The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

lwien

Well-Known Member
And I would bet that it's one of those kinds of pictures where the eyes, both Carsons and Jesus's, follow you around the room. Hell, if you're going to have your picture painted with Jesus, why not? :brow:

Come to think of it, being that I'm Jewish, I'm gonna have my picture painted with Moses with his arm draped across my shoulder as he parts the Red Sea. Hell, maybe even a picture of him handing me the stone tablets of the ten commandments for me to proof read before he presents it to those idol worshipers down on the flatlands.
 
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His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
Come to think of it, being that I'm Jewish, I'm gonna have my picture painted with Moses with his arm draped across my shoulder as he parts the Red Sea. Hell, maybe even a picture of him handing me the stone tablets of the ten commandments for me to proof read before he presents it to those idol worshipers down on the flatlands.

Please add a sound feature that comes on when someone gets near it like my Talking Billy Bass - I'd suggest Billy Crystal's imitation/bastardization of Edward G. Robinson's line - 'Where's your messiah nowwwwwwwwwwwww'?
 

hd_rider

Well-Known Member
I'm gonna have a portrait commissioned with me in front of a big plate of spaghetti.

Touched_by_His_Noodly_Appendage.jpg
 
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CarolKing

Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
I was laughing so hard watching Bill Maher. He showed that picture of Carson and Jesus and he said it looked like, since they are both in robes it looked like they were enjoying a spa day together. I think Jesus's head looks too small in the picture IMO
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psychonaut

Company Rep
Company Rep
I'd be happy if I agreed with half of the things any of these candidates say. Frankly I may agree with 10-15% of what any of them say. That alone doesn't make me comfortable voting for a one.
 

CarolKing

Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
Kasich Wants New Agency to Promote Values 2:46
As part of a broad national security plan to defeat ISIS, Republican Presidential candidate John Kasich proposed creating a new government agency to push Judeo-Christian values around the world.

The new agency, which he hasn't yet named, would promote a Jewish- and Christian-based belief system to four regions of the world: China, Iran, Russia and the Middle East.

"We need to beam messages around the world" about the freedoms Americans enjoy, Kasich said in an interview with NBC News Tuesday. "It means freedom, it means opportunity, it means respect for women, it means freedom to gather, it means so many things."

More crazy ideas. The shootings in Paris has unleashed all kinds of stupid stuff that these guys are saying.

54% of Americans don't want Syrian refugees but I don't think that is a surprise. I don't think that many Americans want folks from other countries anyway. People have been complaining about folks from South America migrating to the U.S for years.
 
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Chill Dude

Well-Known Member
Freedom of religion is one of our core values. In America we're free to believe what we choose to believe in.. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Athiest, Agnostic....it doesn't matter. So why spread a Judeo Christian belief system to the world through a new agency hahaha.. That doesn't sound like separation of church and state one bit!
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
It's not that difficult to understand that we don't reproduce enough in this country to keep the economy operating. Without immigration the American economy would collapse. The people who want to reduce or stop immigration here obviously just don't get it.
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
Kasich, who to some extent had been trying to play the adult in the room, succumbs to the general rush to pander to xenophobes and Christian chauvinists. His chance of getting the nomination is near zero.
 

lwien

Well-Known Member
The next thing that you're gonna hear is that CIA is get really active on Twitter and Facebook in targeting young (mid-20's) Middle Eastern boys and girls with the effort of converting them to Christianity with the goal of getting them to join..........wait for it........

The Crusades 2.0.
 
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CarolKing

Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
This is nothing new, when the American military stole the land away from the native Americans the missionaries introduced "our religion" to them and made them talk and dress like us. Forced them to live on small pieces of land which is the Indian reservations.
 
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Gunky

Well-Known Member
I think what disturbs me most about modern politics, esp the Republican type, is the way an entire system of reasoning and argument takes place beyond the normal constraints of evidence and logic. For example take John Kasich's idea of a government agency to promote Judeo-Christian values. I am fairly certain that Kasich, a former congressman, knows darn well that the 'establishment clause' in the US Constitution expressly prohibits such an enterprise. So it's a complete non-starter and he knows that perfectly well. But proposing that, even though it's obvious it can't happen, feeds red meat to the religious right segment of his party which prefers not to notice the establishment clause and keeps trying to sneak in the idea that this is a Christian country. OK, so this is complete bullshit, designed to flatter people who claim to love the constitution but actually tend to pick and choose parts of the constitution they like and ignore the rest. Fantasy land. Why don't the media flay these politicians alive over this stuff? These guys are allowed to go on and on, like an annoying bigoted uncle at Thanksgiving dinner whom no one dares challenge.
 

howie105

Well-Known Member
Morning Gunky. Can we depend on any for of the media press to be fair and impartial? Everybody works for somebody in the publishing business.
 

lwien

Well-Known Member
Morning Gunky. Can we depend on any for of the media press to be fair and impartial? Everybody works for somebody in the publishing business.

But even the so called "mainstream (GOP speak for Liberal) media" always seems to leave them off the hook in challenging them on the kind of shit Gunky is taking about.
 

howie105

Well-Known Member
But even the so called "mainstream (GOP speak for Liberal) media" always seems to leave them off the hook in challenging them on the kind of shit Gunky is taking about.

Just an example of a across the board media failure, talk to the guys on the right and you will hear a somewhat similar complaint.
 
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Gunky

Well-Known Member
I dunno, it seems to have reached a new low point where the press practices a sort of willing suspension of disbelief. They know these guys say all sorts of bogus stuff and come to accept that as 'normal' and in that sense, collaborate with the propagation of bullshit. Yes there is fact-checking, mainly about statistics cited, but huge pieces of the whole belief structure, such as lower taxes produce higher government revenue, or the government can save money by by reducing the budget of the Internal Revenue Service, never receive much scrutiny. Or climate change denial or a host of other science denial / religious preference issues. Or the biggest myth of all: that wealth is being redistributed downward in our society.

Another example: Carly Fiorina. Everything she says is a lie. Big whoppers every single time she speaks. She gets away with it. It's as though after Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman we are now conditioned to accept batshit crazy lies as valid political speech, as though factual absurdity is just a different opinion.
 
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Adobewan

Well-Known Member
I think it's important to realize people are too easily propagandize. We always have been, particularly since the advent of television, but with forces as aggressive and powerful as Fox News, many people, even smart ones, can fall prey to the rhetoric.

IMHO the biggest hoax played on the nation is the two party system. Much as I believe the Repubs are the worse of the two evils, it really is one large party of the rich and powerful, staying rich and powerful, while keeping the people at odds through partisanship.
That's how, in a country of over three hundred million, we can still wind up with another Clinton and another Bush.

If they were really two separate parties, we plus be seeing massive swings of policy when one party takes the office from the other. But our problems remain, some, like the gap between the wealthy and the poor, continue to grow worse.


And I for one would not be surprised if the right leaning folks voted in Trump, considering "W" got a second term(not sure Trump would actually take the post though, due to the pay cut.)
Anything is possible in the reality series we call American Politics.
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
It's true both parties have helped perpetuate inequities. It is also true that one party has, over the last century, championed things like minimum wage, social security, unemployment insurance, collective bargaining, yada yada. The difference isn't trivial. I won't repeat all the arguments made upthread for significant differences between the parties.

 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
It's true both parties have helped perpetuate inequities. It is also true that one party has, over the last century, championed things like minimum wage, social security, unemployment insurance, collective bargaining, yada yada. The difference isn't trivial. I won't repeat all the arguments made upthread for significant differences between the parties.

And you can add concern for the environment with an understanding of the effects of climate change, respect for science and the scientific method, civil rights and the right of EVERYONE to vote, belief that all should have at least the minimum of medical care as a right, and the idea that government has no business promoting or directing religious ideology or practice.

Most of those who say they believe that the parties are the same either aren't paying attention or have a vested interest in diminishing the authority and reach of government and likely know the parties are promoting different goals and a different future.

How could one watch a Dem debate and then a Repub debate, and come away saying the parties are the same? They certainly couldn't with brains engaged.
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
This is an interesting post about Trump, but it really says a lot about the press and how difficult Trump is to even cover due to his sheer ostentation. How does one effectively cover such a slimy slippery slithering target while he keeps moving from outrage to outrage, without making republican coverage nothing but the Donald Trump Show?
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November 22, 2015 4:17 PM Trump’s Gish Galloping Campaign Makes It Hard to Hold Him Accountable
By David Atkins

I sometimes get tired of writing about Donald Trump and the GOP presidential race, but he has said so many outrageous things in the last 48 hours that the subject cannot be avoided in a serious political forum. Many people wish political commentators would simply ignore Trump as unworthy of news coverage, but failing to talk about it won’t diminish his support with the GOP base—and in any case when the leading frontrunner of the Republican Party says wildly objectionable things, it merits discussion.

The problem is that it’s hard to know what to say about his statements without degenerating into what most people would view as hyperbole. Words like “fascist” and “liar” start to creep into the mind, but those sorts of sentiments are unfit for a respectable publication—and in any case, most people do not want to admit even to themselves that a totalitarian charlatan is actually leading in the GOP polls by a wide margin and is currently leading the Democratic frontrunner in head-to-head polling.

But Trump’s comments over the last couple of days have been so numerous, so ludicrous and so objectionable and that’s hard to even hold him accountable.

He claimed that he saw thousands of people in Jersey City cheering the 9/11 terrorist attacks, even though no such thing happened at all.

After a Black Lives Matter protester was viciously assaulted at a Trump rally, he shrugged and said that “maybe he deserved to get roughed up.”

He is openly advocating the torture of captured prisoners via waterboarding. It’s hard to tell exactly from his comments, but it also appears that he may advocate “enhanced interrogation” of Syrian refugee grandmothers, whom he considers a “Trojan Horse.”

After signing a pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee, he has backtracked and indicated he might run as an independent after all if he isn’t “treated fairly,” whatever that means.

All of these recent bizarre episodes have already driven his only-days-old unconstitutional suggestion that Muslims be tracked in a national database out of the news, even as he prevaricates and claims he never suggested any such thing.

Trump’s incessant barrage of outrageous pronouncements is reminiscent of the Gish Gallop strategy of argumentation: keeping your opponent on their heels and unable to debate effectively by throwing out so many false and misleading statements that it becomes too difficult to address any single one of them or make your own case. It’s a common creationist tactic, and a common tool of hucksters and swindlers everywhere.

Donald Trump is doing the Presidential campaign version of it in the 24-hour media cycle. No sooner does he make one absurd and dangerous statement than he follows it up with a different one, all the while making himself the center of attention and drowning out both his opponents and the ability to effectively respond to the previous outrage.

It’s sometimes hard to imagine what general election attack ads against Trump would even look like. Donald Trump isn’t an oppo gold mine—he’s more like a giant strobe-lit rave party of glittering, disorienting attack ad opportunities. One could literally fill hundreds of 30-second attack ads with his campaign statements alone, to say nothing of his personal history, and we’re still over a week from December. So where does one begin and how does one focus? Do you poll 40 of his past statements and ask people how objectionable they are on a 10-point scale? It’s actually a significant problem for writers and political professionals alike.

The Republican base and conservative politics aren’t the only thing under a microscope here. We’re also seeing a test of the ability of our media and political professional class to hold a hucksterish gish galloper like Trump accountable. So far it’s not looking so good.
 

grokit

well-worn member
We talk democracy, then overthrow elected governments and prop up awful regimes. Let's discuss the actual history

operation-ajax-tanks.jpg

A tank in the streets of Tehran during the 1953 CIA-backed coup

The 'Land of the Free and Home of the Brave' has a long and iniquitous history of overthrowing democratically elected leftist governments and propping up right-wing dictators in their place.

U.S. politicians rarely acknowledge this odious past — let alone acknowledge that such policies continue well into the present day.

In the second Democratic presidential debate, however, candidate Bernie Sanders condemned a long-standing government policy his peers rarely admit exists.

“I think we have a disagreement,” Sanders said of fellow presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “And the disagreement is that not only did I vote against the war in Iraq. If you look at history, you will find that regime change — whether it was in the early ’50s in Iran, whether it was toppling Salvador Allende in Chile, or whether it was overthrowing the government of Guatemala way back when — these invasions, these toppling of governments, regime changes have unintended consequences. I would say that on this issue I’m a little bit more conservative than the secretary.”

“I am not a great fan of regime changes,” Sanders added.

“Regime change” is not a phrase you hear discussed honestly much in Washington, yet it is a common practice in and defining feature of U.S. foreign policy for well over a century. For many decades, leaders from both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, have pursued a bipartisan strategy of violently overthrowing democratically elected foreign governments that do not kowtow to U.S. orders.

In the debate, Sanders addressed three examples of U.S. regime change. There are scores of examples of American regime change, yet these are perhaps the most infamous instances...

Iran 1953, Chile 1973, Egypt 2013 etc.


:horse:
 
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