US Presidential Candidates

You discount the billions the Clinton Foundation received from foreign interests with issues waiting State Dept approval while Hillary was Sec State.

Please do not bring up divisiveness. Trump hadn't announced when BLM turned the Mike Brown case from a thug trying to kill a cop into a police sanctioned murderer. Hillary and this admin supported that group even though Eric Holder fully exonerated the cop in question. Hands up, don't shoot! Never happened.

Btw, what virtues does Clinton have? That you agree with her policies? Fair enough, but I don't so she has no virtue for me.

If you mean refusing to admit young male Muslim refugees like those who sexually assault women in Europe? How is prudence divisive? Find a way to screen them before we let them enter, since ISIS has admitted they will plant terrorists into any group of refugees.

If you simply mean liberal progressives claiming Trumps admitted policies are divisive? Those groups have previous implied Republicans would physically dump geriatrics over a cliff. Who the f**k cares how people who make such claims implicitly or explicitly believe.

If you mean something else, please clarify.

Nico wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Sorry. Catering to foreign preference by supporting that bag of offal is too much to as of anyone. Yes, Annachie I do refer to your political pin up gal.

Ironically, Peter, of the two main candidates it is Trump who has solicited and received foreign campaign contributions.

You state that Clinton is the worse candidate, yet seem to ignore the divisiveness, fear and hatred that Trump is fostering within American society. These things will have a far more lasting, and destructive, impact on America than any alleged small-time corruption on Hillary's part. He has all of her vices and none of her virtues, is as corrupt in his own way, and is far more inclined to use his public position to benefit his private interests.

PeterZ wrote:Btw, what virtues does Clinton have? That you agree with her policies? Fair enough, but I don't so she has no virtue for me.

Hmm, let's see:

-HRC does not have the attention span of a 9 year old on sugar
-HRC can actually make coherent statements on topics
-HRC can actually formulate policies
-HRC does not have the pettiness and vindictiveness of a schoolyard bully
-HRC does not have a habit of compulsively lying about her accomplishments
-HRC actually has experience in high-level politics
-HRC has not made weird, sexually charged comments about her children
-HRC actually plans to be President
-HRC isn't being played by her campaign team (the various blunders Team Trump made in recent days, from his campaign logo to copying lines from other people's speeches, point towards a campaign team that has at least a few very skilled pranksters in it intent on torpedoing the campaign)


I'm sure there are many more things HRC is much, much better at than Trump.

Thank you for proving my point, E.

Trump is less likely to effectively the Presidency into a corrupt money printing system for him and his cronies. Clinton will be ever so much more effective at doing just that.

If we elect HRC, we explicitly condone the systemic corruption that will follow her and permeate our government even more deeply than it does now. Stemming that tide will become impossible. The only alternative is someone who simply does not have the capacity to accomplish this sort of systemic change.

Given this unpalatable choice, I choose the ineffective candidate who cannot turn the Federal government into a Chicago style corrupted one party rule system. If that bothers all you foreigners, TS.

Btw, I still can't get over her defending her rapist husband and the media turning a blind eye to it.

The E wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Btw, what virtues does Clinton have? That you agree with her policies? Fair enough, but I don't so she has no virtue for me.

Hmm, let's see:

-HRC does not have the attention span of a 9 year old on sugar
-HRC can actually make coherent statements on topics
-HRC can actually formulate policies
-HRC does not have the pettiness and vindictiveness of a schoolyard bully
-HRC does not have a habit of compulsively lying about her accomplishments
-HRC actually has experience in high-level politics
-HRC has not made weird, sexually charged comments about her children
-HRC actually plans to be President
-HRC isn't being played by her campaign team (the various blunders Team Trump made in recent days, from his campaign logo to copying lines from other people's speeches, point towards a campaign team that has at least a few very skilled pranksters in it intent on torpedoing the campaign)


I'm sure there are many more things HRC is much, much better at than Trump.

The E wrote:-HRC isn't being played by her campaign team (the various blunders Team Drumpf made in recent days, from his campaign logo to copying lines from other people's speeches, point towards a campaign team that has at least a few very skilled pranksters in it intent on torpedoing the campaign)

This is a key point. We got little enough progress over the last eight years because Republican legislators explicitly stated that their #1 mission was to prevent President Obama from accomplishing anything. How bad will it be when elements of a theoretical President Drumpf's own party are sabotaging him from within?

I can't blame the inside saboteurs. They seem to agree with me that a Drumpf victory would be the end of the Republican party four years from now, when the massive progressive backlash hits. Drumpf would be a train wreck as President because he neither knows nor cares about the actual job, he is only seeking the ultimate ego boost. As I've said before, look at the man, not the marketing. His string of trophy wives, his habit of plastering his name in huge golden letters on everything from casinos to steaks, his manic arrogance, all point to a man who is deeply insecure, frantically propping up his self-image. Faced with a real crisis in the Oval Office, he would either lash out or wind up a puppet of the leaders of a party that is internally conflicted and out of touch with the general public.

dscott8 wrote:Faced with a real crisis in the Oval Office, he would either lash out or wind up a puppet of the leaders of a party that is internally conflicted and out of touch with the general public.

Trump, for all his expressed prowess at making deals, is utterly predictable and easy to manipulate for people like Putin or Xi Jinping. He also lacks defenses against modern media culture and its memetic content; That he has been amplifying white supremacist messages is not surprising, given that he doesn't seem to be capable of doing the sort of legwork media-savvy people have to do these days to figure out where the biases are.

22 years ago, Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George wrote a novel called "Interface". I would highly recommend reading it.

Given the choices we have, you make it sound as if a president who is mistrusted by his/her own party is a problem. I'm telling you that many believe that is a feature which will keep all branches of government honest.....ok, less dishonest.

Do you honestly believe that the Sanders supporters believe their party's elites serve their concerns? That the Republican base believes their party's elites serve them? If the Republican party leadership is so tone deaf to ignore their base so intently, they deserve to be reconstituted.

Both parties were created to allow the elites to more effectively influence election. Fine. But if they do not sufficiently serve the electorate, they will never gain enough votes to truly influence policy making. The electorate is saying loudly, yelling even, they are being ill served. Listen or lose, adapt or die.

dscott8 wrote:This is a key point. We got little enough progress over the last eight years because Republican legislators explicitly stated that their #1 mission was to prevent President Obama from accomplishing anything. How bad will it be when elements of a theoretical President Drumpf's own party are sabotaging him from within?

I can't blame the inside saboteurs. They seem to agree with me that a Drumpf victory would be the end of the Republican party four years from now, when the massive progressive backlash hits. Drumpf would be a train wreck as President because he neither knows nor cares about the actual job, he is only seeking the ultimate ego boost. As I've said before, look at the man, not the marketing. His string of trophy wives, his habit of plastering his name in huge golden letters on everything from casinos to steaks, his manic arrogance, all point to a man who is deeply insecure, frantically propping up his self-image. Faced with a real crisis in the Oval Office, he would either lash out or wind up a puppet of the leaders of a party that is internally conflicted and out of touch with the general public.

PeterZ wrote:Given the choices we have, you make it sound as if a president who is mistrusted by his/her own party is a problem. I'm telling you that many believe that is a feature which will keep all branches of government honest.....ok, less dishonest.

Do you honestly believe that the Sanders supporters believe their party's elites serve their concerns? That the Republican base believes their party's elites serve them?

The difference is Sanders isn't popular with DNC elites because he's a lifelong committed government reformist who wants them to clean up their act and they don't want to.

Trump isn't trusted because he's an incompetent ignorant sociopath with narcissistic personality disorder.

You can't just say "well they're both distrusted by people we don't like, that's good right!? Make either one of them President of the country!"

gcomeau wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Given the choices we have, you make it sound as if a president who is mistrusted by his/her own party is a problem. I'm telling you that many believe that is a feature which will keep all branches of government honest.....ok, less dishonest.

Do you honestly believe that the Sanders supporters believe their party's elites serve their concerns? That the Republican base believes their party's elites serve them?

The difference is Sanders isn't popular with DNC elites because he's a lifelong committed government reformist who wants them to clean up their act and they don't want to.

Trump isn't trusted because he's an incompetent ignorant sociopath with narcissistic personality disorder.

You can't just say "well they're both distrusted by people we don't like, that's good right!? Make either one of them President of the country!"

That's what we are left with, gcomeau! Your party nominated that piece of sheit. Democrats on the whole preferred this competent, corrupt, dishonest nominee to your honest reformer. Hell, I don't agree with him in almost all ways and I would have voted for him if for no other reason than that he was honest.

As for the Republicans, all the other candidates were so far up the rectum of the Repub elite/establishment that those candidates would have seen the world from out the mouths of those supporting elites. There was no alternative that seemed to have any way of breaking the logjam of elite candidates. Before anyone mentions Cruz, his wife works for Golden-Slacks. That group predominantly supports Dems because they believe in government intrusion for their benefit.

There was no other alternative for reform minded folk than the candidate that was least able to secure systemic corruption. You Democrats have the choice: usher in systemic corruption Chicago style or withhold support for it by voting against the current elites. Fyi, the Koch bothers are supporting Hillary over Trump.

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:The difference is Sanders isn't popular with DNC elites because he's a lifelong committed government reformist who wants them to clean up their act and they don't want to.

Trump isn't trusted because he's an incompetent ignorant sociopath with narcissistic personality disorder.

You can't just say "well they're both distrusted by people we don't like, that's good right!? Make either one of them President of the country!"

That's what we are left with, gcomeau!

Don't think I'm any happier about it than you are.

Your party nominated that piece of sheit.

Not "my" party. I'm not a Democrat. Prefer the over the GOP... sure.

Democrats on the whole preferred this competent, corrupt, dishonest nominee to your honest reformer.

Yup. Although they were helped along by the establishment rigging the process in every conceivable manner they could get away with... take that out of the equation and Sanders might have beat her.

Hell, I don't agree with him in almost all ways and I would have voted for him if for no other reason than that he was honest.

As for the Republicans, all the other candidates were so far up the rectum of the Repub elite/establishment that those candidates would have seen the world from out the mouths of those supporting elites. There was no alternative that seemed to have any way of breaking the logjam of elite candidates.

To switch metaphors from logjam to, say, termite infestation...


Sanders would have been to the Democratic party what a fumigation is to a house infested with termites.

Trump is to the GOP and the rest of the country what a truckload full of *other* termites is to a house infested with termites. Cause you know... maybe they'll kill off the first infestation as they compete for territory.



There are reasonable effective solutions to problems, and then there are crazy self destructive ridiculous irrational responses to problems that don't even have a passing relationship with a solution.

gcomeau wrote:
To switch metaphors from logjam to, say, termite infestation...

Sanders would have been to the Democratic party what a fumigation is to a house infested with termites.

Trump is to the GOP and the rest of the country what a truckload full of *other* termites is to a house infested with termites. Cause you know... maybe they'll kill off the first infestation as they compete for territory.

There are reasonable effective solutions to problems, and then there are crazy self destructive ridiculous irrational responses to problems that don't even have a passing relationship with a solution.

Your metaphor doesn't work. Trump cannot bring in a larger set of termites because he doesn't have the capacity to do that. Hillary and her termites will have all the support both inside and outside of government to prevent fumigation and multiply prodigiously.

Trump will act as a rebellion within the colony. His faction will slow down how quickly the remaining termites will spread throughout the house. These are all elitists, no? Given that the Koch bothers find Hillary more palatable than Trump suggests that they will make more money with Hillary than Trump. Divide and conquer by electing Trump.

If we divide the elites this year, they will be weaker next cycle for truer reform to take place. If we allow Hillary to consolidate her grip on both sets of elites, we are left with even more powerful oligarchs. Good luck affecting change then.

The bottom line is do we who wish reform have the stomach to what is necessary? Will we be like the 47 ronin who choose an unpleasant consequence to perform their last duty to the authority we swore to protect? Or will we focus the paving stones of good intentions as we walk down that road?