The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

[grokit]

Drumpf is taking my state's electoral vote.
In reality, a vote for killary won't matter any more than writing bernie in.

 

[Silat]

More on the non email issue and immunity.

Excerpt from long article:
"Then there's today's controversy about Cheryl Mills and another Clinton assistant being given limited immunity when the FBI examined her computer. According to a second
Politico story:
A lawyer for Mills and Samuelson, Beth Wilkinson, said she requested the immunity grants because of inter-agency disputes about whether some information in Clinton's emails was classified.

"As the government indicated in these letters, the DOJ and FBI considered my clients to be witnesses and nothing more. Indeed, the Justice Department assured us that they believed my clients did nothing wrong. At all points my clients cooperated with the government’s investigation, including voluntarily participating in interviews with the FBI and DOJ," Wilkinson said in a statement.

"The letters released to the Hill today only covered the computers that my clients had used in performing their legal work," Wilkinsion added. "Because of the confusion surrounding the various agencies’ positions on the after-the-fact classification decisions, I advised my clients to accept this letter from DOJ.""

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/09/clinton-email-update

 

[Joel W.]

The strange bit for me about Mills is she also represented Clinton, as her lawyer and during Mills's interview with the FBI, Mills used her attorney client privilege, as Clinton lawyer, to not answer the FBI's questions, even though she HAD FUCKING IMMUNITY...

All this is from yesterdays FBI report dump.

 

[cybrguy]

Not that strange. Immunity is only to protect her. Attorney client privilege is to protect her client. You cannot use your immunity to protect someone else.

Edit: How funny. Post I made yesterday on the last page titled "Facts Matter" from HuffPost turns out to be written by Barbara Streisand. I didn't even know...

 

[Joel W.]

Right, refuse to cooperate, then gets offered immunity, takes it and then claims client privilege to not answer. Not that strange.

edit:The immunity was limited to her laptop only, so I guess she had to stay out of jail somehow.

They usually wouldn't just offer immunity with out even offering a subpoena for the laptop first, would they?

No one was ever going to be prosecuted for anything during this investigation. That is clear now.

 

[Amoreena]

Drumpf is taking my state's electoral vote. ...

If that's absolutely certain, it's a drag. I'm sorry.

 

[Gunky]

I noticed something interesting in the way the two candidates have gone about their debate prep. Clinton does realistic rehearsals with a stand-in for Trump. So in the case of many of the types of things Trump might throw at her, she has given some thought to many scenarios and maybe honed an answer and in addition has given herself permission to go all sorts of different reply routes including snide put-downs, so that she has experienced what the consequences of following certain impulses will likely be. Trump by contrast just chats with advisors and disdains any sort of run-throughs or dress rehearsals. So on monday Trump will have less self-knowledge and will be far more prone to dumb rants he will later regret - because he hasn't gamed out a lot of these scenarios and tends to lose it when somebody 'hits' him, as he puts it. My guess is Clinton will 'hit' him early and keep hitting continuously till Trump goes apoplectic. There is even some possibility Trump will walk off. Because his control of his emotions is pretty tenuous.

Trump strongly believes he got this far doing what he does, therefore no need to change his basic approach. The problem with this is some of his lies have already reached their half-life and are decaying pretty seriously. You can't keep telling the same joke and expect people to continue laughing. There has been a lot of fact checking and the debate moderators are well armed with regard to some of Trump's favorite lies. This is going to be a good deal tougher for Trump. I expect him to become fatigued and go a bit lower than he has in all previous debates. By lower I mean more crass, more insulting, more misogynistic, less circumspect in his language, etc.

 

[Joel W.]

Here is the question I would like to know from anyone in here. It kept me awake last night...

Why would Fox news threaten to fire their employees if they talk about the September 13th set of DNC leaked emails on air?

It's caught on a video I posted a few pages back?

Other emails are ok, but not those specific emails. Just think about that one.....

.

Edit:. New talking points? V

 

[Gunky]

Gary Johnson is a moron. More evidence:
Slate: gary johnson thinks climate change doesn't matter because the sun will eventually encompass our whole planet.

 

[Snappo]

Anyone who isn't Hillary is a "moron"...

 

[yogoshio]

If what was said in 2011 is relevant, than Hillary is a homophobe.

 

[ClearBlueLou]

Hey back @ClearBlueLou, glad to be of service. ;>) You should click on that dudes About Page.

I'll be honest: I'm not motivated to. So far, I have vastly more respect for my own observational experience, reasoning abilities and skill @ managing logic. Has entirely to do with what you've shown me of the guy so far, and nothing to do w/ you.

As mentioned before I have followed this thread a while, left leaning dialog is not unexpected in this forum, the lack of empathy and reasoned debate is quite obvious though. The ridicule is toning down, although fear mongering is arising to do battle for the faithful.
Opinion is also well represented, to the point of faith.
noun: opinion; plural noun: opinions
a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

"left" and "right" are so disconnected from anything sensible in or experiential about US politics that I have to discount them except in referring to the 'sides'. This might surprise you, but I came up through a very conservative 'traditional understanding' of the second amendment, states rights, the core issues of the Civil War, etc, just like the others of my race and class down south, here. I am in my own assessment, quite conservative at my core - and of the view that most of what gets called 'conservative' these days is nothing of the sort. Fits in with the way the language has been deliberately distorted over the decades since Reagan took over.

There have been many "opinions" offered around the web that do not deserve careful analysis: much of what is coming out in support of Trump and against Clinton are simply lies: that IS Steve Bannon's stock-in-trade, as it was his boss's before him. Bullshit ought not be debated, it ought to be scraped off.

As for Bernie, the draw of power and staying in power produces gerrymandering etc. I have met folks that vote for anybody but the incumbent, to the point of disregarding their stance on the issues even, as a reset vote to prevent kingdom building. The citizens on the west side of the cascade mountains determine the vote in Washington state. The DNC super delegates provided me a slight glimpse of the frustration a conservative voter residing here must feel at times. Empathy is a good thing.

Indeed: I had real compassion for "conservative voters" before they proved themselves hide-bound and utterly unwilling to consider any viewpoints but the ones that helped them fit in. This isn't sport: there's more than "pride" on the line.

Don't see why you brought Sanders or gerrymandering into it: if there's a connection you see, please point it out.

Championing your goals and ideas for a better society is great, debate away, attacking the person vs the ideas, not so much. I will stop now, later Msek.

As for Saul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_senior_thesis

Agreed: still, I think it funny that no-one ever heard of Alinsky (except for political students and would-be theorists like me) until Karl Rove and other GOP strategists started simultaneously raiding his work and demonizing him (but then, that's THE Rovian characteristic, isn't it?) - and now everybody thinks they know something about him. Like I said, funny.

Peace - enjoy your weekend!

===

Anyone who isn't Hillary is a "moron"...

Really, now - being a Libertarian candidate isn't exactly a qualification for office all by itself. Must bring something else to the show!

===

Gary Johnson is a moron. More evidence:
Slate: gary johnson thinks climate change doesn't matter because the sun will eventually encompass our whole planet.

yeah, in maybe eleven billion years, when our sun expands to become a red giant- Gary, that's a long view, true - but it's not useful for policy...

 

[Gunky]

Here is Gary Johnson's web page on environmental policy. https://www.johnsonweld.com/environment
Check it out. It is a masterpiece of evasions, weasel words and empty rhetoric. Johnson has a history of saying the government has no role to play here, just keep burning coal till the place is roasting. He seems to regard opposition to vast increases in the carbon dioxide levels in the earth's atmosphere as a political agenda rather than a scientific issue. By his lights government environmental policies don't work. I guess acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer just fixed themselves. Our rivers lakes and air got cleaned up by magic. Some of you youngsters might not realize it but air and water pollution used to be a lot worse, back before all those naughty regulations came into play. You know, the ones Johnson wants to strip away.

 

[TeeJay1952]

 

[Farid]

If what was said in 2011 is relevant, than Hillary is a homophobe.

And that's another reason nobody in my family will ever vote for her. My brother is gay, and he is happily married to his husband. If Clinton had her way, that would not be possible. She had been anti gay and pro war until very recently, when public opinion changed.

As for folks who will not vote for Johnson because of the environment, how can you vote for Clinton who has done everything in her power to protect big oil interests.

As much as I care about the environment, if something like Fracking would stop our dependence from foreign oil, and would stop us from going to war in places like Iraq, or stop us from supporting the Saudi assault on Yemen, then yes I would support Fracking. Even if it was worse for the environment. You know what's also terrible for the environment? War.

 

[His_Highness]

One more day till the debate! Bring it! Lets do this! Can't wait!

 

[Gunky]

Um, Hillary Clinton is not now and never was homophobic. She used to be in favor of civil unions and functional equality; now she supports gay marriage. Like Barack Obama, she publicly 'evolved' on the question of gay marriage (like public opinion in general, which was once against and is now for gay marriage). If that makes Clinton homophobic, so are virtually all politicians. The argument is a canard. It's a particularly absurd argument when you take a look at Trump's positions on gay marriage and gay rights.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ry-clinton-change-position-same-sex-marriage/

It strikes me that there is something odd and contradictory about Bernie bros and the whole Bernie phenom. They claim Bernie is honest, really honest. They claim to trust Bernie. They'll follow where Bernie goes. Yet when Bernie tells them now we must support Hillary Clinton and that this is not the year to vote for 3rd party candidates, all of a sudden they discover Bernie is full of shit?

And this points up the bigger issue with Bernie: not only do politicians of all stripes in the House and Senate not follow his lead but a lot of those supposedly most worshipful and devoted diehard 'Bernie or Bust' fans and followers - the revolution, the movement - they don't trust Bernie and won't follow his lead either! Ultimately Bernie appears utterly incapable of getting anyone to follow him, whether it be other politicians or in direct, populist appeals to the public. A flash in the pan faintly reminiscent of Gene McCarthy back in 68.

 

[Snappo]

Fracking, not unlike war, makes huge swatches of land unlivable due to extreme water contamination, unstable building foundation, and atmospheric pollution - in effect, fracking wages war against our own people without recompense. If fracking is indeed a way to keep a global peace in a major way while enabling independence, then provide alternative living accommodations for the masses who would otherwise be irrevocably adversely affected, and make constructive productive above-ground use of the fracked areas.

Drumf's position on the gay lifestyle may only be a hypocritical public rouse, if Milaana's early bi-days are any indication given recent media pics... honestly though, I really don't know if those pictures of Milaana sharing a bed with another woman were post-processed images or not. Personally, it isn't an issue for me in the least. I am only concerned with the masks these candidates wear on both sides of their head, front and back.

 

[Joel W.]

Nothing to see here..

 

[BD9]

If I vote for killary it will be strictly out of self-interest on a single issue: health care.


If I write bernie in, it would be to make a political statement that reflects my values. Of course if the trumpoclypse happens it would be nice to say that I voted against it, rather than just not for it.

they just want to stop orange hitler:

@grokit, I feel ya. I may not be able to reach ya, but I feel ya. I've also struggled with this. From not voting for a president to writing in Sanders.

And it's with much respect I say to you, after many conversations with people I respect including hard core Bernie supporters, it's become very clear to me that the main objective is to keep the 'Orange hitler' out of the white house.
So my decision as I've said here before is to vote for HRC.

 

[lwien]

One more day till the debate! Bring it! Lets do this! Can't wait!

Funny watching CNN promoting this debate. Kinda reminds me of Crazy Eddie (RIP).....

 

[Joel W.]

I admit now that these sources are biased, so you don't need to say it.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-emails-fbi-228607

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/27-things-we-learned-from-clintons-fbi-files/article/2602776

YOU can verify the info above by reading the source below (also biased), as I have.

https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/hillary-r.-clinton-part-03-of-03/view


This seems to be why no one is talking or allowed to talk about the DNC leaks from Sept 13. I don't claim to understand them yet, but it's getting clearer.

 

[yogoshio]

Um, Hillary Clinton is not now and never was homophobic. She used to be in favor of civil unions and functional equality; now she supports gay marriage. Like Barack Obama, she publicly 'evolved' on the question of gay marriage (like public opinion in general, which was once against and is now for gay marriage). If that makes Clinton homophobic, so are virtually all politicians. The argument is a canard.

I'm just gonna leave this here.... Ignore all you want, but that doesn't make it go away. She wasn't even always for civil unions for crying out loud.

 

[CarolKing]

@yogoshio Folks ideas about gay rights have evolved over the years. The country has come a long way in just a few years. Thank goodness that gay rights have been recently put in focus and that laws are in place. I don't hold that against anyone. There has been a lot of ignorance even among the democratic politicians.

With Trump some gay rights could be at stake. He is so unpredictable. I worry about abortion rights with a new Supreme Court. What would a new Supreme Court do about gay rights? Especially regarding the religious right.

You have only 2 viable candidates to choose from in this election.

The more I hear Gary Johnson talk the less I like him. His ideas and mine don't mesh. I like Weld better as a personality not his stance on issues.

 

[Gunky]

http://www.politifact.com/new-york/...loney/donald-trump-against-same-sex-marriage/

The Republican Party platform committee:

The 2016 Republican Party platform promises to defend "marriage against an activist judiciary," describing the Supreme Court's historic 2014 gay marriage ruling this way: "Five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman." The document also endorses the "First Amendment Defense Act," a federal bill—now in committee, and not yet debated—that seeks to allow businesses and individuals to discriminate against LGBT Americans on religious grounds.

The platform also supports "the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children," a provision that was born out of a fight to allow parents to take their kids to "conversion therapy"—a bogus practice that attempts to "un-gay" patients. Conversion therapy has been made illegal in several states. (According to Time, the original language proposed by Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council and a delegate from Louisiana, was a more strident defense of the "therapy.") The platform also rejects gay and lesbian families by saying, "A man and a woman family is the best, ideal vehicle for raising children."

Gov. Mike Pence:

Trump's vice presidential pick, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, was something of a pioneer in laws allowing businesses to refuse service to gays on religious grounds, when in 2014 he rushed through a bill known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. After his state lost 12 big conventions and an estimated $60 million amid a national backlash, Pence pushed state lawmakers to tweak the bill to protect gays and lesbians. But as my colleague Hannah Levintova pointed out in mid-July, Pence's staunch opposition to gay rights goes back even longer:

In 2003, Pence, then representing the sixth congressional district of Indiana, co-sponsored an amendment that would have prohibited same-sex marriage. Four years later, he voted against the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which aimed to prevent job discrimination based on sexual orientation. While in Congress, he opposed a bill aimed at more effectively prosecuting hate crimes based on sexual orientation and voted against the repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/trump-gay-rights-immigration-test-speech

And take a hard look at Mike Pence if you are interested in gay rights. Cheezit.