Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[zamyrabyrd]

Delusional Liberal.
"And one more point about Mr. Rubio: why imagine that a man who collapsed in the face of childish needling from Mr. Trump would have triumphed over the woman who kept her cool during 11 hours of grilling over Benghazi, and made her interrogators look like fools? Which brings us to the question of Mrs. Clinton's strengths."

A perverse strength for sure, a dyed-in-the-wool dissembler.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I could have continued:  It is my belief that Liberals will experience buyers remorse from a Hillary Clinton presidency.  Which is why I think this kind of laudatory commentary is delusional.

Pot kettle black.

[San Antone]

Pot kettle black.

If you are able to resist a moment from your knee-jerk reaction of putting everything through a Trump prism, you might consider that everyone who put their trust into either Clinton has ended up feeling betrayed, if they are lucky, or in jail or dead.

[Madiel]

"Everyone". That's a big call.

[Zeus]

I tend to agree with Krugman, first about the unseemly willful ignorance behind several of the GOP policy positions, and second about Hillary's strengths. I would add that Hillary is obviously a team player, whereas Donald is a grenade thrower. Look no further than Hillary's effective working relationship with Bernie Sanders, versus Donald's toxic attacks on Paul Ryan and his fellow primary candidates. Donald has been burning bridges throughout the campaign; Hillary has been building bridges.

A few of the posters above have parroted Donald's claim that the press is against him.  This is another example of 'you will reap what you sow'.  Donald has been antagonizing the press throughout the campaign, banning various news organizations, blaming the press for any bad coverage he gets, etc. The press which covered Donald's rallies were threatened on many occasions. No wonder the press turned on Donald. Who wouldn't?

Finally, I want to offer a little push-back on this claim that Hillary somehow should be in jail because of her handling of her email server.  I tend to agree that she showed some carelessness, but nothing deserving more than a reprimand.

Here are a few points, as far as I understand them:

1) Hillary was using an email configuration which is (or was) typical for Senators. Her negligence was failing to upgrade to stricter state department standards when she joined the Obama administration.

2) Although Hillary is nominally responsible, this really should have been taken care of by her staff or by State Department staff. Is Obama responsible for keeping his phone secure? No. Would we want him to be? No. He should be focused on other, bigger issues.  The same goes for the Secretary of State. No one expects her to be an email server guru.  Blame it on Hillary if you want, but someone should have taken care of this for her. 

3) I'm not too concerned about "classified" documents sitting on her home server. The US government generates millions (billions?) of paper files a month, and the process of classifying those documents is not exactly water-tight.  Many documents, email threads, etc, get classified weeks after-the-fact, often on the basis of the most cursory analysis. I seriously doubt that Hillary had anything like the "Bruce-Partington Plans" on her home server.

In short, this is a minor issue, not a felony offense. The fact that this is the best dirt that the anti-Hillary squads could find speaks volumes to me.

Every time the GOP takes a minor issue and tries to magnify it up into a colossal scandal, they lose credibility (e.g. Benghazi).  To say nothing of completely fabricated stories (e.g. birtherism). Cry wolf too many times and people just stop listening to you.

[San Antone]

"Everyone". That's a big call.

You can look it up; the list of ruined careers and worse is long and filled with their most loyal supporters.  Democrats are cursed with short memories. 

[Madiel]

You can look it up; the list of ruined careers and worse is long and filled with their most loyal supporters.  Democrats are cursed with short memories.

I'm not a Democrat (your memory is so short you can't remember me telling you this mere hours ago, and indeed you appear to have forgotten where I live).

And what I'm "cursed" with is an understanding of the word everyone, which first requires a list of everyone who put their trust in either Clinton before a demonstration how each one was affected.

Not a list of people who've been affected by the Clintons. Which you haven't provided, just told me to look it up. Well, I'm not the one making the assertion. You are. You do the work. You can at the very LEAST provide a list of people affected by the Clintons. It won't remotely prove that everyone who put their trust in a Clinton was badly affected, but heck, it would at least show you putting some effort into showing that someone who put their trust in a Clinton was badly affected.

[San Antone]

I'm not a Democrat (your memory is so short you can't remember me telling you this mere hours ago, and indeed you appear to have forgotten where I live).

I wasn't really speaking to you - my point was directed at those who will cast their vote for Hillary Clinton - hence my "buyers remorse" comment.

Try to keep up.

[Madiel]

I wasn't really speaking to you

Then don't **** quote me *****.

You've said the same thing twice AND BOTH TIMES YOU WERE QUOTING ME. Dear God, could you be any more transparently false? Could you, in fact, be any more like Trump who just makes shit up and denies the public record?

I don't care which side of politics you're on, I cannot tolerate this disingenuous shit where you try and deny what you've done with a wink and a smile. You were speaking to me. A blind man could see you were directly responding to me, telling to me to look something up. But you just can't bear to be wrong.

[Karl Henning]

I could have continued:  It is my belief that Liberals will experience buyers remorse from a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Well, and you believe that El Tupé will . . . become presidential.  You'll forgive my feeling that you may not be the reliable employer of the adjective delusional 

[San Antone]

Well, and you believe that El Tupé will . . . become presidential.  You'll forgive my feeling that you may not be the reliable employer of the adjective delusional 

I know it is a stretch.      But hope springs eternal.  But if I were to put my faith in one of them, I'd sooner choose Trump rather than her. 

[Karl Henning]

Mike Pence Is Winning the Ryan-Trump Cold War

If this holds true, then it really is the GOP which is determinedly pursuing extinction, with an institutional incapacity to learn the lessons from its own post-Romney "autopsy."

[Karl Henning]

I know it is a stretch.      But hope springs eternal.  But if I were to put my faith in one of them, I'd sooner choose Trump rather than her. 

Well, fair enough, though we (not to state the obvious) disagree.

[San Antone]

Well, fair enough, though we (not to state the obvious) disagree.

Yes, and at least we do it politely.  I would hate to see this silly thread spoil otherwise good online relationships which are mostly about a shared interest in music.

[(poco) Sforzando]

"Everyone". That's a big call.

We don't want to appear too nuanced here.

[Madiel]

 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Every time the GOP takes a minor issue and tries to magnify it up into a colossal scandal, they lose credibility (e.g. Benghazi).  To say nothing of completely fabricated stories (e.g. birtherism). Cry wolf too many times and people just stop listening to you.

This is why I take no Republican criticisms of Obama very seriously any more. From another classical website:

Mickey Mouse would be better than that doofus now in the White House and his "Prisoner in the White House" wife who wears a
dress to the inaugural ball that looks like it was made out of toilet paper and worse.

And:

"There's no way, I don't think, any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday. I mean, you have the world watching," said [Pete] King [unfortunately my congressman] on right-wing internet TV today. "For him to walk out — I'm not trying to be trivial here — in a light suit, a light tan suit."
"The president stands squarely behind the decision he made yesterday to wear his summer suit," the White House press secretary said today —"

Nothing like focusing on what's essential.

[Zeus]

I took a look at redstate.com for the first time to see what the other side was thinking/saying.  Boy was I shocked to see the level of vitriol directed against Trump!

Here's a sample of an article on why Trump couldn't be trusted to appoint a conservative SCOTUS justice.  The essence is that he wouldn't honor his pledge, but instead would pick a justice comfortable with his planned level of executive over-reach.

While it's true that Hillary would nominate liberal justices, the claim that Trump would fight against Democrats in Congress to nominate conservative justices flies in the face of everything we know about Trump from his entire life history.

First of all, he doesn't keep his word on anything, just ask the banks he refused to pay back loans to when his businesses went bankrupt, or the workers at those same businesses, who he refused to pay overtime to, or in some cases refused to pay at all. His word isn't worth the paper it's written on, and that's literally all we have when it comes to his promise about appointing good judges.

Secondly, he hasn't fought for a single conservative principle, policy, or person his entire life, and isn't about to start at age seventy. That's just not how the brain works. By that age, you are who you are. Either you've been humbled and changed into a better person by your life experiences, or you haven't, and clearly the latter is true with Trump because he's never experienced tragedy or intense suffering his entire life. That's not an exaggeration either, just read his biographies if you don't believe me.

He's been a liberal his entire life, and in fact still is, he's just pretending to be a conservative to win the votes he needs in this election. He only cares about himself, not ideas and policies that conservatives have fought for for decades. He certainly doesn't care about the Constitution, which tells me he would actually appoint a judge who wasn't an originalist, because only that kind of judge would be willing to allow him to pass his executive orders.

A true originalist justice in the mold of Thomas or Alito would vote to strike down and block his executive overreach, and Trump's ego couldn't handle that. If he has the power to nominate a judge who will act as a rubber stamp for his big gov't, isolationists, nationalist, agenda, why wouldn't he? It's simply illogical to suggest that he'd use up what little political capital he would have to fight the Democrats over a conservative justice who would be likely to end up opposing some of his pet projects anyway. He'd be much more likely to cut a deal with them, as I'll explain shortly.


Wow! Those redstate guys are mean! You don't see anything this vicious in the mainstream "liberal" media. Trump is under fire from all sides!

[zamyrabyrd]

Yes, and at least we do it politely.  I would hate to see this silly thread spoil otherwise good online relationships which are mostly about a shared interest in music.

Couldn't agree more. At any rate, it will be all over in a little more than two weeks, if there is no need for a recount.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Delusional Liberal.

Oh really, have you checked the credential of this guy. This is not just some journalist, this guy won a Nobel Prize and taught at some of the most prestigious universities in the US. IF anyone knows what he/she is talking about he does.

He is right on the money: Hillary is as tough as nails and on issues like abortion she truly believes in what she talks. You can see it in her eyes. Compare that to Trump who just gives some bullshit fear-monguling about how women are going to be lining up at free clinics waiting to abort their  full term fetus.