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

My former neighbor was from just outside Livingston Parish. She and her even more elderly mother were wonderful people, every single one of their relatives I met was a casual racist and homophobe in a way that I'd never encountered in real life.

lol trump going to dp just like Obama only more bigly ??

“The first thing we’re gonna do, if and when I win, is we’re gonna get rid of all the bad ones. We have gang members, we have killers, we have a lot of bad people that have to get out of this country…they’re gonna be out of this country so fast your head will spin. We have existing laws that allow you to do that. As far as everybody else, we’re going to go through the process. What people don’t know is that Obama got tremendous numbers of people out of the country. Bush, the same thing. Lots of people were brought out of the country with the existing laws. Well, I’m going to do the same thing.”

but i thought he was going to have a whole task force and shit. Seems like the current policies are working pretty fucking well

Indication 842 that Trump has no desire to be president: 'if and when I win'.

http://www.advocate.com/politics/2016/8/21/donald-trump-makes-flood-relief-donation-tony-perkinss-church

Perkins was directly affected by the floods as well, as his home in the area was severely damaged

well I guess there's some justice in the world

fornication is a sin? how'd they all get here then

Basters, presumably.

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/01/flowchart/4385fa530.png

A former student wrote this thing: http://www.refinery29.com/2016/08/120425/young-republican-woman-latina-undecided-voter-essay

Lakoff takes a swing at deconstructing Trump's particular style.

don't feel very sorry for that former student of yours.

it's like she just stayed in her own room all the time and never looked to see who she was roommates with

I love how she dropped "Benghazi" and we were all supposed to go "Yep."

i hope you gave her terrible grades

i hope she earned terrible grades through her own choices and a fair assessment of the quality of her work

like Hillary

I just saw (heard) the Hillary clip where she sarcastically says "We've already released 30,000 e-mails, what's a few more?" (one of the late-night talk shows, I assume). No matter whether you think there's nothing there, or how exasperated she may feel, she's not doing herself any favors creating soundbites like that--sounded awful.

there's no bigotry of low expectations for her anymore, kids

I don't know, I'm sure that's calculated -- she's playing to the people who are sick of hearing about it or never cared much about the email thing to begin with.

how could anyone not be sick of hearing it? you've gotta be really committed to hating her to keep up yr adrenaline about emails + servers for months + months

gotta say it's been amusing watching the entire alt-right become experts on email servers overnight

(xposts) I don't disagree, but even the little bit of Foundation stuff that's leaked out, it's a little bit unseemly. Some percentage of her support is soft (5-10%?), and I'm guessing such voters are turned off by such answers. They won't vote for Trump, but maybe there's a point where they'll stay home.

btw, is there a thread for how bad FiveThirtyEight is fading? So disappointing

is it?

even the little bit of Foundation stuff that's leaked out, it's a little bit unseemly

LOL

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/08/how-your-anti-clinton-sausage-gets-made

This WaPo headline is truly a masterpiece of bullshit:

Emails reveal how foundation donors got access to Clinton and her close aides at State Dept.

If you actually read the story, it shows is that Clinton Foundation donors would email Huma Abedin asking to meet with Hillary Clinton to ask for favors. They mostly didn’t get meetings and never got the favors — in other words, there’s not only not a scandal there’s not even a story. But since Hillary Clinton’s “close aide” did answer some emails and I suppose you could call that “access,” the headline is technically accurate. In conclusion, Donald Trump’s campaign is a massive grift operation and people email Hillary Clinton’s assistants so Both Sides Do It.

Wouldn't change a word. The fact that they "mostly didn’t get meetings" means that occasionally they got meetings. And I think that will strike some people as a little bit unseemly. Maybe, as most of you seem to be convinced of, some people means a percentage of voters so insignificant that sarcasm is a wise and effective strategy. I don't think it is.

among fringe voters i think she probably benefits from downplaying it tbh

"We've already released 30,000 e-mails, what's a few more?" (one of the late-night talk shows, I assume).

I think whichever headline writer at NYmag.com came up with this did a lot of potential readers a favor. It's like the news equivalent of an out of order sign

Clinton Foundation Still Not Criminal, Still Not Great for Hillary

it's almost as if ppl in the country have no concept of how the state dept has actually functioned historically

The fact that they "mostly didn’t get meetings" means that occasionally they got meetings.

Their commenters foresaw your coming, as in the prophecies!

I just love this line:

The emails show that, in these and similar cases, the donors did not always get what they wanted, particularly when they sought anything more than a meeting.

Note how the “always” implies that the donors usually did get what they wanted. This is supported by the all zero examples of that actually happening. (There is one example where Abedin said she’d ask about a visa request for a visa that was never issued, and a second example of a Bahrainian royal securing a formal meeting with Clinton through official channels.)

people have no idea what the state department does because by definition, if you're a born citizen, you have to go out of your way to even interact with it on the most basic level (getting a passport)

nevermind the byzantine craziness of what the state department ACTUALLY spends most of its time and resources doing

The email thing is so arbitary at this point. Even if there was an awful, awful bombshell in there bad enough to ruin my (mostly positive) view of Hillary, I'm 99.9% certain it wouldn't be enough to stop me from voting for her this election.

of course it's arbitrary, that whole outrage is reverse-engineered on the part of most conservatives. I had an argument with one the other day that outright forgot the email controversy of the Bush administration (like he was asking for links to "prove" it happened despite being a big deal at the time).

It's a weird situation to be in. I feel dismissive about the emails but not because I am confident the Clinton Foundation has always been on the up and up. I'm not sure of that tbh, although I am almost certain it was never "crooked" the way D-bag implies. I don't care about it because it's too late to vote for anyone else. After she's elected I'll probably be more open to critical perspectives on Clinton

idk how anyone can take it seriously. benghazi was bullshit that led to private server which was bullshit which now leads to clinton foundation which TBD is bullshit they'll just keep finding new shit bc they know americans are dumb and believe that "when there's smoke there's fire" is an actual property of the observable universe.

heh my friend once Snopes-bombed a guy posting dumb Obama shit and the guy's reply was "I dunno much about Snopes but if Obama is appearing on it so much, it must mean he's got something to hide"

Phil: I'm giving my impression of how I think her handling of all this--in this instance, brushing it aside with sarcasm--might strike some people. If one of the commenters does in fact come away with a similar impression, digging in your heels on the sarcasm doesn't really counter the point I'm trying to make.

She would do much better to simply answer questions in a straightforward manner for the next 80-some days, even if she has to continue doing so ad infinitum. As much as possible, anyway--I don't expect her to say more than is absolutely necessary.

I don't care about it because it's too late to vote for anyone else.

If I had a vote, I'd feel exactly the same way. And Trump continues to find ways to probably make it all moot anyway. But I'll say it again: the sarcasm in her voice sounded terrible.

That commenter is sarcastically pointing out that the story has no merits.

Okay, misunderstood. I'm lost now, but I'll stand by my original point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pje34fUgLQ

Clinton is at least as big a ***** as Barbara Bush

and that word is 'loser'

blood coming out of her *****

burka

Bill Clinton is an even bigger ******

geisha

(that can be either racist or rapist, depending on where he stands on the automatically guilty Woody/Assange spectrum)

If Hillary can keep her enemies focused on the content of the emails instead of her hilarious reasoning for setting up and maintaining her own private server, she will have won the battle.