Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[San Antone]

Fine.  I'll return to posting links since an honest discussion appears to be impossible.  Just don't coming whining to me about it.

[zamyrabyrd]

Thank you for elevating the level of discourse.

You can thank Orfeo, whose repetition of the word "See" might be construed as musical if there were pitches attached to them. "Yawn" is what singing teachers tell their students to do.

[zamyrabyrd]

Fine.  I'll return to posting links since an honest discussion appears to be impossible.  Just don't coming whining to me about it. 

If you have really interesting links, you can PM me.

[Parsifal]

Clinton supporters would have more credibility if they said something like, "Yes, Clinton was reckless and possibly criminal with her unsecured server, and there are many troubling aspects to the nexus between the Clinton Foundation and her tenure at the State Dept. but I agree with her views on most policies and vastly prefer her to Trump."

I think that is what I have said.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I also remember back in the Clinton's presidency reports of a weird Christmas tree in the White House that had all manner of occult and weird symbols on it. This can be searched up.

Indeed. This is ample reason to disqualify Hillary right there. It can be "searched up" (or better, searched down) on a site such as
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Disturbing%20Truths/disturbing_truths.htm,
where other headlines include:

Bestiality (U.S. President Barack Obama signs NDAA into law 12-31-11 permitting military to have sex with animals)
Godless Teenage student sells her virginity online for £20,000 (Godless winning bidder pays £45,000.)
Eating Horse Rectums
George W. Bush and the Satanic Knights of Columbus
Cannibal Eats Internet Friend (and turns down 5 more volunteers!)
Orangutan with a Dream House

I want to be sure we're only consulting the finest sources.

[Karl Henning]

Indeed. This is ample reason to disqualify Hillary right there. It can be "searched up" (or better, searched down) on a site such as
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Disturbing%20Truths/disturbing_truths.htm,
where other headlines include:

Bestiality (U.S. President Barack Obama signs NDAA into law 12-31-11 permitting military to have sex with animals)
Godless Teenage student sells her virginity online for £20,000 (Godless winning bidder pays £45,000.)
Eating Horse Rectums
George W. Bush and the Satanic Knights of Columbus
Cannibal Eats Internet Friend (and turns down 5 more volunteers!)
Orangutan with a Dream House

I want to be sure we're only consulting the finest sources.

I read it on the Internet somewhere.

[Parsifal]

Indeed. This is ample reason to disqualify Hillary right there. It can be "searched up" (or better, searched down) on a site such as
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Disturbing%20Truths/disturbing_truths.htm,
where other headlines include:

Bestiality (U.S. President Barack Obama signs NDAA into law 12-31-11 permitting military to have sex with animals)
Godless Teenage student sells her virginity online for £20,000 (Godless winning bidder pays £45,000.)
Eating Horse Rectums
George W. Bush and the Satanic Knights of Columbus
Cannibal Eats Internet Friend (and turns down 5 more volunteers!)
Orangutan with a Dream House

I want to be sure we're only consulting the finest sources.

I've been reading the New York Times for years and they've been concealing all of that! "Orangutan with a Dream House," are they referring to Trump?

[mahler10th]

This is a Classical Music forum?

[San Antone]

I think that is what I have said.

Along with things like "if you really knew Trump ... you wouldn't vote for him"  That kind of argumentation doesn't advance the discussion, imo.  It basically is saying there is no rational reason to support Trump instead of Clinton.  Which insults all those who will vote for him.

This election is between two very flawed candidates.  So, basically, it looks like everyone is voting for the lesser of two evils.  There is something very wrong with our nominating process if these are the best candidates we are offered by the two major parties.

But there will be an election, and one of these people will be the next president.  America will survive no matter who it is.

[drogulus]

Clinton supporters would have more credibility if they said something like, "Yes, Clinton was reckless and possibly criminal with her unsecured server, and there are many troubling aspects to the nexus between the Clinton Foundation and her tenure at the State Dept. but I agree with her views on most policies and vastly prefer her to Trump."

As opposed to minimizing the emails and lying and foundation corruption and DNC conniving against Sanders, etc. while they maximize every flaw in Trump.

     Why "as opposed"? I do think Clinton should have severed links to the foundation more completely than she did. As everyone knows business, politics and philanthropy is a dense nexus even without the complexity of Clinton family version of it. They are masters without equal for "the appearance of wrongdoing", so much so that the wrongdoing is "pre-proven". I can only wonder in my best internetese "How they do that?". How can either the "perps" or accusers so completely underperform their appointed roles?

     

[Karl Henning]

This is a Classical Music forum?

Classical Music is extinct! 

[Brian]

I think this thread has had ample levity, but more of a bitter and not a confectionary nature.

But since you are now digressing and I love digressions as much as life itself (cf. Swift: "A Digression in Praise of Digressions," or the passage in "Catcher in the Rye" where Holden tells us his favorite parts in speech class were where the speaker gets completely off topic), I admit my friend is also an expert on such composers as Verdi and Boulez, and so his bizarre remark has often struck me as more than a trifle bizarre - though I know he does love "Fledermaus." But truly, is JS such a great melodist? That Blue Danube theme, rhythmically so stiff and symmetrical? and so many others like it? I would be far more jealous of Chopin, Tchaikovsky, or even Puccini as melodists.

I do, however, like to freeze a couple of squares from a 70% Ghirardelli bar and have them as a snack. Much preferable in my mind to semisweet.

(Back to part 1 of your post later, but I wanted to address the more significant paragraph first.)

So his remark was entirely sincere, then? That still surprises me! Surely you asked on what grounds?

Will have to try freezing chocolates. And, also, on a next visit to NYC, will have to visit one of the specialty chocolate shops Pete Wells availed himself of for a recent dark chocolate tasting. There is a local blogger here in Dallas (Scott DFW, who achieved improbable national repute after his investigative reporting revealed that Brooklyn's Mast Brothers are melting down other companies' chocolate bars and rebranding them) who tries a different bar of chocolate with every meal and diarizes with his notes. We should all be so lucky...or metabolically sound...

[Parsifal]

Along with things like "if you really knew Trump ... you wouldn't vote for him"  That kind of argumentation doesn't advance the discussion, imo.  It basically is saying there is no rational reason to support Trump instead of Clinton.  Which insults all those who will vote for him.

I am suggesting you should research Donald Trump's very public past behavior and see if it is at all consistent with what he has been saying recently. The "policy" positions that are attributed to him were drafted for the Republican platform by party operatives, and I don't think he has any buy-in to them.

You may not like Hillary Clinton's policy positions, but they have been pretty consistent over her career in politics. Economically she is a center-left candidate and internationally she advocates a more aggressive military policy than I am comfortable with. To say she is criminally responsible for the death of the American Ambassador in Bengazi is unsupportable (even the extremely partisan congressional committees couldn't pin that on her) but the policy which deposed Kadaffi and left Libya a mess was extremely ill advised, and arguable she bears responsibility for that.

[zamyrabyrd]

Indeed. This is ample reason to disqualify Hillary right there.

The account of the blue room weird Christmas tree 1994 is simply all over the place. If it were untrue then the story should have been recanted and the person reporting it should have by now been charged with slander.
It's strange that when Hillary manages to slip through the legal nets, it is considered a proof of innocence.
Weird double standards, if you ask me.
Apparently, a sort of competition was held for the Twelve Days of Christmas for art students to send their "interpretations". Well, the ones over the top were not rejected but incorporated into the festivities.
Again, if this were untrue, there should be a retraction somewhere. I mean, who would think of desecrating such a holy holiday?
http://libertynews.com/2015/06/flashback-flotus-hillarys-x-rated-white-house-christmas-tree/

[(poco) Sforzando]

So his remark was entirely sincere, then? That still surprises me! Surely you asked on what grounds?

I was afraid to. But please be sure to look me up if you return to NYC! (I may be having a new play staged of mine on March 6 and 12.)

[(poco) Sforzando]

I mean, who would think of desecrating such a holy holiday?

You'd think they were eating bacon and eggs on Yom Kippur!

Quote:
I was disgusted, but some of it was actually pretty funny.
"Gary, come here, look at this!" It was a mobile of twelve lords a-leaping. They were leaping all right. The ornament consisted of tiny clay male figurines. Each was naked and had a large erection. My friend said, "Whoops!" and he dropped it on the floor. Then, "Oh, no," as he stomped on it. He joked, "Man, I hope I don't get in trouble with Hillary for that!"
Some of the ornaments were silly and some were dangerous, like the crack pipes hung on a string. We couldn't figure out what crack pipes had to do with Christmas no matter how hard we tried, so threw them back in the box. Some ornaments were constructed of various drug paraphernalia, like syringes, heroin spoons, or roach clips, which are colorful devices sometimes adorned with bird feather and used to hold marijuana joints.
Two turtle doves became two figurines that had the shells of turtles but the heads of birds; there were many of these. Four calling birds were—you guessed it—birds with a telephone, and there were at two miniature phone booths with four birds inside using the telephone. There was a partridge in a pear, without the tree—a clay pear with a partridge head sticking out of it. Three French hens were French kissing in a menage a trois. So many of the ornaments didn't celebrate Christmas as much at they celebrated sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Several of the birds had dark glasses and were blowing saxophones...
I went over to one of the tables I hadn't looked at yet. What's this? Of course. Two turtle doves, but they didn't have shells this time—they were joined together in an act of bird fornication.
I picked up another ornament that was supposed to illustrate five golden rings. One of the male florist volunteers grabbed my arm and laughed and laughed...
I was holding were sex toys known as "cock rings"—and they had nothing to do with chickens.
Another mystery ornament was the gingerbread man. How did he fit into The Twelve Days of Christmas? Then I got it. There were five small, gold rings I hadn't seen at first: one in his ear, one in his nose, one through his nipple, one through his belly button, and, of course, the ever-popular cock ring.
I couldn't believe the disrespect that these ornaments represented. Many of the artists invited to make and send something to hang on the tree must have had nothing but disgust, hatred, and disrespect for the White House and the citizens of this country, a disgust obviously encouraged by the first lady in the name of artistic freedom...

LOCK HER UP!!!!

[Pat B]

I would only fear for the future of this country as I never have in all my 68 years. If Trump wins, a buffoon and lecher who has no knowledge of or respect for the Constitution, and who will disappoint his followers the most as soon as he abandons them. If Clinton wins, an experienced and knowledgeable if flawed candidate whom Republicans will hound with threat of indictments and impeachment from day one. At this point I can only see the inevitable and irrevocable decline of a once-promising and often great nation.

He will disappoint them, yes, but he will always have someone else to blame.

I am starting to think that regardless of the outcome of this election, we will not be able to start addressing our actual problems until the entire nation has gone full Kansas. (Even then, a significant number of people will remain convinced that the Brownback agenda is the solution.) The silver lining to a Trump presidency would be that we will get there quicker.

[San Antone]

I am suggesting you should research Donald Trump's very public past behavior and see if it is at all consistent with what he has been saying recently. The "policy" positions that are attributed to him were drafted for the Republican platform by party operatives, and I don't think he has any buy-in to them.

You may not like Hillary Clinton's policy positions, but they have been pretty consistent over her career in politics. Economically she is a center-left candidate and internationally she advocates a more aggressive military policy than I am comfortable with. To say she is criminally responsible for the death of the American Ambassador in Bengazi is unsupportable (even the extremely partisan congressional committees couldn't pin that on her) but the policy which deposed Kadaffi and left Libya a mess was extremely ill advised, and arguable she bears responsibility for that.

You act as if I don't already know that Trump's policy positions are of recent vintage and been cobbled together from various sources.  I can live with that, if it means that a Republican will be nominating the next Supreme Court judge(s) and having a less confrontational relationship with Congress and enacting a more Conservative legislative agenda. 

The bottomline is that I would never vote for Hillary Clinton.  Not because she is a Democrat (I could and have voted for Democrats in the past), but because I view her as dishonest and corrupt on a scale I cannot overlook.  More so than Trump, more so than even her husband.

As I said earlier one of these flawed candidates will be the next president and the supporters for the loser will go through the 5 stages of grief and we'll all come out the other side of this nightmare and move on.

At least I hope so.

[Parsifal]

You'd think they were eating bacon and eggs on Yom Kippur!

Quote:
I was disgusted, but some of it was actually pretty funny.
"Gary, come here, look at this!" It was a mobile of twelve lords a-leaping. They were leaping all right. The ornament consisted of tiny clay male figurines. Each was naked and had a large erection. My friend said, "Whoops!" and he dropped it on the floor. Then, "Oh, no," as he stomped on it. He joked, "Man, I hope I don't get in trouble with Hillary for that!"
Some of the ornaments were silly and some were dangerous, like the crack pipes hung on a string. We couldn't figure out what crack pipes had to do with Christmas no matter how hard we tried, so threw them back in the box. Some ornaments were constructed of various drug paraphernalia, like syringes, heroin spoons, or roach clips, which are colorful devices sometimes adorned with bird feather and used to hold marijuana joints.
Two turtle doves became two figurines that had the shells of turtles but the heads of birds; there were many of these. Four calling birds were—you guessed it—birds with a telephone, and there were at two miniature phone booths with four birds inside using the telephone. There was a partridge in a pear, without the tree—a clay pear with a partridge head sticking out of it. Three French hens were French kissing in a menage a trois. So many of the ornaments didn't celebrate Christmas as much at they celebrated sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Several of the birds had dark glasses and were blowing saxophones...
I went over to one of the tables I hadn't looked at yet. What's this? Of course. Two turtle doves, but they didn't have shells this time—they were joined together in an act of bird fornication.
I picked up another ornament that was supposed to illustrate five golden rings. One of the male florist volunteers grabbed my arm and laughed and laughed...
I was holding were sex toys known as "cock rings"—and they had nothing to do with chickens.
Another mystery ornament was the gingerbread man. How did he fit into The Twelve Days of Christmas? Then I got it. There were five small, gold rings I hadn't seen at first: one in his ear, one in his nose, one through his nipple, one through his belly button, and, of course, the ever-popular cock ring.
I couldn't believe the disrespect that these ornaments represented. Many of the artists invited to make and send something to hang on the tree must have had nothing but disgust, hatred, and disrespect for the White House and the citizens of this country, a disgust obviously encouraged by the first lady in the name of artistic freedom...

LOCK HER UP!!!!

Executive summary:

Hillary Clinton thought it would be a good idea to invite art students to send in Christmas decorations and when the box arrived she told a staff member to put them on the tree. Some of them were a bit weird.

[drogulus]

The account of the blue room weird Christmas tree 1994 is simply all over the place.

Yes, but the places it has been all over have no credibility. They spread rumors hostile to HRC as though they were facts.

If it were untrue then the story should have been recanted and the person reporting it should have by now been charged with slander.

People in the public eye rarely seek prosecution of purveyors of scandalous rumors or the National Enquirer could not exist.

It's strange that when Hillary manages to slip through the legal nets, it is considered a proof of innocence.
Weird double standards, if you ask me.

It's not proof of guilt, which unlike innocence must be proved. And I'll remember not to ask you.

Apparently, a sort of competition was held for the Twelve Days of Christmas for art students to send their "interpretations". Well, the ones over the top were not rejected but incorporated into the festivities.

I hate that! What lesson are we teaching our children if eveyone gets a prize just for participating?

Again, if this were untrue, there should be a retraction somewhere. I mean, who would think of desecrating such a holy holiday?