Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Bernie does have a big campaign problem though which came through tonight in South Carolina, and that is African-American antisemitism. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-and-latinos/ . Something like 30% of African-Americans and Latinos have entrenched anti-semitic views according to this survey put out by the Bnai Brith Anti-defamation League. It's about the only thing that could account for Sanders's difficulty making headway with African Americans despite endorsements from spokespeople from people like Cornell West and Tavis Smiley.

No it's not the only thing at all. Blacks have been aware for years that Hillary has stood up for them, and she has many supporters who drive the message home to their friends. You can't trust the anti-defamation league for accurate info. Blacks don't know Bernie Sanders well enough, that's all. Most people of whatever race or ethnicity don't follow politics enough to know who is speaking out for them in the Senate.

But Donald Trump is sticking up for blacks too: His immigration agenda would be the best thing that has happened to African-Americans in a century.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No it's not the only thing at all. Blacks have been aware for years that Hillary has stood up for them, and she has many supporters who drive the message home to their friends. You can't trust the anti-defamation league for accurate info. Blacks don't know Bernie Sanders well enough, that's all. Most people of whatever race or ethnicity don't follow politics enough to know who is speaking out for them in the Senate.

The same Hillary who called Black kids "superpredators with no conscience"?

Lets get real, here. The main reason most Blacks support Hillary is because the Democratic Establishment uses the Black churches the same way the GOP uses White Evangelical churches, and because of divisive insinuations that Sanders' populism is for poor Whites only.

Originally Posted by Odin

The same Hillary who called Black kids "superpredators with no conscience"?

-- don't forget the school to prison anti-crime legislation that Bill signed back in 1994

Lets get real, here. The main reason most Blacks support Hillary is because the Democratic Establishment uses the Black churches the same way the GOP uses White Evangelical churches, and because of divisive insinuations that Sanders' populism is for poor Whites only.

-- very insightful

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Menace 82 is a band or an album, apparently.

This is what I mean by "Menace 82":



That's what happens when I try to be cute.

And lead poisoning similar to Flint is being found in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Saginaw, Midland and Bay City in Michigan, Toledo, Cleveland, Sebring and Cincinnati in Ohio, all over Chicago IL and likely East Saint Louis and Milwaukee and hundreds of towns with the exception of Madison, which has replaced it's lead mains and feeder pipes all over Wisconsin.

Is Indiana somehow exempt? Just curious.

A good campaign strategy on this would involve getting union plumbers to send a dug up corroded lead pipe to the Sanders campaign for Bernie to brandish at some point in his speech on campaign stops in the area, saying "this pipe came from ____. It would have to be a different pipe found locally and couldn't be the same pipe since the Clinton Campaign WOULD compare photos looking for something like this.

Ironically lead does not corrode so visibly as iron does. That would not be good for a demonstration. Lead is in use because it well resists corrosion.

Bernie does have a big campaign problem though which came through tonight in South Carolina and that is African-American antisemitism. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-and-latinos/ . Something like 30% of African-Americans and Latinos have entrenched anti-semitic views according to this survey put out by the Bnai Brith Anti-defamation League. It's about the only thing that could account for Sanders's difficulty making headway with African Americans despite endorsements from spokespeople from people like Cornell West and Tavis Smiley.

It is ironic. If I were black I would recall that among non-blacks, Jews were the people most disproportionately involved in the Civil Rights cause. Jews are the least anti-black of non-black people identifiable by ethnicity or religion. It could be that Jews are the last white people to leave a neighborhood going black or Hispanic as residents or business owners.

Let us remember: Jews founded the NAACP, the most effective organization in promoting the economic, educational, and political interests of black people.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

But Donald Trump is sticking up for blacks too: His immigration agenda would be the best thing that has happened to African-Americans in a century.

Donald Trump has hired foreign workers on work visas, which is as detrimental to American workers as the hiring of illegal aliens.

I'd like to see the H1B visa have among its terms that employees (often engineers and IT professionals) be paid wages commensurate with those of American workers. Heck, I want those people joining the American gene pool.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Drowning as a corporal punishment like flogging?

Jesse Ventura said that if he were waterboarded, he would confess to being a participant in the Tate-LaBianca murders (Charles Manson's cult) if he had to do so to stop the torture.

Hayden is wrong about this, though. Nobody that I know of disobeyed an order to waterboard someone during the Bush Administration, or was punished in any way for waterboarding.

Code of silence among the torturers.

The problem with torture is twofold:

One, Torture does not get at the truth. Evoked potential electroencephlography detects deception. Torture forces people to tell interrogators what the interrogator wants to hear and in many cases forces the tortured person to believe what he or she is saying.

Two: A significant portion of Trump's base believes strongly in physical punishment, has been severely physically punished as children and believes in the right to use corporal punishment on children.

One: As said Napoleon Bonaparte:

The barbarous custom of whipping men suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this method of interrogation, by putting men to the torture, is useless. The wretches say whatever comes into their heads and whatever they think one wants to believe. Consequently, the Commander-in-Chief forbids the use of a method which is contrary to reason and humanity.

Two: we may be discussing much of the Republican base. Having been a substitute teacher I have seen some egregious behavior of students. I have never had any desire to spank a child. Indeed, I can see only one good reason to spank a child -- and that is for behavior that can get a child or those around him hurt. I heard of one cousin who shouted a word that rhymes with "trigger" from the car that his parents were in at black people. If that were my child I would take him out in that neighborhood and spank his pale white derriere until it turned red. But I hope that I would inculcate respect in any child of mine in people irrespective of 'race'.

Most spankings are apparently for offenses far less severe than playing with matches, like trying to get attention from parents strung out on drugs or who have hangovers from drinking binges.

Trump is basically telling his voters what they want to hear. I have my doubts that Trump would order much waterboarding since he has also said that he thinks interventions like Iraq (and presumably Syria) are the wrong thing to do. Frankly, Hillary is much more likely to order waterboarding if she should get into the White House.

Demagogues operate by telling people what they want to hear. I question whether Bill Clinton ever ordered waterboarding or any other torture. Lack of efficacy alone is good reason to reject torture. A President as self-righteous, callous, and irresponsible as Dubya might order torture.

Obama Signs Executive Order Relocating Congress to Guantanamo

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borow...guantanamo-bay

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Donald Trump has hired foreign workers on work visas, which is as detrimental to American workers as the hiring of illegal aliens.

I'd like to see the H1B visa have among its terms that employees (often engineers and IT professionals) be paid wages commensurate with those of American workers. Heck, I want those people joining the American gene pool.

But what happens when grape-growers, lettuce-growers etc. in California, owners of thoroughbred horse farms in Kentucky, etc., no longer have a docile, frightened work force consisting of illegal aliens, and suddenly have to pay citizens, often African-American citizens the way it would turn out, $20 or $25 an hour plus full health benefits?

And how will steelworkers, autoworkers, etc., like it when grape-pickers and stall-muckers are suddenly making more money than they are? Cue up the theme song to the Sylvester Stallone movie F.I.S.T.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

I don't think so. He's a very intelligent man. The guy just needs an opportunity to be involved in the debates.

I don't doubt Dr. Carson's intelligence -- he's a brain surgeon after all. I just doubt that he has the skill set and the knowledge to conduct foreign policy.

Carson’s foreign policy chops were questioned recently when at the last Republican debate he claimed the Chinese had intervened in Syria, a fact that has been disputed by the White House. A few days later, Carson was unable to answer on Fox News Sunday who he would join with to form a coalition against the Islamic State.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2016/02...he-nomination/

Panicking Mitch McConnell Says GOP Will Help Hillary Beat Trump If He Wins The Nomination
February 27, 2016 12:43 pm

In the most surreal moment in modern American politics, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told panicking Republicans that the GOP would actively destroy Donald Trump’s election chances if it came to that. That rush of warm air you feel on your face? It’s the wave of radiation from the Republican Party’s nuclear meltdown. We’re witnessing the death of a major political party.

Things are getting truly desperate in conservative camps and the grim acceptance that this isn’t a bad dream and that Trump is almost surely going to win the nomination has begun to set in. It’s led to an odd plan. In a stunning report by the New York Times, Republican sources confirm that party leadership is planning to destroy Trump and give Hillary Clinton the win rather than let him have control of the GOP.

To rally depressed Republicans, McConnell has hatched an unthinkable tactical retreat: Let Hillary Clinton win and focus on maintaining control over the Senate.

While still hopeful that Mr. Rubio might prevail, Mr. McConnell has begun preparing senators for the prospect of a Trump nomination, assuring them that, if it threatened to harm them in the general election, they could run negative ads about Mr. Trump to create space between him and Republican senators seeking re-election. Mr. McConnell has raised the possibility of treating Mr. Trump’s loss as a given and describing a Republican Senate to voters as a necessary check on a President Hillary Clinton, according to senators at the lunches.

Did you catch that? Mitch McConnell floated the idea of tanking his party’s own candidate for president over sandwiches at lunch.

McConnell’s thinking is this: If Republicans accept that Trump will never win the general election, they can devote their energy towards running against Clinton at the senate level. If that sounds insane, then welcome to the Republican Party in 2016.

The saddest part in this scheme is that McConnell’s plan probably won’t even work – at least not in the way he hopes. For one thing, Trump has run his entire campaign on being anti-everything the current “establishment” Republican Party stands for. If his rabid supporters catch wind of the fact that loathed senators like Mitch McConnell are lining against him, that will only make him more popular. Trump’s been saying the party is against him all along. This only confirms it.

Making matters even more dire, McConnell’s tenure as Senate Leader has been defined by such egregious levels of obstructionism that Republican lawmakers are roughly as popular as athlete’s foot. In just the last few weeks, sources leaked McConnell’s plan to literally do nothing during this year’s legislative session. If that “do nothing” strategy is shameful, he only made it worse by following it up with the announcement that he would be blocking President Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee to score political points. Neither decision was popular with Democrats or Republicans.

As a result, polls suggest McConnell is leading Senate Republicans into an epic defeat on election day. Having destroyed Trump to save the jobs of Senate Republicans, he will be left with nothing to show for it. A fitting end to a Republican Party that rushed so fast to the bottom that they didn’t realize they had jumped off of a cliff.

And in the meantime, another threshold crossed -

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donal...ry?id=37279402

Donald Trump Hits 49 Percent Support in New National Poll

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is stretching his lead to its widest margin, garnering support from nearly half of GOP voters nationwide in a new poll today.

Forty-nine percent of Republican voters say they back Trump for the Republican nomination in the new CNN-ORC poll released this morning. Sen. Marco Rubio earns 16 percent support, Sen. Ted Cruz earns 15 percent, Dr. Ben Carson has 10 percent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 6 percent.

Best outcome - Hillary wins in November, Senate goes to 60 Dem filibuster proof, Hillary nominates Obama to the Supreme Court, t-baggers moving costs to Greenland are paid for if they each take at least 10 guns with them.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Are you so dense that you are unable to present an argument to someone who is not a right wing anarchist? I'm an American taxpayer like yourself. If you are receiving social security and medicare, my payroll taxes are going to you right now. Do you value and appreciate it or not? I hope you're not so dense to actually believe that the republicans won't be able to function effectively as a society and adequately fund their government and keep their roads and freeways maintained and their public schools funded and their military equipped without the progressives. I hope you don't mind me sliding you in with the progressives.

I notice that you totally ignored the arguments in favor of blustering-on. The point you argued originally had to do with the success of your business not being subsidized, and I think I showed quite well that it is. The libertarian ideal does not and never has existed in history, except for a few isolated souls who chose to live as mountain men. Other than those few, the rest of us rely on one another, and government is the most holistic tools we have to do that on a large scale.

As you have likely heard said more than once recently - Candidate Trump is the GOP's creation.

Someone asked me to explain this particularly after the NY Times reported (see my earlier post) on the GOP Establishment's recent strategy meeting to either destroy Trump or save the GOP Senate by running against him.

I find the best way to get one's mind around it is to think about all the nutty crap that the GOP has done in the last decade or so - shutting down the government, debt ceiling crisis, yelling liar to the President, voting to repeal Obamacare 100 times, faux IRS scandal, and well, a billion other things - all design to get the t-baggers to foam at the mouth. And yet, notice how it all usually calms down in a Presidential election year - that's the GOP Establishment in control.

But eventually, someone was going to come along and not be part of that Presidential election year GOP Establishment control. The GOP Establishment is stuck between knowing they can't win the general in a Presidential election year without controlling the nutty crap but they got a guy who's path to the GOP nominee isn't possible without unleashing the nutty crap. The created him, or at least lined his path with runway lights.

Live by the nutty crap, die by the nutty crap.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

I don't think so. He's a very intelligent man. The guy just needs an opportunity to be involved in the debates.

Carson is smart in a 20/20 tunnel vision sort of way. He knows very well what he knows, and sees little outside that area of focus. One of the reasons lawyers do so well in politics is the generalist focus of the members of that profession who run for office. Note the lack of patent attorneys, for example. MDs of the less specialty-focused type may be decent too -- they tend to be chosen Surgeon General, so why not?
.

Wow, from the article playwrite posted, it almost sounds like Sen McConnell is doing the reverse of a lot of folks here! Instead of it's better to have Trump now and hope for a better Democrat than Hillary later, they are saying it's better to have Hillary now and hope for a better Republican than Trump later.

I just hope the Republicans follow through, and the liberals here don't!

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Carson is smart in a 20/20 tunnel vision sort of way. He knows very well what he knows, and sees little outside that area of focus. One of the reasons lawyers do so well in politics is the generalist focus of the members of that profession who run for office. Note the lack of patent attorneys, for example. MDs of the less specialty-focused type may be decent too -- they tend to be chosen Surgeon General, so why not?
.

Having spent my whole worklife in the healthcare industry, I've run into quite a few doctors who, for whatever reason, believe that because they survived the challenge of medical school and internships and residencies ... that therefore, QED, they are EXPERT in every field of human endeavor!!

I wish I had $100 bill for every time I've been asked by a physician, "WHERE did YOU go to medical school?" As they look down their nose with curled lip. And interestingly, the topic at hand can even be something that has nothing to do with medicine.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Wow, from the article playwrite posted, it almost sounds like Sen McConnell is doing the reverse of a lot of folks here! Instead of it's better to have Trump now and hope for a better Democrat than Hillary later, they are saying it's better to have Hillary now and hope for a better Republican than Trump later.

I just hope the Republicans follow through, and the liberals here don't!

Clinton is the most likely winner in Nov 2016. If Trump wins the nomination and the GOP insiders turn on Trump, I see a Goldwater level rout. Then some new party may emerge in 20 to 25 years to replace the GOP.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

But what happens when grape-growers, lettuce-growers etc. in California, owners of thoroughbred horse farms in Kentucky, etc., no longer have a docile, frightened work force consisting of illegal aliens, and suddenly have to pay citizens, often African-American citizens the way it would turn out, $20 or $25 an hour plus full health benefits?

And how will steelworkers, autoworkers, etc., like it when grape-pickers and stall-muckers are suddenly making more money than they are? Cue up the theme song to the Sylvester Stallone movie F.I.S.T.

Actually that's when agricultural robots become cost effective. https://www.google.com/search?q=agri...HQGRAhYQsAQITw and http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

Originally Posted by radind

Clinton is the most likely winner in Nov 2016. If Trump wins the nomination and the GOP insiders turn on Trump, I see a Goldwater level rout. Then some new party may emerge in 20 to 25 years to replace the GOP.

But many GOP insiders are starting to reach an accomodation with Trump. Chris Christy's endorsement is just the beginning.

Here is a string of articles from today on Hillary v Bernie. It may not only be the Republican Establishment that is panicking. Democrats are starting to seriously worry that Hillary Clinton is unelectable. See http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/2...praise_hillary http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/6...Administration http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/2...t-Donald-Trump https://www.salon.com/2016/02/28/the...ts_must_avoid/

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No it's not the only thing at all. Blacks have been aware for years that Hillary has stood up for them, and she has many supporters who drive the message home to their friends. You can't trust the anti-defamation league for accurate info. Blacks don't know Bernie Sanders well enough, that's all. Most people of whatever race or ethnicity don't follow politics enough to know who is speaking out for them in the Senate.

Stood up for them how? By calling many African-Americans "superpredators" and cheerleading for mass incarceration? By ending Aid to Families with Dependent Children? Under the circumstances I would compare African American support for Hillary with poor white support for conservative Republicans.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Wow, from the article playwrite posted, it almost sounds like Sen McConnell is doing the reverse of a lot of folks here! Instead of it's better to have Trump now and hope for a better Democrat than Hillary later, they are saying it's better to have Hillary now and hope for a better Republican than Trump later.

I just hope the Republicans follow through, and the liberals here don't!

Senator McConnell realises that Hillary would be politically a very weak president--easy for Republicans to have their way with. Just as her husband was. Plus neo-conservatives and liberal interventionists are indistinguishable from one another. And Wall Street is basically comfortable with Hillary, who takes their (and many foreign potentate's) money.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Jesse Ventura said that if he were waterboarded, he would confess to being a participant in the Tate-LaBianca murders (Charles Manson's cult) if he had to do so to stop the torture.



Code of silence among the torturers.



One: As said Napoleon Bonaparte:



Two: we may be discussing much of the Republican base. Having been a substitute teacher I have seen some egregious behavior of students. I have never had any desire to spank a child. Indeed, I can see only one good reason to spank a child -- and that is for behavior that can get a child or those around him hurt. I heard of one cousin who shouted a word that rhymes with "trigger" from the car that his parents were in at black people. If that were my child I would take him out in that neighborhood and spank his pale white derriere until it turned red. But I hope that I would inculcate respect in any child of mine in people irrespective of 'race'.

Most spankings are apparently for offenses far less severe than playing with matches, like trying to get attention from parents strung out on drugs or who have hangovers from drinking binges.



Demagogues operate by telling people what they want to hear. I question whether Bill Clinton ever ordered waterboarding or any other torture. Lack of efficacy alone is good reason to reject torture. A President as self-righteous, callous, and irresponsible as Dubya might order torture.

I think that what it comes down to is that much of the Republican base has been beaten as children, believes in beating their own children and therefore believes in the efficacy of physical punishment to get at the truth and to get compliance.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

I think that what it comes down to is that much of the Republican base has been beaten as children, believes in beating their own children and therefore believes in the efficacy of physical punishment to get at the truth and to get compliance.

Too much speculation.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Stood up for them how? By calling many African-Americans "superpredators" and cheerleading for mass incarceration? By ending Aid to Families with Dependent Children? Under the circumstances I would compare African American support for Hillary with poor white support for conservative Republicans.

*DING* DING* DING*

We have a winner.