US General Election 2016

azriel wrote:Yep that clarifies everything ! This is why we need the menfolk They make everything simple ( or seem to ? )  

Simple is best, so long as simplicity never gets too complicated.

{{{Some classic Trump contradictions, from CNN}}

On the Clintons

"I know her very well and I know her husband very well and I like them both. And they are, uh, you know, just really terrific people." -August 2013

"She's the devil." -August 1, 2016

"[He] is one of the great abusers of the world." -Dec. 30, 2015

Putin

"I do have a relationship ... He's probably very interested in what you and I am saying today, and I'm sure he's going to be seeing it in some form. But I do have a relationship with him." -Nov. 2013

"I have no relationship with Putin. I don't think I've ever met him. I never met him." -July 2016

On Debt

"I'm the king of debt. I love debt." -May 4, 2016

"I have very little debt to anybody. I don't need debt." -July 31, 2016

On whether Mitt Romney should release his taxes

"I think in light of the fact that he started discussing some of the things, namely the rate or approximately the rate, I think it probably be better off just to release them now." -Jan. 2012

On whether he should release his taxes

"There's nothing to learn from them." -May 2016

On the Mayor of New York

"I think he is going to want to make New York great. ... I think pretty strongly that he'll end up being a good mayor, maybe a very good mayor." -Oct. 2013

"N.Y.C. has the worst Mayor in the United States." -Dec. 7, 2015

On a crying baby at his rally.

"Don't worry about that baby, I love babies. I love babies! I hear that baby crying, I like it. I like it! What a baby. What a beautiful baby. Don't worry, don't worry. The mom's running around like -- don't worry about it. Its young and beautiful and healthy. That's what we want." -Aug. 2, 2016

"Actually, I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here. That's alright. Don't worry. I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I'm speaking." -Less than two minutes later, on Aug. 2, 2016.

{{{{{Admittedly being Trumps media spokesperson has got to be the worst job ever, but nevertheless this lass is really bad at it!}}}}

bungobaggins wrote:Trump seems more interested in getting Clinton elected than in actually winning. Yeah, I'm starting to think this whole thing's been a big sham. Trump hasn't moved to the center, hasn't adopted a presidential tone, and continues to become distracted and off message (most recently that whole Kahn deal, which he should have just ignored). He's already setting up his losing by claiming the whole thing is rigged.

I'd invert the statement: I think we're just discovering that everything that has gone before has NOT been a sham. Trump really IS this crazy, he hasn't just been saying all this stuff just to get votes from a heretofore untapped sector of the Republican base. The idea that he's doing all of this just for publicity and really doesn't want to win is giving him way too much credit. The converse is also true: I was giving him way too much credit by thinking he may turn presidential once nominated.

{{{Just watched Trump finally endorsing McCain and Ryan ect- he was readng it off a sheet of paper he seemed to be seeing for the first time. In fact when he said he was endorsing McCain he actually looked a bit surprised at the news! Guessing his 'team' have forced him into it.}}}

call me old fashioned but you cant have a sociopathic nutjob as the worlds most powerful man.

That's what I once thought, Julia...

{{{I think having a psychopathic nutjob as a leader is very old fashioned. I had rather hoped such a thing might remain in the past where modern Western democracy is concerned. }}}

I think you nailed it. People are going tribal.

It'll be spears and wild howls soon! Like the drunken parties I went too when I was younger and survived - just....

{{{Ok Trump- surely its time for folk like Ryan to start walking back their endorsements- they are starting to look like fools and complete tits having to apologise for Trump and say they don't actually agree with what he is saying but still endorse him.
His latest implication in a speech that gun owners take into their own hands the means to prevent Hilary appointing new supreme judges were she president is supremely stupid and dangerous.

And his attempts aided by Fox news resident Trump arse licker Hannity, to say he meant their political power in voting, not their guns, was pathetic- as its clear he is talking about a scenario in which Hilary is already President and appointing judges- there is no vote to stop her doing so the public can make at that point. Indeed the notion there is nothing anyone can do politically to stop her once President was the point of his speech. So if there is nothing politically can be done- how can he have meant use their political power to vote and stop her? It doesnt make sense because he didnt mean that- he meant what it sounded like he meant- if she is president, appointing judges, the only way to stop her doing it is if someone who supports the 2nd amendment right to bear guns assassinates her.

For that to be coming out of the Republican candidates mouth, and for him still to be backed by the Republican party machine, is frankly unbelievable. }}}

There's no doubt what he was referring to, but he's far from the first to make such "jokes". Sarah Palin posted a map of the USA with pictures of Democratic congressmen she'd like to be defeated, each marked with a bull's eye.

Shortly after, Gabrielle Giffords was shot by a loony while talking with constituents. It doesn't mean that Palin caused the shooting, but in creating a culture where people can joke about assassinations it makes everybody a little less safe.

{{Something that just occurred to me, a drunken musing if you will
In most European democracies you have social welfare, public transport and health care which in the US Fox would describe, were it proposed in the US, as 'Far or Extreme left'.
That got me wondering why the massive difference? Why is it that out of all the leading western democracies only the US has no social services worthy of the name outside of Medicare?
That in turn got me thinking where do such ideas come from? Where does free education come from as an idea for example? Well here, Scotland, and whose idea was it? Well it was a combination of the Scottish Enlightenment, which married religion and science in the belief that understanding and studying nature better led to a greater understanding of God. So obviously the Church thought if this is so everyone has to be able to study science. So they first have to be able to read and write and have somewhere to learn about it. So they built schools, in every parish in the country and created what would become the idea of free state education.
Whilst the NHS doesn't have quite as direct a link to religion it basic premise- that if the means to help someone exists and they are suffering, its your duty to do so, underpins the very notion of the NHS. Its morality is based in religion, specifically Christianity.
Which brings me back to America which is a country founded on no religious morality, indeed proudly declaring itself as free from religious control as from royalty and tyrants.
And despite it evolving into one of the most political/religious countries in the West (you cant get elected without profession a belief in God and that he blesses America) its laws are not based in religion. They have not developed and evolved out of any religion- the result- unchecked capitalism, a system with no moral brakes at all. And a country full of weapons and mass shootings. A country which sees no financial gain in helping others, but does see it in selling the sick and needy medicine, and in selling everyone guns 'for their own protection' regardless of if those buying are mad, jihadists, psychotic, violently criminal, or just too stupid to be entrusted with such a thing.
Ironically, the US, God Bells America, may lack any socialism because you're founding principles, in practise, lacked morality.
And you have gone so far down this road that even mild socialist policies- like making sure someone buying a gun does not a have a history of violent mental health issues, or threatening and violent behaviour, or that maybe those who can't afford medicine should have it paid for by a pooled taxation that all could benefit from and would reduce overall suffering and increase life expectancy- can be labeled as 'extreme' or 'far' left. Terms in these contexts which mean nothing. The Far Left was Stalin, not Norway, Sweden, UK, France, or any other western democracy who share these 'extreme' left policies. But the fact they can be labelled as such in the US tells its own story I think.}}}

He is actively trying to lose. He doesn't want to win.

{{{{ Oddly enough Bungo I just had a friend round and we were discussing Trumps latest outburst of seeming madness and he said that he was starting to find himself coming round to the, once he thought crazy, conspiracy notion that Trump was a democrat plant by the Clintons to destroy the GOP. And he was coming round to this because he was running out of logical reasons that could explain his behaviour.
Personally I think he is a pathological liar who will say whatever he thinks in the moment best backs up and strengthens is argument, even if he has to invent it. A good recent example was his complaint the debates were rigged and the NFL were just as annoyed and he then added as seeming backing for this that he had received a letter from them about it, so concerned where they. The NFL almost immediately responded saying they hadn't written him any letters.
It was a lie no real politician would make because it can be proved to be a lie almost instantly with little effort. That didn't even occur to Trump, he said it anyway. But like all the 'people' that Trump keeps quoting as agreeing with him, or that he 'hears from', I think it's all just in his head, same as when he claimed a 'lot of generals agree with me' but yet none have come forward to say so, and he has never provided any names. Its just all in the moment lies to back up whatever he is claiming about himself. But they are not even thought it, they are so in the moment, so pathological, they have no real thought process behind them , if they did he would be able to see how easy they could be called out as lies.}}}

I agree Petty. Any one of us could come up with a better conspiracy plan than what Trump is doing. He's acting just like any typical grumpy old fart with a big mouth and maybe a touch of short term memory loss who makes sh*t up to fill the gaps. The only difference between Donald and thousands of other grumpy old farts is that he happens to have enough money to run for president.

If he were crazy I think he would think he's going to win big, but the fact that he's already setting up a"rigged election" narrative shows that he knows he had no chance. So now he's trying to go down big. I don't know if he's a Clinton plant, {{{he is friends with them though and has donated money to them}}}, but either way I'm convinced it is a ruse. He's just playing a trumped up version of his reality TV character.

As for the debates, I'll gladly watch the NFL games instead of those two buffoons.

The problem with the conspiracy theory is that it only works if Trump will make money out of losing. I don't think looking more and more like a tone-deaf fool will send any dollars his way. He'd do better making a principled stand like Berny, and losing on it. People would be more willing to work with him.

http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2016/08/08/bernie-sanders-buys-a-summer-home-in-north-hero

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Something that just occurred to me, a drunken musing if you will
In most European democracies you have social welfare, public transport and health care which in the US Fox would describe, were it proposed in the US, as 'Far or Extreme left'.
That got me wondering why the massive difference? Why is it that out of all the leading western democracies only the US has no social services worthy of the name outside of Medicare?
That in turn got me thinking where do such ideas come from? Where does free education come from as an idea for example? Well here, Scotland, and whose idea was it? Well it was a combination of the Scottish Enlightenment, which married religion and science in the belief that understanding and studying nature better led to a greater understanding of God. So obviously the Church thought if this is so everyone has to be able to study science. So they first have to be able to read and write and have somewhere to learn about it. So they built schools, in every parish in the country and created what would become the idea of free state education.
Whilst the NHS doesn't have quite as direct a link to religion it basic premise- that if the means to help someone exists and they are suffering, its your duty to do so, underpins the very notion of the NHS. Its morality is based in religion, specifically Christianity.
Which  brings me back to America which is a country founded on no religious morality, indeed proudly declaring itself as free from religious control as from royalty and tyrants.
And despite it evolving into one of the most political/religious countries in the West (you cant get elected without profession a belief in God and that he blesses America) its laws are not based in religion. They have not developed and evolved out of any religion- the result- unchecked capitalism, a system with no moral brakes at all. And a country full of weapons and mass shootings. A country which sees no financial gain in helping others, but does see it in selling the sick and needy medicine, and in selling everyone guns 'for their own protection' regardless of if those buying are mad, jihadists, psychotic, violently criminal, or just too stupid to be entrusted with such a thing.
Ironically, the US, God Bells America, may lack any socialism because you're founding principles, in practise, lacked morality.
And you have gone so far down this road that even mild socialist policies- like making sure someone buying a gun does not a have a history of violent mental health issues, or threatening and violent behaviour, or that maybe those who can't afford medicine should have it paid for by a pooled taxation that all could benefit from and would reduce overall suffering and increase life expectancy- can be labeled as 'extreme' or 'far' left. Terms in these contexts which mean nothing. The Far Left was Stalin, not Norway, Sweden, UK, France, or any other western democracy who share these 'extreme' left policies. But the fact they can be labelled as such in the US tells its own story I think.}}}

I think the NHS probably does have its roots in religion, probably the Protestant muscular Christian version people like the various evangelical reform movements and Victorian philanthropists.

{{{i agree it likely does, not to mention groups like the Salvation Army, but I just dont know of any direct link between the two, its seems to me more a morality link, an ethos link than a direct Church involvement link in it creation.}}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{
That got me wondering why the massive difference? Why is it that out of all the leading western democracies only the US has no social services worthy of the name outside of Medicare?
}}}

Not necessarily discounting the religion theory, but I think there's an easier answer. The US has 50 different governments which often don't agree with or even like each other very much. Each state has its own healthcare system with social services, some of which are quite good and some of which are abysmal.

And remember that Alaska-Hawaii-Florida-Maine is about the same scale of Norway-Lybia-Nepal-East Siberia. There are a lot of challenges to making the same social services program work over that diverse an area.

Meanwhile in Trump's Head.

Obama founded IS.

{{{yeah I saw that, but dont worry Trump isnt crazy enough to think Obama did it all himself- oh no, he has named Hilary as their co-founder! }}}

 its silly season.