Trump

[gumboot]

I think they're both inhaling through the mouth. It makes sense because it's a bigger hole, so lower velocity air movement and less noise overall. Because it's all turbulent airflow microphone direction doesn't mean much. If there were any laminar flow it would be out from the nose, but that's not an issue because they speak in such long sentences.

[pogo]

Another thing happened on Monday: there were only two candidates on the stage. Neither Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Jill Stein made the cut. The debate commission decided each need to be polling around 15% to be part of the debate, and they never came close. Johnson came closest, peaking at about 10% in the polls, but has fallen back since. Stein polls at around half that.

The debate was their, in particular Johnson‘s, best chance to become relevant, to play a part in the race. He could not win in November but a national appearance would raise his profile and give him a chance to influence the outcome and get his agenda heard. But that is much less likely now, and their support will probably drop as undecided voters make a choice between Clinton and Trump. It’s unclear which of them will benefit from Johnson’s non-appearance. Certainly it helped Clinton in the debate only having Trump to contrast herself with.

[tufty]

I think they're both inhaling through the mouth.

A pair of mouthbreathers, you say?

[Darkflame]

Another thing happened on Monday: there were only two candidates on the stage. Neither Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Jill Stein made the cut. The debate commission decided each need to be polling around 15% to be part of the debate, and they never came close. Johnson came closest, peaking at about 10% in the polls, but has fallen back since. Stein polls at around half that.

The debate was their, in particular Johnson‘s, best chance to become relevant, to play a part in the race. He could not win in November but a national appearance would raise his profile and give him a chance to influence the outcome and get his agenda heard. But that is much less likely now, and their support will probably drop as undecided voters make a choice between Clinton and Trump. It’s unclear which of them will benefit from Johnson’s non-appearance. Certainly it helped Clinton in the debate only having Trump to contrast herself with.

Not a fan of libertarianism at all, but I certainly think Johnson should have been there. Another adult.
As for who it would help, hard to see. An actually debate between Johnson and Hillary might have shown Trumps shallowness by comparison. But point by point? probably not.

[pogo]

Clinton is strongly disliked. She though has a secret weapon in Trump who is even more disliked than her. Plus the format really favoured her, as it gave Trump no place to hide as he did in the Republican primaries.

It’s hard to say exactly what would have happened with Johnson involved, but it could have harmed Clinton in a number of ways.
* Putting another functioning adult on stage would have offered waverers another choice
* Johnson probably would gone after Clinton, knowing his best chance is to eliminate her and make it a straight fight between him and Trump
* As in the Republican debates the more people there are the less time Trump has to make a fool of himself, the less chance there is he will be directly challenged
* A political debate between Johnson and Clinton would have let Trump play one of his few strong cards, that he is an outsider without the experience of Johnson (a former governor) and Clinton

[pogo]

Ho, ho, ho

Hillary Clinton laid a surprisingly intricate trap for Donald Trump, and he blundered into it

It’s very like the attack on the Muslim parents of an American killed in combat that did him so much harm around the conferences. But this in some ways is worse as the locus is a nice young Latina woman, member of a key demographic, who is now an American citizen and very happy to talk about her experience. The Clinton campaign planned this very carefully; here’s a video, in Spanish, featuring her and released at the same time as two media interviews.



Trump fell for it hook line and sinker, doubling down on his misogynist, racist attacks on her the next day. Women voters, Latino voters will be appalled by all of it. Others will be appalled he was taken in so easily and played by the Clinton campaign. There is no upside for him here.

[venusian]

A couple of people (including me) have asked the knowledgensia[1] on here about the enmity towards Hilary. Apart from vague references to email servers and being a bit too establishment, I've not seen a good explanation. Here's one: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-wom ... 91766.html.


[1] Just made that up, can I have a prize?

[Cloudane]

A couple of people (including me) have asked the knowledgensia[1] on here about the enmity towards Hilary. Apart from vague references to email servers and being a bit too establishment, I've not seen a good explanation. Here's one: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-wom ... 91766.html.

Thanks, was just recently wondering about that myself having used one of those political compass-like sites that tells you who you'd agree with if you were American. It came out very strongly in Hilary's favour, then got me thinking that I've never seen clear reasoning why she's so hated (at least with Trump there are some very clear notes of racism and Islamophobia to argue about)

I don't think it's necessarily all about gender bias, although that obviously plays a part. Far as I can see without knowing the ins and outs of the politics of a country I'm not part of, is that there's a lot of "Hilary is evil" rhetoric going around. We've probably all had her various photoshopped zombie / demon pictures from Facebook popping up in our faces all the time and I think many have become indoctrinated by it. I fell for it myself, I recall throwing 2p in on something Trump related (can't remember what, but generally hoping that out of the two Hilary wins, for the whole world's sake) and hastily adding "I know she's evil, but the lesser of the two" because the time before I got derailed and dogpiled with "but she's evil nasty demonic scum! The US has a choice between a turd on a plate or a turd sandwich!" and it seemed easier to just add a disclaimer. But that was perpetuating the problem of depicting someone as 'evil' without knowing any real justification, just parroting it because of the insistence of other people.

Maybe she is nasty, I don't know, but I'd love to see some proper reasoning. The article mentions her opposition to same-sex marriage in 2008 and that's certainly unfortunate, but seemingly this was a common view 8 years ago and more progressive views on the subject have only really tipped the scale past the majority in the past few years. If she's not proposing a reversal then I think the past can be left in the past.

[(o)(o)]

The mic was working fine. For one it picked up all his sniffles, as his pre-event cocaine fix got the better of him

If having a sniffle is concrete proof of cocaine use, it's pretty damning that Clinton stumbled the other day she's surely speedballing heroin PCP and Andrex.

[Dio]

Maybe she is nasty, I don't know, but I'd love to see some proper reasoning.

The main logical reason is that she comes across as a bit of a self-important, soulless automaton who craves influence, power and a place in the history books over anything else.

Of course, given the opponent, that may be a logical reason to dislike her but it's undoubtedly not a logical reason not to vote for her since he is a thousand times more of each of those things, a man who basically defines the term narcissist.

[pogo]

A couple of people (including me) have asked the knowledgensia[1] on here about the enmity towards Hilary. Apart from vague references to email servers and being a bit too establishment, I've not seen a good explanation. Here's one: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-wom ... 91766.html.

I think it’s entirely political. Every time there’s an election you see the same pattern. Democrats attack the Republican candidate based on who they are and what they stand for. Mitt Romney was a corporate raider and shill for corporate America because he was. George W Bush was a low-intellect daddy’s boy because he was. John McCain was actually OK, but he chose Sarah Palin as running mate to pacify the extremists in the party so his judgement was fair game. And anyway Obama is an exceptionally talented politician and deserved to beat him.

But Republican attacks on Democrats are entirely different, based largely on lies. John Kerry, was attacked by lies about his military record – when running against GW Bush who had no record. Obama endured far worse; racist attacks doubting his citizenship or faith, unfounded attacks on his ability and character. The attacks on Clinton are a bit different. Republicans have a particular dislike of her which stems from her time as First Lady, and the misogyny is something new in the presidential race. But it’s also part of a pattern going back decades.

As for why it happens, it’s down to Republicans being bereft of a saleable platform. Their priority is “tax cuts for billionaires” as that is what their billionaire donors pay for. But that appeals only to a tiny minority. So they have set themselves up as the party of southern whites, with policies that appeal to racists and social conservatives. The problem is the policies make no sense; they cannot roll back civil rights, undo Hispanic immigration, fix Islamic extremism with military force.

So they combine them with lies. The point is not to win the policy argument as they can’t, they lost it a long time ago. The intent is to be able to say, “yes, our candidate is a horrible person, but so is yours”. Its to establish some sort of false equivalence, so Republican lies can be forgiven or at least overlooked.

[(o)(o)]

Maybe she is nasty, I don't know, but I'd love to see some proper reasoning.

The main logical reason is that she comes across as a bit of a self-important, soulless automaton who craves influence, power and a place in the history books over anything else.

.. and wealth!! Don't forget the extravagant wealth and riches and power and wealth she constantly craves.

Plus she is a warmonger. She makes Obama with his illegal-under-international-law-but-we-don't-care drone strikes look like a pacifist!!

This stuff isn't hard to find out - her emails spell it out in black and white.

Plus she lies. She lies A LOT!! Here's something plucked at random haven't even watched though, but c'mon ...



One of the reasons Corbyn is loved by the people is his adherence to core principles consistently over decades despite everything. Clinton flim flams all over the shop.

It's easy to forget what a callous manipulative bitch she is because of Super Clown Cunt Trump.

[Darkflame]

Here's something plucked at random haven't even watched though,

But we should? Its pretty easy to cut together non-stop lies, the question is ratio of footage to ratio of lies.
Its about scales. Hillary lied in the debate. Trump lied a lot more. Sometimes about ridiculously easy to disprove stuff ("I never said global warming was a hoax" "I was against the war in Iraq" "I cant release my taxs due to a audit"....etc. Over and over.).

To dismiss Trump as just a clown misses the fact that basically everything said against Hillary also applies to Trump , and often to a order of magnitude more.
Warmonger? Trump has stated many times the US should have taken Iraq's oil. Not something implied in a email, not something you can "read into" - outright stated in interviews. Undeniably being for a warcrime.

Its not that ones clean and the others not.
Its that for some reason one has every germ (often the same ones) magnified and the other is covered in equivalent filth that somehow gets ignored.

[snaff]

This is why it's as much the Democrats' fault when Trump gets in. Even if they just put up an empty suit like Obama they could beat him easily, but they're putting up someone as severely compromised as Hillary just because she's political royalty and it's her turn.

[pogo]

This is why it's as much the Democrats' fault when Trump gets in. Even if they just put up an empty suit like Obama they could beat him easily, but they're putting up someone as severely compromised as Hillary just because she's political royalty and it's her turn.

She’s not though. She is probably the most qualified and experienced person for the job, in particular her experience as secretary of state makes her uniquely well prepared for international relations side of being president, while her time in the senate will serve her well in dealing with whoever the American public elect to Congress.

She is only perceived negatively because of Republican lies, trying to blame her for Benghazi, trying to make out that having an e-mail server at home was wrong. And misogyny: at least some of the attacks on her, on her appearance, her age, her “shrill” nature, are ones only made towards women.

Whoever Democrats had nominated Republicans would have spent many millions of dollars trying to destroy. Sanders might have fared far worse as his politics are much more fringe, easier to attack, and he is Jewish, and Republicans aren’t scared of using Racism, even anti-Semitism.