patrick.net

neplusultra57 says

Proof not needed. I’ll listen to your scenario how it would play out.

If Clinton is elected, it will be a continuation of the Bush, Cheney, and Obama policies. The GOP will obstruct any legislation that isn't grossly in favor of the evils you have listed including violations of civil and human rights, abandonment of environmental protection, and structuring the law to consolidate even more wealth in the hands of the 0.01% at the expense of the ever-shrinking middle class. This is already going on, and Clinton will simply continue it. She is even more immoral and bought than Obama is.

The GOP will be able to blame all the bad consequences of the policies they pass on the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party. Large portions of the population including the critical centralists, moderates, and independents will accept this explanation and vote for Republican candidates, particularly pro-big-business ones and pro-war ones.

In contrast under a Trump presidency, the GOP will block most of Trump's policies as
1. His policies go against their financial interests and the interests of their big-business backers.
2. The policies they might like, such as banning Muslims from entry, they cannot vote for without risking their own positions by looking like blatant racists or idiots.

Ultimately this will weaken the GOP as
1. Every attack the conservative media makes against Trump will be an attack on the Republican Party and the conservative base.
2. The conservative base will like Fox News much less as it criticizes their beloved Trump.
3. Fox News will not be able to ignore Trump's policies for doing so will have a financial impact on people like the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch. Fox News will be stuck between a rock and a hard place for the entire Trump presidency.
4. The tension between the godless capitalist republicans and the Jesus freaks conservative base will grow and strain as Trump continues to drive a wedge between the two as he has done throughout his campaign.
5. The unholy union consummated in Nixon's Southern Strategy will end leaving the Republicans will too few voters to maintain seats in the House and Senate. Neither faction will be able to garner the support of minorities. The conservative base is racist and won't want minorities in their camp as their whole motivation is keeping America white and Christian. The business camp's economic policies will alienate minorities as well, particularly the policies of removing economic opportunity and anti-poverty programs.

neplusultra57 says

You state it as if it were forgone fact.

I never state any prediction of the future as a forgone fact. One makes educated guesses based on all available data to figure out the most likely consequences of events. This does not imply absolute certainty, but if that's what you want, you're out of luck. You will never have absolute certainty in predicting the results of decisions, but it would be extremely foolish to stop making educated guesses.

In fact, it would be impossible to not act on reasonable expectations. For example, when you interview for more than one job and have the option of choosing, you base your decision not only on the salary offered but also your expectation of job stability, job enjoyment, the ability to fit in the company's culture, and other factors that you can only make educated guesses about.

I don't resume to have a large degree of confidence in what Trump will do. He's largely unpredictable. But like Susan Sarandon I think that Clinton, whose track record is well-establish and thus is more predictable, is more dangerous than Trump.

She says Clinton is "more dangerous" than Trump because Trump is simply offering up fantasies that racists in this country want to hear, fantasies that Sarandon believes he has no intention of trying to make real.

Sarandon nails Trump. He's a con man who's entire business history has been based on the tactic of telling his marks or "clients" whatever he thinks they want to hear and using bait'n'switch on them. His entire campaign has followed this strategy. None of the outlandish things he proposed like banning Muslims will be enacted, and it is highly unlikely that Trump will even try to get such things enacted. The same is true for

neplusultra57 says

Trump is on record calling for exceeding the tortures Clinton has advocated. He’s worse, but you don’t really care, do you?

Trump talks about torture, but Clinton has enacted torture and defended its practice in her actions. Actions speak louder than words.

Furthermore, it is precisely because I care about torture that I cannot vote for Clinton. If you don't understand this, then you clearly don't understand enough about me or my position to make such ridiculous statements about what my thinking is.

neplusultra57 says

I’ll entertain your scenario how a President Clinton WITH an official platform espousing the overturning of Citizen’s United AND three liberal SCOTUS nominees will actually STALL reform of the Democratic Party.

Trusting Clinton's campaign promises is as foolish as trusting Trumps. There is nothing in Hillary Clinton's entire life history that suggests she would appoint liberals to the Supreme Court. In fact, her entire life history, especially the past 16 years, suggests that she would appoint people who undermine liberty to the Supreme Court. She loves strong and unaccountable executive power and her polices precisely rely upon that.

If you think that Hilary Clinton is even remotely liberal in her policies, then you don't understand what a liberal is. Trump, in contrast, despite his idiotic conservative rhetoric has a history of being at least moderately liberal. That doesn't make him a good president candidate, but he's far less evil than Clinton on social issues, civil rights, and human rights.

As for campaign finance reform, it is utterly inconceivable that Clinton would do anything to promote such reform or overturn Citizen's United as the only reason she's the "presumptive" Democratic nominee is that she massively outspent Sanders using big business money and she's doing the exact same thing to counter Trump. She's spending 15 times as much as him on the campaign and that mostly comes from big business including Wall Street.

In contrast, Trump might -- although I doubt it -- try to limit campaign funds in order to protect his ass in the 2020 election. Overturning Citizen's United is in Trump's own interest, and that's something he's always interested in.

neplusultra57 says

Marriage equality. Pollution control. Equal protections. Voter registration law. Abortion rights. Climate change legislation. Citizens United. Regulation of capitalism. Single payer healthcare. Church and State.

There is no reason to believe that Clinton will be on the progressive or liberal side of any of those issues. She was strongly anti-marriage-equality until the tide of popular opinion turned. She has been terrible on environmental issues. As a lawyer, she didn't even think defendants should be allowed to have a lawyer present while being interrogated. She has completely failed to make any progress in health care reform. The ACA is basically the Republican counter-plan to her plan from the 1990s. And she has a lifetime of experience in opposing even the most basic and sensible regulation of capitalism. Put simply, the actual record of her votes and policies are in direct and unresolvable conflict with your image of her.

Hillary Clinton on Marriage Equality
www.youtube.com/embed/fZkK2_6H9MM

www.youtube.com/embed/6I1-r1YgK9I

Hillary Clinton on regulation of capitalism
www.youtube.com/embed/jP_yRZkU3d0

www.youtube.com/embed/hbWzE4JhQJY

As senator Clinton the pressures are very different. - Elizabeth Warren
She worries about them (finance firms) as a constituency. - Elizabeth Warren

How much more is the pressure going to be as president Clinton? How much more pressure is going to come from those big business constituencies? Well, the Young Turks answers that question.

www.youtube.com/embed/GZ9uzpHJ0yg
Wall Street is Hillary Clinton's base.

Oh, and the Young Turks' hypothesis is testable. If Clinton does not pick Warren as her running mate, the statements in the above video are confirmed. What to make any bets?

As for Hillary on the environment, a perfect example is her tenure as a senator in which she voted against clean groundwater. too keep her big polluter donors happy.

Hillary Clinton, who has been an intense critic of the lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint, Michigan, voted against a bill to prevent groundwater pollution when she was representing New York in the U.S. Senate.

Facing reports that a controversial fuel additive was contaminating water supplies across America, Clinton as a senator in 2005 opposed a bipartisan measure to ban the chemical–even though Bill Clinton’s Environmental Protection Agency had first proposed such a prohibition. At roughly the same time, one major company producing the chemical also tried to use provisions in a trade deal backed by Hillary Clinton to force local governments in the United States to let it continue selling the toxic compound. At issue was the chemical known as methyl tertiary butyl ether–or MTBE. Though the compound makes fuel burn cleaner, by the end of the 1990s, scientists began detecting an increasing amount of the potential carcinogen in groundwater supplies.

neplusultra57 says

You do realize that SCOTUS noms don’t make those votes.

All three branches are important, and Clinton's history demonstrates that she would put terribly anti-liberty people on the Supreme Court whereas Trump is highly unlikely to.

neplusultra57 says

If during the height of WWII Hitler had offered to close the camps and send all the Jews to America would you have rejected the offer because it came from Hitler?

Only a fool trusts a promise from Hitler or any politician. I would not trust Hitler to make good on his promise. Similarly Obama promised to close Gitmo as soon as he was elected and he hasn't. It's been 16 years. Hillary has been caught in many, many lies -- and yes, all politicians lie to a great degree -- so trusting her promises is just plain stupid. I base my opinion of Clinton on her actions, not her promises. She's been in politics her entire life. She's not an unknown quantity like Trump. We absolutely can tell what her future behavior will be like -- maybe not 100%, but close -- based on four decades of well-documented history.

You should not be judging Clinton on what she's now promising but rather on what she has done. There is no lack of knowledge here that requires guessing. She has a very long and detailed history that's all public record and it's trivially easy to view that record now that everything is only an HTTP request away. If you like what she has done (being a hawk in every war, promoting torture, deregulating the financial industry, opposing environmental protections, opposing government transparency, and supporting unaccountable and absolute executive power) then by all means vote for her. But don't pretend that she's not all these things or that she's fighting against all those things. Her campaign promises mean nothing. Her voting record means everything.

neplusultra57 says

No worries, you’ll remember Trump was and his court did nothing to stop him. That’s on you.

In case you haven't realized already, I question your assumption that Clinton will put better people on the Supreme Court than Trump. Trump is unpredictable, but Clinton is a very well-known quantity and her history demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that her appointments will be very evil and evil in the precise way that furthers every fear you've presented.

Trump is a minor evil, a charlatan and an idiot. Hillary Clinton is a major evil, systematic and deliberate. That makes her far more dangerous. Perhaps if Ted Cruz won the republican nomination, you'd have a compelling case, as Cruz was an ideologue and thus far more dangerous than Trump. But Cruz did not win the nomination, and Hillary is an ideologue as well, at least when it comes to executive power.

neplusultra57 says

You ignore the difference between a four year ADMINISTRATION term and a forty year Court composition. Your time scale is all fucked up. But you don't care.

Again, Clinton is almost certainly going to be worse than Trump for the Supreme Court. But even more importantly, Clinton is worse than Trump for the seventh party system and the next 40 years of the Democratic Party, and yes, that counts more than even the Supreme Court. It's better for problems to be prevented in the legislative branch than to rely on the Supreme Court hearing an issue. The Supreme Court hears only a tiny, tiny fraction of the issues created by legislation and the use of executive power. For every issue that makes it to the Supreme Court there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of issues settled, including the Constitutionality of acts, by lower courts. The legislative branch is more important for preventing injustices.

neplusultra57 says

When it comes to reform it’s not the Administration that matters, man, it’s the Court.

There you are wrong. The legislative branch is most important. This branch has the greatest power to make changes. For example, the Civil Rights Act. And this is another reason why the super delegates should nominate Bernie Sanders. If they do, the Democratic Party will get far more senate and house seats. If they don't, the GOP will be able to continue to obstruct all Democratic policies.

neplusultra57 says

Dan8267 says

Bernie brings in tens of millions of independent and centralist and young voters who will not vote for Hillary Clinton. That's your choice: Sanders or Trump. Don't blame us if Hillary loses to Sanders in the general election.

Wrong, still wrong. The choice is between GENERAL ELECTION NOMINEES Trump and Clinton, you just don’t know it yet.

Hillary Clinton is not the Democratic nominee. She might be once the convention is held, but she is not right now and Bernie Sanders can absolutely be nominated according to the convention rules. If you do not understand this, then you do not understand how the primary election works. I have explained it many times. See my past threads or Google it.

neplusultra57 says

Nothing would make me happier than to vote for general election nominee Sanders because his Court would resemble Clinton's.

I find that extremely hard to believe. As the Young Turks video pointed out, Clinton was extremely reluctant to make the concessions forced on her by the Bernie camp. Her politics and world view are nothing like Bernie's. In fact, Clinton's world view is much more like George W. Bush's than it is like either Bernie's or Trump's.

neplusultra57 says

Clearly you’re more than willing to risk it simply because you hate her so fucking bad.

Unlike you, I do not base my political decisions on emotion but rather reason. The fact that you think my decisions are based on "hate" or any other emotion demonstrates unequivocally that you are projecting your values and world view onto me. You base your decisions on your emotional reactions, for example your hatred of Trump, and therefore cannot image that other people do not do the same. This is why I'm always accused of being a conservative by ignorant leftists and a leftist by bigoted conservatives. Most Americans have a polarized view of politics and think that people who don't agree with what they say must be their polar opposite and must be acting on emotions like they are.

I consider Hillary Clinton to be immoral, unethical, and unfit for the presidency. I think the exact same thing of Trump. Neither is an emotional assessment. Just because an opinion or principle is strongly upheld, does not mean the motive is emotional. It is not hate. It is cold, hard, machine logic. If you want to accuse me of any flaw, accuse me of being too distant. I don't consider that a flaw, but it's the only straw you'll be able to grasp.

This thread isn't about goat sex, so you can go away CIC. We're just talking boring politics.

I disagree with your prediction. All the breakage in the GOP you can hope for is happening right now, before the election, and there already are signs that Trump is letting himself be managed in order to glean money from the party and that the relationship with Fox is on the mend. He’ll hold out, and bluster, much the same way Sanders has, but once he’s the nominee he will stop bullying the GOP retards who didn’t suck him off during the primary. The party will coalesce around him and there will be no more conflict and he will go solely after the Scarlett Whore. The same is true for the Dems: Sanders will have leveraged his platform as much as possible and will endorse Clinton.

At that point NEITHER PARTY WILL EVEN PRETEND TO HAVE LEARNED THEIR LESSONS.

Then the GOP will resume their long game. Because, thanks to your endorsement, they will own the Court, (have you seen his list and how jizzingly happy the wingnuts are? http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/05/19/trumps-scotus-list-gives-america-clear-choice/) and the gerrymandering that has established the Tea Party power to choose their voters will persist. A Trump victory and a Trump Court will deliver us the Tea Party for a generation. The media conflict you see right now will dissolve as the GOP gets the WH back and goes powermad. For the first time in eight years the GOP Congress will stop sitting on its hands. They'll accept new trade agreements in exchange for tax cuts on elites and corporations. Immigration will again go on the back burner due to the new wars we are in. The wall will be stalled in budget debate. The money will roll in from Wall Street. The citizen and State groups that petition the Court will lead in time to the repeal of recent liberal victories. At the very most, if Trump tries to negotiate trade agreements they don’t like or institute immigration limits that cut off the slave labor they crave they’ll let the Democrats kill it and take the blame. In order to prevent the disastrous budgets and spending priorities that Republicans are historically known to favor, the Democrats in the Senate will have to play the role of obstructionists. They’re not anywhere near as good at that as the GOP.

Dan8267 says

neplusultra57 says

You do realize that SCOTUS noms don’t make those votes.

All three branches are important, and Clinton's history demonstrates that she would put terribly anti-liberty people on the Supreme Court whereas Trump is highly unlikely to.

You didn't read his list did you? If you "think the exact same thing" of Trump that you do of Clinton then either they're both liars or they are both truth tellers. Here's her statements about her list:

http://www.lifenews.com/2016/03/29/hillary-clinton-i-would-not-appoint-someone-to-the-supreme-court-who-didnt-support-abortion/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/05/14/hillary-clintons-litmus-test-for-supreme-court-nominees-a-pledge-to-overturn-citizens-united/

If you truly think Clinton will nominate a non-pro-choice judge you are just insane. Full stop.

Dan8267 says

neplusultra57 says

No worries, you’ll remember Trump was and his court did nothing to stop him. That’s on you.

In case you haven't realized already, I question your assumption that Clinton will put better people on the Supreme Court than Trump. Trump is unpredictable, but Clinton is a very well-known quantity and her history demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that her appointments will be very evil and evil in the precise way that furthers every fear you've presented.

But it's not just a matter of degree is it? There's a qualitative difference implicit in your assessment of their histories. You give Trump a pass for never having voted for torture, so apparently not having done something he didn't have the power to do is a plus in your assessment. Trump is unpredictable....and then you go on to predict him.....based on.....not having done something he couldn't have done in the first place. OK. You call him an evil and then disbelieve him when he says evil things. He publishes a list of conservatives and you say "No, I don't believe it." That's strange.

Clinton, on the other hand, not having done something she couldn't have done is bound, in your mind, to do something equal to the most evil deeds of her past. Well, OK. You can call that equal treatment by cold logic, but I don't.

By the way, the Young Turks vid is easily believable but it would be nice if it had just the slightest bit of substance to its attribution. usually that sort of tactic is used by the wingnuts.

Merica is technically bankrupt due to socialist policies that by definition spend more than they collect. Who better to handle this situation than someone who has stared bankruptcy in the eye numerous times and sent it straight to hell.