Department decided last week that Clinton was guilty of an offense of some sort in the Email scandal.  How serious that offense is remains open to dispute.  What interests me here is that the State Department is effectively under the direct control of the presidents office.  Yet, despite this, and the presidents not exactly subtle support for Clinton, they still ruled against her in the midst of an election year.  This is the sort of thing that is not supposed to happen.

Now, seemingly, the State Departments role is finished in this mess.  But that still leaves the FBI investigation, which could, at least in theory, result in a criminal conviction of some sort.  More, the FBI appears to have more autonomy than the State Department in its investigations - the president cannot really suppress such. 

So, given that autonomy, and that this is an ongoing investigation, what happens should the FBI announce an intent to pursue an indictment against Clinton just prior to the convention?

Could she campaign and deal with the legal fallout at the same time?  Could Obama issue a pardon, as Bush II did when his flunkies got themselves in a vaguely similar mess?  Would the super delegates still support Clinton, given this legal cloud?  And assuming that Clinton bows out, who takes over as the democratic candidate?  Sanders?  Or somebody else? 

 

Not saying the FBI is likely to initiate legal action against Clinton.  But given the State Departments mangled decree and the fact the FBI investigation remains ongoing, something along these lines remains possible.   

How long has this been going on? With no resolution? To me this sounds like a desperate bid do dig up anything before heading into an election with Clinton as the candidate. Definitely a case of shit or get off the pot.

[Kalbear]

I'm also really sad about the 420,000 voters in washington who were ignored. Or the 120k voters in Nebraska whose vote just doesn't count. For shame, Democrats. 

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

The meeting was supposed to be a variation on the old Washington ritual whereby the nominee and runner-up “come together” to unify the party before the general election. Only Ryan, whose values and ideology Trump soundly defeated, wasn’t conceding. He had made a big drama about how Trump had to demonstrate fealty to the conservative cause, and evidently he thought that this would happen. (Ryan declined to be interviewed.)

It didn’t. According to a source in the room, Trump criticized Ryan’s proposed entitlement cuts as unfair and politically foolish. “From a moral standpoint, I believe in it,” Trump told Ryan. “But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, ‘We’re going to cut your Social Security’ and the Democrat is saying, ‘We’re going to keep it and give you more.’ ” Afterward, both sides offered platitudes, but Ryan didn’t endorse.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-reince-priebus/

How to Get Trump Elected When He's Wrecking Everything You Built

 

[Jace, Extat]

4 hours ago, Bonesy said:

I played by the rules. Registered for the FIRST time in Kentucky last July as a Democrat. Checked my registration 3 times the last as recently as April. Democrat. One last check in May because I had yet to be notified of my poll location. Independent.

Which is interesting as I've been registered all my life in California. As far as Kentucky is concerned, I've only ever been a Democrat.

On the day, I was of course turned away at the poll.

You have no sympathy?. Good to know as disappointing as it is to hear.

Forgive me, Bonesy. I spoke in anger and made myself unclear. Of course whatever happened that caused you to be unable to vote is absurd and needs fixing at the earliest possible time, the entire primary process needs to be overhauled.

When I quoted 'disenfranchised', I meant the feral children who demean the rest of the process, Clinton, and those who voted for her at every turn while declaring they would vote for Trump or not at all out of a misguided attempt to 'tear down' everything that we as a society have built. I have no sympathy for those people and their hurt feelings.

You should have been able to vote, I'm sorry that I wrote in such a way to seem dismissive of that injustice you were done.

[The Marquis de Leech]

47 minutes ago, maarsen said:

How long has this been going on? With no resolution? To me this sounds like a desperate bid do dig up anything before heading into an election with Clinton as the candidate. Definitely a case of shit or get off the pot.

Not to mention that if the FBI were to prosecute and Clinton were acquitted, it would mean the end of the FBI in its current form. They'd be tainted forever for their interference in the political process.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Not to mention that if the FBI were to prosecute and Clinton were acquitted, it would mean the end of the FBI in its current form. They'd be tainted forever for their interference in the political process.

Eh. I don't see it that way. Another way to see them is that they are an incredible, nonpartisan system that is dedicated to justice regardless of politics. In a lot of ways it'd be healthy, presuming that Clinton did something illegal. 

Though I will point out at this point that if you want to be consistent with Petraeus, the FBI declined to inform the AG until after the election (literally one day after the election). After that, it took 3 years for Petraeus to plead guilty. These things both take time and do end up being paused during election periods.

I also think people are discounting how long it takes to vet 50,000 pages of emails, not to mention how long it takes to run a competent investigation. It's been going for a while, true - but there's no sign that it's some kind of witch hunt at this point. 

[maarsen]

18 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Not to mention that if the FBI were to prosecute and Clinton were acquitted, it would mean the end of the FBI in its current form. They'd be tainted forever for their interference in the political process.

We had that issue here in Canada with the RCMP. More than once in fact. But then they were always considered tainted by the political process.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

19 hours ago, Kalbear said:

In this case, Trump has noticed that California is under a 4-year drought. Clearly, the problem is...um...there isn't a drought.

We have imagery of how Trump will give back the water here.

 His ignorance is absolutely flabbergasting. I don't understand how any Californian crowd could listen to that and not react loudly, whether you support the man or not. Willfull ignorance scares the shit out of me.

[maarsen]

13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Eh. I don't see it that way. Another way to see them is that they are an incredible, nonpartisan system that is dedicated to justice regardless of politics. In a lot of ways it'd be healthy, presuming that Clinton did something illegal. 

Though I will point out at this point that if you want to be consistent with Petraeus, the FBI declined to inform the AG until after the election (literally one day after the election). After that, it took 3 years for Petraeus to plead guilty. These things both take time and do end up being paused during election periods.

I also think people are discounting how long it takes to vet 50,000 pages of emails, not to mention how long it takes to run a competent investigation. It's been going for a while, true - but there's no sign that it's some kind of witch hunt at this point. 

50 people at a thousand pages each should take about a week.

[Kalbear]

There aren't 50 people investigating. You're also assuming what, an email can be processed in 5 minutes or so. That isn't realistic when attempting to cross correlate emails and determine if they are ts clearance or if the people it was sent to were cleared or...it takes a lot of time.

[maarsen]

Wasn't the issue classified emails on a home server? How hard is it to check if an email carries classified info? This is a yes/no question.

The FBI  and/or the State Dept has trouble finding 50 people to actually work on this?