The Democrat Thread

[Jenksismyhero]

With how menial the provocation was in this case (put that cigarette out immediately flashes into get out of the car/taze threat/arrest), there's no way that you could actually educate human beings to be that passive. Having to deal with police in an adversarial way is going to annoy some people, maybe even catch them on a bad day. There's just no way you could ever, ever get humans to always be this passive.

 

You don't have to be 100% passive, but you can always bite your tongue to prevent the situation from boiling over. In this case there's no excuse for the cop, but she resisted and then just kept talking and complaining and fighting his instructions. She's never winning that argument, so voice your displeasure and then stop. Continuing to annoy him does nothing but make the situation worse.

 

I mean we've all been there. A cop pulls you over for some BS thing and starts berating you. You could tell him what's what and get that ticket, or you can just take the verbal abuse and get a warning. What's "right" is telling the cop off. The common sense response is to just deal with it and call the department chief to complain later.

[Balta1701]

You don't have to be 100% passive, but you can always bite your tongue to prevent the situation from boiling over. In this case there's no excuse for the cop, but she resisted and then just kept talking and complaining and fighting his instructions. She's never winning that argument, so voice your displeasure and then stop. Continuing to annoy him does nothing but make the situation worse.

 

I mean we've all been there. A cop pulls you over for some BS thing and starts berating you. You could tell him what's what and get that ticket, or you can just take the verbal abuse and get a warning. What's "right" is telling the cop off. The common sense response is to just deal with it and call the department chief to complain later.

So the common sense response is something that won't do anything either.

[Jenksismyhero]

So the common sense response is something that won't do anything either.

 

I'm guessing she wouldn't have been arrested. Maybe, maybe not. But if she just fought the cigarette thing but then got out of the car and kept calm and quiet, he may have calmed down. Instead she continued to piss him off and agitate him.

[Balta1701]

I'm guessing she wouldn't have been arrested. Maybe, maybe not. But if she just fought the cigarette thing but then got out of the car and kept calm and quiet, he may have calmed down. Instead she continued to piss him off and agitate him.

Like I said, there's absolutely no way you can get ordinary humans to be this passive. By the department's own admission he violated the department's procedures. No way on Earth that every human is going to react passively and submit every day of their lives.

[caulfield12]

I disagree.

Hillary has the journos in her hip pocket. Their only coverage of Republican candidates is trying to get them to blast each other publicly, i.e. the Trump thing. Guys ... Trump is sort of a chump, but he wasn't trying to say all Mexicans are bad. I like the fact Cruz wouldn't bite. He said, "all the media wants us to do is blast each other; I won't go there." If Trump was a Demo there'd be no coverage of this; it'd remain all Hillary all the time. I hope you guys are ready for eight years of Hilly; she's a lock to win. Hope she leads the country back on track.

 

 

Cruz is just bring a politician...he wants all those "supporters" to come over to him when Trump eliminates himself from contention...at least as many as possible.

[Balta1701]

So, there was another nice version in the tales of how the media "loves" hillary clinton last night.

 

The NY Times ran a big scoop on how several inspectors general had asked for a DOJ investigation into Hillary Clinton's email "scandal".

 

The NY Times had their big headline - DOJ asked to investigate Clinton's emails for classified information!!!!"

 

Within a couple hours, the story had been pulled and rewritten entirely. The DOJ was not being asked to investigate the use of Clinton's private email box in any way, shape, or form, instead they were being asked to see whether the State Department had properly handled the emails once they were handed back over to the State Department. There was no request of an investigation specifically of the former Secretary, it was a request to investigate the later handling of those emails.

 

The NY Times got their headline, "DOJ asked to investigate Clinton's emails" was all over the news while I was at the gym, and I had to actually sit down at my computer and look into it to find out that "oh, they're actually not caring about Clinton's private emails at all and the story is being run in a way that is completely BS".

 

Yay media cheering on Hillary by making stuff up to make her look like a criminal!

[StrangeSox]

Who said it, Donald Trump or Frank Reynolds (Danny Devito on Always Sunny)?

[greg775]

He's a democrat so this is the thread for this. I am asking a serious question of you politicos: Is Obama the worst president in the last 48 years?

[Texsox]

He's a democrat so this is the thread for this. I am asking a serious question of you politicos: Is Obama the worst president in the last 48 years?

No

[Heads22]

Not even close. I mean I suppose he's still got a couple of years to reinstitute slavery or something.

[Balta1701]

Not even close. I mean I suppose he's still got a couple of years to reinstitute slavery or something.

14 months is enough time to invade someplace for no obvious reasons and then produce the largest economic collapse in 80 years. That could push him into the race.

[caulfield12]

Worst

 

1. George W. Bush

2. Jimmy Carter

3. Gerald Ford

4. Nixon (impeachment was nearing, kind of hard to beat that)

5. George H. W. Bush

 

I would put Obama (right now) somewhere in the 5-6-7 range, depending on the outcome of some of his foreign policy decisions and the eventual success or failure of Obamacare to control health care costs. Depends also on what happens with Iran, Cuba, ISIS, the Pacific Trade Treaty, etc.

 

Hard to give a grade at this time, and then you have to look at the fact that for six years, the stated policy of the Republican Congress was to block anything Obama wanted to achieve, to be as obstructionist as possible. Since he ran on a campaign of "change/hope," and the expectations were clearly sky high, the biggest failure will probably be seen as contributing to the tradition of partisan deadlock in Washington. Of course, with that statement, one must leave it to historians to determine how much of his "failures" can be attributed to institutionalized racism and the fact that a large sub-segment of the US population just wasn't ready to accept an African-American president.

 

With that said, Obama stumbled early and largely failed to take advantage of his mandate (not unlike Clinton with health care and gays in the military), but getting elected to two terms is another dividing line between the decent/good and bad presidents.

 

If you want to look at legislative achievements and "getting things done," the clear winner would be LBJ. But his legacy was tarnished at the end by the Vietnam War.

 

Of the Democrats, Truman and Kennedy were the best, then Clinton (and we have to consider the Monica Lewinsky situation and how it will be perceived in the future, it's a part of the legacy but not the biggest....since there was the biggest period of economic expansion/capital gains revenues/stock market rate of return of any modern presidency).

Edited July 27, 2015 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Bland didn’t demur and knuckle under. Some have criticized her for her stance during the traffic stop, suggesting that if she had behaved differently, with more respect for the officer, she might have avoided arrest. Maybe. But, it must always be remembered that the parameters of “respectable behavior” are both raced and gendered. The needle moves to differing positions for different people. That is, I believe, one of the reasons that this minor traffic stop so quickly escalated.

 

How dare a woman not present as a damsel? How dare a black person not bow in obsequiousness? The officer’s irritation seemed to build in direct response to Bland’s unwavering defiance. She refused to break, crumble and cry. She refused to express fear. She challenged his authority, his character and his expression of masculinity.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/opinion/...region&_r=0

Edited July 27, 2015 by caulfield12

[Brian]

You could argue in retrospect that Reagan was pretty bad. His policies started the WallStreet snowball.

[caulfield12]

You could argue in retrospect that Reagan was pretty bad. His policies started the WallStreet snowball.

 

Yes, there was also Iran-Contra, fortune tellers advising Nancy Reagan, the Alzheimer's issue.

 

Nevertheless, he was one of the most popular presidents, he was largely successful in reaching across the aisle in terms of legislation (Tip O'Neill) in a way that no one has been able to replicate since, he presided essentially over the end of the Cold War (if you want to NOT give him credit for that, you have to argue that economic cycles are basically lucky and more about timing and that Clinton took office at exactly the right time) as well.

 

Of course, if you're not a proponent of supply side economics and want to look at it from the environmental/deregulation standpoint, the gap between the rich and the poor beginning to wide, he's not your guy.

 

Nevertheless, he was a gifted orator (the acting training) and an inspirational figure. Not quite universally beloved, like the last class of 2-3 GOP presidential candidates would argue, of course. And he was easily elected twice.

 

 

 

Lots of people would argue that Clinton's lack of banking regulations laid the stage for the eventual mortgage crisis/subprime loan debacle, as well as the stock market crash of 1998.

 

Also, most of the Congresses in the 80's and early 90's were Democratic, up until '94 at least.

Edited July 27, 2015 by caulfield12

[bmags]

Obama's second term for me has been a dream. I was happy he won in 2012 largely because of defense, and he ended up delivering on so many more initiatives from 08. The libya/syria decisions were the dark days of that presidency, to me. Since then along with the Kerry as SOS era, I'm very happy.

[bmags]

Given the times Clinton inherited I have a hard time grading his presidency as anything but a huge failure. Given incredible popularity from merely being president during a great economic boom, he did so extraordinarily little during his time.

[Jenksismyhero]

"No one has a right to grade a President—even poor James Buchanan—who has not sat in his chair, examined the mail and information that came across his desk, and learned why he made his decisions." - JFK

[bmags]

"No one has a right to grade a President—even poor James Buchanan—who has not sat in his chair, examined the mail and information that came across his desk, and learned why he made his decisions." - JFK

 

That's such bullcrap. I understand presidents have difficult decisions to make, Buchanon had a country about to collapse, but ultimately he accommodated and appeased a side that enslaved other humans. Just because his decisions were hard doesn't mean they weren't morally awful. It just goes to show what a phenomenal president Lincoln was, and how courageous the Republican congress was that came from it.

[StrangeSox]

So, there was another nice version in the tales of how the media "loves" hillary clinton last night.

 

The NY Times ran a big scoop on how several inspectors general had asked for a DOJ investigation into Hillary Clinton's email "scandal".

 

The NY Times had their big headline - DOJ asked to investigate Clinton's emails for classified information!!!!"

 

Within a couple hours, the story had been pulled and rewritten entirely. The DOJ was not being asked to investigate the use of Clinton's private email box in any way, shape, or form, instead they were being asked to see whether the State Department had properly handled the emails once they were handed back over to the State Department. There was no request of an investigation specifically of the former Secretary, it was a request to investigate the later handling of those emails.

 

The NY Times got their headline, "DOJ asked to investigate Clinton's emails" was all over the news while I was at the gym, and I had to actually sit down at my computer and look into it to find out that "oh, they're actually not caring about Clinton's private emails at all and the story is being run in a way that is completely BS".

 

Yay media cheering on Hillary by making stuff up to make her look like a criminal!

 

The NYT public editor goes over what went wrong here

First, consider the elements. When you add together the lack of accountability that comes with anonymous sources, along with no ability to examine the referral itself, and then mix in the ever-faster pace of competitive reporting for the web, you’ve got a mistake waiting to happen. Or, in this case, several mistakes.

 

Reporting a less sensational version of the story, with a headline that did not include the word “criminal,” and continuing to develop it the next day would have been a wise play. Better yet: Waiting until the next day to publish anything at all.

 

Losing the story to another news outlet would have been a far, far better outcome than publishing an unfair story and damaging The Times’s reputation for accuracy.

 

What’s more, when mistakes inevitably happen, The Times needs to be much more transparent with readers about what is going on. Just revising the story, and figuring out the corrections later, doesn’t cut it.

 

NPR (and I'm sure plenty of other media outlets) had pretty terrible coverage of this Friday afternoon, going on at length about how damaging this was for Clinton, how terrible it looked etc. etc. and then threw in an 'oh by the way the New York Times had to retract the core of the story, whoops probably should have mentioned that before railing on Clinton for five minutes' at the very end.

[Balta1701]

NPR (and I'm sure plenty of other media outlets) had pretty terrible coverage of this Friday afternoon, going on at length about how damaging this was for Clinton, how terrible it looked etc. etc. and then threw in an 'oh by the way the New York Times had to retract the core of the story, whoops probably should have mentioned that before railing on Clinton for five minutes' at the very end.

It made my local news last night and was presented as "DOJ requested to investigate Hillary Clinton's email for possible criminal proceedings". Exactly the opposite of reality and exactly the whole point of the smear.

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, and the NYT still doesn't seem to get what they did wrong:

 

“You had the government confirming that it was a criminal referral,” Mr. Baquet said. “I’m not sure what they could have done differently on that.”

 

"The government" and "a government official speaking off the record who may have political axes to grind" are not the same thing (see: every Darryl Issa committee leak). And nobody seems to have any idea how the word "criminal" got added into the story.

 

This breakdown of the chain of events from elsewhere seems pretty accurate:

 

(1) One group of reviewers disagreed with the process used by a previous group to determine what content from which of Clinton’s e-mails could be released under FOIA.

 

(2) The former group wrote a memo detailing their issues.

 

(3) A standard heads-up was issued (the referral), indicating that some of the e-mails would likely end up retroactively classified.

 

(4) Someone leaked the referral, and because OMG HILLARY SKREE!, everybody in news jumped on each other to publish the most breathless account first.

[StrangeSox]

Donald Trump's lawyer threatens reporter over ex-wife's allegations: 'You cannot rape your spouse'

[Texsox]

Ivana stated it wasn't true that The Don raped her. This is Trump's lawyer not Trump making the statement. I think the media blew this up a little too much.

[Jake]

Ivana stated it wasn't true that The Don raped her. This is Trump's lawyer not Trump making the statement. I think the media blew this up a little too much.

 

Ivana said that she felt very violated but didn't want people to interpret her comments as a criminal accusation. That's fair. It's also what I'd do if I didn't want to be in court against Donald Trump anymore.

 

Trump's lawyer's comment was incredibly callous and inaccurate and is getting so much play because he proceeded to threaten the reporter with Donald's resources.