Letting those countries "over there" sort things out for themselves worked out pretty well in the 1930's didn't it? By staying out of it millions of people in that region will likely end up getting killed. If you're okay with saying you don't care about that then I'm glad I don't have to rely on you for anything. Yes, there are many difficulties with "bringing peace" to a region that's been at war for as long as anyone can remember. But I'd say it's a pretty worthy cause.
I feel like that would be a good place for Trump to start. That's the most troubling thing to me. He's never even held office in a village. Trump is a best a great reality show host, and a terrible businessman. At worst he is a racist, rapist. The dude is a member of the lucky sorry club. He would probably be selling time shares if he wasn't a member of the lucky sperm club.
Downndirty, I'll respond to you later because I don't feel like writing another really long post, but - Audrey's post and this are exactly what is so fucking bad about the Hillary campaign. It really has nothing to do with the issues. It has nothing to do with her numerous examples of corruption. Very few Hillary supporters will talk about the issues unless you directly press them on it. It is the exact same with people I talk to in real life. Everyone is running around shouting about how they are going to stop a racist misogynist. It is fucking insane. It is an emotional appeal to ascribe Trump to every xenophobic trait in the book. It is a deflection to the glaring holes in her own record, and the blind adherence is disturbing. Hillary has quite effectively ran a campaign about making sure you hate hatred that is ascribed to nearly half the country, for a candidate doing as well, or better with women and minorities than republicans have in several past elections. This is bad for our country on so many levels.
Yes. Because God knows, you should definitely put the nuclear codes in the hands of someone who can't control himself around a ten year old girl.
You may find this hard to believe, but the president does jack shit with the "issues". I've explained why I'm voting for Hillary many times. The Supreme Court nominee is almost the only thing I care about. I used to be a republican, and left because of their ties to the church. I love the idea of hands off businesses and small government. What I don't like is the hatred of poor people, minorities, gays and women. Mike Pence embodies all of that. And I will never vote for anything with his name attached. Those are the issues that matter to me.
The relevant bit: That was only after the pussy grab tape. I imagine that it is worse now. Michelle Obama's speech today about the was probably one of the most moving speeches of this entire election cycle.
https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/co...owa_womens_gop_group_quits_over_trump/d8qafb4 Decent explanation of dog whistling, wedge issues and why Trump is so divisive to Republicans.
I'll pull out of this thread because it is going to get too nasty after this point. I made a mistake with some old data, had not looked it up recently. Obviously he has dropped recently with regards to the scandals. I don't like Trump on a personal level. Not one bit. What has come out recently in the wikileaks, what is painfully fucking obvious about the rampant conflicts of interest in large interest donors going on with our politics should be a deep concern to anyone who isn't clapping like a circus seal because they find sexual assault revolting, or they're anti-racism. This country is no longer representing average Americans and the hoops you have to jump through to justify that, or claim it's just how the world works is fucking sickening. You guys have rationalized the next American president taking money from the same people who are funding ISIS. You are rationalizing a reverse on campaign platforms with large interest donors as if it were for the greater good. This is not just happening with Clinton, and you really don't give a fuck. You are being jerked around for an emotional vote, on perhaps the most corrupt candidate in this country's history. The more information pertaining to the real problems that comes out the more loudly the issues of rape, misogyny, and racism are being blared from the Hillary campaign. This is not an endorsement of Trump, although he is my pick out of total disgust with establishment politics. I think many people don't want to admit how bad things have gotten because there is a comfort in letting things stay the course. The way our politicians are pandering to us in public and spitting on us behind closed doors is just too insulting for me to do that. Edit: Not once did I say WW3 was going to start. Not once did I say my complaint was about how Hillary was going to change things, quite the opposite. D26, you just referenced a bunch of random events in American history that are a result of political upheaval.This isn't about an 1800s dispute, it's about policy for sale, and rampant corruption, never seen on this level in the history of our country. It's like you people forgot how to read because you are responding to things not even said, and jumping up and down against sensationalism. If your point is that you are ok with all the problems then great, that was my point.
So, I just have one question... You keep going on and on in earlier posts about how Clinton has been, in your opinion, mostly ineffective in her political career, regardless of position; however at the same time theorizing about how if she's selected she somehow basically going to make all of these sweeping changes that will supposedly bring about the end of our country as we know it. So, which one is she?
And the fact that you think any of this is new means you need a serious fucking history lesson, one I quit teaching because of people like you. You think corruption is new, that everything happening now has never happened before and this is all madness. You're buying into the "the world is going to end if we elect that giant cunt Hillary" rhetoric. And that is just what it fucking is, rhetoric. The worst case scenario of a Hillary win is 4 more years of the same and a more liberal Supreme Court. We're not going to World War III. No one is going to steal your money and quite frankly your life won't change one fucking iota. You accuse us of eating up the rhetorical hype while earlier in this thread you all but fucking calling for a civil god damned war. And we're the ones who are "buying the rhetoric?" Grow the fuck up and smell what you're shoveling. I sorry you're so disgusted that a possibly corrupt politician might win the White House. Jesus, never had one of those before. Shit, one guy practically bought the White House by volunteering to end reconstruction. We've had violent conventions. We've had inter-party mutinies leading to dramatic elections. We've had guys who were so far to the right conservative people swore they'd end the world if elected. We've had entire political parties built around ending immigration and keeping America "pure" and safe. Fuck, it's not even the first time a lifelong politician with the same last name as a previous president ran against a known psychopath in a close, heated, and ultimately controversial election. That one even came down to letting the house choose, in what became known as "The Corrupt Bargain." The world didn't end, the nation didn't implode. Then there are the presidents that walked us into war for shits and giggles or because they refused to actually do their jobs. And at least Hillary will actually be elected. Oh, and none of those links are to Presidents elected after 1980. The point is, in a lot of these cases people screamed and lamented it was the end of the world. America was dying. We were too corrupt. "Those people" are taking over. Insert other hysterical bullshit here. More often than not it was the death throes of some old movement. The end of slavery, end of Jim Crow laws, a massive change in the Republican platform (Nixon's years), the start of Imperialim, the end of Imperialism, etc etc etc... The difference is Trumps shit is palpible. It's there. He fucking revels in it. He brags about how hot 10 year olds are, how he can sexually assault women, how he can default on loans and jail his political opponents. Is Hillary corrupt? Maybe. All the evidence is from her political opponents who have been trying to destroy her and her husband for damn near 20 years now, to no avail. Is Trump a walking piece of garbage. Fuck yes. So before you accuse us of rolling in hyperbole, go back and re-read your own Chicken Little "The sky is falling" bullshit, then maybe study some history. None of Hillary's shit is new.
Yeah I can pretty confidently say that I'm the most bleeding heart peace and love hippie on this board, I've been protesting against evil politicians since I was a preteen, and rallied against an adorable amount of corruption while serving on a committee for my local government while in high school, and even I'm not casting my vote based on banking on reversing millennia of established corruption in politics over the course of one single election, or serving up an ultimatum that if the guy who's "at least more open about his corruption" doesn't win that I'm going to take up arms and start a revolution.
I never wanted Trump an still don't; however he will get my vote only because of the Supreme Court nominees. I will vote the Republican ticket all the way down the line. No huge reason but that's the ideology I most agree with.
This thread is starting to get a bit nasty, from both sides and it doesn't need to. Someone can vote for Trump or Clinton if they want to, but personal insults over it will not fly. Articulate yourselves politely and rationally or excuse yourselves until you calm down. This is a fair warning before the ban hammer drops.
I agree with you, in the sense that things are getting out of hand. But my vote was not, in any way, emotional. I can't imagine a world where Donald Trump does anything but make this situation worse. I think Clinton's corruption is laughably small, especially in comparison to some of the other Republican heavies. Her foundation received money...who gives a fuck? Real corruption doesn't work it's way through a nonprofit. Much of Trump's narrative is centered around, "I win, or they cheated" and I think this is a big part of it. Again, scandal after scandal: the emails, Benghazi, her foundation...does this really amount to much? I think about the shit Rumsfeld got away with, like accepting money from Halliburton, or I dunno...fucking war crimes? That seems to me a bit more like real corruption. All of this surrounding Clinton seems to amount to: women shouldn't play this game, so we are going to expose your dirty laundry. The problem is, it's not actually dirty. Trump's business dealings, tax returns, bankruptcies, divorces, every current scandal about his perspective on women seems worse than Hillary's foundation or email servers. The issue here is rural vs. urban. Cities are doing fine, the rest of the country is abjectly suffering. The service economy requires a core nucleus of people to serve, and rural areas simply don't have it. You can't be a dog walker in Bumfuck, Kentucky, or an Uber driver in Dicklick, Montana. We, as a country, have to strengthen the safety net and decentralize. I think much of the appeal of cities is due to a sense of security: you can always find another job in a place like DC, San Francisco or NY. In my hometown there is ONE company: get fired and you're selling your house and moving. The property value in the cities is a sure bet, in the suburbs not so much. Also, you can get started in the city with less: you don't even need a car. One of the main issues I have with this election is negativity: Hillary has at least governed and can demonstrate the skills. Trump? Again, what is this guy actually good at? Because the things that I see make a great president, or even the things that Obama does well, Trump does not do. This seems to be a theme with Republicans: government is bad, so we don't actually want someone who knows how to do it, which makes it worse, so we keep going further and further into the depths of inexperience, incompetence and a broken ideology that contributes to a fractured nation.
The problem is not just with Clinton's acts of corruption, its that the media actively seeks to protect her. That is dereliction of duty when it comes to journalism. I wouldnt care as much if there was honest reporting about it and people were still picking her regardless. Its the hubris of her campaign and the attempted cover-ups that compounds the issue because she knows the media will protect her. Storing classified email on a personal server may not seem like a huge issue to you, but its breaking the law, and she is getting away with it where others have been prosecuted. She claims to have not done anything wrong but has her staff take the 5th. She claims to not remember anything, but has full clarity during the debate. There is clear evidence that State Department ambassadorships have been awarded to top donors to Clinton Foundation. How is that not corruption? Rumsfeld and Cheney were certainly corrupt (the war crime thing is a bit far though), but neither of them are currently running for President. If they were in the business of war profiteering as you suggest, I would fully support an indictment against either one of them. But we need to have substantiated proof, as is the law of the land. We have that with Clinton, but the FBI passed on pressing charges because the Director didnt want to be the de-facto decision maker of the election. To answer your question, the scandals add up to someone who think shes above prosecution. And as for anyone who wants to vote for her because shes a woman, who gives a shit? What does having a set of shriveled up ovaries have to do with leading a nation? All that being said, I think you (at least I think it was you) summed it up succinctly when you said that you're more comfortable with her short-comings than Trump's. I feel the same way. I came to that realization during the first debate. I could barely watch because I was embarrassed at what Trump might say and realized thats not a quality I want in a President and I dont want to deal with it for four years. The Republicans fucking blew it. The Democrats did too, just not as much.
There is a lot of talk about corruption in politics in this thread, and many people are basing their decision on who to vote for on that issue. I don't think voting for Trump will end political corruption. Everything about his history screams that he will take advantage of whatever corruption he finds to benefit himself. Quite frankly, I also don't think we're going to see the change in the politically system that I think our country needs come from either political party. Huff and Puff about Dems. and Reps. but they're all sitting in the same boat and don't have a real interest in changing anything. The change will have to come for us, and we have system set up to do it without violence. If political corruption is important issue to you, and it is to me, I would check out this website. http://anticorruptionact.org/ Also, don't get discourage by the process. These kind of changes take time for a ground swell to occur, but like gay marriage and weed legalization it can happen. Hopefully I didn't come off as preachy, but I just wanted to inject a little positivity into this thread.
My concern about this election is that it has devolved into a battle of personalities versus a battle of policies. With the Bush campaigns it was culture wars, which were at least policy based. Now it seems people are aruging who is worse, who is least trust worthy, who they hate more.
While this may be true - and I personally don't entirely believe it - how do you lay that at the feet of Clinton and/or her campaign? I feel fairly certain almost every one of us on TIB have commented to the fact that the modern media is less concerned about ethical journalism than it is about its own profitability. I find it more likely that the media would bias toward Clinton not because she's made some explicit or implicit backroom deal with them, but because between the two candidates, Trump is the one who wants to loosen slander and libel standards in order to more easily sue media outlets. From a pure self-interest standpoint, that makes it more logical that any bias being shown toward Clinton is originating purely from the media itself. So how then does that reflect badly on her?
This isn't unique to Clinton, its been a pervasive issue for the last 20 years. And its evident in email leaks that NYT reporters have run stories by Clinton before publishing them to make sure shes comfortable with it. Nearly every media appearance she does is answering softball questions. I'm not laying it at the campaigns feet, but I am making the assertion that if the media fails to do its job, it fosters and emboldens corruption if the individuals perpetrating it think they wont have repercussions.