U.S. Elections 2016 - Polls in mirror appear closer than they are

[DanteGabriel]

20 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

We also have a fairly good idea what a Clinton White House looks like, since we already had Bill Clinton's. The good and bad is all there. 

I hope one difference would be that she has to tack left on issues where Bill tacked right. I hope she feels like she has to protect her left flank to keep her coalition together. I have a feeling it wouldn't go that way, but I can dream.

[Impmk2]

1 hour ago, King Of The Slums said:

Bill and Hillary are notoriously corrupt. The rumours and testimonials about Bill's dark side are scary and convincing. 

I enjoy how rumours about Bill Clinton (no shit there are rumours, people have been attacking from across the isle for over 20 years), are convincing proof of Hillary's corruption. 

And these rumours are somehow worse than corruption which Trump openly brags about. But he says he'll do something about it*. So that's OK.

*Probably. He's taken every other (often contradictory) position that anyone could want to hear at one time or another so why not.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

I hope one difference would be that she has to tack left on issues where Bill tacked right. I hope she feels like she has to protect her left flank to keep her coalition together. I have a feeling it wouldn't go that way, but I can dream.

I had similar fears when weighing my vote in the primary. The thing is, the environment is different now. Is Warren really going to keep her mouth shut if she sees some deal going down that betrays leftists? I really don't think so. Look at the fun she is currently having with the bank CEO. And now Sander's has increased his stature in the Senate with his last run. Also, HRC is smart enough to know all this.

[DraculaAD1972]

6 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

I enjoy how rumours about Bill Clinton (no shit there are rumours, people have been attacking from across the isle for over 20 years), are convincing proof of Hillary's corruption. 

And these rumours are somehow worse than corruption which Trump openly brags about. But he says he'll do something about it*. So that's OK.

*Probably. He's taken every other (often contradictory) position that anyone could want to hear at one time or another so why not.

Well Bill and Hillary are very much inseparable in their alleged crimes, his crimes are her crimes when she threatens and bullies his victims. The Clinton Foundation is rather suspect to put it mildly. They are fabulously wealthy from serving corporate masters. Didn't they get tough on crime and condemn countless people into longterm incarceration for minor repeat offences? They are close friends of the Bush family. The list goes on and on. Everything about Clinton is fake and she serves the military industrial complex loyally, as does Obama. As for Trump I'm not saying he's an angel. I'm just undecided on exactly how corrupt he actually is. He might have a few shreds of honour. He could indeed be as evil as Bill and Hillary but I would expect more shocking rumours than those we've seen so far, if this was the case.    

[IamMe90]

18 minutes ago, King Of The Slums said:

Well Bill and Hillary are very much inseparable in their alleged crimes, his crimes are her crimes when she threatens and bullies his victims. The Clinton Foundation is rather suspect to put it mildly. They are fabulously wealthy from serving corporate masters. Didn't they get tough on crime and condemn countless people into longterm incarceration for minor repeat offences? They are close friends of the Bush family. The list goes on and on. Everything about Clinton is fake and she serves the military industrial complex loyally, as does Obama. As for Trump I'm not saying he's an angel. I'm just undecided on exactly how corrupt he actually is. He might have a few shreds of honour. He could indeed be as evil as Bill and Hillary but I would expect more shocking rumours than those we've seen so far, if this was the case.    

I like how your gauge for someone's level of corruption is based on how extreme the rumors about them are, instead of, you know, the actual corrupt things they've been shown to do. It's almost like you're a batshit conspiracy theorist with no rational decision-making metrics! 

Also, nice double standard, conveniently forgetting about the rumors about Trump raping someone while mentioning the rumors about Bill Clinton being a rapist (since rumors are supposedly the most important criterion when analyzing a candidate).

[Shryke]

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Trump never said he was going to fix corruption. He noted it existed, and how he has participated in it. That's it.  And we have numerous signs of rapacious greed in his private dealings. The unpaid contractors, the screwed over business partners, the list goes on and on. You have to actively block this stuff out in order to ignore the glaring signs. I think what Trump admires most about Putin is how he steals his nation's wealth and places it offshore.

We also have a fairly good idea what a Clinton White House looks like, since we already had Bill Clinton's. The good and bad is all there. 

I mean, not really? She is not an extension of Bill Clinton. She's her own person who was politically active long before they met. She's also working in a completely different political environment.

I mean, you can get some sense of how she'll operate based on what she herself has done previously but just looking at her campaign this year compared to, say, Bill's in 1992 and there's a world of difference in some of what's being pushed.

 

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

I hope one difference would be that she has to tack left on issues where Bill tacked right. I hope she feels like she has to protect her left flank to keep her coalition together. I have a feeling it wouldn't go that way, but I can dream.

I think the opposite. She'll move left if she thinks she can. You can see it this campaign already. She didn't tack centre or anything with Sanders gone.

I mean, let's not pretend like she wasn't, say, trying to get Universal Health Care to happen back in the early 90s.

[TrackerNeil]

1 hour ago, King Of The Slums said:

Well Bill and Hillary are very much inseparable in their alleged crimes, his crimes are her crimes when she threatens and bullies his victims. The Clinton Foundation is rather suspect to put it mildly. They are fabulously wealthy from serving corporate masters. Didn't they get tough on crime and condemn countless people into longterm incarceration for minor repeat offences? They are close friends of the Bush family. The list goes on and on. Everything about Clinton is fake and she serves the military industrial complex loyally, as does Obama. As for Trump I'm not saying he's an angel. I'm just undecided on exactly how corrupt he actually is. He might have a few shreds of honour. He could indeed be as evil as Bill and Hillary but I would expect more shocking rumours than those we've seen so far, if this was the case.    

I think this can be rephrased as: "Donald Trump is the candidate of white nationalists, but Hillary."

[The Marquis de Leech]

12 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

 

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

3 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

I hope one difference would be that she has to tack left on issues where Bill tacked right. I hope she feels like she has to protect her left flank to keep her coalition together. I have a feeling it wouldn't go that way, but I can dream.

Bill tacked Right after 1994 for the sake of political survival (he'd been similarly burnt in 1980 as Governor of Arkansas). 1992-1994 involved gun control, tax increases for the rich, and DADT (a compromise, but better than went before). It also involved a (failed) attempt at universal healthcare.

I've always had the impression that Bill wanted to run a more left-wing Administration than he did - it's just the prevailing winds came from the Right. This time, the prevailing winds are blowing from the Left.

[lokisnow]

let's remember what happened when democrats chose ideological purity and shit the bed in 1968.

25 years, 10 months and 8 days in between democrat appointed supreme court justices taking office.

That is 9,444 days. 

In those 25 years, republicans appointed ten justices to the supreme court.

In the past 23 years, democrats have only appointed four justices to the supreme court.

Or put it another way, in the last 48 years, 11 months and 20 days only four democrat appointed supreme court justices have taken office while twelve republican appointed justices have taken office.

Democrats got lucky with the personalities of several of those twelve but it is unlikely they will be so lucky in the future if they elect Mr Trump, aka Nixon 2.0.

Three supreme court justices will likely take office before the 2018 midterms, whether Trump or Clinton wins (two retirements from the eldest on each side are expected should either win).

Are we going to make the score 7 to 12, and close the 50 year deficit somewhat?

Or are we going to allow the score to go to 4 to 15 and fall even further behind than we have ever been?

Democrats are already planning to lose the senate in 2018, and republicans have a very good shot of getting a supermajority in the chamber that year.  We have a two year window to operate before it will be closed for probably another six plus years or more. Truly, this is a very precarious moment and narrow window of opportunity for the supreme court.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The Supreme Court is literally the most important thing at stake in 2016.

[mormont]

12 hours ago, Altherion said:

Oh come on -- he is not interested in illegal immigrants from Scandinavia or Australia because there aren't any, not worth mentioning anyway.

You, me and everyone else reading this knows that even if there were a million of them every year Donald J. Trump would not give a shit. And neither would most of his supporters.

11 hours ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

He qualified his statement by saying that some of them are good people, which precludes the idea that all the illegal mexican immigrants are rapists.

And then he qualified that qualification by adding 'I assume'. Strangely, he didn't apply that qualification when he said that these immigrants were rapists, or that they were bringing crime and drugs. The only way to parse that is that he was certain about the drugs, crime and rape but unsure about the good people. This is supported by his repetition and insistence on the drugs, crime and rape in other comments.

Trump's statements are clear.

11 hours ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

  Further, even if he did, it's still not racist since Mexican is a nationality, and not a race.

The point at which someone trots out the 'it's a nationality not a race!' defence is the point at which they might as well give up. Splitting hairs about racism is never a good look.

6 hours ago, King Of The Slums said:

I'm less disturbed by this attorney general bribe/donation than I am about Hillary's culpability in the Bengazi tragedy. Families are suing her for causing deaths. How many deaths is Trump accused of?

I suggest you search for details: I can't give you an exact number but certainly Trump has been sued over causing employee's deaths because of negligence on more than one occasion.

6 hours ago, King Of The Slums said:

Is Trumps bribe worse than the recently leaked stuff about the democratic party donors?

Yes.

6 hours ago, King Of The Slums said:

Is Trump best mates with the Bush family like the Clintons?

You seem really obsessed with this one. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone describe the Clintons and the Bushes as 'best mates' before. But no, Trump doesn't get on well with the Bush family, though he used to get on well with the Clintons.

Some of Trump's other friends, though, include Jeffrey Epstein, a man who was prosecuted for sex with minors and about whom Donald Trump said this:

Quote

I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.

Emphasis mine. So if we're going to be worrying about the company Presidential candidates keep, perhaps we should start there and ask Mr Trump just exactly what he meant by that bolded remark, given Mr Epstein's subsequent legal problems.

6 hours ago, King Of The Slums said:

Are the rumours about Trump anywhere near as bad as those about Bill and Hillary?

Yes. They're worse, actually.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Those in the US Jewish community who have tended to back Republicans in the past are running for the hills:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gops-jewish-donors-are-abandoning-trump/

[Martell Spy]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-and-putins-relationship/500852/

The Dangers of the Putin-Trump Relationship
A political donor discusses his new effort to warn voters about the Republican nominee’s ties to Russia.

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Those in the US Jewish community who have tended to back Republicans in the past are running for the hills:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gops-jewish-donors-are-abandoning-trump/

Jews know what's up when an authoritarian blowhard starts looking for minorities to blame for white people's problems.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

  16 hours ago, Altherion said:

Oh come on -- he is not interested in illegal immigrants from Scandinavia or Australia because there aren't any, not worth mentioning anyway.

 

3 hours ago, mormont said:

You, me and everyone else reading this knows that even if there were a million of them every year Donald J. Trump would not give a shit. And neither would most of his supporters.

 

Except there are illegal immigrants from these countries. They work under the table and no one ever finds out. A friend of mine worked in the USA for 10 years or more as an illegal as a corporate professional. But who's going to suspect a suit wearing, university educated, foreign professional who speaks impeccable English, from Middle Earth? Not like someone who looks Latino, speaks broken English with a heavy Spanish accent, cleans houses and can be easily fall under suspicion.

[James Arryn]

Yeah, I'm not the world's biggest Hillary fan, but saying anything Bill fucked up is on her is bullshit. How she handled herself then, yeah...but beyond that, let Bill carry his own water.

[Boris the Blade]

9 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Yeah, I'm not the world's biggest Hillary fan, but saying anything Bill fucked up is on her is bullshit. How she handled herself then, yeah...but beyond that, let Bill carry his own water.

Well ya know, everything is her fault, just like Obama. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

27 minutes ago, Harakiri said:

Well ya know, everything is her fault, just like Obama.

Now there's an ironic avatar for you.  Bill the Butcher (aka Trump) for President. 

[Frog Eater]

5 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

The Supreme Court is literally the most important thing at stake in 2016.

I believe this statement is the only compelling argument for Republicans to vote for Donald Trump.