Election 16: Donald Trumps wins Presidency. God Help us all!

[visionary]

My God, are they talking to Trump again?

[Destino]

If you missed the debate, the video of the best part is here

http://gawker.com/watch-three-candidates-for-president-get-into-a-slap-fi-1761419261

My God, are they talking to Trump again?

Anderson Cooper said during his coverage of the Nevada primary that the networks constantly ask candidates to come on and Trump is the one that agrees most often.

[visionary]

Anderson Cooper said during his coverage of the Nevada primary that the networks constantly ask candidates to come on and Trump is the one that agrees most often.

Between interviews they were following him around for like 10 minutes in the background while they were discussing among themselves about the debate.

[Dan T.]

The funniest point of the night was Trump after the debate talking to Jake Tapper and saying that he was being audited by the IRS because he was a Christian.

Second funniest was the that the entirety of Trump's health care policy seemed to consist of erasing the lines around the states. Oh and saving all those people dying in the streets.

Jesus god almighty, has there ever been such an empty suit that advanced this far in the Presidential process?

[JMS]

Except we didn't do that in either place....

Buy a newspaper sometime, President Obama did follow Hillary's advice in Libya and Libya is a disaster.

Yes she got rid of Quadaffi, but she had no plan for what came next. And we currently do have special forces boots on the ground in Syria conducting operations just as Hillary was advocating for. Hillary wants to double down on that policy..

So you are wrong.. we are doing "that" in both places.

Trump and Cruz's policies (what there are of them) are quite different from everyone else's.  Trump's is incoherent nonsense wrapped around using torture for fun and pissing everyone off.  And of course Cruz wants to carpet bomb everywhere and prop up dictators at all costs and make everyone hate us.

Trump, Cruize, Rubio, Kasich and Hillary all have the same exact policy in Syria. They want to mainly use air, and arm a sunny army from Saudi / Jordan to do the actual fighting... Hillary also has this same policy except she wants to double down with special forces doing select operations. All of these policies are policies for a decades long civil war ending in defeat.

[JMS]

Second funniest was the that the entirety of Trump's health care policy seemed to consist of erasing the lines around the states. Oh and saving all those people dying in the streets.

? It's called a free market. Ever heard of that? The most efficient system for delivering goods to the population? We haven't used it since what the 1930's in this country for healthcare delivery as we have an anti trust in place which restricts insurance companies from competing across state boundaries.. ( The McCarran–Ferguson Act ). Trumps idea to repeal McCarran-Ferguson isn't a particularly novel approach. Many conservatives have suggested this as a first step to meaningful healthcare reform.

I don't think it goes far enough, but it's hardly a fringe idea.

As to the Constitution, I agree it is open to interpretation ( Supreme Court, even Scalia did), but the fact that amendments exist shows the drafters understood it was not an absolute document that could foresee all future possibilities.

The constitution not only is open to interpretation, you've got to interpret it. The commerce clause for example Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution reads. [The Congress shall have Power] "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes"; How can you not interpret that?

Kasich advocates locking Apple executives in a room with government officials until they agree.

Thats a page out of J.P. Morgan's book. Before we had the Federal Reserve. We had JP Morgan.

[twa]

My god, Ted Cruz is one unlikable guy. It astounds me that somehow there is another person on a stage with Donald Trump who is even less likable than him. 

 

"If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, no one would convict you." -- Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

 

 

[JMS]

WE didn't take manageable stable enemies and turn them over to anybody.  It has happened, and we've tried to prevent them from being turned over to genocidal religious fanatics, whether we've done a good job of preventing it is another question, but it was something that was happening on its own with or without us.

Quadaffi was strong enough to resist his opponnets. In Libya we were the ones who went in with overwhelming air and crushed Kadaffi. We cased his collapse and that was as far as our plan went. After the collapse we had no plan.

In Syria pretty much the same plan.. "Ready, Shoot, Aim".. that's our plan. There are about 30 groups fighting in Syria. Our stupid plan is to basically ignore the complexity and use our air force very sparingly to annoy ISSIS. We aren't hitting Bashar al-Assad, nor are we arming al-assad's enemies. We have no end game. We are just their to annoy ISSIS. That's our plan? Meanwhile, Turkey is thinking about brining back the Odoman empire and add part of Syria to Turkey, Russia is thinking about recreating the Soviet union and expanding their boarders. ISIS wants a state.. and we are just sitting their watching it happen with no plan of our own other than to annoy ISSIS.

 

I think visionary's point is that while Libya is bad, it is actually better than Syria, and it could have been as bad as Syria if we didn't do the things that we did.

 

Essentially compared to Syria at least Obama (and Hillary) did a good job with Libya.

Libya is a disaster, it's just a smaller disaster because Libya is a smaller country.

"If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, no one would convict you." -- Lindsey Graham (R-SC)[/size]

 

[/size] [/size]

Let's caesar him! March 15 is only 3 weeks away!! Et Tu Bernie!!

[twa]

Let's caesar him! March 15 is only 3 weeks away!! Et Tu Bernie!!

 

Maybe Trump can shoot him while visiting

[Destino]

Is there a website dedicated to tracking how high the Trump wall is at this point? I've heard him say "the Wall just got 10 feet taller" a few times and tonight he said it was as high as the room they were in. So it's got to be at least 30 feet high by now right? I need a info graphic dedicated to tracking this.

[JMS]

Because I actually know what happened in 2002, with the false intelligence generated by the Paul Wolfowitzes and Doug Feiths and Scooter Libbys and Elliot Abrams's and Richard Perles that controlled the security apparatus in the Bush Admiistration.  I know how they filtered and edited all of the reports to reflect their prejudices and assumptions, and how those top secret reports were the ones that the members of the United States Senate were given before they voted to authorize military action in Iraq.  

 

Joe Biden and Maria Cantwell and Chris Dodd and Tom Daschle and John Kerry and Diane Feinstein and Harry Reid and the other couple of dozen Democratic senators who voted for the resolution are not all crazed warmongers.  They saw stuff in those intelligence reports - stuff that was not true - but they thought it was true and they voted accordingly.  

 

It's not just black and white.

What you are saying is true, but don't you think the 21 Senators who saw the exact same evidence and came to the right conclusion deserve credit?

The Ted Kennedy's.

Barbara Boxer

Robert Byrd

Rus Feingold

Danial Inouye

Patrick Leahey

Carl Levin

Barbara Milkulski

and

Bernie

I mean your statement that everybody in the country wanted to go to war ( because we were all lied too ) excuses a wrong vote. I would argue it's the exact other way.. A leader doesn't depend upon the electorate to make up her / his mind. A leader makes his / her own decision and brings the country along to it. That's my biggest problem with Hillary, and it's one of Bernies biggest positives. He Leads.

Maybe Trump can shoot him while visiting

Yeah, only the Senate would convict Trump. There would be one bullit hole and 99 stabbings and Trump would get the chair.

[JMS]

1. The invasion of Iraq would be a preemptive war against a non-aggressor.

2. Diplomatic means had not been exhausted. UN weapons inspectors were in Iraq.

3. There was virtually no international support. The UN opposed the invasion.

4. There was no clear objective, no strategy for achieving that objective, and no exit strategy.

Yeah I don't know.. I was for the war in Iraq. I had been against it, I was living in Riyadh Saudi Arabia and stayed up to 3 am to watch Colin Powel's speech to the UN. I came away from that speech thinking If the Secretary of State tells me we have to do this thing, then we do this thing. He's telling me if I knew what he knows I would support it. And I trusted him. That was Feb 5 2003, March 15th we invaded.. April 3, 2004 Powell was claiming he was mislead.

As for your points..

(1) The invasion of Iraq would be pre-empitve. Most Americans, Republicans, Democrats and Independents believed Saddam was behind 911. That's what we had been told. So most supporters didn't believe it was a pre-emptive war.

(2) The weapons inspectors had been discredited though. We were being told they were ineffective.

(3) The UN opposed the invasion?.. The UN sanctioned the invasion. UNSC Resolution 1441 was passed Dec 2002 as a One last chance for Iraq to comply with the disarmiment agreements passed over the previous decade.. their were like 10 of them. That was pointed to by the administration and UK as a sanction for the war. Folks still argue about that, but at the time even Hillary pointed to that as justification for the war.

(4) No clear objective... Actually we had a clear justification on the eve of the invasion.. 9/11.. we had like five or six of them over the next few years. As one would fall away, the administration would bring out a new one. That Iraq was behind 9/11 fell apart when Richard Clark's ( administrations anti terror Czar) wrote his book and flat out said.. No evidence of Saddam ties to Al Quada.. refuting what the administration had been telling us for 2 years. And then after the invasion George Bush backed up Clark and admitted he had not seen any evidence. Dick Cheney however continued to claim a link and ties right up until 2009.

So all of your points are right in 2016, but in 2003 we didn't know any of that. The administration was actually paying journalists to write stories to support the lead up to the war.. The were planting stories in the NY Times about Iraq's nuclear capabilities.

I think it took real conviction for the democrats who said no.. to take that stance... Just like I hold the administration responsible, I give a lot of credit to those Democrats who did not sign the war resolution.

Hillary's and Bernie's Speeches on the Iraq War Vote

[RedskinsFan44]

Is there a website dedicated to tracking how high the Trump wall is at this point? I've heard him say "the Wall just got 10 feet taller" a few times and tonight he said it was as high as the room they were in. So it's got to be at least 30 feet high by now right? I need a info graphic dedicated to tracking this.

I think it started at 40. How much does it cost to make it 10 feet taller? Mexico better shut up before they wipe out their entire trade surplus.

[Burgold]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/two-former-mexican-presidents-take-aim-at-trump-and-his-stupid-wall/2016/02/25/2e48b57e-dc14-11e5-891a-4ed04f4213e8_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_trump-mexico-834%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

MEXICO CITY — Two former Mexican presidents said in separate interviews with The Washington Post that the xenophobic rhetoric of Donald Trump and the other Republicans running for president has damaged U.S.-Mexico relations and changed the way many Mexicans view Americans.

Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, who led Mexico from 2000 to 2012, said that insults from the Republicans — along with the rapturous reception such comments receive at huge rallies — show a new, alarming strain of anti-Mexican racism.

“Trump is saying stupid things, but the problem is that 40 percent of Republicans say, ‘Yes, you’re right,’ ” said Fox, 73, a former Coca-Cola executive who has long identified with the Republican Party. 

[RedskinsFan44]

Rubio on the Today Show: "Trump is a con artist, a fraud, we have to stop this lunacy"

[Burgold]

Rubio on the Today Show: "Trump is a con artist, a fraud, we have to stop this lunacy"

He's not wrong... but the question is whether Rubio or Cruz are any different? Fraud is best attributed to Cruz, I suppose.

[chipwhich]

He's not wrong... but the question is whether Rubio or Cruz are any different? Fraud is best attributed to Cruz, I suppose.

 

lol the Republicans have to put up a con artist to compete with the biggest con artist politician of them all, Miss Hillary.

[RedskinsFan44]

I suspect the GOP establishment about to unleash a general election style negative campaign against Trump.

[Burgold]

I suspect the GOP establishment about to unleash a general election style negative campaign against Trump.

What the GOP leadership need to measure is how much damage they will do to their general election chances if they go all in against Trump. He seems a pretty vindictive guy. More, he has a pretty large and steady number of supporters. Supporters who are voting.

 

I don't know if they will retrack to Rubio or Cruz. They might follow Trump to a third party or they might say "Screw them all" and stay home.

 

There's always danger from fallout if you go nuclear.

[chipwhich]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-25/why-hillary-clinton-cannot-beat-donald-trump

 

Why Hillary Clinton Cannot Beat Donald Trump

Instinctively, Hillary Clinton has long seemed by far the more electable of the two Democratic candidates. She is, after all, an experienced, pragmatic moderate, whereas Sanders is a raving, arm-flapping elderly Jewish socialist from Vermont. Clinton is simply closer to the American mainstream, thus she is more attractive to a broader swath of voters. Sanders campaigners have grown used to hearing the heavy-hearted lament “I like Bernie, I just don’t think he can win.” And in typical previous American elections, this would be perfectly accurate.

 

But this is far from a typical previous American election. And recently, everything about the electability calculus has changed, due to one simple fact: Donald Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee for President. Given this reality, every Democratic strategic question must operate not on the basis of abstract electability against a hypothetical candidate, but specific electability against the actual Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

 

Here, a Clinton match-up is highly likely to be an unmitigated electoral disaster, whereas a Sanders candidacy stands a far better chance. Every one of Clinton’s (considerable) weaknesses plays to every one of Trump’s strengths, whereas every one of Trump’s (few) weaknesses plays to every one of Sanders’s strengths. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, running Clinton against Trump is a disastrous, suicidal proposition.

 

[Switchgear]

I was going to try to get a "TrumpIsAids" hashtag going, just to see if it would catch on, but I realized that it's too inaccurate. Our political immune system is informed voters, capable of critical thought. The AIDS that destroyed that is the decline of public education. Trump is just the first virus to come along after AIDS, sadly.

[Burgold]

I was going to try to get a "TrumpIsAids" hashtag going, just to see if it would catch on, but I realized that it's too inaccurate. Our political immune system is informed voters, capable of critical thought. The AIDS that destroyed that is the decline of public education. Trump is just the first virus to come along after AIDS, sadly.

Designer virus. The Right has been spending decades manufacturing Trump via FOX news, Talk Radio, Tea Party. Someone like him was the inevitable outcome.

 

All hate and invective. No ideas. We might be lucky though. Trump may not have been the worst outcome of that caustic stew  that they've been brewing. He's just the first viable eye of Newt that fell out of the cauldron.

[tshile]

i passed out at 7 last night. slept until 6. been sick.

sounds like i missed a hell of a debate.

[RedskinsFan44]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-25/why-hillary-clinton-cannot-beat-donald-trump

Seriously?  After last night you still believe Trump is an unstoppable force?  He was exposed as someone who has no actual plans to do all the things he says (which is obvious if you ever try to find his policy statements via Google, but most people don't want to spend the time).  I can't imagine him in a one on one debate, he will run out of talking points in 15 minutes. 

[skinsmarydu]

i passed out at 7 last night. slept until 6. been sick.

sounds like i missed a hell of a debate.

Feel better in knowing that you missed a **** show.    I tuned in right after the FSU/Duke game, and just in time for all the "fun".   After all the yelling stuff, I fell asleep.