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

like the GOP base

looooool clay

@ggreenwald
Second sentence: The first claim negates the second.
Also continues to be bizarre how the anthrax attack - depicted as a huge crisis at the time - has been disappeared

haha yeah no one ever mentions the anthrax stuff

(probably because it was an inside job)

yeah if you work in bio the anthrax stuff is mentioned all the time because it made things an incredible pain in the ass. like i know an undergrad that wanted to work on a bacteria that causes dental caries and just needed an attenuated form of this streptococcus and it was virtually impossible cuz the lab he worked in didn't have a high enough biosafety level and he didn't have high enough security clearance or whatever. and again this was for a nonpathogenic form of a bacteria that in its pathogenic form only causes cavities ie a bacteria you probably already have in yr mouth. obv this has had an impact on research and in turn an impact on medicine. now admittedly illness and death might not represent nearly as grave a concern as the ongoing threat to civil liberties that 'you will be inconvenienced at the airport' does but it would be nice if a journalist (this is what glenn greenwald is supposedly right?) would say instead of just continuously taking comfort in regurgitating their assumptions maybe every now and then show some curiosity and act on it. it's funny i was talking w/ a microbiologist the other day about the anthrax attacks and the lingering effects and arguing whether bioterror is even that effective a means of terrorism, that there's a degree of effort involved and materials needed and difficulty in releasing it that makes it an unfavorable option but he thought the general scientific ignorance in the larger population would make it esp effective (i mean this is a society where a significant % of the wealthy, educated demo is skeptical of vaccines). idk, i think it would probably play out like the tylenol scare squared, and the long term effects would be hidden and relegated to specific industries targeted (food, medicine, water), and the attack would eventually be forgotten because the american ppl can forget anything ie it would play out like a grander version of the anthrax attacks only w/o the benefit of occurring in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. whereas something like some suicide bombers on black friday and then a couple of times afterward during the xmas shopping season would be incredibly easy to pull off and repeat and would have a much larger effect on the economy, society, and any lasting preventative measures would be visible and annoying ergo the type of civil liberties violations that gets yr greenwalds and becks hot and bothered.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRcvYzPXAAEw8ec.jpg

That's what my money's doing but I'm not starting with as much, check w me in 40 years.

i don't understand how his finger-paintings are so fucking valuable

anything written by Wayne Barrett over the years on der Donald is... instructive.

that balls post is kinda fascinating

this is trying a bit too hard
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/here-comes-the-berniebro-bernie-sanders/411070/

i don't understand how his finger-paintings are so fucking valuable
--1998 ball boy (Karl Malone)

Have you seen what Hitler paintings go for?

yesssssssssss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfmwGAd1L-o

The Berniebro knows the media is complicit in keeping Clinton the Democratic front-runner.

huh, you don't say

Trump failing to beat the market is nothing new

David was fantastic

Media paranoia zzzz; http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/bernie-sanders-fans-rig-online-debate-polls-then-complain-when-no-one-takes-it-seriously/22827/; http://www.mediaite.com/online/bernie-sanders-fans-cant-handle-the-truth-hillary-won-the-debate-done/;

This Bush-Trump fight is entertaining in that both lose, at least theoretically - Trump is right that W. gave us 9/11; Bush is right that Trump may be even more clueless than W. Bush is simultaneously helping himself by making an effort to take Trump on, and hurting himself by making clear how unprepared he is to do so.

Mitt's really keeping himself in the news while getting ever more insistent that he isn't running. Probably just enjoying his self-appointed kingmaker role, but quite possible he's grooming himself for a convention call. If I were more conspiracy-minded, I'd say that this and Walker's earlier exit are intended to pave the way for Ryan to jump in.

stop posting

nobody "wins" a presidential primary debate

There may not be winners, but there are definitely losers.

when gabbneb posts, everybody loses

CARSON: Declare that within five to 10 years, we will become petroleum independent. The moderate Arab states would have been so concerned about that, they would have turned over Osama bin Laden and anybody else you wanted on a silver platter within two weeks.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's what you said he should have done.

But how would that have worked?

How would you have gotten the moderate Arab governments to turn over Osama bin Laden in two weeks?

He'd already been expelled by Saudi Arabia. He was already an enemy of those moderate governments.

CARSON: Well, I think they would have been extremely concerned if we had declared -- and we were serious about it -- that we were going to become petroleum independent, because it would have had a major impact on their finances.

And I think that probably would have trumped any loyalty that they had to -- to people like Osama bin Laden.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they didn't have any loyalty to Osama bin Laden. The Saudis kicked him out. He was their enemy.

CARSON: Well, you may not think that they had any loyalty to him, but I believe otherwise.

it goes on from there

Oh Ben

You guys may not like him, but I believe otherwise.

Every time he pontificates, he's like a little kid making up a story. "And then, and then the...dragon ated up the people, and then all the robots came and they killed the dragon, and then, and then the moderate Arab states turned over Osama Bin Laden."

What I like is that what galvanizes the moderate arab governments (many of which, like Jordan and Morocco, have no oil resources) into frantic immediate action is that the US government declares an intention! But only if we also declare that... this time we're serious.

when ben carson is involved, they'll know we're serious

I don't know why we didn't just say to the moderate Arab governments, "Hey guys, everybody attack him."

The more I consider Carson's statement, the more it becomes clear that it's probably one of the stupidest things I've ever heard a politician say (and this in the midst of Trump's candidacy). It bears almost no resemblance to how the world actually works.

It makes me long for the erudition of a Sarah Palin.

honestly, palin said way dumber stuff all the time, though she was far, far less coherent from word to word, sentence to sentence and so it was often hard to discern just how dumb it was.

yeah palin just didn't know anything, by anyone's standards, and went for the "only assholes know things anyway" demo. carson more dangerous because to lots of people he prob sounds reasonable and learned.

Palin inspired such tremors of despair in aging liberals on social media for the first time that I'm a little nostalgic.

xpost I think that's the thing: Palin was just intensely incurious and didn't seem to have a coherent opinion about anything. Carson is a surgeon and presumably has some education and the linguistic building blocks to construct something that looks from a distance like a coherent argument. But then you look at it up close and realize that it's just utter dogshit with a bow on top. Palin didn't even try. Carson's like a walking Mad Lib. I don't know which is worse. They're all terrible. Burn America.

COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--

COURIC: Mock?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.

never forget

She was just too busy reading all of the newspapers and magazines to get her rhetorical ducks in a row.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z75QSExE0jU/hqdefault.jpg

love how they're in a Hilton suite circa 1996.

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

so yeah, okay, i'll give you carson as more dangerous for putting bad ideas together in a way that people might come away thinking "that guy knows what he's talking about." palin's total ignorance and, i'd say, stupidity, was self-inoculating in that the jumble was all on the surface, where only her die-hard admirers (who were worrisomely but not election-winningly numerous) would walk away going "i sure agree with what she said!" whereas your generic establishment republican voter would, at least to themselves, think "my god, that did not make any sense at all."

Palin quotes read like someone spilled a box of magnetic poetry.

But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy.

Like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as.

if i'm lucky enough to have a death bed speaking opportunity, i hope i remember to make "...all of those things under the umbrella of job creation" my final words

only her die-hard admirers (who were worrisomely but not election-winningly numerous) would walk away going "i sure agree with what she said!"

even these people i don't think were hallucinating coherence in those answers. they liked her red-meat pig/lipstick hopey-changey stuff which she was much more facile with. when those smug know-it-alls forced her to stammer out disconnected cliches about stuff (like foreign and domestic policy) that's all gut anyway, people saw themselves up there and knew that they'd probably stammer even more but that the ideological morphemes they'd manage to get out (job creation, shore up our economy, opportunity, shoring up our economy, job creation) would be evidence of common sense in them as they were in sarah. plus, she is german.

yeah def - her support was driven very much by affect, and the rogue/maverick narrative could incorporate each new bungled answer as confirmation of itself: she may not have your big-city smarts and she riles up the ~mainstream media~ with their "gotcha" questions but she shoots from the hip and has a family like you and me. trump isn't playing the exact same deck of cards but i have to assume their base of supporters overlaps considerably and he also has a teflon narrative where saying "but the things he's saying are crazy and dangerous" misses the point, in terms of the registers on which his support operates and communicates.

Carson is obviously more dangerous than Palin bcz Palin is a has been.

All three of these clowns are practically glossolalic, and the people who back them will hear whatever they want to hear as long as they hit on a handful of conservative watchwords now and then.

FLIIIIP FLOOOOP

if i'm lucky enough to have a death bed speaking opportunity, i hope i remember to make "...all of those things under the umbrella of job creation" my final words

― 1998 ball boy (Karl Malone), Monday, October 19, 2015 1:51 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

should be added to the pledge of allegiance imo

Saw some piece making the Facebook rounds suggesting that Carson might actually be mentally ill. Sure, why not.

you know what's under the umbrella of job creation?
people.
(pause for applause)

It's pretty clear to me in that Palin quote that she has garbled what her coaches said as they primed her for the interview, and is randomly stringing together verbatim phrases and fragments that she'd heard, but which she never synthesized into any kind of sense. Making a word salad out of them was the best she could do.