The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread
- Thread starter CarolKing
- Start date
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
I heard him call himself a Republican in an interview once, but I never really understood how he wrote so clearly Democratic characters. I must have misunderstood the interview.
And I always thought the quote @lwien include was his quote, not that of a character he had written. But, from the wiki...
"A consistent supporter of the Democratic Party, Sorkin has made substantial political campaign contributions to candidates between 1999 and 2011, according to CampaignMoney.com.[123] During the 2004 US presidential election campaign, the liberal advocacy group MoveOn's political action committee enlisted Sorkin and Rob Reiner to create one of their anti-Bush campaign advertisements."
I defer to Wikipedia and Silat...
cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
Move over, ‘Trump U,’ the new scandal is the ‘Trump Institute’
06/29/16 04:13 PM
The scandal surrounding “Trump University” is already an albatross for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The entire enterprise has been accused of being a con job, ripping off “students” who trusted the developer’s name.
But as it turns out, there’s a new, related controversy surrounding the “Trump Institute,” which is something else. The New York Times reports today that the Republican candidate “lent his name, and his credibility” to this seminar business, which offered Trump’s “wealth-creating secrets and strategies” for up to $2,000.
The truth was something else altogether.
As with Trump University, the Trump Institute promised falsely that its teachers would be handpicked by Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump did little, interviews show, besides appear in an infomercial – one that promised customers access to his vast accumulated knowledge. “I put all of my concepts that have worked so well for me, new and old, into our seminar,” he said in the 2005 video, adding, “I’m teaching what I’ve learned.”
Reality fell far short. In fact, the institute was run by a couple who had run afoul of regulators in dozens of states and been dogged by accusations of deceptive business practices and fraud for decades. Similar complaints soon emerged about the Trump Institute.
Yet there was an even more fundamental deceit to the business, unreported until now:
Extensive portions of the materials that students received after forking over their seminar fees, supposedly containing Mr. Trump’s special wisdom, had been plagiarized from an obscure real estate manual published a decade earlier.
All things considered, when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) referred to Trump as a “con man,” the senator may have been onto to something.
Consider the revelations from recent weeks:
* Those who ran “Trump University” have faced credible allegations of stuffing their own pockets by preying on the vulnerable, selling unsuspecting students snake oil at indefensible prices and through misleading claims.
* Trump has boasted at great length about the millions of dollars he’s given away through charitable donations – though many of these donations don’t appear to exist and many of the promises he made publicly went unfulfilled.
* A considerable chunk of Trump’s campaign fundraising went to Trump corporate products and services, giving rise to a new word for the political lexicon: “scampaign.”
* And now the “Trump Institute” is facing allegations of being yet another fraudulent operation, complete with bogus claims, shady characters, and “the theft of intellectual property at the venture’s heart.”
The Times’ report added:
The institute was another example of the Trump brand’s being accused of luring vulnerable customers with false promises of profit and success. Others, besides Trump University, include multilevel marketing ventures that sold vitamins and telecommunications services, and a vanity publisher that faced hundreds of consumer complaints.
Mr. Trump’s infomercial performance suggested he was closely overseeing the Trump Institute. “People are loving it,” he said in the program, titled “The Donald Trump Way to Wealth” and staged like a talk show in front of a wildly enthusiastic audience. “People are really doing well with it, and they’re loving it.” His name, picture and aphorisms like “I am the American Dream, supersized version” were all over the course materials.
Yet while he owned 93 percent of Trump University, the Trump Institute was owned and operated by Irene and Mike Milin, a couple who had been marketing get-rich-quick courses since the 1980s.
I realize, of course, that there are many voters who trust Donald J. Trump’s word. I’m less clear on why.
06/29/16 04:13 PM
The scandal surrounding “Trump University” is already an albatross for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The entire enterprise has been accused of being a con job, ripping off “students” who trusted the developer’s name.
But as it turns out, there’s a new, related controversy surrounding the “Trump Institute,” which is something else. The New York Times reports today that the Republican candidate “lent his name, and his credibility” to this seminar business, which offered Trump’s “wealth-creating secrets and strategies” for up to $2,000.
The truth was something else altogether.
As with Trump University, the Trump Institute promised falsely that its teachers would be handpicked by Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump did little, interviews show, besides appear in an infomercial – one that promised customers access to his vast accumulated knowledge. “I put all of my concepts that have worked so well for me, new and old, into our seminar,” he said in the 2005 video, adding, “I’m teaching what I’ve learned.”
Reality fell far short. In fact, the institute was run by a couple who had run afoul of regulators in dozens of states and been dogged by accusations of deceptive business practices and fraud for decades. Similar complaints soon emerged about the Trump Institute.
Yet there was an even more fundamental deceit to the business, unreported until now:
Extensive portions of the materials that students received after forking over their seminar fees, supposedly containing Mr. Trump’s special wisdom, had been plagiarized from an obscure real estate manual published a decade earlier.
All things considered, when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) referred to Trump as a “con man,” the senator may have been onto to something.
Consider the revelations from recent weeks:
* Those who ran “Trump University” have faced credible allegations of stuffing their own pockets by preying on the vulnerable, selling unsuspecting students snake oil at indefensible prices and through misleading claims.
* Trump has boasted at great length about the millions of dollars he’s given away through charitable donations – though many of these donations don’t appear to exist and many of the promises he made publicly went unfulfilled.
* A considerable chunk of Trump’s campaign fundraising went to Trump corporate products and services, giving rise to a new word for the political lexicon: “scampaign.”
* And now the “Trump Institute” is facing allegations of being yet another fraudulent operation, complete with bogus claims, shady characters, and “the theft of intellectual property at the venture’s heart.”
The Times’ report added:
The institute was another example of the Trump brand’s being accused of luring vulnerable customers with false promises of profit and success. Others, besides Trump University, include multilevel marketing ventures that sold vitamins and telecommunications services, and a vanity publisher that faced hundreds of consumer complaints.
Mr. Trump’s infomercial performance suggested he was closely overseeing the Trump Institute. “People are loving it,” he said in the program, titled “The Donald Trump Way to Wealth” and staged like a talk show in front of a wildly enthusiastic audience. “People are really doing well with it, and they’re loving it.” His name, picture and aphorisms like “I am the American Dream, supersized version” were all over the course materials.
Yet while he owned 93 percent of Trump University, the Trump Institute was owned and operated by Irene and Mike Milin, a couple who had been marketing get-rich-quick courses since the 1980s.
I realize, of course, that there are many voters who trust Donald J. Trump’s word. I’m less clear on why.
CarolKing
Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
This was from a couple weeks ago. I had to share.
Ken Burns explains his motivation behind the now viral Stanford commencement speech. Without saying his name, Burn's words were targeted to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Filmmaker Ken Burns gave a blistering attack on Donald Trump during Stanford’s commencement speech last Sunday. In an interview with USA TODAY this week, he said it was his “responsibility as a citizen to say that.”
Burns — who has produced award-winning documentaries — told USA TODAY that he’s attempted to stay neutral for his entire professional life, but this time he had to speak out.
“I am keenly aware of historical movements in the past — not just in this country but in other countries — that have been hugely disastrous, catastrophic even for human history. It’s imperative when we have the ability in a democracy to avoid these kinds of things to do so and you don’t do that if you’re just tweeting out a mean tweet.”
In the speech Sunday, Burns said Trump had “dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience” and a “terrifying Orwellian statesman.”
“For 216 years our elections — though bitterly contested — had featured the philosophies and characters who were clearly qualified that is not the case this year,” Burns said during his speech. He added that Trump (though he did not say his name) was “glaringly not qualified.”
“Before you do anything with your well-earned degree. You must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process,” Burns added.
Burns explained why he had unleashed on Trump to USA TODAY:
“There are times when we are required to speak up and speak out … when you find threats to the glories of our political system, the glories of our pluralism, the glories of the strength of our diversity when something threatens that, I think we’re all obligated as citizens to say something about it. And I felt that it was important and I’m not alone, there are many people who are speaking up.”
Ken Burns explains his motivation behind the now viral Stanford commencement speech. Without saying his name, Burn's words were targeted to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Filmmaker Ken Burns gave a blistering attack on Donald Trump during Stanford’s commencement speech last Sunday. In an interview with USA TODAY this week, he said it was his “responsibility as a citizen to say that.”
Burns — who has produced award-winning documentaries — told USA TODAY that he’s attempted to stay neutral for his entire professional life, but this time he had to speak out.
“I am keenly aware of historical movements in the past — not just in this country but in other countries — that have been hugely disastrous, catastrophic even for human history. It’s imperative when we have the ability in a democracy to avoid these kinds of things to do so and you don’t do that if you’re just tweeting out a mean tweet.”
In the speech Sunday, Burns said Trump had “dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience” and a “terrifying Orwellian statesman.”
“For 216 years our elections — though bitterly contested — had featured the philosophies and characters who were clearly qualified that is not the case this year,” Burns said during his speech. He added that Trump (though he did not say his name) was “glaringly not qualified.”
“Before you do anything with your well-earned degree. You must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process,” Burns added.
Burns explained why he had unleashed on Trump to USA TODAY:
“There are times when we are required to speak up and speak out … when you find threats to the glories of our political system, the glories of our pluralism, the glories of the strength of our diversity when something threatens that, I think we’re all obligated as citizens to say something about it. And I felt that it was important and I’m not alone, there are many people who are speaking up.”
cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
Being Reality-Based Isn’t Elitist
by Nancy LeTourneau
June 29, 2016 11:30 AM
The title of an article by James Traub in the aftermath of Brexit caught my eye: It’s Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses. Here is how he sums up what is going on:
The schism we see opening before us is not just about policies, but about reality. The Brexit forces won because cynical leaders were prepared to cater to voters’ paranoia, lying to them about the dangers of immigration and the costs of membership in the EU…The Republican Party, already rife with science-deniers and economic reality-deniers, has thrown itself into the embrace of a man who fabricates realities that ignorant people like to inhabit.
Here’s his solution:
Did I say “ignorant”? Yes, I did. It is necessary to say that people are deluded and that the task of leadership is to un-delude them. Is that “elitist”? Maybe it is; maybe we have become so inclined to celebrate the authenticity of all personal conviction that it is now elitist to believe in reason, expertise, and the lessons of history. If so, the party of accepting reality must be prepared to take on the party of denying reality, and its enablers among those who know better. If that is the coming realignment, we should embrace it.
I have to admit that I find myself divided about that. On the one hand, I think his analysis is mostly right. On the other, I reject elitism and have to wonder when it became a synonym for dealing with reality.
In describing how conservatives set things up for Donald Trump’s epic scam, Jeet Heer nailed the problem.
The anti-intellectualism that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement for decades also makes its members easy marks. After all, if you are taught to believe that the reigning scientific consensuses on evolution and climate change are lies, then you will lack the elementary logical skills that will set your alarm bells ringing when you hear a flim-flam artist like Trump. The Republican “war on science” is also a war on the intellectual habits needed to detect lies.
Over ten years ago, Stephen Colbert captured all of this perfectly with his invention of the word “truthiness,” which has been defined as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/63ite2/the-colbert-report-the-word---truthiness
To the extent that we have allowed Fox News, talk radio and conservative demagogues to put truthiness on par with reality, we have opened the door for the latter to be considered elitist and the former to be embraced as an acceptable part of political dialogue.
by Nancy LeTourneau
June 29, 2016 11:30 AM
The title of an article by James Traub in the aftermath of Brexit caught my eye: It’s Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses. Here is how he sums up what is going on:
The schism we see opening before us is not just about policies, but about reality. The Brexit forces won because cynical leaders were prepared to cater to voters’ paranoia, lying to them about the dangers of immigration and the costs of membership in the EU…The Republican Party, already rife with science-deniers and economic reality-deniers, has thrown itself into the embrace of a man who fabricates realities that ignorant people like to inhabit.
Here’s his solution:
Did I say “ignorant”? Yes, I did. It is necessary to say that people are deluded and that the task of leadership is to un-delude them. Is that “elitist”? Maybe it is; maybe we have become so inclined to celebrate the authenticity of all personal conviction that it is now elitist to believe in reason, expertise, and the lessons of history. If so, the party of accepting reality must be prepared to take on the party of denying reality, and its enablers among those who know better. If that is the coming realignment, we should embrace it.
I have to admit that I find myself divided about that. On the one hand, I think his analysis is mostly right. On the other, I reject elitism and have to wonder when it became a synonym for dealing with reality.
In describing how conservatives set things up for Donald Trump’s epic scam, Jeet Heer nailed the problem.
The anti-intellectualism that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement for decades also makes its members easy marks. After all, if you are taught to believe that the reigning scientific consensuses on evolution and climate change are lies, then you will lack the elementary logical skills that will set your alarm bells ringing when you hear a flim-flam artist like Trump. The Republican “war on science” is also a war on the intellectual habits needed to detect lies.
Over ten years ago, Stephen Colbert captured all of this perfectly with his invention of the word “truthiness,” which has been defined as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/63ite2/the-colbert-report-the-word---truthiness
To the extent that we have allowed Fox News, talk radio and conservative demagogues to put truthiness on par with reality, we have opened the door for the latter to be considered elitist and the former to be embraced as an acceptable part of political dialogue.
Maitri
Deadhead, Low-Temp Dabber, Mahayana Buddhist
My sense is that entities who want to subjugate others whose susceptibility is born out of their ignorance use terms like intellectual elitist to drive an illusionary wedge between those who appear to be more reality oriented and those who do not: "Those intellectual elitists think they are better than you - but you'll show them!"
yogoshio
Annoying Libertarian
Wow, talk about a change of terms. I for one am not ignorant, but I heartily disagree with (obviously) the dominant political theories in this forum. Does that mean I should be silenced? Or is the simple fact I don't agree with what a few people have decided what is best I'm ignorant in spite of whatever evidence, arguments, etc. I can bring to the table?
You want to make comparisons with Hitler and Stalin, look no further than this article. While the context and terminology might be different, the Bolshevik revolution was using this exact same thinking. This kind of demagogic logic always leads to one end, and its exactly what this article is stating it wants to avoid.
You want to make comparisons with Hitler and Stalin, look no further than this article. While the context and terminology might be different, the Bolshevik revolution was using this exact same thinking. This kind of demagogic logic always leads to one end, and its exactly what this article is stating it wants to avoid.
CarolKing
Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
@yogoshio what are you even talking about? We're all just amateur political analyst that use cannabis. I looked to see if you were singled out in any way? Not sure if you felt you were being called ignorant? I didn't see anything like that.
Sometimes it gets a little heated. Sometimes we agree to disagree. Hoping that we can keep this thread going until the election. The republican convention is what I'm really looking forward to. Hoping for a contested convention for the republicans.
Maybe there will be a little fireworks at the democratic one too. I want the demos to eventually be unified though. Can't have the carnival barker as president and chief.
Sometimes it gets a little heated. Sometimes we agree to disagree. Hoping that we can keep this thread going until the election. The republican convention is what I'm really looking forward to. Hoping for a contested convention for the republicans.
Maybe there will be a little fireworks at the democratic one too. I want the demos to eventually be unified though. Can't have the carnival barker as president and chief.
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
I wouldn't mind being a little more confident that Donald will be the ratified nominee. I'm of the camp who believes it would be OK if Hillary backed off on spending too much ad money until after the convention. I would kinda hate helping the republicans see how hopeless a candidate Trump really is while they can still do something about it...
Nobody can stop HIM from showing it...
ClearBlueLou
unbearably light in the being....
Can't tell if you're being paranoid or just using a paranoid style (oh, these wacky times!).
In case you're having trouble keeping up, no-one has tried to silence you, no-one's been talking about Stalin at all, and the parallels between the current unpleasantness and the Germany of the 1930s are there for anyone with a brain to observe and take note of.
OR NOT - *YOU* decide - and be judged accordingly.
Continuing on, the entire thread has been pretty much free of "political theory" except for you, and that's been mostly semi-libertarian boilerplate; based on your words, pretty sure you're only hazily familiar w/ the Bolshevik revolution (3 main differences between them and the Mensheviks: GO!). Apparently you also only have a loose grasp on the concept of demagoguery (hint: NO logic required).
To sum up: PLEASE, bring arguments and evidence! It will be a nice change!
Trump is the death-knell of the 'Republican' party (so-callled because the only response they have to ANY mention of democratic self-government is "NUH-UH!" If HRC's candidacy is the death-rattle of the Democrats, I'm okay with that: entrenched forces, defending ancient battle-lines in a war that supposedly was lost 150 years ago, ought to shut up, count themselves lucky, and try to have a life; instead, they're still trying to win the Rebellion (or lose it) - damn that whole not-shooting-at-each-other fake-surrender thing made people think the fight was actually over...and ever since, we've been hugging the Confederates to our bosom, CERTAIN that they've learned their lesson this time, while they ate away at the nation, our sense of unity, our sense of common heritage...<smdh>
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Silat
When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
The KOCH Taliban is not dying. It is morphing into something even more dangerous.
Silat
When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
Ok this is a funny and factual bit:
In the video Colbert talks about the news that Drumpf broke election law by soliciting Brit MP's for $$$'s.
Hillary getting indicted? LOL Ayn L Randians. That is never happening. You see, one has to actually break a law to be indicted. Think Drumpf if you need an example.
Fraud at Drumpf U and illegal campaign issues can bring the heat.
In the video Colbert talks about the news that Drumpf broke election law by soliciting Brit MP's for $$$'s.
Hillary getting indicted? LOL Ayn L Randians. That is never happening. You see, one has to actually break a law to be indicted. Think Drumpf if you need an example.
Fraud at Drumpf U and illegal campaign issues can bring the heat.
yogoshio
Annoying Libertarian
Martov Vs Lenin
Proletariat led vs Elitism
Wanted short period of capitalism and naturally turn into classical Marxist environement
Anymore?
grokit
well-worn member
So maybe I'm not a very good bernie-or-buster, not according to this metric. At least not in the respect of "lambast[ing] in the most vicious way Warren, Reich". I don't remember doing that anyways
But that article did get me thinking that even if I was to vote for clinton, it would be the same as "not voting, or writing in a statistical impossibility". I believe not one vote in my state will actually count for anything on a real level; because the clintons are so unpopular up here, every alaskan's vote is entirely symbolic.
It's a 99.9% given that our lone electoral vote will go to drumpf. And then he will lose, making these votes for him meaningless. Even though I would never vote for drumpf, the ec vote goes to him. This reinforces my decision to write bernie in; since my vote is symbolic anyways I might as well show my true stripes.
www.samuel-warde.com/2016/06/open-letter-bernie-buster/
But that article did get me thinking that even if I was to vote for clinton, it would be the same as "not voting, or writing in a statistical impossibility". I believe not one vote in my state will actually count for anything on a real level; because the clintons are so unpopular up here, every alaskan's vote is entirely symbolic.
It's a 99.9% given that our lone electoral vote will go to drumpf. And then he will lose, making these votes for him meaningless. Even though I would never vote for drumpf, the ec vote goes to him. This reinforces my decision to write bernie in; since my vote is symbolic anyways I might as well show my true stripes.
www.samuel-warde.com/2016/06/open-letter-bernie-buster/
TeeJay1952
Well-Known Member
It has all happened before.
lwien
Well-Known Member
That meeting between Lynch and Clinton was the dumbest thing that I've seen in awhile. Just goes to prove that really smart people can do some really dumb things. They just gave the GOP a really nice present with a really pretty bow on top.
The only reason that Hillary's going to win is because she's running against Trump.
The only reason that Hillary's going to win is because she's running against Trump.
TeeJay1952
Well-Known Member
I feel it was the inability of the 16 other Republican candidates to do anything other than die on their individual swords instead of the dreaded compromise. There can be only one makes for a great movie (Highlander) but poor political process. (primaries) Piecemeal, pandering and uneven scheduling leave us watching a never ending drumbeat to enlighten and frighten everyone. Politicians flock to the squeaky wheel and the tail begins to wag the dog.
As the masses try to find someone just like us (Really, a billionaire TV personality?){ Sarah Palin, } the rejection of reason for anger over one's lot in life seems to be seething to the top of public consciousness.
Until there is us in US I fear the balkanization of the zeitgeist.
As the masses try to find someone just like us (Really, a billionaire TV personality?){ Sarah Palin, } the rejection of reason for anger over one's lot in life seems to be seething to the top of public consciousness.
Until there is us in US I fear the balkanization of the zeitgeist.
yogoshio
Annoying Libertarian
During the primary, I would rather they held fast. That's where people decide what is most important from their candidate. Then during the main election, highlight differences and show areas of compromise.
However, when you have a lying sack of shit megalomaniac like Trump, that makes it completely impossible to have any type of conversation.
Vote Libertarian!
However, when you have a lying sack of shit megalomaniac like Trump, that makes it completely impossible to have any type of conversation.
Vote Libertarian!
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
Elizabeth Warren’s Consolidation Speech Could Change the Election
by Paul Glastris
June 30, 2016 1:25 PM
Yesterday, straight off her high-profile campaign appearance Monday with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave a keynote address about industry consolidation in the American economy at a conference at the Capitol put on by New America’s Open Markets program. Though the speech has so far gotten only a modicum of attention—the press being more interested in litigating Donald Trump’s Pocahontas taunts—it has the potential to change the course of the presidential contest. Her speech begins at minute 56:45 in the video below.
Warren is, of course, famous for her attacks on too-big-to-fail banks. But in her address yesterday, entitled “Reigniting Competition in the American Economy,” she extended her critique to the entire economy, noting that, as a result of three decades of weakened federal antitrust regulation, virtually every industrial sector today—from airlines to telecom to agriculture to retail to social media—is under the control of a handful of oligopolistic corporations. This widespread consolidation is “hiding in plain sight all across the American economy,” she said, and “threatens our markets, threatens our economy, and threatens our democracy.”
As our readers know, economic consolidation is a subject the Washington Monthly has long been obsessed with—see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. In our current cover story, Barry Lynn (impresario of yesterday’s event) and Phil Longman argue that antitrust was the true legacy of the original American Populists and a vital, under-appreciated reason for the mass prosperity of mid-20th Century America. But this legacy, and the new Gilded Age economy that has resulted from its abandonment, is not a narrative most Americans have been told (one reason why even the “populist” candidates running president have shied away from it).
What amazed me yesterday was how Warren synthesized the main points of virtually everything we’ve published into a single speech that, while long and wonky, was Bill Clintonesque in its vernacular exposition. You can imagine average Americans all over the country listening, nodding, understanding.
Though many in the press didn’t notice the speech, you can best believe Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives were paying attention (Trump’s too, I’ll bet). That’s why I think the speech has the possibility of changing the course of the campaign. The candidate who can successfully incorporate the consolidation message into their campaign rhetoric will an huge, perhaps decisive advantage. Hillary has already signaled, in an op-ed she published last fall, that she gets the larger argument. Yesterday, Elizabeth Warren showed her how to run on it.
by Paul Glastris
June 30, 2016 1:25 PM
Yesterday, straight off her high-profile campaign appearance Monday with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave a keynote address about industry consolidation in the American economy at a conference at the Capitol put on by New America’s Open Markets program. Though the speech has so far gotten only a modicum of attention—the press being more interested in litigating Donald Trump’s Pocahontas taunts—it has the potential to change the course of the presidential contest. Her speech begins at minute 56:45 in the video below.
Warren is, of course, famous for her attacks on too-big-to-fail banks. But in her address yesterday, entitled “Reigniting Competition in the American Economy,” she extended her critique to the entire economy, noting that, as a result of three decades of weakened federal antitrust regulation, virtually every industrial sector today—from airlines to telecom to agriculture to retail to social media—is under the control of a handful of oligopolistic corporations. This widespread consolidation is “hiding in plain sight all across the American economy,” she said, and “threatens our markets, threatens our economy, and threatens our democracy.”
As our readers know, economic consolidation is a subject the Washington Monthly has long been obsessed with—see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. In our current cover story, Barry Lynn (impresario of yesterday’s event) and Phil Longman argue that antitrust was the true legacy of the original American Populists and a vital, under-appreciated reason for the mass prosperity of mid-20th Century America. But this legacy, and the new Gilded Age economy that has resulted from its abandonment, is not a narrative most Americans have been told (one reason why even the “populist” candidates running president have shied away from it).
What amazed me yesterday was how Warren synthesized the main points of virtually everything we’ve published into a single speech that, while long and wonky, was Bill Clintonesque in its vernacular exposition. You can imagine average Americans all over the country listening, nodding, understanding.
Though many in the press didn’t notice the speech, you can best believe Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives were paying attention (Trump’s too, I’ll bet). That’s why I think the speech has the possibility of changing the course of the campaign. The candidate who can successfully incorporate the consolidation message into their campaign rhetoric will an huge, perhaps decisive advantage. Hillary has already signaled, in an op-ed she published last fall, that she gets the larger argument. Yesterday, Elizabeth Warren showed her how to run on it.
CarolKing
Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
I would like to see Trump vs Gary Johnson in a debate. Also Gary Johnson vs Hillary. Not a lot of time now but it would have been interesting and knowledgable.
Thank you for sharing that piece above @cybrguy. I love Elizabeth Warren I hope she is chosen for VP. I know that would leave her state in a bind for the Democrats but it would give Hillary the extra nudge she desperately needs.
My mind set is always - is do what desperately is needed now and worry about the rest later. Sometimes it works and sometimes not.
Thank you for sharing that piece above @cybrguy. I love Elizabeth Warren I hope she is chosen for VP. I know that would leave her state in a bind for the Democrats but it would give Hillary the extra nudge she desperately needs.
My mind set is always - is do what desperately is needed now and worry about the rest later. Sometimes it works and sometimes not.
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
As it stands right now, I think the threshold for being invited to a Presidential general election debate is polling numbers above 15%. Maybe Johnson will reach that level, maybe not. I can certainly see an effort to reduce that number happening.
I imagine the people that will need to be lobbied for that to be the networks...
yogoshio
Annoying Libertarian
In two, maybe three, out of 9 major polls Johnson is polling at 15%.
The biggest issue is many polls don't have him as an option. When it does, he's getting at least 9%. And, the debate programs pick and choose at will which three polls to consider when allowing a third party candidate. It makes it very difficult because it truly gives the media the control, which is frankly ass backwards. Considering that ALL major news gets filtered in a bias towards either political extreme, its incredibly frustrating.
The biggest issue is many polls don't have him as an option. When it does, he's getting at least 9%. And, the debate programs pick and choose at will which three polls to consider when allowing a third party candidate. It makes it very difficult because it truly gives the media the control, which is frankly ass backwards. Considering that ALL major news gets filtered in a bias towards either political extreme, its incredibly frustrating.