USPOL Sep: Hillary has tuberculosis

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL Sep: Hillary has tuberculosis

Tobermory: Mar 31, 2011

Nice OP, Comrade, but I think you may have messed up the order in the recent news section:

ComradeCosmobot posted:

Maine's governor is an rear end in a top hat. Seriously.

Black lives still matter.

So is Milo Yiannopoulos, actually.

I suspect the intended meaning was that Milo Yiannopoulos is still an rear end in a top hat who does not matter, rather than the reverse.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2016 09:10

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 18:26

Tobermory: Mar 31, 2011

DaveWoo posted:

It's honestly bizarre that the birther thing hasn't been more of an issue for Trump. I mean, the guy publicly championed an insane tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory only four years ago. It'd be like if the Dems had nominated a 9/11 Truther for president back in 2004.

Also the bit where Trump released his own birth certificate to prove that he was not the son of an orangutan.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 06:25

Tobermory: Mar 31, 2011

lozzle posted:

Democrats just don't vote in midterms. Such is the way of the world.

More specifically, age is one of the single strongest predictors of whether someone will vote in the midterms. Younger people are less likely to vote than older people:

And young people overwhelmingly lean towards the Democratic party:

So while both parties suffer from decreased voter turnout, the decrease hurts the Democrats more than it hurts the Republicans.

In the bigger picture, voter turnout in midterm elections has been depressed since about 1840, so the root causes probably don't have anything to do with either modern party affiliations or with modern GOTV efforts.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2016 09:45

Tobermory: Mar 31, 2011

Serrath posted:

Honest question, what made Gore a bad candidate and who should the Dems have put up? I feel like he ran a bad campaign but I'm really sympathetic to Gore the candidate and I think he could have done a really good job as president.

Gore's big issue was that he was too much of a policy wonk, and that made him unable to compete with Bush. Every time the two candidates compared issues, Bush would speak in sweeping generalities and Gore would speak in specific technicalities. It was sort of like a less surreal and horrible version of last night's debates. Bush talked about his values, Gore talked about his specific policies.

Like, compare their responses in the October 17th debate:

quote:

MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: We spend billions of dollars every year on taxes, or pay billions of dollars in taxes. Would you be open to the idea of a national health care plan for everybody? And if not, why? If so, is this something you would try to implement if you are elected into office and what would you do to implement this plan?

GORE: I think that we should move step-by-step toward universal health coverage, but I am not in favor of government doing it all. We've spent 65 years now on the development of a hybrid system, partly private, partly public, and 85% of our people have health insurance, 15% don't. That adds up to 44 million people. That is a national outrage. We have got to get health coverage for those who do not have it and we've got to improve the quality for those who do with a patient's bill of rights that's real and that works, the Dingle-Norwood bill, and we have got to fill in the gaps in coverage by finally bringing parity for the treatment of mental illness, because that's been left out. We have got to deal with long-term care. Now, here are the steps that I would take, first of all. I will make a commitment to bring health care coverage of high quality that is affordable to every single child in America within four years. And then we'll fill other gaps by covering the parents of those children when the family is poor or up to two and a half times the poverty rate. I want to give a tax credit for the purchase of individual health insurance plans. I want to give small business employers a tax credit, 25%, to encourage the providing of health insurance for the employees in small businesses. I want to give seniors who are, well, the near elderly, I don't like that term because I am just about in that category, but those 55 to 65 ought to be able to buy into Medicare for premiums that are reasonable and fair and significantly below what they have to get now. Now, we have a big difference on this. And you need to know the record here. Under Governor Bush, Texas has sunk to be 50th out of 50 in health care -- in health insurance for their citizens. Last week he said that they were spending 3.7 billion dollars, or 4.7 billion dollars on this.

BUSH: I'm absolutely opposed to a national health care plan. I don't want the federal government making decisions for consumers or for providers. I remember what the administration tried to do in 1993. They tried to have a national health care plan. And fortunately, it failed. I trust people, I don't trust the federal government. It's going to be one of the themes you hear tonight. I don't want the federal government making decisions on behalf of everybody. There is an issue with the uninsured, there sure is. And we have uninsured people in my state. Ours is a big state, a fast-growing state. We share a common border with another nation. But we're providing health care for our people. One thing about insurance, that's a Washington term. The question is, are people getting health care, and we have a strong safety net, and there needs to be a safety net in America. There needs to be more community health clinics where the poor can go get health care. We need a program for the uninsured. They've been talking about it in Washington, D.C. The number of uninsured has now gone up for the past seven years. We need a $2,000 credit, rebate for people, working people that don't have insurance, they can get in the marketplace and start purchasing insurance. We need to have -- allow small businesses to write insurance across jurisdictional lines so small business can afford health care, small restaurants can afford health care. So health care needs to be affordable and available. We have to trust people to make decisions with their lives. In the Medicare reform I talk about it says if you are a senior, you can stay in Medicare if you like it, and that's fine, but we're going to give you other choices to choose if you want to do so, just like they do the federal employees. The people that work in Washington, D.C. for the U.S. Congress or the United States senate. Get a variety of choices to make in their lives. And that's what we ought to do for all people in America.

In terms of better candidates, it's hard to say. Maybe Bill Bradley? He was farther to the left than Gore, and far more charismatic, but he never really picked up too much support.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 05:32

Tobermory: Mar 31, 2011

Apraxin posted:

I've posted this before, and I think at least one other person did too, but it bears repeating - the NYT's recap of the second Gore-Bush debate opened with a searing condemnation of Gore for being able to name the constituent parts of Yugoslavia and for knowing and correctly pronouncing the names of the country's political leaders. What a loving show off, know-it-all elitist!

Yeah, sixteen years later and I'm still bitter about that debate coverage.

On a related note, I'm mildly surprised that Trump hasn't taken more flak for his response last night about our nuclear first strike policy. It wasn't entirely clear whether Trump knew either the current policy or Obama's proposed changes to it, although he did propose that China should invade North Korea. It was right before Hillary looked into the camera and promised that we would, in fact, abide by our treaty commitments and international law.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 06:23

Tobermory: Mar 31, 2011

In slightly more positive news, Roll Call is reporting that the House is allowing a vote on adding aid for Flint into the water bill. There is now (slightly) more hope that the victims can get federal aid.

And since this was the Democratic Caucus' main demand before allowing passage of the CR, we might actually avoid a government shutdown this year.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 08:42

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 18:26

Tobermory: Mar 31, 2011

Epic High Five posted:

Apparently a bunch of states have it and there's provisions saying the fish and wildlife people still have final say on laws, but I don't trust it in general and on principle it seems silly to spend all that time and money passing an amendment to something that will never, ever be repealed or even threatened.

Not only is it a revenue stream, but hunters are a decent ally to conservationists and gun control laws/advocates don't give a poo poo about fishing rods or old bolt actions.

That particular amendment has apparently been kicked around for over 20 years. At various times, the debate has involved factory farming of dogs, shooting deer that are fenced into hunting preserves, and conspiracy theories about the Humane Society.

Plus, don't forget that the bill is being pushed hard by the NRA. Taking seemingly innocuous constitutional amendments and leveraging them into society-wide clusterfucks is sort of their raison d'�tre.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2016 08:32

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