The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

You are spot on @lwein and it wasn't that long ago that all those changes started happening. They need to make sure they keep their racist grip on America.

Edit
Just this past year I've known 2 Hispanic families that ended up having to go back to Mexico because either the mother or the father was found to be an illegal citizen.

These folks had children that were born in the U.S and in a couple cases the children were middle school age. Both cases the families were good people and hard working. Neither of the people were caught doing anything illegal other than not being documented citizens. It's difficult for some of these folks to come forward to even start the process of becoming legal. It's harder now than it was some years back.

If Trump become president it's going to be a disaster for everyone I'm afraid.

lwien said:

I'm "almost" convinced that the anger and angst of blue collar workers that's created by unemployment and their feeling that their government doesn't work for them, that the press talks about in regards to Trump supporters has nothing to do with those things but rather the anger and angst that we actually elected and re-elected a black president

Key word here is "almost". I'm not quite convinced of that but I'm getting close.

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Thanks for this. I wasn't able to articulate my feelings. I too am 'almost' convinced. And, it makes me sad.

When I saw that truck with the confederate flag last night coming down the street I thought, "Oh shit. Here we go". That flag is a racist symbol of people wanting keep other people enslaved. Just read secession statements from South Carolina, Texas, and Mississippi to name a few, and that flag seems to make an appearance at almost every trump rally.

Only A Pawn In Their Game
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.

Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game

View image on Twitter




Oh, happy day! Our #ThankYouEvent is finally here. Take 30%

This add has stirred controversy from some that think there is something wrong with an interracial couple. Where have people been living for the last 40 years or so?

Some folks are saying that they will boycott Old Navy. I always thought we were were beyond this until a few years ago. It is so stupid, I see a beautiful family.

I'm curious if a lot of the negativity geared toward this add is from the southern states? I hate to generalize.

I hope people shop more at Old Navy to prove a point.

Yeah, it was like the Cherrios commercial. Folks used to Madison avenue supporting their fantasy of a white America are gonna have to finally face reality. It is starting to hurt advertisers who AREN'T showing America as it is now, and the trends merely follow the money...

Added: I just went looking around the web at what people are saying about this trend, and it is quite interesting. Many people are complaining about it. Many support it and think, like me, that it would be ignorant NOT to do it. But it is very easy to see the bias of many of the folks writing about it. Some of it is just kinda sad.

Post racial America... in a pigs eye...

cybrguy said:

Sorry, no data. It is an estimate based on 50 years of watching American politics and observing and living under 10 different Presidents.

Why, do you have data that shows I am way off? I would think that it is pretty obvious that what we expect and need from the President changes based on what is happening in the country, but that doesn't keep one from estimating what the Presidents time is generally taken by, and my estimate is about 80% domestic. What's yours?

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Nope - no data from me. And I have no estimate because my impressions are largely (if not thoroughly) based on what the media reports and I have no idea how much they are reporting or the accuracy of what they report, which leaves me feeling wholly unqualified to make these kinds of judgments. Sorry.

Republicans’ voter-ID laws ‘work’ as intended
05/03/16 08:00 AM

In recent weeks, we’ve seen some high-profile examples of Republicans accidentally telling the truth about voter-ID laws. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), a far-right freshman congressman, admitted a month ago, for example, that these laws are likely to make a difference boosting Republicans in the 2016 elections.

Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), now the head of the Heritage Foundation, added last week that Republicans have kept up the crusade in support of this policy “because in the states where they do have voter ID laws you’ve seen, actually, elections begin to change towards more conservative candidates.”

But what sometimes goes overlooked is the fact that anti-voting policymakers aren’t just spinning their wheels, pushing an idea that may or may not have some effects on the margins. As the New York Times reported yesterday, Republicans are championing voter-ID laws precisely because they have the intended effect.

Since their inception a decade ago, voter identification laws have been the focus of fierce political and social debate. Proponents, largely Republican, argue that the regulations are essential tools to combat election fraud, while critics contend that they are mainly intended to suppress turnout of Democratic-leaning constituencies like minorities and students.

As the general election nears – in which new or strengthened voter ID laws will be in place in Texas and 14 other states for the first time in a presidential election – recent academic research indicates that the requirements restrict turnout and disproportionately affect voting by minorities.

The Times highlighted a study published by Zoltan Hajnal, a UC San Diego political science professor, whose research found that “strict voter ID laws double or triple the gap in turnout between whites and nonwhites.”

None of this is accidental. It’s a feature, not a bug, of a deliberate assault on democracy. Republicans, frustrated by a series of defeats, had a choice: change and adapt in order to appeal to a larger group of American voters, or take steps to rig the game in order to give GOP candidates a built-in advantage.

In recent years, the party has preferred the latter, finding it vastly easier than actually earning more public support.

And while none of this is especially new – we’ve heard the same ridiculous arguments about the imaginary “voter fraud” scourge for years – candidates this year will face an altered landscape.

The Times’ report added that in 2016, “new or strengthened voter ID laws will be in place in Texas and 14 other states for the first time in a presidential election.”

It means Democrats, who are otherwise optimistic about their chances this year, can’t be satisfied with a lead in the polls going into Election Day – because in much of the country, they’ll need a large enough advantage to overcome voter-suppression tactics.

Meanwhile, more shenanigans from the clinton campaign

"The Hillary Victory Fund is a so-called joint fundraising committee comprised of Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees. The setup allows Clinton to solicit checks of $350,000 or more from her super-rich supporters at extravagant fundraisers.

"The victory fund has transferred $3.8 million to the state parties, but almost all of that cash ($3.3 million, or 88 percent) was quickly transferred to the DNC, usually within a day or two, by the Clinton staffer who controls the committee, POLITICO’s analysis of the FEC records found."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/clinton-fundraising-leaves-little-for-state-parties-222670
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersFor...ifll/politico_exposes_clinton_campaign_money/
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersFor...ifll/politico_exposes_clinton_campaign_money/

TLDR: the money that was supposed to go to support democrats in state races across the country was instead re-routed to be used in advertising against hillary's primary rival bernie sanders instead

Trump’s latest conspiracy theory is a doozy, even for Trump
05/03/16 09:26 AM—Updated 05/03/16 10:25 AM

By any fair metric, Donald Trump is well positioned to win the Republicans’ presidential nomination, and is already starting to shift his focus to the general election. But to think that the GOP frontrunner is finished complaining about his intra-party rival is to make a mistake.

Take this morning, for example, when Trump, repeating a story he saw in a tabloid, alleged that Ted Cruz’s father was seen palling around with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Politico reported this morning:

“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being – you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday during a phone interview with Fox News. “What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.”

“I mean, what was he doing – what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump continued. “It’s horrible.”

No, really, that’s what he said.

In keeping with his m.o., Trump’s odd broadside against his rival’s father comes on the heels of Rafael Cruz, a prominent surrogate for his son’s campaign, telling conservatives that a Trump presidency could lead to “the destruction of America.”

Evidently, Trump heard this and decided to respond with a JFK assassination conspiracy theory.

For what it’s worth, there’s no real reason to actually believe the conspiracy theory, but in the mind of Donald Trump, there’s little relationship between evidence and wild-eyed theories that he’s inclined to embrace and disseminate with great enthusiasm.
Remember this New York Times report from two months ago?

Mr. Trump, unlike most presidential candidates, does not shrink from addressing, and in some ways legitimizing, the wildest of hypotheticals. He has declared on a presidential debate stage that he knew a 2-year-old who immediately developed autism from a vaccination. He has appeared on the radio show of the noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has suggested that the government played a role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. He has said on Twitter that President Obama might have attended Justice Scalia’s funeral had it been held at a mosque, feeding into the pervasive rumor that the Christian president is actually a Muslim. And he shared with a rally crowd a dramatic story of a United States general executing Muslim insurgents with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood, which has been dismissed as an Internet rumor.

Part hair-salon gossip, part purveyor of forwarded conspiracy emails, Mr. Trump has exploited the news cycles of an Internet era in which rumors explode like fireworks and often take a long time to burn out. Mr. Trump’s willingness to touch on what passes for fact on fringe websites puts him in a unique class for a national major party front-runner.
Which is an exceedingly polite way of saying leading candidates for the nation’s highest office usually aren’t quite this ridiculous.

The aforementioned examples are really just a sampling. Trump has also lent credence to the theory that Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered; we don’t yet know who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks; and the “birther” garbage about President Obama, by some measures Trump’s personal favorite.

The broader question that’s tougher to answer: is Trump doing well in the Republican race despite his ludicrous conspiracy theories or because of them?

cybrguy said:

The broader question that’s tougher to answer: is Trump doing well in the Republican race despite his ludicrous conspiracy theories or because of them?

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Both.

The mainstream says that we know that a bunch of ignorant, broke arabs that could barely speak english pulled of the most brazen attack ever on american soil without any assistance. Of course, we must believe anything that the 9/11 commission says because they were appointed. Just ask senators cleland & graham, not. At the very least they share credibility with the warren commission, another truth-finding failure.

more: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september112009/911_truth_9-11-09.php

The mainstream also says that Antonin Scalia died of natural causes, while his protection detail was told that their services weren't needed. There was no autopsy or federal investigation, just a quick cremation.

The mainstream in america doesn't know who or what to believe anymore, so trump fills the vacuum

grokit said:

The mainstream in america doesn't know who or what to believe anymore, so trump fills the vacuum

Click to expand...

Or just adds to the garbage that's already in there, eh?

Donald Trump wins Indiana Republican Primary - CNN just announcing.

I had seen last week while standing in line at the grocery store that the Enquirer magazine tabloid had something about Cruz's dad knowing Lee Harvey Oswald. So guess what, today Trump announces it. He is so slimy, announcing info from a tabloid as news, what a classy guy. "Why has anybody said anything about this?" This is what he said. Probably because nobody believes in tabloid headlines would be my guess. I didn't read the article. It could mean that Ted Cruz's dad went to school with him.

I sure wish they would find something really horrible about Trump, like he's involved in the mafia. I don't know if that would help? This is bat shit crazy.

Edit
Breaking News! Cruz is suspending his campaign.

May 03, 2016 11:30 AM The Curse of Cruz

Part of this job involves looking for things to write about two, three, four or thirteen times a day (if you’re Ed Kilgore), and sometimes you have to settle for something a little less than intellectually titillating. This is how I feel anytime I feel the need to write about Ted Cruz.

But, stories about Cruz, his wife and his father are what’s topping the political news aggregators this morning, and the biggest political story of the day is the Republican primary in Indiana.

To begin with, Gallup notes that “Republicans’ views of Cruz are now the worst in Gallup’s history of tracking the Texas senator. His image among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents is at 39% favorable and 45% unfavorable.”

He must be doing something wrong, and I’d suggest that the thing he’s doing wrong is to try to overturn the verdict of Republican primary voters that they have chosen Donald Trump to be their nominee. Last week, I mentioned that Cruz was getting pretty desperate and making people hate him by going after transgender people who sometimes need to use public restrooms. But he hasn’t limited his pandering to Indiana’s roster of Christian conservatives to picking on society’s most vulnerable minority. He’s sent his father out to tell people that God wants them to vote for his son. No, not that son.

This one:

In a brief video conversation with [Micah] Clark, [executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana] posted on the AFA Indiana Facebook page, Rafael Cruz made the case for Ted. “I implore, I exhort every member of the Body of Christ to vote according to the word of God, and vote for the candidate that stands on the word of God and on the Constitution of the United States of America,” Cruz said. “And I am convinced that man is my son, Ted Cruz. The alternative could be the destruction of America.”

Cruz’s advocate, Glenn Beck, is traveling around Indiana with the same message, which is that the choice between Cruz and Trump is a choice between good and evil. Even Louie Gohmert is in on the act.

But what’s more interesting than this sad display of politicized and perverted Christianity is the clown car aspects of this race, as Heidi Cruz feels compelled to assure us that her husband isn’t actually the Zodiac Killer and the Cruz campaign tries to fend off accusations that his father Rafael somehow assisted Lee Harvey Oswald in some way in his alleged assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Aside from a few laughs like these, the Republican nominating process long ago ceased to be good entertainment. Watching it just makes me feel dirty, the way I kick myself when I can’t help but rubberneck to see the results of a car accident or when I have to remind myself that a good person doesn’t root for injuries when the Cowboys play the Eagles.

The evidence suggests that, far from God wanting us to vote for Ted Cruz, he’s cast some kind of Oedipal curse on the Republicans.

Maybe it’s because they invaded the wrong country and broke the whole region featured so prominently in the Bible.

Cruz just dropped out.

The RNC has just crowned Trump the nominee.

We think it got ugly before? Now it's gonna get nuts. The first Hillary/Trump debate is gonna be, in my opinion, one of the most watched events ever on TV. If they put it PPV, they'd make a fortune.

The only danger here, the way I see it, is if the Dems become so confident that Trump will lose, that they'll get lazy and not go out and vote and THAT could happen.

If the Dems get energized though, they will win much more than just the WhiteHouse. MUCH MUCH MORE !! Considering the Supreme Court, this election could very well be the most impactful election in recent memory.

Yeah, it could. But I don't think it is likely. 2004 taught Dems a lot...

Besides, I think most Dems will want their vote against Trump to be counted...

cybrguy said:

Yeah, it could. But I don't think it is likely. 2004 taught Dems a lot...

Click to expand...

I hope to God you're right.

Well, I sure learned MY lesson. I voted, of course, but I stopped making calls and pushing 2 or 3 week out. Not again...

I think Trump is scarier than Bush was too, even tho we knew what he was capable of...

lwien said:

If they put it PPV, they'd make a fortune.

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The way things are going so far, this could be where our "democracy" is headed

At least Bernie won Indiana!! His movement goes on. Hillary is still way a head.

If the Bernie voters decide to stay at home for the general if Bernie loses, that could spell BIG trouble.

Bernie Sanders is projected to win Indiana. Still a long way to go but it's possible he can still win the nomination if people get out and vote and Wasserman-Shultz stops her shenanigans.

The Associated Press ✔ ‎@AP

BREAKING: Bernie Sanders to AP: 'Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. They're wrong.'

BD9 said:

BREAKING: Bernie Sanders to AP: 'Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. They're wrong.'

Click to expand...

I just hope that they don't do too much damage to one another in the process but the way I see, as I stated above, there's a real concern that if Bernie loses, a large part of his supporters will stay at home rather than vote for Hilary, but I don't think that the opposite is true if he wins being that I'm pretty confident that the Hillary supporters will support Bernie if she loses.

On the other side of the isle, the same dynamics are at play for there is a real fear there that the anti-Trump people will stay at home rather than vote for him.

This is getting' really interesting.


Latest betting odds............updated every 5 minutes: https://electionbettingodds.com
What's a bit worrisome in that link is the trend of Hillary going down and Trump going up.

Edit: Yeah, she needs to stop that trend like now 'cause there's a lot of time left before the election and over time, that gap "can" close.

i see this as a major victory for the libertarian party, especially if they are going to be included in the debates. The amount of exposure that donald trump has brought to the election process is going to give the libertarian candidate a lot of exposure as well. I also see this as another year like when Ross Perot ran, going to be crazy but I just hope for a little more focus on a third party, especially the libertarians.

Washington (CNN)Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday attacked Donald Trump's rise to become the presumptive Republican nominee, tweeting that the real estate mogul "built his campaign on racism, sexism and xenophobia."

Within hours of Trump winning Indiana's Republican primary -- and Ted Cruz dropping out of the GOP race -- Warren wrote that Trump "incites supporters to violence, praises Putin, and is 'Cool with being called an authoritarian.'"

Trump's win led Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to suspend his 2016 presidential campaign, leaving open a clearer path to the Republican nomination for Trump, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich trailing far behind in the delegate count.
"There's more enthusiasm for @realDonaldTrump among leaders of the KKK than leaders of the political party he now controls," Warren wrote on Twitter.