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

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

I get newly shocked when I remember how wealthy LBJ was when he left office (most of it probably of questionable legality too).

First the Pope, now Apple. Good luck, Trump!

I do love the idea of Obama getting rich by writing a pair of well-received books.

Obama's assets were worth between $2.02 million and $7.35 million at the end of 2007

that was definitely not within the top 1% fwiw

xxp

that's net worth, not annual income - net worth for the top 1% is in the double digit millions

what are you hiding, Shakey? show us your tax returns

Obama's assets were worth between $2.02 million and $7.35 million at the end of 2007

that was definitely not within the top 1% fwiw

xxp

― Οὖτις, Friday, February 19, 2016 5:17 PM (3 minutes ago)

we're splitting hairs here but his income placed him in the top 1%, and the rate at which his wealth was rising put him on track to being in the 1% (which i assume he is in now)

income and assets are totally different!

There was an article going around recently about how net worth can be a misleading measure of the wealthiest Americans because there are a lot of Americans we'd think of as rich and powerful whose high debt loads give them a low net worth.

what are you hiding, Shakey? show us your tax returns

hey, only the little people pay taxes

not that I think that affects Obama, just throwing it out there.

Oh man, I bet Jeb Bush is /really/ looking forward to being able to drop out of this thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw2-EbXnwvs

The coffin's picked out:

There were moments when Bush seemed distracted, off his game, or barely able to conceal his unhappiness. At one point, a little girl asked, in a sweet child's voice, "What's your favorite book?"

""My favorite book?" Bush said. "Art of the Deal."

"It's not the best idea to respond to a child's innocent question with a cynical, adult answer. So Bush went on to address her question, but he seemed at a loss to name a favorite book.

""Favorite book," he repeated, stalling for time. "I love reading. The last book I read is actually the Jon Meacham book on my dad, which I loved … I really enjoyed that book, I recommend that one. But I like reading. I like reading a lot. I hope you do, too."

"In the future, if there is one, Bush should probably have a popular, stock answer at hand