Putting some advertising on TV is not the same thing as buildings filled with people on computers posting under anonymous or assumed accounts spreading propaganda.
Yes, I'm sure he'll blow to Putin, thus ensuring 'good relations'. He'll also assure that Japan and South Korea become nuclear powers in fairly short order, dismantle NATO, and plunge the rest of the planet into dark and dangerous times.
Cherry picked and quote mined parts of vast document dumps are not reliable. We've been down this road with Climategate. You can literally make any text say anything providing you 1. freely mine it for quotes and 2. rely on those who share your prejudices won't fact check your quote mines.
There's a certain kind of conservative, and even some Libertarians, who seem to have an unhealthy admiration for autocrats, at least when they believe said autocrats would remake society in a way they approve of. I imagine there are people on the Left of similar temperament, but in general, I find this "strong man" fetishism to be a right wing/Libertarian phenomena. I once had a very hard right social conservative telling me how what the West needs is a few Francisco Francos to set things right, and in general seemed to have considerable disdain for democracy, or at least democracy with a universal franchise.
Jesus Christ, "voter intimidation" now? Does the hyperbole ever end?
Face it, your candidate played the buffoon. More than likely he was playing you, but if you want to keep blaming the victor for the loser's real or self-contrived inadequacies, that is your problem. Voters have more than once in the history of democracy been faced with the choice between a flawed candidate and a dangerous one, and in most cases they will pick the flawed one. On the few occasions that a dangerous one has been chosen, it hasn't gone so well.
As to Wikileaks, even you can only make it interesting by exaggeration, which should tell you why it isn't making much impact. But go on, blame the voters, blame the press, blame some evil secret cabal, but under no circumstances ever blame Republican voters for picking probably one of the worst big ticket candidates in US history.
I'm sure it can serve two purposes. Putin has greatly benefited by stocking the flames of discord in the West, whether that's Brexit or other issues between EU members, or throwing spanners in the US election. It allows him to punch well over his weight. But he certainly would more likely benefit from a Trump presidency than from a Clinton one, if for no other reason than it is likely there would be four years of chaos in Washington.
But yes, this definitely gives him some propaganda to spread at home as well.
Until the US has a different voting system for presidents, you're stuck with the two big party candidates, with third party candidates simply acting as proxies. Besides, voters don't elect a president, they elect an electoral college whose members are pledged to vote for a certain candidate.
Except there isn't going to be a world war. Putin isn't suicidal, and isn't going to start lobbing nukes at the US or its allies.
For fucks sake, we went through this for forty years during the Cold war, and there were a few moments then where tensions did get dangerously hot, and nothing happening now even comes close. Yes, Russia is saber rattling, and NATO is back, just like the old days, but just like then, it's as much for domestic consumption as anything else, and the Russia of 2016 is a pale shadow of the Soviet Union.
Among all the anti-Clinton talking points, including that she's some sort of Mafia don who takes out hits on people, this one is probably the most moronic and hyperbolic.
Do you have some evidence Kerry is trying to shut Assange up? If Kerry had that much sway over Ecuador, then Assange would be in the custody of the US, Britain or Sweden by now.
You see, this is the problem, you can't just get away with one layer of conspiracy, you just have to keep layering one conspiracy on top of the other.
Item 1 is likely never going to fly, and I question the legitimacy of it anyways. If voters in a district or state like their representative, why shouldn't they be able to run for an open ended number of terms? There are some decent reasons for limiting the President's terms, but none of those really apply to Representatives or Senators. It's like declaring "All engineers and doctors must retire after ten years!" Beyond that, I doubt there would ever be enough approval among the states to get it through.
Item 2 is silly. You can't say what needs may come in the future. Mindless freezes won't do anybody any good.
Item 3 is the same kind of idiotic item 2 is. Why should there be some upper limit of regulations? There's no real coherent philosophy here at all.
So while some policies might make some sense, others are just stupid, and item 1 at least is almost certainly never going to happen. And considering Trump's long history of pretty dubious deals, what makes you think he's the man to do any of it, when even his own tax plan would both increase the debt and largely only help people like Donald Trump, which means he'd simply be adding to the kinds of policies that screw over the average person.
But you've also left out some items:
Item 7 - Abuse his position of head of the executive branch to pursue his political opponent. Item 8 - Sue the women claiming he sexually assaulted him. This one is particularly stupid because, of course, suing them means they in turn get to delve into his sexual history via discovery, which could lead to both civil and criminal charges against him. This is what I'd call the Oscar Wilde Blunder; mainly because it resembles what Wilde did when he was openly accused of homosexual acts by the father of his lover; the Marquess Queensbury. Wilde decided to sue the Marquess, and of course, the trial inevitably lead to Wilde being outed, and then charged and convicted of moral turpitude. So if I were Donald Trump, win or lose, i'd probably stay away from civil trials over his alleged sexual escapades.
Why should anyone be beholden to support a populist halfwit who says horrendously awful things, some of them so bad that he's actually putting the GOP in a position of losing the Senate, and, if things keep going as they are, even the House.
Yes, I'm sure the Republicans will waste lots of time on conspiracy theories that produce nothing, egged on Breitbarts and Trump TV. And it won't amount to anything at all. This is just Birther Scandal Part 2.
It's a pity the Republicans didn't pick someone like Rubio, but they didn't, they picked Trump, a man so ridiculous that even many of those who can't stand Clinton cannot abide the thought of him winning.
Just keep making those claims, because they, like the claims that Clintons murder people, generally show the own state of your mind rather than how evil the Clintons are supposed to be.
The problem is that the negative stuff isn't anything that wasn't already known or guessed, either about Clinton or about campaigns in general, and other "stuff" is little more than quote mines and imagination used to fuel claims of things in the email that don't exist.
So what are your qualifications to diagnose psychiatric conditions, and how many times have you met with Clinton to confirm your observations? I mean, you wouldn't just be some asshole on the Internet googling up WebMD and then simply forcefitting your personal beliefs on Clinton into what really is a very general description from an online site, would you?
Sure, I'm not frightened of either of them. Donald Trump would likely remain what he is, an annoying and idiotic blowhard with the attention span of a first grader, so I'd probably just end up tuning him out. I'm sure I could have a lengthy lucid conversation with Clinton.
Exactly. All Wikileaks has done is confirm what most people know about major political campaigns, that lots of things are discussed, sometimes in brutal terms, and then are either dispensed with or implemented in some fashion. But really, anyone who has read any "insider" book about any major political campaign in the Western world in the last 200 years knows that this sort of thing goes on. Christ, Spielberg even made a movie about how Lincoln used some pretty questionable methods to get the 13th Amendment passed before the Confederacy surrendered.
I think some of those who think Wikileaks is a story probably are guilty of wishful thinking, but even if some of the emails have legs, they're backing a candidate who seems to need to be at the top of every news cycle, and rarely in a good way, thus giving the Wikileaks emails little or no oxygen to burn. I think others, around here anyways, are that subgroup of people, who whether due to Aspergers or similar neurological conditions, seem to want to see the world as being nothing but straight parallel lines, and whenever it deviates from that, they are emotionally incapable of tolerating it, and thus must immediately paint everything the darkest black.
But even more what appears to be a majority of voters, Hillary's real and perceived shortcomings simply don't seem to be adding up to putting Trump in the Oval Office. Frankly, I don't even think Trump wants it. He is either the stupidest person to ever get a major party nomination, or he is intentionally smashing the bus into the wall, almost as a test to see just how long his supporters can hang on. I'm sure they'll be tuning in next year to Trump TV to get 24 hours a day of conspiracy theories, insane rhetoric, absurd populism, and the daily injection of Alt-right outrage.
They demonstrate subterfuge, lying, but mainly a lot of strategizing. It's not terribly pleasant at points, but if you think the Trump campaign isn't at least trying to do the same thing, then you're either naive or willfully blind. The big difference is, of course, that Clinton is actually capable of staying on message and of creating and more importantly sticking to tactical plays, as opposed to being a blow hard who, in a goddamn speech announcing his plans for the first one hundred days of his presidency, starts threatening to sue the ten or so women who have claimed he sexually assaulted him.
The Podesta emails are pretty much the "Climategate" of this election. We are seeing how sausages are made, to paraphrase Bismarck, and it is inherently unpleasant. But there's this fantasy that some other candidate would do things differently, and while I concede Trump might do things differently, it's more than likely because he would be so awful and so ludicrous that he would just do things unbelievably badly, thus requiring Congress and the courts to spend four years of adult supervision over the Executive branch.
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Translation: Anyone who doesn't agree with me is a troll.
Putting some advertising on TV is not the same thing as buildings filled with people on computers posting under anonymous or assumed accounts spreading propaganda.
Yes, I'm sure he'll blow to Putin, thus ensuring 'good relations'. He'll also assure that Japan and South Korea become nuclear powers in fairly short order, dismantle NATO, and plunge the rest of the planet into dark and dangerous times.
Cherry picked and quote mined parts of vast document dumps are not reliable. We've been down this road with Climategate. You can literally make any text say anything providing you 1. freely mine it for quotes and 2. rely on those who share your prejudices won't fact check your quote mines.
Translation: The FBI didn't buy into my conspiracy theory, therefore the problem is with the FBI.
There's a certain kind of conservative, and even some Libertarians, who seem to have an unhealthy admiration for autocrats, at least when they believe said autocrats would remake society in a way they approve of. I imagine there are people on the Left of similar temperament, but in general, I find this "strong man" fetishism to be a right wing/Libertarian phenomena. I once had a very hard right social conservative telling me how what the West needs is a few Francisco Francos to set things right, and in general seemed to have considerable disdain for democracy, or at least democracy with a universal franchise.
Jesus Christ, "voter intimidation" now? Does the hyperbole ever end?
Face it, your candidate played the buffoon. More than likely he was playing you, but if you want to keep blaming the victor for the loser's real or self-contrived inadequacies, that is your problem. Voters have more than once in the history of democracy been faced with the choice between a flawed candidate and a dangerous one, and in most cases they will pick the flawed one. On the few occasions that a dangerous one has been chosen, it hasn't gone so well.
As to Wikileaks, even you can only make it interesting by exaggeration, which should tell you why it isn't making much impact. But go on, blame the voters, blame the press, blame some evil secret cabal, but under no circumstances ever blame Republican voters for picking probably one of the worst big ticket candidates in US history.
I'm sure it can serve two purposes. Putin has greatly benefited by stocking the flames of discord in the West, whether that's Brexit or other issues between EU members, or throwing spanners in the US election. It allows him to punch well over his weight. But he certainly would more likely benefit from a Trump presidency than from a Clinton one, if for no other reason than it is likely there would be four years of chaos in Washington.
But yes, this definitely gives him some propaganda to spread at home as well.
Then I'd tune her out too, except I don't actually buy this common caricature of her
Until the US has a different voting system for presidents, you're stuck with the two big party candidates, with third party candidates simply acting as proxies. Besides, voters don't elect a president, they elect an electoral college whose members are pledged to vote for a certain candidate.
Except there isn't going to be a world war. Putin isn't suicidal, and isn't going to start lobbing nukes at the US or its allies.
For fucks sake, we went through this for forty years during the Cold war, and there were a few moments then where tensions did get dangerously hot, and nothing happening now even comes close. Yes, Russia is saber rattling, and NATO is back, just like the old days, but just like then, it's as much for domestic consumption as anything else, and the Russia of 2016 is a pale shadow of the Soviet Union.
Among all the anti-Clinton talking points, including that she's some sort of Mafia don who takes out hits on people, this one is probably the most moronic and hyperbolic.
Do you have some evidence Kerry is trying to shut Assange up? If Kerry had that much sway over Ecuador, then Assange would be in the custody of the US, Britain or Sweden by now.
You see, this is the problem, you can't just get away with one layer of conspiracy, you just have to keep layering one conspiracy on top of the other.
Item 1 is likely never going to fly, and I question the legitimacy of it anyways. If voters in a district or state like their representative, why shouldn't they be able to run for an open ended number of terms? There are some decent reasons for limiting the President's terms, but none of those really apply to Representatives or Senators. It's like declaring "All engineers and doctors must retire after ten years!" Beyond that, I doubt there would ever be enough approval among the states to get it through.
Item 2 is silly. You can't say what needs may come in the future. Mindless freezes won't do anybody any good.
Item 3 is the same kind of idiotic item 2 is. Why should there be some upper limit of regulations? There's no real coherent philosophy here at all.
So while some policies might make some sense, others are just stupid, and item 1 at least is almost certainly never going to happen. And considering Trump's long history of pretty dubious deals, what makes you think he's the man to do any of it, when even his own tax plan would both increase the debt and largely only help people like Donald Trump, which means he'd simply be adding to the kinds of policies that screw over the average person.
But you've also left out some items:
Item 7 - Abuse his position of head of the executive branch to pursue his political opponent.
Item 8 - Sue the women claiming he sexually assaulted him. This one is particularly stupid because, of course, suing them means they in turn get to delve into his sexual history via discovery, which could lead to both civil and criminal charges against him. This is what I'd call the Oscar Wilde Blunder; mainly because it resembles what Wilde did when he was openly accused of homosexual acts by the father of his lover; the Marquess Queensbury. Wilde decided to sue the Marquess, and of course, the trial inevitably lead to Wilde being outed, and then charged and convicted of moral turpitude. So if I were Donald Trump, win or lose, i'd probably stay away from civil trials over his alleged sexual escapades.
Why should anyone be beholden to support a populist halfwit who says horrendously awful things, some of them so bad that he's actually putting the GOP in a position of losing the Senate, and, if things keep going as they are, even the House.
Yes, I'm sure the Republicans will waste lots of time on conspiracy theories that produce nothing, egged on Breitbarts and Trump TV. And it won't amount to anything at all. This is just Birther Scandal Part 2.
It's a pity the Republicans didn't pick someone like Rubio, but they didn't, they picked Trump, a man so ridiculous that even many of those who can't stand Clinton cannot abide the thought of him winning.
Just keep making those claims, because they, like the claims that Clintons murder people, generally show the own state of your mind rather than how evil the Clintons are supposed to be.
The problem is that the negative stuff isn't anything that wasn't already known or guessed, either about Clinton or about campaigns in general, and other "stuff" is little more than quote mines and imagination used to fuel claims of things in the email that don't exist.
What the average North Korean citizen is capable of and what the North Korean intelligence service is capable of are likely two very different things.
So what are your qualifications to diagnose psychiatric conditions, and how many times have you met with Clinton to confirm your observations? I mean, you wouldn't just be some asshole on the Internet googling up WebMD and then simply forcefitting your personal beliefs on Clinton into what really is a very general description from an online site, would you?
Sure, I'm not frightened of either of them. Donald Trump would likely remain what he is, an annoying and idiotic blowhard with the attention span of a first grader, so I'd probably just end up tuning him out. I'm sure I could have a lengthy lucid conversation with Clinton.
A lot of people claim she lied to Congress, though how exactly Wikileaks demonstrates that is beyond me.
No, she's not the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being, she just happens to be the only sane one running for President.
All I know is I wouldn't want to be locked in a room with McAffee if he was high on bath salts and hungry.
Exactly. All Wikileaks has done is confirm what most people know about major political campaigns, that lots of things are discussed, sometimes in brutal terms, and then are either dispensed with or implemented in some fashion. But really, anyone who has read any "insider" book about any major political campaign in the Western world in the last 200 years knows that this sort of thing goes on. Christ, Spielberg even made a movie about how Lincoln used some pretty questionable methods to get the 13th Amendment passed before the Confederacy surrendered.
I think some of those who think Wikileaks is a story probably are guilty of wishful thinking, but even if some of the emails have legs, they're backing a candidate who seems to need to be at the top of every news cycle, and rarely in a good way, thus giving the Wikileaks emails little or no oxygen to burn. I think others, around here anyways, are that subgroup of people, who whether due to Aspergers or similar neurological conditions, seem to want to see the world as being nothing but straight parallel lines, and whenever it deviates from that, they are emotionally incapable of tolerating it, and thus must immediately paint everything the darkest black.
But even more what appears to be a majority of voters, Hillary's real and perceived shortcomings simply don't seem to be adding up to putting Trump in the Oval Office. Frankly, I don't even think Trump wants it. He is either the stupidest person to ever get a major party nomination, or he is intentionally smashing the bus into the wall, almost as a test to see just how long his supporters can hang on. I'm sure they'll be tuning in next year to Trump TV to get 24 hours a day of conspiracy theories, insane rhetoric, absurd populism, and the daily injection of Alt-right outrage.
They demonstrate subterfuge, lying, but mainly a lot of strategizing. It's not terribly pleasant at points, but if you think the Trump campaign isn't at least trying to do the same thing, then you're either naive or willfully blind. The big difference is, of course, that Clinton is actually capable of staying on message and of creating and more importantly sticking to tactical plays, as opposed to being a blow hard who, in a goddamn speech announcing his plans for the first one hundred days of his presidency, starts threatening to sue the ten or so women who have claimed he sexually assaulted him.
The Podesta emails are pretty much the "Climategate" of this election. We are seeing how sausages are made, to paraphrase Bismarck, and it is inherently unpleasant. But there's this fantasy that some other candidate would do things differently, and while I concede Trump might do things differently, it's more than likely because he would be so awful and so ludicrous that he would just do things unbelievably badly, thus requiring Congress and the courts to spend four years of adult supervision over the Executive branch.