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.
And in walks Donald Trump. People say that Trump is an unconventional candidate and that he represents a break from politics as usual. That’s not true. Trump is the culmination of the trends we have been seeing for the last 30 years: the desire for outsiders; the bashing style of rhetoric that makes conversation impossible; the decline of coherent political parties; the declining importance of policy; the tendency to fight cultural battles and identity wars through political means.
Trump represents the path the founders rejected. There is a hint of violence undergirding his campaign. There is always a whiff, and sometimes more than a whiff, of “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
I printed out a Times list of the insults Trump has hurled on Twitter. The list took up 33 pages. Trump’s style is bashing and pummeling. Everyone who opposes or disagrees with him is an idiot, a moron or a loser. The implied promise of his campaign is that he will come to Washington and bully his way through.
Trump’s supporters aren’t looking for a political process to address their needs. They are looking for a superhero. As the political scientist Matthew MacWilliams found, the one trait that best predicts whether you’re a Trump supporter is how high you score on tests that measure authoritarianism.
On October 16 2016 22:44 CatharsisUT wrote: I thought the screenshot was pretty self-explanatory...
1. Article says Trump hasn't lost much support since first debate (Sep. 26)
2. I say "man that's a terrible article, because there is other information out there that disproves conclusions you might draw from one poll."
3. In response, I post a screenshot of the 538 probability model with the date of the first debate highlighted, as that is all that is relevant to proving or disproving the line in the article. The x axis is obviously dates...two of them are listed.
That all seems pretty straightforward. Plus, the idea that anyone is on this thread and isn't familiar with the 538 model is fairly incredible. This feels like intentional obtuseness, but I don't know the thread participants well enough to know why posters would be feigning ignorance.
Agreed. 538 updated again and Hillary's chances have slightly increased once more, from 85% to 86%.
On October 16 2016 23:19 farvacola wrote: Saw a guy in a Trump shirt threaten a black woman with a Hillary bumper sticker on her car outside at a gas station today. That was nice.
On October 16 2016 22:44 CatharsisUT wrote: I thought the screenshot was pretty self-explanatory...
1. Article says Trump hasn't lost much support since first debate (Sep. 26)
2. I say "man that's a terrible article, because there is other information out there that disproves conclusions you might draw from one poll."
3. In response, I post a screenshot of the 538 probability model with the date of the first debate highlighted, as that is all that is relevant to proving or disproving the line in the article. The x axis is obviously dates...two of them are listed.
That all seems pretty straightforward. Plus, the idea that anyone is on this thread and isn't familiar with the 538 model is fairly incredible. This feels like intentional obtuseness, but I don't know the thread participants well enough to know why posters would be feigning ignorance.
Check the popular vote tab on the 538 model and you'll see it agrees with that sentence. The chances of Hillary winning are because her support is going up, not because Trump's is going down. Basically the 42% or so he's getting would vote for him even if he was on video raping someone. It was a sort of misleading sentence, but it was accurate.
re: barrin Nothing wrong with having considered someone early on when information is thinner; nor is it wrong to give someone a chance to show improvement and change.
I'm not sure what your definition of "many" is, but something like 95+% of African Americans are explicitly not voting for him. He has extremely low black support.
Don't know why, i can only wish my ancestors homeland had someone like Trump.
On October 16 2016 23:42 Barrin wrote: I still think Trump vs Hillary brings "choosing the lesser of two evils" to a new level, but I'm starting to feel silly for ever having considered voting for Trump...
Well, the main thing I would ask you is, regardless your general opinions or what you think of Clinton, how did you consider voting for someone who would say something like that:
I mean, just out of self respect it should be disqualifying. The guy takes his own supporters for morons.
re: portugal I'm sure they had lots of people like trump (also a total invitation to that Trevor Noah african leader skit); trump is simply far less useful than you think he is, and far more common. Also not sure what kind of difference you think it would've made.
I'm not sure what your definition of "many" is, but something like 95+% of African Americans are explicitly not voting for him. He has extremely low black support.
Don't know why, i can only wish my ancestors homeland had someone like Trump.
On October 16 2016 23:58 zlefin wrote: re: portugal I'm sure they had lots of people like trump (also a total invitation to that Trevor Noah african leader skit); trump is simply far less useful than you think he is, and far more common. Also not sure what kind of difference you think it would've made.
I mean, someone that wants the well being of his own nationals first and wants to make america great again instead of being a corrupt leader like hillary that makes backdoor deals with other corrupt world leaders, that's what we have in Angola, i would like a nationalist there for a change.
On October 16 2016 15:01 xDaunt wrote: Oh, by the way, Wikileaks released an email that confirms what everyone already knew: Obama could have had a status of forces agreement in Iraq if he wanted one. So yeah, let's finally dispense with the retarded pretext that Obama didn't abandon Iraq of his own volition.
Again, when entire documents are leaks, stop trying to cherry pick.
The Iraqis are keenly interested in understanding President-Elect Obama's position on the SOFA. Indeed, a number of senior Iraqi officials - including a number of Prime Minister's most senior advisors -- are claiming that Mr. Obama will not support a SOFA signed by President Bush and interpreting the few messages publicly available as a pretext to reject the agreement on the table. After you have had time to review the SOFA text, we ask that the Obama transition team express support for the SOFA, lest the Iraqis use previous positions or the absence of comment to scuttle the deal.
By way of suggestion, we offer the following as possible reassurance to the Iraqis, perhaps in letters to Talibani and Maliki:
"We believe that any Status of Forces Agreement, or Strategic Framework Agreement, should include commitments by the U.S. to begin withdrawing its troops and to foreswear permanent bases. Any such agreements must provide strong protections and authorities for our troops. We will respect the agreement as negotiated and not insist it be ratified by the US Congress. We hope it can be concluded as soon as possible. "
Bolded is what everyone tells you every single time this comes up.
This is too rich. I linked to the entire document. You quoted only the self-serving part for you, and you accuse me of cherry-picking! Here, let's take a look at the portion that you conveniently left out:
The U.S.-Iraq SOFA is reaching the endgame. The U.S. negotiators have provided the Iraqis with a text we consider final, accompanied by a letter from President Bush urging the Prime Minister to lobby Iraqi officials to approve the document and send it to the Council of Representatives for approval. Intensive lobbying by Ambassador Crocker and our negotiators is currently taking place in Baghdad.
We believe we have negotiated an agreement that provides President-Elect Obama the authorities and protections he needs to exercise the full perogatives as Commander in Chief. We would like to offer, at your earliest convenience, a full briefing to you and your staff on the details of the SOFA. Ambassador Crocker and General Odierno would appreciate the opportunity to brief you personally, via SVTC, at a time that's amenable. Representatives from both Mr. Obama's and Mr. Biden's Senate offices are scheduled to receive a briefing on the text on Wednesday the 12th, and the text has and will continue to be available to those named staff in the Senate's secure facility.
In other words, there was a deal on the table that the Bush Administration had already negotiated, and which Obama apparently rejected.
EDIT: In contrast, what you quoted weren't "facts" regarding the dynamics of the negotiations, so much as a prepared fluff-piece that General Lute suggested that the Obama Administration send the Iraqis to reassure them that he wasn't looking to torpedo the SOFA negotiations.
On October 16 2016 15:01 xDaunt wrote: Oh, by the way, Wikileaks released an email that confirms what everyone already knew: Obama could have had a status of forces agreement in Iraq if he wanted one. So yeah, let's finally dispense with the retarded pretext that Obama didn't abandon Iraq of his own volition.
Again, when entire documents are leaks, stop trying to cherry pick.
The Iraqis are keenly interested in understanding President-Elect Obama's position on the SOFA. Indeed, a number of senior Iraqi officials - including a number of Prime Minister's most senior advisors -- are claiming that Mr. Obama will not support a SOFA signed by President Bush and interpreting the few messages publicly available as a pretext to reject the agreement on the table. After you have had time to review the SOFA text, we ask that the Obama transition team express support for the SOFA, lest the Iraqis use previous positions or the absence of comment to scuttle the deal.
By way of suggestion, we offer the following as possible reassurance to the Iraqis, perhaps in letters to Talibani and Maliki:
"We believe that any Status of Forces Agreement, or Strategic Framework Agreement, should include commitments by the U.S. to begin withdrawing its troops and to foreswear permanent bases. Any such agreements must provide strong protections and authorities for our troops. We will respect the agreement as negotiated and not insist it be ratified by the US Congress. We hope it can be concluded as soon as possible. "
Bolded is what everyone tells you every single time this comes up.
This is too rich. I linked to the entire document. You quoted only the self-serving part for you, and you accuse me of cherry-picking! Here, let's take a look at the portion that you conveniently left out:
The U.S.-Iraq SOFA is reaching the endgame. The U.S. negotiators have provided the Iraqis with a text we consider final, accompanied by a letter from President Bush urging the Prime Minister to lobby Iraqi officials to approve the document and send it to the Council of Representatives for approval. Intensive lobbying by Ambassador Crocker and our negotiators is currently taking place in Baghdad.
We believe we have negotiated an agreement that provides President-Elect Obama the authorities and protections he needs to exercise the full perogatives as Commander in Chief. We would like to offer, at your earliest convenience, a full briefing to you and your staff on the details of the SOFA. Ambassador Crocker and General Odierno would appreciate the opportunity to brief you personally, via SVTC, at a time that's amenable. Representatives from both Mr. Obama's and Mr. Biden's Senate offices are scheduled to receive a briefing on the text on Wednesday the 12th, and the text has and will continue to be available to those named staff in the Senate's secure facility.
In other words, there was a deal on the table that the Bush Administration had already negotiated, and which Obama apparently rejected.
EDIT: In contrast, what you quoted weren't "facts" regarding the dynamics of the negotiations, so much as a prepared fluff-piece that General Lute suggested that the Obama Administration send the Iraqis to reassure them that he wasn't looking to torpedo the SOFA negotiations.
That still talks about lobbying the Iraqi's to approve it. Do we know if they did approve it or if they denied that version of the SOFA?
Debate about a hacked primary source document with almost no knowledge of the context on a video game forum, trying to extrapolate shit we have basically no idea about about an extremely sensitive diplomatic subject.
On October 16 2016 15:01 xDaunt wrote: Oh, by the way, Wikileaks released an email that confirms what everyone already knew: Obama could have had a status of forces agreement in Iraq if he wanted one. So yeah, let's finally dispense with the retarded pretext that Obama didn't abandon Iraq of his own volition.
Again, when entire documents are leaks, stop trying to cherry pick.
The Iraqis are keenly interested in understanding President-Elect Obama's position on the SOFA. Indeed, a number of senior Iraqi officials - including a number of Prime Minister's most senior advisors -- are claiming that Mr. Obama will not support a SOFA signed by President Bush and interpreting the few messages publicly available as a pretext to reject the agreement on the table. After you have had time to review the SOFA text, we ask that the Obama transition team express support for the SOFA, lest the Iraqis use previous positions or the absence of comment to scuttle the deal.
By way of suggestion, we offer the following as possible reassurance to the Iraqis, perhaps in letters to Talibani and Maliki:
"We believe that any Status of Forces Agreement, or Strategic Framework Agreement, should include commitments by the U.S. to begin withdrawing its troops and to foreswear permanent bases. Any such agreements must provide strong protections and authorities for our troops. We will respect the agreement as negotiated and not insist it be ratified by the US Congress. We hope it can be concluded as soon as possible. "
Bolded is what everyone tells you every single time this comes up.
This is too rich. I linked to the entire document. You quoted only the self-serving part for you, and you accuse me of cherry-picking! Here, let's take a look at the portion that you conveniently left out:
The U.S.-Iraq SOFA is reaching the endgame. The U.S. negotiators have provided the Iraqis with a text we consider final, accompanied by a letter from President Bush urging the Prime Minister to lobby Iraqi officials to approve the document and send it to the Council of Representatives for approval. Intensive lobbying by Ambassador Crocker and our negotiators is currently taking place in Baghdad.
We believe we have negotiated an agreement that provides President-Elect Obama the authorities and protections he needs to exercise the full perogatives as Commander in Chief. We would like to offer, at your earliest convenience, a full briefing to you and your staff on the details of the SOFA. Ambassador Crocker and General Odierno would appreciate the opportunity to brief you personally, via SVTC, at a time that's amenable. Representatives from both Mr. Obama's and Mr. Biden's Senate offices are scheduled to receive a briefing on the text on Wednesday the 12th, and the text has and will continue to be available to those named staff in the Senate's secure facility.
In other words, there was a deal on the table that the Bush Administration had already negotiated, and which Obama apparently rejected.
EDIT: In contrast, what you quoted weren't "facts" regarding the dynamics of the negotiations, so much as a prepared fluff-piece that General Lute suggested that the Obama Administration send the Iraqis to reassure them that he wasn't looking to torpedo the SOFA negotiations.
That still talks about lobbying the Iraqi's to approve it. Do we know if they did approve it or if they denied that version of the SOFA?
We have no idea. I don't know why you are arguing at this point. EIther xDaunt comes with the testimony of an expert who can place that email in its context and say something substantial about what it implies, either it's, to quote Scalia, pure applesauce and everybody will speculate on that crap for 10 pages, making things up according to their bias.
On October 16 2016 23:58 zlefin wrote: re: portugal I'm sure they had lots of people like trump (also a total invitation to that Trevor Noah african leader skit); trump is simply far less useful than you think he is, and far more common. Also not sure what kind of difference you think it would've made.
I mean, someone that wants the well being of his own nationals first and wants to make america great again instead of being a corrupt leader like hillary that makes backdoor deals with other corrupt world leaders, that's what we have in Angola, i would like a nationalist there for a change.
Trump doesn't want the well being of his own nationals first, he wants his own well being first. Otherwise his tax plan wouldn't make him a kajillion dollars for no real benefit to the country. He talks about nationalism but talking the talk doesn't mean anything.
EPT
