Slashdot Mirror
Third 2012 US Presidential Debate Tonight: Discuss Here
Tonight marks the third and final U.S. Presidential debate in the lead-up to the election on November 6th. It starts at 9PM ET (6PM PT, 0100 UTC), and it's taking place at Lynn University in Florida. The topic this time around is foreign policy, including discussions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, America's role in the world, "The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism," and China's rise as a superpower. You can livestream it from the usual suspects: (C-SPAN, ABC, PBS, CNN). Politifact has posted an article fact-checking statements the candidates have made about foreign policy. Both they and Factcheck.org will be using Twitter to verify statements in real time. This presidential debate again excludes the smaller U.S. political parties. If you're interested in hearing other voices, you'll be able to see candidates from the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and Justice parties in a debate tomorrow with Larry King moderating. As before, we're doing a separate post for the debate in the hopes that political talk won't clutter other stories tonight. Tell us what you think as the debate unfolds. For live conversation, remember: context helps. And, as reader Ryanator2209 keeps pointing out, you can entertain yourself by playing Logical Fallacy Bingo while you watch.
If this is what socialism, I love it.
a long time ago, Mitt Romney was chair of the audit committee at Marriott.
And Marriott filed tax returns using a very lucrative tax shelter known as "son of BOSS"
I contend that at the time, son of boss was illegal - it was patently a sham transaction.
I don't know if legal liability attached to Gov Romney then, or now, what with staute of limitations, but this incident tells us that MR is quite comfortable filing fraudulent tax retrns.
Which means, maybe all of these things in MR's taxes are real
magic beanstalk IRA with undervalued capital contributions
Rafalca as business that should have been a hobby
sham transactions in cayman island accounts
listing himself as passive instead of active investor...
and the beat goes on....
I was thinking, after seeing clips from the previous debates, that the debate's host should include a real-time fact-checking panel of about six people seated behind the audience, with computers so they can contact their support staff and get quicker results. Then the debators could say "I'd like a fact check on that", and the audience (local and remote) would get a near-instant "vote" from the panel as to whether the purported fact is correct.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I've watched all the #debates so far and it's sad how little they say, tapdance around questions, avoid talking about the critical issues while spending lots of time on things that don't matter for shit.
Even outside of debates, the media has become *horrible* about not expecting their guests to actually answer questions. Even when they're playing softball, they usually let the guest cite some irrelevant talking points rather than actually answering the question.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I watched the last debate, out of what I guess was a partial sense of guilt and a partial sense of duty as an American citizen ... but it sorely disappointed me.
Not that I expected better, but it just served as a reminder of what a circus the whole thing is today.
As I pointed out to some friends of mine after the debate, both candidates are primarily concerned with putting on a good show. They went over their allotted speaking time over and over again. I've seen high-school debate classes with students FAR more capable of getting their points across within their time slots! You have to ask yourself if Romney and Obama are really that unskilled at time management? I think you and I both know the answer to that one. They're only running out the clock and continuing to talk because it's a TACTIC. If a candidate really doesn't have a good, effective comment or rebuttal to make, he wanders off topic to run the clock down, and then pretends to start addressing the issue as time is running out. That way, he can appear to have simply not been given enough time to explain his position rather than do so in full and look foolish. Alternately, he can purposely exceed the time limit in an attempt to irritate his opponent and rattle him.
Beyond that? I expect more of the REAL issues will be directly addressed by those "alternative, smaller political parties" we finally get to hear debate in their own little CNN hosted program tomorrow.
If you want to really discuss where the U.S. stands in the eyes of the rest of the world, a good start would be expounding on the recent Wall Street Journal article explaining how U.S. citizens living abroad are suddenly finding foreign banks no longer want their business. The U.S. government (and IRS in particular) have become so demanding and ruthless in their quest to "know all" about each person's investments and spending habits, they've made it uneconomical for foreign banks to comply anymore. Even the Swiss bankers (once considered almost untouchable) are being given the ultimatum by the USA ... turn over all those records of who has what in your bank, or else. Some people have even tried to turn in their passports and renounce their U.S. citizenship, only to find the IRS invalidates it, because they haven't paid past taxes (or even an "exit tax" they expect to be paid first).
It's an ugly state of affairs when your country believes it literally "owns" you, despite your express intentions to leave it behind. And the rest of the world realizes how draconian the U.S. government is getting, and doesn't want to get involved in that mess.... Here's betting NONE of this is even hinted at tonight in the "debates".
I really enjoy this crap every four years. Since I live (and am taxed) in the US but can't vote (btw, what about taxation without representation??), I sit back and enjoy the show.
Politics is sad in most countries: In democracies, the majority (not to get into the electoral college nonsense) put a person into a position of enormous power, hoping that he/she will somehow fight their instinct of self-enrichment and do good for the average population. The nice thing about US politics is that they make so many loopholes that politicians can make money hand-over-fist in clearly unethical manners, and then use media soundbites to smear the other guy while taking a holier-than-thou attitude... Corporation financing? Sure. Trading on insider information? No problems. 'Must-not-coordinate with SuperPACs'? wink-wink, no problems. And once they get in, the endless smears from every direction:
A: Your guy sued puppies...
B: Well, Puppies is an acronym for People Usurping Public Property In Every State
A: Call the press, this guy is a puppy hater
B: Oh yeah, well... You're weak on crime and trying to allow redistribution. of resources - you communist/socialist/marxist/whatever
It's almost like mutually assured destruction - do anything, and the other guy will twist your words and actions to make you seem like a crook. It is quite funny from an outsider's perspective. Our politicians lie, cheat, whore, and steal. You make it legal to steal, and they lie, cheat, and whore, and blame the other guy for stealing. At least there is some hope that if our politicians get caught, they might lose something. Politics in the US is a no-loss game for the players.
... or is the whole thing gonna become yet another "I can kick China harder than you" pissing contest?
America has a lot of problems right now.
Unemployment ... and so on ...
Gradual loss of talents
Becoming more and more uncompetitive
Sky-rocketing crime rate
Tanking of morality
Are the two men gonna deal with the real problem facing America or are they gonna participating in the "I can kick China harder than you" pissing contest ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Actually, the Libertarians are having a strong effect on the Republican party. You'll notice that Ron Paul debated on the stage with the other Republican candidates, and got a strong response. The effect is usually sneered at as "The Tea Party". But if you look at any candidate labeled as a Tea Party candidate, you'll see a strong libertarian streak.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that, just before the Civil War, the Republicans WERE the 3rd party. The bad thing about a 2-party system is that, no matter who the 3rd-party is, if they get strong they eventually become one of the 2. The good thing about a 2-party system is that some fringe group (like the Greens or Austria's Freedom Party) can't hold the coalition government model hostage in order to advance their narrowly-supported agenda.
Ok, say you are a rich person. Would you rather a) live in a fancy house with slums all around where you need an armed guard whenever you have to travel outside of your closed complex, or b) live in a fancy house with decent houses all around you without there being any slums and without having to pay taxes to support people who don't work because the country is wealthy enough that everybody can make a decent living with a reasonable amount of effort?
To understand the mindset of the really wealthy, realize that if it meant that they had a fancier house, they'd choose option (a) above. The ability to be conspicuously much better than the people around you is exceptionally attractive due to the way that primate dominance hierarchies work; absolute wealth matters nowhere near as much as relative wealth.
This is, of course, stupid. True though.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
550 goddamn votes in Florida and you'd see what difference not electing Bush the Lesser would have made, kemosabe.
Would we? Here are a couple of views:
The History of the U.S. – If Al Gore Became President
If Al Gore Had Won in 2000
Here are a few of mine:
Al Qaida was attacking United States embassies and the Cole under the Clinton administration.
It seems pretty certain that 9/11 would still have happened.
If 9/11 happens, it's pretty certain a global war against Al Qaida follows, and very likely war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Invasion? Probably.
Economic crashes? Of course. The internet-centric business meltdown is virtually certain to have occurred, and the housing bubble not much less so. The internet-centric business meltdown was the result of trends started in the Clinton administration. The actual wrong-doing for Enron occurred under the Clinton administration. The housing bubble was a result of policies with broad bi-partisan support.
Iraq? That is more of a wildcard. The US policy calling for regime change in Iraq was set under the Clinton administration. It is virtually certain that there would have been conflicts with Iraq, including armed action. Would it have lead to invasion and occupation of Iraq? Somewhere along the line of less likely to no. There almost certainly would have been bombings though, probably a lot more of them to compensate for the lack of ground forces. Saddams army in 2003 was strong enough to hold Iraq against rebellion that wasn't aided externally. It seems pretty certain that either Saddam or one of his sons would still be in power. They might even have thrown off sanctions due to the "Oil for Food" program bribes and the loss of interest in the world community in containing him. Saddam with no sanctions means a Saddam rearming and continuing to support terrorism (no, not Al Qaida). He might ever do it with a vengence. Would Iraqis be better off? Very unlikely. Saddam used the food money to build palaces and buy weapons while the infrastructure crumbled, and people perished. That is from simple neglect. Saddam's government filled Iraq with large numbers of mass graves. Had Saddam's regime not been overthrown, the killing would have continued.
You may recall that Saddam had to restrain his sons, they were crueler than he was.
How Bad Was Saddam’s Son?
. . . Latif’s first lesson was to learn how to not react in disgust or become sick at Hussein regime cruelty. He was taken to a viewing room holding thousands of videos of torture sessions.
Saddam’s son had learned the same way. “Uday told me whenever he seemed weak or squeamish as a child his father would beat him with an iron bar and then force him to watch videos of prisoners being tortured.”
It worked. “Just wait until I become president,” Uday promised, “I’ll be crueler than my father ever was. You mark my words. You’ll yearn for the days of Saddam
Hussein.”
Now, read this carefully. If there is no US invasion of Iraq, there is not the same opportunity for an Al Qaida supported and led insurgency in Iraq that drew Al Qaida members from around the world to Iraq. That movement generated intelligence and provided opport
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell