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

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

those confirmation hearings would be a blast

i think he said he didn't want to do that

but yeah that would be sweet, he could school all those republican dipshits on the judiciary committee

xps

Cognitive dissonance is a common enough trait that most people are very good at finding ways to paper it over. In Obama's case, racism is probably a handy set of blinders, as you say. My only point was that what matters are the presidents' actions, many of which we do not see, whereas the stories we tell ourselves about the motives and personalities of presidents are usually a few shrewd observations, grouted together by a selective paste of stories in the media, pure guesswork, and projection. This is as true of presidents whose actions we like as those we hate.

http://www.etonline.com/photo/2016/02/24216598/640_Britney_Spears_Hillary_Clinton_Instagram.jpg

I don't seem to be alone in thinking that just barely looks like Britney Spears.

well, the one on the right is Britney Spears.

That's definitely Britney. Not sure who the tall one is though.

xp

whoa britney has changed a lot

grouted together by a selective paste

Let's leave Bill Clinton out of this

Britney showing the ravages of too much wheatgrass juice?

Vegas 24/7 is some hard livin'?

Britney Spears is 34 and has two kids.

^^^

yea absolutely no negative judgement from me i just realized i hadn't seen a recent photo of britney spears in a really long time

it's also just a bad photo of her, she is making a weird face

The bullshit of the presidential vacation controversy is that the Bushes and Reagan all had ranches and estates to retire to, because they were fucking rich. Whereas Clinton and Obama came into the White House with nowhere near that level of funny money largesse. So Obama, unable to retreat to Kennebunkport or Crawford, gets shit for occasionally going on a vacation like the rest of us. The nerve of that guy, for visiting Hawaii, his place of birth! And how dare he bring along secret service, just because he doesn't have a goddam castle to hide in.

obama was very wealthy in 2008 from his books, wasn't he?

certainly not Reagan/Bush level wealthy

I don't think so, not yet. He also didn't have an estate or anything.

The number I just saw is that he was a worth $1.3 million when elected.

he was well within the top 1%, but yeah, not clinton- or mccain-rich

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/17/nation/na-money17

Clintons worth less than $1million when elected, with a lot of debt, but now Bill is the wealthiest living president and, adjusted for inflation, in the top 10 off all time. That'll show those snobs over in Camp Nazimoney!

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-calls-apple-boycott-company-unlocks-san/story?id=37064922