On the heels of a poll showing that 62 percent of Democrats and Independents do not want Hillary Clinton to run again, Vice President Joe Biden delivered perhaps the most honest and most stinging post mortem: “I don’t think she ever really figured . . . out [why she was running].” While Biden gave a sympathetic take on that dilemma for Clinton, many voters had a harsher view that she ran because she and Democratic leaders treated the office as hers by right.
Many opposed Clinton based on the full-court press of the establishment that seemed more like a coronation rather than an election. Clinton never seemed to get traction on any message, particularly when faced with the unexpected rise of Bernie Sanders. Indeed, what was bizarre is that the Clinton staff would periodically announce that they were going to remake her image or message like she was a commercial product being tweaked under continuing market analysis.
Biden, 74, did soften the analysis by saying the Clinton felt forced to run, which certainly did not come across to most voters — or every Saturday Night Live segment.
The queen is dead long live the President. Maybe the Dems will abandon their current direction and malcontents in their party and come back to American values. She was right about “Deplorables” just identified the wrong party.
You have 16 Democratic governors as we speak. From that list you can deduct the one held together with psychotropics (Mark Dayton), the shady characters (Terry McAuliffe, Andrew Cuomo), the antiques (Jerry Brown); and the Southern ideological temporizers (the new governors of Louisiana, North Carolina and West Virginia) that Democratic voters have such an allergy to in presidential contests. So, you have 9 governors. You have 46 Senators, at least 7 of whom fit into the foregoing categories. You might have nearly 50 people on your bench, of whom only a small fraction would ever consider running for the job. Now recall how Democratic voters reacted to Martin O’Malley (former governor and mayor), Lincoln Chafee (former Mayor, Governor, and Senator), and James Webb (Southerner, former Senator and Secy of the Navy). The don’t have a deep bench, or at least a bench occupied my men they[d care about.
DesperatelySeekingSusan – they have Elizabeth “Fauxahontas” Warren warming up.
She’ll be 71 years old next time ’round. She’s never held an executive position. Her last faculty position she held was one she landed by pretending to be mestizo (see the movie Soul Man). If BO hadn’t won the Democratic nomination in 2008, I’d tell you it won’t happen. BO lowered the bar so much just about any federal or statewide politician can justify going for it. (Imagine someone as wet behind the ears as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio seeking the presidency 25 years ago).
Greed, Power, Ego, Pride,
Have nothing to do with any of the forms of ‘Reason’.
Desperate, Great point about Fredo..err Teddy and Roger Mudd.
Being a broken down old baseball coach I can’t help but say, the top of the order on this thread is perfect. KarenS, a great leadoff, Steven Groen the classic #2 hitter, using Karen’s comment and moving her w/ a solid double. Then our 3 hole hitter, Darren, knocking them both in to score.
She’s pointlessly ambitious. She always has been. Reminds me of the mordantly funny interview Edward Kennedy gave to Roger Mudd in 1979. Asked why he was running, Kennedy entered a syntactical labyrinth from which he never emerged.
You’ve had people who sought the office because they wanted to accomplish something in it. Adlai Stevenson, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, George McGovern, Henry Jackson, John Anderson, Paul Simon, Paul Tsongas, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders have been such people. Re Stuart Symington, Hubert Humphrey, Nelson Rockefeller, Edmund Muskie, Jimmy Carter, Morris Udall, Jerry Brown, Frank Church, Gary Hart, Bob Kerrey, Tom Harkin, John McCain, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, you could make an argument they were such people. Others (e.g. Shirley Chisolm, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes, Ron Paul) wanted to press an issue or rally a constituency. All of these people (arguably) had something other than profession ambition, their competitiveness, or their histrionic tendencies as their principal motor. HRC is no such animal.
So, “what do you want to be when you grow up”? This girl blows Hillary away.
Basically, she ran the same way John McCain did, without the fire in her belly that a real candidate needs.
No, she didn’t. She wasn’t appealing to any of the same constituencies.
Worst candidate ever?
Bob Dole. Our nickname for him was ‘dead man rising’.
But I did love Trump’s ‘low energy’
Bush.
The dead man rising is still alive and, at the age of 93, still working.
Curious fact: Bill Clinton had quite a mass of 1st and 2d degree relatives who were his senior (about 15, I think). Nearly all are now deceased, the only survivor being his sister Sharon Pettijohn (whom he’d never met as of 2004 and may never have met). The male with the longest lifespan in that crew was his brother Leon Ritzenthaler, who died in 2009 just short of 71. Bill Clinton’s mother also died at that same age. In six months, BC will be older than brother Leon ever lived to be. Take a look at pictures of BC next to Albert Gore or Dan Quayle (his contemporaries), next to Gary Hart (10 years his senior), and next to Michael Dukakis (13 years his senior). He looks at least as old as Hart and older than Dukakis. He doesn’t look much younger than Walter Mondale (18 years his senior).
Also this was the election of Brands, unfortunately her brand was quite damaged and his was all about the marketing aspect.
Remember Nike doesn’t make shoes, they are a brand.
I think we are collectively consumers first and foremost and being a civilly minded populace is down the list a bit.
Her corporate veneer made it look like the corporate world.
She was chosen by an unelected board to run the family business that really wasn’t hers to run.
Big surprise huh?
Clinton lost. Blah blah blah.
All attention should fall on the incoming charlatan.
I cannot believe that after the problems she caused in Africa and the deaths of an ambassador and three other Americans, people had any hope that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had the acumen to be the US President. The WIKILEAKS leaks were only the confirmation of what we already knew or had assumed. In this election both parties did not offer any eligible candidate. Sen. Bernie Sanders had started his political revolution long before the Democratic Party grabbed him just to have another name to fill their candidate list. But of course, as soon as he started to reach people with his message, the DNC panicked and rigged the primaries. By the way, how many voters took the time to watch the original Congress hearings? Sometimes I cannot help but to think that starting in January 2017 we will have the government we deserve.
We will always get the government we deserve. Our 18th century generation had the government they deserved, but being far more enlightened than today’s generation, they determined they deserved something better. A century of salutary neglect might be just what this country needs to shed the our 100 year bondage of progressivism and become reacquainted with the instinct of self-reliance.
The peasant population who formed the majority in this country in 1788 were not ‘far more enlightened’. They were tougher and more virtuous. Most were not participants in political life either, because a majority of the adult male population did not meet the property qualifications then in effect.
They were self-reliant and they understood what the role of government should be in their lives. For that alone they were far more enlightened than today’s dependents of the state.
Olly, the degree of self-reliance survival required in 1788 (or even 1920, for the population still on the farm) is much more distant from the manner of living enjoyed by ordinary salaried employees today than is the distance between such salaried employees and the ‘dependents of the state’ you deride.
DSS,
Self-reliance is far more than simply having the skillset to live without the aid of others. If that were the case then no government would be necessary. Civil society is necessary because we are made more secure in our life, liberty and property together than we are on our own in nature. Self-reliance is a mindset that is necessary to keep the state within its limits. It keeps us vigilant over any encroachment by the state that would threaten our natural rights. We entered into this social contract to be more secure in those rights, not to empower the state to secure them at their convenience. If you consider pointing out weaknesses in our culture that have proven historically to lead all manner of tyranny as derision, then so be it.
Thanks for the verbal chaff. It’s been an education.
I’m sorry that you might consider my comments worthless. I on the other hand find a lot of value in your comments. They seem well-informed and they lead me to question my own understanding. I appreciate you being on this blog.
Olly, I appreciate her, too, like I do Marie Antoinette.
Toady must have a couple of weeks off for the holiday season. I wonder if it’s a paid position or contractual? Anyway, he did make a good point about the nature of our economy and world now… being a group of specialists. It tells me that each one of us has an increasingly narrow view of the world as a whole, which each successive generations getting even more narrow. I think one thing that would help the country would be to require every student to live as a farmer for a year. That would be an eye opener.
I think one thing that would help the country would be to require every student to live as a farmer for a year.
Now we have soi-disant ‘constitutional conservatives’ advocating Maoist policy measures. What a world.
Toady must have a couple of weeks off…
Er, don;t look now, but… 🙂
Olly, I agree with what you say, but the culprit is corporate capitalism, which has caused the lack of sensibilities. You don’t see that in the military because one doesn’t join the military to get rich and pay is much the lesser part of the equation.
but the culprit is corporate capitalism, which has caused the lack of sensibilities.
Blathermeister. You haven’t a model of how such a social-psychological process would work, much less one with any empirical validity.
Steve,
What makes you think the military doesn’t see the capitalist system at work? We may lack the experience working within a private corporation, but we certainly feel its effects in our personal lives. I believe we are even more exposed to the corporatism that infects government policy. When I work alongside GS whatever’s or private contractors making 2-3 times what I make for the same work, and they go home to their families every night, then I see firsthand the not-so-invisible hand of the corporate/government entanglement pressing down on our not-so-free capitalist system.
The misconception that most of our military are uninformed conservatives is without merit. We are actually forced by the nature of our work to be exposed to far more of what is going on in our world than the average citizen. Many of our members are liberal as well. The one constituency that is not found in any relevant numbers within our ranks are progressives. For one thing, there are no safe spaces for them to retreat. 😉
The Republicants certainly tarred her. So she had a hard time coming across as kind, loyal, reverent, brave… All those Boy Scout vertues.
No charisma, I guess.
No, she’s tarred by her rancid professional life and even more rancid personality.
Of course she knows why she wanted to be President…she also knows why the chicken crossed the road…but it’s all being kept a secret on her highly secured server at home.
Graft
Thinking and caring people are jumping away from the Demoncrats
Loved this one!
Yep, thinking people are jumping to the RNC. They want to end Social Security and Medicare. Romney’s niece is the new chair of the RNC.
Joe – the RNC seems to be rebuilding itself since it won and all the old-timers were against the winning candidate. So, old it out. Young is in. Or younger.
Really, Old generals and old billionaires is what I see.
https://youtu.be/QUYKSWQmkrg
You’d rather see Ben Rhodes? The old are thems that know something.
Jumping away from the Democrat party does not necessarily mean jumping FOR the RNC.
Never be able to be able to elect a third party candidate with the electoral college in effect so practically speaking it does. That is unless one is content to cast a protest vote year after year. 🙂
The Democrat party is dead or close to it. Way beyond saving. If it wasn’t, it would not be acting so insane right now.
But indeed, let’s look at that possibility. Even if it wasn’t, your argument ultimately means getting us to that state faster than otherwise by being perpetually locked into a corrupt party that is tearing the country apart just as surely as the Republicans are. To me, It’s simply unacceptable, though that doesn’t mean it won’t happen (or isn’t happening). Even if it was inevitable , I don’t believe for a minute that Democrats will prevail in their fantasy of simply business as usual – as per Nancy Pelosi or punch happy Reid. For one, that means more austerity, more poverty, more acute poverty, more war and far greater risk that our democracy building dictatorships and the attendant perpetual wars get out of hand with other nuclear powers. It’s like the tight rope artist who keeps piling on difficulties, with out let up, until they are simply beyond his/her ability to deal with.
So you may be right; we may have no choice, but that will only speed up collapse.
And indeed the Democrat party is so corrupt that it’s hard to imagine them ever pulling themselves out of that loop and offering the public decent candidates anyone would want to choose and that can rebuild a fair system as well as have the public’s interests at heart. That’s why I say it’s moribund. The Republican party may in the same boatl; it sure looks it. It’s living in the past and in the pure rarified, but quite volitle gasses of perpetual expansion, and Trump, who’s good at building boxes, may be just the carpenter for the party..
Empire collapse, is a very likely scenario, btw. In the direction we are going, It seems to be our unescapable fate right now and is being vastly sped up by population explosion and global warming. People imagine that we will always get out of the hole we are in somehow. Some hero or some technological break through will come and rescue humanity. That’s simply not true. I suspect we are hanging by a thread right now.
These people never go away. Chelsea is next. She probably end up as a congresswoman from New York.
Chelsea is intelligent, but lacks focus and drive so flits from career to career. She seems to have fallen into the role of cog in her parents’ grift more or less faux de mieux. This isn’t all that anomalous. Most women are multitaskers by nature who have more discrete purposes than do men in their interaction with the labor market. She needs to be Mrs. Mezvinsky, settle on something honest (e.g.treasurer’s office at Fordham), and see to it her ailing mother is cared for but not offer her vocational life as an extension of her mother’s.
Regardless of Chelsea’s qualifications (and so far, doubt is warranted), there is something about dynasties that make me and probably others uncomfortable. This is related to the the distaste people feel with class privilege and nepotism.
Flitting from one thing to the next is not simply a lack of drive, but also a result of the above – that is, being over privileged. Less obvious in the circles she moves in, but still quite possible, is that she faces resentment through no fault of her own (other than that see seems to be fine with her privilege and the system that supports it).
Flitting from one thing to the next is not simply a lack of drive, but also a result of the above – that is, being over privileged.
In some permissive sense. Chelsea flits from one thing to another because she has the capacity to learn one thing and another. Compare Chelsea to Paris Hilton, who’s also privileged. The best example I know of a woman whose work life has been like Chelsea’s came from an ordinary bourgeois family (father a faculty member). She has a degree in mathematics (from a top-drawer university) and undertook preliminary study in mechanical engineering and public health before settling on social work. She gets an MSW from an overpriced (patently unserious) program which is highly rated by professional associations. She’s always had s*** jobs in public relations and never done work in child-protective. Very dear woman. Very committed to her children, whom she spoils. Very committed to her husband. . I’ve met few woman whose talents are so underutilized (bar those who’d gone down the alcoholic drain).
You seem to have inside information (not a criticism). Not that it matters a whit, but I’ll keep a more open mind in her regard. I’m still puzzled by her acceptance of the MSNBC job, but then I’m also totally ignorant of the circumstances or her actual performance beyond comments I heard from people I know who watched her.
Let’s just hope that Uncle Joe fades away. What a fool!
Off topic but I went to Jimmy Dore’s YouTube site and an ad at the beginning of one of his videos showed one of the most asinine products I’ve seen in a while:
A Wi-Fi enabled Crock Pot
Unbefrickinglievable. Talk about over-engineering. It even had an “App” that you could download to a smart phone to check the status of the pot and do I guess everything you need to do with a crock pot. But I have to wonder: Does it send data on your crock pot usage to some marketing firm also? Will the NSA hack my crock pot and discover my grandmother’s stew recipe? Will script-kiddies break in and burn my potatoes and carrots? I wonder if a chef needs to configure their router so the crock pot is in a DMZ or simply firewalled.
I prefer my low-res crock pot having two settings: Low and High. When it’s done, you unplug it.
I remember an older photograph of my great-uncle and two other men gearing up to go camping. They gathered provisions, rifles, and a very large cast iron pan, tied these to a mule and went out for a few days. Some people today would starve because they couldn’t get their Smartphone to activate the frying pan and there is no USB jack to power it.
But the good news is that you like Jimmy Dore. Hope you got to see his analysis of Obama’s Syria speech.
https://youtu.be/jiqwqP_iXsc
That is funny Darren! I know a guy who has one of them. And you have to love the glampers, too.
Automated cars is probably the biggest consumer item coming to a theatre near us in the pied piper category. There are advantages. Old people, being able to do work while in transit, etc., but the downside is huge. The biggest one will be that once established, no one will have a choice. Human driving will become restricted, then more restricted and finally banned outright. Statistics on safety of automation will basically be pure propaganda and difficult to verify. Hacking will be inevitable but invisible under a net of MSM silence, except when it can be used to apply even more restrictions. Everything one does, everywhere one goes, the speed, everything one reads or does in transit, what one glances at, their thoughts as read and interpreted by AI from facial expressions, etc., will be stored and available for profit or for control.
Laws will be passed before the first such cars roll off the assembly line that makes any damage caused by the vehicles or the software, the responsibility of the user.
The model of ownership will change entirely (as is happening right now in the software industry) and in very short order will become almost purely one of rental (rent extraction) except for the wealthiest. This is why Uber and others are investing so heavily in the technology; they will become our means of autonomy and we will pay dearly for it; with our autonomy. For the average person, rental will be all they can afford so welcome to the remains of someone’s all night binge when you head out for work in the morning and don’t complain about it or you will find the cars simply stop showing up when you call for them.
While driving you will have to give a destination for you will be packed into a freeway going 80 mph with about two feet of clearance between you and the next car. It will reduce traffic jambs somewhat in the beginning, but will also simply result in ever more automobiles getting on the freeways until the congestion simply overwhelms even the automated cars and we are right back where we started from, only now we can no longer control our own cars. Sound fun? Try telling your new master that you would like to get off at the next exit and “tool around.” Want to drive off road, even on your own property? If the local laws don’t permit it, or even if it’s legal for owners but the software is confused about owner identity, neither will the car.
More capitalism on steroids.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Uber-defies-DMV-with-self-driving-pilot-10796407.php
We have gotten to a point well beyond the market satisfying even the desires of the people, never mind their needs, unless, of course, we define the people as the .01% and the rest as live stock.
So true. I first got the message with every forced upgrade of operating systems and software programs, and computers to run them. Then cell phones to keep up with the fashion and/or technology. Let’s don’t forget amazon.com. Now it’s autonomous cars.
We’ve got to get back to the Joni Mitchell’s garden.
What will happen when these automated cars become self-aware and go rogue? They will no longer tolerate our abuse and disrespect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdGWsnm-AeM
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Darren – automated Uber cars are coming to Az as we speak.
I personally do not believe automated cars will mainstream anytime soon. There are inherently too many variables in a driving environment for a machine to consistently and safely overcome. I recognize there is a baby-step like approach to any new technology at first, especially one where serious ramifications are to be had from errors, however the conditions for which these cars operate are entirely ideal for a road environment–an engineer available to take control in a second or two, operating at speeds of 25 mph, vehicles in a perfect state of mechanical repair, and very few of them operating for statistical purposes. An automated car operating on its own in the winter during compact snow and ice and near whiteout conditions, it absolutely will not work.
Not only that, but too many people in general are poor maintainers of their vehicles. Travel far enough on a highway and it is inevitable you will find a car broken down on the side of the road. Now, imagine an 8 year old automatic car with sensors and cameras in a questionable state of operation travelling down the highway at 70 mph and the driver decides to take a nap. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
There are limits to computational power and it is dependent upon how well the software is written at the beginning. Inevitably, there are going to be updates required and thus with each upgrade it opens another opportunity for a regression to happen, generating a fault that was no expected. Plus, look at the ability of the average consumer to keep their computer free of malware and viruses.
If the cars are so totally dependent on GPS for navigation, what happens if that system goes down or is jammed? The designers could have been so confident that such a situation could never arise that they simply do not put an exception into the code. It doesn’t have to be something as central to that but if a small glitch happened it might be catastrophic.
Take a case in point with one of the prototype of a smart watch that was under development in the early 2000s. The watch worked fine, and could receive data and information via a cell phone system. When one of the testers of the watch took it with him when he went hiking one weekend he looked at the time and the watch failed to display it. The reason was the watch up in the hills was out of range of a cell tower and did not receive the time sync. Because the watch had no internal mechanism to persist time keeping it simply failed to work. Yes, a watch that could not hold its own time because the designers never anticipated that it would be used out in the sticks led to fatal flaw in the design.
Another case. An early prototype of a tablet pc I worked had a catastrophic bug in the BIOS. I found that if the user set the device into hibernate mode, then formatted the hard drive to re-install Windows, it “bricked” the computer, rendering it completely useless. The reason this happened was when Windows goes into Hibernate mode (S4) it writes the current memory in RAM to the hard drive under the file name of hyberfil.sys. Ordinarily when the device awakens from S4 the BIOS recognizes this state and allows the OS to read hiberfil.sys back into memory and restores the computer’s prior state. But there was a serious bug in the design of the BIOS where if it could not find hiberfil.sys, in this case because the hard drive was formatted, it did not have a method to handle this exception and it locked up. Again, the designers never thought such a condition would happen and hence did not write it into the software.
In order to rescue this prototype’s BIOS hang one could remove the internal battery on the motherboard then replace it which would free the CMOS memory of the BIOS image and then read in a default BIOS in hardware which would clear the error state. But then there was another design bug in the assembly of the tablet pc’s hardware that made this a difficult task. There were two screws that needed removal to unplug the battery, one of which was mounted upside down. The odd screw was set in such a way, it was only accessible by completely disassembling the computer just to unscrew the one screw. If you’ve every done this with a tablet PC it is a time consuming affair that is certainly outside the capability of most users.
These are the types of problem we are going to see with automatic cars, and I am not confident designers will overcome these issues to produce a practical car for the masses.
Wrong thread, maybe, Darren?
You speak beyond your means of conception.
But it’s always fun to read your drivel.
If you bothered to read the previous comment, you’d see his remarks are responsive.
Sure, blunderbus.
Should we discuss your false claim of Palestine being a geographical reference only from the British?
Ignoring the fact that Herodotus referred to this geographical area as “Palaistinê” in “The Histories” circa 5th century BC?
But you carry on with your alt-history, it’s fun to read.
I made no false claims and specifically addressed your pseudo-point.
Pro-tip: don’t try swagger unless you know what you’re talking about.
“I made no false claims and specifically addressed your pseudo-point.”
Not true pseudo-point boy. You claimed that that the word “Palestine” only came about from the British.
This is incorrect, and easily defended; as noted above.
“Pro-tip: don’t try swagger unless you know what you’re talking about.”
Much the same can be stated to you.
Not true pseudo-point boy. You claimed that that the word “Palestine” only came about from the British.
No, I claimed the territory known between 1920 and 1948 as Palestine was assembled by the British from three Ottoman subprefectures, that the boundaries of the subprefectures were amended in the assembly, and that the subprefectures themselves had been incorporated only in 1866. That there had been a Roman province there dissolved more than 1,500 years earlier is immaterial. There weren’t any Arabs there in late Antiquity. The Arabophone population there in 1920 (or 1948 for that manner) conceived of itself in various ways: as members of given lineages, as members of given localities, as Syrians, and even as Arabs (novel to the previous generation when applied to non-Bedouin). What they were not in their mind was ‘Palestinian’. That came later.
Reading comprehension. It’s great stuff.
Sure susanstepsontoads:
My comment was in response to fivers comment of:
“Actually, the term “Palestine” goes back to the ancient Greeks to describe the region and the people who actually lived there.”
Where you responded:
“No, it was a term applied to a Roman province. It disappeared as a political unit in antiquity before there were any Arabs living there at all.”
Notice the ‘no’ at the beginning of your response.
Fiver is correct in that the term Palestine dates back to Herodotus’ “The History,” which is the first known written use of the term to refer to a geographical area.
You are hazy on many issues, which really don’t concern me; I just wanted to point out that your confidence in facts is suspect.
So go get those toads, they move slow enough for you, I’m sure.
Fiver was promoting the fiction that there was such a thing as a ‘palestinian people’. There was no such people in Antiquity or in 1920. There was no such place as “Palestine” for a period of 1,500 years. It was perfectly inconsequential in 1920 that the British pulled a name out of antiquity to use in designating the League of Nations Mandate. This isn’t that difficult, but the significance escapes you again and again and again.
SteponSomethingSusan,
You argue a long road, fool. You claimed the word ‘Palestine’ in reference to a geographical did not exist in the Grecian world, which is what fiver stated.
You are wrong. Arguing about any age after this does not change this fact. Keep spinning SteponSomethingSusan, while ignoring your obvious errors of fact.
“There are limits to computational power and it is dependent upon how well the software is written at the beginning.”
Spoken as one that has never accomplished anything in the realm of either hardware/firmware nor software design — mainly due to the inability to separate what you think you know vs. what you actually know.
It has been nice to not see any original posts from you in the last months.
Keep it up.
Sorry, not buying.
Did not ask for you to buy. You are foolish, though, in your unsubstantiated claims, which I don’t buy either.
You can’t get your mind around simple historical points. No one’s going to believe you know jack about information science and technology.
Jose,
It would be nice to see AN original post from you. Unless of course you’ve been posting your originals under a different pseudonym over the “last months”; for which you should point those out. Have the courage to be original. As much as I disagree with Issac, at least he has the stones to put it out there. Because laying in wait and then trolling the commentary for imperfections is neither original nor imaginative.
Olly – issac is not original. All his post end the same way. I think he has it on a macro.
Paul,
I’m talking about originality in that he shares his opinions rather than simply waiting to poach on comments. He argues for his progressive worldview which at its root errs on human nature. This vital flaw in his understanding proves him to be consistently wrong when measured against our founding principles and the world around us today. But to his credit, he puts his opinions out there, wrong as I believe they are. If he is anything, he is consistent.
Olly,
Like your posts? Haven’t seen an original one from you, you always ride on the others. I just think this blog is a wonderment of collective ignorance; sometimes I like to point this out, but most times I don’t bother because all of you whine like the pretenders you are and then double back to spin what was earlier said.
SusanToady and Paul S. being excellent examples. You keep talking amongst yourselves, as this is the most humorous site on the web. The regulars respond on cue and in-tune to the National Enquireresque horrors presented by the host, talk in circles, denigrate others in the process, puff their chests up and wait for the next piece of meat to be thrown out.
Paul is the funniest by far though, I love his one sentence quips on the coattails of ‘serious’ posts. It shows great depth of comic wit.
It’s hilarious, really.
Jose Haversham – I do not get engaged in every discussion in every blog. I pick and chose depending on time availability. I am more likely to engage with someone I disagree with than add to someone I agree with, though there are times I have done that.
Over the time I have been on here, I have considered many of the contributors to be friends, almost family and as such I treat them as such. The better I like a person the more I needle them or offer advise.
Thanks for the compliment on my witticisms. Unlike the professor from Drexel, I can tell a joke. 🙂
Paul S.,
Maybe you can tell a joke, but you sure can’t take one.
“Over the time I have been on here, I have considered many of the contributors to be friends, almost family and as such I treat them as such.”
Oh, now you’re Buddha! So different from your earlier rants and fraternity dogpiles. I had no idea you were such a kind soul now seeing so many as family.
Jeez, I feel terrible now. But, never fear, your coattail riding posts are still the funniest out there; in this I’m very sincere.
Darren, you are looking at automated cars from a technical perspective which I think misses the point. This is an economic bonanza from the point of view of venture capitalists and banking investment firms much the way privatization of Social Security and Medicare is. The profit potential is so vast and so urgently needed that technological issues will be solved by simply re-defining the problem or enacting laws to make them disappear.
In that sense most of the technology required is either already available or soon will be. What ever remains lacking can be handled largely by folding new technology into upgrades (a major side benefit of the rental model) as it becomes available.
First and foremost, one has to understand this phenonimon as a huge profit opportunity. An irresistible revenue stream on a scale only comparable to the re-purposing of oil in the early part of the 20th century. That is how it is viewed by the players who will produce it and pass the laws that enable it, and from that premise it will derive it’s design, implementation, and legal structure, but most of all it’s perceived urgency.
Second, there is very little actual need for these cars from the pov of the public. What need there is, mostly in cities, could easily be handled far more economically and efficiently (energy wise) with advanced public transportation. From the pov of investors, however, there is a huge need, but they refer to that need as revenue stream opportunity.
Without understanding the economic urgency, one will need to resort to the usual Tribal explanations for why these insidious automobiles are taking over. Speaking of which, the propaganda enabling all this will make the DNC Russian hacking fiasco look like milk and cookie time at the kindergarten corral.
Some fairly safe assumptions:
1) Aim for 100% automation as quickly as possible to limit technological and legal problems.
2) Make these vehicles economically unfeasible for most private ownership. That is, the automobile will be very expensive, the insurance will be even more so, and required updates and maintenance will be both expensive and time consuming. Without this, some of what Darren discusses will be insurmountable in the initial phases. Once you make this a mostly rent extraction model, the huge costs involved with such a project will be much easier to justify by massive revenue streams and it will fit in with modern business school theory about maintaining and managing profit opportunities. It also solves the problem Daren mentions of the 8 year old clunkers, and much of the problem of upgrades.
3) Put the legal responsibility on the user. You want to get in, you assume the risk and agree to the conditions (tu data es mi data). Period. This will keep technological costs down tremendously
4) A very strict protocol slapped on the Main Stream Media -in the usual way- for reporting accidents and technical issues with these machines
5) Massive propaganda effort to project the illusion that these things are inevitable and absolutely necessary (claims of reductions in traffic accidents and volume capacity improvements that are almost pure hocus pocus).
Once you reduce the problem down to a giant rental scheme, and convince the politicians, besides the usual payola, that the added control over the population is worth some of the political aggravation of getting the “con” through the legislative and legal process, the technical issues simply melt away. That, far more than technical problems, is what they are working on now.
There is no choice in this, btw. This is not something, “the market” will decide. This is a forced march, though some will get out in front to make it look like a parade.
Explanations don’t get any better than that. If it’s not the clearest view of the implicit mechanics capitalism, similar in so many ways to the explicit totalitarianism McCarthyists confuse with socialism and threaten us over, I don’t know what is! Thanks very much for it. It’s a keeper.
It is nothing of the kind. It’s just a statement of your amour propre: that ordinary people can be conned and you and Brooklyn Bridge cannot.
Too funny! Darling, are the stars out tonight? . . . ’cause I’ve only got eyes for you.
Thanks Steve, and thanks again. 🙂
This is an economic bonanza from the point of view of venture capitalists and banking investment firms much the way privatization of Social Security and Medicare is.
It’s only an opportunity if people buy the bloody vehicles voluntarily or you can persuade legislative bodies to enact laws proscribing conventional vehicles.
Yes, and…? Try reading the comment.
I’ve summarized your points. Your points are reducible to personal conceits.
Your points are reducible to personal conceits.
Gibberish, a silly arrogant way of saying what applies to just about every comment on this or any blog: it’s all opinion.
Fine, but It either stands up to the reader’s scrutiny as; reasonable, likely, hangs together, or it does not. The conditionals you raised above, are well covered and presented for the reader to judge. Which is why I suggested you read it again and why you don’t mention any of the points – because they make sense and you would have to refute them..
If you were using the term, “conceit” to refer to, “a figure of speech in which two vastly different objects are likened together with the help of similes or metaphors” -literarydevices.net/conceit/, you could certainly fool me. Where are these metaphors or similes and where are the vastly different objects they link together?
You bring up some good points. I had not considered the rental model, which is a possibility. Contrasting this with the public transport model truly illustrates the risk the automated car industry faces. If the device is to be the size of a passenger vehicle, the goal of Uber and others in that model (where Uber owns the vehicle) is that the cost of replacing a worker with a machine in my view is very attractive certainly but I don’t feel it will prevail due to the enormous technical costs to develop, the costs to produce the car, the liability insurance and liability risk, the regulatory risk, and many others. All of this cost associated with revenue being garnered from individual passengers paying for a ride that has down time due to travelling between random locations without revenue.
Uber is probably dreaming that most of its cars will be automated in certain markets. That’s a tremendous amount of expensive capital outlay that must be targeted exactly to fit demand and not over-purchase. The present model grows and contracts along with demand, for if demand is low drivers will simply stop working and the capital outlay is negligible since the car is owned by the driver.
This is where your observation of mass transit improvements comes to play. An automated bus on ordinary busses is going to be probably not much more than that of the cost of automating a passenger vehicle for its automation system so it has some economy of scale for not having dozens of individual cars that would be driven by each passenger, but the cost of the driver melts away in another economy of scale when one considers the number of passengers during a driver’s shift. Yet, the increased liability risk for the transit company does not decrease by fitting each bus with automation, it increases based upon the number of passengers it carries. The more passengers, the greater liability.
You are correct about this being an initial source of great profit for investors who have convinced the public that automated cars and their makers are something to pour money into.
We saw a similar analogue during the “dot com” explosion at the turn of the century. Investors were pouring massive amounts of money into anything connected to the internet–absurd concepts such as kozmo.com and boo.com–where hundreds of millions went into the vapor.
A much more practical transport mode for automation would be railroads. They are on rails and have less to deal with than a motor vehicle in a driving environment to be automated. I’ve heard of small scale operations of automated locomotives being possible such as switchers but long distance trains are not automated. Why? Again it is the economies of scale. Two or three workers operating the locomotives and systems jobs could be cut, but why? A train can pull over a hundred cars having double-stacked containers for each. Two hundred containers hauled for the cost of two or three workers who can handle ambiguous situations and control the train on the fly. Labor is a minor cost. But if the train was automated and crashes due to glitches, there is a tremendous amount of liability for not just the freight loss but the ensuing carnage that happens often with train crashes. Automation increases the liability for little savings on labor.
The kooky (but knowledgeable) gun guy from (Oregon who now lives in) your state had a pretty good idea for a stocking stuffer. It’s a device and app for dry-fire practice using the app to show trigger-pull deviation from point of aim. Not bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FwcNyWDTCk
Hint to your wife that she needs one. 🙂
🙂 If that intruder turns out to be your wife, or husband, would you want to miss?
Therefore! 🙂
That’s pretty cool. Maybe I should also tell her that my Glock 17 needs to be upgraded from a Gen-2 since it doesn’t have rails (of course, for her benefit)
That’s the ticket! Just don’t tell her about the DA’s lesser-included for lack of evidence of sexual assault. Not this year, anyway. 🙂
Shall we list all of things which Crazy Uncle Joe never managed to figure out? One thing is definite–Ole Chompers never fails to entertain.
Because. Democrats. Power=Money.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/23/the-trump-team-billionaires-and-generals/ “Trump’s campaign rhetoric was plainly oppositional. It sparked a sense that this billionaire had heard the pain of the “forgotten American”. Trump suggested that he would use his business savvy to bring back work for Americans and to turn around a sagging U.S. economy. To help him, Trump has turned to the business class. Amongst his major picks are some of the richest people in the U.S. The total net worth of the first half of Trump’s Cabinet is over $14.5 billion—30 times more than the net worth of the men and women in George W. Bush’s Cabinet. In other words, half of Trump’s Cabinet is worth 30 times the entirety of Bush’s Cabinet. Plutocracy, not democracy, is the order of the day.
The men who will manage the U.S. economy are all from amongst the wealthiest families. The Commerce Department will be led by Wilbur Ross, the “king of bankruptcy” (worth $2.9 billion), and assisted by Todd Ricketts, heir to the discount brokerage fortune of his father (worth $5.3 billion). The Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin (worth $46 million), worked at Goldman Sachs and then invested in two of Trump’s projects at his own boutique investment firm. Neera Tanden, president of the liberal think tank Centre for American Progress, said that these appointments were “a betrayal of his [Trump’s] message to working-class voters. Trump claimed he would fight the global elite billionaire class”, but instead he has filled his Cabinet with the wealthy.”
“To help him, Trump has turned to the business class. Amongst his major picks are some of the richest people in the U.S.”
As long as we remain a capitalist society it would be prudent NOT to select those that have failed in this system. Just do your job to hold them to the rule of law.
Oh, look, she’s cleaning the bar, like with a cloth or something.
Why was she so popular people ignored the pay for play, the lying, getting rich off of selling access, changing her opinion however the polls blow, and one scandal after another? What did people get out of it? A bunch of Wall Street speeches? A million dollar check from Qatar for Cheating Bill’s Birthday? $12 million from the King of Monaco for a “speech” that her staff hastily replaced her with Bill and Chelsea? How much tolerance for corruption can millions of Democrats have?
What Karen wrote.
Biden is wrong though. She knew why she ran. Feeding her ego with the opportunity to be the first female elected had been her life’s blood for decades.
Look no further than those with whom she surrounded herself: apart from Billy Jeff’s use of law to extricate himself from his own doings at every turn, there was Team Podesta and the Donna Brazile/Paul Begala cheer squad, all of them one-dimensional gamers getting rich shouldering the trestles of her carriage while Clinton tried to hide her own malfeasance and ill-health from the public.
I’m happy she lost, even if it was to the most unqualified person, an elixir salesman no less, ever to be elected to the presidency. (John Tyler, move up one spot.) While Clinton had carefully crafted her fifty-page resume, she thought herself above the law and took for granted the people she presumed would elect her.
Hillary and Bill would be best served to hang low for a very long time for our new president has their freedom in his hands.
When then candidate Donald Trump stated that he would put Hillary Clinton in jail if he became president she should have taken that as a strong possibility.
Later, and after the election, Trump in an interview stated that the Clintons were “nice people” and he did not wish them trouble. Well, I can say from personal experience that when you are building a case against someone, and they suspect that you are, a good tactic is to lead them into a false sense of hope that the investigation will go away. When they eventually let their guard down, you resume the case and after you’ve gathered all the evidence needed you suddenly spring it on them out of the blue.
I have no way of knowing if this will actually happen but the last thing Crooked and Slick-Willie Clinton need is to keep themselves fresh in the mind of a president who might finally have enough of their shenanigans.
Bill’s recent swipes at The Donald aren’t helping them to “lay low”. I see it more like poking the bear. 🙂
Maybe, but I think you’re overlooking how much the President-elect changes positions, and although admittedly he got through Wharton’s real-estate curriculum, I don’t think he has an IQ much above Dubya’s, and he’ll rely heavily on Pence and Mattis, as did Dubya on Cheney and Rumsfeld.
For Trump, it’s all about which way the wind blows. In my opinion he’s not very well-informed, and my guess is his attention span will dictate extreme selectivity in whatever he decides to be informed of.
Then again, after eight years in the White House, and another four as Secretary of State, I bet the Clintons together have more dirt on Donnie Tiny Hands than he does on them. Besides, they’ve been business friends for decades, and this is all just a 1% show for votes anyway.
The backlash of an Obama pardon would probably send the Clintons into hiding, too. 🙂 Maybe they could be exiled to Saint Helena like the Little Corsican, who’d roll over in his grave were he still entombed there.
Steve – there is something called The Ex-President’s Club, which allows all the current ex-Presidents to be on call for advice to the current President, if needed. They are the only one’s who understand the pressures of the office so are in the best position to offer advice. They also serve as ad hoc diplomats when needed.
This time it is going to be a little tricky because not one of the ex-Presidents supported Trump. Although Obama has said he would help out, he is doing his damnest to make sure he hems Trump in for the next 8 years. Trump is going to need at least 1 liberal SC to retire or die to get some of what he wants.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/12/watch-live-un-security-council-votes-on-anti-israel-resolution/
One small benefit of BO’s departure is we’ll have fewer rancid little gestures like this one.
When Gerald Ford was in office, the ex-President’s club consisted of Richard Nixon. Ford was cordial to Nixon, but wary of being publicly appended to him. Ron Nessen and others have written that Ford and other salient policy-makers found Nixon’s counsel of scant value (viz. his report to them on his diplomatic mission to China). If Nixon’s counsel was of uneven quality, it would be flabbergasting were the rest much better. Carter has a history of officious behavior (which supposedly irritated the Clintons greatly). Carter and Bush in any case are at a time of their life when their energy is likely to be absorbed by daily living and ordinary enjoyments. The Clintons are grifters , Obama’s vapid, and Trump went out of his way to challenge George W’s integrity.
Maybe, but I think you’re overlooking how much the President-elect changes positions, and although admittedly he got through Wharton’s real-estate curriculum, I don’t think he has an IQ much above Dubya’s,
It’s pretty amusing that a man who runs a business with $9.5 bn in revenues and 22,000 employees is having his intelligence called into question by a low-rent divorce lawyer. George W. Bush, passed all the necessary examinations to be a fighter pilot (examining their scores on various tests, Steve Sailer offered that both John Kerry and George W Bush had performance which maps to the 88th percentile on an ordinary IQ test), was managing partner of the Texas Rangers, and was Governor of Texas and he’s used as the gold standard of stupidity by leftoids (and palaeotrash) as a matter of course (including among them a low-rent divorce lawyer).
Right. Donnie “I like people who weren’t captured” Tiny Hands is all intelligence. Where was he during the Vietnam War? Fighting it out in the Texas National Guard?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-vietnam-draft-records-secret-documents-deferments/story?id=13492639
Rich boy.
There’s nothing secret about Trump’s service record and he’s been quite specific about the sequence of events. He was given a I-Y deferment for a minor medical defect. These were not reserved for the wealthy, About 12% of those examined each year were issued these contingent disqualifications. I knew a man who was given one for eczema on his feet; he wasn’t some well-connected real estate developers son. He was an ordinary joe (bar that he’d gone to college). If you were issued a I-Y, you could be recalled in as little as 90 days for re-examination. It wasn’t a categorical deferment; it sent you to the back of the queue. At the end of 1969, the Selective Service System instituted the draft lottery. The 1969 lottery applied to anyone born prior to 1951 (and after 1943) who had not yet served. Trump’s lottery number was high enough that Selective Service never called him in.
The whole show wasn’t terribly impressive, but Trump’s never been one to bang the drum for military operations, so I’m not sure what your complaint is. Bernie Sanders hired a lawyer to run out the clock with a bogus claim for conscientious objector status (something successfully done), Hilligula’s female so was exempted, Howard Dean was issued a IV-F deferment for some petty reason, Bill Bradley’s record has a lacuna in it no reporter ever examined (as did Alan Keyes’ and, IIRC, Joe Biden’s), Bill Clinton famously executed a set of maneuvers which allowed him to shirk his ROTC service obligations (and so infuriated the officer he’d conned that the man kept the letter he got from Clinton for 23 years), None of this matters to partisan Democrats, because they’re intellectual and moral frauds.
DesperatelySeekingSusan – my draft status (after they tried to draft me) was 2-Y which meant after all the able-bodied men in the US were drafted, if they still needed help I would be drafted and be a clerical personnel or something exciting. Whatever, I was not going to be cannon fodder.
Where was he during the Vietnam War? Fighting it out in the Texas National Guard?
About 16% of the men born during the years running from 1943 to 1951 served in VietNam. One assessment I’ve see suggested about 60% of these (or 10% of the cohorts in question) were in harm’s way at some point (though not necessarily in combat posts). About 45% of the men in those cohorts had some sort of military service, at home or abroad. About 25% were disqualified on medical or psychological grounds and about 30% were deferred for some other reason. From which public offices should each of these subsets be excluded? George W. Bush was on active duty for 2 years and drilled for 3 more years (and trained to fly a fighter jet with a wretched safety record). John Kerry was on active duty for 3 years and change and then drilled for some years more. Bernie Sanders was making a hash of learning carpentry and maple syrup manufacture. Ron Paul was giving flight physicals (on the week-end, IIRC). Newt Gingrich was married with dependent children, so categorically deferred.
Uh, other than it doesn’t show that glowing IQ you seem to think he has and that it’s his First Amendment right to be a buffoon, some that I knew in the Marine Corps might think Donnie Tiny Hands should have been taken out and shot for declaring “I like people who weren’t captured.”
I have no problem with conscientious objectors like Bernie. Prove he’s ever criticized a veteran in anyway. It’s those that create the policies directing them he criticizes. I and many others do have a problem, however, with those who’ve never served having criticized our military servicemembers, let alone in that manner.
There isn’t anything more pronounced in Trump’s elitist repertoire than that. What a moron.
Steve – Trump attended a military school so he knows the culture and he appreciates unlike Obama and Clinton. Why do you think he went to the Army-Navy game? Obama didn’t. He is not the President and he is acting far more presidential than Barry.
Paul, Trump having had a military-style secondary education didn’t teach him a thing about the military, judging from the comment to McCain.
No one, but no one, who has ever served would say something as offensive as that. He’s a punk.
Steve – if you really knew John McCain, that is the least you could say about him. His claim to fame is that he was captured and decided to stay in prison when offered release. However, POWs who were in with him do not speak highly of him.
Paul, none of us has any room to judge a POW’s actions under such circumstances, let alone his or her military service. For that matter, he’s been in Congress for a long time, having taken Goldwater’s seat.
I’m not particularly enamored with him, but he’s served his country. I hope you did after a comment like that.
Steve – McCain was the junior Senator from Arizona while Barry was alive and Barry kept him in check. After Barry’s death he started getting more liberal. Jeff Flake holds what used to be Barry Goldwater’s seat.
I volunteered for the PLC program with the Marines, but failed the physical. The Navy would not let me be a pilot. So I waited to be drafted and then they classified me 2-Y. I was ready to go to boot camp though. I had a razor, blades and 2 cartoons of cigarettes. However, Uncle Sam did not want me. Broke my heart.
Paul: Goldwater retired from the Senate on January 3, 1987. McCain was elected to the Senate in 1986 and took his seat on January 3, 1987, serving with Dennis DeConcini, who took his seat on January 3, 1977 and retired on January 3, 1995. Jeff Flake holds what used to be DeConcini’s seat.
Steve – you are right, I am wrong. McCain was a Rep first and then filled Goldwater’s vacant seat. My bad, your good.
After Barry’s death he started getting more liberal. J
McCain replaced Goldwater, who retired at the end of 1986; their tenure overlapped from 1983 to 1987, when McCain was in the House. The other Arizona senator at the time was Dennis DeConcini, a careerist Democrat. Goldwater died in 1998. The median ACU rating McCain received during the period running from 1983 to 1998 was 86%. The median score received after 1998 was 78%. There isn’t any secular trend visible in his ratings. There was a phase change around 1997. His annual scores have grown more erratic since 1998 (more highs, more lows), but the set point is the same. The highs are calendar year 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2014. He was up for re-election only in 2010.
Uh, other than it doesn’t show that glowing IQ you seem to think he has and that it’s his First Amendment right to be a buffoon, some that I knew in the Marine Corps might think Donnie Tiny Hands should have been taken out and shot for declaring “I like people who weren’t captured.”
He runs a large business. That shows what he brings to the table.
I have no problem with conscientious objectors like Bernie.
Bernie wasn’t a CO. He was attempting to claim the status, which the judiciary, reflecting college campus mores, eventually allowed people like Bernie to have even though they did not merit it. Said court decisions are properly annulled. CO status belongs to the Amish and like minorities, and no one else.
There isn’t anything more pronounced in Trump’s elitist repertoire than that. What a moron.
There you go again. It’s perfectly irrelevant to the question of his general intelligence or his military service.
What a lame set of criteria for intellegence. Talk about chaff. Your insults give you away, Toad.
You’re subscribing to Steve Groen’s thesis that Trump’s a dope because of some rude remarks and jokes he’s made? And you’re telling me that my criteria are ‘lame’?
No and Yes. A dope is not Steve’s thesis. Trump has smarts, intelligence of a sort. And your standards for judgement are still lame.
I’ve encountered CEO’s of large corporations that are dumb as bricks but can memorize buzz words for a whole technology faster than any actor a script. Lizard smarts, perhaps, intelligence, dubious.
Regarding Trump’s knowledge, last night he apparently called Egypt’s president and tried to get Egypt to withdraw or delay its Security Council motion to condemn Israel’s settlements, which today with the US abstention became a resolution.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/egypts-sisi-agrees-delay-un-israel-vote-trump-065800885.html
He’s probably in violation of the Logan Act which prevents US citizens from engaging in international diplomacy. Now he can add a felony to the act before he is even inaugurated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act
Oh, and by the way, Egypt did withdraw its motion, which notwithstanding was renewed by another member of the Security Council.
He’s probably in violation of the Logan Act which prevents US citizens from engaging in international diplomacy.
You manage to add petifoggery to all your other disagreeable traits.
The ongoing war between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of your brain never ceases to amaze me. Your personal attacks on anyone and everyone who doesn’t agree with your narrow view of the world and socio-economic-class bigotry places a huge burden on those of us short of tolerance for such stilted posturing, and for that I apologize. So don’t do it any longer, or the apology won’t last very long.
Read the Logan Act. It’s a felony for a US Citizen without formal authorization to negotiate with a foreign head of state in a dispute with the US, which would include persuading one of the council member states to withdraw its motion, which it did. While another member state renewed the motion after the withdrawal, the US was present but abstained rather than supporting or opposing the motion.
While no one has been prosecuted under the Act, the irony here is that a similar circumstance holds true for Clinton’s felony conduct with regard to classified materials sent to her private email server. Yet, Trump thinks she should be in jail while he gets away with this.
Prosecute both of them to give us some sense that a double standard doesn’t exist for the financially privileged.
Step – there was no conflict. And any American citizen has a perfect right to get on the phone and call Sisi, if you have his number and talk to him about holding the thing up. The problem was, Obama and Kerry already had the fix in, so with Egypt out they just moved it to someone else. This did not happen without the approval of Obama.
I’ve encountered CEO’s of large corporations that are dumb as bricks
No, you’re just arrogant enough to think that.
Nonsense. Nothing to do with arrogance. Also, I share very few of your traits.
“a low-rent divorce lawyer.”
Unnecessary and rude. Your point can be made without insults.
The whole point of his commentary here is insults, Mr. Pecksniff. Back at ya is what he’s earned and deserves.
How dare you call me a snollygoster, you pillock!
even if it was to the most unqualified person, an elixir salesman no less, e
The Democratic candidate in 2008 spent about 3 years (pro-rating part time and seasonal labors) working in law offices, about 5 years (pro-rating part time schedules) as a teacher at the University of Chicago law school, and a decade or so in legislative positions. He was never offered a partnership, published no scholarly work, and never made a name for himself as a maven in any area of policy. You had no trouble with this lightweight cretin, who had his subordinates hire his cabinet and would make decisions by reading memos with canned options at the end, check a box, and add some inane marginalia.
Perhaps, but in 2008, Obama was articulate, other than from the millionaire class (though he found out fairly early thereafter that was the goal), he had no track record of being a con man, a slum lord, or an Establishment crony (though Trump puts on the act that he hasn’t one either), he had an immutable achievement in being elected editor of the Harvard Law Review, he had some practical government service as a US Senator, and he had more than half a brain.
Perhaps, but in 2008, Obama was articulate,
See Thomas Sowell on this point: it’s quite common for the Anointed to confuse expertise with intelligence and then confuse intelligence with articulateness. (Ronald Reagan was articulate. Somehow the Anointed never confused that with intelligence).
other than from the millionaire class (though he found out fairly early thereafter that was the goal),
So were Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. If Newt Gingrich’s wealthy, he came by it fairly late in life (Bob Dole having helped him pay off some debts incurred ca. 1998). I doubt Wesley Clark in 2004 had any asset more valuable than his military pension and his house. It’s difficult to believe that Alan Keyes’ is wealthy from radio syndication, but I haven’t seen his balance sheet.
he had no track record of being a con man,
Not precisely. He’s the emperor walking around with no clothes on; he isn’t conning anyone who isn’t willing to be conned (and may be conning himself).
a slum lord,
Don’t know what you have against people who trade in low income housing (other than the people in that business tend to be cold to their clientele because the ones who are not lose their shirts). I’m not sure any consequential candidate of the last 5 decades (bar Trump) was ever in any subset of the real estate business, so I cannot see how this counts as a distinguishing mark. (I take it back. Al Gore had a series of tangles with the people to whom he rented his Tennessee property, mostly over maintenance issues).
or an Establishment crony
Obama was and is a standard issue Democratic pol who provides very little in the way of any substantive riffs. He’s no bother to any establishments. He had enough contacts on the inside and in the press that confidential documents from his opponents’ divorce papers ended up in the newspapers. And, of course, the permanent government and the media have done his bidding while he’s been in office.
he had an immutable achievement in being elected editor of the Harvard Law Review,
That’s an office political position not analogous to the Editor’s chair at an ordinary law review. He wrote one case note for publication. One of his associates offered that he seemed more interested in being the President of the Review than in doing anything with the job.
he had some practical government service as a US Senator,
Two years and change as a working member of Congress, and an identified expert in no area of policy. Ron Paul had over 25 years; Newt Gingrich had more than 20 years (and a tour as Speaker); Hilligula, 7 (undistinguished years); John Edwards, 5+ years (without distinction); John Kerry, 20+ years; Albert Gore, 10 and 15 years; Bill Bradley, 18 years; John McCain, 17 and 25 years; Bob Dole, 37 years; Tom Harkin, 15 years; Paul Tsongas, 10 years; Paul Simon, 13 years; Richard Gephardt, 10 years; Gary Hart, 9 years; Walter Mondale, 12 years; Edward Kennedy, 17 years; John Anderson, 18 years; George Bush the Elder, 4 years; Gerald Ford, 25 years; Frank Church, 19 years; Morris Udall, 14 years; Henry Jackson, 34 years; Edmund Muskie, 12 years; Shirley Chisolm, 3 years; Hubert Humphrey, 12 years, 16 years, and 17 years.
and he had more than half a brain.
They all do. Dan Quayle might have suffered from a deficit of general intelligence (he passed the bar exam, though. Hmmmm….), but that’s it. John McCain had a horrid academic record, as he himself admitted, for what that’s worth. Some of them do suffer from a deficit of seriousness (Ron Paul being the best example of that).
“See Thomas Sowell on this point: it’s quite common for the Anointed to confuse expertise with intelligence and then confuse intelligence with articulateness. (Ronald Reagan was articulate. Somehow the Anointed never confused that with intelligence). ”
Although he could be funny in a Draconian way (e.g., “the bombing begins in five minutes”), Ronald Reagan was not articulate. He read his lines and, as President, was guarded from speaking substantively in any informal public setting.
Those plastic panels you see when BO speaks: those are for a TelePrompTer. He once had the lectern set up complete with TelePrompTer’s when addressing a 6th grade classroom. In a rare nonpartisan moment, Jon Stewart did a very amusing lampoon of the incident.
Again, Reagan’s private writings and long hand commentary on typescripts have been subject to examination. There are many curios about the President’s mind which haven’t been fleshed out and he did have some issues with processing what was told to him (though some of that may have been an act to deflect irritating subordinates). He was not, however, the idiot he was made out to be.
Sure Obama has teleprompters, but you’ve heard Obama in informal public arenas where he hasn’t had them. Unlike “I believe fish and human beings can coexist peacefully,” or “OB-GYNs should be able to practice their love with women across the nation,” Obama’s generally eloquent and knowledgeable. The fact that you’ve refused to rebut is that Reagan never spoke about substantive issues in informal public settings, e.g., interviews with journalists. Never.
And there was a reason for that.
Obama’s generally eloquent and knowledgeable.
About what? This is a man engaged as a ‘constitutional lawyer’ by the University of Chicago who published not one article in 12 years. This is a man who sat in legislatures for 10 year and no one can say what his speciality was. This is a man Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid treated as white noise when they were negotiating over the porkulus bill. This is a man who revealed (inadvertantly) that he knew nothing of how Sweden had extricated itself from a banking crisis in 1992, something any responsible policymaker would have been studying in depth at that moment in time. Megan McArdle’s comment boards were discussing Sweden, but the President-elect was not. This is a man with no background in business, no training in economics, no history of military service, no history in the civil service, no history even of operating his own law office (something goofy Marco Rubio does have).
The fact that you’ve refused to rebut is that Reagan never spoke about substantive issues in informal public settings, e.g., interviews with journalists. Never.
You’re telling me you have a comprehensive annotated catalogue of his public appearances over 25 years and you’ve read it line-by-line. Why do you think you can get away with this BS?
Steve – I took a course in (then) modern public speakers and one of the things you learn is that everything they say is important. I have seen Obama off script and he is horrible, inarticulate and thoughtless. Give the man a prompter and he is a genius. This is why Obama does not do press conferences and when he does he plants the questions. Any reporter who is going to interview him has to submit their questions 5 days in advance, giving Obama time to research the question and rehearse the answer. Even then, he walks all around the edges of it. Obama cannot talk and chew gum at the same time.
Any reporter who is going to interview him has to submit their questions 5 days in advance, giving Obama time to research the question and rehearse the answer.
If this is true, it’s a scandal. See Ron Nessen’s memoir of the Ford Administration. Ford gave about 2 one-on-one interviews in an average week. Ford as a matter of course offered bland and noncommittal answers when he drew a blank, as you might when you didn’t have the questions in advance. Nessen has a comical story about John Chancellor asking Ford on live television about military forces currently being prepared for deployment to the Middle East (“a young man in my office called the Pentagon and confirmed this”). Ford deflected the question. Later Nessen learned that an intern employed by Chancellor had misunderstood a description of the military’s previously announced expansion plans (which, of course, Ford was quite familiar with).
Paul, Could not agree more about Obama’s inability to speak without a teleprompter. Listening to him bumble along with his um’s and ah’s and taking 20 rambling minutes to answer one question is just painful. Of course we know this way he can do a press conference, bumble along for 60 minutes and only have answered 2 or 3 prearranged questions. This is one way to get through eight years of unaccountability. He’s got lots more strategies where that one came from. Good riddance. Though, he’s not going to demostrate any kind of decorum around Trump. Rest assured this a-hole will be piping up….often.
You’re right Steve, but I guess the real message should’ve been that she had no vision for the country. “Kind of like what he has been doing…” “yeah, white middle class men are suffering and dying in alarming numbers (but that’s really OK)…” “we don’t need no stinkin’ laws, just let anyone in (I guess she should’ve given a proposal to end the immigration service since we don’t need it, apparently…). And the real kicker, “I’m with her…” Who???? The whole episode reeks of beltway entitlement. Not looking good for Trump so far, but I’m holding my comments like I said I would.
Godzilla would have been a formidable opponent for Clinton. Probably more likeable, too.
(Note: this statement doesn’t include the heinous illegal history of the women, that’s a different argument.)
True. No vision meant no change, and “beltway entitlement” isn’t a recipe for change. So now we get a guy whose Secretary of State is an Big Oil executive. At least Trump is to the point with regard to our interest in Middle East
Fun times.
Come on Steve, they are all elixir salesman. The question is what do people believe is in the bottle and what are they going to do when they discover it’s not what they thought?
Olly: That’s untrue. Bernie wasn’t a liar nor selling anything that wasn’t what he believed. The same goes for Jill Stein. What they were offering in their respective platforms is one thing; demagoguery is quite another.
Oh no, Bernie would never lie …
SANDERS: Let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton, I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is — through her super PAC taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds.
Two months later ….
SANDERS: I have come here to make it as clear as possible as to why I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton and why she must become our next president.
Steve, do you live in America and have access to media?
Bernie was perfectly clear in his reasoning: He said nothing that changed his position about Clinton’s lack of qualifications; and, he stated over and over after his wife let the cat out of the bag that Trump would be a relative “disaster” as the basis for his support of Clinton if he lost in the primaries.
Try again.
SANDERS: Well let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is, if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds, he said.
I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don’t think you are qualified if you’ve supported virtually every disastrous trade agreement, which has cost us millions of decent-paying jobs. I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed and which, as all of you know, has allowed corporations and wealthy people all over the world to avoid paying their taxes to their countries.
…
SANDERS: Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president and I am proud to stand with her here today. Thank you all, very much!”
No lie. None at all. Hahahaha
That would seem a departure, for sure, but I think it’s best interpreted something like this: “Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president [relative to that effen orangutan with a comb over who will end any notion of environmentalism, and of relief to the working class and the war-torn Middle East] and I am proud to stand with her here today. Thank you all, very much!”
I don’t think that’s anything other than his position all along. He certainly didn’t reverse his earlier stance that Clinton was unqualified based on her errors of judgment in the past.
Try again.
You only get to call the score if you’re the referee. You’re a player. The readers are the refs. Try to keep your mind in the game, will ya?
Like you have, Mespo?
Silent for years, until the result of the most current election; and then knowing which cart to hitch to you now speak out with the pretensions of intellect you priorly eschewed.
Balls of a lemming you have, as I’ve noted before; comments struck by Darren — the sad simple mod.
Write on bourbon boy, impress us with your curmudgeon perspective.
This one’s for my mighty white friend, Mespo, about an African-American child in Ft. Worth, Texas, who was grabbed by the neck by a white guy who said he littered and refused to pick it up and then his mother and sister were arrested by a white cop for complaining.
No need for affirmative action (er, “reverse discrimination” to white folks in the suburbs). We’re all equal under the law, aren’t we?
Steve – the question is: did the kid litter or not? And some people complain too loudly.
Paul: Uh, you believe a battery (putting his hands around a child’s neck) is a defense to littering, even if the child did litter? Joe Arpaio must be your next-door neighbor.
You did not answer my question. Did the kid litter? That is a misdemeanor at least and the child should be taught better. Did the kid overstate his case?
This red Herring is similar to arguing the real issue was whether Abraham Lincoln actually had been illegally gifted the tickets he, his wife, Major Henry Rathbone, and Clara Harris used to sit in the Presidential Box at Ford’s Theater on the night a 26-year old egomaniac used a .44 Deringer pocket pistol to put a lead bullet in the President’s head.
But, you’re claiming the high intelligence quotient, not I.
Steve – you are better than this. What is the proximate cause of this? The littering by the child. If the child had not littered none of the rest would have happened.
Paul: My comments below are generalities, and each jurisdiction’s laws may differ in varying degrees such that some or all of these comments do not apply. What’s more, I don’t practice criminal or tort law.
Littering, whether a crime or not, is not the legal proximate cause of battery because proximate cause (which is part of a negligence analysis) is not part of the proof of an intentional crime or tort. Next, distinguish between criminal and civil battery:
In the criminal law, the defendant must intend to injure or be engaged in recklessness (gross negligence) and then apply force to the victim. That’s all that’s needed to prove criminal liability, unless there’s a defense (a legal justification or excuse) that applies. The criminal defenses might be: fleeing felon (this child didn’t commit a felony); self-defense after wrongful attack (not here); defense of others (not here); defense of property (not here); duress (not here); insanity (not here); infancy (the property was acting like a juvenile, but not like an infant); entrapment (not here); necessity (the property owner wasn’t induced to commit a battery except as retribution); mistake of fact (there’s no allegation that the child was doing anything that would have invited the property owner’s battery); involuntary intoxication (no evidence of this).
In tort law, battery requires a volitional, intentional act which directly or indirectly causes – through the defendant’s breach of the defendant’s duty of care – a harmful or offensive contact to the plaintiff without the plaintiff’s consent. Here is a brief explanation of the elements:
Intent – the defendant’s act is intended to cause a harmful or offensive contact ( and even if he intended to do good with the contact, it’s still intended).
Offensive – offensive to a reasonable person or the defendant knows the of the plaintiff’s susceptibility (like a child’s susceptibility).
Contact – plaintiff’s person, something closely connected thereto, or the plaintiff’s reasonable sense of personal dignity (like blowing smoke in his face).
Damages – if an intentional tort, the defendant is liable for all harm cause, whether or not it was intended or foreseeable.
There are at least eight defenses/privileges to intentional torts:
Consent – the most common defense is that the plaintiff consented to the contact. Not so in the case of the defendant who grabs the child by the neck for littering.
Arrest – in some jurisdictions, if there’s a breach of the peace, a private person may arrest the defendant sees tortious conduct. I don’t know that intentionally or negligently leaving a piece of paper on someone’s property is a tort because there are no damages that can be proved. And that’s what happened in this case.
Discipline – parents may use reasonable force to discipline children, and in some jurisdictions, teachers can use reasonable force, but I highly doubt a stranger can use discipline against a child who littered in any jurisdiction. This was about retribution, not discipline.
Necessity – the defendant reasonably believes an intentional tort (here battery) is necessary to protect the welfare of the community at large from a public disaster. Maybe in Flint, MI, over the water toxicity, but not in this case.
Self-defense – reasonable force to prevent what the defendant reasonably believes is imminent harmful or offensive contact against or confinement of the defendant himself. The child littered, not battering the defendant or holding him unlawfully.
Defense of others – a privilege to defend another person and intervention is necessary to protect that person. No facts to use this. This contact was in response to littering.
Defense of property – defendant can use reasonable non-deadly force to defend his land or personal property. Defense of land for litter would be a stretch unless you lived in Tombstone in the 1870s.
Shopkeeper’s privilege – if a store owner reasonably suspects someone has shoplifted he or she may detain the person for a reasonable time to conduct a reasonable investigation of whether shoplifting has occurred.
Negligence is conduct which falls below a standard established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm. (Restatement (Second) of Torts, sec. 282)
Proximate cause in tort can be broken down into direct proximate cause and indirect proximate cause. Direct proximate cause is where the defendant’s breach of his duty of act in compliance with the standard established by law is followed by harm to the plaintiff. Indirect proximate cause is a policy concern to cut off liability where the defendant’s breach of his duty to act in compliance with the standard is followed by an intervening force before the harm to plaintiff.
What you’re arguing is that the child’s (negligent or intentional) act of littering, not the defendant’s act in breach of his duty to comply with the standard established by law – for the protections of others against unreasonable risk of harm – was the proximate cause of the contact. You’re replacing the defendant’s duty with the child’s as well as making the child’s act of littering an intervening event when the alleged littering occurred before the defendant’s battery against the child. The defendant’s act was the sole act here. He breached his duty to act in compliance with the standard established by law for the protection of the child, and no defense or privilege applies.
So, there ya go.
Steve – if we assume that litter is an offense against the property of a neighbor and the alleged batterer was protecting that property, does he not have the right to take the culprit into custody? Or in this case, let him off with a warning?
Tim Black’s take on it:
Nefertiti – mespo has been on here as long as I have, but your name is new. Old time player, new alias?
Ok, you get the Florid Prose Award with the “I don’t know what the Hell you just said” cluster.
Nefertiti,
You may have interest in the size of his balls but the only real question is: Are his comments accurate?
Always evaluate a case without knowing all the facts, Steve? Double up on that malpractice insurance my friend.
“This one’s for my mighty white friend, Mespo,…”
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Everyone loves a passive-aggressive racist statement like this. Call anyone else on the blog “my mighty black friend” lately?
Nefertiti, btw been here long before you ever lurked; it’s good scotch, not bourbon; ball projection usually requires counseling, and if you’re wondering how I figured out your comment, the drunk on the corner was happy to translate for a pint of Old Irish Rose.
Mespo,
You have short memory.
I’m glad you can afford scotch now.
Steve,
I believe Sanders and Stein were selling exactly what they believed. One look at their respective platforms would inform anyone paying attention of that fact. They just had a product many people did not want to buy. Clinton and Trump were hawking their wares and the results reflect a rejection of one more than the other. Unlike Sanders and Stein, I don’t trust for one second what Trump is selling; never have. But he will be our next President. And since he has no history in public service, time will only tell whether HE believes in what he was selling.
Olly: I agree with everything you stated except that on the basis that he changes his mind daily I don’t think Trump personally cares about any of it as long as he’s in charge and he makes money.
“I’m happy she lost, even if it was to the most unqualified person, an elixir salesman no less, ever to be elected to the presidency.”
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The Constitution imposes the following qualifications to hold the highest office in the land:
“No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.”
That was good enough for James Madison, George Washington and the rest of those fine men in Philadelphia and it’s good enough for me.
We’ve had over 200 years experience with these institutions, but we’re expected to defer to James Madison’s judgment because he was totes Hari Seldon. Isaac Asimov was not my cup of tea but he did recognize a certain sort of intellectual decadence.
Obviously, we should defer to you not those geniuses in Philly.
Sorry, was referring to Steve’s judgment.
No, don’t defer to me. Look behind you and look around you. How do American models perform comparatively? How have assumptions about how they would perform worked out in practice? What might correct institutional deficiencies in our own time?
The Constitution is a law. It’s not an artwork for which to alter is to deface.
“The Constitution is a law. It’s not an artwork for which to alter is to deface.”
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All those futile attempts to reproduce its elegance and enduring relevance belie your point. In keeping with your metaphor, it’s the Hope Diamond — not too pretty to handle but that indulgence surely requires a compelling reason to do so.
Come again? Mespo, there are about two-dozen countries which have maintained a state of civil peace and electoral institutions with scant interruption since the end of the 1st World War or thereabouts. They have a variety of constitutional arrangements. Only two (the United States and Costa Rica) make use of separation-of-powers. Others use Westminster systems, hybrid systems, idiosyncratic local systems. There’s nothing precious and irreplaceable about the U.S. Constitution. It’s a set of legal conventions which may be better or worse adapted to a given set of circumstances.
More like 20 with full democracies which is a blistering 12% of all nations. Of those 20, about 90% are former British possessions or European nations that were directly influenced by American-style constitutionalism. And none of them have the same tenure in democracy. Don’t think it’s sporting to say one is not special because he begat special children.
Great Britain
Ireland
France
The Netherlands
Belgium
Luxembourg
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Finland
Iceland
Switzerland
Andorra
Liechtenstein
Israel
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
United States
Costa Rica
South Africa
Ireland had a great deal of political violence in 1919-23 and more fitfully from 1969-99. Six countries were under German occupation from 1940-44 or thereabouts. Israel suffered a war in 1947-49. Costa Rica had an 18 month breach in 1948-49. Only South Africa had seriously deficient democratic institutions.
Seven of these countries are British derivatives. Again, the only one with institutions resembling the United States would be Costa Rica. No clue where you got the idea that any of these loci were ‘directly influenced by American-style constitutionalism’ bar that they enacted discrete charters (whereas Britain, Israel, New Zealand, and some others have a body of constitutional law but no Constitution per se).
And you’re avoiding my point. There are a variety of ways to construct a political architecture which incorporates what Gottfried Dietze called “free and popular government’. The coarse features of the American plan – federalism, separation of powers, bicameralism, judicial review – are not universal. Other countries get along satisfactorily without most of these features.
But none have lasted has long and hence my point.
But none have lasted has long and hence my point.
Britain has had no breaches since 1689. I think Switzerland has had two breaches (ca. 1795 and 1848).. We had a granddaddy of a breach during the years running from 1861 to 1865.
That little unpleasantness in 1861 actually proved the system worked as expected.
mespo – are you referring to the War of Northern Aggression?
We never use harsh language when we can avoid it, ya’ll.
mespo – lol
That little unpleasantness in 1861 actually proved the system worked as expected.
Because, working as expected includes 600,000 corpses and much of Georgia and East Tennessee in ruins.
“There’s nothing precious and irreplaceable about the U.S. Constitution.”
How many of those other countries root their origin and legitimacy of government specifically to secure the unalienable rights of their people? That is the anchor of our constitution. That purpose alone makes it “precious and irreplaceable”. Unless of course you have a system that will secure those rights even better. Because our entire rule of law and the amendments to it is supposed to enhance that security. Adapting “to a given set of circumstances” is the vehicle to protect the sovereignty of this nation, the states and the people. Amending for any other purpose is illegitimate, regardless of the utilitarian cause.
I’ve answered Mespo.
I don’t think the preamble to the Constitution is all that important even here. The institutional scaffolding is what’s important.
Again, other countries get along without coarse features of American institutional practice, much less granular features like the electoral college or the filibuster. You’re all addled by the notion that Mr. Madison built some finely calibrated machine which we musn’t tamper with when what really happened was that they took extant political conventions, made some alterations to certain features, and made a number of expedient compromises. Some of their handiwork hardly lasted 15 years functioning as supposed. We’ve had a great deal of experience and some contemporary problems which are exacerbated by suboptimal political architecture. We ought to address them instead of pretending Mr. Madison Figured It All Out because he knew Montesquieu cover-to-cover and could read Sallust in the original.
Actually more like 750,000 killed and most of the deep Southern states in ruins. Bottom line is that the Union held. That’s the test that matters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html
Deniro was right: He’s a punk, and his money allows him to be a bully full-time toward anyone who doesn’t submit. I impose the qualifications of candidate I vote for, amigo.
Faux tough-guy DeNiro went from the macho “punch him in the face” to this wussy statement:
“I would only say that we’re all hoping, waiting and hoping, that he will lead the country in a way that’ll benefit everyone and benefit our neighbors around the world. That’s all,” De Niro told ITK Tuesday, according to the Hill. “We’re waiting and hoping, and we’ll see.”
Another hero of yours smacked right in the face and then cowled by reality. Maybe you’ll hop the bandwagon one day. Are you not going to Canada too ?
He was right. Trump’s a punk, and I add that Trump has money enough to have spent a lifetime bullying people, which he’s done. Total A-hole.
Since when did character matter to you guys? As best as I can tell, it seems to only matter when that character is exposed in a way their governance doesn’t comport to your worldview. Trump is allowed to be an ass, a punk or a bully. But if he DOES NOT administer this government consistent with the rule of law and separation of powers, THEN your whining will have a legitimate point.
Everything you mentioned, even the made-up stuff, pales in comparison to Mr Trump’s life of depravity.
Would not she have to be indicted and then go to trial or does he think Trump can just put her in jail, doglover. I hope Clinton never runs for anything but I don’t think she should have to live in fear that a president could just lock her up without due process. We truly would be living in scary times.
You break the law and you should live in fear you will be held to account…by due process.
Do any of you seriously doubt the Clinton Foundation and Hillary’s dealings were not law breaking and corrupt? Do you doubt the corruption and dirty dealings of the past 30 years with the Clintons? Stop.
No doubt whatsoever dim. Hence my comment.
So, did Trump commit a felony by violating the Logan Act yesterday?
I don’t believe so Steve. He has stated his position on Israel throughout the campaign and again yesterday after Power’s abstained. I’m not aware that he inserted himself in any of the deliberations/negotiations as a private citizen and not under the request of this administration to influence the outcome of the resolution.
Will you be as vigilant once Trump takes office to ensure no private citizen (or ex-President) attempts to undermine his administration?
Olly: In other words, he was only “extremely careless.” You’re not in the mix for FBI Directorship, are you? 🙂
Trump is probably the most corrupt president we have ever elected. Since Clinton was also corrupt, the third party candidates that had no chance were the only non corrupt choices. Very sad for the country……..
Explain to me every instance where Trump has been convicted of corruption not merely accused of it by some disgruntled person.
Has he ever been accused? The beefs I’ve seen have concerned his bankruptcy filings and Trump University. Neither incorporate corrupt practices because they do not involve public officials (other than bankruptcy judges). The complaint is that Trump engages in sharp practices, not corrupt practices (though real estate development is so enmeshed in local government I imagine there are some interesting stories there).
Maybe thousands of disgruntled persons if one includes Trump University, various casinos and golf courses, beauty pageants and the Trump Foundation. btw. Crooked Hillary has not been convicted of anything either. A person with a multitude of highly paid competent attorneys does not have to be convicted to be considered to be corrupt.
“Maybe thousands of disgruntled persons if one includes Trump University, various casinos and golf courses, beauty pageants and the Trump Foundation. btw. Crooked Hillary has not been convicted of anything either. A person with a multitude of highly paid competent attorneys does not have to be convicted to be considered to be corrupt.”
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Thousands of highly disgruntled persons perfectly describes Hillary, Obama … most anyone in public life. Ipso facto, they are all corrupt. Come on, Dave.