It's starting seem like a deliberate strategy rather than a character flaw. He's polarized both sides of the media in such a bizarre way that no one knows where he really stands and he has put up a smokescreen where no one will remember to care. He put the Republicans in a position where they think the media is simply just out to fuck him (and therefore them) over, without noticing whether or not he's enacting policies they actually care about. Conversely, he's positioned the Democrats and the left in a way where they are going to hate him and continually overreact to anything he does, blinding them from actually developing a coherent strategy against his policies. If they compliment him, he wins. If they shit on him, then who cares? Both sides react to how he makes them feel, not what he's actually doing. Or maybe he's just a fucking moron and it's just pure dumb luck that it seems to be working in his favor. Either way, a lot of powerful people showed up to his golden skyscraper to kiss the ring in the last few days.
I'm going to be very interested to see how Elon reacts to being part of the semi-inner circle. To me, that will be very telling.
Musk is the person I would want as energy secretary, not Mr. Cowboy Boots-With-A-Suit. Instead Trump is appointing fossil fuel pimps to such positions. Can't say I'm thrilled about that.
Sort of, but hasn't it been like that for awhile? He's basically told the press to go fuck themselves since the beginning of his campaign, and they acted shocked because they're used to politicians playing nice with them as that's the conventional wisdom, but people already didn't like the press. The press seemed oblivious to that. I wonder if this was a wake up call to them in realizing they don't have the influence they thought they did. I think it is a deliberate strategy. He actually does have a platform, and does have stances on issues - don't know why people think otherwise other than "He's fuckin' stupid and everything he does is stupid." which seems to be the general tone if you don't like him. His platform isn't GOP at all. He's really only a republican by association with a few of the 'have to take' stances. I would guess that's why he went on his ten stop post-election shit talking tour and why he won't get off twitter. He wants to keep the republican establishment reminded that he has the support of the base so they'll work with him, and he wants the base to keep their eyes on him. You have about a quarter of the country who is lukewarm/willing to give him a chance. About a quarter of the country loves the guy. Not so different than '08 Obama though. The base would have lined up around the block to suck his dick. Then his 'change' became incrementalism, broken promises, or a failure to accomplish bipartisan agreements and enthusiasm slowly died down. I'm not real enthused about Trump. I wanted Gore to win in 2000 from what little I knew at the time, but never thought Bush would be as bad as he was. I did expect more from Obama. On some of his campaign promises it didn't even look like he made an effort. You can't really get expectations too high. With Trump it's just that I don't buy into every press narrative/apocalypse shit, but I am damn curious to see what he does.
Dude. Let it go. She lost. We're not talking about her anymore. Trump is a reprehensible piece of human garbage. That's the new topic. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
What if they do have evidence, but can't release it because it would jeopardize American lives? While it would be nice to have definitive proof, the entirety of the American intelligence community believing Russia put their foot on the scale to favor Trump is good enough for me. No, Bush said they had WMDs. Then Congress said that the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's WMD program were not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting. The difference between this and saying Russia involved itself with our elections is that this information is coming from the intelligence community itself. This isn't politicians taking a heavily qualified document and running with it. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a CEO of a corporation with significant interests in Russia that will be in charge of diplomatic relations with Russia. I generally like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but what exactly am I supposed to believe? A guy with a vested interest in making money for the company that he's employed by ISN'T going to use his influence as Secretary of State to enrich his employer and by extension, himself? Even if he leaves Exxon, it wouldn't shock me if he went back to his CEO position. Of course, this is after he's done as much as he could to make life easier for Exxon. But since he wasn't employed at the time, it's not illegal, right? Just because it's not illegal, doesn't make it unethical as fuck. Even though public officials have been enriching themselves since governments have existed, this is the first time I can remember seeing it happen before they took the position. Usually, they have the goddamn decency to screw over American citizens after they've left office. The worst part of all this, other than selling out your own country that is, is that Trump's cabinet is worth more than a third of American households combined. During the financial crisis, we got to see the kind of behavior that occurs when naked greed rules the day. It was bad enough that huge companies went down and with it went people's livelihoods, homes and retirement accounts. Now we have those same people getting ready to run the federal government.
They'd never use that as an excuse would they? And it's not the entirety of the intelligence community. They didn't release a real report. This is just a leak to the press by an anonymous source. Believing anyone without being shown evidence is dangerous.
Is a press release technically considered a leak? Edit: Even if this was an anonymous source, why does that suddenly matter? Basically everything that came out against Clinton was leaked by anonymous sources, right? Isn't Wikileaks isn't considered anonymous?
John Podesta's email account is not an anonymous source. Nor was the DNC's email system. And that explicitly says they're not prepared to say it was the Russian government. I find this hard to get worked up about, particularly being an American citizen whose government has interfered in so many elections abroad. And of course some sources have to be anonymous for safety, but we've heard so many things over the past couple decades from "anonymous sources inside the Pentagon" or intelligence community or wherever that are just parroted by the idiot media that they have lost credibility. Now any fuck wandering aimlessly in the White House or Capitol can say something anonymously to the press and it's plastered all over the news. Smells like propaganda to me.
Look, I mean you guys can argue it any way you want and rail about spooky connections. Either they have evidence linking Trump, or they don't. If there isn't any, I don't give a shit. This reminds me of Obama being linked to nefarious groups and weakening the US for third world governments to rise to power. There was plenty of media talk suggesting why people should think that. Throw the book at someone if there's malfeasance with a foreign government, but you need evidence, you can't just pull a conspiracy theory out of your ass. When it comes to foreign governments hacking us, Russia among others, it's a serious problem, and I hope the senate can pull their heads out of their asses because if there was ever a situation without an excuse to neglect bipartisan work this would be it. That said, the CIA has lied to the American public multiple times for decades. They have good reason to try and discredit the wikileaks. It may very well be Russia(it's not like I think the CIA lies about everything), but until they come forward and say, "Hey, here's our proof that it's Russia" rather than just telling us it's Russia I don't just automatically believe them. A lot of Americans have significantly less faith in our institutions than we used to, and they've kind of made it that way. So did a number of CIA officials, many of whom were appointed by the administration. He burned a CIA agent whose husband reported to the press that the administration was openly lying. He should not have had the power to do that(burning the CIA agent), but people need to realize this shit doesn't exactly work like it's supposed to on paper. It's disturbing, and we've heard for the last 16 years about 'the rich paying their fair share' but it keeps not happening, despite so many trying to 'fix it.' Just makes you go hmmmm.... Obama should have fixed this his first two years in office, but the democratic senate is just as dirty as the republicans. This isn't some good vs evil fight. I'm talking specifically about taxes- as far as people being hideously rich, that's not always a bad thing. We are still capitalists after all.
If you take away people who voted for Clinton, Clinton has less votes. Shocking. If you takes away California *and* Texas, Hillary still wins the popular vote but loses the EC.
I mean, yes? But it depends how one feels about the value of an individual vote. Does a vote from a person in California mean less than someone in a less populated state? If someone is in favor of the electoral college system, they should just shut the fuck up about how many votes Hillary is ahead by. They don't get it both ways. If someone is a proponent of a popular vote only system, it shouldn't matter where the votes come from. So when people say that if it's a popular vote system, that California and New York would decide every election, it doesn't make sense to me. You can look at the breakdown by states just to see how they lean, but every vote would count the same. More votes would mean more votes and that's it.
It seems to me that the electoral college is the best way to elect presidents, if we are going to have a Representative Republic. I am sure many states are like this, but in Georgia, there is metro Atlanta, and there is everywhere else - meaning, the needs and mindset of a densely populated urban area are very different from the rural, more sparsely populated areas. But, in the House of Representatives, each member of Congress gets the same vote on a bill about mass transit or cotton subsidies, regardless of whether or not that congressperson is from Atlanta or Hahira. I don't think today's electoral college plays out exactly like the founders intended, but they were afraid of democracy. I'm not sure exactly how it would work for a president, but in a lot of local elections, if you don't get 50% of the vote, the top two then head to a runoff. So, for instance, neither time Bill Clinton won, nor the first time George W. Bush won, did the winner receive 50%. I think a lot of the Perot votes in 1992 would've then gone to Bush, Sr. in the runoff. ETA: I'm not sure what it means, but in looking through the results: two VERY popular presidents after their terms were Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton, yet they are 2 of the lowest 4 popular-vote-by-percentage presidents. And, Richard Nixon was 5th least on that list when he was elected in 1968, but then 3rd MOST popular-vote-by-percentage when he was re-elected in 1972. I find all that interesting.
Good Lord, they're still not letting this go: Maricopa Co. Sheriff's Office: "9 points of forgery" in Obama's birth certificate http://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-news/223931057-story
The system was built around state's rights. That's why it's a republic and not a direct democracy. Due to incrementalism over the last 200 years and especially during the Roosevelt administration, the federal government has become much more powerful than the founders had in mind. Most of the states are not content to let the other states do as they please, and given how much the world has changed in transportation, production, and communication there's some good arguments for why they shouldn't. There's also a lot of enforcing their will on others to 'help' because people who won't get off their ass and move need their 'help'. I'm for going straight popular vote because I think the whole country should be in play. We don't know how this would have changed campaign strategies/outcomes in past elections, but the general election should be about the entire country - not 4-5 swing states. There's usually less states up for grabs than this year's election.
Pathetic excuse for cops wasting resources on bullshit. This fucking clown belongs in a mental institution.
Yes, it's a small margin. My point was that this meme floating around conservatives circles that Hillary is the queen of California, but that Trump trounced her in the rest of the country (aka "real" America) is just statistical ballwashing. If you remove both her biggest state and his biggest state, the rest of the 48 states are still a pretty even split, with her slightly ahead.
Oh fuck. Here we go.... Obama vows action against Russia for hacks http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/15/politics/obama-russia-hacking-election/index.html?adkey=bn Wasn't it just two months ago Obama told Trump to stop whining about the election being hacked, that it wasn't possible?
Updated 2:22 PM ET, Tue October 18, 2016 "Obama echoed those sentiments Tuesday, saying there's "no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America's elections." http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/polit...ion-claim-whining-before-the-games-even-over/