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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Whatever her faults, she doesn't tweet like a 13-year-old boy. 

That thin-skinned 'president' can be baited with tweets and SNL sketches. He's the most immature adult male I've ever come across.
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Eric D., Hillary was NOT a terrible candidate... but she was not a man, not a Republican, and didn't resort to sensationalism to sell her product. She was not the best candidate, but that wasn't an option nor a discussion; the race always came down to who was the BETTER candidate (or least bad candidate, if you prefer.)

Donald Trump got lucky at the right time, and he picked his battle well. Who could the Democrats put up after Obama? And as a pretty good and pretty faithful civil servant, she also was a splendid target for the Republicans. Who could say anything bad about Trump's political policies? He had none! He STILL has none!

We're six months in, and EVERYBODY can see disaster looming on the horizon. The real question is what will be the structure in place after the catastrophe is passed.

I dread that whether the Republicans or the Democrats come out least damaged, we're still not out of the flames yet.
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Any chance you guys could just, even for four years, give another party a chance? Libertarians, Greens, etc. Could they do a worse job? 
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Neil Lindholm
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Ted Cruz would have been better than Trump, and that's saying something. 

And I agree with Robbie. Having only two parties just seems so strange. 
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Anthony J Lombardi
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply


Any chance you guys could just, even for four years, give another party a chance? Libertarians, Greens, etc. Could they do a worse job? 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
I'll give a chance to anyone that I think is right for the job. 
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Dave Phelps
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply


 QUOTE:
Libertarians, Greens, etc. Could they do a worse job?


Yes. In the last election the third party candidates were nicer than Trump, but not particularly better informed.

And if my concern is that platforms are getting too extreme (more an issue with the Republicans; the Democrats have ceded enough ground that they're basically centrist these days), why would I go for the parties whose whole purpose is to be more extreme?
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

 Positive jobs report, stock market breaking records, news of manufacturing plants being built will go a long way at the end of the day. 
------------------
The tail-end of a curve that lived most of its life under the watch of a Democrat President. A President who took the reigns under the direst of economic conditions.

Now, outside of the cycle of Democrat/Republican, there's this thing called the business cycle. It tends to do its thing no matter who is president. Policies can maybe jiggle and stretch its wave pattern, but they don't fundamentally alter the inevitable.

I'd be interested though: what policies that Trump has implemented do you think have pushed the stock market to a high and caused manufacturing plants to be built? What is the lead time for work to begin on a manufacturing plant from that first decision to give the green light? How long does it take to design the plant, submit the paperwork, get the go ahead and contract the workers? Under 8 months?


Edited by Peter Martin on 04 August 2017 at 8:36pm
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Matt Reed
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

 Neil Lindholm wrote:
Ted Cruz would have been better than Trump, and that's saying something.

No, he wouldn't have been better than Trump.  Cruz is an ideologue.  So is Pence.  Both scare the shit out of me.  They may not be as publicly abhorrent as Trump, but they both come with their own brand of crazy with the added benefit of being able to actually work within the system to get legislation passed, something Trump has been unable to do for six months and counting.  Cruz would have been just as awful as Trump, but you wouldn't have known how awful until the snake was already in the garden.
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Matt Reed
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Posted: 04 August 2017 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

 Peter Martin wrote:
I'd be interested though: what policies that Trump has implemented do you think have pushed the stock market to a high and caused manufacturing plants to be built?

None.  Zip.  Zero.  Neither he, the House or the Senate have passed any meaningful legislation in the six months since he's been president.  He can no more take credit for it than I can take credit for the Dow reaching record heights.

But such has it always been.  The first year at least of a new president's tenure is built upon the back of the president they succeeded.  Obama's policies didn't end on Election Day 2016.  The effect they had didn't suddenly expire when Trump took office in January.  But politicians of any stripe will take credit for them because they happened "under their watch".  Take that with a huge grain of salt.  
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Brian Peck
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Posted: 05 August 2017 at 2:44am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

The stock market is doing well because companies are reporting good
quarterly profits, so that will help continue the growth in their stocks and the
stock market.
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 05 August 2017 at 6:33am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Robbie, there is an opportunity for a legitimate third party candidate... but they will never get any chance until old white men* stop running things. The candidates all have to be wealthy and well treated and recognized by the media. 

As a totally random example, let's select my mailman. I barely know him, but I know he's white and male. He could be a great guy... terrific personality, smart as a whip, very aware of the foreign affairs and relations, a financial genius, an expert on sociology and cultural matters, and more patient than Job. And he is completely part free in his positions on all matters national and international. He's both (or more importantly, neither) liberal or conservative.

He'd make a perfect president in an ideal world; but he isn't even known by Channel 19 news. He is not wealthy; he is not even an entity to Big Business; he can't even get a free cup of coffee at Wendy's.

If, say, the Libertarians are interested in a viable candidate, he is perfect; but they don't even recognize him when he brings them the mailed in surveys and analyses.

At this moment in America, money talks, media amplifies... and if a potential candidate is not a member of a very small group, they have ZERO chance of getting nominated, let alone elected.

Part of our problem is that, while the electoral college does not work anymore, some of its inherent wisdom is still correct - that the average person on the street isn't smart enough to select a lunch choice, let alone a president.  ONLY HALF of the population votes, and of that, fully half were hypnotized by a bad mesmerist and inadequate liar, and an all-around terrible person.

The USA is predicated on the idea that the country of the people, by the people, and for the people is perfectly capable of acting intelligently and in its best interest... but that hasn't seemed to bear out for the past few decades.
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 05 August 2017 at 8:33am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

I suspected as much. And it's the same here with two corrupt parties (one of which is forever having "civil wars") running things.

It drives me mad. 

I also hate how some commentators on Twitter attacked those who voted for third party candidates. One comic creator, who SHALL remain nameless, referred to such voters as scum. That's helpful, eh? If he thought about it for a minute, perhaps he'd empathize and realize that maybe those voters were fed up with decades of Republican and Democrat corruption. 

Perhaps they'd been fed up with the Clinton era. Perhaps they'd been fed up with George W. Bush and the whole Iraq War thing. I prefer not to judge people who vote for other candidates.

The electoral college system has never made sense to me, by the way. I understand the semantics, but it seems grossly unfair. For every good thing about it, I feel I can name a dozen things that are bad.
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