2016 Election
 

I'm concerned about gun rights, veterans affairs, and national defense. Who would be my best choice in next year's election?

Hillary, of course !

Hold your horses a while and see what the field looks like closer to election day.
Too many choices at present.

Guv Kasich threw his hat into the ring. Even Democrat ohioanz rather like the guy.

He just jacked up his speech fee. I honestly believe that' why half of the run.

I was going to ask about him. Any chance he's not a neo-con idiot when it comes to foreign affairs?

I'm leaning Sanders even though I'll have to register Democrat temporarily as PA is a closed primary state. Why Sanders? He sees the problems clearly and hasn't been a shape shifter. I'm starting to think that it takes someone who believes in government to make government work. It's time for the pendulum to swing back.

Sanders is Aces on veteran's affairs. He is "okay" on gun rights. If you believe continuous warfare in the mid-east = secure America you will have a problem with him.

Ignore them all. Nothing relevant will happen until after the 2016 Super bowl. Apparent only then is who is relevant. Anyone reporting on presidential candidates now is playing us all as ignorant or naive. How many times must Donald Trump speak before reality becomes obvious.

It is currently impossible to answer Big Sarge's question. How many hundred years of history made that obvious?

Bloomberg says...

http://cellar.org/2015/campaign money.jpg

However NPR reminds us...

That's a lot of fucking ads I'm going to have to endure, living in battleground Virginia. It's looking like Bush v. Clinton. Just shoot me.

$4.4 Billion on TV ads is the estimate.

We'll all have to give up tv for a little while. I saw that at present Hillary loses to Trump. She caps at 46% I doubt she goes any higher, sketchy ethics and a neo-con foreign policy won't generate much excitement. Hillary is good on women's issues and nothing else. Sanders beats Trump one to one but doesn't beat Hillary yet. Looks like an easy march for BushIII what a goddamn nightmare.

I like Sanders on the positions, but can he run the country? Is he executive material?

He can probably run this country, but not other countries. Hmm... maybe that's a good thing. :yesnod:

For what its worth he was a mayor. The bar is set pretty low for executive competence based on the last few administrations. People seem to trust him at the bargaining table which isn't an attribute we've seen in a while.

I too would prefer someone focused on this country.

I hope Biden throws his hat in the ring.

Why?

You don't strike me as a Biden supporter.

I didn't finish my train of thought. I'm getting bad about that. To tell the truth, I'm very displeased with the Republican front runners. Joe Biden is a candidate I might be able to consider.

I like Biden. He's a bit cooky, and a slight touch of the Walter Mitty - but he seems a decent chap.

I lived in Burlington when he was mayor. He was great.

He's also from Brooklyn so there's that.

He's the only candidate I trust because he isn't owned by any corporation, he's honest, he's not from old money, his agenda has always been the welfare of the general population not a select few.

Of course in politics none of this matters because people will always hedge their bets or vote strategically for the lesser of two evils rather than the good guy, because they are worried that the good guy won't win.

Further, the majority of the US populace is really too ignorant to be allowed to vote, in fact I'd say the entire population is too ignorant to vote. Not saying we are stupid, although many of us are, but that we are not given facts, background information, the whole story, and so on. Without information we can't make an informed vote. The fear that Obama or anyone else will "take away my guns" is a prime example. No one is going to take away anyone's guns. It's not feasible. That there is no serious penalty for politicians being caught lying adds to the nightmarish feeling of uncertainty. It's like the entire country is being gaslighted.

Our political system makes me sick, and I hate this aspect of my country. To me it's the 99% of politicians who give the rest a bad name. Almost by definition politicians are not patriots and are actually anti-American.

Our country is truly fucked and I don't think any president will be able to make any difference given that corporations own the government.

Bureaucrats, MBAs, lawyers, politicians, and corporate leviathans should all summarily banished to the middle of the Pacific Ocean on one of those rafts of jetsam, put Chinese handcuffs on their dicks and let them fight it out.

Did I mention I fucking hate everything about our shitty, pretend political system? It's the same as the TSA "security theater" it's democracy theater. I'm too old to enjoy playing "Let's pretend."

Your votes means shit. A republican will be put in the white house, any money in the coffers will be plundered and spent on the goods and services of the friends of the administration.

Stop beating around the bush, Foot. Tell us how you really feel

The race for the White House is just a dog & pony show to distract us from the right wing money buying Governors and Congress Critters.

The only pleasure I get out of voting is watching the local politicians scurry, like the rats that they are, when I show up at the polls.
No shit, the back slapping glad handers actually hide in the back room until I leave. :haha:

Depends what exactly you want done about those things. I like Sanders on all of them.

Sanders on guns:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...ntrol_for.html

Trump on immigration: "Build a wall, 2000 miles long. Have Mexico pay for it." No, I don't have a cite, look it up. Lots of people say it can't be done. But my personal good friend, Ron White *has* done the math on this project. Here you go:

ZO5EFYY6P14

The question is not whether it could be built, although getting Mexico to pay for it is not likely considering our trade deficit. The question is whether it should be built.

Trump is the only Republican candidate who's saying hands off Social Security/Medicare, and against raising the retirement age.

Everyone know I'm a gun collector, hunter, and target shooter. I've reached the point where I would be comfortable with a ban on assault weapons. I'd even be willing to give up all semi-automatic weapons.

I've always been a hawk in my military views. I strongly believe we have no reason to be involved in the ISIS conflict. This is a civil war between militant Sunni extremists vs Kurds vs Shias vs moderate Sunnis. Saudi Arabia is sitting there with the 3rd largest military budget in the world. Yes, they spend more on their military than Russia. Let them step up to the plate. There is no way we will come out of this with being covered with shit and being the bad guy. Let them fight among themselves and we only worry when they stray out of the sand box.

I want somebody in office who will use a common sense approach to immigration. This country was built with immigrants. Seems like I remember a poem on a plaque that was added to Statue of Liberty. Maybe our politician's should think about it.

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Of course, let's use common sense with illegal aliens. If they have a felony history and commit felonies here, ship them back. What the heck is this stuff about catching and releasing illegal aliens on violent crimes in sanctuary cities? Common sense people, common sense.

Here you have my views. Now do you see why I am looking for someone in the Democrat Party? I can't support Hillary. This private email server situation is horrible.

You are not asking for the moon. This should be doable.

It is doable by any reasonably competant government. So unfortunately it's not likely here. :( Who's fault is that? The voters. I've said before, the White House race is a dog & pony show for the masses, without cleaning up Congress we'll still be mired in this shit.

Educated people register more, but do they vote?

I'm a little too excited about a potential third-party run by Trump. Sure...go ahead...just give the presidency to the Democrats. Especially when conservatives are hot to trot over a Clinton again.

Why?

forgot the youtube tags, sorry.

I'd vote for him in a hot second.
(That was my sarcasm voice)

Trump is simply doing what Hitler also did to become popular. He hyped soundbytes embodied with hate. It works on extremist who know only from their feelings. Hitler also said to disparage the intelligent people so as to inspire his wacko extremist and lower intelligent followers. Trump is simply appealing to similar people who know only from their feelings - inspired by a 'them verses us' mentality. Not from being educated and first learning facts.

BTW, Carly Fiorina also uses that tactic - just not as well. She has to be one of the dumbest executives I ever met. Others who worked with her in Lucent say same.

What kind of person bankrupts four companies and gets rich? Evil scammers. Strange. Trump did same. Fiorina almost did that in HP. Just a few examples of facts forgotten and ignore by adults who only entertain their emotions - cannot be bothered to first learn facts.

If Grandpa Joe runs, this is going to be the greatest election of all time.

You know Trump winning the presidency isn't as unlikely as people seem to think... He is in the lead of most republican polls, and the 8 year turnover rule has had very few exceptions since the current two-party system solidified. I hear a lot of over confidence among democrats regarding Hilary, which makes me wonder how many would end up thinking it's a sure thing and passing on the voting booths.

Also: On Israel's behalf - we can't even deal with Gaza, how the f' are we going to deal with Florida?

If the Dems roll with Hillary, they may just loose to Trumpenutter. Man what an awful pair of candidates. Who is the Greenie this time?

Sorry, you live in Pennsylvania so no third party candidates will be appearing on your ballot.

ouch

Yes as long as Wolf goes along with his plan to challenge the court decision



~ I am no longer available to the movement to work to convince him not to do this ~

Stay classy Pennsyltucky.

Classy? Why start now? :rolleyes:

You called?

No to Hitlery. The email situation is beyond ridiculous.
Bringing out Uncle Joe is the backroom dealers insurance policy candidate.
There is no one on the R side I would want to vote for, but I'd vote for every one of them over Killary - that woman is pure evil.

You know, I don't think the true potential for drama in this race is fully realized yet - Melania Trump and Bill Clinton could make some really beautiful babies.

I haven't dug that deeply into the Hillary email thing. My general impression is that she has handled this poorly and it may cost her the presidency. But I did skim an article this morning, and have come to the conclusion that what she did was irregular, but nowhere near as bad as her detractors are saying. The "classified" emails she had on her private server were not classified when they were put there. They were designated as being classified long after the fact.

You can't retroactively make something illegal and then expect to nail somebody for it when it was legal at the time.

But we still have the issue of using a private server for government emails. That's very irregular. The only conclusion I can draw is that she wanted complete control and the ability to delete stuff she didn't want to be public. I can't approve of that. So I won't be voting for Hillary in the Virginia primary if Bernie Sanders is still in the running.

I don't know who I'll vote for in the general election. Too far off and I don't know who will be on the ballot. Like 90% of the population, I have a strong tendency to vote for my own team though. I can't think of any scenario where Trump would get my vote. I'm amazed he's doing so well and hasn't dropped out yet. Is he really going to keep at this?

Yes, he will, You can't keep a good ego down. Think about what he has, everything money can buy. Now add the adoration of the masses which has always been out of reach, especially all the people he's fucked over, and it's irresistible.

I've wondered what his motivation is.

pfft.. power fame attention...

I don't think he has demonstrated anything like a civic conscience.

Sure he has, to make America great again.. it says so on his hat. :lol2:

[BOLD MINE]

That's not the issue. Information is classified to control dissemination; because, uncontrolled dissemination is expected to be harmful to the US and its interests. How harmful it may be is reflected in the level of classification. Hillary had government information in her private account that rose to that level; but, failed to submit it to a classifying authority for determination and control.

If Hillary had been using her government account, that process would have happened automatically and potentially harmful information would have been classified in a timely fashion. Hillary could also have had her State Dept. staff put a tentative classification on potentially harmful information in her personal account pending classifying authority review. Everyone who came into contact with that information would then have been legally obligated to treat it as classified during the interim even if it was leaked.

As a SF Intelligence NCO, I had to do the same thing. It was expected that I would encounter and have to report raw information the dissemination of which had to be controlled. I wasn't a classifying authority (those are bona fide government agencies); but, I was formally trained and authorized to assign tentative classifications including formatting from cover sheets and page markings right down to proper font size to meet specifications that made it legally binding on others.

That Hillary, as Secretary of State, couldn't get this done to protect US interests reflects a lackadaisical attitude about information security and its importance. If I had done what she did, I would have lost my security clearance.

That is not entirely true. There are some that were clearly classified. She even wrote about it. Also there is the issue of the FOIA requests which were ignored.
Thats good to hear. I can't imagine anyone voting for her. What about Biden?

Nah. Send him here, I could use a shoulder massage.

Can someone explain the Trump thing to me? I get an instinctive skin crawl from the dude but somebody apparently likes him.

I think a lot of it is giving the government and the real politicians the finger.

Oh hell, me too. There's something really amiss with the guy. i don't mean in terms of his politics - I've known plenty of politicians whose ideas I despised but who were personally charismatic. When I see him on tv, my lizard brain tells me to beware.

What Bruce said. Well that and there is NO ONE on team R that is inspiring in any way. They're all trying to remain calm and keep the crazy inside from showing.

Here is the article on Hillary and the email stuff relevant to the FOIA I mentioned.
and here is her site

Well, I can think of few reasons people might like Trump:

1. Speaking his mind:
Plenty of republicans who share his views but live in a cultural mindset that they are not alright to say. I know this because when people used to mistake my libertarian preferences to mean republican, they'd often assume I was part of the club and just spew that shit with me - "I don't believe we should let black people run the country", "I don't believe a women can govern", etc. But most of the time in social situations they try to maneuver around saying it. Can you imagine how cathartic it could feel for them to hear someone saying things like this out loud?

2. Jealousy for his lifestyle:
Plenty of people fantasize about been all powerful billionaires, plenty of people look at his luxury lifestyle with lust, plenty of guys would like his wife for a trophy. Really, who wouldn't want to give children a helicopter ride they'll remember for a lifetime? Where there is jealousy, there is often also admiration, and that can create glasses through which he'd seem a lot more charming then otherwise.

3. Frustration with the current system:
Bruce is right on that one. But it's more then the middle finger, to some extent it can be justified. Every other politician in the race is going to be backed up by lobbyists and interest groups from everywhere. It's kind of ironic, because voting to trump is kind of like jumping over the politician and voting straight to the financial backer, but the result is that he appears uncorruptible. Realistically, he still runs multi billion dollar companies and will be in a position to give political favors with financial returns - something we saw quite a bit in the Bush administration, but this could take it to a whole new level.

Work in facilities that are government secure and learn that nobody really knows what is secret and what is not. Many times things get classified secret after the fact. Or because what is common knowledge was once secret. All this secret messages in a server is hooey designed to manipulate us who have no idea what nonsnese this really is.

Just like Swift boating that also manipulated the naive with a lie.

Hooey on you oh naïve one:

I told you so. :p:

I think this election will be a choice between bad or worse.