The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

[t-dub]

Even if his supporters don't get physical, I can see drumpf suing a few states if he loses

For what? . ..

 

[Silat]

California more recently de-elected enough Republicans to end the obstructionism, raised taxes and generally reversed the regressive trends towards 'race-to-the-bottom' governance so popular in regressive circles.

California has started to prosper again.

"California’s economy is improving, and its budget is finally balanced—partly because of budget cuts and a voter-approved tax hike in 2012, and partly because the stock-market boom* has translated into more tax receipts from California’s wealthiest residents (the ones with those high income-tax rates)."
Google is your friend

Recently one here reported that no recovery was seen where he/she lives; Pennsylvania as I remember.
Yes there are places in the USA that continued to suffer during these past seven years of actual recover impeded by anti-American Republican obstructionism (remember 1/21/2009).
Republican controlled states like Kansas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin (compare to Democratic Minnesota next door) are real life laboratories of proof that Republicans can not govern, only exploit America.

* Apparently never happened according to the Trump-pets

Yes. ReaganVooDooTrickleDownGoldenShowerPizzOnYou economics 101 is a failed economic policy that the right keeps pushing.

 

[t-dub]

Yes. ReaganVooDooTrickleDownGoldenShowerPizzOnYou economics 101 is a failed economic policy that the right keeps pushing.

if we can speak candidly here for a moment, I just wanna know, do you think that the corrupt capitalism model we now have (aka fascism) just needs to be regulated, or do you feel that total state control of markets is necessary for long term prosperity?

 

[Msek]

 

[Farid]

This is fundamentally un-American. Obviously Trump, Assange, and Putin are in league. I can hardly believe this is happening. Whoever can help keep pressure on the media to report exactly what this is must do so.

I really suggest you read up on Chelsea Manning and everything she sacrificed for what she believed in. I have a hard time believeing she gave up everything just to help the Russians.

Likewise, if Snowden were pro Russian (you didn't include him, but he often shares the same blame you are giving Assange) why wouldn't he have given the information to Russian agents when they asked him for it?

If you learn the stories of these people it is clear that they sacrificed their freedom because they believed Americans needed to know what their government was up to. If you think it's all a lie that's fine, but enough of these revelations have been proven true for me to believe them. So we can agree to disagree but don't call me a conspiracy theorist, because the evidence is clear. It's a bigger conspiracy theory to say that everybody you disagree with is a Russian agent.

And how is it any different from when the US goes into Syria or Venezuela and says Assad has to go, or Chavez has to go. We put our hands in every political pie, and don't expect it to come bite us in the ass?

We hacked the Syrian internet in 2012, causing an internet blackout, which was blamed on Assad (they said he did it to stop protesters social media communication). Later the NSA claimed it was an accident that occurred while trying to hack into the networks. Imagine if that happened here. If our internet was shut off by a county like Russia during a time of turbulence (even if it was a mistake, and the Russians were just trying to spy), we would be up in arms. Time we practice what we preach, else we end up a country like Russia. Here's an article on the event: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/snowden-nsa-syria-internet-outage-civil-war

Snowden told the Wired interviewer that NSA officials joked that should they be discovered, they would blame the outage on Israel.

At the time, the government of dictator Bashar al-Assad, blamed the outage on “terrorists”, while opposition groups fighting Assad suspected his government itself was responsible.

That last quote shows how this internet blackout contributed to both sides suspecting the other of foul play, and leading to the escalation of violence in Syria.

 

[Snappo]

Fine. Just tell me a few of them.

HRC -
https://www.google.com/search?q=hillary+clinton%2Blist+of+lies%2Bwall+street+journal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

https://www.google.com/search?q=hillary+clinton+list+of+lies&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

https://www.google.com/search?q=hillary+clinton+list+of+lies+wall+street+journal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=wall+street+journal+hillary+clinton+emails

DJT -
https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+lies&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+list+of+lies+wall+street+journal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+lies&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=list+of+trump+lies

 

[TeeJay1952]

Trump's MO
1. Find an ongoing project
2. Over bid every aspect of project. (Crowding out legitimate investors)
3. Get all participants sign a contract that exceeds all other offers but has Trump being paid upfront.
4. Declare bankruptcy of project and pay cents on the dollar to all participants.
5. Declare himself a winner and others losers.
6. Rinse and Repeat.

 

[yogoshio]

Clinton's MO
1. Find way to manipulate system to her benefit no matter the repercussions.
2. Manipulate system.
3. Get caught.
4. Lie, find a scapegoat, make them take the fall.
5. Deny responsibility/accountability, continue business as usual
6. Rinse and Repeat

 

[newVaper420]

I know there are more issues than marijuana, but if Trump wins and has Chris Christie as Attorney General, forget about all those legal states.

 

[yogoshio]

I know there are more issues than marijuana, but if Trump wins and has Chris Christie as Attorney General, forget about all those legal states.

I doubt there will be any regression. Many, many on the right are getting over the hysteria. Even if he wanted to, I doubt it will get worse. Likely won't get any better, but I doubt worse.

 

[Gunky]

Trump's MO
1. Find an ongoing project
2. Over bid every aspect of project. (Crowding out legitimate investors)
3. Get all participants sign a contract that exceeds all other offers but has Trump being paid upfront.
4. Declare bankruptcy of project and pay cents on the dollar to all participants.
5. Declare himself a winner and others losers.
6. Rinse and Repeat.

This is also more or less what he has done with the republican nomination. He got the project by lying, slandering his opponents and giving promises he had no way of making good. He put little or no money into it and got the party to set up campaign infrastructure. Everyone signed a contract up front to support the eventual nominee. At some point he will begin blaming everybody else for his failure and bail. And all along the campaign keeps paying his businesses for meeting spots, hotel rooms, catering, etc.

 

[SSVUN~YAH]

I doubt there will be any regression. Many, many on the right are getting over the hysteria. Even if he wanted to, I doubt it will get worse. Likely won't get any better, but I doubt worse.

He said he wants to enforce federal law that is currently on the books. What do you think he meant by that? What I took away from the RNC: The camera angles during Melania's speech reminded me of Ivan Drago, I'm never watching Duck Dynasty again, and if the Republicans win the future is dim!

 

[Gunky]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...candidate_trump_and_putin_are_using_each.html

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are both lying. Only one of them, however, is cunning; the other is gaffing his way toward treason. Trump has emphatically denied ties to Russia—a claim refuted by his Twitter feed and a cursory Google search. Putin says his government had nothing to do with the hack of the DNC computers, even though it carelessly left a trail of crumbs tracing back to his intelligence services. The cunning liar is exploiting the blundering one.

Let’s be clear: Trump isn’t a Manchurian candidate. He’s not taking orders from the Kremlin. As I wrote on Friday, Trump is a useful device for Putin—a way to hurt the United States and perhaps a way to exact revenge on Hillary Clinton. Putin has made a habit of supporting far-right candidates who undermine his foes in Europe; perhaps he never could have imagined such a character taking root on American soil. Trump’s reasons for aligning with Putin have been more innocent, if no less dangerous. Trump is a real estate guy who sucks up to power to get buildings built. And he desperately wanted to build in Russia—the dream of Trump Tower Moscow has been a constantly recurring one. “We will be in Moscow at some point,” he once proclaimed.

When he took his many trips to Moscow, Trump praised authorities so that he could get the necessary approvals. His kind words to Russian leaders and his personal style endeared him to the country’s new elite. Trump is baldly denying these efforts—“I have nothing to do with Russia,” he said on Wednesday. It’s true that his Moscow building never broke ground, but Russian investment flowed to his properties. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., once bragged. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Or as Trump himself once put: “The Russian market is attracted to me.”

This investment wasn’t incidental to Trump: It was essential. After his 2004 bankruptcy, the big banks wouldn’t touch him. Who would? He had a record of litigiousness and going belly up. But Russian investors helped prop up Trump’s megabuilding projects, which were crucial to his image as a man who makes things, not just a reality television star. There would be no Trump SoHo, for instance, without capital from Russia. As one lawsuit alleges, the money arrived at Trump projects through an Icelandic investment fund “in favor” with Putin’s elite and through mysterious infusions of cash from Russia and Kazakhstan into the accounts of his partners.

It’s not hard to see why this dependence, and his fawning words about Putin, would endear him to the Kremlin. Putin would be foolish not to lend Trump a quiet hand. And, indeed, his inner circle has made little secret of its rooting interest in the Trump campaign. Russia Today, Putin’s primary propaganda vehicle, routinely trashes Hillary Clinton and praises Trump’s courageous stances.

Perhaps our intelligence community has a better sense of the ultimate goal of Russia’s hack. But it doesn’t take much imagination to describe the relationship between the Kremlin and Trump campaign as symbiotic. Let’s review the events of the past few weeks. First, Trump softened the Republican Party’s stance on Ukraine; then Trump announced that he wouldn’t come rushing to the aid of NATO allies invaded by Russia. That was followed by the leak of the Democratic National Committee emails, on the eve of the convention—an event that Julian Assange implied was intended to injure Hillary Clinton. It’s hard to imagine that this chain of events was coordinated. Yet Trump and Putin profited from one another in measurable ways.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Trump made clear that he wasn’t standing in Putin’s way. He wouldn’t ask Putin to desist from hacking his enemy; instead, he mused aloud about how he hoped Russia would obtain Hillary Clinton’s email. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he announced. The only way to procure those emails would be to steal them. What’s more, those aren’t campaign documents from low-level staffers or hacks at a political party: He’s advocating the Russians steal documents produced by the secretary of state—and he wants to broadcast them to the world. (Later he suggested it would perhaps be more appropriate for Russia to share them with the FBI.) It was grossly negligent for Hillary Clinton to leave her emails so exposed, and she should be shamed and hounded for her indifference to cybersecurity. But that’s a sin of omission. By any moral calculus, Trump just committed a far worse offense. He advocated that a foreign country commit espionage in order to weaken his political opponent.

Pause to consider: The Republican presidential nominee wants another country to steal secrets from the United States and not in the interests of exposing military misadventures or for some high-minded reason. He wants to expose American secrets in order to hurt his foe. Nixonian doesn’t even begin to capture it.

An interesting article. I am not so sure I buy the author's contention that Trump is symbiotic with Putin rather than owned by Putin. He documents ways in which Trump has been dependent on Russian capital for a decade or so. I am not so sanguine. I find it astonishing that a candidate with such vulnerabilities could have become the republican party's nominee, especially after 8 years of complaints that Obama wasn't vetted enough. Given what is now coming out about Trump's Russian connections, it is utterly preposterous that Trump is not producing his tax returns - not just for last year but for the last 10 years. I have a suspicion that events are going to accelerate and Trump may back out before the election.

 

[newVaper420]

I doubt there will be any regression. Many, many on the right are getting over the hysteria. Even if he wanted to, I doubt it will get worse. Likely won't get any better, but I doubt worse.

Not true sadly. As mentioned by SSVUN-YAH, he has outright said he will enforce federal law. (Edit: even against medical marijuana states)

http://marijuanapolitics.com/chris-...laws-doesnt-matter-if-sick-kids-will-benefit/

 

[yogoshio]

I have a suspicion that events are going to accelerate and Trump may back out before the election.

No way. I wish, but no way. If Hillary stays in after it comes out she and DNC rigged the entire process, Trump isn't leaving just because he has business connections in Russia.

And may I remind you all, Romney tried to warn us about Russia in the 2012 election, and Obama said he must still think its the Cold War era. Oh the irony... Now the anti-Russian sentiment is being used against the party that said it could be problematic

 

[CarolKing]

@yogoshio Things have changed a great deal far as Russia is concerned or the last 4 years if you've noticed. They aren't listening to anybody and they are doing as they please. When pressed on something Putin will deny. Russia needs another leader. Someone that will work for the people of Russia.

Trump has said he admired the man and is a strong leader. I don't need anymore statements other than that.

Being a loud mouth bigot is appealing to some segments of our population in the U.S. Unfortunately there are many bigots and fascists that fit right in with his policies.

Edit
What about the leaders right before Putin? They had unity more in mind with the rest of the world. Putin is more concerned with acting like a tough guy than being a good leader. Similar to someone else we know.

I'm not sure why folks want to support Trump's ideas? Maybe living in a free society doesn't appeal to them? I don't want to live in an America with Trump as the president.

I will have to agree to disagree with you @yogoshio Trump is 10 times worse. I've done a lot of reading on both candidates. Trump scares the hell out of me and he should scare anybody that lives in the states.

I realize Hillary is not perfect she does have a political track record. Trump does not but what he could do is no joke and this man is not entertaining to me anymore,

A vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Trump. It's as simple as that. I'm 59 years old. I've never felt we were in so much danger from a presidential candidate.

And trickle down economics doesn't work. It hasn't worked in the past and it won't work now.

 

[yogoshio]

Yup, 4 years is the only difference. Nations with the same leadership for two decades couldn't possibly have been working on it except for after people started calling them on it.

I know people who live there. It's the same Russia, we just started looking.

Russia invading Georgia 2008:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj81KSkx5bOAhWL24MKHRW0AfEQFghTMAk&url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/11/russian-aggression/&usg=AFQjCNGT5BU4pIHAQDOdy3-LDU2DDJ7QIA&sig2=ojZ367moCl0iFKRIUXjiwA&bvm=bv.128153897,d.amc

Here's a full timeline of Russian major geo-political acts from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17840446

Edit:

I keep getting confused as to my political affiliations.

I want to get this out, once and for all. I HATE TRUMP. I will never, ever vote for him and I think he would be a terrible president. That said, I HATE CLINTON. I think for not all that dissimilar reasons she would be equally as bad. I will not vote for either one.

I am voting for Gary Johnson.

My arguments here are about why Clinton would be disastrous, just as disastrous as Trump. How she is just as much a liar and unethical. It's pretty clear I'm the minority, but I honestly don't care.

 

[Bdubbdiblets]

#DemExit=#TrumpEntrance

Silliness...I admit I'm scared.

(First time I've ever used a hashtag haha... I'm evolving...slowly)

 

[Silat]

if we can speak candidly here for a moment, I just wanna know, do you think that the corrupt capitalism model we now have (aka fascism) just needs to be regulated, or do you feel that total state control of markets is necessary for long term prosperity?

1/ you actually think the USA is a fascist country?
2/ And the real question is how come you believe that trickledown works?
It has never worked.

 

[lwien]

@lwien i bet Trump will say that he was just joking.

"Donald Trump said Thursday morning that he was only kidding when he appeared to encourage Russian intelligence agencies to find Hillary Clinton's thousands of deleted emails."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politics/donald-trump-russia-hacking-sarcastic/index.html

 

[Gunky]

“As an independent, I am asking you to join with me — not out of party loyalty but out of love of country. And together, let's elect a sane, competent person with international experience.” - Michael Bloomberg at the democratic convention

 

[grokit]

@CarolKing the only thing that's changed in four years is russia has been a victim of a lot of bad press. Nato was the aggressor in ukraine, and that includes a psyop against russia in the media. Drumpf was right about one thing, and that is the fact that putin enjoys the support of his people with an 80%+ approval rating.

I've noticed that since 9/11 the usa has become increasingly isolated from much of the rest of the world.

 

[wunderkind]

Not true sadly. As mentioned by SSVUN-YAH, he has outright said he will enforce federal law. (Edit: even against medical marijuana states)

http://marijuanapolitics.com/chris-...laws-doesnt-matter-if-sick-kids-will-benefit/

Christie has been a douche about the MJ issue for sure, but I'm pretty sure I've heard Herr Drumpf say he wanted to legalize medical MJ nationally and let the individual states decide if they want to do recreational.

 

[yogoshio]

You are correct sir!
https://www.merryjane.com/news/want-marijuana-legalized-then-donald-trump-is-your-best-option

 

[newVaper420]

Christie has been a douche about the MJ issue for sure, but I'm pretty sure I've heard Herr Drumpf say he wanted to legalize medical MJ nationally and let the individual states decide if they want to do recreational.

You are correct sir!
https://www.merryjane.com/news/want-marijuana-legalized-then-donald-trump-is-your-best-option

Problem is, if Chris Christie gets in, he will have Donald's ear. And you can't really trust the way trump is going either. But you can't trust Hillary either.

But at least the Dems have put it in their party platform this year.

http://blog.norml.org/2016/06/28/de...reform-as-part-of-its-2016-national-platform/