I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

wrote off

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-s-lead-slashed-south-carolina-poll-n521101

Divine intervention, perhaps. (Except if, like me, you want him to win.)

Trump thinking he can go head-to-head with the Holy Father is the most insane political calculation I expect to see in my lifetime. The Catholic vote isn't what it used to be, but burning that bridge is madness

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, February 18, 2016 5:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

amazing to see a whole bunch of anti-catholic bigotry shoot right to the surface in result (nb ann coulter); i'm half expecting a wave of anti-masonic memes from trump twitter next

from The Tampa Bay Times:

A new, sweeping review of all committees Rubio has sat on since taking office in 2011 paints a bleak picture of participation in the day-to-day responsibilities of the job.

Rubio is on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Commerce and Small Business and Entrepreneurship committees. The Florida Republican has missed 68 percent of hearings, or 407 of 598 for which records were available.

His skipped 80 percent of Commerce hearings and 85 percent of those held by Small Business, records show.

He has missed 60 percent of Foreign Relations hearings since joining the Senate despite making his committee experience a centerpiece of his qualifications for president

what does he do all day, practice his dance moves?

it's odd that someone who doesn't want to work would think "huh, y'know what would be really cool would be having the hardest, most demanding job in the world! Yup that's for me"

No doubt Rubio has heard that Reagan took a nap each day when he was President.

Rubio no-shows at a bunch of events in SC just now. Not a good luck esp w/the attendance record above!

i think he might be an actual moron

one last night and another this morning

being president pretty much guarantees you as much bottled water as you can drink

i keep saying this and saying this but rubio seems like a true dolt, just a lazy immature terrified kid. idk how this affect isn't reading the same way to the whole universe, am i taking crazy pills

he's taking moron pills

he both tries too hard and doesn't try hard enough, at the same time.

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/19/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs-transcripts/

So why is this a red herring?

Records show Bill and Hillary Clinton made over $125 million from giving paid speeches since 2001. In particular, critics question why Hillary Clinton received over $675,000 from Goldman Sachs, an investment bank notorious for using its ties to public officials to influence policy, over the course of three speeches in 2013.

And while Clinton likened her paid speeches to similar speeches given by Bernie Sanders, financial records show Sanders made $1,876 for two paid speeches and a television appearance last year. Sanders donated the speech fees to a local charity in Vermont that serves low-income families.

i promise you she did not lecture goldman sachs and condemn them in the speeches they paid her to give. in this primary environment anything she said to them that was in anyway positive would be damaging. i think it's a red herring bc we know what she said - there's no secret conspiracy going on. she said nice things to them, like maybe "what you do is important for generating wealth in america," which on its own would be damaging to her campaign. but the insinuation is that she said something beyond that, like something like "if i am elected there will be no new finance regulations."

No doubt Rubio has heard that Reagan took a nap each day when he was President.

And didn't GWB do everything he could to turn the Presidency into a 9-5 job? That's the thing with these guys - they really don't see it as "the hardest, most demanding job in the world"; they think they can just get into office, issue sweeping fiats, and head to the golf course.

how do you make 125 million dollars giving speeches wow

First there should be two of you, so as to maximize your speech earnings.

Bill made the big money, and Hillary did ok too

According to public disclosures, by giving just 12 speeches to Wall Street banks, private equity firms, and other financial corporations, Clinton made $2,935,000 from 2013 to 2015:

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-speeches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/

The Associated Press notes that during Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, Bill Clinton earned $17 million in talks to banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, real estate businesses, and other financial firms

just a little quid pro quo, let's be cool

issue sweeping fiats

I read this as issue sweeping farts.

man, the fact that trump's numbers haven't been hit at all after a debate where he blamed george bush for 9/11 seems like evidence that his 'I could shoot somebody on 5th avenue' brag wasn't an exaggeration.

― iatee, Friday, February 19, 2016 9:57 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This very fact was what caused me to dub him "the Springtime for Hitler of candidates"

paints a bleak picture of participation

curious what this painting looks like

re the speeches, the thing is we already know she gave the speeches and got paid for them. It's the transcripts that are a red herring. She's not getting paid to disclose state secrets, and she's not making secret promises to large private audiences. She's probably just saying vaguely coded stuff about "balanced approaches to regulation" and that sort of shit. Probably not much worse than what she says publicly. The point of the speeches as an issue is that the fees buy influence, not what she's telling them.

I read this as issue sweeping farts.

― Retro novelty punk (Dan Peterson), Friday, February 19, 2016 6:04 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ditto.

i keep saying this and saying this but rubio seems like a true dolt, just a lazy immature terrified kid. idk how this affect isn't reading the same way to the whole universe, am i taking crazy pills

he floated to where he is now entirely based on nobody actually hating him. but yeah, he is really not-so-sharp, and he's not some dubya/reagan anti-intellectual common man either - they could talk their way out of situations that he can't.

he always either looks like the boy who forgot to study for the test or the boy who remembered to study for the test, but even #2 isn't a good look

Rubio is every useless dipshit of a manager I've ever had who managed to bumblefuck their way to the middle without having a single worthwhile thing to contribute. It's a baffling phenomenon but I think it mostly boils down to the fact that people who don't have the time/energy to really scrutinize give the guy a once-over and say, 'yeah, he looks responsible enough'.

yeah the long-standing belief that he was somehow the GOP's obama has, i think, been pretty clearly torn to shreds. setting aside his just total lack of presence, he very obviously doesn't get people excited about him, or he wouldn't be mired where he is in this race.

peter principle to presidency

Rubio's affect does read like a lazy, immature, terrified kid who is carried everywhere on the shoulders of his handlers. But his handlers are fairly sharp and professional, so they've thrown a thin haze of competence around him.

i think he might be an actual moron

Don't say this, it might mean he's got a shot! And for sure fellow moron GWB took his share of vacations, too.

"Thin Haze of Competence" / "Responsible Enough" 2016!

talk to republicans and they're under the impression that Obama is the biggest vacation-er in the white house and he and Michele act like king and queen and are constantly on million dollar vacays. I don't get it.

in the history of the White House, I meant.

and Michelle eating hamburgers while advocating alfalfa sprouts for school lunch.

When I read the comments that many republicans make about Obama, I have to wonder what they'd do if they didn't have the ACA to help pay for their thorazine.

talk to republicans and they're under the impression that Obama is the biggest vacation-er in the white house and he and Michele act like king and queen and are constantly on million dollar vacays. I don't get it.

hmm I wonder if this is at all related to popular racist conception of black people as lazy? nah.

Considering that they view him simultaneously as a bumbling incompetent and a dangerous tyrant, you'd think they'd want him to play as much golf as possible.

GW Bush was often viewed as a bumbling incompetent, but also as dangerous, and he also spent a heck of a lot of time on his ranch in Texas, so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JTtI3D6lqk

Maybe Republicans would be cool with Obama if he cleared more brush.

let's leave manscaping out of this

GWB was viewed as dangerous because he was incompetent, and very obviously getting led around by competently dangerous and tyrannical people like cheney, so that every time he did show up the white house he'd do something like starting a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people for no reason at all. whereas yes there is a cognitive dissonance between obama as dictatorial mastermind who "knows exactly what he is doing" and obama as lazy vacationer. and indeed i do think the gap between these is papered over by racism.

yeah i mean GWB and his cronies literally lied their way into a war that's been destructive in a way that will probably only be fully felt years down the road and no member of congress yelled "LIAR!" at him during the middle of a speech.

in fairness, they yelled "LIAR!" because they knew they couldn't get away with yelling "NIGGER!"

i think obama will enjoy his post-presidency years more than any other president. i can't imagine him wanting to stick around D.C. any longer than he'd have to. board that helicopter, turn around, give the double middle finger salute, and chill out in Chi-town with michelle and the kids imo.

if Hillary wins and Ginsberg retires, I wouldn't be surprised if he flew back to be on the Supreme Court