US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5766

On October 26 2016 08:03 plasmidghost wrote:
Hillary's polling average has dropped by two points in the past week, should we be concerned? What about the news that Obamacare premiums are about to jump, will that cause people to vote Trump since he promised to get rid of it?

On October 26 2016 08:22 farvacola wrote:
It has been quite the spectacle seeing Scott Adams implode.

I’ve been trying to figure out what common trait binds Clinton supporters together. As far as I can tell, the most unifying characteristic is a willingness to bully in all its forms.

If you have a Trump sign in your lawn, they will steal it.

If you have a Trump bumper sticker, they will deface your car.

if you speak of Trump at work you could get fired.

On social media, almost every message I get from a Clinton supporter is a bullying type of message. They insult. They try to shame. They label. And obviously they threaten my livelihood.

We know from Project Veritas that Clinton supporters tried to incite violence at Trump rallies. The media downplays it.

We also know Clinton’s side hired paid trolls to bully online. You don’t hear much about that.

Yesterday, by no coincidence, Huffington Post, Salon, and Daily Kos all published similar-sounding hit pieces on me, presumably to lower my influence. (That reason, plus jealousy, are the only reasons writers write about other writers.)

Joe Biden said he wanted to take Trump behind the bleachers and beat him up. No one on Clinton’s side disavowed that call to violence because, I assume, they consider it justified hyperbole.

Team Clinton has succeeded in perpetuating one of the greatest evils I have seen in my lifetime. Her side has branded Trump supporters (40%+ of voters) as Nazis, sexists, homophobes, racists, and a few other fighting words. Their argument is built on confirmation bias and persuasion. But facts don’t matter because facts never matter in politics. What matters is that Clinton’s framing of Trump provides moral cover for any bullying behavior online or in person. No one can be a bad person for opposing Hitler, right?

Some Trump supporters online have suggested that people who intend to vote for Trump should wear their Trump hats on election day. That is a dangerous idea, and I strongly discourage it. There would be riots in the streets because we already know the bullies would attack. But on election day, inviting those attacks is an extra-dangerous idea. Violence is bad on any day, but on election day, Republicans are far more likely to unholster in an effort to protect their voting rights. Things will get wet fast.

Yes, yes, I realize Trump supporters say bad things about Clinton supporters too. I don’t defend the bad apples on either side. I’ll just point out that Trump’s message is about uniting all Americans under one flag. The Clinton message is that some Americans are good people and the other 40% are some form of deplorables, deserving of shame, vandalism, punishing taxation, and violence. She has literally turned Americans on each other. It is hard for me to imagine a worse thing for a presidential candidate to do.

I’ll say that again.

As far as I can tell, the worst thing a presidential candidate can do is turn Americans against each other. Clinton is doing that, intentionally.

Intentionally.

As I often say, I don’t know who has the best policies. I don’t know the best way to fight ISIS and I don’t know how to fix healthcare or trade deals. I don’t know which tax policies are best to lift the economy. I don’t know the best way to handle any of that stuff. (And neither do you.) But I do have a bad reaction to bullies. And I’ve reached my limit.

I hope you have too. Therefore…

I endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States because I oppose bullying in all its forms.

I don’t defend Trump’s personal life. Neither Trump nor Clinton are role models for our children. Let’s call that a tie, at worst.

The bullies are welcome to drown in their own bile while those of us who want a better world do what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years: Work to make it better while others complain about how we’re doing it.

Today I put Trump’s odds of winning in a landslide back to 98%. Remember, I told you a few weeks ago that Trump couldn’t win unless “something changed.”

Something just changed.

Mosul Operation According To Plan

Carter, who visited Iraq last weekend, said he is encouraged to see the counter-ISIL campaign “proceeding according to the plan we laid out." Iraqi forces, he said, are fighting with skill, commitment and courage.

"Today, we as members of the coalition, resolve to follow through with that same sense of urgency and focus on enveloping and collapsing ISIL's control over Raqqa as well," he said, noting the groundwork has begun to commence the isolation of the Syrian city.

A core objective of the campaign, he noted, is to destroy ISIL's "parent tumor” in Iraq and Syria. "And we're on track to do just that," he added.

Mosul Battle 'Long Time Coming'

Ten days ago, Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul from ISIL’s two-year control, and are on their way to collapsing enemy control over the city, he said.

“This battle has been a long time coming, but it was important for our partners to take the time to build their capacity, to plan, prepare and posture the right forces and to incorporate lessons learned from previous battles in the campaign,” Carter said in his remarks opening the counter-ISIL conference. “It’s also critical that the Iraqi security forces are in the lead, with every country operating with full respect for Iraqi sovereignty.”

The secretary said his meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi in Baghdad and Kurdistan Regional Government President Masoud Barzani in Irbil went well, and he commended both leaders for achieving unity and historic military cooperation as they lead their Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga security forces fighting ISIL.

“We could not ask for two better partners,” he said. “They’ve both kept their word. They’ve set aside their differences and united in shared resolve against their common enemy, ISIL. Since the start of this operation, the noose has been tightening around Mosul from multiple axes of attack.”

On October 26 2016 08:38 Nevuk wrote:
Speaking anecdotally, I was driving around Cincinnati suburbs over the weekend and was shocked by how few yard signs there were. I counted three Trump and one Clinton. I couldn't even begin to count how many there were in 2012 when I lived there at the equivalent time. Enthusiasm seems extremely low and that's one of the GOP strongholds of the state.

On October 26 2016 06:31 Gorsameth wrote:

Lets say 40% of the country is Democrat, 40% is Republican and 20% switches around.
If the Republicans tell their racist base to fuck off and are left with 20% Republicans they need to win all the independents to maybe win.
Its hard to win all the independents so Republicans are not going to win anything.

Hence the current problem with the Republicans, which ofc is entirely their own fault with the Southern Strategy.

On October 26 2016 08:46 plasmidghost wrote:

There are no presidential signs in my neighborhood at all, at my college I've seen one Hillary bumper sticker and no Trump stickers (and at least a dozen Bernie stickers)

On October 26 2016 09:02 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Well this is awkward....

https://twitter.com/NumbersMuncher/status/790726258275606528

On October 26 2016 08:16 oneofthem wrote:

pretty difficult spot.
the original law was mainly about expanding coverage, not controlling cost. they can't directly answer the cost question by only talking about expanded coverage.

her usual line of 'defending the aca' is talking about the expansion of coverage, but obviously that kind of position just gets rekt by the real cost and choice problems.

she could talk about taking additional steps to control cost, shift the blame onto drug companies, but really the best thing to do is to embrace the public option and talk about va style treatment and price control seriously.

On October 26 2016 09:07 MyLovelyLurker wrote:

I would love it for spectacle if Dems kept this handy for last-minute ads. Wondering how Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rubio etc... didn't dig that, or the Access Hollywood, up in time for primaries.

Expecting this to go viral if it hasn't already.