Stone will be the interesting one. Dude is gonna break at some point. It's just a matter of how deep the shit gets before he starts dancing.
Yep... they should have been found out and investigated/prosecuted way, way earlier. If it took "political ends" to get it to happen, so be it, but it shouldn't have to come to that.
Beto now running for President in 2020. I'm curious to see if he will catch fire on a national stage like he did here in Texas before the midterms. I certainly wouldn't count him out.
I think it depends on how he styles his campaign. He got a lot of attention in the midterms, going to every early voting place including my own. I think also, a lot depends on the "must be a woman", "must be a POC" or bust crowd. I think theres a lot of Hillary vengeance still out there determined to vote in a woman just because. My fear is a lot of the would-be dem voters sitting it out if their perfect rosy-smelling candidate doesn't win the nomination. The fact is, the democratic party continues to get pulled more and more to the left and that shit won't sit well with your rust belt and Florida voters. Beto is more moderate. I think the far left dem voters want a scorched earth campaign because of Trump. I think a lot of moderate dems just want a reasonable person. One thing I think that will turn off a lot of good voters is the push to eliminate all private health insurance. A lot of liberal people have good health care and don't want that shit totally government run. I don't. A lot of lefty gun owners don't want any kind of gun ban. If they run on that shit, you will have a GOP candidate win in 2020, even if it isn't trump. The one thing that will truly destroy things is if a more moderate candidate gets the nomination and the brown girl caucus(AOC, Tlaib, Omar, and Pressley) start openly denouncing the candidate. Especially if its Biden or Beto.
I'm starting to get worried about the lack of experience in the field. Bernie - been in the Senate forever, hasn't done shit there Harris - in her first Senate term Warren - barely out of her first Senate term Klobuchar - two Senate terms Booker - mayor of Newark, one Senate term O'Rourke - couple of House terms That's not a lot to go on between the top six candidates in the field. There's no VP, there's no Governor, there's no Lion-of-the-Senate type. If you go back through past presidents (ignoring Trump because he's an exception to every rule in politics), Obama is the exception, not the rule. The rest of the list had serious executive experience at a minimum. Bush - Governor of Texas Clinton - Governor of Arkansas Bush - Vice President; Director of the CIA; Rep, US House; US Ambassador to UN Reagan - Governor of California Carter - Governor of Georgia Ford - Vice President; Minority Leader, US House Nixon - Vice President; Senator, US Senate; Rep, US House Johnson - Vice President, Majority Leader, US Senate; Rep, US House Once every generation or two the Democratic Party coughs up a Kennedy or an Obama who gets by on a stint in the Senate and fuckloads of charisma, but that's not anything to bank on. If Biden jumps in then he would have the resume, but he's got other issues and damn he old. Inslee and Hickenlooper aren't polling anywhere near high enough to look like the next Clinton or Carter at this point.
That's basically me. Moderate democrat, but I hate the socialist stylings of Bernie (and the AOC crowd) as much as I hate the idea of any kind of gun ban (beyond expanding background checks). Beto is my favorite hands down, even if he is completely off the rails when it comes to the 2A. The idea of a GOP candidate not named trump or ted cruz winning in 2020 doesn't completely scare me.
A real moderate republican would be highly dangerous for the dems in 2020. But I don't know what that would mean. A pro choice gop candidate would lose base support. But if they were pro pot legalization, it could make up some serious ground. Thats all assuming Trump is out of office. Beto is a really good candidate. People forget how good his campaign was for senate. Winning a senate set as a dem in Texas was always going to be a long shot. He'd probably lose to Cornyn as well.
It was masterful. I swear his campaign team was keeping metrics on the news cycle because every time his name started to drop out of public consciousness here in Texas, BAM!!, another twitter-ready viral clip or story got leaked and he was all everyone talked about again. I remember when this thing made the rounds: Down here, the only thing people agree on more than guns and the bible (and even that one is iffy) is Whataburger. Of course it helped that Beto backed up the hype with a great platform and public speaking skills, but he would have gotten plenty of votes just off people who saw him in passing on facebook, twitter, and instagram.
He made the argument(unsure if true or not) that the city of El Paso was statistically safer before the fence or whatever was there. At the end of the day though, I would vote for whoever the candidate will be. I held my nose and voted Hilary. I just hope the Bernie bros can do the same this time.
I mean if he said “no, I’d keep it”, it would completely undermine the whole “don’t build the wall” argument. He was kind of forced into a spot there. Even if the fence never came down.
The fact that in many places it is logistically difficult/fiscally expensive to place that wall along the actual border, so instead it's built a good distance off, thus dividing peoples' property. The fact that it ruins habitats of native species, interrupts migratory patterns of animals and birds, and is an ecological disaster in places where it has been constructed. The fact that maintaining a border wall is time consuming and financially draining. Winds, floods, animals, humans, natural disasters and even just natural erosion causes damage both minor and severe to a wall/fence, which must be immediately repaired in order to keep the integrity of the whole. The fact that, due to physical barriers, the existing wall will continue for a length, then have to stop (for, say, geography or a historical structure or land they were unable to acquire via eminent domain such as tribal lands), then will start again anywhere from a few yards to a few hundred yards later. The "wall," or fence as it is in reality, is nothing more than a physical pacifier. It does nothing. It will do nothing. It never did anything. But it makes people who want to see something done, happy. Drugs are largely smuggled in through legal ports of entry (as the El Chappo testimony highlighted), and illegal immigrants will find a way over, under, or through every wall, fence, and physical barrier we construct to physically stop them (evidenced by the many ladders ranchers place along their fence lines -- that way when the illegals do cross their land, they will use the ladders rather than physically destroying the fence).
On top of that, I don’t think anyone is arguing the need for proper border security. They just weren’t willing to do it the way Trump was demanding. If it had been proposed differently from the start instead of a drug-mule-rapist Mexican land condom, it might have actually seen some success legislatively. Giving in to Trump’s racist demands would have been a political death sentence for the dems. And the gop could have done a better job finding a way to pass some more wall money and let the dems save face in the process and not lose all their support either.
Yes it does. But like I said, the question was posed to him in the heat of the wall battle. And for him to say “no, I’d keep this wall because it seems to be okay” would have fucked the party and undermined the whole argument.
Relevant article on how the border wall is already an ecological disaster and will only get worse Of course, much of the border economy is dependent on the local wildlife (hunting and fishing).
Republican governor Hogan would be a plausible Trump alternative, and he's likely biding his time to 2024. Dude is insanely popular in Maryland, and while he might look like Rob Ford's older brother, his record is surprisingly moderate. If he can skirt some of the more extreme fringes of the GOP, stay off of Fox News, he could be a serious candidate.
There's several of those types waiting for the post-Trump era, hoping they can pick up the pieces of the Republican party. Nikki Haley, Larry Hogan, Charlie Baker, the Sununu brothers, etc
It’s symbolic but hopefully speaks to what might go down in the event of the report being suppressed.