US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4123

A campaign putting out a list of big name endorsements isn't particularly remarkable. But what is remarkable about the Clinton campaign's list is that it includes prominent Republican executives — business leaders who say they have never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in their lives.

Take Jim Cicconi, the senior executive vice president at AT&T. He served in both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and donated $10,000 last year to Jeb Bush's Right to Rise superPAC. But he says he's voting for Hillary Clinton in November.

In a statement put out by the Clinton campaign, Cicconi said he thinks it is "vital to put our country's well being ahead of party."

Cicconi went on, "Hillary Clinton is experienced, qualified, and will make a fine President. The alternative, I fear, would set our Nation on a very dark path."

This from a man who says he has voted for every Republican presidential candidate since 1976.

The former CEO of General Motors put it even more bluntly.

"Serving as the leader of the free world requires effective leadership, sound judgment, a steady hand and most importantly, the temperament to deal with crises large and small," said Dan Akerson in a statement endorsing Clinton. "Donald Trump lacks each of these characteristics."

Nine of the business leaders on Clinton's list have given to Republican presidential candidates or their superPACs this election cycle, according to data from the Center For Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission. (Though it's not unusual for wealthy individuals to hedge and donate to members of both parties.)

On June 24 2016 23:21 LegalLord wrote:
Or maybe it will galvanize the anti-establishment vote in his favor. The US is thankfully about as insulated from world events as a major nation can be, so the discontent is smaller, but it most certainly exists.

On June 24 2016 23:39 farvacola wrote:
Take a bet then, solar. Just how confident are you in this silent, underground Trump movement?

On June 24 2016 23:46 farvacola wrote:
Because I can't bear a self-imposed ban, how about 3 months of a sig of the winners choice? Trump wins, you get control of my sig, vice versa with Clinton.

On June 24 2016 23:50 LegalLord wrote:

Yeah, I agree that Hillary is the most probable outcome, and it's not like Trump and the Republicans are not without issues of their own. My point is that this "omfg must vote against Trump" line of argument is getting tiresome, and Hillary would do better to make the case for herself than simply hope that anti-Trump will carry the day.

On June 25 2016 00:00 Plansix wrote:

Of course we need good policies and proposals. I would like to see a larger focus on election finance reform and salary stagnation.

But I took that the view that vote should be earned by the candidate during 2000 and 2004 elections and still regret it. And out of those elections my brother got set to two useless wars, lost a few friends and put all of us through hell. I’m not doing that again, even if I am not wild about Clinton.

On June 25 2016 00:10 SolaR- wrote:


To be honest, i would think a war with Hillary at president would be more probable. She is part of the same establishment and as secretary of state made her mark involving us in the middle east. Trump has stressed isolationist principles.

Corporate heavyweight DuPont is back in court right now, defending their decision to poison entire communities along the Ohio River by releasing a toxic chemical known as C8 into the river. C8 is a chemical that is used in the manufacturing of the company’s blockbuster product Teflon.

The case alleges that DuPont officials were intimately aware of the dangerous side effects of C8 exposure but still decided to allow exposure among workers and by releasing the chemical into the environment.

Once the chemicals were dumped into the Ohio River, they seeped into the water supplies of nearby communities, resulting in thousands of people being exposed to dangerous levels of C8. Complicating the exposure problem is the fact that C8 is biopersistent, meaning that it does not break down in the body or in the environment, and instead continues to build as exposure increases.

The case currently before the court is being handled by Mike Papantonio, the co-host of Ring of Fire (full disclosure: I work for Papantonio and serve as his co-host on Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV.) This is the second trial that Papantonio has handled in the last year, with the first resulting in a jury award of $1.6 million for a woman who developed a cancerous tumor on her kidneys. In that case, the jury found that DuPont acted negligently, but not with malice.

But the “malice” argument might be easier to prove now that a slew of documents have been unsealed from the ongoing trial. The documents show that DuPont was well aware of the dangers of C8 dating all the way back to 1961, and in many instances, their own environmental lawyers privately questioned the company’s decision to pretend that a problem didn’t exist.

On June 25 2016 00:15 Plansix wrote:

I don’t like my options, but my brother is still in the service. I’m not giving Trump my vote to be able to send him to war because Trump feels it’s the right thing to make America Great.

On June 24 2016 23:35 Plansix wrote:
Doubtful. All this brings is instability and that does not play in to the general electorate. Nationalism and global trade work as a talking point, but watching the ramifications of those policies unfold won’t sell the general electorate on them. Trump isn’t trying to win the anti-establishment vote anymore, he has all he can get.