2016 US Presidential Elections Thread [Trump Wins]

Hands · Oct 11, 2016

gimmepie said:
She quite literally apologised for something during the debate. I think she even used the words "I apologize".

Also, can someone please explain the child rapist thing to me? I know nothing of that issue but it's obviously a contentious one.

She briefly apologised for using the phrase "basket of deplorables" about Trump's supporters simply because it cost her a lot of fringe votes.

Clinton was appointed as legal for a child rapist after he asked for a women to represent him as he felt it would strengthen his case. Clinton asked not to but was denied. She pushed a narrative that the 12 year old victim was a liar and chased after older men. In an interview years later she laughs when talking about her lack of faith in polygraph machines after she had him do a test and it said he was telling the truth when she knew he was not. This isn't where, at least personally speaking, the problem lies. She doesn't attempt to apologise to the kid in the interview, or at all during the years that have followed. The most she's ever expressed regret in regards to the whole fiasco is that she had to work that case. Then she had the nerve to state 'I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don't let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we're with you." on her website, which, funnily enough, her team removed after the 12 year old made noise about it in feb 2015. At that point Clinton could have apologised for all the grief the case caused, but she opted to flip flop on a statement again instead.

Aliencommander1245 said:
Sooooooo.... Once in 2008, once in august and once in July she said she misspoke? That's the result you've given me from that google search.

On from that, there is no wallstreet scandal as none of the wikileak documents actually show anything scandalous, I have no idea what you mean with "her droning campaign" as far as i'm aware she neither started nor was ever in control of drone strikes and the rapist thing is a straight up lie, sadly even being peddled by the victim themself.

As I posted to you earlier in this thread, the accused pled guilty and Clinton agreed to a plea deal for her client that net him 5 years jail time. This was reduced by the judge, not by her intervention. From there, it was the victim's own mother who wanted the deal to be done, and pushed for it rather than dragging on the case. Clinton did nothing but her job, and tried to get herself removed from the case as she didn't even want to do it.

https://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-freed-child-rapist-laughed-about-it/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...inton-heckled-by-black-lives-matter-activist/

As for "the media arent bias against Trump", from last week's "incident" alone:

What he said could easily be misconstrued as saying veterans were weak, as the ones not suffering from ptsd in the room were told they were strong, unlike others. This was a poorly worded statement that, frankly, would not be out of character for him to actually have said- this is not an example of bias as much as it's an example of the media thinking there's a story where there probably isn't one. There are not scores of incidents though, you cannot provide "scores" and I doubt you could find any more than this, even.

Not at all, you've noted yourself that you don't need to stretch the truth and you're right, you've provided a single example of something that could very easily be taken to mean something when heard out of context of the whole exchange (And even if you had it wouldn't be hard to see it). Again though I challenge you to find more examples of this "truth stretching" widespread in the media

But, again, he doesn't apologize? He doesn't apologize when he claims a judge was sentencing him harshly because of the judge's ethnic background, he doesn't apologize for repeatedly insulting a gold star family, he doesn't apologize for insulting random people and random women, he doesn't apologize for his comments about the former miss universe he errendiously claimed had a sex tape.

He has apologized for this one thing so far, and as far as I can tell (And others who have researched more extensively can tell) he has literally never apologized for anything else during his entire political campaign, neither publically or privately. He's apologized for two things ever on the public record outside of the pre-mentioned example from the other day. Once to a councillor fired for voting against Trump's gold resort, and once to his current wife for offending her while she was his fiancé.

She used the phrase numerous times during her primary campaign and in debates with Sen. Sanders whenever he called out her massive flip flops.

https://people.com/celebrity/donal-trump-apologizes-for-unspecified-wrongs-and-personal-pain/

Here's a fourth for you. He isn't a spin doctor, that's the whole point. I was asked why people still view him in the way they do, this is one of the reasons why. It's all about the language.

https://www.salon.com/2016/06/10/fb...ssassinations_with_her_cellphone_report_says/

Clinton was Sec. of State from 2009-2013, are you honestly suggesting that the Sec. of State had no say or part in US drone strikes during that period?

gimmepie · Oct 11, 2016

Hands said:
Clinton was appointed as legal for a child rapist after he asked for a women to represent him as he felt it would strengthen his case. Clinton asked not to but was denied. She pushed a narrative that the 12 year old victim was a liar and chased after older men. In an interview years later she laughs when talking about her lack of faith in polygraph machines after she had him do a test and it said he was telling the truth when she knew he was not. This isn't where, at least personally speaking, the problem lies. She doesn't attempt to apologise to the kid in the interview, or at all during the years that have followed. The most she's ever expressed regret in regards to the whole fiasco is that she had to work that case. Then she had the nerve to state 'I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don't let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we're with you." on her website, which, funnily enough, her team removed after the 12 year old made noise about it in feb 2015. At that point Clinton could have apologised for all the grief the case caused, but she opted to flip flop on a statement again instead.

Well I don't like how she handled it, but really she was doing her job in the end and I don't think she should have to apologise for that.

Hands · Oct 11, 2016

gimmepie said:
Well I don't like how she handled it, but really she was doing her job in the end and I don't think she should have to apologise for that.

She shouldn't make statements like "I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don't let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we're with you." and then have them removed when she's called out about it by the victim instead of just saying "I'm sorry, I was young, I made a bad call. I'm doing this to make sure no one ever has to go through what you did again" or something. It's not hard, it's really just basic moral decency.

Here's the real problem, the vast majority of people know Trump is a boorish, rude, sexist, probably racist (if he isn't, he at the very least plays up to them) reactionary egomaniac who has no place in Govt which is why people like me just don't take him seriously. Clinton, however, is supposed to be the good guy in this, her party are supposed to be the good guys. It's time they start acting it.

Aliencommander1245 · Oct 11, 2016

Hands said:
She briefly apologised for using the phrase "basket of deplorables" about Trump's supporters simply because it cost her a lot of fringe votes.

Isn't that the motivation for Trump's current backhanded apology? I mean, if we're tallying this here, that's two apologies and acceptance of responsibility to one, meaning she's apologised 200% more than Trump so far. On from that i really doubt that's the reason she did it, it makes more sense that she legitimately regrets saying that because it was a poor decision politcally as well

Hands said:
Clinton was appointed as legal for a child rapist after he asked for a women to represent him as he felt it would strengthen his case.Clinton asked not to but was denied.

True, she tried harder than you imply here though.

Hands said:
She pushed a narrative that the 12 year old victim was a liar and chased after older men.

Flase, and directly stated so in the Snopes article.
This was something put forward by more than one person, including a child psychologist part of the investigation. None of those people were Clinton. Clinton requested the victim undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine the validity of these claims, and the court agreed.

Hands said:
In an interview years later she laughs when talking about her lack of faith in polygraph machines after she had him do a test and it said he was telling the truth when she knew he was not.

This is partially true, she laughs that it destroyed her faith because she was sure the result would support the prosecution but the polygraph came back supporting her own case. She did not "know he was lying" just hoped he would so he'd have a more concrete sentence.

Hands said:
This isn't where, at least personally speaking, the problem lies. She doesn't attempt to apologise to the kid in the interview, or at all during the years that have followed. The most she's ever expressed regret in regards to the whole fiasco is that she had to work that case.

And... why should she? She did her job despite not liking it, the guy pled guilty and she got him a plea bargain with the support of the mother of the victim. There's nothing about this case that she needs to apologise for and any apology from her would be meaningless. She didn't do the crime, she didn't get the guy off scott free, she didn't lie, she didn't claim he was innocent and she didn't attack the victim. An apology would be hollow and empty, bowing entierly to any public pressure that would require this happen

Hands said:
Then she had the nerve to state 'I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don't let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we're with you." on her website, which, funnily enough, her team removed after the 12 year old made noise about it in feb 2015. At that point Clinton could have apologised for all the grief the case caused, but she opted to flip flop on a statement again instead.

This is false. It's true that the "right to be believed" part was removed from the page text when the wording was changed from a big quote into a list of policies, but it wasn't in feb 2015 and wasn't after allegations from the 12 y/o (Which did not happen until recenly when the trump campaign got in contact with her, and she has now lied about the case as part of his campaign). It was changed feb 2016. However, the video on the site still retains that part of the quote with the caption that states it.

It's pretty nonsense to present the idea that she's suddenly decided that sexual assault victims have the right to be heard and don't deserve to be silence, but they don't deserve to be believed.

Hands said:
She used the phrase numerous times during her primary campaign and in debates with Sen. Sanders whenever he called out her massive flip flops.

Hmm, might have to look this up. But this is in a completely different context
to the line the last time you were talking about it, so the point still stands.

Hands said:
Here's a fourth for you. He isn't a spin doctor, that's the whole point. I was asked why people still view him in the way they do, this is one of the reasons why. It's all about the language.

That's... not an apology. "I have said things i regret" is not at all an apology, nor does it even bother to name what he regrets.

He might not be smart enough to be a spin doctor, but he employs a load of them. His statements and scripts are built to spin politics and push the buttons he needs to- it's just lucky he could do more of that than the other repub candidates on his own or he wouldn't have gotten far enough to hire them.

Hands said:
Clinton was Sec. of State from 2009-2013, are you honestly suggesting that the Sec. of State had no say or part in US drone strikes during that period?

Of course not, but the implication that she had the power or need to stop them or that she is somehow responsible for all of them personally is absurd (Considering the drone strike programs were running before and are running after her stint in power).

But as the article says the CIA actually controls the drone strikes, and process each request to the state department to allow them a degree of control (Not full control, and not really even full control over their go-ahead) and even this was something signed in under clinton
from 2011 onwards (Which means she had what, a year and a half at maximum of any degree of control over drone strikes at all?)

Esper · Oct 11, 2016

Hands said:
She shouldn't make statements like "I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don't let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we're with you." and then have them removed when she's called out about it by the victim instead of just saying "I'm sorry, I was young, I made a bad call. I'm doing this to make sure no one ever has to go through what you did again" or something. It's not hard, it's really just basic moral decency.

But see, she's a woman and women in politics get held to a different standard if the article I linked to several days ago is at all accurate (and from what I can see, it seems to be). So she's learned that, if she doesn't want to get eaten alive, she can't admit to ever making a big mistake. That's why she has "slips of the tongue" and so on. To say otherwise would be, in the eye of people against her, admitting that she's not capable or ready or qualified. I'm not saying that this approach is the best and I'm not trying to excuse her actions, but I can understand why she habitually acts as if she's never made any mistakes. It comes from the way people attack women who threaten traditionally male positions of authority. Admit you made a mistake and your enemies will pounce and say you're unfit for the position. (People do this to everyone, yes, but they get extra vicious against women who threaten their sense of male entitlement.) But it's a catch-22 because getting defensive every time about anything large or small, acting as if you're perfect, and you also come off badly and you get accused of being a liar.

Hands · Oct 12, 2016

Aliencommander1245 said:
here for reply ref.

True, she tried harder than you imply here though.

I didn't really imply anything, she tried to not do it and the judge told her she had to. That's all I said. Sorry if it came across that way.

Flase, and directly stated so in the Snopes article.
This was something put forward by more than one person, including a child psychologist part of the investigation.

Oh it wasn't directly her who said it? I misread that, my bad.

This is partially true, she laughs that it destroyed her faith because she was sure the result would support the prosecution but the polygraph came back supporting her own case. She did not "know he was lying" just hoped he would so he'd have a more concrete sentence.

She was sure it would come back backing the prosecution because she knew he was lying. Hence the guilty plea.

Hillary Clinton said:
"But you know what was sad about it was that the prosecutors had evidence, among which was his underwear... His underwear, which was bloody.

Clinton knew her client was guilty, it's why she protested representing him.

As I posted to you earlier in this thread, the accused pled guilty and Clinton agreed to a plea deal for her client that net him 5 years jail time. This was reduced by the judge, not by her intervention.

I missed this earlier, this is also fairly false.

Hillary Clinton said:
"It was really odd. I mean, I plea bargained it down because it turned out they didn't have any evidence"

Clinton herself says she bargained for a reduced sentence

This is false. It's true that the "right to be believed" part was removed from the page text when the wording was changed from a big quote into a list of policies, but it wasn't in feb 2015

Typo on my part, caught the '5' instead of the '6'.

and wasn't after allegations from the 12 y/o (Which did not happen until recenly when the trump campaign got in contact with her

This is false. The case has been well known for decades and the victim has talked about it in interviews a small number of times since 2008 (https://www.thedailybeast.com/artic...on-took-me-through-hell-rape-victim-says.html - an interview/article from 2014 when she started to be more open about it after hearing the audio tape interview with Clinton). She was only openly named recently, and she only started making public appearances and statements recently, her and one of Bill's accusers were both focal points in response to the claims on the site.

Esper said:
But see, she's a woman and women in politics get held to a different standard if the article I linked to several days ago is at all accurate (and from what I can see, it seems to be). So she's learned that, if she doesn't want to get eaten alive, she can't admit to ever making a big mistake. That's why she has "slips of the tongue" and so on. To say otherwise would be, in the eye of people against her, admitting that she's not capable or ready or qualified. I'm not saying that this approach is the best and I'm not trying to excuse her actions, but I can understand why she habitually acts as if she's never made any mistakes. It comes from the way people attack women who threaten traditionally male positions of authority. Admit you made a mistake and your enemies will pounce and say you're unfit for the position. (People do this to everyone, yes, but they get extra vicious against women who threaten their sense of male entitlement.) But it's a catch-22 because getting defensive every time about anything large or small, acting as if you're perfect, and you also come off badly and you get accused of being a liar.

You know I never even thought about it this way, maybe you're onto something. I just pinned it on her being a bought career politician. Things aren't the same here as they are in the states, so it never crossed my mind how she might be negatively treated for apologising.

Aliencommander1245 · Oct 12, 2016

Hands said:
She was sure it would come back backing the prosecution because she knew he was lying. Hence the guilty plea.

No, he plead guilty to charges before the lie dector test as far as i can tell. And on from that, she never admitted to or stated that she "knew he was lying" in that polygraph test- we don't even know the question she means. She's simply stated that he claimed he wasn't a rapist and that she expected the polygraph test to show he was lying, and was dissapointed that it came back negative. She's not some all-seeing cosmic entity and assumed he was guilty, if she had proof it would've been presented in court

Hands said:
Clinton knew her client was guilty, it's why she protested representing him.

There is no evidence to support this statement, and it makes just as much sense that she wouldn't want to represent an accused child rapist, especially one misogynistic enough to go out of his way to make sure he had a female lawyer defend him and assume it'd get him better off. Again though, she's not psychic and couldn't magically know he was guilty before even taking on his case.

Hands said:
I missed this earlier, this is also fairly false.

Clinton herself says she bargained for a reduced sentence

Care to source the claim it's "fairly false"? I never said she didn't get him a plea bargain, but the judge reduced the sentence on that plea bargain from 5 to 1 year from time already served and what appeared to be his own prerogative. This is public record.

And even then, it doesn't seem to have been clinton who put it forward anyway and the mother of the victim heavily pushed for it to be taken just to end it.

or a variety of reasons, a plea agreement to a reduced charge was reached. Investigators mishandled evidence of Taylor's bloody underwear, cutting out the stain that contained semen for testing and then losing it. Newsday also quoted a retired detective on the case as saying that Shelton's " 'infatuation' with the teenage boy, which she refused to admit," led to "serious inconsistencies in her statements about the incident." The detective also said Shelton's mother "was so eager to end the ordeal she coached her daughter's statements and interrupted interviews with police."

Hands said:
This is false. The case has been well known for decades and the victim has talked about it in interviews a small number of times since 2008 (https://www.thedailybeast.com/artic...on-took-me-through-hell-rape-victim-says.html - an interview/article from 2014 when she started to be more open about it after hearing the audio tape interview with Clinton). She was only openly named recently, and she only started making public appearances and statements recently, her and one of Bill's accusers were both focal points in response to the claims on the site.

But, regardless, there's no timing link between when the website was changed and when any of her statements came out? Beyond that the text isn't even removed as it's still clearly on the video on the page. The idea she'd remove it to try and avoid controversy that wasn't even really there until after it was moved around is very suspect to say the least.

And honestly? That woman seems to be lying about being subjected to a psychiatric evaluation, as she claims, the court record shows the request was denied by the judge and as such didn't even go ahead?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...lary-clinton-and-the-kathy-shelton-rape-case/

Sektor · Oct 12, 2016

Hands said:
It's because he isn't a standard career politician I think. Clinton, like most politicians, has an excuse or deflection for everything, even if the excuses are terrible and completely unbelievable, but she's never accountable for her past or her words or her actions. People don't like that. Trump on the other hand never really gets a free pass and has on a fair few occasions now apologised (even if the apologies are laboured) and admitted he was wrong. I think that in itself has kept a lot of people following him, the idea that he isn't above apologising. His "I'm sorry, I'm ashamed of what I said, but it was 2005, that isnt me now" stuff helps him immensely because he, whether earnestly or not, accepts responsibility for it. With Clinton (and many, many others) we hear "I misspoke!" or "no comment" more than we ever hear "sorry, i messed up". That goes a long way with blue collar workers I think because they're so used to seeing their high up bosses just shrug responsibility whenever they mess up. To them, Clinton is like the kind of person who costs the company $6mil and causes mass redundancies whilst keeping their job and bonus, and Trump's like the supervisor who says sorry for his part to all the workers even though he wasn't that involved. The analogy doesn't reflect the reality of the race, but that's how a lot of working class Americans I know feel.

They also see media support as a bad thing and will go against it regardless of how it actually effects them (see: Brexit) Trump is hated by the political mainstream and as such, the disenfranchised see him as a stalwart. The alt right and ultra conservatives see him as saying things the way they are, notable elements of the anarchistic side of the left see him in a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" light.

I haven't really poked my head in here, because, you know, politics. I'm not an expert or anything, but I think this sums up what people feel about both candidates. I mean, you're choosing to be gored or mauled. Not much of a difference here. I don't know how I feel, honestly. I thought I would lean left but some of the actions of the people down here where I'm at make me want to distance myself from them. My brother was accosted by a #blm guy that was stealing other people's drinks at his work. He was called all sorts of names and none too pretty.

I don't know if it's 'left' related, but I was yelled at in the grocery for not letting a fatty cut in front of me. She had a full cart and I had two items. Then was called a misogynist pig. It got worse when I started to chuckle the 'you're crazy' chuckle. Needless to say, she was removed.

That doesn't even count how I'm attacked because I choose not to specify for whom I'll be voting for. It's like some interrogation quest. I just don't know how to feel. But I will say that the current administration failed with it's long list of bailouts. The car companies are moving away, regardless. So all the bailout did was prolong the move. It really irks me that they decided to do this, and they didn't put any levy or conditions on the loans. So the left is damaged from that aspect as well. I didn't vote in the last election, but the choices there were equally poor.

Ivysaur · Oct 12, 2016

All I can say is that if you think that Clinton and Trump are *equally* as bad, then you do fully deserve Donald Trump. And may god have mercy on you.

Esper · Oct 12, 2016

The GOP are in trouble, could maybe suffer several congressional losses this year, but something tells me that a Clinton win would do wonders for them in the future, regardless of whether or not the current leadership remains in control of the party or if tea party and Trump supporter types manage to take it over. Either way, hatred for Clinton will continue like hatred of Obama continues and it will give at least some support to the Republican party since it's the only alternative to the Democrats.

Mewtwolover · Oct 13, 2016

Hands said:
Elements of the mainstream media are definitely bias against him, more than happy to just wildly stretch the truth of what was and wasn't said.

Indeed, it's even pretty obvious. Mainstream media has completely ignored the Clinton emails that Wikileaks has leaked, they contain material for many big headlines that could cause serious damage or even destroy her campaign.

Aliencommander1245 · Oct 13, 2016

Mewtwolover said:
Indeed, it's even pretty obvious. Mainstream media has completely ignored the Clinton emails that Wikileaks has leaked, they contain material for many big headlines that could cause serious damage or even destroy her campaign.

I don't think so. There's a lot of reporting on it, if you actually look, but there's nothing concrete that could "destroy her campaign" and conservative media claiming otherwise is generally either misconstruing what was said, taking a quote out of context, or outright fabricating a story.

The idea of a collective mainstream media that's all agreed that there needs to be bias against Trump is... staggering to say the least. When you consider international independent media outside of an American-centric view on things is generally reporting on the same things as american media in regards to the election you have to greatly expand this conspiracy into some kind of global network, and then try to explain how/why anyone would even bother "hiding the truth" from people who don't care or even get to vote in the american election

Ivysaur · Oct 13, 2016

As a journalist who will be writing a piece on the current situation in a few hours, I can only say that accusations of sexual abuse after last week's tape are much more newsworthy (and terrifying) than Clinton giving speeches- even if some of her quotes can look bad without context.

Oh, and nobody is telling me what to report on, giving me orders or promising me a bonus if Clinton wins. I just studied five years of university to know what is newsworthy.

UltimateUmbreon · Oct 13, 2016

In regards to the future of the GOP, I'm not sure if Trump's candidacy and/or the election outcome will affect much of the midterm/congressional elections as drastically as some might think. I could be completely wrong and an absolute fool, but I think the overwhelming majority of Americans vote based on party alone, whether they realize it or not.

In my opinion it is one of the real weaknesses of our (bipartisan) political system. I am by no means an expert, but I have seen my acquaintances, whose general location on the political spectrum I am aware of, clearly argue against the opposing candidate's weaknesses/scandals. It's almost just automatic, blind voting for so many: if you lean right, vote republican and if you lean left, vote democrat, regardless of candidate. Again, I may be way off, and by no means does every voter do this (many, many voters do not, I'm sure), but those are my observations.

However, I think the blind party following that tends to occur will cripple the GOP. The Democratic platform is much more attractive rhetoric to the general population than the Republican platform. Plus, society as a whole is becoming more and more liberal, which I think will strengthen the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future.

It saddens me that one of these two candidates will be our next president. I have no respect for either. Everyone attacks Trump for his various scandals and his narcissistic personality, and rightfully so. But Clinton is no different. She is just a trained politician who knows how to (or maybe just chooses to) display a professional front to the public in order to avoid scrutiny. The problem that is clear is that Trump is just so incoherent that I can't imagine him managing our entire country. It is clear from his debates and speeches. I don't know if he is simply not intelligent enough to form coherent arguments and develop logical answers to questions and issues, but he doesn't do it. The problem with him is that he may just be too arrogant to consider answering questions because whatever he has to say is more important than what others are interested in hearing. Although Clinton is better, she is still not great. Most of her answers are just as empty in substance or contain claims with absolutely no plan of execution.

But again, because these two have their respective party nominations, one will be the president as a result of our bipartisan system. I think we should all be very worried about the future of our country.

Ivysaur said:
As a journalist who will be writing a piece on the current situation in a few hours, I can only say that accusations of sexual abuse after last week's tape are much more newsworthy (and terrifying) than Clinton giving speeches- even if some of her quotes can look bad without context.

Oh, and nobody is telling me what to report on, giving me orders or promising me a bonus if Clinton wins. I just studied five years of university to know what is newsworthy.

Just to play devil's advocate, you can also claim that the accusations of rape against and the KNOWN affairs of Bill Clinton are just as newsworthy and terrifying, as well as Hillary's reactions to them. George Stephanopoulos (Bill Clinton's senior advisor) wrote in his memoirs that Hillary worked to falsely discredit those who made these claims. Again, it seems really newsworthy, but for whatever reason there does not seem to be equal scrutiny. Obviously both are horrific.

On a side note, that must be tough being a journalist in a situation like this. I mean you have your own personal political views, so does that interfere with your ability to produce neutral pieces? Does it make it difficult to cover both sides with equal criticism, praise, etc?

Esper · Oct 13, 2016

So #repealthe19th is trending. While I'm sure it's not just Trump supporters, that lots of people are jumping on in a mocking, non-serious way, it still seems like we've hit a new rock bottom for political discourse in America.

Aliencommander1245 said:
The idea of a collective mainstream media that's all agreed that there needs to be bias against Trump is... staggering to say the least. When you consider international independent media outside of an American-centric view on things is generally reporting on the same things as american media in regards to the election you have to greatly expand this conspiracy into some kind of global network, and then try to explain how/why anyone would even bother "hiding the truth" from people who don't care or even get to vote in the american election

Well, it seems that the emails do show that the Clinton team wanted to highlight the "Pied Piper" Republican candidates, a.k.a. the ones who shouldn't have had a chance because they were crazypants, a.k.a. Cruz, Carson, and Trump. So they tried to pull some strings with the media to get them to focus on those guys. (You can argue about how much influence they actually have with the mainstream media.) And look what happened. Carson was in the lead for a while and Cruz and Trump got 2nd and 1st place. Oops. Looks like that backfired a bit. Yeah, now Trump is heavily damaged goods and Clinton seems pretty sure to win (though it could have gone differently), but at what cost. People everywhere are sick and tired of politicians and the usual way of doing politics and that's not going away when the next president takes office.

Nah · Oct 13, 2016

What is this #repealthe19th thing?

Ivysaur · Oct 13, 2016

UltimateUmbreon said:
Just to play devil's advocate, you can also claim that the accusations of rape against and the KNOWN affairs of Bill Clinton are just as newsworthy and terrifying, as well as Hillary's reactions to them. George Stephanopoulos (Bill Clinton's senior advisor) wrote in his memoirs that Hillary worked to falsely discredit those who made these claims. Again, it seems really newsworthy, but for whatever reason there does not seem to be equal scrutiny. Obviously both are horrific.

On a side note, that must be tough being a journalist in a situation like this. I mean you have your own personal political views, so does that interfere with your ability to produce neutral pieces? Does it make it difficult to cover both sides with equal criticism, praise, etc?

On the first topic, the difference is that in one we are talking about things his husband did, not her, which were already tried/settled in the past, and that her involvement is tangential at best VS Trump himself doing the horrific things personally. And, of course, Hillary isn't talking voluntarily about this stuff, whereas Trump can't help himself.

And, on the second part, the problem is that giving "equal praise" to both candidates means being biased towards Trump. I have made some articles being critical of her, sure, but I have also done some positive ones. In Trump's case, though, I think I have only made articles critical with his extremely idiotic economic ideas (I work in an economic paper, after all) and how they'd ruin the country (usually with the back-up of some dozen different economists who are also terrified of him), critical with his racism, with his sexism, with his incompetent campaign management and so on. I mean, when a candidate is so uniquely, extraordinarily, objectively bad, any equivalence with the other is necessarily a "false equivalence" whose only result is either making Clinton seem much worse than she is, or Trump more normal that he is- and he isn't at all.

Admittedly, I get a ton of Trump lovers calling me "a George Soros shill" who is taking orders to guarantee money for my paper, but I swear I'm not.

Nah said:
What is this #repealthe19th thing?

Yesterday 538 published two imaginary maps of "what if only men/women voted". Men-only gave Trump a landslide, so someone (perhaps Trump supporters, perhaps trolls, perhaps both, it's hard to figure out at this point) started a Twitter campaign asking that women be denied the vote again (by repealing the 19th Amendment) so Trump could win easily. Joke? Parody? Real people being batshit insane? Who knows? Happy 2016 election!

UltimateUmbreon · Oct 13, 2016

Ivysaur said:
On the first topic, the difference is that in one we are talking about things his husband did, not her, which were already tried/settled in the past, and that her involvement is tangential at best VS Trump himself doing the horrific things personally. And, of course, Hillary isn't talking voluntarily about this stuff, whereas Trump can't help himself.

And, on the second part, the problem is that giving "equal praise" to both candidates means being biased towards Trump. I have made some articles being critical of her, sure, but I have also done some positive ones. In Trump's case, though, I think I have only made articles critical with his extremely idiotic economic ideas (I work in an economic paper, after all) and how they'd ruin the country (usually with the back-up of some dozen different economists who are also terrified of him), critical with his racism, with his sexism, with his incompetent campaign management and so on. I mean, when a candidate is so uniquely, extraordinarily, objectively bad, any equivalence with the other is necessarily a "false equivalence" whose only result is either making Clinton seem much worse than she is, or Trump more normal that he is- and he isn't at all.

Admittedly, I get a ton of Trump lovers calling me "a George Soros shill" who is taking orders to guarantee money for my paper, but I swear I'm not.

Well it certainly is refreshing to hear of course that at least not all media is as biased as some might think. Or at least if they are, not for money or out of fear of being reprimanded by their superiors (not claiming that you are biased obviously). I wish I had a better understanding of the effects of the economic policies, for example, of each candidate, but I unfortunately do not. If you have the opportunity, I would love it if you would run down how each candidate's policies would affect our economy and why you, and many others, claim that Clinton's plan is far superior to Trump's.

The issue I have with it is that president or first gentleman (is that what we would call Bill?), either would be representing the country. So no matter the victor in this election America is going to choose sexual predators as their voice. I mean how low has our society and our race stooped where that is the case?

Further, while I completely agree with the stance that Trump's offenses are those of the candidate himself whereas Bill's are those of the candidate's husband, it seems pretty accepted that Hillary Clinton shutting those people up and making their accusations disappear for the betterment of her family's political position. Of course, that is not on the horrific level of actually sexually assaulting someone, but again, I feel like I must emphasize, how is this person going to be our president? I think it should be discussed at length, which it is not currently. Hillary just isn't trustworthy. I mean between what I've just mentioned, her emails, and her associations with the rich and powerful who have donated vast amounts of money to her foundation, I just don't trust her. And while she definitely possesses more positives than Trump does, that stuff I think needs to be more emphasized.

Somewhere_ · Oct 13, 2016

To be honest, the hardcore Trump supporters might support repealing the 19th if they value a Trump presidency and other right-wing presidents/congressmen/etc over the women's right to vote. I still think its unlikely even for them.

It only makes sense to want to do so to pass your political agenda. Although it would be impossible and its probably a joke.

Sektor · Oct 14, 2016

About ending women's Sufferage: I think that's just trolling. It has to be. Who in their right mind would actually advocate that? The Islamic religion, maybe? I think putting pound symbols just attract attention to ridiculous ideas and pranks en masse, like 'Dick's out for Harambe'. They just exist to push buttons so I would just take it with a grain of salt. It's not like it's going to happen anyways. Women themselves make up half of the population and they can still vote. To push the idea forward, they' have to at least get a quarter of them on board to vote against their right to vote! So silly. I think it's a troll getting off on his jollies.

Ivysaur said:
All I can say is that if you think that Clinton and Trump are *equally* as bad, then you do fully deserve Donald Trump. And may god have mercy on you.

I also don't believe slinging wild and snide comments around helps much. I just know what I know, and that's about it. I know Trump hasn't held office and that Clinton has abused her chair's power more than a few times. From the way I look at it, you have two equally poor choices at candidates.

Besides the fact that I initially voted for Obama's first election campaign and have seen some of the aftermath of the cabinet it makes me leery of voting for a member that was on that cabinet very cabinet. It's a two-sided coin where you called tails.

Placing trust in either basket is probably just as ludicrous, I feel, in both instances. You can't trust either one to water your plants while you're away, but really what choice do you have? You either side with one or the other, there really isn't another option. A third party has never snatched the title from either the Republican or Democratic parties so voting for an obscure independent is just going to assure you wasted your vote.

The two candidates are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Chances are you'll agree with one more than the other, that's just the way it's always been. I did think Clinton's dry "Pokémon Go to the polls" was funny in a strange way. That's just what I think.

It's also hard to determine who's bad (Besides Michael) due to the fact Trump hasn't been in an electoral seat. Sure, some candidates can be detestable, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be outright bad presidents and vice-versa. We've had Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman and Franklin Delano Roosevelt for example.

So just because they have nice speeches or have held an office previously doesn't mean much. I try not to judge all before end all, but it gets more and more difficult as time wears on. And if I was really vindictive of you're comment, I'd vote the opposite just to quietly spite you, ohohohoho!

Goodness gracious! I was being serious for about twenty minutes. That has got to be, like, a world record or something! I'm very fun loving, but I can't just let my Gym Badges get a little grimy just because of a few misconceptions about how I see things.

I also don't believe it's right to make quips and putting down people that haven't provoked you (unless we're slinging crack and smoking jokes); it's incendiary and serves no other purpose other than to bait someone into a war of quibbles.

2016 US Presidential Elections Thread [Trump Wins]

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Hands

I was saying Boo-urns

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