harryq

Honest, non-confrontational, not intentionally judgmental question: Let's say the two potential (non-Trump) outcomes are: Hillary wins with 45% of the vote; Trump gets 40% and other people get the remaining 15%. Hillary wins with 60% of the vote; Trump gets 40% and no one else gets ~any of the vote. Which of these outcomes do you think is more likely to lead to a viable third party? My belief is that if Hillary absolutely crushes Trump, it would be so embarrassing that the RNC could split between the crazy people (e.g., the people who continue to oppose LGBT-rights) and the sane people (e.g., fiscal conservatives with social beliefs from the 21st century), and then you'd have your viable third party. I would also argue that if you want a legit 3+ party system (or at least a better system), the better strategy would be to start at the local level rather than at the Presidential level. For instance, I'd rather protest-vote and let someone like Trump become a state/US Senator or Representative than protest-vote and have Trump be President.

You do know that Ivana Trump (wife #1) accused Donald of raping her, right? And that many other women have accused him of assaulting them, right? Then there's also his admission to going into the Miss Universe dressing room to "inspect" while the women were getting dressed, but I think you get my point. Anyhoo, I'm not saying Hillary is an angel or that she has never said/done anything bad to the women Bill has been accused of doing things with, but to equate what Hillary has done regarding "women's rights" to Trump's history of (accusations of) rape/assault and admissions of generally creepy/sleazy behavior seems like a bit of a stretch.

Are you sure you aren't the one kidding yourself? In fact, I would still think your statement was bullshit if you were referring to Ivanka Trump.

Despite having been a Hillary supporter throughout this campaign, I'm now convinced that Trump is going to grab this election by the pussy.

While I doubt this will hit $25 on Amazon, I probably should have taken this approach, too...

this was my default "double post" post!

I think I've asked you about this before, but could you elaborate on this "half my money" statement? 20-30%? I could believe it. but 50%? I'm not sure how much of that is income tax, property tax, sales tax, or hyperbole tax I'm not asking for a tax return or anything (if Trump doesn't need to release his to become the Rep nominee for President, you certainly don't need one to complain on VC), but you'd have to have a pretty high income to have a marginal income tax rate of 50%, and I'm not sure what else is contributing to your claim.

Using the same source as you, it looks like Obama beat Romney by 13 points among postgraduates, and Gallup says he has a 62% approval rating by postgraduates and a sub-50% approval rating by people with less than a college degree. That's not to say that people with MDs and PhDs can't be ignorant or dumb (nor am I saying that the less educated are ignorant and/or dumb), I'm just not sure what evidence you have to support your claim. On a side note, Obama has had paltry approval ratings from those who attend church weekly, but I'm not sure if that's a good predictor for the ignorance level of his supporters or critics... I mean, a lot of people are saying things -- I've read stories -- but I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there.

If someone wanted "4 more years" of an ~Obama-like presidency, are you saying/implying that they should vote for Trump (or at least prefer Trump over Hillary)? If so, that argument is new to me... I'll admit I'm assuming that we're currently experiencing a period of "American prosperity with the same rights all Americans enjoy today", so perhaps that is what is causing my confusion.

I tried to get a State Dept visit, but all my $3 got me was a woman card and some Anthony Weiner dick pics #ThanksHuma

I'd totally donate to Hillary again if I could get a "monster card" to go with my woman card

I was mainly responding to the implication that since the Syrian people elected Assad it wasn't our place to get involved in trying to remove him. Whether the approach we took was the absolute correct decision is probably beyond any of our knowledge, but it is pretty easy to find reasons to believe that (a) Assad's election wasn't entirely legit and that (b) he's overseen some pretty horrible things.

Maybe so, but what should the US do with countries like Syria? Support Assad? Fight Assad? Ignore Assad? What should the US do with the people suffering in Syria? Give them a safe place to come to? Let them die? Say "well they elected Assad with 88% of the vote so they must like him" and not question if their elections are ~legit? I understand you're not cool with having a vagina in the white house, but other than that, I'm not sure what you want.

You're pro-Assad? I mean, I guess he can't be that bad if he got 88.7% of the vote in 2014... And heck, if he keeps bombing, killing, and torturing the people who don't support him, I'm sure he'll get an even bigger % of the votes next time! So yeah, nevermind, you're right. Let's leave Syria alone and not admit any refugees into the country. Seems like the right move. Almost forgot: #MakeAmericaGreatAgain

Trump thinks that kid is a terrorist, right? Just checking...

Depends on if you think removing dictators can (eventually) lead to better quality of life. Presumably Jews in 1930s Europe would have preferred regime change to some extra cash in their pockets, regardless of whose "business" it was.

Hold up, everybody. Are y'all telling me that a guy who has been a US Representative or a US Senator for almost my entire life has money? Well I'll be damned...

Agreed. Those insults don't quite have the same staying power of "Crooked Hillary", "Crazy Bernie", "Lyin' Ted", "Little Marco", "Low-Energy Jeb", and "Pocahontas"

You're right, I can't think of any Islamic-inspired terrorist attacks before 2008...

Did the leaked emails say anything like "How are we gonna take down O'Malley?" I haven't heard of any. As far as I'm aware, he has only complained about the lack of debates, but his chances were pretty low going into the debates (as I recall), so I don't know if he really has an argument in that regard. It seems to me that he's complaining about being unknown compared to Hillary, but I don't think you can blame that on the DNC.

I think I'm okay with it if the candidate is not a member of the party. if they were biased against martin o'malley, that would seem worse to me than having a bias against a guy who (literally?) hasn't paid his dues to the party.

Hey, Donald Trump's meeting with his advisors!

#MakeMemesGreatAgain

The bottom-left panel is the most telling -- there's no way that 60% of Americans believe Trump will move the country in the right direction, so you know from the outset that these results are not representative of the country as a whole. I'm not even sure 60% of Republicans thought going into the speech that his policies would move the country in the right direction. In other words, your probability of watching Trump's speech is not independent of your pre-speech probability of voting for Trump or your party ~affiliation, and I hope that the CNN commentators made sure to emphasize that when they showed these results. That said, I watched his speech, and I loved his shout-out to the "LG [pause] BT [shrug] Q" community.

Considering everyone and their mom had cap room for a ~max contract this year, I don't really give the Warriors credit for being able to afford KD. That said, I certainly don't blame them for signing KD -- the drop-off between [insert role player here] and an old veteran searching for a ring isn't bigger than the gap between Harrison Barnes and KD. It will be interesting in a couple of years, though, when his contract is up and they don't have his Bird Rights. I wonder if they tried to discuss a sign-and-trade deal with OKC.