Thoughts on the eminent domain spat between Trump and Bush? I was trying to discuss this on Breitbart, but it’s making my head spin.
Ha, I’ve noticed most politicians don’t have a clue regarding financial markets and energy markets. Even the people assigned to Congressional committees don’t seem to understand it well and they have staff to assist them.
The classic example of incompetence is Maxine Walters (the ranking member of the financial services comm.) embarrassing herself in a spat with Bernanke re: the difference between the feds fund rate and the discount rate.
Incompetence doesn’t really hurt you much in US politics. Most people don’t understand how the financial markets work (or any other complicated market like energy, health care, etc.) so it’s easy for politicians to promise grand change. How many people are going to frown at the idea of “taxing wall street speculation” that will bring in “hundreds of billions of dollars”?
To be fair, Sanders is not the only 2016 candidate that talks out of his ass and makes promises that will be impossible to keep.
This is true, and it will be shown to be true beyond the shadow of a doubt before midnight tonight.
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The pantsuit got smacked last night, there is something very wrong with Bill, a bit of a death rattle in his voice.
I think things will change a lot when the votes move to states with a larger African-American population.
Regardless, Hillary yet again is proving that she is a terrible candidate. If the GOP can’t beat her or Bernie they don’t deserve to win.
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Hillary was never going to win New Hampshire. It’ll be interesting to see how much Sanders victory there impacts the rest of the primary.
So, I was just reading Hillary could actually leave New Hampshire with more delegates than Sanders even though he crushed her. That’s pretty hilarious…
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I haven’t read the entirety of this thread so not sure if what I’m saying is Germans or not. But I thought it was common knowledge that Hillary never expected to win New Hampshire. I don’t think this phases her campaign machine at all.
And it’s always been known that Hillary would mop up her competition when things move South. I’ve never considered Bernie a serious threat. If he makes real noise in South Carolina and Alabama then I’ll eat crow. Bernie is as liberal as it gets but spotting a black person in his campaign propaganda is like spotting a unicorn. You cannot win the Dem nomination solely on the liberal fringe.
I tend to agree regarding Sanders; however, momentum can be a funny thing. At this point, I’m just trying to figure out which of the two would be worse.
Sanders means well but his vision and ideas for implementing his vision are facile. Hillary represents nepotism and has an unusually high amount of baggage. I can’t even imagine the favors the Clinton’s owe if she’s elected. A lot of people see her a mean ole hag that thinks she’s above the law. She’s definitely a lot more realistic than Bernie, and would likely be much better at compromising and getting shit done.
If you’re a conservative, Hillary is definitely the better candidate as far as policy. Hillary would likely be a more effective leader and be more productive. Bernie is likely the better person (and not just b/c of his idealism).
I get the notion that a republican would want Bernie to win b/c it would be viewed as an easy win for Trump/Cruz/Rubio. However, I think it’s VERY unrealistic at this point. If Bernie somehow managed to beat Hillary, he would have to be riding a wave of positive momentum such that he actually would be a real threat for POTUS. If he beats Hillary, it means blue collar democrats and minorities got behind him. If that happens, it means he’s a real threat for POTUS.
See, I tend to think the opposite based on the same reasoning. Hillary would likely be more productive on legislation I’m against. Bernie’s ideas are so far out there that I don’t think he’ll get any of it done. We are not going to pass Medicare for all, it ain’t happening. We aren’t getting “free” college. I just don’t see it. Certainly not in 4 yeas. So to me, Bernie may very well be the lesser of two evils.
I agree that he’s a threat if nominated.
That is an interesting perspective that I didn’t think about. He is so far out there it would likely result in a bunch of nothing getting done.
Fair enough. It’s hard to even argue about this since it’s all very hypothetical. Frankly I don’t see Bernie getting much support beyond a somewhat fringe element of the democratic base so I can’t even envision him being nominated.
And yea, there would be a whole lot of nothing getting done with Bernie + GOP controlled Congress. A lot of sound bytes would result with maybe good source material for sketch comedy. I’m not even sure Bernie would get much done with a Dem controlled Congress.
It clicked for me when I started looking into his record. He’s passed 3 whole bills that he authored in 25 years. Two of those bills were to rename a post office. So, in all reality, he’s passed one bill he’s authored.
He’s done better on Amendments, 17 or so, but that’s not going to help in the Oval Office.
Not that it really matters, but Carly is officially out.
I actually have respect for Bernie despite the fact that I think he’d be a poor choice for president. He makes a lot of grand promises he can’t possibly fulfill and even in his mid-70s still hasn’t realized that catalyzing grand change is not an effortless undertaking that only requires common sense. He still doesn’t seem to comprehend what’s realistically achievable even after 3 decades in Congress.
He does seem to deeply care about the welfare of the middle class. He also deeply cares about the general population becoming more engaged in the political process. On one hand I think he has some wonderful things to say and I’m not going to bash a man for sticking up for the middle class and encouraging civil engagement (something this country currently sucks at). On the other, I worry that his “revolution” is just churning out more mindless drones who think complex problems can be solved with a positive attitude and “progressive” thinking.
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This is basically my problem with Bernie Sanders. The Vanity Fair piece I posted provides a perfect example of this.
This is also one of my primary problems with Trump as well and honestly, it isn’t even really their fault. Generally speaking, the electorate has an attention span of about 140 characters. They can’t be bothered to research or learn about a specific issue, let alone the myriad of pressing issues, but they have no problem taking a hard line position anyway. People are just dumb, it’s a sad reality.
Classic example, I saw this dumbass meme on Imgur:
The whole thing is just absurd, but it’s the type of shit the average voter eats up. Every single point is just flat out wrong or so drastically oversimplified that it’s completely dishonest.
One item that particularly irks me is the big idea of free college to all. Superficially, how many ordinary people are going to oppose on principal the idea of taxing Wall Street to fund college educations? Wall Street is viewed as greedy and as having taken from the public via bailouts. A 0.5% tax on wall st transactions doesn’t sound bad. Free college sounds good, especially b/c student debt is a problem.
The problem is there aren’t many influential people (especially politicians) that have the balls to say that giving free higher education to all who are interested is a poorly vetted idea that would undoubtedly lead to bad consequences. No one wants to be the person to tell the public that college isn’t a good avenue for everyone and that there’s probably too many kids in college as it is, and promoting more kids who shouldn’t be there is not going to solve anything. We don’t need any more 22 y/o with worthless degrees and no life experience complaining they don’t have a cushy and well paying job that can support a lavish life in Manhattan. Or that countries with free public colleges have extraordinarily high admission standards and most US kids wouldn’t be able to sniff. It’s just political suicide to say that b/c the accepted dogma is that you’re only worth a shit if you go to college.
The thing with Bernie is that I think he actually believes some of his ideas are fool proof that would already be reality if just more people were politically engaged. I support a more engaged populace but not one that blindly accepts whatever they’re told. I don’t think Bernie fully appreciates the fine details (e.g.; free public college means extremely high admission standards, it’s not a guaranteed right) or that applying effective methods in one country isn’t going to necessarily work in the USA.