The New American Politics thread

[Lanny_McDonald]

An article on financing the Senate elections. Money is not a problem in politics. /snark

[Azure]

Money in politics is a problem for both sides.

Rich people donate to politicians so they can ask for 'favors' down the road. That is why campaigns should be publicly funded. If you want to donate, you donate into a giant pot that allocates the funds evenly.

Don't for a second think that Obama didn't have the same people coming asking him for favors that Bush had coming, or Clinton had coming, or any other President that caters to the rich.

In other news, Bernie Sanders wants to abolish private prisons and help prisoners reform. Can the man have a single bad idea?

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by Azure

Money in politics is a problem for both sides.

Rich people donate to politicians so they can ask for 'favors' down the road. That is why campaigns should be publicly funded. If you want to donate, you donate into a giant pot that allocates the funds evenly.

Don't for a second think that Obama didn't have the same people coming asking him for favors that Bush had coming, or Clinton had coming, or any other President that caters to the rich.

In other news, Bernie Sanders wants to abolish private prisons and help prisoners reform. Can the man have a single bad idea?

The incredibly depressing part is that I keep hearing people talking about Trump being a "breath of fresh air!" and yet painting Sanders' views as "extreme."

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

The incredibly depressing part is that I keep hearing people talking about Trump being a "breath of fresh air!" and yet painting Sanders' views as "extreme."

'Murica.

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by New Era

Then why bring up the red herring of George Soros and attempting to directly connect him to the happenings in Ferguson, knowing full well that he is not even remotely close to being the largest funder of political interests in the United States? Why bring it up? You complained that liberals always bring up the spectre of the Koch brothers, but you were the one that injected the money aspect into this discussion. Don't cry when you get pummeled with your own point.



See, there's the thing. You haven't provided any ying to the yang. You trotted out an example based on a bad narrative and got crushed. The worst example of what you find so detestable has been proven to be a relatively minor player in the grand scheme of political givings. Soros is #23 on the list of top benefactors, a list that does not include the Koch brothers because of how they hide their donations. To make matters worse, that list shows just how imbalanced political donations are in the United States.



I haven't commented on this at all. I've just been beating you over the head with your Soros strawman argument. My position on campaign financing and political givings is pretty straight forward. There should be no corporate givings (corporations are not people), and donations should be capped at $50 per donation. Democracy was founded on the concept of one man, one vote. That same concept should extend to political givings, where the entire playing field is leveled and the poor have just as much say as the rich.

Frankly, the whole system has been set up for the rich to assume control of the political mechanism. As soon as the courts made a mockery of the 14th amendment and corporations were granted personhood by Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, and then Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, we have been on a slippery slope to a plutocracy. With the recent ruling on Citizens United v. FEC, the flood gates have been opened and democracy has been pounded to a pulp. Now, one man, one vote, is a bit of a joke. When uber-rich benefactors can direct their corporate interests to fund campaigns we find ourselves existing in an illiberal democracy. The only way to fix politics is to get money out of it.



I have not picked a side. I've picked your argument to pieces. My personal point of view is way too complex to distill into a right versus left discussion. I don't buy into the BS of political parties and instead focus on issues, where both of the current parties in the United States are cut from the same cloth. Many of the big issues are not decided at the federal level, but are instead controlled at the state level. The big things for people to understand is that the President of the United States has little power when laws get passed at the state level. When enough states pass similar laws, they become defacto standards and are impervious to any direction or writ from any President. There are many groups out there that recognize this, which is why ALEC is the most powerful and important lobby in existence today. The real power in the United States is not found in the Oval Office. It is in special interests that control congress and state legislatures. Understanding these goings on gives you better idea of where the country is headed.

Please don't bring up the concept of double think. Do yourself that service. You have stepped into that cow pie twice now. You brought up the Soros line of thought, a tired and well worn narrative about a liberal billionaire ruining our democracy. That has been proven to be patently false as his givings are dwarfed by those on the conservative side of the ledger. You then brought up the fallacious Petroleo Brasileiro story, which really blew up in your face when it was discovered to be approved by conservatives, not who you thought it was. These two stories you accepted as fact, because of your particular political indoctrination, have drawn you directly into that double think scenario.



Already did.



Irrelevant to the discussion. I could easily inject into the conversation that conservative money and doctrine is causing a human rights situation in Africa with the systematic purge of rights and kills of homosexuals, but that is irrelevant to the conversation. It is a very important issue, but irrelevant to what is being discussed.



That's what you got out of reading that Snopes article? You should never use the term double think in one of your posts again. Your picture is now forever placed along side the definition of that term.



Uninformed. Irrational. Unfocused. Incoherent. Try and stay focused and on track. You're all over the place and your argument is coming down itself. Don't bring up an issue if you don't want to get slapped around with it. Don't cry foul when that argument is not what you think it is.



Answered above.



And why is it hilarious? Soros is much more transparent in his givings. In a complex system where dollars are the new ballot, I think we need as much transparency as possible. When people start hiding behind their foundations and 501(c) interests, we lose track of who is really influencing the system.

Sorry I missed this. You're right, my apologies. My first post should've read as...

I'm not a fan of either political party being funded by corporate entities.

[KelVarnsen]

Again really?

[jayswin]

You can't use the same meme twice in one thread, dude. C'mon, haha.

[peter12]

A Sanders/Trump race would be glorious.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

The incredibly depressing part is that I keep hearing people talking about Trump being a "breath of fresh air!" and yet painting Sanders' views as "extreme."

Interestingly enough, if you look at what Sanders is saying, he is more or less a 1950 socially liberal Eisenhower Republican.

Crazy how out of touch Americans are.

Canadians too for that matter.

[old-fart]

Honestly, I'd take any of the main three party leaders in Canada over any of the nuts currently running for the Republican nomination.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

Sorry I missed this. You're right, my apologies. My first post should've read as...

So you've got nothing then.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by old-fart

Honestly, I'd take any of the main three party leaders in Canada over any of the nuts currently running for the Republican nomination.

As much as I dislike Harper, I'd easily take him over any of the current clown car of candidates in the Republican party.

[ernie]

So the GOP news this current news cycle:

-Jeb says that anchor babies aren't a mexican thing, but it is for the asians.

-Trump welcomes Megyn Kelly back from vacation by calling her a Bimbo on twitter


I'd provide links but you all know it's true.

[Senator Clay Davis]

^ I assume you mean Trump welcoming Megyn Kelly back. And to be fair he didn't call her a bimbo....he just retweeted that someone called her a bimbo (and someone saying she looks as bad as Nancy Grace etc...). But it's amazing the Megyn Kelly thing could be the deathblow to Donald because he truly looks like a petulant child right now. This was dead and then he goes back on the offensive? World leaders are gonna walk all over him.

Oh and he has a -51 net approval rating with Hispanics and you'd think a very similar number with women. The Republicans lost the last election offending women and minorities away from the party, and now their current leader might be their biggest minority/women offender ever. Amazing they're destined to hand the Democrats another election.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

^ I assume you mean Trump welcoming Megyn Kelly back. And to be fair he didn't call her a bimbo....he just retweeted that someone called her a bimbo (and someone saying she looks as bad as Nancy Grace etc...). But it's amazing the Megyn Kelly thing could be the deathblow to Donald because he truly looks like a petulant child right now. This was dead and then he goes back on the offensive? World leaders are gonna walk all over him.

Oh and he has a -51 net approval rating with Hispanics and you'd think a very similar number with women. The Republicans lost the last election offending women and minorities away from the party, and now their current leader might be their biggest minority/women offender ever. Amazing they're destined to hand the Democrats another election.

Yes sorry Trump welcomes Kelly back. I'll edit.

I don't think I need to be fair. He may not have typed out the word bimbo but to retweet is the same thing as writing it in my books.

[Ducay]

Trump went on a huge troll fest this morning on twitter against his main rivals. Basically just laughing at their polls numbers and the like.

God the guy is entertaining.

[Senator Clay Davis]

The mind of a Trump supporter

“I think America is pissed. Trump’s the first person that came out and voiced exactly what everybody’s been saying all along,” one man said. “When he talks, deep down somewhere you’re going, ‘Holy crap, someone is thinking the same way I am.’”

Frank Luntz, a fast-talking Republican pollster who frequently appears on television and writes newspaper op-eds, urged them on. When did you first decide you liked Trump? he asked. And why are you mad as hell?

“When Trump talks, it may not be presented in a pristine, PC way, but we’ve been having that crap pushed to us for the past 40 years!” said another man. “He’s saying what needs to be said.”

“I used to sleep on my front porch with the door wide open, and now everyone has deadbolts,” one man said. “I believe the best days of the country are behind us.”

“I’m frustrated beyond belief. I feel like I’ve been lied to,” a woman said. “Nothing’s getting better.”

Many sounded like relations of an ill patient, furious that all the previous doctors have botched a test or fumbled the scalpel. To them, Trump actually is the real-deal fixer-upper, and he is going to make America great again.

“We know his goal is to make America great again,” a woman said. “It’s on his hat. And we see it every time it’s on TV. Everything that he’s doing, there’s no doubt why he’s doing it: it’s to make America great again.”

The focus group watched taped instances on a television of Trump’s apparent misogyny, political flip flops and awe-inspiring braggadocio. They watched the Donald say Rosie O’Donnell has a “fat, ugly face.” They saw that Trump once supported a single-payer health system, and they heard him say, “I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created.” But the group—which included 23 white people, 3 African-Americans and three Hispanics and consisted of a plurality of college-educated, financially comfortably Donald devotees—was undeterred.

The crowd in the room was angriest about national security. Nearly all of them, it appeared, had an unshakeable feeling that U.S. border was porous as a sieve and that the very things that once defined the nation: army, border and national pride—were fading. They complained of America’s reduced standing in the world, and Obama’s apparent ineptitude in challenging Russia, Syria and ISIS.

When the group listened to a clip of Trump claiming that as president “the military is going to be so strong” that “nobody is going to mess around with the United States,” nearly everyone registered approval on their dial meters of 100—a seldom occurrence among focus groups.

“We love our country and we love what our country stands for,” said a woman who added she comes from a military family. “I look at where we are now as a country where entitlements are just totally out of control. Our borders have completely dissolved. We’re not what we used to be. I want to people to represent my interest.”

http://time.com/4009413/donald-trump...p-frank-luntz/

[CaptainCrunch]

Its funny but I look at pretty much all the candidates on both sides, the Trump, the Jeb, the Clint, the possible Biden and the others.

Then I look at our leadership candidates, and I honestly think that our leadership qualities are just far better.

this is going to be a horrible and incredibly nasty campaign that will sound like a lot of chimpanzee's flinging poop at a fan.

American leadership is getting embarrassingly bad, there's not one candidate in the mix that I would call presidential.

[nik-]

Dear god ... it's no longer funny. New Hampshire, not some podunk state.

[Coach]

"the military is going to be so strong that nobody is going to mess around with the US"

I love stuff like this like they don't already spend more on military than all other developed nations combined. No one is challenging your military superiority, but you might want to take a long hard look at the violence rampant in your own nation before worrying about 'dem godless Muslims terrorizing you or those Latinos takin yer jerrrgnbs!