Caroline Kennedy --- 2020

[ericpmoss]

Trump is a dumpster fire of a human being, but there is one good thing about his tenure -- he is putting an accurate, ugly face on the kind of shit America has been pulling for decades under the cover of nicely groomed Presidents who talk pretty. Glass Steagal went away under Bill Clinton. The Telecom deregulation... Clinton. Super-predators... Clinton. Clinton even reached a deal with Gingrich to privatize Social Security that was derailed by the Lewinsky scandal (thank God for that). Fracking... Obama. Exporting fracking... Hillary Clinton. Wars of aggression... Bush Jr. Drone killing... Bush Jr, but expanded under Obama. 2 undeclared wars to 8... Obama. Arrests of whistleblowers and intimidation of journalists... skyrocketed under Obama. Skulls cracked at Occupy Wall Street but not a single criminal prosecution of "those bright lads" who crashed the economy... Obama. Meaningless words while Israel slaughtered Palestinians and stole land... all of them. Ajit Pai (destruction of net neutrality)... Obama. Spying on Americans... all of them. The list goes on and on. We need to stop swallowing the PR and examine the actual records of the people being offered up as 'acceptable' candidates, or we'll keep sliding downhill.

[choke]

Ask Montagu this: Who would he rather have as president right now, Trump or Clinton?

Since he's long deceased that might be a challenge.

I'm pretty sure you understood what I was saying but I'll make it more simple.....

People should vote for the candidate that they think is the best person for the job regardless of whether or not there is a (D), (R), or (insert other initials) after their name.

[ron l edmiston]

-- if clinton or trump the only to be offered up for the president of our country ---- what a disgrace...
i will salute C Kennedy...
always been a Bernie fan.., he has carried the banner for a long time.., just desire his age be reduced by ten+ years... damn, mine too...

ronnie

[King Of Dirk]

Fracking... Obama. Exporting fracking... Hillary Clinton.

Wait, what? Obama attempted to ban hydraulic fracturing on federal lands. What does "exporting fracking" mean?

[theflashunc]

Punching people you don't agree with isn't the way forward.

It's Donald Trump. He shouldn't be hard to beat!!! (in an election)

It is if they're Nazis. History's already proven polite discourse with them isn't the right way to go about things.

[BBB]

Oh dear.

Sarah Sanders says 'God wanted Trump to be president' - BBC News

Pretty sure that god fella said no adultery...so why was Trump paying hush money to prevent the fact (allegedly) that he was f*cking a call girl mere months after his wife giving birth being splashed on the front pages?

[Corso]

I'm finally please to see folks here stating why they didn't like Hillary. As much and as deeply as those hate Trump, that's exactly how I feel about the Clintons. They are the swamp.

So I was voting AGAINST Hillary, no matter who the Republican nominee was. Who knew it would be Trump? But he did win, so yeah, he's my President. I didn't care for Obama, but yeah, he was my President too.

I might have considered voting for Bernie. But that choice went away. Screwed by that same swamp.

Earlier is was brought up as to why would Trump bother (to run again)?

I'm more concerned as to which potential great President down the road may NOT choose to run after seeing the treatment Trump has received...


I'd love to see someone worth voting for from the Dems.

[murphy]

I'm more concerned as to which potential great President down the road may NOT choose to run after seeing the treatment Trump has received...

HA. When you shoot yourself in the foot (repeatedly), you shouldn't complain when the hospital bill comes due.

[bcm119]

This is why politics in this country is so messed up....people put the party above the individual. Once those politicians are elected they do the same thing, put the party line above the good of the country. If, for example, a D President advances an idea all the Ds line up behind it and the Rs oppose, yet if a R President advanced the same idea the Rs would support it and the Ds oppose it. It's all about the party and keeping the other side from 'winning'. As long as that continues to happen this country will continue to be a mess.


“That there cannot be a more certain symptom of the approaching ruin of a State than when a firm adherence to party is fixed upon as the only test of merit, and all the qualifications requisite to a right discharge of every employment, are reduced to that single standard.” ― Edward Wortley Montagu, Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks: Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain

Voting for politicians isn’t about the person you’re voting for at all. It’s about the millions of Americans who will be affected by the policies that politician supports. Whether a particular politician “deserves” the office is irrelevant when that office has potential to affect millions.

The two parties exist for reasons based soundly in political science. Most people generally fall within the D or R set of values, and the system reflects that. Being a D or R and voting accordingly may not be very cool or unique, but it’s rational and nothing to be ashamed of. The system actually breaks down (as we’ve just seen) when people take an irrational/emotional approach to the general election.

[theflashunc]

I'm more concerned as to which potential great President down the road may NOT choose to run after seeing the treatment Trump has received...

Because Hanging Obama in effigy was enlightened post-dinner discourse around the parlor?

This whole civility schtick gets old. Politics in this country has been bare knuckle and vicious and mean for longer than any of us would care to admit. It's the nature of a winner-take-all system that doesn't reward proportional representation. Look no further than the Election of 1800 to see some truly vile stuff thrown back and forth between Two Founding Fathers.

[Sbti]

Stable genius spouts off.

"There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

[ericpmoss]

Wait, what? Obama attempted to ban hydraulic fracturing on federal lands. What does "exporting fracking" mean?

Obama attempted to ban fracking on Federal lands after millions of signatures poured in to fight it. Good for him for doing that much, but the expansion of fracking continued to occur on his watch, as did use of eminent domain to steal farmers' land for pipelines whose fracked gas was headed to China. He also stood by while the DAPL protesters were being beaten by mercenaries, saying he'd 'let it play out'. He did go after BP financially for Deepwater Horizon, but sat by while the settlements got delayed and watered down, and did nothing while the dispersants were illegally dumped.

"Exporting fracking": Hillary Clinton’s Energy Initiative Pressed Countries to Embrace Fracking, New Emails Reveal

While she talked anti-fracking after the primary, her record is strongly on the other side. Same with anti-TPP rhetoric, and a lot of other things.

That's the problem I have with the "acceptable, serious" candidates we're being fed. They loudly talk one thing, but quietly do what their donors want in the areas that count the most. It's only when we are at the gates with sharpened guillotines that they listen to us.

[Sbti]

Lock who up?
Lock who up?

Goobers? Goobers? They a' comin'! Who be payin' for the wall?

[Corso]

Because Hanging Obama in effigy was enlightened post-dinner discourse around the parlor?

This whole civility schtick gets old. Politics in this country has been bare knuckle and vicious and mean for longer than any of us would care to admit. It's the nature of a winner-take-all system that doesn't reward proportional representation. Look no further than the Election of 1800 to see some truly vile stuff thrown back and forth between Two Founding Fathers.

I'm slightly puzzled by your response.

Let's say, if Liz Warren is the nominee, the media should start calling her a clown from the minute she announces? The press should start calling her names and Liz starts being the punchline for every editorial cartoon across the world? We should have the Republicans pay for a fake damaging report from France saying Liz has underage children sewing those blue & red blazers in the basement of her Cambridge mansion, and have Ms Harris tricked into presenting it to the FBI, and a special council investigation created, and that group looks into every foreclosed piece of property Liz purchased in her past to see if sewing machines were present, and every person she and her staff emailed during her tenure in the senate, paying attention if those emails were to anyone linked to a foreign country that may manufacture sewing machine, and then start arresting her Harvard friends in order to get them to testify about ANYTHING to justify the entire investigation, and after 2+ years still not link Liz to the original bogus charge?

And that would all be ok, as politics has always been "bare knuckle"?

Maybe you missed my point. So here it is:
Why would any say, successful person from the private sector, say a leader of a Fortune 500 company who have the intelligence to make a great president, bother giving up his or her comfortable lifestyle for one under an unfair-at-times microscope?

[theflashunc]

I'm slightly puzzled by your response.

Let's say, if Liz Warren is the nominee, the media should start calling her a clown from the minute she announces? The press should start calling her names and Liz starts being the punchline for every editorial cartoon across the world? We should have the Republicans pay for a fake damaging report from France saying Liz has underage children sewing those blue & red blazers in the basement of her Cambridge mansion, and have Ms Harris tricked into presenting it to the FBI, and a special council investigation created, and that group looks into every foreclosed piece of property Liz purchased in her past to see if sewing machines were present, and every person she and her staff emailed during her tenure in the senate, paying attention if those emails were to anyone linked to a foreign country that may manufacture sewing machine, and then start arresting her Harvard friends in order to get them to testify about ANYTHING to justify the entire investigation, and after 2+ years still not link Liz to the original bogus charge?

And that would all be ok, as politics has always been "bare knuckle"?

Maybe you missed my point. So here it is:
Why would any say, successful person from the private sector, say a leader of a Fortune 500 company who have the intelligence to make a great president, bother giving up his or her comfortable lifestyle for one under an unfair-at-times microscope?

Your question assumes business leaders would be effective at governing, which isn't the same thing. Howard Schultz is learning that hard lesson right now. Never mind this completely off-base characterization of the Mueller investigation, which has directly tied contacts from Trump campaign officials and advisers to Russian intelligence assets, and has tied Russian intelligence to the dissemination of the DNC email hack.

But you're asking a question that's ultimately unknowable and deeply personal, but I think being the leader of the free world appeals to a very base sense of ego. If you're posing it as why should someone run for public service, it's no different than asking why someone should run for city council or local dog-catcher. There has to be some belief in a participatory government that one could do some common good. At least I'd hope so. Anyone with two eyeballs can see that's not why the President ran, yet here we are.

Though I believe you've missed my point. You're opining for this nonexistent era of American politicking when people were nice and shook hands and never said a cross word about the other person across the aisle. We had a campaign as early as 1800 where one Founding Father was calling another Fouding Father slurs like a "half-breed mulatto" and the other responding that his opponent had a "hermaphroditic mind." This is also the campaign where one of the original dirty trickster's outed Thomas Jefferson's abuse of Sally Hemmings -- though in those days termed as some kind of relationship -- that would take 200 years to verify as truth.

If those kinds of politics can attract what we hold as the Gold Standard for American leadership -- and the underlying campaigning really hasn't changed -- it's a bit of a hollow argument to say we can't get the best and brightest anymore. The best and brightest have always been slinging mud at each other. Sometimes we just elect shitty Presidents.

[Corso]

You're opining for this nonexistent era of American politicking when people were nice and shook hands and never said a cross word about the other person across the aisle.

No. I' never said that, or even close to it. Politics are dirty and always will be. You expect that during a campaign.

But you have to admit, no president has been treated this way. Yes, I know, many feel it's deserved.
I'll respect that and call it a day.

I'm concerned that if big media, forums like this, foreign press, talk shows, citizens of New Zealand, etc get used to treating the Office of the President in this way, what happens to the next man or woman who wins the White House?

I'm looking past Trump on this.

[theflashunc]

No. I' never said that, or even close to it. Politics are dirty and always will be. You expect that during a campaign.

But you have to admit, no president has been treated this way. Yes, I know, many feel it's deserved.
I'll respect that and call it a day.

I'm concerned that if big media, forums like this, foreign press, talk shows, citizens of New Zealand, etc get used to treating the Office of the President in this way, what happens to the next man or woman who wins the White House?

I'm looking past Trump on this.

I don't see anyone protesting the Office of the President. If anything they're protesting how the man in the job is treating "the Office of the President" and the responsbilities that entails and lamenting how far he's fallen short of the standard others have shown in the gig.

[Corso]

Fair enough.

[mzilliox]

If you cannot see what a joke this all is... im not sure. Folks are not making fun of the "Presidency" big P, they are making fun of the president, small p. and the citizens who voted for this idiot. not even the office is enough to grant this guy some respect, he's done so much to disearn it all these years as reality TV b list "star" and playboy showoff. any poor treatment from anyone is fully deserved and fully earned thrice over. RESPECT is earned. not demanded or given lightly.

[Corso]

If you cannot see what a joke this all is... im not sure. Folks are not making fun of the "Presidency" big P, they are making fun of the president, small p. and the citizens who voted for this idiot.

So now we expand the criticism to your fellow Americans who excised their freedom to vote, freedom of choice.

Thank God for Democracy.

The real joke is that those who didn't want him elected F'd it up and lost. That anger is being projected to the winning side.
You didn't want Trump to win? Maybe you should have done more convince the "idiots"not to vote for him.

FYI: the country isn't doing as bad as some think, now is it?