Discussing American politics as civil human beings

Discussion in 'Off-Topic' started by BurnPyro, Sep 13, 2015.

  1. Dagda

    Dagda Forum Royalty

    it was used in this context before it was used for scifi purposes
     
    Ohmin likes this.
  2. BurnPyro

    BurnPyro Forum Royalty

    oh, i thought it wzd the other way around. good to know
     
  3. badgerale

    badgerale Warchief of Wrath

    I almost come around to the idea that your a decent guy, with views that are foreign to me but not intrinsically bad.

    Then you describe people campaigning for equality as 'yucky', and spin against them, because it doesn't suit you.

    As an agnostic I'm pretty much an admirer of Christian morality, shame that those who call themselves Christians pick and choose when to apply it.
     
    BurnPyro likes this.
  4. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    "Campaigning for equality" = disrupting a politicians speech for about 30 minutes by swearing profusely in English and Spanish, wearing vile shirts, and then physically attacking people that were asking them to behave in a CIVILIZED and respectful fashion??? I believe that "yucky" is a fairly benign word to describe such behavior. How is telling the truth spinning??

    I was angry with the BLM folks for grabbing Bernie's mic and then physically preventing him from EVER speaking at his own rally in Seattle. And I said so in these very forums right after it happened. If competent adults want to hear a politician, NOBODY should try to bully and disrupt the event!!! It suits me just fine that the police removed the UNCIVILIZED protesters at Trump's event. If only they could have done the same in Seattle, so that the respectful citizens gathered there could have heard Bernie speak. Respect and rule of law FTW.

    I admire good/great morality by any and every group. It is very shameful that the protesters chose vile language and violence over respect and open communication. They broke the law, and they were hauled away. I can't tell by looking at a crowd which people are Christians, which are agnostic, which are atheists, and which prefer a different religion and/or path. How can you tell? And why do you disparage Christians in this instance, and no other possible group. Not sure why you brought just Christians into the matter in the first place.
     
  5. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    The Quiet Power Behind the Trump Throne
    Ivanka Trump is her father’s most influential adviser, his most powerful surrogate—and his total opposite.


    10-15-2015

    On the campaign, Ivanka Trump, who grew up playing in her father’s office, is his most influential adviser, his de facto first lady in waiting and his character foil: the cautious, measured power behind the striving, showy candidate. She was the first person Trump mentioned by name when Sean Hannity asked in August, “Is there anyone close to you that you count on most?” and the member of his inner circle whom he consulted during the Megyn Kelly imbroglio. And when Trump announced his candidacy in June, it was Ivanka who introduced her father, while his wife, the former Melania Knauss—a less public person save for her sometimes racy work as a fashion model—stood in the background. As the crowd cheered, the candidate’s daughter flashed a telegenic style that is more polished than her father’s blend of Archie Bunker and Jay Gatsby and far more self-assured. She is the softer, more refined side of the Trump brand and an antidote to the candidate’s abrasiveness.

    Father and daughter meet the world with vastly different styles. Where Donald speaks in a stream-of-consciousness manner that sometimes lurches into the absurd and often gets him in trouble, Ivanka is extremely careful in her public statements. She consistently strikes the proper notes when asked about her father, praising his record and avoiding controversy. She acknowledges that her father turns to her for advice and insists that she wouldn’t be where she is in life if her father didn’t “deeply believe in opportunities for women.” Yesterday, she told a forum in Washington that the Kelly-Trump dustup had been “sensationalized” and that “it didn’t interest me that much.” “Look, my father is very blunt,” she said last night during an interview with CNN. “He is not gender specific in his criticism of people.”

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/ivanka-trump-donald-trump-2016-213248


    The article is MUCH longer, and worth the read. Ivanka is that rare combo of genius, wise, hot, and rich!!
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2015
  6. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    10-15-2015

    Donald Trump and Ben Carson are threatening to skip the next Republican presidential debate unless the format is changed.

    The campaigns sent a joint letter Thursday afternoon to CNBC's Washington bureau warning they won’t won't participate in the network’s debate on Oct. 28 in Boulder, Colo., unless it lasts no longer than two hours and includes both opening and closing statements by the candidates.

    Ed Brookover, a Carson campaign aide, told The Hill that opening and closing statements are vital to ensuring every candidate is heard on a stage that will likely include 10 candidates. He noted that during one stretch in the last debate, moderated by CNN, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) went more than 30 minutes without having a chance to speak.

    The boycott threat from Trump and Carson, who hold the top two spots in virtually all polling of the Republican race, comes after a handful of other campaigns complained about the debate arrangement on a telephone call with the network and the RNC.

    "People realized we got the short end of the stick when the Democrats had a 2 minute opening and a 90 second closing [during their debate], so they had three and a half minutes to a 15 million person audience of an infomercial," the source said.

    "They get a commercial, we get ‘The Hunger Games.’ "

    The first two Republican presidential debates generated recordaudiences for both Fox News and CNN, in part due to the presence of Trump, who has added an element of unpredictability to the race.
    CNN was reportedly charging more than $150,00 for a 30-second ad during its GOP debate, leading Trump to suggest that the network should send him flowers and a thank-you note.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...xt-gop-debate/ar-AAfuhRp?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=iehp


    At one point in that same debate Trump did not speak for 28 minutes, fyi. Although he did get the most time overall. The Donald spent those 28 minutes listening.
     
  7. badgerale

    badgerale Warchief of Wrath

    I guess I just admire ordinary people campaigning against real injustic, where people are dying, than I do the vanity project of a billionaire - or even a left wing intellectual. And especially after that's gone through the filter of the right wing press.

    People have done stuff a thousand times worse for causes we now think of as noble - the sufferegettes destroyed artworks in British museums for the cause of votes for women, for example.
     
    BurnPyro likes this.
  8. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    What "real injustice" caused those folks to act in a criminal manner? Their behavior was orders of magnitude worse than anything Trump has said or done since launching his campaign for POTUS in June of 2015. How is it Trump's fault that "people are dying"? What evidence do you have that the competent adults gathered to hear a speech are guilty of horrible acts? I view Obama's presidency as a vanity project, but I do NOT recommend violence towards anyone to solve the matter. Obama should, and has, been allowed to state his case. Opponents should, and have, been allowed to state their disagreement. The violent behavior of those individuals in this one instance is the exact WRONG response, if the goal is to move society forward.

    If you have proof that the right wing press has twisted the truth on this altercation, please link any and all evidence here.

    I believe that creating good/fair/logical laws is very important. Can I now take action against opponents of law and order "a thousand times worse" than the violence on display at that event???
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2015
  9. Ohmin

    Ohmin Forum Royalty

    Problems with how immigration is handled and prejudice against people of color, ostensibly*.

    *(Though I don't mean to suggest that the protestors don't actually feel that way)
     
  10. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    10-18-2015
    (From the Chicago Tribune)


    Polls indicate that support for Donald Trump is plateauing while key Republican challengers like Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio are quickly gaining ground.

    If this trend continues and Trump flames out, the Republican establishment shouldn't simply dismiss his candidacy as a fad. There are lessons to be learned from Trump's unexpected popularity. The most important one is that there is broad support for some components of his immigration platform, even among Hispanics.

    Yes, you read that right.

    Polls show that many Hispanics agree with Trump that illegal immigration is a huge problem. The eventual GOP nominee should, of course, reject the divisive, inflammatory language Trump and his supporters have often used to make the case for reform. But there are smart policy ideas buried under all that rhetoric. They ought to be incorporated into the official party platform.

    What's more, many Hispanic citizens have little sympathy for immigrants who haven't played by the rules. Especially among Latino voters born in the United States, resentment of immigrants who have entered the country illegally can run deep. Forty-two percent of American-born Hispanics disapprove of President Barack Obama's executive actions to prevent the deportation of undocumented immigrants.

    So while Trump has certainly been insensitive and incendiary, his message has nonetheless resonated with a significant share of Hispanic voters. Most immigrants to this country played by the rules. It's no surprise that they disapprove of people who didn't.

    http://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/many-hispanics-agree-with-donald-trump-on-enforcing-the-border
     
  11. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    10-19-2015

    It began as whispers in hushed corners: Could it ever happen? And now, just three months from the Iowa caucuses, members of the Republican establishment are starting to give voice to an increasingly common belief that Donald Trump, once dismissed as joke, a carnival barker, and a circus freak, might very well win the nomination. “Trump is a serious player for the nomination at this time,” says Ed Rollins, who served as the national campaign director for Reagan’s 1984 reelection and as campaign chairman for Mike Huckabee in 2008.

    Rollins is not alone in his views. “Trump has sustained a lead for longer than there are days left” before voting begins in Iowa, says Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “For a long time,” Schmidt says, “you were talking to people in Washington, and there was a belief that there was an expiration date to this, as if there’s some secret group of people who have the ability to control the process.”

    But for Trump, a dip in the polls after the second debate that many predicted was the beginning of the end has arrested; and for nearly four months, he has remained at the top of the polls. Now, long-time GOP strategists who were expecting Trump’s act to wear thin a couple of months ago worry that he can’t be stopped, or at least that he has a significant chance of winning the nomination.

    It’s a drastic departure from the near-universal sentiment of the Republican establishment voiced when Trump announced his candidacy in June. In the weeks following his campaign launch, many Republicans fretted not that Trump would win the nomination, but that his incendiary remarks about illegal immigrants would irreparably harm the GOP brand. (The former Bush-administration press secretary Ari Fleischer compared Trump to a roadside accident. “Everybody pulls over to see the mess,” he told Politico in late June. “And the risk for the party is he tarnishes everybody.”) Now, many members of the GOP establishment are concerned less that Trump will hurt the brand than that he’ll become its standard-bearer.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...-thinks-trump-could-win?target=topic&tid=1707
     
  12. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    10-21-15

    An interesting data point from a new poll Wednesday suggests that Donald Trump's presidential campaign arc is now more closely mirroring that of a traditional front-runner, rather than that of an insurgent fad.

    The ABC/Washington Post poll found that a plurality of likely Republican primary voters now believe Trump will be their party's nominee.

    According to the poll, 43% of registered GOP voters nationally believe that Trump has the greatest chance of winning the nomination. His closest competitors in the poll are retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who was the choice of 16% of GOP voters, and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, who had 12%.

    When the Post/ABC survey last asked the question, in March, Trump did not register. Bush received 35% of the vote then, 25 points ahead of his next-closest competitor, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

    The shift could be significant. A 2012 study, pointed to by The New York Times' David Leonhardt, found that measuring who voters think will win is actually a much better indicator of the eventual winner of an election than gauging who has the most voter support.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-experienced-major-shift-153453944.html
     
  13. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

  14. BurnPyro

    BurnPyro Forum Royalty

    Just watched the GOP debate, whatchall think?

    I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw
     
    DarkJello likes this.
  15. Ragic

    Ragic I need me some PIE!

    it was nice seeing the candidates show some solidarity but its still a shame that they had to. they should be debating each other over issues, not debating with the moderators about media bias.
     
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  16. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    You should have let the thread die. ;)

    I was impressed with Cruz, Rubio, and Christie--and in that order. Rubio surprised me the most, to be honest. Trump and Carson were mellow. Fiorina was solid.

    Bush looked lost. Paul seems kinda bored. Maybe he smoked too much dope right before the debate started? (Colorado). Kasich almost acted like a Democrat politician.

    I loved the fact that the crowd expressed vocal displeasure with the moderators on multiple occasions. I slept like a baby Wednesday night. And dreamed of dumplings and Mt dew.
     
  17. BurnPyro

    BurnPyro Forum Royalty

    Quick notes on each candidate (note that I know most of them only vaguely, so this is mostly based of this debate)

    John Kasich: Seems capable and smart, probably good at the economic stuff if we can believe his record (exact policies, no idea, perhaps economy favored him or whatever). However, very poor behavior generally on stage. Seems nervous. Not very confident at times, no charisma. Probably doesn't have much chance to win.

    Mike Hukabee: likeable guy. Seems to truly believe in his stuff. However doesn't appear very hard or tough when needed, might be a downside. Feels like he's not serious about running for pres, just a feeling.

    Jeb Bush: Speaks well (except the warm kiss part), behaves well, unable to smile though. Seems experienced. Reasonable guy. Calm and composed, calculated. Could be a decent pres. Haunted by questions relating to his brother/family perhaps.

    Marco Rubio: seemed like a decent guy. Didn't want to talk smack about other candidates. Believes in his stuff through the hardships he's been through. "hi mom im on tv". Fairly charismatic and a good speaker.

    Trump: Clearly a non-politician in the way he talks, repeats the same words/phrases a lot. Still uses too much personal attacks/talking about others for my liking. Talked about his wall and debt, nothing new. Woulda liked to see some more in depth about stuff that isn't populism.

    Carly Fiorina: only person on the stage I absolutely don't like. Keeps using misinformation or wrong statistics (92% women of jobs lost under obama, her thingy about being fired and the guy coming out and apologising)). She seems quite robotic, doesn't show emotion. Talks well though. Seems like a hardliner.

    Ted Cruz: Apparently tough guy, no drinks all work no play. Props for calling out the questions. Perhaps a bit soft in his speaking, doesn't convince me that much.

    Ben Carson: weird mix of soft spoken yet somehow charismatic. Not sure how well he'd do on stuff, but he might be someone to keep an eye out for. Hard to gauge for me.

    Chris Cristie: seems incredibly populistic. Keeps calling out "the people" and "would you do X" kind of stuff. Really really doesn't like hilary clinton.

    Rand paul: felt like he said the least. Very strict. Almost saluted when he waved as he started.
     
    DarkJello likes this.
  18. BurnPyro

    BurnPyro Forum Royalty

    I agree.
     
  19. BurnPyro

    BurnPyro Forum Royalty

    Never. This thread has gone places.

    I agree that Rubio seemed very strong. I enjoyed his talks.

    Bush is weird to me. He seems capable and has the resources. I just feel like he's just not that into it.
     
    DarkJello likes this.
  20. DarkJello

    DarkJello I need me some PIE!

    Perchance it is time for a bit of humor on this here topic???





    And yes, I enjoyed the above video immensely!!
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2015

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