StrangeSox

QUOTE (Tex @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 06:21 PM) There are long lists of reasons why both candidates are unfit. Because we are not talking legally unfit, those reasons are truly in the opinion of the person expressing them. I am as big a liberal as some on this board and I'm not dancing a jig heading to the ballot box. I'll toss out one reason why both candidates are wrong for America this decade. The President as a cheer leader for America. We are going to have four more years of a President that many people in America can not stand. Four more years of bitter partisan division. I'm not going to touch morals and ethics. With that criteria, isn't Lincoln one of the most unfit for office ever in 1860? His election drove a portion of the country to start an armed insurrection over slavery that would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. No matter who the R's or D's nominated, many people in America would not stand them. We're a country with pretty strong party polarization these days. There's a few past Presidents with decent overall approval ratings, but there's always a sizable portion of the country (40%+) that disapprove. And for whatever it's worth, Clinton is actually starting to creep up to 50/50 favorability ratings in a few recent polls. I'm not dancing a jig, either. I don't know how many "lesser evil" arguments I can post it would take to convince you guys I'm not exactly enamored with Clinton.

NBC/WSJ: Clinton +9 Marist/McClatchy: Clinton +15 Clinton camp also pulling out ad funding from VA and CO, their internals must show them walking away in those states. And then toss the NBC/WSJ +9 on top of that. We're in House-flipping territory right now.

Oh and don't forget that trump claims Muslims in America know about terrorist plots but don't come forward, which is almost as bad as when Clinton https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/761287385057484800

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 02:51 PM) 76-13=63, Clinton has a 63% lead among latino voters over Trump. Shining symbol of journalistic integrity Breitbart caught using a photo of Cleveland's NBA trophy celebration rally as a photo of a Trump Jacksonville rally On Trump's claims of watching a "top secret" video from Iran unloading that sweet, sweet cash. Spokeswoman: nope, he never saw a video Not exactly shocking that Donald "Top Birther" "I saw Muslims dancing on the streets in NY/NJ on 9/11" Trump completely made something up in his conspiracy-addled mind. Trump doubled down on having seen this video again today, proving once again that Clinton is just as unqualified.

76-13=63, Clinton has a 63% lead among latino voters over Trump. Shining symbol of journalistic integrity Breitbart caught using a photo of Cleveland's NBA trophy celebration rally as a photo of a Trump Jacksonville rally On Trump's claims of watching a "top secret" video from Iran unloading that sweet, sweet cash. Spokeswoman: nope, he never saw a video Not exactly shocking that Donald "Top Birther" "I saw Muslims dancing on the streets in NY/NJ on 9/11" Trump completely made something up in his conspiracy-addled mind.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 02:40 PM) Good think he had higher viewership. Good thing there aren't record numbers of latinos applying for citizenship in order to be able to vote this fall!

QUOTE (Ezio Auditore @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 10:05 AM) Trump had a very small bounce for a few days coming out of the RNC, but this is the only time after a convention where the nominee has a net negative decline in favorability. Clinton didn't repair all of her image issues - she never will - but the DNC helped her despite all the chaos and shouting. Related:

That was not name-calling, that was accurately pointing out what you do damn near every time and did again in that very post. You're still not defending your claims that Trump and Clinton are equally bad and equally unqualified to be President, that there are just as good of reasons to jump ship from Hillary as there are to jump ship from Trump. And, again, that's exactly what normalizing Trump looks like--pretending that he isn't completely outside the bounds of what an acceptable Presidential candidate looks like, and that someone like Clinton is in any way comparable. I think W. Bush was an incompetent, terrible leader but I'd take him over Trump in a heartbeat. For someone who likes to rail against talking points/memes, that's all you've been tossing out here--you're blind, you're biased, you won't see it because you don't want to! without any actually argument. The US Presidential system does exist in a two-party world and always will given the structure of first-past-the-post voting and even more so the Electoral College. You need a majority of EV's to be President or the vote goes to the House, so the forces that compel people to choose one of two parties and for those parties to build broad electoral coalitions are essentially overwhelming. Short of reaching the point of the system being irreparably broken and armed insurrection being justified (or being in a non-contested state, thanks again EC!), voting for one of the two parties that actually has a chance of winning is the only really useful way to use your vote. Even then, even if you reject that analysis and reject strategic voting and want to vote 3rd party/abstain, that doesn't require you to continually try to draw equivalencies between the two parties or candidates. You can think that Clinton is awful and refuse to vote for her without performing the gold-medal-winning mental gymnastics required to convince yourself she anywhere near as unqualified as Trump. This is the end game. I'm done responding to you dropping out these turds of a post time after time and never backing anything you say up. Rest assured knowing that I'm done responding to you in the subforum through at least the election.

Similar line of work?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 12:53 PM) lol. Sure. If you aren't even reading two sentences explaining my position, you aren't going to read anything else that you don't want to believe. You can keep carrying Hillary's dirty laundry and excusing her for everything. I sure don't expect to see any change in that. You didn't explain your position, though. You threw out some trite phrases. I'm asking you to make an argument to defend those statements, but unsurprisingly, you're refusing and instead trying to deflect it back on me. As if it's my fault you can't explain to me or anyone else who's asked you how you actually support your conclusions. Trump and Clinton are not in any way, shape or form equivalent. You cannot simultaneously point to Republicans making principled stands to publicly declare they're voting for Clinton unlike those dirty Democrats who vote party line all the time* and then also indirectly completely disparage those principles by trying to claim Trump and Clinton are on the same level. Either you don't actually grasp just how awful Trump is in pretty much every way and why he's uniquely unqualified for office, or you have such a burning hatred of Clinton that you can't possibly evaluate her, warts and all, rationally. Clinton hasn't: threatened using nuclear weapons tactically; threatened to ban an entire religion from entering the country; threatened to deport over 10 million people and build a ridiculous wall; promised to start a global trade war; threatened to abandon our allies; implied that nuclear proliferation is a good thing; been totally and deeply clueless about foreign and domestic affairs; promised to simultaneously deeply cut taxes, greatly increase military spending, provide a massive infrastructure spending program and balance the budget; talked about forcing bond holders to take a haircut; said she wanted to beat up protesters or RNC speakers; been completely unable to let any slight, no matter how small, go and ranted for days publicly about them; promised to use our military as a global protection racket; retweeted literal neo-nazis and received the widespread endorsement of white supremacists; attacked the family of a dead soldier because they called out statements on Muslims; expressed a desire to "open up" libel laws to sue anyone who criticizes her; suggested that the sitting President was not born in this country; suggested that, if she loses, the system is obviously rigged; asked a foreign government to directly and openly interfere in our election in his favor (cannot believe I forgot about that one, but that was already a week's worth of insanity ago). And that's just what I can get off of the top of my head. When you attempt to equate something like Hillary's use of an email server for at worst avoidance of FOIA requests (which is a s***ty thing to do!) with that garbage above, with giving a man as unstable and incoherent as Trump the keys to nuclear weapons and the largest military in the history of the world, that's normalizing Trump. *2000 election? Nope, never heard of it!

this quote/image combo is amazing

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 09:26 AM) Question: do we think Gary Johnson actually believes in switching to the gold standard or that is just the niche the libertarians have been able to corner so he has to deal with it? Just one of many, many examples of how nutty the Libertarian Party actually is.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 12:34 PM) My problem isn't the normalization of Trump. It is the normalization of Clinton. Using Trump as an excuse and/or justification for Clinton isn't something I can accept. Stop normalizing Trump and explain, in detail, why you think they are in any way equivalent.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 12:02 PM) Um, that people have different points of view? It isn't that difficult. Things like confirmation bias exist for a reason. Spell out your reasoning of why Clinton and Trump are equivalent. Stop trying to normalize Trump.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 11:06 AM) They don't care. That's why they don't see it. QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 09:11 AM) She is not actually doing the same things as Trump, though. If you or ss2k5 or anyone else is going to try to make that argument, I'll ask you to actually make a more detailed comparison rather than just a throw-away "a pox on both houses!" line. It's even more bizarre that you highlight Republicans making the same argument the rest of are, that Trump is so far beyond 'normal' that they can't in good conscience vote for him and will actually vote for Hillary Clinton, but still can't see it. If some Republicans think Trump is so bad that they'll vote for Clinton, doesn't that say something about the equivalence you keep trying to draw here?

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 10:42 AM) "I lost my legs in Iraq. I don't want Donald Trump as commander in chief." "NO LEGS, CAN'T EVEN WALK. SAD. SHOULDN'T HAVE STEPPED ON A MINE." I'm honestly a little surprised he hasn't taken Tammy Duckworth's bait yet:

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 10:06 AM) It's interesting. This will certainly regress, but usually after a convention where all time is consumed by one party, the next week the other candidate is like "OKAY BUT ME AGAIN" and people are like "Oh right, him/her, I like him/her" But with Trump it was like "Oh right, him..." Oh it will, but the ultimate dream scenario is that Hillary Clinton, target of seething white-hot conservative hatred for over two decades, is elected President with control of the House and Senate and gets to appoint 1-3 SC nominees. All because Donald J. Trump became their nominee. The only thing that would top that story would be a flashback epilogue along the lines of Usual Suspects showing Bill Clinton and Donald Trump planning out how to make it all come to fruition.

thanks guys for bringing some legit analysis to the thread

QUOTE (Ezio Auditore @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 10:05 AM) Trump had a very small bounce for a few days coming out of the RNC, but this is the only time after a convention where the nominee has a net negative decline in favorability. Clinton didn't repair all of her image issues - she never will - but the DNC helped her despite all the chaos and shouting. I think a lot of Republicans were waiting for Trump to finally pivot to the General Election, or to at least professionalize his campaign. Now that he's officially the nominee, reality set in and he's only made things worse over the following 12 days or so. We've got anecdotal evidence of multiple conservative/R-leaning people here, and last weekend I was genuinely shocked when my parents' rightwing friend who has shared...interesting views on the inevitable coming race wars was openly ripping Trump as a clown and a buffoon who might actually drive him to vote Clinton. His biggest motivator seemed to be Trump s***ting all over the military and not respecting the office of the Presidency or having respect for the powers and responsibilities it carries. QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 10:06 AM) It's interesting. This will certainly regress, but usually after a convention where all time is consumed by one party, the next week the other candidate is like "OKAY BUT ME AGAIN" and people are like "Oh right, him/her, I like him/her" But with Trump it was like "Oh right, him..." He's spent far more time in the week after the DNC attacking Republicans and promising to set up PACs to primary them than he's spent attacking Clinton. He just can't let anything go, ever. From that Fox News poll, every single demographic group including Republicans has at least a plurality thinking Trump's response to the Khans was "out of bounds," with every group except Republicans with a very strong majority against. also from that poll This is not the first poll to show Trump with 0-1% of the African-American vote.

yesssss

Holy moly this last week of polling for Clinton. After this morning's Fox News Clinton +10 poll, she's sporting a +5.9 average on RCP. The NYT has a really cool poll-tracking site, The Upshot. You get their model plus a regularly updated chart of what the other aggregators are predicting nationally and state-by-state, and if you scroll to the bottom, there's a neat "what-if" widget where you can see the paths to victory for each candidate by assuming one or the other wins a given swing state.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 09:41 AM) I love that normal parameters line. Yeah, O'Rourke can turn a phrase. Obama's way of putting it wasn't as witty, but I think it conveyed the same message: As much as Romney would do or say some silly things (trees are all the right height) and was running on policies I thought would be harmful and counterproductive, there was never really a question that he was competent enough to do the job. That makes me wonder what sort of effect Trump will have on future campaigns. How much will any politician be held accountable for a gaffe in the future if the near-constant stream of garbage from Trump is the comparison?

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 09:38 AM) But he was "false" more often. Either way, it shows party values. The 2012 GOP postmortem highlighted epistemic closure and a frequent fanning of the flames of Bircher-type stuff as sources of the party's problems. They've since launched a few more Benghazi investigations and nominated Donald J. Trump for President.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 09:30 AM) Why do you think this is remotely corrupt. These are the types of powers we've fallen back on giving to the exec branch/CIA (more often). We did in fact illegally enter their water space. It was resolved quickly and without escalation by a money transfer. That's...that's pretty much the best case scenario with an unfriendly regime. It's money that the US has been holding since 1979 when they made a weapons deal with the Shah shortly before the Iranian revolution. We never transferred the weapons, but we've been holding the money since and that's how it's grown to $1.7B with interest. It was sent as a literal pallet of cash because we have no formal banking ties with the Iranian financial system.