surprisingly wher I live in NJ, a whole bunch of us commute and work in NYC, in what I call deacent neighborhoods I see tons more Trump signs than anythimg else. the occasional NJ for Hillary and very near to me a Jill Stein (former Bernie fan). the street that really set the tone for me was a street i took my kids to tricker treat on a while ago, total leave it to beaver and these people can't be hurtin...all trump
The people in Oregon who armed themselves and occupied federal land were just released from jail, while people who weren't as white and not as well armed were arrested in North Dakota for protesting near a street (not taking federal property) because they're concerned about maintaining a clean water supply. I suppose the government's message is that we should all be armed to the teeth. Big win for the nra today.
I don't know Olaf. Maybe your armed revolution really is coming.
curt, based on the Moore piece linked earlier, a vote for Trump is "legal terrorism". the biggest trick the federal government ever played on the US citizens is National Securty uber alles, where protest beyond beauracratic means is classified criminal and even worse an act of terrorism. and once you are classified a "terrorist" all rights out the window, you are not even human. and just like the media of today, whatever narrative they want to justify their accussations of anyone that offends their story telling at the time, they will spin well intended rational thoughts into insanity, thus rendering it all meaningless subjective emotionally driven political bullshit. this is why nothing Trump says matters whether true or not just like nothing Clinton says matters whether true or not - its all bullshit in the end.
and the stock market tanks......the new America "some bitch has email problems and Joe the plumber loses his job in Ohio, nevermind impending war..." (kidding, but not, calm down)
Crooked ass Hillary. Lol at the more "racially sensitive" party getting ripped a new asshole by Erica Garner over that Wikileak email...just a black prop for their corporatist/neo-fascist circus.
olaf, the point was that "stock market tanks" is different than "end slightly lower." kind of like jla trying to make erica garner's tweets a bigger deal than they are. this whole campaign is so dumb. can we just go back to forming opinions on real-life observation rather than all the hyperbole and bullshit?
Curt, the Eric Garner email is very significant. It shows clearly how calculated the Clinton campaign is, and how what they say is nothing but a means to appeal to certain groups to gain votes. Racial sensitivity is a marketing/branding technique. A typical political robot. When dumb ass Trump say things like "I'll be the best for the blacks" why is that any worse? He is a fool, but under the well polished surface of his opponent....not much difference
i see. so you see that email leak as significant because you didn't realize the clinton campaign was running a campaign and building a brand?
this might be a shock to you, but most politicians do that. ted cruz, jeb bush, marco rubio, they all had similar teams of people running similar campaigns. even people running for mayor do that. a presidential race is much larger than a local election of course, because they have to have a presence in every county of every state. that means they have to be more organized, and generally better at communication.
the 'lack of polish' in the trump campaign team, and in general his inability to build a campaign team, makes him look stupid. he doesn't know how to run a campaign. he doesn't know how to be a politician. he doesn't know how to be president. aside from the xenophobia, misogyny, racism, and general disdain for most americans, his speech is worse than clinton's because it shows he isn't qualified to be in the position he's in. i mean, it's not just that he's unqualified to be president - he's unqualified to run for president.
did you know hillary clinton paid someone to build and maintain a website? there's a significant leak you can send to breitbart.
Donna, curt, that's the exact reason why people are seeking an "outsider". The people are sick and tired of being marketed to. Trump is portraying himself as just that, and it appeals to some. I don't buy it, but many do. I have many black male and female friends who deeply dislike Hillary. Many say they will vote Jill Stein. Some probably will sit this one out. Don't know of any who will vote trump, but I've had the conversation with some friends who expressed that they want to see trump win despite the fact that they hate him...just to see disruption in the system....My Latino friends and family members on the other hand are either voting Clinton or trump. They are more decided for some reason. Some are loud trump lovers. No joke. Mainly because they feel the dems patronize them...coddle them....and this Garner incident confirms their suspicions that they are used as a prop in politics. No one wants to be a prop.
3) The emails were not from Clinton's private server.
4) The FBI investigation has not been re-opened.
5) Comey sent his letter only to eight GOP congressional leaders less than two weeks before Election Day.
6) Comey was deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee in 1996.
7) Comey ignored directives from Attorney General Loretta Lynch and senior DOJ officials who made it "abundantly clear" that releasing the memo would be inconsistent with DOJ policy.
8) Clinton has called for the full content of the emails to be released to the public. So far Comey has not done so.
These are the facts. Everything else is partisan spin.
I can imagine that Comey is under intense pressure from Democrats, including Loretta Lynch, to tread lightly because of the election. If Comey had kept these emails secret until after the election, it would have been considered to be a cover-up. It would have tarnished his reputation and invited an yet another investigation. I think we're seeing Comey demonstrate very un-Clinton-like behavior. He is being extraordinarily transparent with the public and with congress. He does not appear to be acting according to political loyalties.
Clinton is calling for the full content of the emails to be released even though she's knows that can't happen. She knows that a review of the emails will take weeks or even months.
Nor his second. The email server probe marked the third time Comey has investigated Bill or Hillary Clinton.
His first run-in came in the mid-1990s, when he joined the Senate Whitewater Committee as a deputy special counsel. There he dug into allegations that the Clintons took part in a fraud connected to a Arkansas real estate venture gone bust.No charges were ever brought against either Clinton, but the scandal would eventually lead to independent counsel Kenneth Starr's probe that would result in the Lewinsky scandal.
American institutions are stronger than one woman or man's ego, and I'm certain America will continue to prosper and grow irrelevant of who's sitting in the oval office. If Trump wins, this won't be the first (or the last) oddball president we have; who knows, maybe in some kind of perverse way it's healthy for democracy.
However, what American institutions are not stronger than is the curse of imperial arrogance and overreach. The presidency, for me personally, is more about America's image and action abroad, its relationship with other nations, the strategic use of the military and intelligence services, and of course having some barometer for morality. What seems to have happened since the end of the Second World War is that the United States has become increasingly more aggressive and immoral in pursuing its interests. We openly promote democracy but simultaneously engage in covert regime-change or election rigging behavior. We dedicate millions of dollars to disinformation programs not just abroad, but to our own people to 'sell' a war or military action. I'm not arguing for America to stop behaving like an empire or just sit back and watch in a pool of isolationism, but I believe we need to back off a bit and not get high on our own power.
There is no reason to start a civil war or regime-changing operation in every single country that disagrees with us. There is no need to double-down on harassing a former superpower armed with nuclear weapons. I personally want to see a major shift in American policy. We're getting too clumsy and too arrogant with our intelligence services and military. There is NOTHING positive that has come from American foreign policy in the past 15 years. Nothing. Only misery and suffering that the rest of the world will hold the American people accountable for. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton is the image of this cursed warmongering that seems to never end. Her unrelenting support for a war she knew was built on false premises in 2003. Her enthusiastic role in the violent overthrow of Libya's government and subsequent on camera-execution of someone she had met with only a few months earlier (I've never seen someone in modern times so excited when their intelligence operation results in the entire collapse of a nation). Her continued push and role in throwing more fuel in the fire of the Syrian Civil War and current position of supporting a No-Fly Zone in a conflict she was significantly responsible for starting. Hillary Clinton represents everything that needs major reform in American foreign affairs irrelevant of her gender or party, and that is why I would find her presidency a complete and utter disaster for this country and the world at large.
A confident and care free republic — the city on the hill, whose people have always believed that they are immune from history's harms — now has to confront not only an unending imperial destiny but also a remote possibility that seems to haunt the history of empire: hubris followed by defeat.
—Michael Ignatieff, 2003.
The horrible irony of the current ideological madness of the American people and the Left specifically, is how quickly positions and ideologies flip to serve thirst for power. For example, the anti-war movement, which used to be a staple of the Left, has for all intents and purposes vanished in the wake of this election. In fact, many die-hard Hillary supporters are now adopting her policies wholesale including the hawkish nature of her foreign policy. It's as if the anti-war movement was ONLY useful to criticize the Right during the Bush-era, and now, as many have declared 'the culture wars have been won' (gay marriage, abortion, etc.) the usefulness of it has evaporated. It's as if we're witnessing in real time the two parties flip ideologies again. Look at the current anger at Wikileaks and use of McCarthyism language to discuss anyone critical of Hillary Clinton. I don't understand. First Wikileaks was your hero when it was useful to criticize Republicans and their warmongering, but now that it's come to bite you in the ass for the same hypocrisy, they're evil all of a sudden?
The current language surrounding the election is frustrating, annoying, and superficial. We talk about Hillary Clinton as if the prospect of electing a woman is something that has never happened before on Earth. News flash: Germany, Brazil, South Korea, UK, Pakistan, and other countries have all beat us to the punch. It's not that big of a deal in this century and should not be used as a reason to get someone in power just for the sake of putting another notch on our belt. The ridiculous, embarrassing, and shameful focus on sexuality in American politics has undermined our own credibility. In the context of serious implications for American and world security, news media spend hours talking about genitals and relatively irrelevant recordings of an asshole being an asshole, as if the fact that Donald Trump's racism and incitement of violence was alright, but we draw the fucking line at this sex bullshit? What's wrong with people? We have serious national and international implications, and this is what we're being force-fed through the irresponsible media that has lost all sense of decorum?
This election is a tragedy compounded by the fact that we're given two choices between a demonstrated warmonger imperialist and a populist buffoon that rose to power through racism. What am I supposed to do? If the answer is simply vote for the lesser of two evils, than sorry to say that Hillary Clinton has a real political history that I can judge, assess, and criticize, while Donald Trump is in fact an outsider.
Donna, that's your choice. Hillary is not in anyway the woman's champion that she markets herself to be. If she was, she wouldn't accept money from nations that oppress and kill them. I guess it's all about our bs tolerance level. Mine is low.
Hillary is a straight-up feminist and a hell of a women's champion. She is FOR reproductive rights, health care, child care, wage equity. The Republican party is not.
Governing on a global scale is complex, jla-x. Many, many countries with whom we have diplomatic relations have terrible human rights - for women and men - but we continue trying to push them towards equality. Secretary of State Clinton has been a champion and your whining is as relevant as a fart in a hurricane.
jla: you're not going to convince somebody who still believes Hillary is some kind of feminist paragon otherwise. They are demonstrably impervious to reason at this point. The partisan worm has eaten their brain.
babs, what scares me is I could say the exact same statement about gwharton - he's impervious to reason, and partisan-ism has overtaken his brain - and truly believe it.
This is what scares me about our country. gwharton, despite living in Seattle, truly believes progressives are stupid. I, despite living in Indiana, truly believe conservatives are stupid, or at least deeply hypocritical and greedy.
A woman's "right to choose" is a buzz word loaded with left wing anti-science. Any medical doctor will tell you that a baby in its 3rd trimester is a conscious human being. The 20+ week ban is based on science by medical doctors. I tend to trust them more than Hillary. How is this inconvenient truth any different from climate change denial? That's not a religious ideology, it's common sense based on science and personal observation of pre-mature babies out of the womb. Why she would want to change that law is strange. Shes small govt on some cherry picked issues, yet the ultimate big govt beurocrat on most others...could it be to gain votes??? If you were to smoke crack while pregnant you can be charged with fetal abuse...seems like a bit of a contradiction. As a libertarian leaning person I'm all for personal liberties, but your liberty can't violate that of others...and under the guise of a women's right to choose she's proposing that an unborn infant has no human rights...existing laws like the ones mentioned above, as well as established medical knowledge contradict that. If you can't get your shit together in the first trimester and get an abortion then you are shit outta luck imo. It's not "your body" any more. It's your child's body within your body. It's just logic.
WTF are you on about, jla-x? Right to choose is not a goddam buzzword. Have you bothered reading any of the stories women - and their spouses - are currently sharing about the reality of late-term abortion? FFS. This is what I said above: do not use me, and my health, as a prop.
To personalize it: I'm a mother already. If a pregnancy threatened my life I wouldn't hesitate to abort to make sure my existing child didn't grow up motherless. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be hard, but it's no one's decision but mine.
It's your child's body within your body Also PS once it's born it's not just MY child it's the man's too and yet how many stories of deadbeat loser fathers that abandon their responsibility to their offspring float around our society yet you wonder why women are pissed off all the time? SMDH. God.
So your "just logic" breaks down under certain conditions that YOU deem allowable? Yeah, that's really fucking Libertarian of you. "Let the market decide as long as it decides what *I* want and I don't have to pay any taxes for it."
No donna, "my logic" is based on reality. Babies can be born at 6,7,8 months and be perfectly healthy. That's a fact. If a 6 month old was born and killed, the person who killed it would be charged with murder. Fact. If the baby is in the womb at 6 months, they are exactly the same mentally, so why are they not granted the same constitutional protections? It makes no sense. I do not want the govt telling someone what to do with their own body, but a 6 month old baby is not "their own body". It's a separate individual who should (and in some cases does) have constitutional protections. When should human rights be granted in your opinion?
Better question....should a healthy women be allowed to abort a fetus at 9 months? If not, when should the cut off point be in your opinion? I'm not making an arbitrary time frame...just going off of what medical doctors have determined.
"Your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins" The question is not one of politics or personal opinion...it's one based on science and philosophy...when does the fetus have a life that is granted "equal protection under the law"?
TRUMP’S MISSING EMAILS: Donald Trump has a long, troubling history of destroying and hiding important documents in lawsuits, but he thinks Hillary Clinton’s the one who should be going to jail.
I am a long-time Seattle resident, and Seattle is an extraordinarily smug Progressive town, which is why I say with confidence that many if not most Progressives don't think about their political beliefs in any substantive way. They just repeat disconnected catchphrases from their partisan echo chamber and croak them at one another like frogs calling in the night, while they pretend like they signify something more than just tribal allegiance and in-group signalling. It's common here. So common that exceptions are rare.
Is the same thing true of so-called conservatives? Sure. It's a common HUMAN failing, especially in a society as atomized, balkanized, and dysfunctional as ours. Partisan loyalties have become a proxy for signalling social status in our society. Nowhere is this more evident than in Democratic Party politics, since they are and have been the ruling faction for many decades now.
This is very evident in the ways media coverage has evolved in this country over the past 100 years. Believe it not, there was actually a point in time when journalists went out of their way to dig up dirt on corrupt politicians. But by World War 2, that had morphed out of all recognition into a state information-control apparatus. It has morphed again now. Media outlets no longer have control over the narrative like they did during the heyday of Lippmannian narrative dominance (1940s to 1980s). They have lost frame control over the Overton Window. So now they specialize in helping the rank and file learn the latest factional talking points while giving them narratives to help them manage their overwhelming cognitive dissonance: Racist! Misogynist! Cheeto! Etc.!
'No matter what happens in this election, what Trump represents isn't crazy and it's not going away,' Thiel told a crowd gathered at the National Press Club today.
'It's not a lack of judgment that leads Americans to vote for Trump. We're voting for Trump because we judge the leadership of our country to have failed.'
Thiel suggested that that's not what 'the country's most fortunate, socially prominent people' want to hear.
'It's certainly been hard to accept in Silicon Valley, where many people have learned to keep quiet if they dissent from the coastal bubble,' he said.
'Louder voices have sent a message that they do not intend to tolerate the views of one half the country.'
'Nobody would suggest that Donald Trump is a humble man, but the big things he's right about amount to a much needed dose of humility in our politics.'
'He points toward a new Republican Party beyond the dogmas of Reaganism. He points even beyond the remaking of one party to a new American politics that overcomes denial, rejects bubble thinking and reckons with reality.'
'When the distracting spectacles of this election season are forgotten and the history of our time is written the only important question to be written is whether the new politics came too late.'
"The horrible irony of the current ideological madness of the American people and the Left specifically, is how quickly positions and ideologies flip to serve thirst for power. For example, the anti-war movement, which used to be a staple of the Left, has for all intents and purposes vanished in the wake of this election. In fact, many die-hard Hillary supporters are now adopting her policies wholesale including the hawkish nature of her foreign policy. It's as if the anti-war movement was ONLY useful to criticize the Right during the Bush-era, and now, as many have declared 'the culture wars have been won' (gay marriage, abortion, etc.) the usefulness of it has evaporated. It's as if we're witnessing in real time the two parties flip ideologies again. Look at the current anger at Wikileaks and use of McCarthyism language to discuss anyone critical of Hillary Clinton. I don't understand. First Wikileaks was your hero when it was useful to criticize Republicans and their warmongering, but now that it's come to bite you in the ass for the same hypocrisy, they're evil all of a sudden?"
Excellent points, A.I. Not surprisingly, the next 20 comments ignored your points. Many people are looking for easy narratives with Katy Perry and the cast of Modern Family singing 'Rise and Roar'.
The primary fight with Bernie I think is taking its toll on Clinton. While Bernie is now supporting Clinton, I think many Bernie supporters had a taste of a true progressive, and many find it distasteful to just turn that off and vote for Clinton.
It's going to be a very strange election with a redrawing of the red state-blue state map. Watch where Trump is spending his time in the next week. Again this election will come down to Pennsylvania and Michigan. It's about to get very interesting.
Thump the Trump
surprisingly wher I live in NJ, a whole bunch of us commute and work in NYC, in what I call deacent neighborhoods I see tons more Trump signs than anythimg else. the occasional NJ for Hillary and very near to me a Jill Stein (former Bernie fan). the street that really set the tone for me was a street i took my kids to tricker treat on a while ago, total leave it to beaver and these people can't be hurtin...all trump
The people in Oregon who armed themselves and occupied federal land were just released from jail, while people who weren't as white and not as well armed were arrested in North Dakota for protesting near a street (not taking federal property) because they're concerned about maintaining a clean water supply. I suppose the government's message is that we should all be armed to the teeth. Big win for the nra today.
I don't know Olaf. Maybe your armed revolution really is coming.
curt - choices. anti-federalists with lots of guns or protestors who don't like guns.
who do you think the government would deal with lightly? and this is the shit we are walking right into.
curt, based on the Moore piece linked earlier, a vote for Trump is "legal terrorism". the biggest trick the federal government ever played on the US citizens is National Securty uber alles, where protest beyond beauracratic means is classified criminal and even worse an act of terrorism. and once you are classified a "terrorist" all rights out the window, you are not even human. and just like the media of today, whatever narrative they want to justify their accussations of anyone that offends their story telling at the time, they will spin well intended rational thoughts into insanity, thus rendering it all meaningless subjective emotionally driven political bullshit. this is why nothing Trump says matters whether true or not just like nothing Clinton says matters whether true or not - its all bullshit in the end.
FBI reopens case against HRC
and the stock market tanks......the new America "some bitch has email problems and Joe the plumber loses his job in Ohio, nevermind impending war..." (kidding, but not, calm down)
ODN: "and the stock market tanks....." -- what horsesh!t.
The DJIA closed off -0.05% today -- a whole 8.45 out of 81,161
Crooked ass Hillary. Lol at the more "racially sensitive" party getting ripped a new asshole by Erica Garner over that Wikileak email...just a black prop for their corporatist/neo-fascist circus.
hey babs, don't yell at me, yell at the media, and man do I wish the dow was that high!
US stocks end slightly lower, erasing an early gain, after the FBI says it will investigate whether there is classified information in newly discovered emails that appear to be related to its probe of Hillary Clinton's email practices.
olaf, the point was that "stock market tanks" is different than "end slightly lower." kind of like jla trying to make erica garner's tweets a bigger deal than they are. this whole campaign is so dumb. can we just go back to forming opinions on real-life observation rather than all the hyperbole and bullshit?
^ sorry - 18,161 (frigging iPhone)
Curt, the Eric Garner email is very significant. It shows clearly how calculated the Clinton campaign is, and how what they say is nothing but a means to appeal to certain groups to gain votes. Racial sensitivity is a marketing/branding technique. A typical political robot. When dumb ass Trump say things like "I'll be the best for the blacks" why is that any worse? He is a fool, but under the well polished surface of his opponent....not much difference
i see. so you see that email leak as significant because you didn't realize the clinton campaign was running a campaign and building a brand?
this might be a shock to you, but most politicians do that. ted cruz, jeb bush, marco rubio, they all had similar teams of people running similar campaigns. even people running for mayor do that. a presidential race is much larger than a local election of course, because they have to have a presence in every county of every state. that means they have to be more organized, and generally better at communication.
the 'lack of polish' in the trump campaign team, and in general his inability to build a campaign team, makes him look stupid. he doesn't know how to run a campaign. he doesn't know how to be a politician. he doesn't know how to be president. aside from the xenophobia, misogyny, racism, and general disdain for most americans, his speech is worse than clinton's because it shows he isn't qualified to be in the position he's in. i mean, it's not just that he's unqualified to be president - he's unqualified to run for president.
did you know hillary clinton paid someone to build and maintain a website? there's a significant leak you can send to breitbart.
"...how what they say is nothing but a means to appeal to certain groups to gain votes."
Please show me a campaign - for anything from POTUS to rolling out a new Cheerios flavor - that this phrase doesn't describe?
can we just go back to forming opinions on real-life observation rather than all the hyperbole and bullshit?
but curt, that doesn't help ratings.
Donna, curt, that's the exact reason why people are seeking an "outsider". The people are sick and tired of being marketed to. Trump is portraying himself as just that, and it appeals to some. I don't buy it, but many do. I have many black male and female friends who deeply dislike Hillary. Many say they will vote Jill Stein. Some probably will sit this one out. Don't know of any who will vote trump, but I've had the conversation with some friends who expressed that they want to see trump win despite the fact that they hate him...just to see disruption in the system....My Latino friends and family members on the other hand are either voting Clinton or trump. They are more decided for some reason. Some are loud trump lovers. No joke. Mainly because they feel the dems patronize them...coddle them....and this Garner incident confirms their suspicions that they are used as a prop in politics. No one wants to be a prop.
New emails? hm... I though she had give every single one to FBI.
1) The emails were not sent by Clinton.
2) The emails were not withheld by Clinton.
3) The emails were not from Clinton's private server.
4) The FBI investigation has not been re-opened.
5) Comey sent his letter only to eight GOP congressional leaders less than two weeks before Election Day.
6) Comey was deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee in 1996.
7) Comey ignored directives from Attorney General Loretta Lynch and senior DOJ officials who made it "abundantly clear" that releasing the memo would be inconsistent with DOJ policy.
8) Clinton has called for the full content of the emails to be released to the public. So far Comey has not done so.
These are the facts. Everything else is partisan spin.
I can imagine that Comey is under intense pressure from Democrats, including Loretta Lynch, to tread lightly because of the election. If Comey had kept these emails secret until after the election, it would have been considered to be a cover-up. It would have tarnished his reputation and invited an yet another investigation. I think we're seeing Comey demonstrate very un-Clinton-like behavior. He is being extraordinarily transparent with the public and with congress. He does not appear to be acting according to political loyalties.
Clinton is calling for the full content of the emails to be released even though she's knows that can't happen. She knows that a review of the emails will take weeks or even months.
btw, this caught my ear a while back, just googled it for a bit. Comey and the Clintons over the years.
This was not his first time investigating the Clintons
Nor his second. The email server probe marked the third time Comey has investigated Bill or Hillary Clinton.
His first run-in came in the mid-1990s, when he joined the Senate Whitewater Committee as a deputy special counsel. There he dug into allegations that the Clintons took part in a fraud connected to a Arkansas real estate venture gone bust. No charges were ever brought against either Clinton, but the scandal would eventually lead to independent counsel Kenneth Starr's probe that would result in the Lewinsky scandal.
Here is a balanced and detailed explanation of the FBI's actions regarding the investigation into Clinton's handling of emails:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/james-comey-hillary-clinton-and-email-investigation-guide-perplexed
You're right, jla-x, that no one likes to be a prop.
The GOP has used women - our uterii, anyway - as props for decades. That's why I don't give a damn about emails, I'm voting for Hilary.
American institutions are stronger than one woman or man's ego, and I'm certain America will continue to prosper and grow irrelevant of who's sitting in the oval office. If Trump wins, this won't be the first (or the last) oddball president we have; who knows, maybe in some kind of perverse way it's healthy for democracy.
However, what American institutions are not stronger than is the curse of imperial arrogance and overreach. The presidency, for me personally, is more about America's image and action abroad, its relationship with other nations, the strategic use of the military and intelligence services, and of course having some barometer for morality. What seems to have happened since the end of the Second World War is that the United States has become increasingly more aggressive and immoral in pursuing its interests. We openly promote democracy but simultaneously engage in covert regime-change or election rigging behavior. We dedicate millions of dollars to disinformation programs not just abroad, but to our own people to 'sell' a war or military action. I'm not arguing for America to stop behaving like an empire or just sit back and watch in a pool of isolationism, but I believe we need to back off a bit and not get high on our own power.
There is no reason to start a civil war or regime-changing operation in every single country that disagrees with us. There is no need to double-down on harassing a former superpower armed with nuclear weapons. I personally want to see a major shift in American policy. We're getting too clumsy and too arrogant with our intelligence services and military. There is NOTHING positive that has come from American foreign policy in the past 15 years. Nothing. Only misery and suffering that the rest of the world will hold the American people accountable for. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton is the image of this cursed warmongering that seems to never end. Her unrelenting support for a war she knew was built on false premises in 2003. Her enthusiastic role in the violent overthrow of Libya's government and subsequent on camera-execution of someone she had met with only a few months earlier (I've never seen someone in modern times so excited when their intelligence operation results in the entire collapse of a nation). Her continued push and role in throwing more fuel in the fire of the Syrian Civil War and current position of supporting a No-Fly Zone in a conflict she was significantly responsible for starting. Hillary Clinton represents everything that needs major reform in American foreign affairs irrelevant of her gender or party, and that is why I would find her presidency a complete and utter disaster for this country and the world at large.
A confident and care free republic — the city on the hill, whose people have always believed that they are immune from history's harms — now has to confront not only an unending imperial destiny but also a remote possibility that seems to haunt the history of empire: hubris followed by defeat.
—Michael Ignatieff, 2003.
The horrible irony of the current ideological madness of the American people and the Left specifically, is how quickly positions and ideologies flip to serve thirst for power. For example, the anti-war movement, which used to be a staple of the Left, has for all intents and purposes vanished in the wake of this election. In fact, many die-hard Hillary supporters are now adopting her policies wholesale including the hawkish nature of her foreign policy. It's as if the anti-war movement was ONLY useful to criticize the Right during the Bush-era, and now, as many have declared 'the culture wars have been won' (gay marriage, abortion, etc.) the usefulness of it has evaporated. It's as if we're witnessing in real time the two parties flip ideologies again. Look at the current anger at Wikileaks and use of McCarthyism language to discuss anyone critical of Hillary Clinton. I don't understand. First Wikileaks was your hero when it was useful to criticize Republicans and their warmongering, but now that it's come to bite you in the ass for the same hypocrisy, they're evil all of a sudden?
The current language surrounding the election is frustrating, annoying, and superficial. We talk about Hillary Clinton as if the prospect of electing a woman is something that has never happened before on Earth. News flash: Germany, Brazil, South Korea, UK, Pakistan, and other countries have all beat us to the punch. It's not that big of a deal in this century and should not be used as a reason to get someone in power just for the sake of putting another notch on our belt. The ridiculous, embarrassing, and shameful focus on sexuality in American politics has undermined our own credibility. In the context of serious implications for American and world security, news media spend hours talking about genitals and relatively irrelevant recordings of an asshole being an asshole, as if the fact that Donald Trump's racism and incitement of violence was alright, but we draw the fucking line at this sex bullshit? What's wrong with people? We have serious national and international implications, and this is what we're being force-fed through the irresponsible media that has lost all sense of decorum?
This election is a tragedy compounded by the fact that we're given two choices between a demonstrated warmonger imperialist and a populist buffoon that rose to power through racism. What am I supposed to do? If the answer is simply vote for the lesser of two evils, than sorry to say that Hillary Clinton has a real political history that I can judge, assess, and criticize, while Donald Trump is in fact an outsider.
Institutions are only as strong as the culture from which they arise. And a culture is only as strong as the people from which it grows.
Donna, that's your choice. Hillary is not in anyway the woman's champion that she markets herself to be. If she was, she wouldn't accept money from nations that oppress and kill them. I guess it's all about our bs tolerance level. Mine is low.
Hillary is a straight-up feminist and a hell of a women's champion. She is FOR reproductive rights, health care, child care, wage equity. The Republican party is not.
One of the many steps Hillary took toward instutionalizing her feminist approach to foreign policy was leading the creation of the US National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security, which she called “a comprehensive roadmap for accelerating and institutionalizing efforts across the United States government to advance women’s participation in making and keeping peace.” http://shewinswewin.org/blog/5-times-hillary-put-women-and-girls-first-as-secretary-of-state/ It took me .35 seconds to google that, BTW.
Governing on a global scale is complex, jla-x. Many, many countries with whom we have diplomatic relations have terrible human rights - for women and men - but we continue trying to push them towards equality. Secretary of State Clinton has been a champion and your whining is as relevant as a fart in a hurricane.
jla: you're not going to convince somebody who still believes Hillary is some kind of feminist paragon otherwise. They are demonstrably impervious to reason at this point. The partisan worm has eaten their brain.
^ yeah, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dhPyipbnMs
gwharton: "They are demonstrably impervious to reason at this point. The partisan worm has eaten their brain." - what a condescending load of cr@p
babs, what scares me is I could say the exact same statement about gwharton - he's impervious to reason, and partisan-ism has overtaken his brain - and truly believe it.
This is what scares me about our country. gwharton, despite living in Seattle, truly believes progressives are stupid. I, despite living in Indiana, truly believe conservatives are stupid, or at least deeply hypocritical and greedy.
A woman's "right to choose" is a buzz word loaded with left wing anti-science. Any medical doctor will tell you that a baby in its 3rd trimester is a conscious human being. The 20+ week ban is based on science by medical doctors. I tend to trust them more than Hillary. How is this inconvenient truth any different from climate change denial? That's not a religious ideology, it's common sense based on science and personal observation of pre-mature babies out of the womb. Why she would want to change that law is strange. Shes small govt on some cherry picked issues, yet the ultimate big govt beurocrat on most others...could it be to gain votes??? If you were to smoke crack while pregnant you can be charged with fetal abuse...seems like a bit of a contradiction. As a libertarian leaning person I'm all for personal liberties, but your liberty can't violate that of others...and under the guise of a women's right to choose she's proposing that an unborn infant has no human rights...existing laws like the ones mentioned above, as well as established medical knowledge contradict that. If you can't get your shit together in the first trimester and get an abortion then you are shit outta luck imo. It's not "your body" any more. It's your child's body within your body. It's just logic.
WTF are you on about, jla-x? Right to choose is not a goddam buzzword. Have you bothered reading any of the stories women - and their spouses - are currently sharing about the reality of late-term abortion? FFS. This is what I said above: do not use me, and my health, as a prop.
To personalize it: I'm a mother already. If a pregnancy threatened my life I wouldn't hesitate to abort to make sure my existing child didn't grow up motherless. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be hard, but it's no one's decision but mine.
It's your child's body within your body Also PS once it's born it's not just MY child it's the man's too and yet how many stories of deadbeat loser fathers that abandon their responsibility to their offspring float around our society yet you wonder why women are pissed off all the time? SMDH. God.
If it threatened your life yes...that I get. I'm not talking about medical emergencies.
And, again: I cannot believe I'm 50 years old and we are still as a society arguing about this shit! The Religious Right can go straight to the hell that only they believe in for starting this up for political gain.
So your "just logic" breaks down under certain conditions that YOU deem allowable? Yeah, that's really fucking Libertarian of you. "Let the market decide as long as it decides what *I* want and I don't have to pay any taxes for it."
Her position is to limit laws that make such a procedure illegal for non medical emergencies.
No donna, "my logic" is based on reality. Babies can be born at 6,7,8 months and be perfectly healthy. That's a fact. If a 6 month old was born and killed, the person who killed it would be charged with murder. Fact. If the baby is in the womb at 6 months, they are exactly the same mentally, so why are they not granted the same constitutional protections? It makes no sense. I do not want the govt telling someone what to do with their own body, but a 6 month old baby is not "their own body". It's a separate individual who should (and in some cases does) have constitutional protections. When should human rights be granted in your opinion?
Better question....should a healthy women be allowed to abort a fetus at 9 months? If not, when should the cut off point be in your opinion? I'm not making an arbitrary time frame...just going off of what medical doctors have determined.
"Your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins" The question is not one of politics or personal opinion...it's one based on science and philosophy...when does the fetus have a life that is granted "equal protection under the law"?
The reason I said buzz word, is because it's used in complete absence of scientific and philosophical debate by Hillary and her political machine.
Crickets***
TRUMP’S MISSING EMAILS: Donald Trump has a long, troubling history of destroying and hiding important documents in lawsuits, but he thinks Hillary Clinton’s the one who should be going to jail.
I am a long-time Seattle resident, and Seattle is an extraordinarily smug Progressive town, which is why I say with confidence that many if not most Progressives don't think about their political beliefs in any substantive way. They just repeat disconnected catchphrases from their partisan echo chamber and croak them at one another like frogs calling in the night, while they pretend like they signify something more than just tribal allegiance and in-group signalling. It's common here. So common that exceptions are rare.
Is the same thing true of so-called conservatives? Sure. It's a common HUMAN failing, especially in a society as atomized, balkanized, and dysfunctional as ours. Partisan loyalties have become a proxy for signalling social status in our society. Nowhere is this more evident than in Democratic Party politics, since they are and have been the ruling faction for many decades now.
This is very evident in the ways media coverage has evolved in this country over the past 100 years. Believe it not, there was actually a point in time when journalists went out of their way to dig up dirt on corrupt politicians. But by World War 2, that had morphed out of all recognition into a state information-control apparatus. It has morphed again now. Media outlets no longer have control over the narrative like they did during the heyday of Lippmannian narrative dominance (1940s to 1980s). They have lost frame control over the Overton Window. So now they specialize in helping the rank and file learn the latest factional talking points while giving them narratives to help them manage their overwhelming cognitive dissonance: Racist! Misogynist! Cheeto! Etc.!
Peter Thiel on the Trump phenomenon:
'No matter what happens in this election, what Trump represents isn't crazy and it's not going away,' Thiel told a crowd gathered at the National Press Club today.
'It's not a lack of judgment that leads Americans to vote for Trump. We're voting for Trump because we judge the leadership of our country to have failed.'
Thiel suggested that that's not what 'the country's most fortunate, socially prominent people' want to hear.
'It's certainly been hard to accept in Silicon Valley, where many people have learned to keep quiet if they dissent from the coastal bubble,' he said.
'Louder voices have sent a message that they do not intend to tolerate the views of one half the country.'
'Nobody would suggest that Donald Trump is a humble man, but the big things he's right about amount to a much needed dose of humility in our politics.'
'He points toward a new Republican Party beyond the dogmas of Reaganism. He points even beyond the remaking of one party to a new American politics that overcomes denial, rejects bubble thinking and reckons with reality.'
'When the distracting spectacles of this election season are forgotten and the history of our time is written the only important question to be written is whether the new politics came too late.'
You know what, fuck it. Who's Neri Oxman voting for? I'm with HER, because she's brilliant and knows her shit.
"The horrible irony of the current ideological madness of the American people and the Left specifically, is how quickly positions and ideologies flip to serve thirst for power. For example, the anti-war movement, which used to be a staple of the Left, has for all intents and purposes vanished in the wake of this election. In fact, many die-hard Hillary supporters are now adopting her policies wholesale including the hawkish nature of her foreign policy. It's as if the anti-war movement was ONLY useful to criticize the Right during the Bush-era, and now, as many have declared 'the culture wars have been won' (gay marriage, abortion, etc.) the usefulness of it has evaporated. It's as if we're witnessing in real time the two parties flip ideologies again. Look at the current anger at Wikileaks and use of McCarthyism language to discuss anyone critical of Hillary Clinton. I don't understand. First Wikileaks was your hero when it was useful to criticize Republicans and their warmongering, but now that it's come to bite you in the ass for the same hypocrisy, they're evil all of a sudden?"
Excellent points, A.I. Not surprisingly, the next 20 comments ignored your points. Many people are looking for easy narratives with Katy Perry and the cast of Modern Family singing 'Rise and Roar'.
A.I. said a lot of very accurate items.
Keep this in mind kids, Hillary's first job in DC or something, google it, was part of the impeachment of Nixon, she learned quickly I'm sure....
The primary fight with Bernie I think is taking its toll on Clinton. While Bernie is now supporting Clinton, I think many Bernie supporters had a taste of a true progressive, and many find it distasteful to just turn that off and vote for Clinton.
It's going to be a very strange election with a redrawing of the red state-blue state map. Watch where Trump is spending his time in the next week. Again this election will come down to Pennsylvania and Michigan. It's about to get very interesting.
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