U.S. Presidential Clusterfuckathon 2016

Strangways&Quarrel wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

It's interesting how so many people are shocked that Trump won. Clearly the majority voted in his favour, so I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised.

Granted, I am only getting my info from television in a country far, far away from the US, and we all know how the media manipulates information.

The media here in the U.S. seem like they are in an existential daze about the whole thing. They really underestimated and even scoffed at how angry the working class is in this country especially in the rust belt which handed him this election. They didn't take Sanders rise as a sign of what was to come and the Democrats thought it was a good idea running with an establishment bore like Hillary who blew it with things like this little speech.



Did she really think she could win "coal country" states like Pennsylvania when she's literally telling people in that part of the U.S. she'll put them out of work? When people are just trying to put food on the table they're not going to risk everything on an environmental policy gamble.

Who is "Tim" at the 00:16 mark? She looks like she's just realized she stuck her foot in it and tries to find a graceful way to back out of the comment.

She was a terrible candidate and I always felt she was imminently beatable, even if it weren't Donald Trump administering the beating (most of the Republicans who ran, I think, could have beat her except for maybe Jeb Bush). She provided no contrast or distinction between herself and Trump. Every horrible thing that you could say about Trump could also have been applied to either Bill, Hillary, or both. In a weird way that sort of neutralized her arguments against him because she was in no position to really cast stones.

She was, at best, reckless with national security classified information.

She used her "philanthropic" foundation as a slush fund to bankroll her lifestyle and sell access to foreign investors looking for a pipeline of influence into her administration (imagine the shock of all those million- -and-billionaires in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Brunei, etc....who wrote checks to Clinton Global Initiative and now have nothing to show for it except for the transcripts of a speech Chelsea gave about diarrhea in 3rd world countries)

Too close to the people she claimed she was going to reign in and regulate (Wall Street hedge fund types).

While Trump was going on MSNBC and taking incoming fire from their hosts, Hillary was refusing to take hard, but fair, questions from Megyn Kelly (though she might've done a short interview w/Bill O'Reilly; can't remember). She went for months without speaking to the press and seemed to be attempting to run out the clock.

Not good with working the rope-lines (unless they were being used to corral the press). Not good with ordinary folks.

Pandered too often and too easily; towards the end it was downright embarrassing (referring to black voters as a "firewall").

I mean, what does it say about her likeability that Trump was able to keep the contest as close as it was, much less win the electoral vote? This has to sting....badly.

Glad Georgia swung back red. The so called media-polls had Hildabeast ahead in every poll for months in this State and were so wrong.

By the way, Clinton News Network (CNN) coverage was noticeably subdued in its election coverage, they were far more animated covering the primaries than a General Election, clearly because their horse was a distant second.

Trump performed about as well as Romney did in 2012 in pure numbers, which says something about just how weak a candidate Hillary Clinton was.

Strangways&Quarrel wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

'I have post-apocalyptic survival plans, and let me tell you that they're just the best plans. The BEST plans'.

'Can we have details, Mr President?'

'Ummm ... '    

'I'm gonna build a bunker and make the apocalypse pay for it.'

'But sir, that's impossi ... '

'Shut up. I'm making destruction great again.'

I'm laughing, but it's in the spirit of the band on the deck of the Titanic playing on.

So it looks like Paul Manafort is the first to get a rose during Mueller's ceremony.

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Erica Ambler wrote:

What's he been charged with?

https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download

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Erica Ambler wrote:

Charged with money laundering, tax evasion, fraud and failing to register as an agent of the Ukraine? I thought Russia was in the dock?

So far the, Papadopoulos charge is more damaging to the Trump administration.

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People who are better at reading between the lines of these documents than I am claim there are strong indications that Papadopoulos was prepped to wear a wire during meetings with the Trump inner circle. Depending on who those meetings were with and what was said, that could be quite damaging to the Trump administration.

In other news, a Twitter employee deleted Trump's account on his last day. What are they gunna do, fire him?

https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/trumps-twitter-account-was-nuked-by-an-employee-on-their-last-day/

There is so much garbage going on in D.C. with both parties you have to wonder why a viable third party can't seem to get itself organized and compete for votes.

The sheer amount of corruption that's been going on in D.C. is staggering. Trump, Obama, Clinton, The DNC. The amount of legitimate scandals taking place is overwhelming; hard to track them all. We've got Trump Admin officials lying about what they were doing with Russia. Hillary lying about: funding a dossier sourced from Russian operatives that might be 100% bogus (who knows), rigging the Democratic primaries, and working to sell 20% of the uranium reserves to Russia (why?????).

I'm convinced Seth Rich was murdered for leaking documents to Wikileaks. I am convinced the FBI is forcing the LVPD to drag their feet in the investigation of the shooting in Las Vegas a few weeks ago (there is something the FBI desperately doesn't want the public to know about that shooting; I think Jesus Campos may have been an insider and quite possibly assisted in the set-up prior to the shooting).

Everything that comes out of Trumps mouth is stupid and requires hours of air time response by CNN and MESSNBC to the point where they're not giving Las Vegas or Set Rich any coverage right now.

Shaking my head.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

There is so much garbage going on in D.C. with both parties you have to wonder why a viable third party can't seem to get itself organized and compete for votes.

An idea that seems to come up frequently but never quite gets there.



Macaroni's party in France basically sprung up within the space of a year; granted it essentially pushes repackaged, inoffensive, neoliberal "centrism." I imagine the barriers to a third party succeeding in the US are much higher given the massive amount of corporate money that circulates through your polity. Trump may be about as close a thing to a non-party President as you'll ever get without a systemic shake-up.

CJB wrote:

Macaroni's party in France basically sprung up within the space of a year; granted it essentially pushes repackaged, inoffensive, neoliberal "centrism." I imagine the barriers to a third party succeeding in the US are much higher given the massive amount of corporate money that circulates through your polity. Trump may be about as close a thing to a non-party President as you'll ever get without a systemic shake-up.

Oh, I totally agree. He was, in essence, a 3rd party candidate; he ran with a party that really didn't want him officially. I think he would have even won if he'd run as a Democrat (a political party I believe probably lines up more with some of his only core beliefs). It's astounding that he won because he had almost no A-list Republicans endorsing him...ever. I mean, he won even when many of them came out against him publicly, particularly at the end when the "grab them by the p***y" tape came out and people like Ryan and McCain thought it was truly over and there was nothing to lose by slamming him.

I don't know if he'd run this exact same campaign 10-20 or 30 years ago if he could have won. Gary Hart had to give up his campaign over a picture of a pretty blond sitting on his knee. 4 years later Clinton was ready for it, fought what he knew would be dredged up, and won. He lowered the bar considerably in '98, and I think he, in part, has made it possible for a vapid, insecure, intellectual-light-weight sex offender like Trump to get into office. I mean, why should voters hold Trump to standards the Democrats weren't willing to hold Clinton to. In fact, Hillary was essentially neutralized when it came to Trump's behavior towards women because she'd stood by her rapist husband all these years. What could she really say?

When Trump criticized McCain for getting captured in Vietnam I thought it was over Boy, was I ever wrong.

Whenever Democrats want to bitch about Trump, I immediately flash back to 1989's Batman, when Batman responds to the Joker's accusation with this reply: "I made you? You made me first!".

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

When Trump criticized McCain for getting captured in Vietnam I thought it was over Boy, was I ever wrong.

They are like a dozen moments in his campaign like that.

It's pretty clear that his bull in a china shop offensiveness is part of his appeal to his base.

CJB wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

There is so much garbage going on in D.C. with both parties you have to wonder why a viable third party can't seem to get itself organized and compete for votes.

An idea that seems to come up frequently but never quite gets there.



Macaroni's party in France basically sprung up within the space of a year; granted it essentially pushes repackaged, inoffensive, neoliberal "centrism." I imagine the barriers to a third party succeeding in the US are much higher given the massive amount of corporate money that circulates through your polity. Trump may be about as close a thing to a non-party President as you'll ever get without a systemic shake-up.

*Sheds yet another tear for the long-past glory days of The Simpsons*

The McCain comments would've been a political death knell for anyone not named 'Donald' and/or 'Trump.' Right-wingers called Obama unpatriotic for having never served, saluting* Marines with a coffee cup in his hand etc., but apparently impugning prisoners of war is A-OK. There's also outrage-fatigue when it comes to his many offensive statements, so things get forgotten rather quickly.

*A tradition invented by Reagan. The President is not a uniformed (i.e. some sort of military headwear) serviceman and therefore shouldn't technically return a salute. I've noticed Draft-Dodgin' Don takes it even further and salutes back when members of foreign militaries salute him.

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Blunt Instrument wrote:

*Sheds yet another tear for the long-past glory days of The Simpsons*

The Simpsons used to be prescient without being preachy. Haven't watched an episode in an eternity, but I can only assume it continued to go downhill in the writing department and, rather than cleverly push envelopes, merely reflected the establishment liberal certainties of every other "comedy" in contemporary America.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Jimmy Carter's take on Trump is a bit more nuanced than most.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/opinion/sunday/jimmy-carter-lusts-trump-posting.html

Yes, read this the other day. Interesting statements. Suppose he lacks a personal reason to hate Trump with the intensity of the other ex-Presidents (the Bushes because he spanked Jeb, Clinton because he spanked that one woman he doesn't have sex with, Obama because he claimed he was born on Mars or something).

The movie was probably the last bit of funny-all-the-way-through Simpsons there was. Since the animation went CGI and HD, the show has truly lost it.

That said (in terms of the envelope-pushing thing), I'm told that a part of this year's Treehouse Of Horror in which Homer develops a penchant for cooking and eating bits of himself ruffled a few feathers due to the upped gore level.

I haven't watched the Simpsons in ages. At its peak, it was the best thing on television, clever and funny in equal measures. When I see a minute of the show in its current incarnation, it's almost sad to watch.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/928064591665467393

Ever thought you'd live to see the day a Republican President would praise a Communist dictator for becoming more dictatorial? Barry would never have lived a comment like this down.

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