Greatest Threat to World Peace: A Gallup Survey

Let's say "Skis of my choice" so you don't try to weasel out and get kids' skis or something.

Bets go both ways what are you wagering?

You are right she won't go to jail.  She is a Teflon Clinton.  Her political career is over though due to this.  Even the soccer moms are ditching thier support of her.  
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-loses-support-from-white-female-democrats-poll-shows/

Building a wall is just stupid.  Most of Trumps ideas are too far right for me.  Enforcing laws we already have would be a good start.

I'm not going to change your mind.  You'll likely grow to more conservative when you get older and have kids and get saddled with more taxes.  You aren't changing my mind either so this will be my new attitude towards political post.  Let's go back to talking about skiing

tjf1967 wrote

Bets go both ways what are you wagering?

Bets don't have to go both ways when the bet is whether the sun comes up tomorrow.

ml242 wrote

Agree with Mattchuck. So tired of it. The level of truthyness is beyond the pale.

But at least Ben Carson isn't making shit up about vaccines. If he wasn't so partisan and anti-choice he'd make an ok secretary of health.

Carson was wrong, too.
Carson agreed with the bs that Paul said about spreading out vaccine doses. This is absolute bullshyt. There is no study that says this is an accepted method.

Let's face it, they will say anything that works in the focus studies to the republican voters. Reality has no meaning.  The Republican Party has done the greatest marketing job ever. They have convinced the deluded and wounded blue collar and lower class whites to vote against their own self interest under a barrage of "issues" that have zero meaning to the privileged, wealthy elite republicans.

Trump is right wing on foreign policy and left wing on economic issues and whacko on fringe issues. If you believe that economic issues are the most important and you see that the far right is beginning to fall behind him than it is not a far leap to see that he is the only one to take us back to a truely progressive tax code and begin to make progress on the imbalance while bringing the far right along with something that a far left socialist like Bernie could not do.

Trump is developing a base of socially conservative middle and low income people who are tired of the lack of opportunity that the current economic structure has caused. These are the hard working blue collar folks working low paying service jobs since they lost their higher paying factory jobs and now can't afford to send their kids to school or even think about retiring. They don't want to give up on their core social beliefs yet they don't buy into classical Reganomics anymore.

PeeTex wrote

Trump is right wing on foreign policy and left wing on economic issues...

Trump isn't right or left.  He is a master at identifying and exploiting issues that cause anger in the old white people who vote in GOP primaries.  He has no thought out policy agenda or positions, he only has targets. The problem for the GOP is that every time he finds a target, the party loses potential support.  So far he's offended former POWs, hedge fund managers, Hispanics, and women.  Then Jeb! (who was supposed to be the smart brother)reacted to the whole "anchor baby" thing by saying it was about Asians, not Hispanics, so that's another group they offended.

PeeTex wrote

Trump is developing a base of socially conservative middle and low income people who are tired of the lack of opportunity that the current economic structure has caused.

Yup.
Bernie and Trump are both looking for support from people who have figured out that 30 years of conservative government hasn't led to the wealthier and more secure life that we were promised.  That really should be the majority of Americans, except that most Americans are still so delusionally optimistic that they believe they are just one lottery ticket or house flip away from being wealthy.

MM

ml242 wrote

tjf1967 wrote

Bets go both ways what are you wagering?

Bets don't have to go both ways when the bet is whether the sun comes up tomorrow.

I'll take that bet. The sun doesn't come up. The earth rotates.

I think that was his play on me. Any who. The republican party is really wacky right now.  Kasich, Pataki, and Christie imo are the only ones that have a shot at the dems.  And who do the dems have as potentials.  Very entertaining  to watch.  Bloomberg has to jump in. Why else would they be campaigning against him. If he don't run the the kasich, patski, biden Clinton.  

IMO the only republicans with a shot at winning are Bush and Kasich. It's pretty well accepted among pollsters that any republican needs 40% of the Hispanic vote to have a shot. No one else can pull that IMO. Kasich has the advantage of being human too.

Be interesting to see republicans win the potus and both houses.  They'd have to do at least some of what they are promising to do.

A NRA democrat would kill it.  Maybe pull out a glock at the dem debate, say you want to put some muscle behind the individual mandate

Coach Z wrote

mattchuck2 wrote

Ugh. Right wing talking points are so fucking tired and played out.

But also 100% accurate.  Bernie has no way to pay for his dream agenda and Hill is going to jail.  Trump is a chump.  Where am I not correct?

Followed by:

Coach Z wrote

You are right she won't go to jail.  She is a Teflon Clinton.

 
Nice of you to admit that you were dead wrong about Clinton. Maybe that should convince you to take a look at your other statements and reanalyze those. Maybe it will make you rethink posting things that are obvious bombastic bullshit (similar to Trump). Maybe you'll start to rethink your stances on provable facts like Climate Change.

Or maybe you'll just stay in your little bubble of right wing noise.

Coach Z wrote

You'll likely grow to more conservative when you get older and have kids and get saddled with more taxes.

Nope. I have "conservative" views on onerous building regulations in cities and professional licensing, but it pretty much stops there. But if "conservatives" ever get their act together and stop sucking Gorver Norquist's dick for a while, I might vote Republican at some point. Like, if they can:

1. Be budget sticklers who don't want to spend money on massive new government departments (Homeland Security), corporate subsidies for banks and oil companies, and unwinnable wars overseas.

2. Moderate on social issues, including the failed War on Drugs.

3. Accept the science of global warming (and other science stuff like vaccinations, ecology, etc.)

4. Stop alienating every constituency in America besides straight white Christian males with hateful rhetoric.

Those are just the things off the top of my head that they could do to get people like me to vote for them. They will never do these things, though because it wouldn't be good for business. Rand Paul gets close, but you can't call yourself a libertarian, then endorse a government that wants to control women's bodies.

mattchuck2 wrote

 then endorse a government that wants to control women's bodies.

????????

It just blows me away that this is the best either party has to offer - I often wonder why  noone has ever started a "common sense" party and cleaned house with a moderate agenda... straddling the fence hurts my balls!

gorgonzola wrote

It just blows me away that this is the best either party has to offer - I often wonder why  noone has ever started a "common sense" party and cleaned house with a moderate agenda... straddling the fence hurts my balls!

Look up Ross Perot.

Studies actually show that most people aren't actually moderate, but they have a mix of left wing and right wing positions. Like, a lot of people think we should tax the rich more to pay for a social security payment increase, and silmultaneouly think that we should kick all the immigrants out of the country. In polls, that person will come across as a moderate, but it's really just a guy with wildly diverging opinions.

Edit: here's a link that argues that Trump is a typical moderate (i.e. Someone with wildly diverging opinions): http://www.vox.com/2015/8/15/9159117/donald-trump-moderate

Snowballs wrote

mattchuck2 wrote

 then endorse a government that wants to control women's bodies.

????????

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/laura-chapin/2013/07/29/rand-pauls-anti-abortion-extremism-disqualifies-him-as-a-libertarian

mattchuck2 wrote

Studies actually show that most people aren't actually moderate, but they have a mix of left wing and right wing positions. Like, a lot of people think we should tax the rich more to pay for a social security payment increase, and silmultaneouly think that we should kick all the immigrants out of the country. In polls, that person will come across as a moderate, but it's really just a guy with wildly diverging opinions.

That's pretty interesting and makes a lot of sense.

I ran through what I think are the big ones for me and while I think I'm basically a lefty there are some contradictions that I can't resolve (right to life/choice for ex).  

One thing I am conservative on is that I don't believe in running deficits for any reason beyond tanks from another country landing on our shores.  Actually I was in favor of the bailout too. It pissed me off, but given the circumstances I didn't see another choice.  But now that I think about that, I believe that when you look at the record conservatives don't actually spend any less money than liberals.

With regard to Rand, I really thought he was that rare politician (like Bernie) who wouldn't change his views for primary vs general election. He has really disappointed me on that one.  Jeb too.  If Jeb had stuck to his positions the way he promised I'd probably go for him (vs HRC) in a general.  Would probably vote for Kasich over Hill too.

Maybe it's time for the conservatives to get a shot a full control and see if they have the stones to do everything they say. The country needs to see it in action. Kill healthcare or come up with another plan, unravel the Iran deal, invade whomever. I realize that is russian roulette, and I'd be really scared about that if the prez was Cruz or Huckabee or Trump or 2/3rds of those guys.  My guess it that once you are actually president stuff like "getting tough with ISIS" is more complicated that you are pretending.

mattchuck2 wrote

Studies actually show that most people aren't actually moderate, but they have a mix of left wing and right wing positions. Like, a lot of people think we should tax the rich more to pay for a social security payment increase, and silmultaneouly think that we should kick all the immigrants out of the country. In polls, that person will come across as a moderate, but it's really just a guy with wildly diverging opinions.

Edit: here's a link that argues that Trump is a typical moderate (i.e. Someone with wildly diverging opinions): http://www.vox.com/2015/8/15/9159117/donald-trump-moderate

Matt - now you understand why I think Trump has a real shot, been saying this for awhile now. He is tapping into the non-moderate "moderate" voter.  What we use to call the fiscally responsible democrat. I think there are a few issues he is pandering the republicans on so they won't completely kick him out. I doubt he will try to appeal to the "base" but rather try to pull in all the disenfranchised republican voters. The question is, will they be primary voters? He needs to organize for the primary, get his supporters to register as republicans and vote in the primaries to be able to fight off the republican machine. This will be interesting to watch - let's see if he can go from "the apprentice" to the "shark tank" and market himself to the people with the votes that count in this next round as the popular vote isn't worth two shits in the primaries. If he wins the republican nomination the democrats are in real trouble. They will have an opposition candidate that has a fiscally responsible economic policy that is not based on cutting taxes for the wealthy but rather taxing them harder, moderate on social issues and tough on immigration and foreign policy - they have very little to fight him on other than his big mouth, arrogance and lack of knowledge. It's funny, when a reporter try's to make him look stupid by asking him an obscure foreign policy question, I think the average Joe looks at that and sees it for what it is and also says to himself, "I don't know who that guy is either" which only goes to draw him a little closer. You may think Trump is a train wreck, but that train has a lot of momentum right now and all he has to do is keep it on the tracks.

I don't think Trump is stupid, I don't even think he is dangerous. I do think he is an embarrassment and I wish that we had a party that could produce someone who is a lot smoother but who had a similar mix of stances on the issues. In many ways he reminds me of TR. TR was considered an embarrassment to his party, they hated him but he was so popular they couldn't get rid of him so they made him VP to get him out of the way and we all know how that worked out. I doubt Trump has the intellect or capacity that TR had, but he does have the hutzpah and I'll say it before someone else does - I didn't know TR but I do know that Trump is no TR - paraphrasing Lloyd Benson.  

The final question you may ask, am I a Trump supporter? No - I can't get over what I hear or the body language I see. However I am very aligned with a lot of his message, particularly on the economic inequality issues - which for me, are the most important, they trump (pun intended) every other issue.

How is Trump going to fix economic inequality again? More casinos and lowering the taxes on the wealthy?