I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE BOTTOM IS • US presidential elections part VIII

please god let rubio somehow lose to complete his political humiliation

― carthago delenda est (mayor jingleberries),

he's not gonna lose it looks like

:(

baffling. Dude is a total nullity with zero accomplishments.

and a demonstrated total lack of interest in his job

florida.. so much to answer for..

one of the two times I was in miami I chatted up some angry republican cuban guy at the hotel bar.. on the way home I saw an awesome billboard at the airport criticizing obama for bowing down before the saudi king.. kind of like this one

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/pac-pastes-blunt-message-on-anti-obama-billboards-/nSpdG/

that same billboard appeared about 5 miles from me. I used to get so angry driving by it.

there was a "WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?" billboard near the intersection of two major highways in north dallas (75 and 635) for years and years. even after the long form cert was produced. i think it was finally replaced maybe 1-2 years ago?

baffling. Dude is a total nullity with zero accomplishments.

― Οὖτις, Friday, August 19, 2016 4:49 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and a demonstrated total lack of interest in his job

― Οὖτις, Friday, August 19, 2016 4:50 PM (

so is Patrick Murphy

like it was a big white sign and all it said was "WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?"

i don't remember if there was even anything else on the sign xp to self

thought this was a hilarious pt in the ongoing 'Source of Trump Support: working class economic angst or racism?' debate

Trump supporters aren't racist, they're Altruistic (though their altruism only extends to... white people)

2. Even if Trump supporters aren't personally struggling, they still have good reason to agree with his messages.

Through the narrow lens of self-interest, it's true that the views of Trump supporters can appear irrational. Why do they find his protectionist messages so appealing when most of them aren’t factory refugees or victims of offshoring? Why are they so upset about immigration when so many of them live in white enclaves, insulated from the nation’s changing demographics?

Proponents of the cultural-anxiety theory of Trumpism say that the root cause must be prejudice.

Perhaps. But this kind of voting behavior is not strange at all — in fact, it's quite normal. Political scientists have long noticed that people tend to think beyond their own selfish desires when they form political opinions. Over the years, studies have discovered, for instance, that the unemployed are not more likely to support redistributive tax policies; whites who oppose affirmative action are not more likely to be affected by such policies. And in general, researchers have failed to find much of a connection between people’s personal finances and their opinions on politicians and economic policies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/19/stop-blaming-racism-for-donald-trumps-rise/

Rubio is running to ensure that the GOP keeps at least one Senate seat. That's it. If I were McConnell, I'd have been on my knees too.

well yeah

This Michigan speech from Trump that's going on is typically weird...He's promising to get 95% of the African-American vote four years from now is he's just given a chance to prove himself. I've been in and out of the house, but I swear I heard him say "The automobile industry--or as we like to call it, 'the car industry'..." at one point.

I would like to point out with pride that I have contributed less than 1% of the posts to this thread, which I think tends to mitigate the lack of insightful opinions or useful information in my contributions.

I'm definitely above the 1% bar. So I have no excuse.

I don't know how to check, for which I am thankful.

is being orthodox christian some theamericanconservative dot com rite? are dreher and larison both into that?

OK Trump gave out Play-Doh in Louisiana. I'm not worried about "optics."

"When life gives you mud, make mud pies!"

Trump to black voters: 'What the hell do you have to lose?'

a twofer bad look, both condescending and desperate

Meanwhile . . .

A Massachusetts convoy of Trump supporters drove from Wrentham to Foxboro in their trucks, RVs and SUVs on July 31 and were caught on tape spewing racist epithets and calls for anti-black violence.

I'm not c&p-ing any further than that. If you really want to know what they had to say, click through. Suffice to say it's as vile as anything that ever came out of the Jim Crow South.

Not 100% sure I trust a writer named "Andrea Chalupa" but there you go.

There is apparently a federal investigation into the lobbying work done by Manafort-Davis (the company, rather than Manafort, the individual) on behalf of Ukraine which is also concentrating on The Podesta Group:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/19/politics/paul-manafort-donald-trump-ukraine/index.html

The gist of the allegations is that MD advised a fake NGO to pay $1m+ to TPG to lobby on behalf of Ukrainian government positions. Tony Podesta maintains that he thought the NGO was legit, a number of ex-staff members of TPG have said that everyone knew it was shady and there were arguments over whether the company should have taken the contract on the grounds of legality.

trump *is* having some success reaching out to black voters, though

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160819181700-03-trump-dimondale-mi-0819-overlay-tease.jpg

went to protest/see trump event last night, private fundraiser- basically all the worst people in the world bashfully scuttling in and out of the mpls convention center. choicest moment was when a young woman yelled at me, asking if i was 'poor' and 'one of those student loans guys'

Just found out my wife went to high school with the editor in chief of brietbart

Was he an asshole even then?

He went to Harvard Westlake so I assume he knows no hardship. He's also like 31.

White supremacist trumpling stabs interracial couple:http://m.sfgate.com/news/nation-world/article/White-supremacist-stabs-interracial-couple-after-9172617.php

nice to know the convoy of trucks headed to the trump rally started in my hometown

Build a wall to stop them getting back in

This is...unexpected.

http://www.univision.com/univision-news/politics/trump-to-introduce-reforms-to-legalize-some-undocumented-immigrants

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-donald-trump-companies-at-least-650-million-in-debt/

rudy out there dutifully mainstreaming fringe conspiracy my lord

Ned Raggett
Posted: August 20, 2016 at 9:00:48 PM
This is...unexpected.

http://www.univision.com/univision-news/politics/trump-to-introduce-reforms-to-legalize-some-undocumented-immigrants

trump camp has totally walked this back fwiw he was prob just telling a room full of ppl what he thought they wanted to hear

i mean immigration extremism is his primary issue

rudy out there dutifully mainstreaming fringe conspiracy my lord

Do you mean his Sunday morning interview on Fox? He was throwing everything out there--Hillary's health, Lewinsky-era charges, etc. I think he's going to take on the role that Pence (who seems invisible right now) either isn't interest in or isn't very good at.

the hillary health thing particularly, what a scumbag

but he's America's mayor

I don't think anybody posted this last week:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-appalling-last-act-of-rudy-giuliani

My recollection was that he was just as slimy at the 2008 convention, contemptuously hissing out "community organizer," but I went back and looked at some of the speech on YouTube, and he was milder than I'd remembered.

his performance has def gotten wilder while still maintaining essentially the same subhuman core

the health thing especially seems like a whisper campaign if it were done by that one dude in high school who was incapable of lowering his voice to a whisper yet inexplicably persisted in trying to talk all the time in the library

I'm sure that all sorts of calculations have gone into this (although with Trump's terrible organization thus far, maybe not)--if we can only get x percent of the vote here, and x number of people out there--but Trump's apparent belief the last few days that he's going to win on the strength of the African-American vote is really, really strange.

he's more signaling to nervous white conservatives that voting for him is okay and doesn't make them racist than he is actually courting black voters

like it's all just a really elaborate version of some of my best friends are black

the fact that trump literally closed his pitch to black voters by yelling WHAT THE HELL HAVE U GOT TO LOSE is blowing my mind

the only people who thought it was a good speech are white conservatives whose "concern" for black people ONLY EVER comes up during flailing attacks on their political nemesis.

trump camp has totally walked this back fwiw he was prob just telling a room full of ppl what he thought they wanted to hear

Would be a hilarious fall if Trump stayed in the news by completely reversing all of his positions.

the only people who thought it was a good speech are white conservatives whose "concern" for black people ONLY EVER comes up during flailing attacks on their political nemesis.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, August 21, 2016 5:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these are the same people who said "What are you guys talkin about, he clearly said he DIDN'T want the thanks for being right" after his post-Pulse comments.

he's more signaling to nervous white conservatives that voting for him is okay and doesn't make them racist than he is actually courting black voters

Agree that's a large part of it, but I also think Trump's side knows they can't win today with just white conservatives--I think there's an 11th hour bid to win some black support. Whether their behind-closed-doors goal is a) more than the 1% they polled last week, b) enough to avoid a rout, c) enough to help with house/senate races, or d) enough to actually win, I don't know.

If they'd done all this as soon as they'd secured the nomination, it might have been welcome (although just as transparently phony). Doing so the third week of August, and with Trump's typical bombast, is just weird.

Trump treats politics like a fire sale.