Your 2016 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

i know! cause u can just give it to south korea after duh hello earth to george bush!

and now north korea actually does have nukes and is the worst country that puts all of its ppl into camps and wont even let them have internet

ur hilarious

my new internet persona is liberal guy who thinks we shd invade north korea

its... not too late

We never invaded Cuba :(

I feel like if we start making enough noise now we can totally get "invade North Korea" onto Hil-dog's platform

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CE6sfwBVIAAukJy.png

"knowing what we know now" is also doing a lot of rhetorical/ideological work, by binding together "we now know that there were no WMDs, because if there had been, then it surely would have been right!" and "we now know that it was an enormous long-term nightmare with a huge cost in american life and dollars, whereas it would have been fine if it was short and we just killed tens of thousands of iraqis!" and maybe other variants, into a vaguer, bite-sized "hey, hindsight's always 20/20 right? whattyagonnado?" thing that (a) absolves the guilty, as Οὖτις, Alfred and others have discussed, and (b) lets somebody take what now seems popular or self-evident ("the war was bad") without exactly explaining why.

via Sprout Social

more lolz with Jeb:

Ziedrich: The threat of ISIS was created by the Iraqi Coalition Authority which ousted the entire government of Iraq. It was when 30,000 individuals who were part of the Iraqi military, they were forced out, they had no employment, they had no income. Yet they were left with access to all of the same arms and weapons. Your brother created ISIS.

Bush: Is that a question?

Ziedrich: You don’t need to be pedantic to me, sir.

Bush: Pedantic? Wow.

Ziedrich: You could just answer my question.

Bush: So what is the question?

Ziedrich: My question is why are you saying that ISIS was created by us not having a presence in the Middle East when it’s pointless wars, when we sent young men to die for the idea of American exceptionalism? It’s this idea – like, why are you spouting nationalistic rhetoric to get us involved in more wars?

Bush: We respectfully disagree... Al Qaeda had been taken out, there was a fraudulent system that could have been brought up to create, to eliminate the sectarian violence and we had an agreement that the president could have signed, it would have kept 10,000 troops, which is less than what we have in Korea. It could have created the stability that would have allow for Iraq to progress. The net result was, the opposite occurred because immediately that void was filled. And so, look, you can rewrite history all you want but the simple fact is that we’re in a much more unstable place because America pulled back.

you can rewrite history all you want

you sure can

We never invaded Cuba :(

That botch on 4/17/61 doesn't count?

Hell, the moon landing counts as more of an invasion than that one.

That's it! We can invade the moon! Problem solved.

blow up the moon imo

this writer has me blocked on twitter idk why http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jeb-bush-iraq-question-week

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1383499560l/3422651.jpg

Pretty good book.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/13/college-student-to-jeb-bush-your-brother-created-isis/

nyt link to it

Hillary tweets:

Hillary Clinton ‏@HillaryClinton May 7

Stand with Hillary if you agree it’s time for criminal justice reform. Add your name!

In private conversations, Mr. Bush’s allies have often taken note that his brother’s approval ratings among likely primary and caucus voters are sky high.

this is kind of incredible tbh, I had thought the base had disowned Dubya as a RINO what with his deficit-busting spending etc.

social justice apple pie

breaking

Talking Points Memo ‏@TPM 13s13 seconds ago
Jeb Bush now says he "would not have gone into Iraq"

whew that's over

but will he go into North Korea is the question

Hillary Clinton ‏@HillaryClinton May 7

Stand with Hillary if you agree it’s time for criminal justice reform. Add your name!

― Οὖτις, Thursday, May 14, 2015 1:42 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is really quite amazing good news tbh

flip-flops coming into style early this year eh

xp

re: criminal justice reform

I trust Hillary about as far as I can throw her in terms of what she'll actually do when elected BUT I am really glad that she looks willing to keep this issue in the national spotlight

yeah its just somewhat heartening how the dem consensus has has shifted over the course of the clinton dynasty from being all in on racist tough on crime policies to recognizing that that was a bad idea, the political context matters more than the individual politicians

i suspect were only beginning to see a shift in politics resulting from the drop in crime that started 20 years ago, this is part of that, legal weed is part of that, policy obvs a lagging indicator

of course if bill had just not cooperated with republicans out of short sited political maneuvering then there wld be a lot less work to be done now, but we dont all have time machines like J.E.B.

right is likely to argue that that drop in crime is precisely due to draconian policing policies/3 strikes laws etc. originally endorsed and passed by Bubba.

Interesting parallels between Bubba and Dubya in relation to Hillary and Jeb - how much will each be willing to disown the other, and how will they do that. Seems obvious that Bill's gonna have to publicly admit he got some things wrong (gay marriage, possibly financial deregulation, etc.)

xxp

the crime rate history is interesting to me - what were the causes of the big spike in the 70s, was it all just related to streets being awash in heroin (and later crack)? I know economic downturns usually result in spikes in the crime rate but feel like there must have been more to it than that.

this theory sounds screwy but really makes too much sense http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

and none of the other theories stand up to any scrutiny

i mean like obvs its a lot of stuff but imo lead is prob the missing link

Basic theory on the 70s crime spike was that the streets were awash with 20-something young men because of baby boom reaching peak in circa 1952-55.

Probably also the War On Drugs doing the same kind of good the War On Terror is now doing.

Kevin Drum has a wild theory about lead in paint. No joke.

that lead thing is fascinating and sounds familiar - was that posted here before?

xp

The other factors (spike in population, the end of the mid twentieth century migration from country to city, etc) were important too, but lead in paint made people sadistic.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

Basic theory on the 70s crime spike was that the streets were awash with 20-something young men because of baby boom reaching peak in circa 1952-55.

― Aimless, Thursday, May 14, 2015 2:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and the 70s crime boom continued into the 1990s unabated through all sorts of dips and spikes in the birth rate

that lead thing is fascinating and sounds familiar - was that posted here before?

― Οὖτις, Thursday, May 14, 2015 2:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we def talked abt it before somewhere on this dang board

I blame the crime boom on repeated, prolonged exposure to Ronald Reagan imo

lol

twentieth century migration from country to city, etc were important too

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 14, 2015 2:10 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

crime boom also persisted as ppl fled the cities because of crime

yeah but Alfred that link isn't about lead paint, it's about leaded gasoline

lead + abortion + crack decline probably the magic trifecta

abortion theory is total garbage and has been debunked so many times freaknomics is plain trash, its doesnt even correlate lol

Also stellar moral example provided by Nixon administration.

lol wait abortion leads to crime? i r confused