a clown car full of millionaires: the 2016 presidential primary thread

so when Hil said Snowden "could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower," was she lying or ignorant?

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/14/what-did-clinton-mean-when-she-said-snowden-files-fell-into-the-wrong-hands/

Before Snowden, it was possible for people to imagine the government was confining itself to whatever level of surveillance they were comfortable with. After Snowden, they had to stop kidding themselves and when confronted with the true facts a lot of those same people got very uncomfortable. You can be cynical and claim Snowden changed nothing of substance, but he did move public opinion very substantially against the Patriot Act, even if he did not change it decisively.

yeah that just seems like a lie

or maybe she meant the reporters were the "wrong hands" lol

xp

citing specific incidents like Iran-Contra, Watergate and Abu Ghraib is not relevant - those were not explicitly guided by public legislation

lol what?

Correct my if I'm wrong but wasn't Bush/Cheney elected into office? Twice?

was confining itself to whatever level of surveillance they were comfortable with

hmm yes what level of surveillance would a gov't in a perpetual state of paranoia with unlimited powers be comfortable with hmm let me think

Correct my if I'm wrong but wasn't Bush/Cheney elected into office? Twice?

um what does that have to do with anything? (also elections /= laws)

There was no law passed that said "CREEP has the right to break into DNC HQ". There was no law passed that said the Army had the authority to abuse prisoners held on foreign soil. There were no laws passed authorizing the sale of arms from the Contras to Iran in exchange for hostage releases.

claim Snowden changed nothing of substance, but he did move public opinion very substantially against the Patriot Act, even if he did not change it decisively.

yes this is p much my position

although idk about "substantially", that's hard to guage

hmm let me think

thinking is hard. gauging the paranoia of the government against the provisions of a particular law and drawing conclusions about its covert actions is a non-starter for the vast majority of citizens, who quickly give up on thinking about anything outside of their immediate personal experience.

http://studio180theatre.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/stuff-happens-2008.jpg

when america passed the patriot act most of it still had its sexting cherry

Correct my if I'm wrong but wasn't Bush/Cheney elected into office? Twice?

um what does that have to do with anything? (also elections /= laws)

I didn't say elections = laws. Elections put people into positions of power. Whether they follow the laws or not doesn't matter (as you point out here). Since the people in power aren't beholden to laws then they are beholden to their own interests. Hence the importance of putting the right people in power.

In his closing statement, O'Malley struck a broad theme of party unity, arguing that in contrast to the GOP debates "nobody on this stage denigrated women, nobody on this stage made racist remarks."

Did he give Clinton the stink-eye when he said this?

It's also a no-win scenario when you say laws do not matter much in these realms then say about Snowden that he did not do anything substantial because no legislation was passed bc of him.

They could have passed the Snowden Fairness Transparency and Anti-Torture Act of 2014 and the same shady shit would be going on. At least now we know about it, and other whistleblowers know they can get away w blowing their own whistles.

you are confused

every sentence in those two posts is wrong.

Nobody was worried until he started sculpting those shrubs into dinosaurs.

i went into this agnostic and came out of it the same. between bernie and hillary, i mean, these other guys just need to pack it in, what a waste of time

i ended up feeling bad (a little) for jim webb. w/o knowing his whole record, it's true that he was focused on poverty in the same way john edwards used to be (but maybe too singularly focused on *rural white* poverty with his appalachian roots?) *and* that he did a lot of work on criminal justice and mass incarceration long before those had become pressing issues for the dem base. so yeah he was the one white southern sorta-conservadem who had interesting things to say on the way america treats its lower classes.

but he had a bad night. he had to try to translate his particular hillbilly-veteran-author persona into something that the current-day dem electorate could see working for them, but he was just defensive about it. weird that in all the gun talk nobody even mentioned the 2nd amendment! i was sort of expecting webb to bring it up, like, let's face it, any attempt at gun control has to be constitutional, this is a core national-identity concern to a huge swath of the country. but he didn't really go there.

have to admit, i thought he was out of the senate a while ago. he seemed like he'd been out of the game a long time.

bernie's blanket answer for "how are you going to get all this passed" is "by bringing people together!" idk about you but i'm not convinced.

but it worked for Obama!

spring break forever

I don't think that his answer was "bring people together" as much as "mobilize a ton of currently-un-engaged voters," but either way, it's a tough sell.

lmk how HRC is gettin gun control passed

apparently CNN yanked an onscreen viewer poll after it showed 81% Bernie?

nobody is getting gun control passed

the one glimmer of hope is that the candidates were lining up to say how much the NRA hated them

Hillary should try making Congress pass it at gunpoint.

Still trying to figure out if the general media panic to find a way to claim Clinton won the debate despite every actual indicator showing otherwise is more hilarious or depressing. It's probably both.

this headline is the worst:

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/14/just_admit_hillary_won_the_silly_sexism_of_the_fox_newslefty_smartypants_crowd/

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) doesn't seem to be having a lot of fun running for president.

The Kentucky senator live-streamed an entire day on the campaign trail on Tuesday, but things went a little awry when Paul answered questions that people had Googled about him.

Paul did not seem too amused when he answered those who used a Google search to ask whether he was still running for president.

"I don't know. I wouldn't be doing this dumbass live streaming if I weren't. So yes, I still am running for president, get over it."

"This is live, we can't edit this right?" Paul continued.

Even though Paul's campaign touted the live stream as a way to get behind-the-scenes access to Paul, the senator himself didn't really seem to understand why it was being done.

Asked by a reporter why he was live-streaming the entire day, Paul said that he wasn't quite sure.

"I wish I knew," he said. "I've been saying, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this and now we're doing this," he said, according to The Washington Post.

despite every actual indicator showing otherwise

lol wut she clearly outperformed everyone else

lol at "This is live, we can't edit this right?"

that's straight out of a simpsons episode or something

but everything's fine because his spokesman says it was a joke and now they're selling t-shirts: https://store.randpaul.com/index.php/rand-s-livestream-t-shirt.html

i wish there was a way to purchase that shirt without giving rand paul money

i think the ny-dc media just likes hillary a lot and assumes she has it in the bag. plus in that kind of thinking hillary's position is 'gamed-in' meaning all she had to do was fight the thing to a draw to win, and she did.

bernie said a lot that appeals to the kind of dems tuning in at this point. i don't know how far to trust day-after snap polls and focus groups but i don't doubt he did well in them.

those fuckin lefty smartypantseses

webb's answer was not about fragging btw

http://gawker.com/jim-webb-s-crazy-debate-answer-about-killing-a-guy-has-1736401666

ny-dc media famously dislikes Hillary, and the feeling is mutual. They also dislike boring primaries, so it would be in their interest if she sunk even lower. 538 said that the media narrative is that she won because it was a 'comeback', and that it's based on a silly idea that she was just on the brink of losing everything, which was always silly. But I mean, Sanders is going to get more out of this than Clinton, everything else would be a catastrophe for him. He is the one who only rich white people know about, he should see a lift in the poll just by being competent. And he was more than that a lot of the time, right?

"only rich white people"

as usual yr perspective is baffling

"ny-dc media famously dislikes Hillary, and the feeling is mutual."

Uh not really.

always good to see a reminder that bernie sanders is a dangerous rightwing reactionary that only rich white people want to vote for

"They also dislike boring primaries, so it would be in their interest if she sunk even lower."

Odd that they seem to have little interest in propping up her opponents then.

apparently CNN yanked an onscreen viewer poll after it showed 81% Bernie?

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, October 14, 2015 2:33 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

source plz

I feel like Frederik is forming his opinions on American politics based on a montage from Scandal

lol

Well, there was definitely an effort to hype the debate as AT LONG LAST a SHOWDOWN, TONIGHT THE GLOVES WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY COME OFF!, and to throw out questions that the candidates could have, but didn't, turned into GOING FOR THE JUGULAR, CLINTON RIPS SANDERS etc.

xpost
i dunno, the only possible scenario that could explain Chafee's presence on the stage is one that involves a top secret team of Fixers that are trying to influence the election somehow