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Vader

The Next President

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Honestly, if we were to judge politicians by the faux-viral content their supporters generate, I don't think anyone would be electable. I don't think I need to cite examples here of Bernie supporters being terrible (there are many), despite Sanders being probably the most upstanding individual currently running.

 

I mostly support Clinton for realpolitik reasons, but I think Sanders has shown the most integrity overall. Sadly, integrity can rarely speak for electability and capacity for successful governance. 

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Michigan is being called for Sanders which is pretty crazy! They are going to pretty much split the delegates but this should be good press/momentum. 

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Michigan is being called for Sanders which is pretty crazy! They are going to pretty much split the delegates but this should be good press/momentum. 

 

Considering that Sanders was polling at twenty points behind a few days ago and ended up two points ahead tonight, it's maybe the biggest primary upset in US history.

 

That's what has me worried about Clinton: beyond taking issue with her Kissinger-flavored foreign policy in places like Libya, Honduras, and Haiti; beyond her being known for crossing the aisle to get things done but rarely getting others to cross the aisle to her; beyond her record-setting unlikeability across most demographics and the several ready-made scandals she already has on the table for the general election; I just don't think that she has the juice to dominate the real battleground states. Almost all of Clinton's vaunted "runaway wins" have been in states that'll swing hard toward red in the main election, while Sanders has generally better performance in bluer parts of the country, Massachusetts excepted. If Missouri and Ohio swing Sanders' way next week, it's going to be a tough case to make that Clinton's going to be able to pick up disaffected, anti-establishment, and overall independent voters like Sanders does.

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Considering that Sanders was polling at twenty points behind a few days ago and ended up two points ahead tonight, it's maybe the biggest primary upset in US history.

 

That's what has me worried about Clinton: beyond taking issue with her Kissinger-flavored foreign policy in places like Libya, Honduras, and Haiti; beyond her being known for crossing the aisle to get things done but rarely getting others to cross the aisle to her; beyond her record-setting unlikeability across most demographics and the several ready-made scandals she already has on the table for the general election; I just don't think that she has the juice to dominate the real battleground states. Almost all of Clinton's vaunted "runaway wins" have been in states that'll swing hard toward red in the main election, while Sanders has generally better performance in bluer parts of the country, Massachusetts excepted. If Missouri and Ohio swing Sanders' way next week, it's going to be a tough case to make that Clinton's going to be able to pick up disaffected, anti-establishment, and overall independent voters like Sanders does.

Yeah that is something that has always bugged me about the primaries. People whose votes straight up don't count in the general (Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico) and people whose votes don't count thanks to the electoral college (those in red states) get a lot of power to decide a candidate they can do nothing to elect.

I do think the solution to this is ditching the electoral college, not dropping the south from democratic primaries.

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I am a supporter of Sanders, but he is wildly behind, no matter how you squint at the delegates.

 

Fortunately, Trump as the nominee for the Republican party is just about their own worst nightmare. That's exactly the reason they're starting to jockey and line up to try and split the convention. Not only does he not represent the Republican base interests, he's lined up to get absolutely annihilated in a general election.

No he isn't. Before yesterday's caucusing, the delegate count was 476 for Sanders and 676 for Clinton (this doesn't include superdelegates). Meanwhile, there are 4051 delegates left to figure out from 31 states. The South is more or less done caucusing, and the more liberal places are what's left - which is where Bernie's core popularity resides. And it should be noted that Sanders is gaining momentum and voters while Clinton is losing momentum and voters. (Edit - by the way Sanders won yesterday's caucusing so the gap has closed up)

 

I'm sick of the fibbing about Sanders and how "far behind" he is. Clinton hasn't won this by a long shot. Remember, Clinton won Super Tuesday in 2008 but lost to Obama in the long run.

 

As for Clinton... I have a lot of negative things to say about her. She is literally a Republican in Democrat clothing. She and her husband are responsible for a lot of non-liberal policies, like The Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, outsourcing America's workforce to other countries, banning gay people from donating blood, and other things. The fact that people can stand up and say, "Yes, I want the first woman president despite all of that" is super selfish. It's shallow, meaningless symbolism people are voting for. I mean for fuck's sake, this is a woman that said young black people need to be "brought to heel," who wants to deport children, who takes money from the corrupt assholes that have been slamming our economy into the ground... but let's ignore everything she does on the job and her whole career because we can arbitrarily have our first woman president.

 

While people did vote for Obama because they wanted the first black president, by and large Obama was favored because of the issues he was going to address during his presidency. He talked about doing the job. Meanwhile, Clinton slammed Obama and even went on to suggest that he would be assassinated. Fast forward to now, eight years later, and she acts like Obama is her best friend despite the way she treated him. She really pissed me off a couple months ago when she suggested that Sanders was "disloyal" to Obama by voting against some Obama-driven things. That's not what our government is about. We're allowed to have disagreements. She thinks of the presidency as a crown to win and she's treating this whole thing, when she speaks to the public, like a highschool prettiest princess contest. Then she'll bar the press from covering her private speeches and meetings with Wall Street. Speeches she gets paid an inordinate amount of money for.

 

Clinton has also been treating this campaign like it's still the 1990s. Like that lame ass pandering is okay to do, or not realizing the internet exists to fact check her or perpetuate her fuck-ups. My personal favorite, which also actually personally offended me as a half-Mexican, was when she said she's like my Mexican grandmother. Fuck you Clinton, no you are not, not in any way. And when she was asked to elaborate on it at a town hall her answer was that she once watched over a bunch of Mexican children. What the actual fuck?

 

As far as policies go, anything that Clinton manages to speak about in a liberal manner Sanders does better with - both in his consistency on the issues and his plans for them. But hey, why vote for how someone is going to perform on the job when we can arbitrarily have our first woman president, who will actually regress the country and put a lot of people out? Y'know who I'd vote for instead? Elizabeth Warren. Policy-wise she's like Sanders, and hey, she's not a corrupt fuck like Clinton is. She'd make a great president. Or vice president. Sanders-Warren would be an awesome ticket.

 

This is only a fraction of what I have to say about Clinton and how she's a terrible person and politician. I really am ashamed of how many people still buy into her lying bullshit because none of her actual motivations or career actions are hard to find. She talks the talk at election time, but her actions speak for themselves. She's not going to do shit to help people in poverty, or racial-based injustice, and frankly I doubt she actually gives a damn about helping women because hey, she's got hers so fuck everyone else.

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More things RE: Clinton.

 

- in 2008 she said that racism wasn't a problem for Obama but sexism was for her. lolwtf

- Clinton was an advocate of healthcare reform until she started taking money from the opposite lobby.

- This week it was disclosed that Clinton is now taking money from the NRA. Every politician who takes money from the NRA responds to gun violence with lame messaging about how guns aren't the problem.

- The Clinton-backed regime in Honduras is assassinating people speaking their mind about that regime or things that need helping in their country. Foreign-policy experience, right?

- Clinton created a team in the state department to promote fracking in other countries. FUCKING FRACKING.

- When a pair of black women crashed an early Bernie Sanders campaign speech, he stepped back and let them have the mic. When a black woman paid the $500 fee to confront Clinton about her 1996 quote about bringing black people to heel, Clinton kicked her out while also not addressing her previous shitty quote.

- Read this and learn why Clinton doesn't actually give a shit about people in poverty.

- Bill Clinton violated election rules by campaigning for his wife at polling stations, but he and her will likely get away with it because they're like a mob family that can get away with anything.

- In 2008 Obama convinced the DNC to put a ban on campaign fundraising from lobbyists, arguing it wouldn't serve the needs of the common American people. Last month, the DNC lifted the ban and the money started pouring in for Clinton. BTW I have just as many problems with the DNC as Clinton this election cycle with how underhanded they've been handling this election because an Independent wanting to run on their ticket is more popular than their bullshit-artist.

- Clinton supporters claim Clinton does more to help black people. Meanwhile there's plenty of photos and evidence of Bernie marching and being arrested with civil rights protesters, and he's stood with them since. But hey why pay attention to things like history and facts?

- The CEO of Twitter had a hashtag suppressed on the site, "#WhichHillary," which was being used to bring up her inconsistencies and back peddling and lies. He is a financial supporter of hers btw.

 

More to come, I want to play some games and have other things to do aside from go back over all this stuff from the last half year. And twenty years.

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:tup:

 

Everything you talk about is why I don't like Clinton. It's extremely frustrating to see people supporting her. "She's learned from her mistakes!" On what grounds do you make this claim?! She's shown time and time again that she just says whatever people want to hear. She's even doing it DURING THIS ELECTION CYCLE in order to attract people from Bernie's side, despite being vehemently against some of the shit he said earlier on.

 

Ahhh it's so fucking dumb.

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A friend of mine and I were talking earlier this week and she said, "How did we grow up in the 90s thinking the Clintons were the most awesome thing to happen to our country?" and then went on to lay out everything about DOMA and such that I already listed. And it's true. Up until this election cycle, I always said Bill Clinton was a great president and my one citation was the surplus he left the country with. But when you take a closer look... holy shit that guy was Republican. And his wife was thumping the drum or even driving him to do things he did. So now I'm left with Obama being the only president I actually like in my lifetime so far (though this time I can cite the things I like and measure them against things I don't like).

 

That kind of perception by the way is part of why Clinton has support. It's why I make such an effort on social media and wherever else I can that doesn't ban politics discussion to bring up how terrible Clinton actually is and how she actually stands against what people desire from their government. She has a career of doing it. I hate to deliver such a low blow here, but when people of the LGBT community declare they support Clinton, I fucking die inside because they are literally supporting someone who wants to hold them back and has a career of holding them back.

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when people of the LGBT community declare they support Clinton, I fucking die inside because they are literally supporting someone who wants to hold them back and has a career of holding them back.

 

In her tenure as Secretary of State, Clinton was a huge advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights. She did many things wrong, but she did that right. I mean, in 2009, she managed to expand partnered queer state department employees the same rights as heterosexual married employees. In 2011, she gave a historic speech where she stated, "Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights." Her record as Secretary of State speaks to that commitment. Even after her tenure as Secretary of State, she came out in favor of the Equality Act, which would expand the Civil Rights Act to cover queer Americans, granting legal protections from discrimination in credit, housing, education, employment, etc. She has the record of someone who has had an honest change of heart -- the same honest change of  heart that most of America has gone through thanks to coming out campaigns.

 

Besides which, the LGBT community is made up of all kinds of people who prioritize issues in vastly different ways. Don't trivialize any of us by thinking that we vote based only on that one part of our identity.

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She was against gay marriage until 2013, which was when that whole thing came around in the country anyway.

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In 2006, she was supportive of the states that were making gay marriage legal.

 

In 2007, she supported at least a partial repeal of DOMA. She also supported fully equal civil unions which would be separate and distinct from marriage in name only.

 

That little bit of wordplay is not a huge deal to a lot of queer people, myself included. It's just a matter of politics. 6 years to go from supporting the idea of gay marriage to the words gay marriage don't really matter.

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Part of my point though is that whatever she supporters, Sanders has supported. For longer. And has actually worked toward it. And he doesn't come with the baggage of a shady career nor take money from lobbyists.

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While their contributions account for a very small portion of his campaign funding, they do exist.

 

 

It's probably worth actually pulling that number out, it's not just small, it's extra tiny in comparison to his total fundraising:

 

To be sure, lobbyist donations — about $3,200 overall — represent a tiny fraction of the more than $96 million raised Sanders has raised for his underdog presidential bid.

 

That's what, about 3/100 of a percent of his total fundraising?  Yes, it is an oddity worth questioning about, but it's also coming from sources like the ACLU, pro-weed groups and unions, none of which individually are people Sanders would mind being associated with.  They aren't exactly what people picture when they think lobbyist. 

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The Sanders campaign, unlike Obama's, accepts money from registered lobbyists. While their contributions account for a very small portion of his campaign funding, they do exist.

 

It's peculiar that someone who's calling for the DNC to reinstate a ban on contributions from lobbyists accepts contributions from lobbyists for his own campaign.

$3,200 in total from the registered lobbyists according to that article. That's not what lobbyists or corporate interests give when they're buying a politician. When people talk about taking money from lobbyists, they're talking about stuff like Clinton taking the $30,000-some from the NRA guy alone.

 

There's a difference between someone giving money as an individual, and then someone who manages the funds for a lobby group giving that group's money. Please.

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It's probably worth actually pulling that number out, it's not just small, it's extra tiny in comparison to his total fundraising:

 

 

That's what, about 3/100 of a percent of his total fundraising?  Yes, it is an oddity worth questioning about, but it's also coming from sources like the ACLU, pro-weed groups and unions, none of which individually are people Sanders would mind being associated with.  They aren't exactly what people picture when they think lobbyist. 

 

.003%

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$3,200 in total from the registered lobbyists according to that article. That's not what lobbyists or corporate interests give when they're buying a politician. When people talk about taking money from lobbyists, they're talking about stuff like Clinton taking the $30,000-some from the NRA guy alone.

 

There's a difference between someone giving money as an individual, and then someone who manages the funds for a lobby group giving that group's money. Please.

 

A registered lobbyist is a registered lobbyist. Their job is to speak politically, often using their money. It doesn't matter what their point of view is, and whether you agree with it or not. Taking money from a lobbyist is taking money from a lobbyist. If your stance is "don't take money from lobbyists," your campaign's imperative should be clear. But to Sanders, it isn't. $3,200 is a tiny amount of money, to be sure. It's a tiny amount of money to have, and it would be a tiny amount of money to not have. So why does he have it?

 

To be clear, I support Bernie Sanders. I just think he should be taken to task for the peculiarities in his campaign.

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A registered lobbyist is a registered lobbyist. Their job is to speak politically, often using their money. It doesn't matter what their point of view is, and whether you agree with it or not. Taking money from a lobbyist is taking money from a lobbyist. If your stance is "don't take money from lobbyists," your campaign's imperative should be clear. But to Sanders, it isn't. $3,200 is a tiny amount of money, to be sure. It's a tiny amount of money to have, and it would be a tiny amount of money to not have. So why does he have it?

 

To be clear, I support Bernie Sanders. I just think he should be taken to task for the peculiarities in his campaign.

This is the most nit-picky thing to nitpick if you're trying to be critical of Sanders or fair to other campaigners.

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I don't like Hillary either, but when the general election rolls around, I will vote for her, should she win the nomination.

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This is the most nit-picky thing to nitpick if you're trying to be critical of Sanders or fair to other campaigners.

 

While I agree that is a little nitpicky i can see the point, lobbyist should be on the list with superpacs as entities that shouldn't be allowed to donate to a presidential campaign.

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I don't like Hillary either, but when the general election rolls around, I will vote for her, should she win the nomination.

 

Oh yeah, me too, and since the primaries here in Washington are usually held after it's already been decided anyway, I haven't really been keeping track.

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This is the most nit-picky thing to nitpick if you're trying to be critical of Sanders or fair to other campaigners.

 

I guess that's one way to look at it, but it's also hypocritical of Sanders to accept any money from lobbyists or political organizations at all, given his hardline political stance against lobbyist money. Given that people generally level accusations of hypocrisy at Hillary, it's worth looking at Sanders' own hypocritical acts in his ideological campaign. It's only fair.

 

Sanders' views on foreign policy are lackluster at best, as well. He thinks Edward Snowden should stand trial for being a whistleblower. He says we need to create another organization like NATO to combat the Islamic State, but doesn't want American troops fighting the Islamic State -- those are two contradictory goals. So #WhichBernie will make the decision when he's in office?

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He thinks Edward Snowden should stand trial for being a whistleblower.

Do whistleblowers generally stand trial? I thought that was a term denoting a form of immunity, not a form of prosecution.

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