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

this part was surreal:

QUINTANILLA: "Does that not speak to your vetting process or judgement in any way?" [loud audience boos]

CARSON: "No, it speaks to the fact that I don't know what's going on"

i realize that the booing was so loud that his answer just kind of trailed off into it and was lost, but if you "don't know what's going on", isn't that indicative of...poor vetting or judgment? at any rate at least he admitted that he doesn't know what's going on

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/426270/what-ben-carsons-mannatech-answer-tells-us-jim-geraghty

His declarations that “I didn’t have an involvement with them” and “absurd to say that I had any kind of relationship with them” are just bald-faced lies.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/426270/what-ben-carsons-mannatech-answer-tells-us-jim-geraghty

wow that auto-insert of the url with every ctrl-c is some devilish shit, fuck you NRO

commenter on the case:

So Carson kinda, sorta did/did not make a passive/formal endorsement of a product he says to this day he uses. He worked through a speakers bureau, and may/may not have known or cared that the company used his taped speeches. And in the end you offer no real evidence, just your supposition that there was some kind of formal agreement for endorsement made in a back room, at some time in the past.

We're faced with a likely democrat candidate who SOLD the office of Secretary of State of the United States of America to highest bidding plutocrat around, as long as they came from a corrupti-stan or Haiti. To the tune of millions and millions of dollars: "As reported by ABC News, President Bill Clinton “saw a succession of staggering paydays for speeches in 2010 and 2011, including $500,000 paid by a Russian investment bank and $750,000 to address a telecom conference in China.” Let's not forget Haiti where Hillary's brother cashed in. Oh, and the Russian uranium deal ? Remember that one? "The New York Times reported that Clinton's State Department signed off on a deal that gave the Russians control over one-fifth of the United States’ uranium production capacity after millions were given in donations to the Clinton Foundation by the corporations involved."

What is really is reality anyway

Ben Carson/Jack Ryan '16

I'm just young enough to not remember anything about the first Reagan election. When he was running, was there a feeling on the left/amongst Dems that his presidency would be as destructive as it turned out to be? Even the first GW run, I didn't vote for him and never would have, but it was at least conceivable that he could be president, and I don't recall any looming apocalypse panic vibes in Dem camps, just disappointment. But at least half of the guys on stage last night, I truly can't even fathom how destructive they would be. I can't even wrap my head around a President Cruz, or Huckabee, or Carson or even Trump. Yes, I know they likely can't win, but it's inconceivable to me that they're even being humored. They go so far beyond mere Republicans and fall closer to some speculative fiction creation, a la Roth's President Lindbergh.

I feel like this really only kicked into high gear in the lead-up to 2012? I mean, there were certainly lunatics present among the repubs before then, but they were maybe more of a minority before McCain granted legitimacy to Palin and her ilk.

What is really is reality anyway

Used to think this a lot while high.

unreality is that which, when you stop believing in it, keeps getting cited as a fact by psychopaths

Reagan's first term accomplishments – first year really – set the state for the madness we heard last night. We lower deficits by lowering tax rates? Sure! Increase the Defense Department's budget by 200 percent? No problem. Lie detector tests in federal offices? Why not?

Yeah, but before he got elected, was there even a vibe that he would not be your usual president and that, in fact, would be quite destructive and/or counter-productive?

I'm really not up on this. Did he run explicitly promising to, say, cut the deficit by lowering taxes or doubling the defense budget?

He was even scarier during the Carter interregnum – so scary that he seemed unelectable.

As I recall it, Reagan was viewed through the lens of his then-recent stint as California governor, so it was already apparent that he was a reactionary who pandered to hatred of the progressive left, but his governorship wasn't seen as apocalyptic for California, so the fears weren't as visceral as they would be if one of the current crazies got the republican nomination.

Reagan wrought most of his destruction through filling cabinet posts and sub-cabinet posts with horrifying conservatives like Meese, Casey and Watt. Hundreds of these 'movement conservatives' from the far right Goldwater wing overflowed his administration. That was how he accomplished so much damage while taking a nap every afternoon.

I feel like this really only kicked into high gear in the lead-up to 2012?

Tea Party began 2009, source of a lot of incompetent idiots. Wiki:

An October 2010 Washington Post canvass of 647 local Tea Party organizers asked "which national figure best represents your groups?" and got the following responses: no one 34%, Sarah Palin 14%, Glenn Beck 7%, Jim DeMint 6%, Ron Paul 6%, Michele Bachmann 4%.

I like the idea that "no one" represents their interests, maybe the infatuation with outsiders like Herman Cain and Ben Carson?

http://www.theoi.com/image/L8.3Polyphemos.jpg

Every Republican who has come forward so far seems to be fucking insane except maybe Kasich, with whom I profoundly disagree and would not vote for, and mmmmmmmmaybe Rubio on a good day if I don't listen to what he is actually saying?

― I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Thursday, October 29, 2015 4:45 PM (2 hours ago)

i actually feel bad for kasich when i see him sharing a stage with all those unpleasant creeps and smirking lunatics, it makes me feel more sympathetic toward him than maybe i should be.

essential reading, Josh:

http://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/onix/cvr9781476782423/the-invisible-bridge-9781476782423_hr.jpg

reagan was extremely good at pandering to the right and the center so well that he completely marginalized the democratic party, i remember even as a kid just how powerless the dems seemed, so much so that clinton getting elected in '92 felt unreal.

That Carson tweet is very tuned in to the evangelical mindset, but without a doubt it is not original with him or his staff. It's the kind of thing you see on reader boards outside churches.

― Aimless, Thursday, October 29, 2015 1:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Should ask him if he'd let just any schmuck walk into the OR and perform a hemispherectomy.

Don't anyone be fooled by Kasich, if he could get away with it he'd be Scott Walker, but his attempt at pulling the same crap on unions blew up right in his face.

Tea Party started as a movement against TARP, when George Bush was still in office. I didn't even mind them back then. The more you call a group of people 'crazy' and 'lunatics' the more they'll end up being that, or something.

'incompetent idiots' etc.

reagan was extremely good at pandering to the right and the center so well that he completely marginalized the democratic party, i remember even as a kid just how powerless the dems seemed, so much so that clinton getting elected in '92 felt unreal.

OTM. Reagan's favorite president was FDR, and by dumping Nixonian growling for the smile and being lucky to get a working majority in Congress through '82 he had a similarly displacing effect on the opposition.

My state offered up Michele Bachmann, so I stand by my namecalling. (xpost)

xp Josh, it's a great question. I was 14 at the time and not exactly swimming in a US left milieu (unless exposure to hardcover, just a few years later, counts), but my sense is that although Reagan and Co. were less outright loony and ridiculous than the current crop, they were if anything (and particularly in Reagan's case) viewed as more dangerous, even in an apocalyptic sense, than the current crop of clowns. The nuclear war specter loomed large, Reagan ran on the promise to dismantle welfare if not the entire New Deal edifice, and soon enough... Central America, etc etc.

Reagan seemed like an avuncular and basically innocuous grandpa stand-in as seen through my prepubescent eyes. Not unlike Bill Cosby.

Central America was a fucking abattoir, thanks to Reagan.

Then Dubya came in to acclimate us to the idea of buffoonery as a viable political quality... and here we are...

xp Old Lunch: no doubt that's how Reagan came across to many. I always viewed him from the perspective of having left Chile in wake of the coup, so to me he was just another cackling, torture-sponsoring imperialist, made more sinister still by that saccharine grandpa routine.

I guess that is something that's worth a reminder, the spectre of nuclear apocalypse (how soon we forget!). It's actually something I've found compelling watching "The Americans." Obviously it's fiction, and told in hindsight, but their Russian spy characters watch Reagan on TV and see an actual madman that wants to murder their children and would rather destroy the world with nukes then let the Commies win. And then I think of all sorts of stuff, like Prince songs ("Mommy, why does everybody have a bomb?") or "Bonzo Goes the Washington."

Though of course it was a different world then. Intriguing that none of the rightwing nuts are really talking much about rogue nukes, terrorism, etc., and even then it seems largely only when asked. They harp on ISIS a bit, but they're not really coherent in their objectives/objections. So these current loons, it's I suppose some solace that I can't imagine them blowing up the world, just undermining everything that makes this country what it is, economically, socially, legally ...

GWB did not have to blow up the world to kill a whole shit-ton of people though, worth bearing in mind.

That book cover is fantastic - Reagan looks like he's about to go full-on Gene Kelly.

he did politically

As a kid in Santa Cruz, I was pretty apocalyptic about Reagan becoming president.

the left has such a reputation for being fractious and disagreeable that it's worth applauding when they take a more subtle approach:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSgzfjIW4AAdzdu.jpg

inexplicably managed to read that as a "DOC HOLLYWOOD"

GWB did not have to blow up the world to kill a whole shit-ton of people though, worth bearing in mind.

But no one thought he had it in him.

what a terrible drawing

xxp

but she's a lesbian, remember

what's that 6th squidfinger she has?

that's just a glimpse of her massive forearm

inexplicably managed to read that as a "DOC HOLLYWOOD"

I knew what it said and still read it once as 'DEG HEYWOOD' and 'DOC HENNESSY'

In 1980, I knew that my parents opposed Reagan and he was not in tune with our family's politics - but no one in my orbit seriously thought he was a threat to the existence of democracy, peace, love, joy, etc. He was handed a victory on the hostages, at least partly to make Carter look ineffectual by contrast, and to some extent it worked.

By 1984 the picture had changed somewhat. He was no longer a cartoonish figure but actually represented heightened prospects for nuclear war.

I don't remember us talking much about his domestic policy, or whether he was good or bad for the downtrodden. In my family, knee-jerk liberal Democratic politics were assumed with the certainty of sports loyalty - you don't really need to know WHY we root for the Cardinals, we just do.

I'm in the middle of reading Thomas Mallon's new historical novel Finale, set in the weeks during and after the Reykjavik summit, and it's fascianting reading about events that shook the world for a little while: the Daniloff spy trade, Congress overriding his veto on South Africa, Hasenfus' plane going down in Central America. Meanwhile the Beltway commentariat thought Reagan was going to Iceland as a bluff! No one thought anything would emerge from it.

Christopher Hitchens and Jimmy Carter appear in this novel. I don't know what to think. Mallon loves Gore Vidal's fiction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_yxGsWHx9o

in 1980 i couldn't believe america elected someone who had the same name as ronald mcdonald president. i was pretty young.

I hated him because my mom's family is american indian and we always had a political cartoon on the refrigerator that had a quote from him about treaties (which I now can't remember). I remember that when he won I went and wrote "SUCKS" underneath his name on that cartoon. Inexplicably my mom is now a republican. I spent the entirety of the 80's assuming I'd die in a nuclear holocaust.

xp Josh, it's a great question. I was 14 at the time and not exactly swimming in a US left milieu (unless exposure to hardcover, just a few years later, counts)....

btw "hardcover" above was unintentional auto-complete. I meant "hardcore"