In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On September 13 2016 17:42 TheYango wrote: Between this and the "deplorables" statement, I'd really question what the hell whoever is running the Clinton campaign is doing.
Mostly just scapegoating Drumpf as the root of all evil to hide the fact that people don't like her much either.
It's only barely working.
Pretty sure the only reason Clinton even has a hope of winning is Trump is her opponent. I don't think she is capable of beating anyone but him....and might lose to him anyways.
Lol, she already beat Sanders and all other candidates in the primaries, likewise she could probably also beat Cruz and all other Republican candidates that lost to Trump. Even with all the corruption scandals, emails, stupid campaigning team, and bad health, she'll probably still beat Trump.
Hillary is blessed with a historically terrible opposition.
Lol. When Infowars does a better job of reporting the news than national TV :/
Of course, Alex Jones wouldn't be Alex Jones if he didn't go all tinfoil hat at the end. Of course it's a mistake (or a really really dumb office prank), you fucking moron. The lizard people didn't leak this news by mistake, it's just people screwing up (bigtime).
On September 13 2016 20:59 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Pretty big mistake though....
A mistake sure. If you are being painted as a liar, and you get caught on a lie (small and innocent as this one probably is) you are going pay for it. I don't understand how the campaign thought it was a good idea on doubling down, i guess they hoped this wouldn't happen and noone would ever notice.
But a big mistake ? You guys are argueing someone is unfit for office because she feinted due to being sick, something that to most people on her age has probably happen atleast once if they pushed their bodies to the limits. But to be honest, i have a hard time understanding american politics, because from my point of view there is too much reality TV level of discussion on it, meme wars and the like.
The nuts and bolts of American politics, as opposed to the flair associated with the presidential election, are incredibly boring and very much unlike reality television. As this thread makes clear, the vast majority of both US citizens and foreigners focus in on a very narrow slice and, to be frank, that's a huge part of the problem facing American politics generally.
On September 13 2016 20:59 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Pretty big mistake though....
A mistake sure. If you are being painted as a liar, and you get caught on a lie (small and innocent as this one probably is) you are going pay for it. I don't understand how the campaign thought it was a good idea on doubling down, i guess they hoped this wouldn't happen and noone would ever notice.
But a big mistake ? You guys are argueing someone is unfit for office because she feinted due to being sick, something that to most people on her age has probably happen atleast once if they pushed their bodies to the limits. But to be honest, i have a hard time understanding american politics, because from my point of view there is too much reality TV level of discussion on it, meme wars and the like.
haven't been in here the last 3-4 days so could very well be someone else already posted this but:
On January 8, 1992, about 8:20 p.m JST, U.S. President George H.W. Bush fainted after vomiting at a banquet hosted by the then Prime Minister of Japan, Kiichi Miyazawa. It is the only documented occurrence to date of a U.S. President vomiting on a foreign dignitary.[1]
On September 13 2016 20:59 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Pretty big mistake though....
A mistake sure. If you are being painted as a liar, and you get caught on a lie (small and innocent as this one probably is) you are going pay for it. I don't understand how the campaign thought it was a good idea on doubling down, i guess they hoped this wouldn't happen and noone would ever notice.
But a big mistake ? You guys are argueing someone is unfit for office because she feinted due to being sick, something that to most people on her age has probably happen atleast once if they pushed their bodies to the limits. But to be honest, i have a hard time understanding american politics, because from my point of view there is too much reality TV level of discussion on it, meme wars and the like.
Like just about every other big deal with Hillary, it's only a big deal because she and her supporters refuse to acknowledge how stupid she thinks the rest of the population is. She's been looking ill for a good while now and after 4 minutes of coughing on live television the excuse trotted out was allergies, she then faints and its dehydration before 2 hours later she's up and about hugging children. Hours later we find out it's pneumonia. This would not have been a deal at all if she had said that she was suffering a lung infection (to be fair she'd have to have held a press conference for that). In between all of this she has every major news outlet bar Fox running interference for her, opinion pieces that claim your sexist if you question her health, zoom up on every one of Trump's many gaffes while downplaying all of hers (cnn wrote that she stumbled on the 9/11 memorial, as the video showed her being carried to the car in a dead faint).
Personally I think Trump is an absolute disgrace and would prefer Hillary to be president. I also think that she's not a good candidate at all, and got in by virtue of having no real opposition in her primary, and arguably the easiest opponent of all time against her.
On September 13 2016 17:42 TheYango wrote: Between this and the "deplorables" statement, I'd really question what the hell whoever is running the Clinton campaign is doing.
Mostly just scapegoating Drumpf as the root of all evil to hide the fact that people don't like her much either.
It's only barely working.
Pretty sure the only reason Clinton even has a hope of winning is Trump is her opponent. I don't think she is capable of beating anyone but him....and might lose to him anyways.
Not if the huffington post has anything to say about it!
Publish that. Wonder why people don't think HuffPost is a serious news platform.
Yes, it's an opinion and clearly marked as such, but wtf. Why would a "serious" platform ever want to be associated with such drivel. Let the guy post it on his blog where it will fade into the archive of forgotten and never seen shit on the internet, where it belongs.
They're not trying to be a serious platform, that's hard work. Easier to focus on one group of people and validate the shit out of them.
On September 13 2016 21:42 farvacola wrote: The nuts and bolts of American politics, as opposed to the flair associated with the presidential election, are incredibly boring and very much unlike reality television. As this thread makes clear, the vast majority of both US citizens and foreigners focus in on a very narrow slice and, to be frank, that's a huge part of the problem facing American politics generally.
I don't know. Maybe reality TV show is an inaccurate way of describing it. However I do feel, as an outsider, that American government is ridiculously political as an institution. The idea that your highest judicial body is clearly split along political lines is just... incomprehensible to me. Your civil service is similarly ideological. I'm not even sure how apolitical the army is, given that veterans and military might are such huge polical topics. The police is also tangled up in political issues.
The office of the president wouldn't be so scary if it could reliably be balanced with a politically neutral civil service and judiciary. But that doesn't seem to be present.
There's always politics in the civil services; even if it's not apparent. Some places and times do a better job of keeping it neutral-ish though. Sadly the partisanship and visibility of it has been increasing past 20 years or so.
re: hillary gaffes: Trump's foot in mouth disease is contagious!
On September 13 2016 21:42 farvacola wrote: The nuts and bolts of American politics, as opposed to the flair associated with the presidential election, are incredibly boring and very much unlike reality television. As this thread makes clear, the vast majority of both US citizens and foreigners focus in on a very narrow slice and, to be frank, that's a huge part of the problem facing American politics generally.
I don't know. Maybe reality TV show is an inaccurate way of describing it. However I do feel, as an outsider, that American government is ridiculously political as an institution. The idea that your highest judicial body is clearly split along political lines is just... incomprehensible to me. Your civil service is similarly ideological. I'm not even sure how apolitical the army is, given that veterans and military might are such huge polical topics. The police is also tangled up in political issues.
The office of the president wouldn't be so scary if it could reliably be balanced with a politically neutral civil service and judiciary. But that doesn't seem to be present.
It's absolutely normal. Usually the best judges are good at pretending they're just explaning the law but sometimes the law is (and has to be) so vague that multiple interpretations are viable. The Supreme Court is there to pick the "best" interpretation and make it binding for everyone to avoid chaos in the legal system. Full political neutrality of judiciary is unattainable.
On September 13 2016 21:42 farvacola wrote: The nuts and bolts of American politics, as opposed to the flair associated with the presidential election, are incredibly boring and very much unlike reality television. As this thread makes clear, the vast majority of both US citizens and foreigners focus in on a very narrow slice and, to be frank, that's a huge part of the problem facing American politics generally.
I don't know. Maybe reality TV show is an inaccurate way of describing it. However I do feel, as an outsider, that American government is ridiculously political as an institution. The idea that your highest judicial body is clearly split along political lines is just... incomprehensible to me. Your civil service is similarly ideological. I'm not even sure how apolitical the army is, given that veterans and military might are such huge polical topics. The police is also tangled up in political issues.
The office of the president wouldn't be so scary if it could reliably be balanced with a politically neutral civil service and judiciary. But that doesn't seem to be present.
The problem is the presidency is supposed to be balanced by a politically non-neutral Congress... but because Congress is political, they almost always prefer to just let the Presidency do whatever. (the recent Congress has at least looked like they are balancing the President, but they aren't able to actually do so..Congress gave up too much power, because power is unpopular)
Basically congressmen get elected by not stopping the President, and the President gets elected by actually doing what their party/supporters/donors want... so we swing back and forth between extremes
The United States has flown two nuclear-capable supersonic bombers over ally South Korea in a show of force meant after North Korea conducted a nuclear test.
The B-1B bombers, escorted by US and South Korean jets, flew over Osan air base, 75 miles (120km) from the heavily armed border with the North. The bombers were thought to have returned later to Andersen air force base in Guam, without landing in South Korea.
Such flyovers are common when tensions are elevated on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea does not have nuclear weapons and relies on its US alliance as a deterrent to the North. Washington stations more than 28,000 troops in the South and tens of thousands more in Japan.
The North Korea uses American military influence in the South in its propaganda as alleged proof of US hostility that it claims as the reason it needs a nuclear bomb programme.
In yet another tough statement against the North, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday ordered her military to be ready to “finish off” North Korea if it fires a nuclear missile toward South Korea. She said Kim Jong-un’s “mental state is spiralling out of control” and his government showed “fanatic recklessness”.
Last week’s nuclear test, the North’s fifth, was its most powerful to date. Pyongyang’s claim to have used “standardised” warheads in the detonation makes some outsiders worry that it is making headway in its push to develop small, sophisticated warheads that can be mounted on missiles that can reach the US mainland.
Nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker, who has regularly visited the North’s nuclear facilities, estimated the North may have enough nuclear fuel for about 20 bombs by the end of 2016 and the ability to add about seven new bombs a year.
“Left unchecked, Pyongyang will likely develop the capability to reach the continental United States with a nuclear tipped missile in a decade or so,” Siegfried wrote on the North Korea-focused website 38 North. He said that more troubling was the recent test successes may give Pyongyang a false sense of confidence.
Six-nation diplomatic talks aimed at ridding the North of its bombs have been stalled since the last round of meetings in late 2008. Since then Pyongyang has ramped up both its ballistic missile and nuclear bomb development, despite an increasing raft of sanctions.
After the test, the North’s nuclear weapons institute said it would take unspecified measures to further boost its nuclear capability, which analysts said hinted at a possible sixth nuclear test.
South Korea’s defence ministry said on Monday that South Korean and US intelligence authorities believed North Korea had the ability to detonate another nuclear device at any time at one of its tunnels at its main Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where the five previous atomic explosions took place. Ministry officials refused to say what specific evidence pointed to another possible nuclear test.
Seoul, Washington and their allies have vowed to apply more pressure and sanctions after the test, the second this year.
“The United States and [South Korea] are taking actions every day to strengthen our alliance and respond to North Korea’s continued aggressive behaviour,” said General Vincent Brooks, commander of US forces in Korea.
The United States has flown two nuclear-capable supersonic bombers over ally South Korea in a show of force meant after North Korea conducted a nuclear test.
The B-1B bombers, escorted by US and South Korean jets, flew over Osan air base, 75 miles (120km) from the heavily armed border with the North. The bombers were thought to have returned later to Andersen air force base in Guam, without landing in South Korea.
Such flyovers are common when tensions are elevated on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea does not have nuclear weapons and relies on its US alliance as a deterrent to the North. Washington stations more than 28,000 troops in the South and tens of thousands more in Japan.
The North Korea uses American military influence in the South in its propaganda as alleged proof of US hostility that it claims as the reason it needs a nuclear bomb programme.
In yet another tough statement against the North, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday ordered her military to be ready to “finish off” North Korea if it fires a nuclear missile toward South Korea. She said Kim Jong-un’s “mental state is spiralling out of control” and his government showed “fanatic recklessness”.
Last week’s nuclear test, the North’s fifth, was its most powerful to date. Pyongyang’s claim to have used “standardised” warheads in the detonation makes some outsiders worry that it is making headway in its push to develop small, sophisticated warheads that can be mounted on missiles that can reach the US mainland.
Nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker, who has regularly visited the North’s nuclear facilities, estimated the North may have enough nuclear fuel for about 20 bombs by the end of 2016 and the ability to add about seven new bombs a year.
“Left unchecked, Pyongyang will likely develop the capability to reach the continental United States with a nuclear tipped missile in a decade or so,” Siegfried wrote on the North Korea-focused website 38 North. He said that more troubling was the recent test successes may give Pyongyang a false sense of confidence.
Six-nation diplomatic talks aimed at ridding the North of its bombs have been stalled since the last round of meetings in late 2008. Since then Pyongyang has ramped up both its ballistic missile and nuclear bomb development, despite an increasing raft of sanctions.
After the test, the North’s nuclear weapons institute said it would take unspecified measures to further boost its nuclear capability, which analysts said hinted at a possible sixth nuclear test.
South Korea’s defence ministry said on Monday that South Korean and US intelligence authorities believed North Korea had the ability to detonate another nuclear device at any time at one of its tunnels at its main Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where the five previous atomic explosions took place. Ministry officials refused to say what specific evidence pointed to another possible nuclear test.
Seoul, Washington and their allies have vowed to apply more pressure and sanctions after the test, the second this year.
“The United States and [South Korea] are taking actions every day to strengthen our alliance and respond to North Korea’s continued aggressive behaviour,” said General Vincent Brooks, commander of US forces in Korea.
The United States has flown two nuclear-capable supersonic bombers over ally South Korea in a show of force meant after North Korea conducted a nuclear test.
The B-1B bombers, escorted by US and South Korean jets, flew over Osan air base, 75 miles (120km) from the heavily armed border with the North. The bombers were thought to have returned later to Andersen air force base in Guam, without landing in South Korea.
Such flyovers are common when tensions are elevated on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea does not have nuclear weapons and relies on its US alliance as a deterrent to the North. Washington stations more than 28,000 troops in the South and tens of thousands more in Japan.
The North Korea uses American military influence in the South in its propaganda as alleged proof of US hostility that it claims as the reason it needs a nuclear bomb programme.
In yet another tough statement against the North, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday ordered her military to be ready to “finish off” North Korea if it fires a nuclear missile toward South Korea. She said Kim Jong-un’s “mental state is spiralling out of control” and his government showed “fanatic recklessness”.
Last week’s nuclear test, the North’s fifth, was its most powerful to date. Pyongyang’s claim to have used “standardised” warheads in the detonation makes some outsiders worry that it is making headway in its push to develop small, sophisticated warheads that can be mounted on missiles that can reach the US mainland.
Nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker, who has regularly visited the North’s nuclear facilities, estimated the North may have enough nuclear fuel for about 20 bombs by the end of 2016 and the ability to add about seven new bombs a year.
“Left unchecked, Pyongyang will likely develop the capability to reach the continental United States with a nuclear tipped missile in a decade or so,” Siegfried wrote on the North Korea-focused website 38 North. He said that more troubling was the recent test successes may give Pyongyang a false sense of confidence.
Six-nation diplomatic talks aimed at ridding the North of its bombs have been stalled since the last round of meetings in late 2008. Since then Pyongyang has ramped up both its ballistic missile and nuclear bomb development, despite an increasing raft of sanctions.
After the test, the North’s nuclear weapons institute said it would take unspecified measures to further boost its nuclear capability, which analysts said hinted at a possible sixth nuclear test.
South Korea’s defence ministry said on Monday that South Korean and US intelligence authorities believed North Korea had the ability to detonate another nuclear device at any time at one of its tunnels at its main Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where the five previous atomic explosions took place. Ministry officials refused to say what specific evidence pointed to another possible nuclear test.
Seoul, Washington and their allies have vowed to apply more pressure and sanctions after the test, the second this year.
“The United States and [South Korea] are taking actions every day to strengthen our alliance and respond to North Korea’s continued aggressive behaviour,” said General Vincent Brooks, commander of US forces in Korea.
"Hi North Korea, just wanted to remind you our dicks are still bigger than yours."
Other than measuring dicks, there's not much anybody (other than China) can do about NK. It does worry me a bit that Kim Jong Un seems even less attached to reality than his father. I get the impression that he either really doesn't give a shit about his population starving, or more likely but equally disturbing, doesn't believe it's happening. It'd be far better for everybody if the leaders didn't believe their own propaganda...
Donald Trump's campaign on Tuesday is rolling out policy proposals aimed at lowering the cost of childcare, but already is facing resistance from Democrats who pointed to his business history and statements about women.
Trump will unveil the full extent of his plans at an event later in the evening in Aston, Pennsylvania, accompanied by his eldest daughter, Ivanka, who is said to have come up with part of the plan. The proposal includes six weeks of paid maternity leave that an aide said would be paid for by eliminating unemployment insurance fraud.
Democrats and supporters of Hillary Clinton mocked the first reported details of Trump's plan on Twitter. "If @realDonaldTrump actually believed in paid leave he'd have offered it to all his workers. Has he?" tweeted Neera Tanden, a Clinton supporter and president of the Center for American Progress.
Clinton spokesman Jesse Lehrich, sharing screenshots of negative headlines pertaining to Trump's relationship with women, remarked, "somehow having trouble believing Trump will be a champion for working mothers..."
Responding to a point of clarification about the details of the maternity leave proposal from a CNN reporter, Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson tweeted, "hmm."
Trump boasted of a child-care program for his employees earlier in the campaign in Iowa, but The Associated Press reported in August that the two services mentioned by the Republican nominee are for the children of his hotel and golf club guests.
The plan, according to a memo reported on by The Washington Post, "will rewrite the tax code to allow working parents to deduct from their income taxes child-care expenses for up to four children and elderly dependents."
The Post reported that the deduction would be capped at the "average cost of care" in each state and not available to individuals making more than $250,000, or couples making more than $500,000. Trump's proposal will also include additional spending rebates through the Earned Income Tax Credit, expanding opportunities for stay-at-home parents to deduct their expenses and revising federal savings accounts so that people can set aside money specifically for child development and education.
On September 13 2016 21:42 farvacola wrote: The nuts and bolts of American politics, as opposed to the flair associated with the presidential election, are incredibly boring and very much unlike reality television. As this thread makes clear, the vast majority of both US citizens and foreigners focus in on a very narrow slice and, to be frank, that's a huge part of the problem facing American politics generally.
I don't know. Maybe reality TV show is an inaccurate way of describing it. However I do feel, as an outsider, that American government is ridiculously political as an institution. The idea that your highest judicial body is clearly split along political lines is just... incomprehensible to me. Your civil service is similarly ideological. I'm not even sure how apolitical the army is, given that veterans and military might are such huge polical topics. The police is also tangled up in political issues.
The office of the president wouldn't be so scary if it could reliably be balanced with a politically neutral civil service and judiciary. But that doesn't seem to be present.
It's absolutely normal. Usually the best judges are good at pretending they're just explaning the law but sometimes the law is (and has to be) so vague that multiple interpretations are viable. The Supreme Court is there to pick the "best" interpretation and make it binding for everyone to avoid chaos in the legal system. Full political neutrality of judiciary is unattainable.
That's a really good point, but I submit that there are differences in degree of neutrality. While it is true that full neutrality is indeed unattainable (and judges are human), I think one can clearly differentiate between more or less neutral systems*, and the public expectation that judges explain their rulings in terms that are publicly justifiable does (on a sociological level) indeed lead most judges to behave in a neutral way that gives an equal and fair hearing to both sides and to all reasonable interpretations of the law (thus, I mostly reject legal realism in its extreme forms).
With that being said, I'm not convinced that the Supreme Court's problem is its neutrality in this narrow sense. But that it reeks more of partisanship than most other western courts is quite true, from my perspective, and is a real problem in the long run.
* Of course, no system of law and its interpretation is normatively neutral in the final analysis. Neutrality, as most of us understand it, is a very strong normative commitment and is actually founded on the the idea of equal freedoms, or some such idea. The neutrality I'm talking about is one of justification: No law may be made or interpreted in a way that presupposes the inherent superiority of a certain way of life, dogma, political ideology, etc (other then the foundation of equal freedoms, again).
On September 13 2016 17:42 TheYango wrote: Between this and the "deplorables" statement, I'd really question what the hell whoever is running the Clinton campaign is doing.
On September 13 2016 17:16 LegalLord wrote: They barely are. Which was sort of what xDaunt seemed to be trying to say.
Yes, these are the problems with Hillary attacking the alt right. No one knows what the alt right is, so at best people will be confused when Hillary goes after the alt right, and, at worst, people will assume that she's accusing them personally of being racists, which puts her right back into the "basket of deplorables" hot water.
EPT
