The 2016 US American Election Thread

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

biases aside, do you guys think the moderator was fair or unfair?

I don't think he was unfair in the way he handled the candidates during the discussions, but I do think that there's a legitimate gripe in that he asked a couple pointed questions to Trump: tax returns, birther comments, and about Clinton not having the right look for a president, and from what I recall the closest thing he had to a pointed question for Clinton was regarding her comments regarding police bias.

That said, Trump absolutely butchered most of those questions, which should be the absolutely lowest-hanging fruit in your debate prep. He actually did okay on the looks question at first by turning it around to stamina, but then Clinton owned him on her reply to it.

[Drak]

Originally Posted by street pharmacist

since when has cruz had principles? He would juggle trump's balls in his mouth of he thought it would mean political points. He was only strongly opposed to trump because he thought that would help him

lol

[Izzle]

Clinton with that hot fire:

https://twitter.com/davidmackau/stat...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

OH SNAP!

[GirlySports]

but that says something about the republican party doesn't it? When Cruz was the first to announce everyone thought it was a joke.. ah it won't last. Then everyone thought Trump was a joke. And they were the last two standing. How did this happen?

[Senator Clay Davis]

He. Only. Hires. The. Best. People.

Hillary Clinton’s decision to stand by her husband and attack former White House intern Monica Lewinsky when news of a sexual relationship between the two broke in 1998 prove that the former secretary of state is “too stupid to be president,” Rudy Giuliani said Monday night.

The former New York City mayor made the remark, captured on video and posted to Twitter by Elite Daily writer Alexandra Svokos, in response to a question about Clinton’s attack on Trump’s past comments about women. Giuliani defended Trump, labeling him a “feminist” because of how he treats the women he employs, and said he would have responded to Clinton’s attacks much more harshly than the GOP nominee did.

“I sure would’ve talked about what she did to Monica Lewinsky, what that woman standing there did to Monica Lewinsky, trying to paint her as an insane young woman when in fact Monica Lewinsky was an intern,” Giuliani said. “The president of the United States, her husband, disgraced this country with what he did in the Oval Office and she didn’t just stand by him, she attacked Monica Lewinsky. And after being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didn’t know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then you’re too stupid to be president.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...#ixzz4LTnEbmwf

[nik-]

https://twitter.com/JoshMalina/statu...90171708207104

[Senator Clay Davis]

Overnight numbers in, 80 million viewers and amazingly it was a very consistent number, not like it peaked and went down, it was close to 80 million the entire debate. Obviously that's horrible news for Trump.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

The horrible news is when they cut that performance to make about ten new campaign ads. The taxes thing is one. Every time he says "wrong" or "I never said that", followed by him saying exactly that, is another. It was a bit of a goldmine for anyone who wants to edit statements out.

[Senator Clay Davis]

LOL even the Fox & Friends hosts are wondering what the #### he's doing

https://vine.co/v/5rmYIAPXbb2

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

as outrageous as the debate seems to be, today we are remembering Trump soundbytes and not Hillary's points.

Trade deals killing us
Jobs going away
30 years done nothing
prepared politicians all talk no action

He should have destroyed her on cyber attacks though.

I listened to it while driving, mostly it sounded like my mum dealing with my drunken rambling slightly aggressive uncle after Christmas dinner, i was waiting for her to shout out from the kitchen 'oh shut up you idiot, if you didn't drink so much she wouldn't have left you'

[Ducay]

As an accountant and business person, Hillary annoyed the hell out of me with a lot of her attacks. Playing them up because they sound bad, but are pretty darn typical for anyone with half a brain and any business acument.

"You owe other people $650 million dollars!"

- Ya, that sounds about right. I would expect a multi-billion dollar company to hold at least that much debt. You'd be a terrible business person not to.

He might have paid no personal taxes

Again, good on him if so. Why would he volunteer to pay taxes based on the current system? He owned up to this one quite well, explaining he is in the business to make money for his company, but the average Joe doesn't understand how taxes work.

Someone did work for him and he didn't pay them!

For a multi-billion dollar real estate, property management company, and tourism company who is probably paying upwards of a thousand contracting companies a day, if all they can dig up is 4-5 unpaid contractors, that's amazing of them. Look at any public corporation regardless of industry and you'll find triple that at any point litigating them over unpaid work. There are a host of reasons, and to blame it on the CEO directly is a joke. You think he personally inspects all the work & services performed and cuts each and every cheque?

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by Ducay

....Again, good on him if so. Why would he volunteer to pay taxes based on the current system? He owned up to this one quite well, explaining he is in the business to make money for his company, but the average Joe doesn't understand how taxes work....

All true, but it sounds bad when a billionaire running for president says he doesn't pay "because I'm smart" while lots of Americans are suffering financially.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

All true, but it sounds bad when a billionaire running for president says he doesn't pay "because I'm smart" while lots of Americans are suffering financially.

He could carry that argument one step further, and talk about how managing his tax burden so efficiently has allowed him to employ x many more workers.

[station]

I encourage everyone to read the debate transcript. Trump's quotes in black and white are a gold mine.

http://wpo.st/oYH02

His worst segment by far was, predictably, the race segment. He:

1) Promoted stop and frisk, somehow suggesting gun control is a good thing but only for minorities. When pressed on the unconstitutional nature of stop and frisk he offered:

TRUMP: "No, you're wrong. It went before a judge, who was a very against-police judge. It was taken away from her. And our mayor, our new mayor, refused to go forward with the case. They would have won an appeal. If you look at it, throughout the country, there are many places where it's allowed."


2) When asked about birtherism he predictably attempted to pin it on Clinton. When the follow up offered him a chance to directly speak to the black community about it he says:

TRUMP: "Well, it was very -- I say nothing. I say nothing, because I was able to get him to produce it. He should have produced it a long time before. I say nothing."


3) When accused of racial profiling with his first real estate business he offered the rock solid excuse that hey everyone was doing it.

TRUMP: "Now, as far as the lawsuit, yes, when I was very young, I went into my father's company, had a real estate company in Brooklyn and Queens, and we, along with many, many other companies throughout the country -- it was a federal lawsuit -- were sued. We settled the suit with zero -- with no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do."


4) Praised himself for allowing minorities at his fancy club in Palm Beach as if this were an exceptional thing to do in 2016. Possibly my favourite quote of the debate:

TRUMP: "I'll go one step further. In Palm Beach, Florida, tough community, a brilliant community, a wealthy community, probably the wealthiest community there is in the world, I opened a club, and really got great credit for it. No discrimination against African- Americans, against Muslims, against anybody. And it's a tremendously successful club. And I'm so glad I did it. And I have been given great credit for what I did. And I'm very, very proud of it. And that's the way I feel. That is the true way I feel."


I mean, could that possibly have gone any worse? I guess he didn't use any racial slurs at least. How is he even going to get 1% of the black vote?

[PsYcNeT]

Trump's new economic stimulus plan: hire shady accountants for everyone

[Senator Clay Davis]

The tax burden thing sort of depends on whether he's committing tax fraud through his foundation, which is looking increasingly likely. So is his tax burden reduced legitimately is a much better question to ask. If it gets it down to zero through fraud, kinda different. Of course he could release his taxes and we'd know for sure, but obviously that won't be happening.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

He should release those tax returns, so we can all learn from the master and make America great again!

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Ducay

As an accountant and business person, Hillary annoyed the hell out of me with a lot of her attacks. Playing them up because they sound bad, but are pretty darn typical for anyone with half a brain and any business acument.

- Ya, that sounds about right. I would expect a multi-billion dollar company to hold at least that much debt. You'd be a terrible business person not to.

Again, good on him if so. Why would he volunteer to pay taxes based on the current system? He owned up to this one quite well, explaining he is in the business to make money for his company, but the average Joe doesn't understand how taxes work.

For a multi-billion dollar real estate, property management company, and tourism company who is probably paying upwards of a thousand contracting companies a day, if all they can dig up is 4-5 unpaid contractors, that's amazing of them. Look at any public corporation regardless of industry and you'll find triple that at any point litigating them over unpaid work. There are a host of reasons, and to blame it on the CEO directly is a joke. You think he personally inspects all the work & services performed and cuts each and every cheque?

Taken on their own, I don't think they're that bad, but taken together from someone asking to guide the nation's economy, they're awful. He admits to occasionally not paying people who work for him, apparently at a time when he's paying next to no taxes. And yet he's trying to make the argument that cutting taxes to big businesses will result in more and better-paying jobs. If you were trying to find an example to refute trickle-down economics, you really could not do better than his own business.

Also, it's a lot more than 4-5 unpaid contractors.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

The tax burden thing sort of depends on whether he's committing tax fraud through his foundation, which is looking increasingly likely. So is his tax burden reduced legitimately is a much better question to ask. If it gets it down to zero through fraud, kinda different. Of course he could release his taxes and we'd know for sure, but obviously that won't be happening.

I think if he was committing fraud, you would have heard about it by now, or it would have gotten out somehow. Plus, you'd have to be committing some magic fraud to reduce your tax liability via fraud on $600+ million income to nil.
Its all likely shelters, estates, and trusts that get him out of the taxes (for now), but again, looks bad to Joe Q. Public, but good on him.

Its the same thing with offshore companies. Public acts like its committing murder, smart people think its smart. Legal tax avoidance is something everyone should be thinking about.

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

He should release those tax returns, so we can all learn from the master and make America great again!

You would probably not learn all that much from the tax returns (honestly, you'll learn a lot more from all the financial disclosures he's already made). Hillary implied in the debate the taxes would show he might not be wealthy (again, not what tax returns are for).

His son actually gave a very candid answer to this. Releasing the tax returns would provide very little new good information, and would just become a distraction because there is a lot in there that can be taken the wrong way and made to look bad (like Hillary already has).

I'm sure he has some skeletons in his closet and tax returns, but that is half of his appeal.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Ducay

I think if he was committing fraud, you would have heard about it by now, or it would have gotten out somehow. Plus, you'd have to be committing some magic fraud to reduce your tax liability via fraud on $600+ million income to nil.
Its all likely shelters, estates, and trusts that get him out of the taxes (for now), but again, looks bad to Joe Q. Public, but good on him.

Its the same thing with offshore companies. Public acts like its committing murder, smart people think its smart. Legal tax avoidance is something everyone should be thinking about.

Actually that's sort of the thing, it's been him running his mouth about what an amazing charity case he is that has gotten him into trouble here since it started the look into the Trump Foundation. The Foundation itself appears to be nothing but a slush fund. Did they cross examine Trump's taxes against the Foundations? We'll see I guess if there's more to come out of this. If they haven't I'd say he's pretty well ####ed now.