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FYI the media is lying to you. He never used racial profiling, he said profiling. CNN started it, NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, the papers(wapo, etc) all ran with it.

Wouldn't surprise me. Here's the thing on CBC editing the news earlier too. Figured I'd post it since I fucked up and posted the wrong news org, my bad.

It isn't just authoritarian governments -- many other democracies have no First Amendment-like protections.

Yes it's critically important to make sure that domain names stay within control of a government who would never engage in censorship of an internet domain.

Don't worry the Democrats will protect us from those evil Republicans. /sarcasm

While the above paints the Ds in a a bad light the Rs are just as bad on the H-!B issue it is just they lack the standout champion of expansion that is Senator Klobuchar. The last time I wrote Senator Amy Klobuchar on the H-1B issue I got a very patronizing response back, which is par for the course from here on the rare occasion I get a response, where she stated that it was the Republican's fault because they failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform that had her amendment to increase the number of H-1B visas.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybe...

and the Democrats referred to their recent attacks as "Terrorism"

It's 'kinda worse than that.

Hillary Clinton sent classified E-mails after leaving the state department

We already knew that Hillary was using her private email server for work, and that some of that information was classified.

So what is the shocking new scandal? That the previous secretary of state emailed information to an official at the state department?

, after the FBI concluded its investigation more deleted E-mails turned up that they should have been given, even more E-mails turned up that should have matched the FBI search terms Hillary was given.

FTA,
"At this time, we have not confirmed that the documents are, in fact, responsive, or whether they are duplicates of materials already provided to the Department by former Secretary Clinton in December 2014.”

So yeah, gimmie a call when they find evidence that something was deleted because it contained incriminating info, and not because some dumbass lawyer a) thought it was a good idea, and b) sucked at it.

Or at least let me know when they know it's not a duplicate.

(Also, Bill Clinton used tax dollars to subsidize the private E-mail server and pay for employees at the Clinton foundation.)

Looking at the media reports, things like Sigh. Yet Another Non-Scandal at the Clinton Foundation come up.

Yeah! The media is notoriously easy on Clinton!

Did you actually read the Mother Jones analysis instead of looking at their rebuttal as evidence of media bias?

The whole "scandal" is around the fact that Bill Clinton still does stuff in his capacity as ex-President. This takes some money, not a lot of money, but because it's considered to be in the national interest the federal government gives him funds to do this, ~$100k.

It would be kinda stupid to bring in a whole different set of staff just because you spend a few hours doing ex-President stuff inbetween Clinton foundation stuff, so he just has the same staff work for the government instead of the foundation for that period.

I'm not clear what he should have done otherwise. A bigger scandal would have been if he paid the staff for an ex-Presidential event using Clinton Foundation funds!

Guccifer exposes Hillary's illegal email server and goes to jail for it.

Hilary gets off Scott Free.

BTW, Comey said "Leeeeave Hillary Alllloneeee" because there were more appropriate administrative punishments available.

And? What were they? Were the ever applied?

It's 'kinda worse than that.

Hillary Clinton sent classified E-mails after leaving the state department, after the FBI concluded its investigation more deleted E-mails turned up that they should have been given, even more E-mails turned up that should have matched the FBI search terms Hillary was given.

(Also, Bill Clinton used tax dollars to subsidize the private E-mail server and pay for employees at the Clinton foundation.)

Looking at the media reports, things like Sigh. Yet Another Non-Scandal at the Clinton Foundation come up.

Nothing to see here, no smoking gun. She wasn't indicted, so let's leave her alone.

You're right they're all bad, however bad is relative.
I would contend that Hilary is obviously worse than Trump because she is blatantly corrupt (primary mechanism being the Clinton foundation), habitually lies on a level bordering psychopathy, and is not even eligible to get security clearance necessary to be president.
http://thehill.com/policy/nati...
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
  At least one source has evidence that in fact she never had actually passed security clearance.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...

She has already also clearly sold out the US many times to enrich herself/the Clinton foundation. Do some research for yourself into exactly why middle eastern countries like Saudi are donating millions to the Clinton Foundation.

Trump is a clueless pompous asshat but at least he isn't blatantly corrupt career criminal, and also I beleive he's clearly more of a patriot that Clinton, in that he would be far more likely to put the interests of the US first than she ever would, given she's already provably sold it out for her own benefit many times.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/267005-trump-calls-for-medicare-to-negotiate-drug-prices

Granted, that was back in January, and he backtracks with claims about something he said as "sarcasm" almost daily.

The real issue here preventing the feds from negotiating drug prices is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Prescription_Drug,_Improvement,_and_Modernization_Act.

None of Hillary Clinton's work-related emails discovered by the FBI after being deleted from her private server have been released, raising questions about whether any will be seen in public before Election Day.

http://thehill.com/policy/nati...

According to Trump, Obama is the founder http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo...

WTF do electric car chargers have to do with security? Do you imagine that embassies must have "perfect" security and only then are the employees allowed to have chairs?

Well let's look at it from an IT pov shall we? You'r UID is low enough you should get it. Imagine you've got two satellite offices, one is in a relatively stable, secure area where you can get away with simple keypad lockouts and the occasional guard. The other location is in a shit hole, there's roving bands of thugs and not only do you have heavy security you also have all the existing security.

Now your nice safe office in order to look trendy in their new hip area wants 143 cappuccino and espresso machines, because that'll make them look good. And your other office wants more on the ground bodies and further hardening of the existing security measure to make sure your hardware is secure. So you decide that trendy and hip is the way to go, your other office gets trashed, people get killed and you just say "well there wasn't any money to help with that..." while you just finished spending several hundred thousand dollars for cappuccino and espresso machines.

So the money was there, it could have been reallocated by dispensation to the security fund. But instead of doing that you're now responsible for the deaths of a couple of people, destruction of your hardware and other issues. And your response is: "what difference does it make?"

except that the security budget is specifically allocated by the house and senate.

excuse the afterthefact support for my statement by replying to myself, please.
"GOP cuts to embassy security draw scrutiny, jabs from Democrats
By Alexander Bolton - 09/18/12 10:41 PM EDT
Republicans have sought to cut hundreds of millions of dollars slated for security at U.S. embassies and consulates since gaining control of the House in 2011.
Democrats enacted $1.803 billion for embassy security, construction and maintenance for fiscal 2010, when they still controlled the Senate and House. After Republicans took control of the House and picked up six Senate seats, Congress reduced the enacted budget to $1.616 billion in fiscal 2011, and to $1.537 billion for 2012.
The administration requested $1.801 billion for security, construction and maintenance for fiscal 2012; House Republicans countered with a proposal to cut spending to $1.425 billion. The House agreed to increase it to $1.537 billion after negotiations with the Senate.
The administration requested $1.654 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program for fiscal 2012. House Republicans proposed funding the program at $1.557 billion. Congress eventually enacted $1.591 billion after the Senate weighed in.
For fiscal 2013, the administration requested $2.15 billion in funding for the worldwide security protection program, a larger increase from the previous year. The House countered with a proposal to increase the program to $1.934 billion.
Embassy security funding will be reduced further if automatic spending cuts established by the 2011 Budget Control Act take place as scheduled. Under the so-called sequestration process, embassy security, construction and maintenance funding would shrink by $129 million, or 8.2 percent." http://thehill.com/homenews/ho...

You mean besides the part where the Benghazi embassy requested extra security and she along with her underlings said there wasn't any money for it? But they could come up with the money for electric car chargers for the embassies in Europe?

to begin with, the benghazi post wasn't an embassy. It wasn't even a consulate. That speaks to the mastery of the details possessed by the Hillary lynchers, and and also to the priority level of attending to security there.
but since we're discussing budgets for security:
"GOP cuts to embassy security draw scrutiny, jabs from Democrats
By Alexander Bolton - 09/18/12 10:41 PM EDT
Republicans have sought to cut hundreds of millions of dollars slated for security at U.S. embassies and consulates since gaining control of the House in 2011.
Democrats enacted $1.803 billion for embassy security, construction and maintenance for fiscal 2010, when they still controlled the Senate and House. After Republicans took control of the House and picked up six Senate seats, Congress reduced the enacted budget to $1.616 billion in fiscal 2011, and to $1.537 billion for 2012.
The administration requested $1.801 billion for security, construction and maintenance for fiscal 2012; House Republicans countered with a proposal to cut spending to $1.425 billion. The House agreed to increase it to $1.537 billion after negotiations with the Senate.
The administration requested $1.654 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program for fiscal 2012. House Republicans proposed funding the program at $1.557 billion. Congress eventually enacted $1.591 billion after the Senate weighed in.
For fiscal 2013, the administration requested $2.15 billion in funding for the worldwide security protection program, a larger increase from the previous year. The House countered with a proposal to increase the program to $1.934 billion.
Embassy security funding will be reduced further if automatic spending cuts established by the 2011 Budget Control Act take place as scheduled. Under the so-called sequestration process, embassy security, construction and maintenance funding would shrink by $129 million, or 8.2 percent."
http://thehill.com/homenews/ho...
CNN Anchor Soledad O’Brien: “Is it true that you voted to cut the funding for embassy security?”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah): “Absolutely. Look we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have 15,0000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, a private army there, for President Obama, in Baghdad. And we’re talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces. When you’re in touch economic times, you have to make difficult choices. You have to prioritize things.”
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2012/10/10/exp-point-chaffetz-two.cnn.html

I think you're confusing "a press will actually investigate and report on a Trump Administration" with "Trump will cooperate with the press and answer all their questions". There's a big difference in how the media handles news about Republicans versus how they handle news about Democrats. It's almost like the media works for the Democrats and against the Republicans.

I've always thought that restrictions on political donations was a violation of the 1st Amendment.

Yes, they are a violation. And it is why the democrats want to chip away at it, or repeal it entirely... The entire Bill of Rights will go down with it. Too many people think that's a good thing.

So instead having cheap animal feed, you had expensive gasoline that had less energy content than before and your food prices went up.

An obvious solution would be to vote for someone who wants to fix the problem. Not Hillary. Not Donald. So you have a choice of Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.

He didn't say, "I like her better than Trump,"

He definitely said that, his entire speech is about comparing her to Trump and explaining why her positions match his. It's almost entirely based on the viewpoints held, not whether she is competent or not. He said, "there is no doubt in my mind that, as we head into November, Hillary Clinton is far and away the best candidate." Which of course can be true even if you think she is unfit to hold office.

So, Sanders' previous observation about her unfitness for office.......He never meant it in the first place, which makes him a liar.

ok, at the end of his speech, he says, "Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president and I am proud to stand with her here today." Which definitely makes him seem like a liar when he said she was unfit (or he is lying now).

• Trump Under Fire For Soliciting Donations From Icelandic MPs And Others
• Foreign politicians getting fundraising emails from Trump
• Foreign Politicians to Donald Trump: Stop Begging Us for Money
• Trump Under Fire For Soliciting Donations From Icelandic MPs And Others

A member of Australia's parliament tweeted a screenshot: https://twitter.com/TimWattsMP...

Did Rice and Powell also use their private email server while their eponymous foundation accepted hundreds of millions of donations from foreign governments during their tenure at the State Department?

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/new...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08...

The problem with your "consumer" argument is that it only works in the absence of other consumers with differing opinions.

When you typed that sentence, did you think it sounded smart?

http://thehill.com/regulation/...

So stop with all the labeling crap already. If people care, they will gravitate to products which are labeled. If they don't, and I would guess 99.999999999 of people on the planet don't, then most manufacturers won't bother.

http://thehill.com/regulation/...

I know that as does probably just about everyone on /. but do you remember how much of a deal the news media made about the terrorists using encrypt during their coverage of the attacks. It now looks like since the initial frenzy is over with that and people have it in their mind that it was because of encryption officials were unable to stop the attacks the media come out stating that they used unencrypted communication but that gets a lot less if any air play or only a brief mention in a small article buried on the inside.

It's almost as if they were all getting their stories from the same source... ;)

I know that as does probably just about everyone on /. but do you remember how much of a deal the news media made about the terrorists using encrypt during their coverage of the attacks. It now looks like since the initial frenzy is over with that and people have it in their mind that it was because of encryption officials were unable to stop the attacks the media come out stating that they used unencrypted communication but that gets a lot less if any air play or only a brief mention in a small article buried on the inside.

It's almost as if they were all getting their stories from the same source... ;)

I know that as does probably just about everyone on /. but do you remember how much of a deal the news media made about the terrorists using encrypt during their coverage of the attacks. It now looks like since the initial frenzy is over with that and people have it in their mind that it was because of encryption officials were unable to stop the attacks the media come out stating that they used unencrypted communication but that gets a lot less if any air play or only a brief mention in a small article buried on the inside.

I know that as does probably just about everyone on /. but do you remember how much of a deal the news media made about the terrorists using encrypt during their coverage of the attacks. It now looks like since the initial frenzy is over with that and people have it in their mind that it was because of encryption officials were unable to stop the attacks the media come out stating that they used unencrypted communication but that gets a lot less if any air play or only a brief mention in a small article buried on the inside.

[...] that you just admitted how cowardly the Democrats were to use it [...]

You're saying that the Republicans were cowards for using the same exact reconciliation process to repeal Obamacare on a majority vote (52-47)?

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/262071-senate-approves-bill-repealing-much-of-obamacare

I seem to recall Obama getting fewer votes than 08

Obama is the first president since Eisenhower to win two consecutive elections with 51% of the votes. Roosevelt won four consecutive elections with 53% or better. That's a very impressive historic record for any president.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-03/final-tally-shows-obama-first-since-56-to-win-51-twice

You make very valid points, but there is an issue that I think you are missing. All of what you say is basically true, except the part where you say voters don't have much of a say in NASA funding. they actually do, even if it is indirect. They elect the politicians that control policy, and theoretically this is a good thing. But our democracy is corrupted by special interests, so the voters don't don't always get what they voted for, while special interest groups get often get exactly what they paid for. And the fossil fuel industry definitely got what they paid for in the case of the guy voters in the 21st Congressional district elected to represent them in Congress, Lamarr Smith. Smith is an anti-science, religious nutbar from Texas, a card-carrying climate change denier firmly in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry, who incidentally believes the age of the Earth is "10,000 years or so."

The Republican leadership in Congress put Smith in charge of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, which has jurisdiction over programs at NASA, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This one guy basically controls the $39B US government R&D budget. So, what did the fossil fuel industry's money buy them? Check out this brilliant piece of legislation sponsored by Smith. In a bucket, he is trying to get a law that prevents the EPA from getting data from real scientists, and at the same time, forces the EPA to use "data" from oil and gas industry "experts."

I mentioned all this so that you can understand why it is going to take more than balls and a desire to explore to rescue NASA, and why even if voters did care about science policy (remember I agreed with you when you said they didn't) the damage is already done. NASA is now in Smith's sights because they had the temerity to defy Smith by providing independent confirmation of climate change when Smith accused the EPA of using "secret science" to confuse Congress during hearings on the "myth of climate change" as Smith repeatedly characterizes it. Smith is going to strangle funding to NASA if they don't stick to a fossil fuel industry approved script of research activities (read: stop doing research on climate change and stick to patriotic buck rogers stuff, or else.)

I get to choose between a Crazy Bastard and a Crooked Bitch.

I'm pretty sure that "Crazy Crooked Bastard" applies in this case:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/3...

http://dailycaller.com/2016/06...

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo...

"Crooked Crazy Bastard" is also appropriate. I'm not sure why you'd think this indicates someone who would shake up the corrupt system.

http://img2.timeinc.net/people...

Knowledge of the law is not possible. Laws are being written faster than anyone can read them, now that the edicts of regulatory agencies have the force of law.

This year’s daily publication of the federal government’s rules, proposed rules and notices amounted to 81,611 pages. http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/264456-2015-was-record-year-for-federal-regulation-group-says

Read that carefully, that's over 80,000 pages per day.

Actually, you need to read it more carefully, or be more informed. The daily refers to the publication itself, which is published every day, not the actual amount published in a day.

If you go back to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and see their actual claim, which is that the yearly total amounts to some 82,000 new pages, you'll realize that you misread it.

Unofficially, Mr. Obama’s Administration has once again broken its own record by issuing a staggering 82,036 pages of new and proposed rules and instructions in the Federal Register in 2015. We say unofficially because Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who tracks these regulations, warns that the final number will likely come down by a few hundred pages when the official National Archives tally is released, without the blank pages that sometimes appear in daily publication.

I suppose you could have inadvertently misread the first article, but if you had checked it out, you might have recognized that your own interpretation was severely in error.

However, due to your own biased inclinations, you failed to do so, and being uninformed, you just went with a false reading instead. It does seem a bit ironic since you asked others to read carefully, but did poorly on your own.

This year’s daily publication of the federal government’s rules, proposed rules and notices amounted to 81,611 pages. http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/264456-2015-was-record-year-for-federal-regulation-group-says

Read that carefully, that's over 80,000 pages per day.

In the unlikely event that Der TrumpenFuehrer gets elected, he's dumb and cowardly enough to be talked into also continuing the fine tradition. He'll be a patsy like GWB was.

Hills will be more direct.

What we need is another President Johnson. Independents agree.

It is easy for Trump to make promises because he is clueless when it comes to technology. Trump doesn't even know how to use data in his own campaign. He reads donation numbers out loud at a press conference when most people these days would just post the numbers on their website and be done with it. He is telling you what you want to hear to "make the sale," but the actual situation is being driven by economics that are hard to address in a free market.

Just read the marketing notes from Trump University. . . he is totally playing the segments of the population in the most pain. . . for HIS gain. Except the stakes are way higher than they were with Trump University. . .

Neither Obama nor his administration has a lawful ability to repeal a judge's decision.

Correct. I got appeal confused with repeal because I read an article that the House is going to repeal the 2001 war authorization before I made my comment.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/280339-house-to-debate-repealing-2001-war-authorization

Another hypocrite who will whine about abandoning the rule of law, ignoring regulations and abuse of government power - Except their own, of course.

I'm no longer a Republican.

BTW - that's "appealing" the decision. A freudian slip I'm sure wasn't intentional or how your rose-colored view of the world works in your mind.

Uh, no. I traded in my rose-colored glasses when I became a Democrat. I read an article about the House repealing the 2001 war authorization before I made my comment. The word stuck in my mind.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/280339-house-to-debate-repealing-2001-war-authorization

Yes if this true we are cooked. Fortunately EIA has a history of underestimating renewable penetration. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundi...

Hillary MAY have received more total votes - which may just have something to do with the Democrats having two viable candidates and the Republicans starting with around six, all splitting votes...

But it's hard to say how that will factor in because Democrat turnout is down this year and 44% of Sanders voters will vote for Trump.

Keep pretending Hillary is fine, I'm sure that will work out well just like it did for every other Republican candidate.

Starvation being the most likely outcome since cost of living rarely comes down without it. So many people will die needlessly, crime will rise significantly needlessly, and society as we know it crumbles again needlessly.

Shifting gears here - Keeping in mind that I was Poe-ing, you are right. As America further runs though it's wealth extraction efforts, we are going to have to come to the realization that you just cannot have it both ways. You can't have wealthy producers and impoverished serfs being ruled by them.

Because the end game of that one sided paradigm will be the wealthy producers starting to cannibalize each other. You can't take money from the useless poor. They're starving and have none. So you have to go after your own kind.

Now I really don't expect that scenario to happen, because right now, the Producer outlook has gone a tad pathological, to the point where people like Martin Shkreli are worshipped by many.

As well as horribly reviled by many - which is a good sign that there are at least some limits of greed that people are willing to put up with. Trump even had some nasty stuff to say about this modern American Master of the Uniiverse. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-....

Arrested for a shell game he was playing.

The H1-B program is a sham, it probably started with a noble goal like bringing another Einstein to the country, that is all it should be for. That is not what most H1-Bs are though. They have no special skills and we're enabling this process without getting anything in return.

What we need to be afraid of is a brain drain, where Americans end up going to other countries where there might be better opportunities. We're not there yet, but some day? Something like 6 million smart people by some counts . https://newrepublic.com/articl...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

But don't worry - it's those egghead scientists who believe wrong things. That last was sarcastic.

The FCC should be doing this.

Interestingly, according to FCC, only the poor need Internet-subsidy — the view you yourself denounced as "incredibly narrow-minded" only a short while ago.

So, Mr. "IT Worker", how do you enjoy waiting a minimum of 20 seconds

An IT worker can afford a faster Internet without government's help. He can not be the poster child for you to use to justify increased taxation and government control.

if we assume that national governments are neutral in this, then they can place a proper value on that environmental cost

Wow, talk about begging the question. Are they neutral? Or will they happily (ab)use this power you propose we give them to reward supporters and punish opponents?

And even if they are free of any agenda — just how can they (or anyone) calculate these costs? The people, who can't keep almost any project within budget and on-time and are notorious for mishandling even the high-profile ones — you are going to trust them to calculate the incalculable?

BP's oil-spill was projected to cost almost $70 bln, for example — but ended up costing $20 bln. Which side would the government have erred on computing the costs of an oil-well ahead of time? And what would it do with the surplus, if the estimates turned out to be exaggerated?

If they can hand bucks to folks to generate power

Itself a shameful practice to be abolished...

The EFF has a great write up on how the TPP (the trans pacific partnership, another one of these shitpile laws) will affect anyone even remotely interested in technology. It's a great link to send around to anyone who's thinking "I'm not in manufacturing, why should I care?"

It's bad, folks. And even worse because in summer 2015, before the election, before both the GOP (!) and Dem candidate came out against the TPP, Obama fought and beat back his own party to get fast track authority for approval, meaning now it's way easier for it to get approved, with no ability to strip out the bad parts or filibuster against it.

The lawyer/engineer ratio at the FCC — as at every other Federal agency — has shifted and the number of field agents actually capable of investigating is now very small. The FCC has been shutting down field offices for years and focusing the money on Washington staff.

Here's the rundown.

...after he lied the last time. http://thehill.com/policy/tech... Since he didn't, why would he tell the truth now?

>How about we put the statue of liberty on the currency? That gets rid of the drama.

Actually, I think that would create all kinds of new drama, but it would be fun to watch

Smithsonian: Statue of Liberty was originally a Muslim woman

Breaking that down:

The parts where you say "Translate" are, at least, positions. Some of your rebuttals evidence a fundamental misapprehension of economics, business, and geopolitics, but they are nonetheless positions on which we can differ.

The parts you call "Counter" are... not even? For example, Trump talking shit about $minorityGroup is not countered nor even distracted from by alluding to Guantanamo Bay, torture, or CIA meddling in foreign governments.

Even ignoring that what you're arguing there bears no resemblance to what I said, Trump is cool with torture, and wants to fill Gitmo back up.
Translate: Hell yeah, man! Let's peel the skin off those jihadi bastards!
(I kid!!)

It's all government money. Look at the names on the coins and bills.

Actually, by that illogic, it all belongs to Federal Reserve's — an enigmatic institution successfully fighting off attempts to fully audit it for decades.

Please, take the Ayn Rand crap somewhere else.

Unlike you, perhaps, I find no satisfaction arguing in an echo-chamber...

The full text of the draft bill, and some commentary, is at The Hill: "Senate encryption bill draft mandates 'technical assistance'".

As a moderate conservative, I can tell you that the rest of America aren't going to elect Donald Trump. In fact, the numbers are indicating that he will lose the election to Hillary by double digits and endanger the Republican majorities in Congress.

As a person who does statistics as his day job I call bullshit.

The *best* you could say is that there is not enough information to make that claim. The information that we *do* have is one of a) Trump's support among democrats is higher than his support among republicans(*), or 2) 20% of democrats would defect to Trump in a general election.

In previous elections, both Republicans and Democrats have gotten about 50% of the vote; hence, the dustup with Al Gore and George Bush in 2000.

Getting over half the popular vote from Republicans when Cruz and Kasich are still running, and having 20% of Democrats admit that they will likely defect leads me to believe that Trump has a real chance.

Of course, I'm only citing statistics.

Your argument is good, too.

(*) From a poll a couple of months ago, and the second from a January poll.

The problem here will of course be liberals posing as conservatives and starting the shooting.

Don't say that's silly...

Yup, because liberals are always the ones hurting people for no reason: Man arrested, charged with punching protester at Trump event. Or threatening to kill them: after punching Rakeem Jones (while he was being escorted out by sheriff deputies) John McGraw, 78 was quoted on video saying:

"Yes, he deserved it," McGraw said in an interview. "The next time we see him, we might have to kill him. We don't know who he is. He might be with a terrorist organization."

Old, white, ignorant, racist, conservative hillbillies -- you know, Trump supporters -- are hilarious.

But I'm old enough to remember when "Obamacare" was the conservative Heritage Foundation's "free market" alternative to single payer under Clinton.

Funny, Hillary is now trying to claim that Obamacare was originally called Hillarycare when husband Bill was in the oval office - she wants credit for our current healthcare system "improvements"...

And lately Democrats have a way of taking discarded Republican Ideas, running with them, then seeking protection from the blow-back by declaring it a Republican Plan: they've done this with the loan guarantees to Solyndra, the Fast 7 Furious gun running program, and Obamacare. These were all once Great Democratic accomplishments, then when they blew-up, blame was directed at Republicans that proposed and then discarded the idea before Democrats picked them back up and ran with them.

Solyndra applied for $500M in loan guarantees under Bush admin, which rejected the application because of obvious problems with business plan - Democrats collected campaign donations from Solyndra leaders, approved the loan application, then when Solyndra went tits-up (on schedule, as predicted by government analysts that voted to deny the loan guarantees) it suddenly became a GOP program.

The Fast and Furious gun running program was modeled after a very small scale program attempted under Bush that quickly proved ineffective and was shut down. After Democrats took over the program was revivied and expanded (Democrats thought they could overcome the fatal flaws in the program through a massive increase in the number of guns that crossed the border.) they decided to keep the program their own little secret, refusing to work with the Mexican Government to track the guns once they crossed the border. Once the failed program came to light, Democrat blamed the Republicans for starting it.

Finally, Obamacare was supposedly based on a Republican idea proposed and dismissed by Republicans over a decade ago. Democrats picked it up, brushed it off, added their own ideas to the mix and rammed it through in a panic soon after Edward Kennedy's seat went to a Republican. Shortly after the program was rolled out and started to cause problems, Democrats wasted no time pointing to Romneycare (voted in by the people at the state level, not shoved down their throats before losing control of the Senate) and the Heritage Group's rejected plan as the real problem.

It's fun to watch Democrats do this over and over again, and never get called on it.