I feel like any scenario which includes "Let's give Trump Pennsylvania because" is one I'm not worried about.
No one laid out a scenario where we just give Trump Pennsylvania, we're talking about his strategy of focusing there.
The thing is, Trump is going to lose. Barring some disaster like Hillary revealing she did 9/11, Trump doesn't have any realistic shot at winning. The electoral map, even at his strongest, have always been against him.
So when we talk about Trump strategy and scenarios for a Trump victory, we're talking about probability. My Trump victory scenario didn't give him Pennsylvania just because I felt like it, it gave him PA because he's focusing there and because what the fuck is the alternative? That he focuses resources in Wisconsin and Michigan? That he banks it all on a surprise win in California?
Trump's not going to win this, but if he does then it'll involve winning PA.
Please don't say things like this.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
US presidential candidate Donald Trump has issued an apology for his country’s decision to bomb Serbia during Bill Clinton’s tenure at the White House.
"The bombing of Serbs, who were our allies in both world wars, was a big mistake,” Trump told Serbian weekly magazine Nedeljnik. “Serbians are very good people. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration caused them a lot of harm, but also throughout the Balkans, which they made a mess out of."
Wait, what? Does he like Putin that much?
I'm waaay behind but I have to comment on this. I was born in Sarajevo 18 months before the war started, to a Bosnian father and Serbian mother with family in both countries. I'm also a pacifist who abhors the use strikes due to the danger of collateral damage.
But the bombing of Serbia was not a decision made lightly by the administration, nor was it made with ill intent. From a moral perspective it was to prevent further acts of genocide after years of nothing being done, and from a logical perspective it was done to stabilize a very important buffer between Russia, Europe, and Turkey.
Regrettably, I have to deal with Serbian friends who demonize the Clinton family due to these events, but ignore the mass rape, torture, and executions that occurred in the former Yugoslavia, and that the intervention brought that nightmare to a close.
There is a very persistent current of genocide denial in the former Yugoslavian states, and their communities in the US. And Trump is using it to fuel his horrid campaign.
In other WTF news I caught a little bit of broadcast TV last night and I saw an actual honest to god Trump TV ad, with the whole "I'm Donald Trump and I endorse this ad" thing and everything.
In Upstate New York.
Might as well just light that ad money on fire.
For all you people mocking this:
I saw a Hillary ad with the whole "I'm Hillary Clinton and I endorse this ad" thing and everything.
In Upstate New York.
These ads don't just pop up because of the presidential campaign, they pop up because they want to get the vote out for downticket ballots. There are a number of contested House elections in upstate New York this cycle, and getting out a few extra people in the right district could make the difference. Similarly, I saw a Schumer ad up here. This is New York, Schumer would win by about 2:1 even if he didn't do any campaigning whatsoever.
Some of Schumers funds are dead money as they can't be spent in Ohio or someplace viable.
As for local races, Tenney has recriminated Trump and Katko has called for Trump to drop out. I don't think either of them want Trump brought up in their races.
I mean, he could be running the ads as a fuck you to them both I guess.
Schumer could use the funds to host a bigger victory party or pay some of his friends consulting fees. Either one will have about the same impact on his chance of victory as an ad buy. Zero, since he's going to win in a landslide either way. Even better, unused campaign funds are freed up: he might not be able to spend it on Strickland or on boosting Hillary's chances in battleground states, but the money doesn't disappear at the end of the election. That money gets banked to be used on other races in the future.
So what exactly is the advantage of an ad buy when it'll do fuck all for his own chances and he isn't required to spend it now? Again, because he's not the only one running for office and because getting people out to vote for him in competitive house districts helps those Reps chances.
Whether Katko is anti-Trump or not isn't super relevant. Trump personally is vindictive enough to want to screw over a Representative who doesn't play ball, but it's a competitive seat and his campaign and the whole Republican victory movement will definitely want to help out house Republicans. Especially since ad buys are done in advance, so it's not like Trump decided to do the Syracuse ad buy after Katko called for him to drop out.
Why? He's losing the state by 9 points. Why is it unbelievable he would give up on it and redirect resources to other battlegrounds? It's the closest to a coherent strategy we've seen from his campaign.
Because it's an admission of defeat, and that's not something he's known for. Not that he would ever put it in those terms, or even mention it at all.
I mean can he even win without VA?
Edit: Ah just looked it up on 538, it was never really a path to victory.
He can't win at this point regardless. But if we imagined he could, it would involve salvaging NC, Florida, Iowa, and miraculously adding something like PA or WI or CO.
The move to pull out of Virginia shows Trump is "running essentially a four state campaign," with the focus now shifting to battlegrounds critical to his chances in November: Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, a source with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.
let this nightmare end
Kind of hard to run a four state campaign though, after you've pulled your ad-buys from those states.
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
What was the last election where one candidate was this despised? Was there one?
Going to bed last night, I was having fond memories of the start of the campaign. Remember back when we all thought the Trumps were assholes because they were proud they forced an employee to work and miss his sister's wedding? It was a simpler, more innocent time.
Seriously though, it just hit me how perfect Clinton's campaign strategy is. I mean, "bombard your opponent with all his scandals" seems obvious. But actually, it's probably the only tactic that could work against Trump. Remember the primaries, he blew the competition away by lying and bullshitting faster than anyone, opponent or media, could keep up. He'd come up with some insane claim and grab the headlines, and by the time people could write a response and say how wrong it is he'd already have moved on to the next one and grabbed the headlines again. The media was out of breath just keeping up with everything he was saying, and the counter-claims and fact-checked were getting lost in the wave of subsequent claims, leaving only the positive (for him) fallout of his claims on his supporters and constant free publicity into the public consciousness. The Clinton camp basically turned his strategy against him. They amassed a giant collection of his scandals, and now are bombarding him with one after the other faster than he can spin and counter and deny. What's more, since they're using facts instead of lies, when they get slow down the fact-checkers comes in and add oil to the fire, and independent sources come out with additional corroborating information, so it becomes a multi-front bombardment. All the while Trump is so thin-skinned that he needs to answer every charge personally ten-fold, so he cannot go on the offensive the way he did in the primaries, and as a bonus keeps rehashing the attacks that were made against him so he's bombarding himself too.
I feel like any scenario which includes "Let's give Trump Pennsylvania because" is one I'm not worried about.
No one laid out a scenario where we just give Trump Pennsylvania, we're talking about his strategy of focusing there.
The thing is, Trump is going to lose. Barring some disaster like Hillary revealing she did 9/11, Trump doesn't have any realistic shot at winning. The electoral map, even at his strongest, have always been against him.
So when we talk about Trump strategy and scenarios for a Trump victory, we're talking about probability. My Trump victory scenario didn't give him Pennsylvania just because I felt like it, it gave him PA because he's focusing there and because what the fuck is the alternative? That he focuses resources in Wisconsin and Michigan? That he banks it all on a surprise win in California?
Trump's not going to win this, but if he does then it'll involve winning PA.
Please don't say things like this.
I'm not going to pretend that Trump has a realistic shot just because, I don't know, you think that some people here will look at my post and all of a sudden get complacent and not vote. He doesn't have a shot. The race is over. Pull out the Hillary victory signs now. Again, barring some massive huge black swan revelation of pure Clintonian evil, the numbers just aren't there for Trump.
What was the last election where one candidate was this despised? Was there one?
The last two, Obama is still despised by about 40% of America
I don't know if that's what I hate the MOST about this election, but it's up there; that this level of animosity towards 'the other side' has now been normalized.
Ed: I mean think about it, next time around going softer on an opponent than what's happening now will be viewed as weakness, by many.
Chiselphane on
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
Going to bed last night, I was having fond memories of the start of the campaign. Remember back when we all thought the Trumps were assholes because they were proud they forced an employee to work and miss his sister's wedding? It was a simpler, more innocent time.
Seriously though, it just hit me how perfect Clinton's campaign strategy is. I mean, "bombard your opponent with all his scandals" seems obvious. But actually, it's probably the only tactic that could work against Trump. Remember the primaries, he blew the competition away by lying and bullshitting faster than anyone, opponent or media, could keep up. He'd come up with some insane claim and grab the headlines, and by the time people could write a response and say how wrong it is he'd already have moved on to the next one and grabbed the headlines again. The media was out of breath just keeping up with everything he was saying, and the counter-claims and fact-checked were getting lost in the wave of subsequent claims, leaving only the positive (for him) fallout of his claims on his supporters and constant free publicity into the public consciousness. The Clinton camp basically turned his strategy against him. They amassed a giant collection of his scandals, and now are bombarding him with one after the other faster than he can spin and counter and deny. What's more, since they're using facts instead of lies, when they get slow down the fact-checkers comes in and add oil to the fire, and independent sources come out with additional corroborating information, so it becomes a multi-front bombardment. All the while Trump is so thin-skinned that he needs to answer every charge personally ten-fold, so he cannot go on the offensive the way he did in the primaries, and as a bonus keeps rehashing the attacks that were made against him so he's bombarding himself too.
I don't know how much I agree with a reading where the Clinton's are the ones controlling when and how these scandals are coming out. I am pretty sure this is just reality catching up with Trump rather than a carefully honed plan coming to fruition.
Going to bed last night, I was having fond memories of the start of the campaign. Remember back when we all thought the Trumps were assholes because they were proud they forced an employee to work and miss his sister's wedding? It was a simpler, more innocent time.
Remember last year when Jon Stewart (or was it Colbert?) said something along the lines of "I want to see how far this goes!"? And it was funny?
What was the last election where one candidate was this despised? Was there one?
There was a conversation about this on 538 a while back. They couldn't think of any examples from actual presidential elections, but they estimated the political fallout felt similar to Watergate. Notably, they also observed that Watergate didn't actually end up hurting republicans all that much in the long term, so possibly Trump won't either, as impossible as that may seem.
Going to bed last night, I was having fond memories of the start of the campaign. Remember back when we all thought the Trumps were assholes because they were proud they forced an employee to work and miss his sister's wedding? It was a simpler, more innocent time.
Seriously though, it just hit me how perfect Clinton's campaign strategy is. I mean, "bombard your opponent with all his scandals" seems obvious. But actually, it's probably the only tactic that could work against Trump. Remember the primaries, he blew the competition away by lying and bullshitting faster than anyone, opponent or media, could keep up. He'd come up with some insane claim and grab the headlines, and by the time people could write a response and say how wrong it is he'd already have moved on to the next one and grabbed the headlines again. The media was out of breath just keeping up with everything he was saying, and the counter-claims and fact-checked were getting lost in the wave of subsequent claims, leaving only the positive (for him) fallout of his claims on his supporters and constant free publicity into the public consciousness. The Clinton camp basically turned his strategy against him. They amassed a giant collection of his scandals, and now are bombarding him with one after the other faster than he can spin and counter and deny. What's more, since they're using facts instead of lies, when they get slow down the fact-checkers comes in and add oil to the fire, and independent sources come out with additional corroborating information, so it becomes a multi-front bombardment. All the while Trump is so thin-skinned that he needs to answer every charge personally ten-fold, so he cannot go on the offensive the way he did in the primaries, and as a bonus keeps rehashing the attacks that were made against him so he's bombarding himself too.
I don't know how much I agree with a reading where the Clinton's are the ones controlling when and how these scandals are coming out. I am pretty sure this is just reality catching up with Trump rather than a carefully honed plan coming to fruition.
Normally I would expect there to be some collusion between a campaign and individual reporters when it comes to the timing of such news. Some form of quid pro quo where a reporter agrees to change the timing of the article and in return the campaign gives them something else to publish, some kind of a leak or interview. I don't even think that this is a horrible thing (as long as campaigns don't influence the content of the news); it's just the way the world works. But Hillary has a... difficult relationship with the media, so in this particular case I think you might be right and these news are completely independent of her campaign.
Florida Atlantic University poll of Florida (change since Aug 19-22).
Clinton 49 (+8)
Trump 43 (–)
Johnson 1 (-7)
Stein 0 (-2)
Wow Johnson went flaccid in a hurry
This doesn't surprise me at all. All third party candidates go flaccid except for Ross Perot. Libertarians getting over 1 percent is considered a win. What is initially surprising to me is that all the Johnson people went to Clinton but after thinking about it, it makes sense. Johnson people are not going to be even a little bit like Trump people.
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
I believe there was probably video of trump saying the N word but was it a video someone already had, or was it in the apprentice archives that are now offline? If the latter, you're dealing with more than a $5m contract breakage fee, you're dealing with physically being unable to access it, which means it may as well not exist.
It would be somewhat depressing if there was a video of trump dropping the n-bomb because, like the GTBTP tape it would be a moment of 'oh so NOW you believe the guys a racist? "
What was the last election where one candidate was this despised? Was there one?
The last two, Obama is still despised by about 40% of America
I don't know if that's what I hate the MOST about this election, but it's up there; that this level of animosity towards 'the other side' has now been normalized.
Ed: I mean think about it, next time around going softer on an opponent than what's happening now will be viewed as weakness, by many.
It's mostly on one side
like I feel about trump how conservatives feel about Obama, but I think it's earned. I think Romney is an alright guy who I disagree on several fundamental issues with and John Mccain is a bit of a shitheel (much of the shitheelness coming after the 2008 election) but I don't think he would have put us in camps or burned the country down nor is he literally satan
This rises to some level beyond gibberish on foreign policy.
It's crazy but it's exactly the same kind of stuff he's been saying all along. He thinks that cutting off trade to a country is smart, businessman like foreign policy and that the US is a large enough economy that we can just dictate terms and then reinstate the trade. It's the same kind of tactic he's said he would use against Mexico to force them to build the wall, or against China to get them to stop doing whatever he feels like blaming on China today.
What was the last election where one candidate was this despised? Was there one?
The last two, Obama is still despised by about 40% of America
I don't know if that's what I hate the MOST about this election, but it's up there; that this level of animosity towards 'the other side' has now been normalized.
Ed: I mean think about it, next time around going softer on an opponent than what's happening now will be viewed as weakness, by many.
It's mostly on one side
like I feel about trump how conservatives feel about Obama, but I think it's earned. I think Romney is an alright guy who I disagree on several fundamental issues with and John Mccain is a bit of a shitheel (much of the shitheelness coming after the 2008 election) but I don't think he would have put us in camps or burned the country down nor is he literally satan
They don't have to be be to either terrible people or monstrous leaders. Either of those two would, at minimum, be going back to the good ol' days of George W. Bush. And McCain would to answer to his horrific jokes about bombing Iran on the world stage - I don't think they'd like communicating with a POTUS who acts like that in front of the press.
This rises to some level beyond gibberish on foreign policy.
Wait what? Like, reopening the embargo? I'm so confused.
Increasing their freedom by lowering their mobility and access to American markets.
I'm not universally a "free trade woo" guy, but the embargo with Cuba has been a stupid and destructive policy for basically its entire run. Isolating their economy just gives the Castro regime more power. This is a blatant play by Trump for the Republican anti-Castro Cubans in Florida.
Going to bed last night, I was having fond memories of the start of the campaign. Remember back when we all thought the Trumps were assholes because they were proud they forced an employee to work and miss his sister's wedding? It was a simpler, more innocent time.
Seriously though, it just hit me how perfect Clinton's campaign strategy is. I mean, "bombard your opponent with all his scandals" seems obvious. But actually, it's probably the only tactic that could work against Trump. Remember the primaries, he blew the competition away by lying and bullshitting faster than anyone, opponent or media, could keep up. He'd come up with some insane claim and grab the headlines, and by the time people could write a response and say how wrong it is he'd already have moved on to the next one and grabbed the headlines again. The media was out of breath just keeping up with everything he was saying, and the counter-claims and fact-checked were getting lost in the wave of subsequent claims, leaving only the positive (for him) fallout of his claims on his supporters and constant free publicity into the public consciousness. The Clinton camp basically turned his strategy against him. They amassed a giant collection of his scandals, and now are bombarding him with one after the other faster than he can spin and counter and deny. What's more, since they're using facts instead of lies, when they get slow down the fact-checkers comes in and add oil to the fire, and independent sources come out with additional corroborating information, so it becomes a multi-front bombardment. All the while Trump is so thin-skinned that he needs to answer every charge personally ten-fold, so he cannot go on the offensive the way he did in the primaries, and as a bonus keeps rehashing the attacks that were made against him so he's bombarding himself too.
I don't know how much I agree with a reading where the Clinton's are the ones controlling when and how these scandals are coming out. I am pretty sure this is just reality catching up with Trump rather than a carefully honed plan coming to fruition.
I never said she was. I don't believe she is. Nor should she - if she "controls" the fact-checkers or independent sources, then they are no longer fact-checkers and independent sources.
But the best thing about this strategy is, she doesn't need to control them. Once she throws a few scandals at Trump, the media will try to fact-check and find corroborating information or related scandals and report on them. People who have lived through similar experiences with Trump will no longer feel isolated and helpless and will be emboldened and will come forward. Their stories will also be fact-checked and lead to corroborating information and related scandals being uncovered, which will lead to even more people coming forward, and so on. The bombardment against Trump becomes self-sustaining.
Meanwhile the Clinton camp can move on to the next scandal and open up another front, and another, and another...
I mean, if anything, Trump's spectacular meltdown might help Republicans later, as it sets the bar terribly low and gives them someone to contrast candidates against. People who voted Hillary reluctantly because Trump is just a hooting orange nightmare might relish the opportunity to vote for a more normal conservative candidate.
Going to bed last night, I was having fond memories of the start of the campaign. Remember back when we all thought the Trumps were assholes because they were proud they forced an employee to work and miss his sister's wedding? It was a simpler, more innocent time.
Seriously though, it just hit me how perfect Clinton's campaign strategy is. I mean, "bombard your opponent with all his scandals" seems obvious. But actually, it's probably the only tactic that could work against Trump. Remember the primaries, he blew the competition away by lying and bullshitting faster than anyone, opponent or media, could keep up. He'd come up with some insane claim and grab the headlines, and by the time people could write a response and say how wrong it is he'd already have moved on to the next one and grabbed the headlines again. The media was out of breath just keeping up with everything he was saying, and the counter-claims and fact-checked were getting lost in the wave of subsequent claims, leaving only the positive (for him) fallout of his claims on his supporters and constant free publicity into the public consciousness. The Clinton camp basically turned his strategy against him. They amassed a giant collection of his scandals, and now are bombarding him with one after the other faster than he can spin and counter and deny. What's more, since they're using facts instead of lies, when they get slow down the fact-checkers comes in and add oil to the fire, and independent sources come out with additional corroborating information, so it becomes a multi-front bombardment. All the while Trump is so thin-skinned that he needs to answer every charge personally ten-fold, so he cannot go on the offensive the way he did in the primaries, and as a bonus keeps rehashing the attacks that were made against him so he's bombarding himself too.
I don't know how much I agree with a reading where the Clinton's are the ones controlling when and how these scandals are coming out. I am pretty sure this is just reality catching up with Trump rather than a carefully honed plan coming to fruition.
I never said she was. I don't believe she is. Nor should she - if she "controls" the fact-checkers or independent sources, then they are no longer fact-checkers and independent sources.
But the best thing about this strategy is, she doesn't need to control them. Once she throws a few scandals at Trump, the media will try to fact-check and find corroborating information or related scandals and report on them. People who have lived through similar experiences with Trump will no longer feel isolated and helpless and will be emboldened and will come forward. Their stories will also be fact-checked and lead to corroborating information and related scandals being uncovered, which will lead to even more people coming forward, and so on. The bombardment against Trump becomes self-sustaining.
Meanwhile the Clinton camp can move on to the next scandal and open up another front, and another, and another...
That's not what Variable is saying.
Variable is saying that she isn't controlling when the scandals themselves come out. Like, pussygate wasn't a big Clinton ploy, it probably surprised them as much as it did the Trump camp. They took advantage, but they were reacting to others actions rather than being the ones behind it.
Hillary has introduced scandals a couple of times, like Trump's words against Machado, but generally it's either been the media or Donald himself. Honestly, even the Machado stuff would've disappeared if Trump had been able to apologize afterward instead of going on twitter rants or lying about a sex tape.
I mean, if anything, Trump's spectacular meltdown might help Republicans later, as it sets the bar terribly low and gives them someone to contrast candidates against. People who voted Hillary reluctantly because Trump is just a hooting orange nightmare might relish the opportunity to vote for a more normal conservative candidate.
That's the best case scenario, it means we've reached peak derp.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Posts
Wow Johnson went flaccid in a hurry
Please don't say things like this.
how dare u
my... johnson...
@Hakkekage
click this
I'm waaay behind but I have to comment on this. I was born in Sarajevo 18 months before the war started, to a Bosnian father and Serbian mother with family in both countries. I'm also a pacifist who abhors the use strikes due to the danger of collateral damage.
But the bombing of Serbia was not a decision made lightly by the administration, nor was it made with ill intent. From a moral perspective it was to prevent further acts of genocide after years of nothing being done, and from a logical perspective it was done to stabilize a very important buffer between Russia, Europe, and Turkey.
Regrettably, I have to deal with Serbian friends who demonize the Clinton family due to these events, but ignore the mass rape, torture, and executions that occurred in the former Yugoslavia, and that the intervention brought that nightmare to a close.
There is a very persistent current of genocide denial in the former Yugoslavian states, and their communities in the US. And Trump is using it to fuel his horrid campaign.
PSN: ShinyRedKnight Xbox Live: ShinyRedKnight
No no wikileaks isn't a political organ of Putin's.
Can't wait for Glenn Greenwald to defend it
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
NC is a battleground state.
VA is a lost cause.
What is this, the last throes of the Civil War?
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
If we go Sherman on Trump, I would not be disappointed.
All I can say regarding the aggressors in that video, past and present: Cowards.
Schumer could use the funds to host a bigger victory party or pay some of his friends consulting fees. Either one will have about the same impact on his chance of victory as an ad buy. Zero, since he's going to win in a landslide either way. Even better, unused campaign funds are freed up: he might not be able to spend it on Strickland or on boosting Hillary's chances in battleground states, but the money doesn't disappear at the end of the election. That money gets banked to be used on other races in the future.
So what exactly is the advantage of an ad buy when it'll do fuck all for his own chances and he isn't required to spend it now? Again, because he's not the only one running for office and because getting people out to vote for him in competitive house districts helps those Reps chances.
Whether Katko is anti-Trump or not isn't super relevant. Trump personally is vindictive enough to want to screw over a Representative who doesn't play ball, but it's a competitive seat and his campaign and the whole Republican victory movement will definitely want to help out house Republicans. Especially since ad buys are done in advance, so it's not like Trump decided to do the Syracuse ad buy after Katko called for him to drop out.
Kind of hard to run a four state campaign though, after you've pulled your ad-buys from those states.
Seriously though, it just hit me how perfect Clinton's campaign strategy is. I mean, "bombard your opponent with all his scandals" seems obvious. But actually, it's probably the only tactic that could work against Trump. Remember the primaries, he blew the competition away by lying and bullshitting faster than anyone, opponent or media, could keep up. He'd come up with some insane claim and grab the headlines, and by the time people could write a response and say how wrong it is he'd already have moved on to the next one and grabbed the headlines again. The media was out of breath just keeping up with everything he was saying, and the counter-claims and fact-checked were getting lost in the wave of subsequent claims, leaving only the positive (for him) fallout of his claims on his supporters and constant free publicity into the public consciousness. The Clinton camp basically turned his strategy against him. They amassed a giant collection of his scandals, and now are bombarding him with one after the other faster than he can spin and counter and deny. What's more, since they're using facts instead of lies, when they get slow down the fact-checkers comes in and add oil to the fire, and independent sources come out with additional corroborating information, so it becomes a multi-front bombardment. All the while Trump is so thin-skinned that he needs to answer every charge personally ten-fold, so he cannot go on the offensive the way he did in the primaries, and as a bonus keeps rehashing the attacks that were made against him so he's bombarding himself too.
I'm not going to pretend that Trump has a realistic shot just because, I don't know, you think that some people here will look at my post and all of a sudden get complacent and not vote. He doesn't have a shot. The race is over. Pull out the Hillary victory signs now. Again, barring some massive huge black swan revelation of pure Clintonian evil, the numbers just aren't there for Trump.
The last two, Obama is still despised by about 40% of America
I don't know if that's what I hate the MOST about this election, but it's up there; that this level of animosity towards 'the other side' has now been normalized.
Ed: I mean think about it, next time around going softer on an opponent than what's happening now will be viewed as weakness, by many.
I don't know how much I agree with a reading where the Clinton's are the ones controlling when and how these scandals are coming out. I am pretty sure this is just reality catching up with Trump rather than a carefully honed plan coming to fruition.
Remember last year when Jon Stewart (or was it Colbert?) said something along the lines of "I want to see how far this goes!"? And it was funny?
My Backloggery
There was a conversation about this on 538 a while back. They couldn't think of any examples from actual presidential elections, but they estimated the political fallout felt similar to Watergate. Notably, they also observed that Watergate didn't actually end up hurting republicans all that much in the long term, so possibly Trump won't either, as impossible as that may seem.
Normally I would expect there to be some collusion between a campaign and individual reporters when it comes to the timing of such news. Some form of quid pro quo where a reporter agrees to change the timing of the article and in return the campaign gives them something else to publish, some kind of a leak or interview. I don't even think that this is a horrible thing (as long as campaigns don't influence the content of the news); it's just the way the world works. But Hillary has a... difficult relationship with the media, so in this particular case I think you might be right and these news are completely independent of her campaign.
This doesn't surprise me at all. All third party candidates go flaccid except for Ross Perot. Libertarians getting over 1 percent is considered a win. What is initially surprising to me is that all the Johnson people went to Clinton but after thinking about it, it makes sense. Johnson people are not going to be even a little bit like Trump people.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
This rises to some level beyond gibberish on foreign policy.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
It would be somewhat depressing if there was a video of trump dropping the n-bomb because, like the GTBTP tape it would be a moment of 'oh so NOW you believe the guys a racist? "
Wait what? Like, reopening the embargo? I'm so confused.
In fairness, it's a coherency on foreign policy he's missed in the entire campaign. Despite it contradicting his relationship with Cuba in the past.
It's mostly on one side
like I feel about trump how conservatives feel about Obama, but I think it's earned. I think Romney is an alright guy who I disagree on several fundamental issues with and John Mccain is a bit of a shitheel (much of the shitheelness coming after the 2008 election) but I don't think he would have put us in camps or burned the country down nor is he literally satan
Woo! Go Owls! Woo!
(sorry, it's mandatory for some of us.)
It's crazy but it's exactly the same kind of stuff he's been saying all along. He thinks that cutting off trade to a country is smart, businessman like foreign policy and that the US is a large enough economy that we can just dictate terms and then reinstate the trade. It's the same kind of tactic he's said he would use against Mexico to force them to build the wall, or against China to get them to stop doing whatever he feels like blaming on China today.
They don't have to be be to either terrible people or monstrous leaders. Either of those two would, at minimum, be going back to the good ol' days of George W. Bush. And McCain would to answer to his horrific jokes about bombing Iran on the world stage - I don't think they'd like communicating with a POTUS who acts like that in front of the press.
Back when I went to FAU, there was a shirt in the campus store that said something like "FAU Football - Still Undefeated!"
(this was before we got an actual football team)
But yeah, I actually did get a weird feeling of pride seeing a poll come out of my alma mater.
My Backloggery
Increasing their freedom by lowering their mobility and access to American markets.
I'm not universally a "free trade woo" guy, but the embargo with Cuba has been a stupid and destructive policy for basically its entire run. Isolating their economy just gives the Castro regime more power. This is a blatant play by Trump for the Republican anti-Castro Cubans in Florida.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I never said she was. I don't believe she is. Nor should she - if she "controls" the fact-checkers or independent sources, then they are no longer fact-checkers and independent sources.
But the best thing about this strategy is, she doesn't need to control them. Once she throws a few scandals at Trump, the media will try to fact-check and find corroborating information or related scandals and report on them. People who have lived through similar experiences with Trump will no longer feel isolated and helpless and will be emboldened and will come forward. Their stories will also be fact-checked and lead to corroborating information and related scandals being uncovered, which will lead to even more people coming forward, and so on. The bombardment against Trump becomes self-sustaining.
Meanwhile the Clinton camp can move on to the next scandal and open up another front, and another, and another...
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/13/politics/liberty-university-jerry-falwell-jr-donald-trump/
That's not what Variable is saying.
Variable is saying that she isn't controlling when the scandals themselves come out. Like, pussygate wasn't a big Clinton ploy, it probably surprised them as much as it did the Trump camp. They took advantage, but they were reacting to others actions rather than being the ones behind it.
Hillary has introduced scandals a couple of times, like Trump's words against Machado, but generally it's either been the media or Donald himself. Honestly, even the Machado stuff would've disappeared if Trump had been able to apologize afterward instead of going on twitter rants or lying about a sex tape.
That's the best case scenario, it means we've reached peak derp.
The problem with having a religious school is that the people who attend tend to be believers, for good or ill.