In your honest opinion, who do you think has the best chance of becoming POTUS?

Started by Question Mark, March 02, 2016, 10:04:07 PM

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CuriousEyes

And to put a ribbon on Speechgate, a staffer has stepped forward to acknowledge plagiarizing the speech - unintentionally.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/20/politics/trump-aide-offers-resignation-in-melania-trump-plagiarism-incident/index.html

Amusingly her excuseplanation is almost more damning on Melania (again, with the caveat I think the speech itself is probably the least troubling/noxious thing to come from the RNC so far). Hard to claim Melania herself referenced/read those passages over the phone to you, that you put them in the speech with insufficient edits, and that she then failed to recognize how exceptionally close those passages were to what she read to you a few days before without her looking indifferent to the plagiarism.

Again, just goes to the systemic dysfunction/inexperience in Trumps campaign. They're bending over themselves to avoid a very innocuous truth - that Melania's involvement in drafting the speech was probably very minimal beyond some storyboarding and a final approval. And in the process they're making themselves look worse.

Vekseid

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on July 20, 2016, 05:13:08 AM
The portions of of the speech that are in question are mostly cliché and general blather. Nothing of significant substance was repeated. As a potential first lady, she's going to say a lot of the same things that other potential first ladies would be expected to say and with the same level of formality. Similar words are going to be used simply because they are suitable for the speech and are fairly common. I really don't see this as a big issue, but rather as an attempt to smear Trump's wife.

The reason search engines and plagiarism detection work, is because novel writing is the honest default state.

Put that sentence in quotes, try to find another example in Google.

Chop in in half. Either half. Even a middle half will do. Try to find another example in Google. You can even do the same with many of your sentences.

The plagiarism happened. This is a fact. You calling Michelle Obama's words 'general blather' and 'nothing of significant substance' lampoons Michelle. This hypocrisy by the people defending Melania's speech - doing so while taking shots at Obama's wife at the same time - is a significant part of what has people annoyed. Or amused.

It's just another depth for Trump and his followers to plumb. What will you cover yourself with drudging up next?

Lilias

Quote from: CuriousEyes on July 19, 2016, 11:40:11 AM
That a wall should be built between the US and Mexico (no mention of Canada, I believe)

Canadians aren't flocking southwards, that's why.

As for Melania, the awkwardness increases if we remember that, whatever the speechwriter says, the Trumpette claimed repeatedly to have written the speech herself. Hmmm... But I don't want to be too hard on her. After all, she's an immigrant stuck in a gig that no American wanted...
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To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
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Mithlomwen

There's also another problem in the Trump corner. 

The RNC program states that: "After obtaining a degree in design and architecture at University in Slovenia, Melania was jetting between photo shoots in Paris and Milan, finally settling in New York in 1996." Which is a direct quote from her website.

When in fact, she didn't actually obtain a degree.  According to the news, Apparently she dropped out after her first year, in order to concentrate on her modeling career.
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gaggedLouise

Just been to Paris for a couple of days, and noticed that the famously high-brow daily Le Monde ran a long article for their week-end supplement showing Trump's trio of grown-up children (with Ivana) as having a much more sophisticated and measured style than himself. Which would make them a valuable asset in selling Trump to the middle classes, or beyond the USA. Now, Le Monde is the last paper you could suspect of playing down to Trump and admiring him...  :P

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Beguile's Mistress

If you saw any of Donald Jr.'s speech last night you might be willing to wait 20 years and see if he'll run for POTUS.  He is leagues better than his father.

TaintedAndDelish



Warlock

Tensions still seem to be hot amongst the Democratic party with the recent leaks and accusations of collusion and corruption.


Best of luck to the people in the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbM6WbUw7Bs

Lustful Bride

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on July 23, 2016, 08:14:04 PM

Found on Facebook.

Oh Ray. You did the wrong thing, but for the right reasons.

Your heart was in the right place at least.

No matter who wins this though everyone still loses in some way :/

ReijiTabibito

The leak and ensuing scandal over the newest leak from the DNC - which shattered the image of the organization as a 'neutral' entity beyond all doubt - may have just cost Hillary the election.  At the very least, I hope it means that people start walking away from both parties; people may (rightfully) complain about the fact that the Republicans don't care about the American people, that all they want to do is win, but they've never done something like this.

Beguile's Mistress

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on July 25, 2016, 12:45:00 PM
The leak and ensuing scandal over the newest leak from the DNC - which shattered the image of the organization as a 'neutral' entity beyond all doubt - may have just cost Hillary the election.  At the very least, I hope it means that people start walking away from both parties; people may (rightfully) complain about the fact that the Republicans don't care about the American people, that all they want to do is win, but they've never done something like this.

How can you be so sure?  Watergate is only one instance of a political party going after another.
QuoteWatergate was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s, following a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. and President Richard Nixon's administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement.

This sort of thing has been happening from time immemorial and I don't see it stopping any time soon.

TheGlyphstone

In fact, I'm surprised they haven't already started calling it Councilgate.

People expect political scandals like this, as evidenced by some people in this very thread as a microcosm of the voting public (if a rather Democratic/left-leaning one in general). It'll be a flash in the pan, but forgotten by November almost for certain.

ReijiTabibito

Watergate isn't an accurate example of the kind of corruption we're talking about here.  This is an entirely internal action - the DNC wanted to stifle the candidacy of Sanders in order to promote their own candidate, who they've been waiting almost ten years to put up.  (Note to the DC crowd - political personages, like food, have a shelf life.  They go bad eventually.)  On the flipside, Watergate was an external political action - Nixon's CREEP was caught trying to wiretap phones in the campaign headquarters of Nixon's opponent, George McGovern.  That would be like if some of Hillary's campaign people were caught trying to bug the phones or hack the computers of the Trump campaign.

It's also worth pointing out that the 'sacrifice' of Wasserman-Schultz is just a move to try and appease people angry over the news - she'll be walking out the door as chairman of the DNC at the end of the convention and going right into a position as chairman of Hillary's campaign - thank you, revolving door.  Hillary's had chances to earn the support of progressives, and there's at least two (including this one) I can think of, but either because they were bungled or because of potential political fallout (people are alleging that W-S knows where all the closet skeletons are, and thus could not truly be cut loose), or for whatever reason, the Clinton campaign has made the wrong choice.

EDIT: I think it has the potential to go further.  The e-mails being leaked show that this action was not solely limited to the DNC; people in the media, powerful people, were involved in the action as well.  Whether or not it goes beyond the election will be a matter of how the people outraged over it cast it - was it an effort made against Bernie Sanders, to try and place a more disliked candidate on the throne?  Or is it ongoing evidence of media corruption and bias in favor of the Democrats?

Cassandra LeMay

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on July 25, 2016, 01:00:53 PM
.... It'll be a flash in the pan, but forgotten by November almost for certain.
If it will be that's probably because of the candidates and not the affair itself. Trump is so polarizing that the people already determined not to vote for him will not change their mind because of this Democratic frackas. Many of them will just ignore whatever comes out of Trump's mouth anyway. Another candidate might get some good mileage out of this, but I suspect for Trump it will not do much, if anything, to bring him more voters.

And we haven't seen this played out completely on the Democratic side yet. How this will effect the convention remains to be seen. The situation may still be salvageable, but Clinton didn't make it any easier by readily taking DWS on board her campaign. That was an unforced error that paints her as the ultimate Washington insider who cares more about "the establishment" than the common people. Again, that might not hurt her too much, as it might not change many minds and only reinforce the perceptions of people who wouldn't vote for her anyway.

Both candidates are so disliked by many people that I am not sure anything they do will make much of a difference. Could well be this will all boil down to the voters who vote strictly along party lines, no matter who the candidate is or how they act.
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Warlock

Shows an aggregate graph of the current standings. Still a very close race. Trump has also had a fairly recent and sharp rise in the popular polls (possibly due to RNC, but pundits are likely better at analyzing the figures). Hillary still seem to lead in states with 202 vs 165 with 172 electoral votes undecided, if I'm reading the numbers correctly.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

Beguile's Mistress

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on July 25, 2016, 01:02:52 PM
Watergate isn't an accurate example of the kind of corruption we're talking about here.  This is an entirely internal action - the DNC wanted to stifle the candidacy of Sanders in order to promote their own candidate, who they've been waiting almost ten years to put up.  (Note to the DC crowd - political personages, like food, have a shelf life.  They go bad eventually.)  On the flipside, Watergate was an external political action - Nixon's CREEP was caught trying to wiretap phones in the campaign headquarters of Nixon's opponent, George McGovern.  That would be like if some of Hillary's campaign people were caught trying to bug the phones or hack the computers of the Trump campaign.

It's also worth pointing out that the 'sacrifice' of Wasserman-Schultz is just a move to try and appease people angry over the news - she'll be walking out the door as chairman of the DNC at the end of the convention and going right into a position as chairman of Hillary's campaign - thank you, revolving door.  Hillary's had chances to earn the support of progressives, and there's at least two (including this one) I can think of, but either because they were bungled or because of potential political fallout (people are alleging that W-S knows where all the closet skeletons are, and thus could not truly be cut loose), or for whatever reason, the Clinton campaign has made the wrong choice.

EDIT: I think it has the potential to go further.  The e-mails being leaked show that this action was not solely limited to the DNC; people in the media, powerful people, were involved in the action as well.  Whether or not it goes beyond the election will be a matter of how the people outraged over it cast it - was it an effort made against Bernie Sanders, to try and place a more disliked candidate on the throne?  Or is it ongoing evidence of media corruption and bias in favor of the Democrats?

A rose by any other name.  It has been done in the past on all sides, is being done now and will be done in the future.  Belonging to one political party over any and all others does not absolve them from playing dirty tricks. 

Taking them too seriously is pretty much a waste of time.  One might speculate that a current candidate who has access to IT talent might even now be associated with people attempting to hack into their opponent's systems to siphon off intelligence that can be skewed and used against them.  That could apply to every candidate or campaign out there.

Honesty, objectivity and veracity are endangered species in the political arena.

Beguile's Mistress

Here is a link to an article I just read that give some insight into the use of emails that can and often do get people in trouble.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/07/25/why-we-dont-count-to-10-before-hitting-send/?wpisrc=nl_tech&wpmm=1

As you can see hardly any of us are immune to the so-called hit-send-and-regret-it syndrome.

ReijiTabibito

Quote from: Warlock on July 25, 2016, 01:55:48 PM
Shows an aggregate graph of the current standings. Still a very close race. Trump has also had a fairly recent and sharp rise in the popular polls (possibly due to RNC, but pundits are likely better at analyzing the figures). Hillary still seem to lead in states with 202 vs 165 with 172 electoral votes undecided, if I'm reading the numbers correctly.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

Be careful about the polls - especially with who the polls were directed towards.  For all that was wrong with it, Romney was right last election with his '47%' statement in that there are people who will simply vote their party, even if the policies said party wants to implement will actually hurt them.  (I can give an illustration with government assistance programs if desired.)

The key to election victory is not the diehards, the people who will vote their affiliation no matter what.  The key to victory are the independents, the undecided, who can win the most of them.  That was my argument for why the Democrats should nominate Bernie Sanders - he overwhelmingly had the support of the independents within the country, and all the polls showed that he would stomp Trump flat by double digits in a general election.  I think it was on the CBS morning news where I saw that a poll was recently released that showed Trump had 40% from independents...as opposed to the 28% for Hillary.  (And before you ask, no, this was not a while ago, this was just a few days before the RNC.)

My IRL friends have been pressuring me to vote for Clinton, despite the fact that I told them that it would take the Devil himself running in an election to get me to vote for her.  That's not to say I'm planning on voting Trump; Trump is terrible, too, just a different kind of terrible.  My current plan is to vote for Jill Stein in the upcoming presidential, and then as far as Congressional elections go, for the races I've looked into so far, I'm planning on voting Democrat.

But oh no.  I have to vote for Hillary, because while they were willing to admit that they could never really nail down Trump on a position, now he's got that eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil Mike Pence standing over his shoulder, whispering into his ear a la the Emperor, and Pence is definitely going to use his possible position as VP to make sure that America goes back to the 50s and that they stack SCOTUS with a bunch of Scalia clones...

...yes.  Because stacking SCOTUS with a bunch of Republican-nominated justices is bad, but stacking it with Democrat-nominated justices is good!  Never mind the fact that some of the most progressive SCOTUS justices in history were nominated by Republicans...

TaintedAndDelish

Funny how the news media ( ie. Huffington Post ) is trying to spin the #DNCleaks as a Russian conspiracy. After all of HIllary's blatant lying, who's going believe her now when she cries wolf. Also, after the FBI failed to indict Hillary over the email scandal and after the AG's (Loretta Lynch) suspicious rendezvous with Bill Clinton, her hands-off approach to not prosecuting and deflection spree when questioned by congress, and Obama's involvement with promoting Hillary, who' s going to believe them if they come back and say that a foreign party was behind the leak?

Julian Assange states that he never release the source of the leak - dismissing claims that the Russian government was behind it.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/25/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-no-proof-russian-intelligence-responsible-for-dnc-hack.html




ReijiTabibito

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on July 25, 2016, 05:17:04 PM
Funny how the news media ( ie. Huffington Post ) is trying to spin the #DNCleaks as a Russian conspiracy. After all of HIllary's blatant lying, who's going believe her now when she cries wolf. Also, after the FBI failed to indict Hillary over the email scandal and after the AG's (Loretta Lynch) suspicious rendezvous with Bill Clinton, her hands-off approach to not prosecuting and deflection spree when questioned by congress, and Obama's involvement with promoting Hillary, who' s going to believe them if they come back and say that a foreign party was behind the leak?

Julian Assange states that he never release the source of the leak - dismissing claims that the Russian government was behind it.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/25/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-no-proof-russian-intelligence-responsible-for-dnc-hack.html

They want to spin it as the result of Putin - not Russia, Putin - trying to get Hillary ousted so that his 'best bud' Trump can sail into office.  Never mind that the fact Hillary's reset button - which was a good faith effort to try and fix the strain between our nations - ended up putting Putin in a better position than he had been beforehand.  Chris Christie was not being 100% honest when he did his RNC indictment of Hillary, but the fact that the attempt failed and accomplished much the opposite of what was intended still happened.

Hillary might have been able to at least gain some traction with the notion, if she wasn't a compulsive liar.  And I use the psychological definition of compulsion -  a behavior that she cannot help but engage in when granted the opportunity.  Someone who lies about crap that doesn't matter - like who she was named after or her finances after they left the White House (if you were really broke, Hillary, then why did you buy house in NY that for $1.8 million at a time when the President made only $200k?  That house was worth every dollar Bill earned in the White House and then some!) or the fact that she tried to join the Marines (!).

Nobody would have cared, but the fact that Hillary lied about them just helped to establish her pattern of deception.

Vekseid

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on July 25, 2016, 05:17:04 PM
Funny how the news media ( ie. Huffington Post ) is trying to spin the #DNCleaks as a Russian conspiracy. After all of HIllary's blatant lying, who's going believe her now when she cries wolf. Also, after the FBI failed to indict Hillary over the email scandal and after the AG's (Loretta Lynch) suspicious rendezvous with Bill Clinton, her hands-off approach to not prosecuting and deflection spree when questioned by congress, and Obama's involvement with promoting Hillary, who' s going to believe them if they come back and say that a foreign party was behind the leak?

Julian Assange states that he never release the source of the leak - dismissing claims that the Russian government was behind it.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/25/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-no-proof-russian-intelligence-responsible-for-dnc-hack.html

You really need to watch your bias.

The claim is not without merit.

Quote from: ReijiTabibito on July 25, 2016, 05:34:29 PM
Hillary might have been able to at least gain some traction with the notion, if she wasn't a compulsive liar.

Go on, pick another of the top four candidates - any one of them - and convince me that they are more honest than Hillary. It's not like she sets a high bar. They treat it like a limbo game.

I seriously expected better from Jill Stein. That was just depressing.

TaintedAndDelish

Quote from: Vekseid on July 25, 2016, 06:11:49 PM
You really need to watch your bias.

I take responsibility for that.TM   :p

In all seriousness, the claim does have merit, but the source of the claim is questionable. It came from Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager - not from the DNC and not from a government official or security company. The source of this claim had a strong interest in shifting the public's focus away from the DNC and Hillary and towards another easily vilified source. Could he be telling the truth? Yes, but perhaps it's worth asking if this is a trustworthy source.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-campaign--and-some-cyber-experts--say-russia-is-behind-email-release/2016/07/24/5b5428e6-51a8-11e6-bbf5-957ad17b4385_story.html

It's the specificity of the claim and the absence of evidence that makes me skeptical. Yes, they got hacked ( at least two incidents are publicly known ). To the best of my knowledge, the only thing we have about the party responsible is speculation.

As for it being Russian state sponsored hackers:

Guccifer ( a Romanian who has connected from a Russian IP address ) was not likely to be responsible as he was locked up and extradited to the US prior to the period of time for which the email was taken.

CozyBear and FancyBear ( Both believed to be Russian agents ) had their fingers in the cookie jar at different times. While either of them could have been responsible, the fact the two different hackers ( or hacking groups ) got in kind of makes you wonder how many others may have gotten in as this was a high profile target. Did they use existing tools that were commonly available ( in which case, the likelihood that others did the same is higher ) , or did they have to develop their own custom tools for the job?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_National_Committee_cyber_attacks

And why not China, Trump's party, or some other country or corporation that might benefit from banjaxing Hillary's campaign?

Beguile's Mistress

After Bernie Sander's speech in which is glossed over the email controversy and DNC machinations it might be all moot.  What started as a divided floor now seems more united after Michelle Obama's speech and Sander's did all they could to pull the delegates together.  Both gave strong, unqualified endorsements of and support to Hillary Clinton.

Warlock

Bernie came out fairly strongly on a number of issues and dragged Hillary's name in there with him, such as on breaking down the banks. So if nothing else, hopefully he forces her to take on some of those position, no matter how insincere they are (which they will be), and may shape any policy position more toward the left than they otherwise would've been. We've already seen it with the, albeit very watered down revised version, of the campaign platform.

Seeing the Bernie chants, especially in the moment he endorsed Hillary, drowning out her supporters, left me feeling a swelling of warmth in my chest. The crying and mixed emotions displayed on his supporters faces were deeply touching. <3

Not quite sure if they manage to present a unifed enough front, especially with the jabs at Sanders supporters such as by Silverman and from my understanding even Michelle Obama, to convincingly take on Trump. Nor much of a fan of using the threat of Trump as a reason to vote Hillary, considering they very much played around the theme of hope as counter to the republican's convention.