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[B-Dubs]

Anyone else feel like this has a decent chance of turning into a riot? The park where the spillover will be is literally next door to Bernie Sanders' campaign headquarters.

Oh that can't possibly be good...

 

[Holmes]

What time does the Vermont rally start? I might watch it if I'm home.

 

[NeoXChaos]

Oh that can't possibly be good...

of course not but this is The Trump Show we are talking about

b-dubs are you voting for Trump in the primary?

 

[B-Dubs]

b-dubs are you voting for Trump in the primary?

I live in NYC, by the time they get to me this is all going to be decided. Besides, I can't justify a vote for Trump to myself even if it is for the lulz.

Or for the money. Well, maybe if I had put down as much as a certain someone...

EDIT: I see you edited that, can't tell why though...

 

[Cerium]

Anyone else feel like this has a decent chance of turning into a riot? The park where the spillover will be is literally next door to Bernie Sanders' campaign headquarters.

I wonder what would happen if Trump supporters trashed the Bernie headquarters.

Bernie fans would be so conflicted.

Or for the money. Well, maybe if I had put down as much as a certain someone...

I can't be assed to register Republican.

 

[User1608]

Trump and Bernie crossover? Oh my...

By fictional counter parts do you mean

because if you do I agree

How did you read my mind. At least he's a joy to watch. I just want to slap Cruz.

 

[j_k_redtail]

The Atlantic, on the Working Families Party: The Pugnacious, Relentless Progressive Party That Wants to Remake America

...

The Working Families Party’s agenda—frankly redistributionist and devoted to social justice—targets a class of Democratic elected officials who, in the view of many liberals, seem to listen more to their moneyed donors than to the left-wing rank and file. Aggressive, tactical, and dedicated to winning, the WFP would like to force Democrats—and the country—to become more liberal by mobilizing the party base, changing the terms of the debate, and taking out centrist incumbents in primaries.

If there’s ever been a moment for this, it is now. Four years after Occupy Wall Street, with the socialist Bernie Sanders pushing Hillary Clinton leftward in the Democratic presidential primaries, liberal frustration with national politics has reached a boiling point. Enter the WFP: Since its founding nearly two decades ago, it’s become an influential fixture of Democratic politics in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Now, the party is going national. By mid-2016, the WFP plans to be in 11 states, with more on the horizon. Last month, the WFP endorsed Sanders after an online vote of its national membership. They may not yet be a household name, but a few years from now, they aim to be a national force.

...

 

[Plinko]

Nothingstopsthistrain.gif

Rubio below 10% is clearly the story here. If he can't get some momentum going by NH its going to be Trump - Cruz showdown.

I'm starting to doubt there will be any showdown at all. Cruz is over 25 points back.

 

[User 463088]

Holy shit at Trump above 40%. I am at once both disgusted and amazed. Imagine if Trump wasn't such a xenophobic, racist asshole. I mean, he wouldn't be popular in the GOP primary, but just imagine...

 

[Cerium]

I'm starting to doubt there will be any showdown at all. Cruz is over 25 points back.

Cruz is poised to win Iowa which would give him a launchpad.

 

[vicissitudes]

I wonder what would happen if Trump supporters trashed the Bernie headquarters.

Bernie fans would be so conflicted.



I can't be assed to register Republican.

They won't. The real enemy here is Hillary Clinton. Bernie and Trump are united on that front. Notice how Trump has been trashing the Clintons in the press but laying off of Sanders.

 

[User 463088]

They won't. The real enemy here is Hillary Clinton. Bernie and Trump are united on that front. Notice how Trump has been trashing the Clintons in the press but laying off of Sanders.

Because he doesn't need to attack Sanders. You don't punch down. Well, I mean, logical, intelligent people don't. Trump kinda just flails around like a lunatic seeing who and what he can hit.

 

[HylianTom]

Anyone else feel like this has a decent chance of turning into a riot? The park where the spillover will be is literally next door to Bernie Sanders' campaign headquarters.

If there is, I want the news to play some of that goofy incidental music from It's Always Sunny while showing the chaos footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydqCl-Ief38
(Just skip to 1:20)(warning: naughty language)

Holy shit at Trump above 40%. I am at once both disgusted and amazed. Imagine if Trump wasn't such a xenophobic, racist asshole. I mean, he wouldn't be popular in the GOP primary, but just imagine...

("They are who we thought they were.")

 

[Holmes]

Cruz is poised to win Iowa which would give him a launchpad.

I'm so excited for Iowa. I really need a new poll now. Cruz's rivals have started hitting him hard on ethanol and citizenship. I want to know how it affects his numbers!

 

[QuiteWhittle]

They won't. The real enemy here is Hillary Clinton. Bernie and Trump are united on that front. Notice how Trump has been trashing the Clintons in the press but laying off of Sanders.

Sanders doesn't seem to have a problem trashing Trump as a xenophobic and hateful bigot and fascist though. Did he not get the memo?

 

[vicissitudes]

Because he doesn't need to attack Sanders. You don't punch down. Well, I mean, logical, intelligent people don't. Trump kinda just flails around like a lunatic seeing who and what he can hit.

Exactly and Hillary is an easy target. Just the other day she described herself as a "progressive" democrat give me a break. For as manufactured as she is, I'm surprised her team hasn't been able to manufacture a catchy slogan like "Make America Great Again."

 

[Holmes]

Exactly and Hillary is an easy target. Just the other day she described herself as a "progressive" democrat give me a break. For as manufactured as she is, I'm surprised her team hasn't been able to manufacture a catchy slogan like "Make America Great Again."

I think there's a difference between the Hillary Clinton you have fabricated in your mind and the real Hillary Clinton.

 

[A Human Becoming]

Holy shit at Trump above 40%. I am at once both disgusted and amazed. Imagine if Trump wasn't such a xenophobic, racist asshole. I mean, he wouldn't be popular in the GOP primary, but just imagine...

Once hit hits 50% consistently he has the nomination.

 

[Ecotic]

This pre-emptive diablosing doesn't make sense. World economy will always going to be rocky. First the Euro crisis, then greek bailout, then other euro countries defaulting, the dubai bailout, and now the chinese fears. US economy is rock solid by every single measure. What are you seeing that no one else is? The Fed is ending the QE program in the biggest sign that we are off the training wheels. Just yesterday ADP predicted that we will return to full employment by May 2016. How is that not the most positive sign that US economy is doing better than expected.

Dont give in to fear mongering by the republicans about the stock market and China. That shit means diddly squat to hiring, GDP and growth. However, whatever the next big bubble is going to be, it will not be as adverse as the economic collapse of 2008. It will be of the same magnitude and S&L crisis during Reagan or dot com crisis during Clinton/Bush years. Meaning, not big enough to derail an election, party or presidency.

Accusing someone of diablosing should be a logical fallacy. Diablosing means to be unduly concerned in the face of an almost sure thing, it has a limited application.

Anywho, the Fed is not raising rates and ending QE out of confidence in this economy, they're doing it because we're past the average length of a business cycle and the Fed needs to retain its ability to step in with emergency measures in case it's needed. If the next recession hits and rates are barely above zero and we're still under QE we'd be in extreme trouble. Congress and the President can't be relied upon to work together to pass anything so it will fall again to the Fed, who would have very little ability and maneuverability under that scenario unless they act now to increase rates and ease off QE. The Fed doesn't have confidence in this economy, nobody has confidence in this economy, it's just a sales job.

I'm not seeing anything that others aren't seeing, my belief that the business cycle has ended is the strong consensus among the smaller, nimbler traders and analysts. It takes a bit of work to find the good ones, they're big on stocktwits or hanging out in the paid service chat rooms all day when the markets are open. Organizations like ADP are big, dumb, and completely worthless.

What am I seeing? Everything. It's ultimately statistics, the odds that 90% of the leading indicators are signalling a business cycle top and downturn and there's not a contraction are remote. As we get further beyond the average business cycle length the odds of completing another year without a recession become much smaller. I'm not saying we're about to fall off a cliff like in 2008 but that we're nearing a normal contraction that follows the end of a business cycle, the severity of which is variable. Some are a case of the mild sniffles like in the early 2000's and some are 2008.

This guy summarizes the case extremely well, he's the best I know at this sort of thing. A personal friend of mine for years, too. It's an older video, and a bit long, but worth the watch. Here's a summary of many of his points.

1. No broad market participation - There's a huge divergence between the average stock performance and the cap weighed indexes. The Russell 2000 shows this extremely well. The overwhelming majority of companies are reporting unhealthy or underperforming results. The markets are being held up by big name momentum names like FANG (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google). The divergence between the two hasn't even begun to close, when the realization trickles through to the retail investor that there's no broad market participation there's going to be a very narrow door.
2. Earnings per share year over year is declining.
3. Commodities collapse. They're bone-dry because aggregate demand is very weak. Look at the all-important copper, mines are being shut down because the price is below the cost of production.
4. There's an exodus out of high-yield bonds. It's risk-off mentality.
5. Manufacturing is contracting in China, the U.S., and the smaller developing economies. It's a testament to how weak global demand is when manufacturing is contracting when the price of inputs (commodities) are so extremely low.
6. Stimulus and QE out of Europe and Japan is inflating the U.S. dollar and crushing our competitiveness.
7. Technical analysis - The years-long ascending triangle has been lost. That technical pattern usually resolves to the downside. It is resolving to the downside. It won't happen overnight, but the equity markets mirror the economy, when companies are reporting poor results in aggregate, it's just reflected on the charts.

Does it matter in VA or FL among the the people that will decide the election?

If Rubio is the nominee, it matters.

If Cruz or Trump is? How is that going to change the puerto rican's vote in the I4 corridor in Florida? The DC suburbs in VA? Iowa? Nevada?

Yeah I'll agree with that. Everything I'm saying is predicated on the assumption that a half-decent candidate gets nominated. Democrats will probably get lucky this time.

I remember reading a story chris hayes did about undecided voters in 2004. The more Bush failed in foreign policy the more it helped him because voters thought kerry couldn't fix it. I just don't see any reason people are demanding GOP leadership. Look at 2012. The economy was horrible and unemployment high, Obama was supposed to lose based on that. He didn't.

And we're not looking at a 2008 type downturn. Plus the effects of any recession (which I'm still not sold on) would likely be delayed until at or after the election, limiting the effects on the race.

I don't agree with that, that's revisionism. Those models held in 2012. The economy was clearly improving enough in 2012 to aid Obama. You framed the question as "Is the economy great? Yes for re-election and no for the other guy." That's not how it works, the question was and always is "Are things improving?" or "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

Obama's approval was 50 percent in the Realclear average on election day in 2012, the economy was improving, and he had the incumbency advantage. The models predicted his re-election and the models held.

Now what I'm talking about is very different, I'm talking about a scenario where the economy is actively worsening in the election year. You don't need a 2008 style downturn for it to matter, the mild early 1990's recession was enough to doom H.W. Bush, and it wasn't even close. Partisanship has increased since then though, so a recession must be presumed to be not as influential, but still influential.

 

[Cerium]

So Ecotic, how bad do you think it's going to be? And how should we take steps to protect ourselves financially? The Chinese are buying up prime urban real estate in the United States; is that a good investment?

 

[Roland_Gunner]

Cruz is poised to win Iowa which would give him a launchpad.

Exactly. Trump is highly disliked by people who don't support him. When Cruz wins Iowa they will start to rally around him. That's why I think Rubio's in serious trouble if he can't get at least 2nd place in NH.

 

[User 463088]

Exactly and Hillary is an easy target. Just the other day she described herself as a "progressive" democrat give me a break. For as manufactured as she is, I'm surprised her team hasn't been able to manufacture a catchy slogan like "Make America Great Again."

 

[Jack Remington]

Reuters

Trump 41
Cruz 15
Carson 11
Jeb 8
Rubio 8
Christie 3
Rand 3

But Trump has a ceiling of 30%.

 

[Aaron Strife]

I doubt VP Scott would even help much in Florida. Dude barely got in in years where the electorate wasn't paying attention. Also Paul Ryan was viewed much more favorably and didn't move the needle at all in Wisconsin.

But Democrats don't need it nearly as much as the Republicans do, in any case.

Remember when Romney wouldn't concede Florida until a couple days after he had already conceded the election lol. Gotta make it look a little close.

 

[Ecotic]

So Ecotic, how bad do you think it's going to be? And how should we take steps to protect ourselves financially? The Chinese are buying up prime urban real estate in the United States; is that a good investment?

I honestly don't know how bad it could be, I'm only looking at the indicators and confident that it is coming.

Investment advice isn't really my thing. I'm a trader, not a buy and hold type of person. BUT, if I were, I would definitely move into cash and not get in front of this moving train. Recessions take 40 to 60% of the value out of the markets, on average. Holding through recessions is one of the dumbest ideas I hear people swear by. You lose out on gains for the year or two that the market is moving down and then you spend a few years waiting to claw back to parity. Recessions are easily foreseen and you have months to get out of the way when it becomes apparent that it's coming. It's like not being able to doge a comically slow steamroller.

 

[Abinash117]

Holy shit at Trump above 40%. I am at once both disgusted and amazed. Imagine if Trump wasn't such a xenophobic, racist asshole. I mean, he wouldn't be popular in the GOP primary, but just imagine...

I don't think it is that surprising. Really many people on the left think the Republican party consists of all that, so why would it be surprising that someone that thinks like they do is going to do well?

Donald Trump is directing blame to groups of people that the GOP has very little interaction with and many of the voters are increasing angry with their own party leaders. Since the primary GOP voters are overwhelming white I think; it is not surprising that Trump would get tons of support from all his talk.

What people should really focus on if he really has ceiling in slightly more ideology diverse GOP in the general election.

 

[Bowdz]

Has anyone seen any other candidate's Q4 fundraising results beyond Clinton, Sanders, Carson, and Cruz? I'm dying to see Jeb!s and Rubio's totals.

 

[Iolo]

Has anyone seen any other candidate's Q4 fundraising results beyond Clinton, Sanders, Carson, and Cruz? I'm dying to see Jeb!s and Rubio's totals.

No one else released their totals. Which may tell you something.

 

[Man w/ Glasses]

What time does the Vermont rally start? I might watch it if I'm home.

7pm. People were lining up at 4am this morning.

I decided not to attend.

 

[Plinko]

Cruz is poised to win Iowa which would give him a launchpad.

I keep hearing this over and over again and continue to doubt this will actually be the case. Cruz doesn't appeal at all to any moderate republicans.

 

[Cerium]

I keep hearing this over and over again and continue to doubt this will actually be the case. Cruz doesn't appeal at all to any moderate republicans.

What on earth makes you think you need moderates to win Iowa? Look at the past winners.

 

[User 406]

 

[User 463088]

 

[User 406]

 

[User 463088]

Yaaas, come through Eunice! Come through!

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Rick Scott all but endorses Trump, and wrote a flattering op-ed about him.

I just had a scary thought. What if Trump choses Scott as his running mate?

I started school living in public housing, and I have been blessed to do well in business over my lifetime. But I also benefited from a government at that time that wasn’t slowly taxing and regulating the life out of the American dream.

I still can't get over how facts mean nothing now. The opening episode truthiness segment of the Colbert report was truly I think the greatest encapsulation of today's politics.

 

[Y2Kev]

What on earth makes you think you need moderates to win Iowa? Look at the past winners.

He's saying outside of Iowa. He doesn't need it for the next few primaries though. South Carolina is just as evangelical. If he wins 2 of three or three of 4 early primaries, this could really end.

Rubio needs to be establishment candidate 1 in nh or he's done. He can't lose to fatso.

 

[User 463088]

I still can't get over how facts mean nothing now. The opening episode truthiness segment of the Colbert report was truly I think the greatest encapsulation of today's politics.

Conservative ideology often requires a factless void to make it all work. If facts permeate that bubble, then the whole thing falls in on itself.

 

[NeoXChaos]

Conservative ideology often requires a factless void to make it all work. If facts permeate that bubble, then the whole thing falls in on itself.

so does that make it hard to have conservative friends?

 

[Yellowtail]

Greenberg gave Jeb! 10 million!!! Momentum!!!!!

Already being put to effective use:

https://mobile.twitter.com/murphymike/status/685192363942137856

 

[User 463088]

so does that make it hard to have conservative friends?

I have conservative friends. Although they're more libertarian than Republican. One's completely apathetic to all politics, the other's a reliable GOP voter.(Ron Paul in 08, Paul the Lesser in 16). We just don't talk politics and we get on pretty well. They're what you'd consider socially liberal but fiscally conservative. They're both pro LGBT equality, both are pro-choice. We differ on the proper role of government, but that's alright.

 

[Wilsongt]

Lol @ Rubio having an add saying Obama has been embarrased by Putin and Iran.

 

[ivysaur12]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...other-blue-congressional-district-in-Virginia

In yet another victory for Democrats, the federal court hearing a lawsuit challenging the state's congressional lines just ruled that elections this year must go forward under a new map proposed by a court-appointed expert, one that all but guarantees that GOP Rep. Randy Forbes' 4th District will turn solidly blue. Republicans had asked the court to delay implementation pending an appeal to the Supreme Court, but the judges declined to do so, saying that the defendants had "not made a strong showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits" when their appeal is heard.

Only took 6 years!

 

[User 463088]

When your strategy involves hoping for Shrub to save you.....

“A lot of people say, you know, your brother also has a lot of popularity: Like Bill Clinton has with Democrats, your brother has it with Republicans,” Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade told Jeb Bush on Tuesday, as the former governor nodded in agreement. “If he could tell your story as well as you can, if not better, is that something you are considering?”

 

[Cerium]

So I've been posting in this thread using nothing but verbatim quotes from Trump and Carson and I'm waiting to see how long it'll take for someone to realize it.

"They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." is low hanging fruit so I'm saving that for later.

 

[B-Dubs]

When your strategy involves hoping for Shrub to save you.....

 

[User 463088]

Also, for the first time ever, Planned Parenthood has endorsed a candidate for President.

Click here to read their press release.

It's Hillary, obviously.

Should we start throwing them under the bus too? It's probably a bit crowded under there. Maybe we can borrow Mr. Bus from Mitt so we have the extra room...

 

[Hexa]

So I've been posting in this thread using nothing but verbatim quotes from Trump and Carson and I'm waiting to see how long it'll take for someone to realize it.

"They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." is low hanging fruit so I'm saving that for later.

 

[FloydtheFathead]

I love that you've gone from posting RuPaul GIFs to Mama's Family GIFs..

It just seems like a complete 360 for some reason and makes me smile.

Edit- It's an invasion of Mama's Family.. I have not thought about that show in forever.

 

[Abinash117]

I think this was an interesting article on how Obama tried to communicate with autocratic allies and others. Basically Obama did not do a great job at it to how I saw it in getting his goals . I wonder how Hillary or Bernie will deal.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/we-caved-obama-foreign-policy-legacy-213495

For Egypt’s brutally repressive president, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the spectacle was a triumph, symbolizing not only his militaristic power at home, but also his victory over an American president who had tried to punish him before surrendering to the cold realities of geopolitics.

Just two years earlier, Sisi had seized power in a military coup, toppling Mohamed Morsi, the democratically elected successor to Hosni Mubarak, himself a strongman of 30 years pushed out in early 2011 by mass protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. In the summer of 2013, Sisi followed his coup with a brutal crackdown that would have done Saddam Hussein proud. His security forces arrested thousands of people, including much of his political opposition, and in one bloody day that summer, they gunned down some 1,000 pro-Morsi protesters (or more) who were staging peaceful sit-ins. The massacre was shocking even by the standards of Egypt’s long-dismal human rights record.

Obama was appalled. “We can’t return to business as usual,” he declared after the slaughter. “We have to be very careful about being seen as aiding and abetting actions that we think run contrary to our values and ideals.”

Several weeks later, Obama halted the planned delivery of U.S. military hardware to Cairo, including attack helicopters, Harpoon missiles and several F-16 fighter jets, as well as $260 million in cash transfers. He also cast doubt on the future of America’s $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt—a subsidy on which Cairo depends heavily, and much more than the United States sends to any country in the world aside from Israel.

But a fierce internal debate soon broke out over whether and how to sanction Egypt further, a fight that many officials told me was one of the most agonizing of the Obama administration’s seven years, as the president’s most powerful advisers spent months engaged in what one called “trench warfare” against each other. It was an excruciating test of how to balance American values with its cold-blooded security interests in an age of terrorism. Some of Obama’s top White House aides, including his deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, and the celebrated human rights champion Samantha Power, now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, urged the president to link further military aid to clear progress by Sisi on human rights and democracy. But Secretary of State John Kerry, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Hagel’s successor, Ash Carter, argued for restoring the aid. Trying to punish Sisi would have little effect on his behavior, they said, while alienating a bulwark against Islamic radicalism in an imploding Middle East. “Egypt was one of the most significant policy divides between the White House and the State Department and the Department of Defense,” says Matthew Spence, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy.

For months, Obama tried to split the difference. In meetings and phone calls with the Egyptian ruler, by now paranoid and resentful about America’s intentions, Obama and Kerry urged Sisi to respect human rights, while also seeking his help in countering the the metastisizing Islamic State in nearby Syria and Iraq. Sisi did little of either.

In the end, Obama folded. This past March, he called Sisi once again, this time to explain that he would release the cash transfers and delayed hardware—including the F-16s—and end the administration’s threats to block the larger $1.3 billion annual aid package.

“We caved,” says a former senior administration official who participated in the debates.

In a long conversation recently, Rhodes, the speechwriter turned national security aide who has been with Obama from the beginning of his presidency, didn’t mince words when it came to the years-long internal battle over Egypt. “We’re in that sweet spot where everyone is pissed off at us,” Rhodes told me.

And not just about Egypt. The persistent problem of how to deal with American-allied strongmen has long tripped up a president who prefers pragmatic solutions to moral purity but has been unable to find much of either in the Middle East. While every U.S. president struggles to balance values like democracy and human rights with national security, Obama has struggled more than most because of the vast gap between his inspirational rhetoric and the compromises he has made with thuggish world leaders, especially—but by no means exclusively—in a Middle East where authoritarian heads of state from Riyadh to Cairo have cracked down with renewed vigor after the unsettling protests of the Arab Spring.

“The rhetoric got way ahead of the policymaking,” says Michael Posner, who served as Obama’s top State Department official for human rights and democracy in his first term. “It … raised expectations that everything was going to change.”


“He’s never quite melded his rhetoric with his policies,” says Dennis Ross, who served as Obama’s top Middle East aide in his first term. Adds Robert Ford, who was Obama’s ambassador to Syria before resigning in frustration over the president’s policy there: “It seems like we are swinging back to the idea that we must make a choice between supporting dictators or being safe.”