US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4174

On July 07 2016 09:06 kapibara-san wrote:
@GH

i feel like both have a pretty solid chance of beating trump. bernie maybe even higher, but in my eyes its just a question of who wins by a bigger margin, which isn't that meaningful. i think both would win, and the difference in chance is not significant enough to matter.

though on a meta note, your continued repeated thoughts about bernie are still pretty off-putting to me. on the one hand, most of what's going on in this thread is just inconsequential musing, but on the other, this is the type of musing that's among what i'm least interested in. bernie has no chance this year barring some sort of extreme circumstances involving hillary not being able to run anymore.

On July 07 2016 09:16 GreenHorizons wrote:



Personally I think people are underestimating how much Trump could drive republican turnout against Hillary and overestimating how well Hillary will do to assuage concerns about her among the left and turn people out against Trump. But I can save those conversations for delegates who actually have influence over the outcome rather than here.

On July 07 2016 09:00 GreenHorizons wrote:


I think that's a fair assessment. Any chance Hillary supporters could see how her recent hiccups, Trump's lines of attack, the stubbornness of Sanders supporters, the difference in Trump v Bernie's honesty and favorability numbers throughout the campaign, combined with this practical observation could mean that in an honest analysis one could come to the conclusion that nominating Bernie could be the most likely to result in a Democratic President, if even by a hair?

Not that it's indisputable that he would win or anything, but that honest and accurate analysis could arrive at the conclusion that should he be nominated with Clinton's somewhat forced endorsement (as a result of circumstances), Bernie would be more likely to win than Hillary (with Bernie's somewhat forced endorsement) by even a .001% chance? Or is even now, that a preposterous idea?

@Zlef you can take a crack at that too if you want. + Show Spoiler +

(CNN)Occasionally Donald Trump says something that is politically incorrect but which also happens to be true.

On Tuesday at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump defended the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's record on terrorism, saying, "He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so well. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism."

Defending the brutal Iraqi dictator who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people isn't exactly fashionable. But if you consider the 13 years of war that have wracked the country -- in which a quarter of a million have died -- and add that Saddam brutally repressed all dissent, including groups such as al Qaeda, and also add to this that ISIS is itself a fruit of the Iraq War, it's a far more defensible position.

Trump didn't offer any evidence for his assertions about Saddam's brutal repression of terrorist groups or of Saddam "killing terrorists," but his observations about the dictator are an implicit critique of the George W. Bush administration's erroneous claims before the Iraq War that Saddam was allied to al Qaeda. Those claims were an essential element of the case that the administration made to go to war, since Saddam's supposed connections to al Qaeda were the only purported evidence that he might give his putative weapons of destruction to terrorists.

In June 2008 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded, as every other investigation had before, that there was no "cooperative relationship" between Saddam and al-Qaeda. The committee also found that "most of the contacts cited between Iraq and al-Qa'ida before the war by the intelligence community and policy makers have been determined not to have occurred."

Also on Wednesday, after a seven-year investigation, the British inquiry into the Iraq War known as the Chilcot report was released. It found that before the war British intelligence repeatedly assessed there was no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Trump is likely not a student of the English political philosopher Hobbes, who wrote his masterwork "Leviathan" in the shadow of the English Civil War. But he seems to have grasped Hobbes' main point: that an absolute "sovereign" (i.e. dictator) was preferable to "the war of all against all" that characterized the civil war in mid-17th century England as well as much of the civil war that continues to wrack early-21st century Iraq.

And Trump's claim that following the fall of Saddam, Iraq has emerged as the "Harvard" of terrorism is correct because Zarqawi in 2004 merged his terrorist group with al Qaeda to create "Al Qaeda in Iraq," which is the parent organization of today's ISIS.

On July 07 2016 09:19 CannonsNCarriers wrote:
I fully dispute the charge HRC lied in any way with legal consequences. HRC didn't lie to the FBI during her interview. If she did, they would have gone after like mad dogs (see, Patreaus, he went down because he lied about the affair to the FBI). HRC never lied to a judge. HRC never lied under oath in a deposition. The best you have is the AP article. The best thing they have is that maybe 2 emails were actually marked classified at the time. But remember she was SoS, SoS is entitled to send emails to his/her subordinates.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6ee62bc1899d45b1980f09fe750a7105/ap-fact-check-clinton-email-claims-collapse-under-fbi-probe

On July 07 2016 07:17 GreenHorizons wrote:


Tue August 11, 2015 - CNN Added link



More not great stuff for Clinton

Can one of the legal minds here explain how that isn't worthy of prosecution for lying to a federal judge or at minimum some sort of sanction, disbarred like her husband perhaps?

On July 07 2016 09:01 CannonsNCarriers wrote:
You all should stop posting about the HRC emails without citing any articles or facts, and try listening to the real threat to this country. Scroll the feed back. Trump just gave his absolutely most unhinged speech. He spent 10 minutes rehashing the HRC-email thing based on prepared lies. It was crap, went nowhere, about as effective as the citation-free posts above. Then Trump delves deeeeep in Saddam, Chuck Todd, the 6 pointed star post, and his amazing real estate goodness. We could spend the next 6 months arguing about HRC's decision to route her work emails through a private server through her blackberry so she could email off one device, but doing so would miss the real danger Trump poses this country.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/donald-trump-rally-speech-event-live-stream-livestream-cincinnati-ohio-newt-gingrich-vice-president-watch-online-youtube/

EDIT: listen to the screaming fans, all my "boo don't say fascim" stuff, I fully retract.

On July 07 2016 09:33 oBlade wrote:

This is a good rally, he really killed it, thanks for linking. Maybe he will have other rallies or events with Sessions or some other running mate candidates.

Because they're enthusiastic? Or was there something specifically evil they cheered?

On July 07 2016 09:16 GreenHorizons wrote:


I mean lying to a federal judge could (and in pretty much any other circumstances) get her disbarred or at least sanctioned which to me would seem like enough (maybe it's not though), and I don't think that's in dispute by even her most ardent supporters (not sure what posts Cannon is talking about).

But I take your point, and as you're a bit new to posting in the thread you may not be familiar with what disdain the notion that Bernie could/would win was met by many in Hillary's camp prior to you joining us and during the primary.

Personally I think people are underestimating how much Trump could drive republican turnout against Hillary and overestimating how well Hillary will do to assuage concerns about her among the left and turn people out against Trump. But I can save those conversations for delegates who actually have influence over the outcome rather than here.

On July 07 2016 09:37 CorsairHero wrote:

He's not new here for sure

On July 07 2016 09:18 GGTeMpLaR wrote:


I think a lot of people are in for a big surprise in November when Trump destroys her in the general election.

On July 07 2016 09:29 kapibara-san wrote:
GH, just one question which you've probably had to answer before

are you in a swing state and are you voting between HRC / Trump? if you're not in a swing state, hypothetically, if you were, would that change your decisionmaking process?

i'm not even going to make it a big deal no matter how you answer, it's just a random case of curiosity... i don't actually value anecdotal evidence over statistical evidence that i could personally research

On July 07 2016 09:49 GreenHorizons wrote:


I'm in WA. It's not supposed to be a swing state really, but I've been seeing a LOT of Hillary ads and it seemed it was unique to BG states. Anecdotaly I've heard a lot that indicates Trump could win. She's up ~12 points here but that's with 14% not picking either. So if I'm right about turnout she could lose here, if not she'll probably win but her spending here seems to indicate to me (if that's accurate) that she's concerned.

But if it were a more known contentious state I would probably leverage it more in local elections, but I don't think it would change my personal vote.

On July 07 2016 09:52 kapibara-san wrote:

sorry, i might've missed it, but who are you voting for in the GE, if at all?

On July 07 2016 10:28 TMagpie wrote:
Legit question, what makes people think anyone would vote for Bernie in the general when they weren't voting for him in the primary?

On July 07 2016 10:43 GreenHorizons wrote:


Insert Trump hysteria here.