News 2016 U.S. Presidential election - the highs and lows

beancounter said:
This practice is f*ked up. Political campaigns should be reimbursing the Secret Service for the protection services it it provides to the the candidate...
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No, they shouldn't. It would just make it all that more difficult for people without massive money to run for public office, with a modicum of safety.

The problem is limited to the Trump phenomenon. He's using his properties and companies for campaign purposes, and the campaign is paying for that use. (And the Secret Service is paying for travelling on the campaign airplane, which he happens to own.) The money involved is much, much bigger than the Secret Service's travel expenses. The campaign is being very profitable for Trump.

The only distinction between the money he's charging the Secret Service for travel expenses and the many millions that the campaign is paying various Trump enterprises is that taxpayer money is being used to pay the travel expenses.

This sort of situation should be addressed by regulating the kind of profiteering by rich candidates, not by making candidates pay for their Secret Service protection.
 
Mischief said:
No, they shouldn't. It would just make it all that more difficult for people without massive money to run for public office, with a modicum of safety.
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Since when has a candidate been able to run a viable campaign with limited funds ...with or without this practice?

It's not just about the money ultimately going to Trump, it's about candidates getting a free service at the taxpayers expense.

If there truly is a candidate with limited funds out there, then a sliding scale charge would be the solution...not a completely free ride.
 
I disagree. It's in the public interest, in the interest of democracy itself, that candidates not be assassinated.

Where are you going to draw the line - are you going to charge the campaigns for the cost of police providing crowd and traffic control at rallies, campaign stops, conventions?
 
The Cincinnati Enquirer, one of Ohio's largest newspapers, is backing Hillary Clinton after supporting Republican presidential candidates for nearly a century.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/23/politics/cincinnati-enquirer-hillary-clinton-endorsement/

"Clinton, meanwhile, was a competent secretary of state, with far stronger diplomatic skills than she gets credit for. Yes, mistakes were made in Benghazi, and it was tragic that four Americans lost their lives in the 2012 terror attacks on the US consulate there," it wrote. "But the incident was never the diabolical conspiracy that Republicans wanted us to believe, and Clinton was absolved of blame after lengthy investigations."


"Trump brands himself as an outsider untainted by special interests, but we see a man utterly corrupted by self-interest. His narcissistic bid for the presidency is more about making himself great than America," the board said. "Trump tears our country and many of its people down with his words so that he can build himself up. What else are we left to believe about a man who tells the American public that he alone can fix what ails us?"
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Jeremy said:
Good yet scary read:

White riot: how racism and immigration gave us Trump, Brexit, and a whole new kind of politics
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Interesting article. The author downplays economic impacts and emphasizes racism (and other isms), but the two often go hand in hand.

When a person loses their job, they typically want someone to blame (other than themselves). Often the easiest people to blame is a marginalized group, or one that can't push back politically. They are simply the most convenient targets to direct ones anger and frustration.
 
beancounter said:
Interesting article. The author downplays economic impacts and emphasizes racism (and other isms), but the two often go hand in hand.

When a person loses their job, they typically want someone to blame (other than themselves). Often the easiest people to blame is a marginalized group, or one that can't push back politically. They are simply the most convenient targets to direct ones anger and frustration.
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The author addresses that directly.

Sure, that is part of it, but I agree with the author that it's a much smaller part of what's going on currently than conventional wisdom dictates. Here in the US, it's largely due to the white angst that's been roiling for decades, and the election of a black President just dumped a big canister of gasoline on the fire.

It's easy for me to identify those among my acquaintances who were going to support Trump, and it has nothing to do with economic factors.

If it were simply economic factors, then Trump's message of xenophobia should garner support among blacks in percentages at least as high as among whites.
 
Am I the only one torturing myself with the debate? It's like nails on a chalkboard every time Trump speaks.
 
You are... Absolutely... NOT... Alone... It's a blame Clinton and Obama for everything under the sun fiesta... Good grief
 
Not alone.

I'm getting close to blocking one of my cousins on FB.
 
KLS52 said:
Not alone.

I'm getting close to blocking one of my cousins on FB.
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I've unfollowed many many people on Facebook. All you do is go to their timeline and there's a place to unfollow them. You simply don't see what they post anymore unless you actually go to their timeline. It no longer comes up in your news feed.
 
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Calliegirl said:
Am I the only one torturing myself with the debate? It's like nails on a chalkboard every time Trump speaks.
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You are not. It was an exercise in patience on my part to get through this so-called debate. Trump is just so rude and immature. He actually had the gall to whine about nastiness from Hillary Clinton. LOLOLOLOLOL. Pot. Kettle. Black. He is like a little child on the playground who stomps his feet when he doesn't get his way.
 
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