Have you had a look at the candidates' respective policies, Red?

I'm curious. No one wants to discuss them here. Do you want to use your thread to have a go, or would you prefer to discuss outrage?

Sprintcyclist wrote on Oct 19^th, 2016 at 7:33am:


How do you know about this, Sprint?

John Smith wrote on Oct 19^th, 2016 at 9:54am:


True, but they write for their audience. If readers want sex scandals over a serious policy debate, they'll get it.

Trump knows this, which is why he does what he does. He'd rather accuse Hilary of being on drugs, or threaten to jail her or make stuff up about her past - anything other than engage in a serious debate on policy.

It is a jolly world, no?

John Smith wrote on Oct 19^th, 2016 at 10:07am:



Speaking of Fox, just saw Bill O'Reilly on Colbert talking about the next debate and what the candidates need to do. I feel dirty now, never thought I'd agree.

John Smith wrote on Oct 19^th, 2016 at 10:07am:


It's not so much whether they support Trump or Hillary, it's the substance of the information.

I love reading about Trump because it's such a soap opera. It's only through doing a bit of research, however, that I discovered how ridiculous and harmful his policies really are.

If Amerikans knew what they were voting for, this would be a much more urgent debate. The ratings agencies said Trump will put the US in debt for another 5 trillion - just on his tax policies, including the 50% cut to corporate tax. Costs in the US would rise on manufactured goods due to the 35% tariff on Chinese goods. Imagine: things like Iphones would cost a third more, and no corresponding rise in wages, which have dropped to 1990s levels. With these policies alone, the US would enter a deep recession, and that's without all the big spending Trump's promising.

Constitutional experts say many of his policies are illegal - how, for example, do you legislate an ID card specifically for Muslims? And how do you implement a flagship policy like building a wall on the southern border - construction that would cost hundreds of billions and take years - without budgeting for it?

The media's focus on the soap opera is in Trump's interest. To date, the media has spread Trump's half-baked ideas and comments. Trump has spent bugger-all on advertising for this very reason - the media chatters away about every comment he makes and every speech he gives. They've ignored most of Trump's past, which is in all the biographies written on Trump if anyone cares to read them. The shifty business-practices, the law suits, the graft and corruption - the sexual infidelities.

The media has been nice to Trump. It's promoted what Trump calls his brand over 40 years. Trump is where he is today because of the media. Note that Trump didn't say women let him get away with groping him because he's their boss. He said they let him do "anything" because he's a celebrity.

But there are far more important issues in this erection than Trump's self-confessed history.

Check out his policies.

Barack Obama is slagging Trump but here is how Barack behaved with and to Hillary Clinton historically: 

Clinton-Obama Slugfest

Who lands a clean punch? Edwards was there, too.
By Viveca Novak
Posted on January 22, 2008 | Updated on January 24, 2008

Summary

In one of the liveliest debates of the 2008 presidential campaign, the three top Democrats slugged it out in Myrtle Beach, S.C. We noted some low blows:
◾Clinton falsely accused Obama of saying he "really liked the ideas of the Republicans" including private Social Security accounts and deficit spending. Not true. The entire 49-minute interview to which she refers contains no endorsement of private Social Security accounts or deficit spending, and Obama specifically scorned GOP calls for tax cuts.
◾Obama falsely denied endorsing single-payer government health insurance when he first ran for the Senate, saying, "I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer." But in fact he gave a speech in 2003 saying, "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program."
◾Edwards misleadingly claimed, "I was the one who beat John McCain" in a recent CNN poll. The problem is that there is a more recent CNN poll, one that shows either Clinton or Obama beating McCain and doesn't include Edwards.

Analysis

Just three Democratic candidates took part in the scorching debate cosponsored by CNN and the Congressional Black Caucus in Myrtle Beach, S.C.: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. It was the next-to-last such encounter scheduled for the Democrats prior to the Feb. 5 "Super Duper Tuesday" showdown when more than 20 states hold nominating contests. South Carolina Democrats go to the polls Saturday.

I Love the '80s!

Clinton attacked Obama for supposedly supporting Republican ideas, which she said included federal deficits and "privatizing" Social Security:

Clinton: [He] has said in the last week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote. … They were ideas like privatizing Social Security, like moving back from a balanced budget and a surplus to deficit and debt.

Obama pushed back, saying he had never endorsed such notions:

Clinton: [You] talked about the Republicans having ideas over the last 10 to 15 years.

Obama: I didn't say they were good ones.

Clinton: Well, you can read the context of it.

Obama: Well, I didn't say they were good ones. …

Clinton: It certainly came across in the way that it was presented…

We can’t speak to how things "came across" to Clinton, but we’ve listened to the entire interview and to our ears, it’s just flatly false that Obama said he "really liked the ideas of the Republicans." Clinton is referring to what Obama told the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal. A video is available on the Internet.

Here’s what Obama actually said in the portion to which Clinton referred:

Obama (Jan. 14, 2008): The Republican approach has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you’ve heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they’re being debated among the presidential candidates, it’s all tax cuts. Well, we know, we’ve done that; we’ve tried it. That’s not really going to solve our energy problems, for example.

There’s a difference between praising someone for having ideas and praising the idea itself. Obama is doing the former – and just as clearly not doing the latter. He says the GOP approach has "played itself out," for example.

It’s also false to imply – as Clinton did – that Obama endorsed Republican proposals to set up private Social Security accounts or that he praised deficit spending. We listened to the entire 49-minute interview, and Obama said no such thing.

Obama's Reagan Remarks to Reno Gazette-Journal, Jan. 14, 2008

[TET ]

Obama: I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I mean, I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path, because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the '60s and the '70s, you know government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating, and I think people just tapped into – he tapped into what people were already feeling, which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism, and, and, you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing.

I think Kennedy, 20 years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times. I think we’re in one of those times right now, where people feels like things as they are going right now aren’t working, that we’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful. And the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.

Now, you’ve heard

locker room follies? I created the term. Yes Trump has a history but nothing compared to the serial philanderer Bill Clinton.

And Hillary Clinton approved of it because she would have dumped the serial offender Bill decades ago...but no. Hillary loves the power too much to let go.  But are the mainstream media bringing up Bill and Hillary's past..you bet your sweet bippy they aren't.